Work peak and professional decline (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#81

Post by chrisweekly » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

caeril wrote: post #10

Related: The notion of "retirement" is a relatively recent invention. Traditionally, when you were too old to work the farm or prove the theorem (sorry, cognitive decline is a well-documented thing, and tends to coincide with physical decline[1]), you would "retire" to a productive life in less-demanding pursuits: caretaking of the grandkids, woodworking, food preservation, writing, etc. It's important to maintain ho…

Retirement seems like a pretty unimaginative goal. See the Japanese concept of "Ikigai" (ie, raison d-etre or reason to get out of bed in the morning). I don't plan to retire, though I may shift the balance towards my non-economically-oriented interests after putting my children through college.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#82

Post by readme » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

ketzo wrote: post #64

I am quite surprised at the amount of negativity surrounding this piece. Yes, it's sort of clickbait-y. You don't need to feel like you're about to wither and die because you just turned 44. Yes, it's deeply anecdotal. Lots of older people are incredibly successful in their fields. That 65-year old engineer you know is great! But frankly, it doesn't matter who you are, or what you do: you will begin to get worse at i…

young people think they're invincible

i'm only in my 30s and already started my retirement hobby (wordworking)

i'll take this career as far as I can but you never know when the day will come that you've had enough and can't bare to go to work anymore -- it gets harder to just leave a job for another one if you don't like it when you're in your late 50s.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#83

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:12 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #36

etrautmann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I share your antipathy for low-efficiency vehicles, why is traveling around the national parks of the west a sad way to spend your retirement years?

> low-efficiency vehicles Tangent: Are these actually low efficiency? Sure, 10 mpg (this is a more typical average, BTW, not 8 mpg) is terrible gas mileage ... for an average car. But a portable house that can drive down the interstate isn't just a car. Per pound, it doesn't seem that bad.

The greenhouse effect doesn’t care about why the CO2 was made.

A portable house and essentials weighing probably 5kg can go on your back.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#84

Post by daniellarusso » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #79

rootusrootus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low-efficiency vehicles Tangent: Are these actually low efficiency? Sure, 10 mpg (this is a more typical average, BTW, not 8 mpg) is terrible gas mileage ... for an average car. But a portable house that can drive down the interstate isn't just a car. Per pound, it doesn't seem that bad.

Why hasn't EV tech hit the RV world? How many batteries could one of those Greyhound bus size RV's, or smaller ones, hold? Maybe it has and I'm ignorant. I get that corporate shipping industries would benefit but a lot of delivery vans are the same platform as an RV. I think a Ford F350 is the size of those 25 ft uhaul rentals - about same size as a decent sized RV. RV's typically park somewhere for days, campgrounds…

Cybertruck can tow a fairly large Airstream.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#85

Post by barnaclejive » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

> Perhaps the worst moment in my young but flailing career came at age 22, when I was performing at Carnegie Hall.

Oh please.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#86

Post by gilbetron » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

jquery wrote: post #35

Does the author struggle with any substance use or abuse? My mental acuity is sharper at 38 than it has ever been. But I gave up all alcohol and substance use a year ago.

50 here and I just read Concurrency in Go this past weekend and absorbed everything faster than I could have in my 20s. I think it is more that the vast majority of people stop using their brains much past the age of 30. (hell, even 25). I'd like to see a software engineering specific version of these studies.

The only thing I lack these days is an intense desire to constantly code - I find there are all kinds of interesting aspects to the creation of software beyond hammering out code.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#87

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

derbOac wrote: post #12

cek wrote: post #2

There's no real data behind this article. It's basically ageism fueled by self-doubt.

I came to say something similar but less succinct. I've been in a transitional state career-wise, partially by choice, but I think there's two major factors not really mentioned by the article, and in fact, factors I think the article reinforces. The first is ageism, like you say. But I think ageism is a lot more subtle than other things, because it's not only an assumption of age-related decline, but more generally…

This is true to the extent that I think it is OK to lie to get a job or opportunity if you know you can do it. For example there might be opportunities where if I pretended I had no coding experience it might be better than saying I have.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#88

Post by sinenomine » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

readme wrote: post #82

ketzo wrote: post #64

I am quite surprised at the amount of negativity surrounding this piece. Yes, it's sort of clickbait-y. You don't need to feel like you're about to wither and die because you just turned 44. Yes, it's deeply anecdotal. Lots of older people are incredibly successful in their fields. That 65-year old engineer you know is great! But frankly, it doesn't matter who you are, or what you do: you will begin to get worse at i…

young people think they're invincible i'm only in my 30s and already started my retirement hobby (wordworking) i'll take this career as far as I can but you never know when the day will come that you've had enough and can't bare to go to work anymore -- it gets harder to just leave a job for another one if you don't like it when you're in your late 50s.

I'm in my late 20's and I notice my mental energy/sharpness being slightly lower compared to what they were at my peak age of 22. I learned to compensate for this with some behavioral and biochemical kludges, but the reality of the trend is pretty obvious at this point.

Ten years ago I picked up biology and recently added to it ageing research as a hobby, we'll see if it pays off eventually. In mice ... many things one wouldn't believe are possible.

Maybe it's the nature of scientific progress - to provide fantastic life-changing results in rodents, often failing to translate to humans in a clinical setting.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#89

Post by porknubbins » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #79

rootusrootus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low-efficiency vehicles Tangent: Are these actually low efficiency? Sure, 10 mpg (this is a more typical average, BTW, not 8 mpg) is terrible gas mileage ... for an average car. But a portable house that can drive down the interstate isn't just a car. Per pound, it doesn't seem that bad.

Why hasn't EV tech hit the RV world? How many batteries could one of those Greyhound bus size RV's, or smaller ones, hold? Maybe it has and I'm ignorant. I get that corporate shipping industries would benefit but a lot of delivery vans are the same platform as an RV. I think a Ford F350 is the size of those 25 ft uhaul rentals - about same size as a decent sized RV. RV's typically park somewhere for days, campgrounds…

I don’t know if there is a technical reason why EV hasn’t come to RVs, but having worked with some RV makers they are basically tiny luxury product makers compared to one of the biggest industries on the planet so probably like 1% of the R&D goes into RVs per inch compared to cars.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#90

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #79

rootusrootus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low-efficiency vehicles Tangent: Are these actually low efficiency? Sure, 10 mpg (this is a more typical average, BTW, not 8 mpg) is terrible gas mileage ... for an average car. But a portable house that can drive down the interstate isn't just a car. Per pound, it doesn't seem that bad.

Why hasn't EV tech hit the RV world? How many batteries could one of those Greyhound bus size RV's, or smaller ones, hold? Maybe it has and I'm ignorant. I get that corporate shipping industries would benefit but a lot of delivery vans are the same platform as an RV. I think a Ford F350 is the size of those 25 ft uhaul rentals - about same size as a decent sized RV. RV's typically park somewhere for days, campgrounds…

Interior space requirements plus maximum exterior width requirements mean that RVs will be approximately box-shaped.

Box-shaped vehicles are just going to have massive energy demands above 45MPH or so due to physics. On top of this, the engine just doesn't mass that much more (in absolute terms) than a car engine, so the mass savings for an electric motor are not increased that much. All this means an electric RV with any reasonable range is going to be heavy.

Hybrid technology might makes sense though as they already have demand for a large-ish battery, and dynamic braking could really reduce wear on the brakes.