[HN Gopher] The happiest I've ever been
___________________________________________________________________
The happiest I've ever been
Author : bewal416
Score : 628 points
Date : 2026-02-26 04:13 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ben-mini.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ben-mini.com)
| hyperhello wrote:
| > For years, you've sat in front of a rectangle, moving tinier
| rectangles, only to learn that AI can now move those rectangles
| 10x better.
|
| In response to this I would say that being in the industry comes
| with a lot of learned role-playing, and if you are no longer
| happy role-playing your job in one way, throw it entirely out and
| find a new path.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > only to learn that AI can now move those rectangles 10x
| better
|
| Teams are already using AI to scout opponents and plan game
| strategy. IDK how much that will ever happen at the youth level
| because they generally don't keep detailed stats at that age
| but it will be coming to high school sports for sure, if it
| isn't already being used.
| reconnecting wrote:
| The latest developments in digital culture are somehow more
| frustrating than anything I saw in the previous 26 years.
| Experience is replaced by prompts. Taste perfected over the years
| with defaults.
|
| I'm not afraid of competition with AI-driven competitors -- I'm
| afraid of people replacing real beauty with A/B mechanics.
|
| Perhaps this is indeed a good moment to switch to offline.
|
| Thank you for sharing your inspiring example.
| jnovek wrote:
| I started programming when I was eleven years old and I'm now
| in my 40s. I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life.
| reconnecting wrote:
| Same here. I've long had the feeling that the internet could
| somehow help the world, but honestly, I don't feel that's the
| case anymore.
| reconnecting wrote:
| jnovek, don't listen to him! Piracy is never the way.
|
| https://youtu.be/9fUjwV4j-H0 (The Offspring - Have You
| Ever)
| mvanbaak wrote:
| What if the the alternatives are worse?
| DougN7 wrote:
| There is a whole lot of crap out there. But I think the
| Internet HAS been a game changer in lifting people out of
| poverty and increasing standards of living. Communication
| is awesome. And although there is a lot of propaganda
| (which there has always been) there is now also a lot of
| truth and counter claims. It's no longer just the rich that
| have access to information (think of farmers guessing at
| what their crop was worth). I _hope_ AI will do similarly,
| but I have my doubts on that one.
| reconnecting wrote:
| The irony of the moment is that a billionaire in a
| Michelin-star restaurant and a homeless person on the
| street are scrolling through the same Instagram feed.
| samiv wrote:
| Technology doesn't do anything by itself. The result of
| it on the fabric of the society depends on how it is
| applied, whether the benefits are distributed to everyone
| (to some extent) or not. It's possible that taby
| technology is just used to displace people who lose their
| livelihoods and income while the benefits flow the
| capital owning class. In fact all the great productivity
| boosts that have taken place over the last decades since
| WW2 have mostly befitted the capital class. That's why a
| worker still grinds away 8h a week and barely scares by
| while the "elites" splurge on yacths, mansions and space
| travel for leisure.
| derektank wrote:
| "Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful
| Dread Pirate Roberts"
|
| https://youtu.be/IIbeFgaYTNs
| Remnant44 wrote:
| There's a whole lot of us out there. I don't know if there's
| still a future in the thing that I love, which is where all
| the malaise comes from.
| kakacik wrote:
| Do w hat we did in corporate/banking/other sociopathic envs
| did decades ago - find another source of fulfillment and
| happiness. For me its adventures and sports and kids, could
| be something else for the next joe.
|
| Or just code as you want as a hobby, unrestrained, for
| whatever you need or makes you happy.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Keep going? Just because there's a different way to do what
| you like doing doesn't mean you should stop.
|
| Or become a carpenter. The world is going to be flooded by
| them.
| reconnecting wrote:
| I live in the Alps -- every second person here is already a
| third-generation carpenter.
| cobbzilla wrote:
| keep programming and learn to use AI.
|
| it's just another tool. lots of people didn't want to use
| compilers and got left behind. the world moved on.
|
| i'm older than you and doing fine. it's just another tech
| upheaval, we've been through plenty.
|
| yes it gets tiring and at some point you find your way off
| the treadmill. but it's really not that hard to stay on,
| especially if you have the experience.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >I'm afraid of people replacing real beauty with A/B mechanics.
|
| This has been happening for at least a decade now, no help from
| LLMs needed.
| reconnecting wrote:
| A decade ago, you needed to think and choose from a dozen
| solutions, now AI provides you with two options to execute.
|
| A/B testing/validation has become a sort of A/B creation
| method.
| dgritsko wrote:
| These blog posts are fascinating to read. I don't have a personal
| blog, but if I did I'm sure I would've written a very similar
| post as I've been wrestling with similar thoughts over the last
| few weeks. I have the distinct sense that I will look back on
| February 2026 as an inflection point, where AI crossed over from
| being an interesting parlor trick to something that fundamentally
| and irreversibly altered what I do day-to-day. It's bittersweet,
| for sure - it feels inevitable that the craft of software
| development that I've loved for years will be seen as an archaic
| relic at some point in the not too distant future. It may be
| several years yet before the impact is broadly felt (the full
| impact of today's frontier models has yet to be felt by the
| general public - to say nothing of models that will be released
| in the next few years) but this train doesn't seem to be slowing
| down anytime soon. This post was a helpful reminder that who I am
| is not defined by the code I write (or don't write) - there's so
| much more to life than code.
| DonThomasitos wrote:
| One part of me tries to resist and tell you that our craft is
| not becoming an archaic relic, the other half already knows
| you're right. We just can't put the ghost back into the bottle
| and now's a good time to re-calibrate your passion.
| bityard wrote:
| I look at it like this: Yes, AI can write code. It can write
| it much faster than I can. Sometimes it can also write it
| better than I can.
|
| But: programming languages, libraries, and abstractions are
| not going away. It is still possible (and might always be
| possible) to get deep into the weeds of Python or Rust or
| whatever to understand how those work and really harness them
| to their full potential, or develop them further. It just
| won't be _compulsary_ (in most industries) if your only goal
| is to trade lines of code for dollars in your bank account.
| mjdiloreto wrote:
| I mostly share your perspective, but I don't know if I
| would share your emphasis.
|
| Lines of code for dollars used to be a trade businesses
| made with developers out of necessity, but soon it will
| _only_ be economically viable to make that trade with AI
| providers. So not only will going deep in the weeds not be
| compulsory, understanding anything about any programming
| concept will become economically void (though not void of
| educational value, or enjoyment).
|
| On the other hand, what that code does depends entirely on
| a particular understanding of the real world, which is
| indescribably complex (i.e. combinatorially explosive).
| This is what I truly care about, and the possibilities for
| the application and customization of software are infinite.
| The interface between the world and software will always
| involve a value decision that AI cannot have a monopoly
| over (it would be economically infeasible, no matter how
| cheap inference becomes). This means that as long as my
| passion is not _within_ the machine, but is instead
| centered on the relationship between the machine and the
| _world_ , I will never be out of a job.
|
| And part of me thinks, "good riddance!". For all the good
| we created, developers have also generated so much
| _bullshit_ , it's honestly insane that any software
| companies were ever successful in spite of it. The human-
| politicking is probably the worst of it - think of the
| countless years of human life wasted in scrum ceremonies -
| but also so much of the software we've created sucks, and
| users hate it!
|
| We used to be a proud culture of hackers, building miracles
| with miniscule resources, or at least that's what the
| greybeards here on HN like to whine about. They're right,
| we've squandered limitless cycles, uncountable exabytes of
| useless data. If there was a God of hackerdom, we are
| living in his Gomorrah, and he will strike us down with AI
| as punishment for these sins.
| teodosin wrote:
| Good thinking on the relationship between machine and
| world. Very reassuring.
| Archer6621 wrote:
| What makes you think that AI cannot become significantly
| better than humans at "understanding" and modelling the
| world? If the AI is always more likely to be right than
| you or me due to being able to take more
| variables/knowledge into account by default, then why
| ever listen to a human, or even to yourself when it comes
| to an economic decision?
|
| My honest and rather pessimistic take is that in the
| long-term any craft that purely lives in the abstract is
| likely to be doomed.
| mjdiloreto wrote:
| It's not that it won't be better at understanding, it's
| that there's too many possibilities to understand. This
| is true for humans too, but I can use the output to make
| money in a particular scenario.
|
| Take even 1 simple example - software applications on a
| smart watch. How many dimensions of reality are relevant?
| Maybe I'm a busy person, so I need a personal assistant
| for my calendar. Maybe my wife needs access too. Maybe
| I'm a bird watcher and I'd like to track the birds I see.
| Maybe I'm a bird researcher and those observations need
| to integrate with my research.... ad nauseum forever.
|
| AI will write all the code, and make all the meaningful
| decisions, but the backstop of the whole thing has to be
| some non-virtual reality with a paying user, otherwise
| there is no value to extract.
|
| I personally only care about the outcome, I don't even
| really care if I understand how anything else works, or
| any of the decisions made. My dollars go in, working code
| comes out to suit _me_.
| Archer6621 wrote:
| I agree with your overall perspective here. You need the
| human in the loop to ground the request/direction in a
| reality with human needs, but that's about it.
|
| What I was getting at is that nothing stops you from
| asking AI what would be the next best smartwatch app to
| build, and based on all its aggregated knowledge and
| other inputs (e.g. search) it has, it can potentially
| make a better estimation than you or any human of a
| product that would sell.
|
| Of course whether that is actually true depends on how
| well its training data is able to model/mimic reality,
| and how grounded its inputs (e.g. internet) are. You can
| always help it a bit by steering it into the right
| direction, providing additional grounding. Was mainly
| wondering for how long this "additional" guidance would
| be a necessity, fearing that it won't be for as long as
| we think.
| mjdiloreto wrote:
| I agree with you. I think the "additional guidance" era
| we are in will be measured in single-digit years.
| pvillano wrote:
| I am trying to think of it like hand tools vs power tools. As
| long as I work in construction, I'll have to use power tools.
| Maybe one day I'll support myself by making fine furniture.
| I'd like that.
| fragmede wrote:
| I don't mean this flippantly; works for the Amish!
| melagonster wrote:
| If you do not know yet. Artists had been destroyed first.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > (the full impact of today's frontier models has yet to be
| felt by the general public - to say nothing of models that will
| be released in the next few years)
|
| We definitely saw some kind of non-linear step function jump in
| quality around the beginning of the year - it's hard to express
| how good Claude opus/sonnet 4.6 is now. However, I wonder if
| we're going to see the same kind of improvement from here? It's
| kind of like we got to the 80% point but the next 20% is going
| to be a lot harder/take longer than that first 80% (pareto
| principle). Also, as more and more code out there is AI
| generated it's going to be like the snake eating it's own tail.
| Training models on AI generated code doesn't seem like it will
| lead to improvements.
| fragmede wrote:
| Does it have to get any better than it is, to totally upend a
| huge swath of society?
| jimbokun wrote:
| The challenge is whether any of those meaningful things we can
| do will pay the mortgage.
| throwaway1492 wrote:
| At the very least these ai threads where we argue this ai topic
| will be of great historical interest as our profession either
| dies or mutates to something else!
| chasd00 wrote:
| I could have written the same comment. Maybe it was me just
| sitting down one weekend and really giving them a chance but
| something changed early this year. The coding agents just got
| really good or, like I said, maybe it was me just taking a hard
| look at them. For better or for worse, the software dev
| industry is never going back to they way it was.
| sublinear wrote:
| I think you're missing the point. My entire career has been
| looking up and reusing code written by humans who are
| objectively better at writing code than AI ever will be (please
| don't argue about this).
|
| Your job has always been to be accountable for the technical
| decisions made. Sometimes I read comments like yours and wonder
| if the almost apologetic tone is an admission of guilt that you
| never really liked this job. You can speak for yourself, but I
| didn't get into this to just noodle around or work at unhinged
| startups where nobody gives a rat's ass about code quality.
| internet2000 wrote:
| The moving tiny rectangles framing is interesting, it gets to the
| heart of why I find all the anti-AI takes so difficult to
| comprehend. If you never made any effort to connect what you do
| with what value is added in real life, then it's no wonder better
| tooling is leaving you lost. Programming (other than code golf)
| has always been an implementation detail for solving problems
| IRL.
| voxl wrote:
| If you've never made any effort to connect what you do to the
| underlying mathematics, then no wonder you think it's all an
| "automatible" implementation detail, despite three decades of
| the industry trying and failing.
| logicprog wrote:
| What about mathematics means coding isn't automatible?
|
| Also, hasen't coding gone through many waves of automation
| now?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The programming itself is the reward for people who love doing
| it. It attracts the sort of detail-oriented thinkers who enjoy
| the doing and don't frame everything in terms of "value added."
|
| AI is attractive to the sorts of people who have their
| secretary write their Christmas cards.
| cataphract wrote:
| I think there's a middle ground. I like coming up with
| solutions to problems (mostly technical problems, may even be
| very low level ones). But I always found writing the code
| generally tedious. Basically, once I had a good detailed idea
| of what the implementation would look like, actually
| executing the plan would bore me.
|
| AI is still not competent enough to come up with good
| solutions in many things I work on. So, at least so far, AI
| has made me happier.
| signatoremo wrote:
| AI helps you to focus on the aspects that you are interested
| in. Perhaps you care about database nifty stuff, but you may
| need the front end to make an end to end solution. You can
| delegate that part to AI
| layer8 wrote:
| What if you care about all the parts?
| guhidalg wrote:
| You don't, there's always a choice about what to include
| and what to exclude in your system.
|
| Unless you are hand selecting every atom that goes into a
| thing (maybe you make nuclear weapons?), you always make
| choices about what you focus on and what is irrelevant to
| your project.
| whstl wrote:
| Not disagreeing, but apart from coding the most boring part
| of the entire job is the one that's the hardest to
| correctly delegate to AI: testing and ensuring the whole
| thing is sound.
|
| Which is why it's changing the calculus on junior devs: if
| you're not mature enough to do self-review and self-QA,
| you're just dead weight for the team/company.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Carpentry has always been an implementation detail for making
| furniture. They have been able to purchase flat-pack chairs for
| all of their lives, but for some reason there are people who
| learn this skill and have fun slowly making things that
| factories already make at scale. A subset of those people have
| made lucrative businesses out of the very human craft that is
| carpentry, and are able to create custom pieces on-demand that
| you could never justify retooling a factory to create.
|
| It is okay to view code as a means to an end. I disagree,
| preferring to treat code as craft, and striving for better
| systems that are easy to understand, maintain and extend. And I
| think that's the source of our disconnect; deeper than one's
| opinion about AI is one's value of human skill and the effect
| that has on the output. Maybe I overvalue it, and maybe
| creating code "manually" is going to look more like carpentry
| in the future; but you cannot expect to convince a skilled
| carpenter that an IKEA chair is just as good and accomplishes
| the same task.
| trgn wrote:
| You cant convince anybody an ikea chair is just as good
| jungturk wrote:
| It easy to convince a college student with $20 that an ikea
| chair is good. Artisanal is overkill for plenty of
| scenarios, and definitely those where time or money are
| constrained.
| internet2000 wrote:
| This analogy falls flat because
|
| a) Carpentry already happens in the real world
|
| b) There's a clear problem being solved (you need furniture).
|
| Stretching your analogy to fit my point: pretend that
| programming is manually sanding wood, while AI-assisted
| programming is using a belt sander. If you're focused on the
| chair being built, getting a belt sander to help is great! If
| you're sanding for the craft (?) of it, focused on the wrist
| mechanics of rubbing sandpaper up and down, you'd be
| disappointed.
| layer8 wrote:
| > pretend that programming is manually sanding wood, while
| AI-assisted programming is using a belt sander.
|
| That analogy falls flat, because there is little creative
| difference between these two modes of sanding. In
| particular, there is approximately zero variation in what
| the belt sander does as a function of how you control it.
| It is a reliable, deterministic, very predictable tool.
| That's as different from generative AI as a compiler is.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Maybe the disconnect, then, is that you don't consider
| programming to take place in the real world. I don't share
| that experience, any more than someone coding batch jobs on
| punch cards or an author committing chapters via
| typewriter. Maybe the medium has parts that only have
| meaning within our minds, but we are real (dammit!) and we
| punch out those characters with our real hands and we get
| frustrated and deal with impedance mismatches and want to
| scream and laugh and cry. There is a piece of us that lives
| in what we build. It's evidence that we are real.
|
| This ties in with your second point. There are uncountably
| many ways to accomplish the goal of making a chair or
| writing a program. And if you are a carpenter working on a
| one-off matched dining set for a fickle client, the problem
| might not be as clear as even many software tasks are. Your
| skill and experience is highly likely to play into the
| eventual form and structure of the finished work. The
| customer might not know where you hid the dovetail joints
| or dominoes, but they can absolutely notice the grain
| continuity and lack of obvious engineered joinery evident
| in a factory piece.
|
| If you don't care, then fine! You can focus on the other
| things that bring you joy. But I hope you can appreciate
| that some of us want to experience solving these problems
| with a bicycle for the mind instead of a Waymo.
| harrall wrote:
| There's a third group of people: people who did it, got
| good at it, and got bored.
|
| I do both carpentry and programming and both activities
| have long since become repetitive. There are only so many
| dovetails or distributed systems you can make.
|
| That's why I don't care if AI can replace those parts.
| I'm in it to do the designing, not the crafting.
| layer8 wrote:
| That would assume that the AI is as good at the
| repetitive parts as you were, which isn't my experience.
| You still have to review and correct it, which is more
| boring and repetitive than implementing it yourself.
|
| But I also disagree about the getting bored on the
| "crafting". It may depend on what you do, but there are
| always new design decisions and trade-offs to make all
| the way down. This isn't a solved problem, and AI doesn't
| change that.
| skuxxlife wrote:
| If you see programming purely as a means to an end, then yeah,
| I get this perspective. But to many there is enjoyment in the
| _doing_ and the craft of it beyond the end result. It's why
| people get into woodworking or knitting despite the fact that
| it's much cheaper, faster, and easier to buy a table or a
| sweater than to make one yourself. Value is subjective, and for
| some the value of code is not primarily in what you can sell to
| others.
| davnicwil wrote:
| I think all it means when we say 'solve problems in real life'
| is just the stuff you have to do that tooling can't abstract
| you away from any more.
|
| The sharp end of the debate now is around what exactly that
| means in the LLM world. It's extremely unclear what exactly the
| new level of abstraction unlocked is, or at least how
| general/leaky it is.
|
| There's obviously just the stance of enjoying the craft, and
| that's one thing off to the side, but I think the major source
| of conflict for those who are more oriented towards living in
| the top level of abstraction (i.e. what you can do in real
| life) is between some of the claims being pushed about said
| level of abstraction and what many still experience in actual
| reality using these tools.
| ryan_n wrote:
| Is it that hard to comprehend that some people enjoy writing
| code by hand just for the sake of coding?
| jimbokun wrote:
| I'm sure the horses turned into glue were also very happy that
| the automobile made transportation so much more efficient, too.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I just wrote my own blog post thinking about this. I guess alot
| of us feel kind of weird right now.
| mmmm2 wrote:
| Yeah, I decided to become a "professional" musician a few
| months ago after quitting my last tech job. I'm not amazing,
| but I've got some places to play, and I'm starting to give
| lessons, etc.
|
| It's not an easy job, but I feel something I haven't felt in a
| long time as a software developer: fulfillment and contentment.
| Best of luck to anyone on a similar journey.
| tayo42 wrote:
| If I didn't have a mortgage and family that would work!
| sntran wrote:
| I feel similarly. Being laid off and doing job search recently
| got me thinking about switching to become an electrician. I
| don't mind starting over and lower wage, but mortgage and
| family depending on me still hold me off.
| tryauuum wrote:
| any electricians here who want to give a piece of advice?
| EddieB wrote:
| Had this thought multiple times over the years. However,
| reality in the UK is training cost and time (~2 years with 2
| days a week college + at least ~PS5k cost and further 2 years
| gaining experience) can be quite a blocker- difficult to
| achieve with dependents for most. Then throw in the reality
| of domestic work and building up experience. Greener grass
| and all that
| sntran wrote:
| Very similar to Texas. It's all about the hours. Will take
| 4 years to get to journeyman while working 40 hours on the
| field.
| gobeavs wrote:
| Curious to read if you want to share a link. I've been thinking
| about this too.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Yeah sure, Email me by adding @gmail.com to my username and I
| can send it. I like to tell my self I'm still alittle
| anonymous online when I post but i blog with my real name.
| fortzi wrote:
| OP might love tech, but he sure doesn't sound like he loved the
| craft.
|
| Describing it as sitting in front of a rectangle, moving all
| rectangles around is so reductive.
| gombosg wrote:
| Exactly, basically then every desk or office job means sitting
| next to a box?
| antonvs wrote:
| I don't even know what he's referring to. What are the
| rectangles he's "moving around"? And couldn't you say the same
| thing about all writers, for example?
|
| The one downside to the Internet and social media is that truly
| useless takes can get much more traction than they deserve.
| Flere-Imsaho wrote:
| CSS boxes!
|
| Honestly the one thing that I'm really looking forward to is
| no longer having to touch CSS.
| antonvs wrote:
| Oh that makes sense, thanks. I don't deal with CSS in my
| work. It seems like an oddly specific thing to reduce
| "tech" in general to.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| I coached sports for all 3 of my kids. Great times.
|
| One year, I had a superior athlete on my youth football team. A
| foot shorter than everybody else and skinny as a stick, the boy
| had the gift of speed. He'd run like the wind, arms and legs
| flailing wildly. It looked like he'd cover distance twice as fast
| as the other kids.
|
| I took full advantage of the situation. Every game, I started by
| getting wonder boy the ball until we'd racked up enough points to
| be comfortable. Then the others got turns. We went the regular
| season undefeated and I began to convince myself I really had
| coaching talent. Maybe I could help out at the high school, or
| the local college! The sky was the limit, I was a natural.
|
| Then came the championship game, also against an undefeated team.
| Their team had a wonderboy, too. He was actually faster than my
| speedster!
|
| Predictably, their coach played it just like I had. Through
| superior speed, they took a healthy lead early in the game and
| never let it go.
|
| I enjoyed all my years of youth coaching, but that year was just
| magical. Right up 'till the last game. It was a memorable year.
| arjie wrote:
| Huh, strange. I remember when I was a little 9 year old boy
| typing in: FD 40 RT 90 FD 40
| RT 90 FD 40 RT 90 FD 40 RT 90
|
| To get a square on the screen. And then I was slightly older boy
| destroying my dad's precious slides for his presentation by
| formatting the entire disk accidentally while installing Red Hat
| Linux 8 _Psyche_ from CDs my dad got at the bazaar. I was so
| excited for _Shrike_ to come out the next year.
|
| Then I was slightly older and discovered that 'programs' are just
| text you use a 'compiler' on and not a special thing you made in
| Borland's Turbo C.
|
| Then I was older and started using vim. Then older still and made
| HTML pages with this new thing called DHTML on Geocities. Then
| ActivePerl. Then a VPS. Then Wordpress. Then discovered Prolog,
| Eclipse for Java, Mex for C++ in Matlab, and git. Then some years
| later github. Then interned in SF and discovered CI/CD, Hadoop et
| al. and how servers look in a DC in SOMA. Then IntelliJ. Then a
| trading engine. And then GPT was announced. And TalkToTransformer
| showed the future. And then people were demoing these ugly To-Do
| lists it could make. And suddenly we're here today.
|
| Every stage of software has been incredible. I don't have to
| `movq`. I don't have to `jstack`. If I want a TUI, the tools can
| construct one to my specifications in moments. It's sheer magic,
| man. It's a scary time (I've had a couple of what-if nightmares
| about Dario Amodei ruling the world with his LLMs) but it's also
| exciting. I think I am happiest today. We're going to do so many
| wonderful things for so many people now that this is so much
| cheaper.
|
| Perhaps it's just the good fortune of being born at this time
| during this thing and riding that wave, but it feels like the
| world of computing has just been so full of amazing leaps forward
| during my life. I look back each time and I think "man, I was
| doing that thing when I could have been doing it so much
| better?". And I feel so hopeful for the future.
| pelma wrote:
| I thought for a moment you were serious, but the line about us
| doing wonderful things with tech gave it away as satire. Yeah
| no. Best we can do is technofascism and surveillance state.
| Glad you happy though!
| lm28469 wrote:
| We're retiring later and later, working more per week,
| purchasing power is going down, quality of goods is going down,
| life expectancy is decreasing, child mortality is increasing,
| teenage suicide is increasing, illiteracy is increasing, &c.
|
| But trust us this time we'll do incredible things, the same
| things but more of it, faster and cheaper, will automatically
| make things amazing!
| cheema33 wrote:
| > We're retiring later and later, working more per week
|
| That may be true. But, if somebody offered me a time machine
| to travel back in time and live at any point in history,
| would I take it? Hell no.
|
| > purchasing power is going down
|
| That is not a new thing.
|
| > quality of goods is going down
|
| Phones are better. Computers are better. Cars, planes,
| washing machines ...
|
| > life expectancy is decreasing
|
| On the whole, this is not the case.
|
| > child mortality is increasing
|
| Globally?
|
| > illiteracy is increasing
|
| Globally?
|
| You seem to have a negative view of things. And sure, many
| things are not great. But the examples you gave are not it.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Ya some people don't know the difference between their
| country falling apart versus the world falling apart.
| trgn wrote:
| What does it matter the world gets better when your
| neighbors do worse?
| travisjungroth wrote:
| The other people in the world who aren't your neighbors
| are also people.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| But no one in their right mind cares more about other
| people in the world more than about himself and those
| closest to him.
| tredre3 wrote:
| If all but one of my neighbors were improving, why would
| I focus on the one that insists on repeatedly shooting
| itself in the dick?
| lm28469 wrote:
| > their country
|
| Not even, I was taking the US as an example because
| they're at the front of this "tech will deliver us"
| hypothesis
| lm28469 wrote:
| Not globally, just in the place we let these things run at
| full speed without regulations: the US
| andrepd wrote:
| > But, if somebody offered me a time machine to travel back
| in time and live at any point in history, would I take it?
|
| This question always implies "to the high middle ages, or
| to 300CE". Of course I wouldn't. But to the 1990s? Probably
| I would.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| > But, if somebody offered me a time machine to travel back
| in time and live at any point in history, would I take it?
| Hell no.
|
| If given a choice I would rather be born in 1940s. 80 years
| of relative peace, prosperity, cheap education, cheap
| housing, only single parent needs to work, stronger
| community network, less overpopulation, better access to
| doctors, better wealth equality, and you get to partake in
| the first generation of computers before computers became a
| method of spying and manipulation of purchasing decisions.
| Honestly I would much rather be hacking on v6 unix than
| what I am currently doing.
|
| Sign me up.
| eastbound wrote:
| But when meeting friends, you'd have to agree in advance
| to a spot and time and wait aimlessly, so many times in
| the day. Then you'd pick up smoking or reading depending
| on your character.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Sounds wonderful.
| habinero wrote:
| The monkey's paw curls, and you are born as any of the
| many many many people who did not have access to any of
| those things lol.
| ozim wrote:
| ,,only single parent needs to work"
|
| I always wondered how much truth that was.
|
| Turns out in 1950's it was true for 65% of households. In
| 1960's it dropped to 40% then in 70's to 30% and in 90's
| it landed at 20%.
|
| So while you could support a family on a single income,
| it still was quite far from universally true and only
| most likely in the 50's.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Would you want to be born a girl in the 1940s? How about
| as a non white person? And that is assuming you were even
| born in the US.
|
| Before women had the ability to be professionals earning
| real money, or access to birth control and many, many
| other types of healthcare specific to women. Before no
| fault divorce and before rape within marriage was
| outlawed?
|
| Decades before the Civil Rights Act and Jim Crow laws
| still existed?
|
| > better access to doctors
|
| I would take a nurse today over a doctor from the 1940s.
| The amount of advancement in healthcare between 1940 to
| today, even just over the counter stuff or information
| wise from online searches is tremendous.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| > Would you want to be born a girl in the 1940s?
|
| My grandma was born in the 40s and said it was better
| back then.
|
| > Decades before the Civil Rights Act and Jim Crow laws
| still existed?
|
| I don't live in the USA so that is irrelevant.
|
| Also, keep in mind I still have over half my life to live
| and the future seems very uncertain. Maybe I am a
| pessimist, but I would take 1940-2020 which I now know in
| hindsight was a pretty decent time to live compared to
| whatever the next 40 years holds. Maybe I am wrong and we
| will magically cure cancer, solve wealth inequality, 20
| hour work weeks due to automation, and stay WW3.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > My grandma was born in the 40s and said it was better
| back then.
|
| My grandma was also, and she will tell you women should
| not have as many rights as men. And that periods make
| women unclean. And kids should have to follow their
| parents' religion. And corporal punishment for kids is
| okay. And daughter in laws should defer to parents' in
| laws.
|
| > Maybe I am wrong and we will magically cure cancer
|
| Quality of life after a cancer diagnosis is leaps and
| bounds better today than it was in decades past. Setting
| the standard at what I presume is "take this pill and you
| never have to worry about cancer again" seems like a good
| way to disappoint yourself.
|
| > Also, keep in mind I still have over half my life to
| live and the future seems very uncertain.
|
| Things might very well be trending down, but they can
| still be better than the past in some ways, and worse in
| some ways.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| We've passed 7 of 9 climate tipping points so there's that.
| What kind of view do you expect a person to have if they
| pay any sort of attention?
| deepsun wrote:
| Crime rates going down and down. Purchasing power grows
| everywhere in the world (but we want much nicer things now,
| so don't feel it). Travel is more accessible that it ever was
| in humanity history. Information keeps getting more and more
| accessible.
|
| And literacy rates are _increasing_. I don 't know why you
| say it's not, just google "literacy rates trend".
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Efficiency gains have primarily benefited the capital
| owners. Workers ability to buy essentials like housing and
| healthcare have not gotten worse, not better.
|
| I can cover every wall of my living space in flat screen
| color television more cheaply than feed, house, heal, and
| educate another child in my family.
| martin-t wrote:
| I started reading about the industrial revolutions and
| the evolution of capitalism recently. And it is my
| understanding that something similar was happening around
| the second industrial revolution - normal people barely
| making a living while owners of massive factories and
| other "means of production" getting richer rand richer.
|
| That's why communism got so popular in some places and
| why after capitalism won, it demonized communism so much
| that people now think those are the only two options and
| communism is the bad one so capitalism must be the good
| one.
|
| There are other options like mutualism or market
| socialism and people (including me until recently) have
| never heard of them.
|
| Cooperatives exist and most people don't even know what
| that word means.
|
| We need a system where ownership of both the means of
| production and more importantly the product goes to the
| workers. If production is more effective with an
| assistant ("manager") overseeing them, then can hire one
| and negotiate his salary collectively. If they need an
| investment, they can quantify the risk and agree how much
| the investor gets in return after how long but it should
| not give the investor a massive chunk of or complete
| ownership - at most it should give small ownership
| according to his hourly rate compared to other workers.
| martin-t wrote:
| > Crime rates going down and down.
|
| This scares me. Humans are getting so domesticated and
| docile they might soon be content with being pets. I am not
| sure US independence or French revolution could happen
| today.
|
| I am obviously not a fan of crime against other peaceful
| individuals. But crime against an oppressive regime is
| still crime by that regime's rules.
| Atomic_Torrfisk wrote:
| > Purchasing power grows everywhere in the world
|
| Sure consumer goods are cheaper, but I don't need more
| "stuff". The essentials I need for my family: food, energy,
| housing, and most importantly time are much less
| accessible. Sure, we could buy bulk, move to a LCOL area
| and work remote, but not everyone can do that.
|
| This is the trend that a lot of people in my generation
| complain about.
| RGamma wrote:
| And simultaneously we built this huge machine that gives us
| everything we need to survive on software we don't understand,
| ready to have it abducted by people who have never done a
| (positively) productive thing in their lives seemingly any
| moment now. Monkeys with computers.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is the history of every empire.
|
| It's also why every empire in history collapsed.
| martin-t wrote:
| Humans are not smart enough.
|
| People are either proactive or reactive. Proactive think
| about the system and its incentives and how to align them for
| everyone's benefit. Reactive people only complain after they
| have been exploited.
|
| Most people are reactive.
|
| If AI is not a scam, we're gonna see a massive wave of
| unemployment and only then will many people realize they have
| spent half of their waking hours making someone else richer
| and they have no control over what they created.
|
| And I don't meant just those who build AI. I mean everyone
| whose work isn't mostly manual/physical.
|
| They're OK with open source code being turned into
| statistical patterns and plagiarized en masse. They will only
| start complaining once _their_ work has been stolen and they
| are broke.
| RataNova wrote:
| Learning the lower layer felt like earning access to the next
| level of reality. You had to understand the constraints to make
| anything happen at all. Now it increasingly feels like you can
| just describe the intent and skip straight to the outcome.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I look back each time and I think "man, I was doing that
| thing when I could have been doing it so much better?". And I
| feel so hopeful for the future._
|
| The future appears now to be: "Young kids wont have this sense
| of wonder, or control of the machine, anymore. And a whole lot
| less will now have a career in IT either".
| dkh wrote:
| Funny, I also accidentally formatted my dad's hard drive,
| destroying work, while trying to install Red Hat, though in my
| case it was 6.2 "Zoot" somewhere around 1999.
| DonThomasitos wrote:
| Isn't it ironic that we software devs laughed for decades when we
| automated other people's work with our code - ,,it's called
| progress, deal with it, dinosaur!" But now we see that a meteor
| might have hit our planet too.
| kakacik wrote:
| I certainly wasn't laughing, plight of a fellow man is nothing
| positive. But this is usually so abstracted and distant from
| one's work that unless you have somebody close who gets
| literally hit themselves is just abstract movement beyond
| horizon due to myriad forces and random events.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Heh, I've posted here for years and every post I've made saying
| programmers should unionize has been controversial at best and
| nearly dead at worst. So many people trust the same system they
| watch eat others.
| NickNaraghi wrote:
| Csikszentmihalyi's flow research[0] basically predicts the
| author's whole arc here. People are happiest during structured,
| challenging activities with clear goals and tight feedback loops.
| Coaching middle schoolers in a gym hits every condition on his
| list.
|
| Btw, the other finding worth mentioning is that people
| consistently predict that free time and relaxation will make them
| happier, then report the opposite.
|
| [0] Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience if you haven't
| read it
| TobinCavanaugh wrote:
| Very interesting, explains why video games CAN be so much fun.
| deaux wrote:
| > Btw, the other finding worth mentioning is that people
| consistently predict that free time and relaxation will make
| them happier, then report the opposite.
|
| Would like to hear more about this. Both for myself and from
| what I've seen in others, people tend to be far happier during
| a relaxation-focused holiday trip than during their average
| working Monday.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I once heard a former professional athlete say the hardest
| thing about working outside the world of sport, was not being
| able to look up at a scoreboard at the end of the game every
| week and know how well you did.
| StrangeSound wrote:
| Thanks for this, I've ordered it and look forward to reading
| it!
| bloomingeek wrote:
| My new goals are: Seek beauty, Seek happiness and Don't make
| people sad.
|
| With a lot of effort, it's working. However, I soon discovered
| the last goal was the most difficult. Long story short, I keep my
| mouth shut a lot more. I feared, at first, that this would make
| me feel I was compromising myself somehow. But I also discovered
| that sometimes when I shared my opinion, knowing it was correct,
| I would later regret how I made that person feel. Conclusion on
| their feelings: There's nothing to be gained by hurting their
| feelings when they weren't ready to hear the message. Double
| success, I'm still happy and I didn't cause them any sadness.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That's some powerful self insight you achieved.
| electrosphere wrote:
| As I get older I've realized that speaking less and just
| listening more has a LOT of value
| steezeburger wrote:
| I love this! Stealing it! :) It reminds me of T.H.I.N.K. before
| you speak. Ask yourself if what you are about to say is true,
| helpful, inspiring, necessary, and kind!
| bmikaili wrote:
| https://www.cheltenhamzen.co.uk/writings/right-speech
|
| It's hard.
| bengale wrote:
| In the nicest possible way, this is basically the oldest lesson
| there is.
|
| You weren't happy because you optimized your feelings or had the
| right opinions. You were happy because you stopped focusing on
| yourself and became responsible for other people. Six kids needed
| you, in the real world, every week. That kind of outward focus
| kills emptiness fast.
|
| Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement
| just loops you back into your own head, helping people doesn't.
| Feeling good is a side-effect of being useful, not the goal.
| nvarsj wrote:
| There's an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are
| shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others' happiness. I
| have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have
| no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but
| themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but
| pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.
| bengale wrote:
| Yeah, and I do get it to some extent. Everything about having
| a child seems burdensome and hard. Turns out it's doesn't
| feel anything like that and I can't think of anything I'd
| rather be doing. I wouldn't swap with another person on this
| planet.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| 100%. I never was excited about having a kid but it's
| totally amazing to be helping a little human that you love
| to figure out the world and grow into a good person.
|
| People can obviously make the opposite choice, but I'd
| encourage anyone that's never been around good little kids
| as an adult, to find a way to be around them in a helpful
| or fun role for a while. Volunteer at a youth group, sports
| camp, coding class, whatever. Or just be an "uncle" to some
| of your friends' kids. My volunteering at a church youth
| group in my early 20's probably gave me the nudge I needed.
| eastbound wrote:
| > Volunteer at a youth group, sports camp, coding class,
| whatever. Or just be an "uncle" to some of your friends'
| kids.
|
| I'd love to have had kids, but ew. That is creepy. When
| you're a single man even just beyond 30, trying to be
| around other's kids isn't a good idea in today's society.
| Besides, trying to play your part while the kid is in
| another education schema is inconvenient because any
| meaningful perspective on life might conflict with the
| parents'.
| rudhdb773b wrote:
| I coached a sports team for 6-10 year olds during the
| summers as a college student and agree that there are
| some incredible kids who are a joy to mentor and be
| around.
|
| But probably my biggest concern with having kids of my
| own is that you can't really choose their personalities.
| Even the best parents can end up with kids who are
| frankly much less enjoyable to be around.
| cheema33 wrote:
| > Everything about having a child seems burdensome and
| hard. Turns out it's doesn't feel anything like that and I
| can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.
|
| You got lucky and had kid(s) that were not extremely
| difficult to raise. Not everybody gets that. Not all kids
| are alike. Some will make your life a living hell. It is a
| total crapshoot.
|
| Also, not everybody enjoys parenting, even if they have
| easy kids. We are not all built the same.
|
| I did get lucky and had relatively easy kids. I love them.
| But, I do not enjoy parenting.
| jebarker wrote:
| > Everything about having a child seems burdensome and
| hard.
|
| I love my kids and they're pretty great (and seem easy by
| comparison to others), but it's definitely burdensome and
| hard.
| Cook4986 wrote:
| Existence is suffering. But there are moments that make it
| worthwhile. When you have a kid, you not only get more of
| those moments, but you give those moments to people in the
| future.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Yeah kids are often more interesting and insightful and fun
| than adults. It's wonderful to have their refreshing
| perspectives in your life.
| whaleidk wrote:
| People who want to be childless usually champion the
| importance of building strong community through friends and
| neighbors, just because they don't want kids doesn't mean
| they don't want to contribute to others' happiness lol.
| People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current
| economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids
| arealaccount wrote:
| > dont want to deal with kids
|
| Someone has to bring up the next generation, the no kids
| crowd want all the luxury of having the next generation
| without putting in the effort or spending the money.
| nine_k wrote:
| I suppose that people who actively do not want to have
| kids should not have kids. Their hypothetical kids won't
| be happy and well-developed, but instead always feel that
| they are an undesired burden.
|
| Instead, people who like having kids should have more
| kids. This would proliferate a healthy culture that sees
| kids as a source of happiness, not a burden of misery
| taken out of necessity.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Instead, people who like having kids should have more
| kids.
|
| To make this work you need some kind of cross-subsidy
| (e.g. large child tax credit), because having a larger
| number of kids requires the means as well as the will and
| the people willing to do it aren't all billionaires.
|
| But then we do essentially the opposite and drive up
| housing prices when larger families need more house.
| Higher housing prices are essentially a transfer from
| young and future families to retirees.
| graemep wrote:
| I am not convinced that is true. Once you actually have
| kids it changes your outlook too dramatically. Someone
| who does not want to have kids before they have a kid,
| will almost certainly love any kid they actually have.
| nunez wrote:
| Having a look at your state/country's foster care
| registry and the foster care industry as a whole might
| change your feelings on that.
| graemep wrote:
| I doubt there is a correlation between kids being wanted
| before birth and their likelihood of entering foster
| care. People who do not want kids do nkt have them.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > _I suppose that people who actively do not want to have
| kids should not have kids._
|
| I would describe myself as being the converse of that
| statement. I do not believe my desires should truly have
| much of a bearing on my situation.
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| That's a very instrumental and de-humanizing way to look
| at humans. Only as enablers of further enablement. Know
| that there is no inherent reason at all why there should
| be a next generation, if we, collectively, do not want
| one. Some are interested in this, others not, and that's
| perfectly fine.
|
| The assumption that humanity must, and shall, exist
| forever has no proof.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| Nonsense, there are plenty of childless teachers,
| scientists, etc that devote themselves to helping
| humanity. If someone wants to become an expert in their
| field towards this end, how can they devote themselves
| while having kids? It would kneecap you.
| graemep wrote:
| Why would having kids kneecap you? Most people who are
| experts in their fields do have kids.
|
| Almost all the teachers I know have kids. Most scientists
| do. Einstein had three kids, Dirac four, and Planck five.
| Marie and Pierre Curie managed two.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| It is a massive financial strain and time sink. It's hard
| enough to make it as is. Tech in particular requires so
| much self study, especially in this market. Einstein,
| Dirac, Planck - they did minimal housework and led lives
| almost completely centered around their academic work.
| Curie seems to be an exception afaict.
| nunez wrote:
| There are other ways to give to the next generation than
| having kids of your own. Kids love "fun" uncle/aunts too!
|
| In my opinion, it's better to not have kids when you are
| not 100% LOCKED IN on wanting them instead of gambling
| and potentially being forced into a commitment you never
| wanted to make.
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| > Someone has to bring up the next generation, the no
| kids crowd want all the luxury of having the next
| generation without putting in the effort or spending the
| money.
|
| Who do you think pays for schools-kindergartens for your
| kids while you getting tax credits for them and likely
| for your dependent wife who doesn't work while rearing
| them? And on top of that for your kid's healthcare in
| many European countries...
| Aurornis wrote:
| > People who want to be childless usually champion the
| importance of building strong community through friends and
| neighbors,
|
| This describes all of the childless people age 50 and older
| than I know.
|
| It does not describe the social media r/childfree mindset
| people I know at all. They have their bubble of friends
| they keep in touch with only when they feel like it but
| that's about it.
|
| There's a big difference between childless and r/childfree
| style people, though.
|
| > People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current
| economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids
|
| FIRE rose to popularity before this economy, though. It
| felt like peak FIRE was during ZIRP when it was easy to get
| a high paying tech job even if you barely had the skills
| for it. All the blogs and influencers made it sound so easy
| to just keep that going straight into early retirement as
| long as you continued living an austere lifestyle, which
| came with implied advice to avoid having kids.
|
| I followed several of the FIRE blogs and forums in the
| early days but had to stop reading after they started
| filling up with people convinced they could retire at age
| 36 with $1.2 million in the bank because they they lived
| frugally last year and decided they could keep coasting
| that way for another 50 years without their lifestyle
| changing. I remember reading a few disaster stories from
| people who thought they were doing leanFIRE with their
| spouse until their spouse grew up and realized they
| actually wanted kids and to be married to someone who had a
| little more ambition in life. I know these stories aren't
| what FIRE is _supposed_ to be about in the theoretical
| optimal sense, but there were so many stories like this
| that the forums just felt like a sad place to be.
| kelnos wrote:
| I've read and posted to r/childfree and similar subs in
| the past, but I quickly came to realize that the people
| there are not your typical child-free people.
|
| They're mostly bitter anti-child people who rail against
| what they see as entitlements that parents get that non-
| parents don't. They derisively call parents petty and
| mean things like "breeders" and seem to be a very cynical
| bunch. I'm not saying their feelings are always
| ridiculous; certainly some of them have reasonable
| reasons for feeling the way they do. But they're a
| mostly-toxic, vocal minority.
|
| It really annoys me when people assume all (or even a
| significant number) of childfree people are like those
| reddit folks (not accusing you of that, just saying in
| general.
|
| And I don't get the automatic association between FIRE
| and childfree that some people are making here. Sure,
| FIRE is easier if you don't have kids, but IME the two
| groups are only loosely connected, at most.
| ryan_n wrote:
| >It does not describe the social media r/childfree
| mindset people I know at all. They have their bubble of
| friends they keep in touch with only when they feel like
| it but that's about it.
|
| Do you actually know a lot of those people? I know a lot
| of people that don't have kids and they all are very
| normal, well adjusted people. None of them hate kids.
| Using the word "breeders" as derogatory is weird,
| bordering on mentally unwell behavior. I've never met
| anyone that doesn't have kids that's like that. Even for
| the few people I've met that don't particularly care for
| children, they just keep it to themselves.
|
| Reddit I think is not representative of real life for the
| vast majority of people.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| I'm in my mid-30s with a partner that also doesn't want
| kids, saved probably 80% of my takehome for 5-6 years,
| and leanfire is within reach so it's doable. I don't need
| much, my main interests are cooking, learning, biking,
| etc. It's been a godsend as I developed a mobility issue
| and have to take time off to heal. I'm naturally frugal
| but had I not been intentional about planning for my
| future I would be in a bind. YMMV.
| roenxi wrote:
| I think more than FIRE people should just focus on FI. You
| still have to do something with your day after becoming
| financially independent and a job is still one of many good
| ways to contribute to the community even if you don't
| technically need one. So retiring is an option but not the
| only one.
|
| On the other hand it remains quite confusing that after
| centuries of capital achieving vastly better results than
| labour people still keep going for labouring as their
| primary strategy. Building up a strong income-generating
| capital base is just common sense and it is an extremely
| good idea to have enough that you could technically avoid
| working if it made sense.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| You don't have to do something with your day. Most people
| will but you don't have to.
| jimbokun wrote:
| They really don't.
|
| They just post about how important those things are online
| but not doing much about it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current
| economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids
|
| That is not restricted to the "current" economy. It has
| been that way throughout all of human history (and probably
| applies to other animals too).
|
| Who wouldn't want security of energy, food, shelter,
| healthcare, and education?
|
| Everyone worries about what happens to their kids if they
| get injured, or even just lose their job. It's only in the
| last few decades that a significant portion of people have
| access to more of that security (even though it's only an
| increase of 1% to 10% of the US).
|
| Now we have free brokerage accounts and low cost index
| funds so being financially independent has a catchy
| acronym.
| RGamma wrote:
| Childlessness seems to be an increasingly compassionate
| choice. Degrowth by force.
| nine_k wrote:
| Childlessness is a beautifully self-removing trait.
| card_zero wrote:
| Ideas aren't genetic.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| It doesn't have to be genetic to be 'self-removing'.
|
| What happened to the Shakers?
| card_zero wrote:
| OK, _religious_ ideas are kind of genetic via
| indoctrination. (Epigenetic? Heh.)
|
| Meanwhile ideas can be "self-removing" due to being bad,
| but then you'd just say "that's a bad idea" not "that's
| self-removing", so genetic descent was implied.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| I didn't say the Shakers had a _bad_ idea, it just was an
| idea that led to them removing themselves from further
| existence that was not genetic. Whether that was a good
| or bad decision is an entirely separate judgement call.
| jimbokun wrote:
| No choice is more selfish and misanthropic.
| card_zero wrote:
| "Degrowth" is misanthropic, I guess, unless you think the
| world is overpopulated _structurally_ somehow, as in you
| 'd like more humans but only in due course and under more
| favorable (global?) circumstances.
|
| But I think looking at this in global terms is wrong-
| headed anyway, whether you're for or against. The
| question is whether _a specific person_ should be a
| parent _here and now in specific personal circumstances._
| So of course it tends to be selfish. It 's not entirely
| selfish since others are involved locally, including the
| future child. But "the world needs more children" or "the
| world needs fewer children" is barely relevant at all.
| RGamma wrote:
| I did not want to come across as misanthropic. I like
| humanity for the overwhelming part, if not for its
| unfortunate tendency to go apeshit from time to time or
| to ruthlessly exploit the most beautiful and conplex
| machine in this part of the universe. I also don't mean
| to say it is necessarily desirable for societies to age
| this fast.
|
| It's a choice I made for myself, that I am ready to bear
| the consequences of, say paying a greater share for
| other's childcare/making society more family-
| friendly/later retirement. I just would not want to add
| another ~copy of my soul to this pile. Yet I respect
| those who do.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Quick reminder than you can have (gradual) degrowth with
| every couple having 2 children.
|
| The extreme mode of 50% of child-bearing age adults going 0
| kids is not necessary and will probably end up being
| disastrous.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It's always funny how many people think that the only font of
| altruism is taking care of children _who have your DNA_ ,
| like that's some kind of selfless act. It is, in fact, the
| ultimate vanity of which humans are capable. Raising little
| variations of yourself might make you feel good, but if you
| think it's a unique path to a fulfilling life I suggest you
| are the one in the little bubble.
| XorNot wrote:
| I think what usually gets mixed up is how the
| responsibility works, and biological children sit at the
| overlap.
|
| The thing I most crucially remember about my son being born
| is that it felt downright easy to simply dive into all the
| things I would now be doing: because there was no one else.
| I either got it done or it didn't get done.
|
| Someone else's kids on the other hand there is a choice:
| their parents.
|
| It's not absolute IMO but you also see it echoed by working
| too: when it's your job, it's a lot easier to simply go
| "right I need to handle this" then when it's not.
| komali2 wrote:
| I think this mindset might be unique to western "atomic
| families." I have friends that would talk similarly about
| this kind of responsibility to cousins or non
| "genetically related" people in their village.
| jebarker wrote:
| > It's always funny how many people think that the only
| font of altruism is taking care of children who have your
| DNA, like that's some kind of selfless act
|
| This is a strawman position in my opinion. I don't think
| there's that many people who think they're carrying out
| some selfless act by having children. It's simply
| biologically true that the children you'll probably have
| the easiest time raising are your own and, assuming we want
| to continue as a species, we do need people to have
| children. It's fine to have them, fine to not, neither side
| has some moral high ground.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It's uh, historically proven, so to say.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Whether it is vanity or not is not determined by what you
| are doing, but why you are doing it. The vanity is not
| intrinsic.
| jimbokun wrote:
| We are having fewer children and also seeing huge increases
| in loneliness and mental health problems.
| card_zero wrote:
| Even despite the mitigating effect of having fewer
| children, we are seeing huge increases in loneliness and
| mental health problems.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Fortunately I have this magic tiger rock that keeps
| tigers away, I think it works for those things too.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.
|
| It's common in some tech and upper middle class _bubbles_ ,
| but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of
| the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families.
|
| I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like
| Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people
| in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit
| cleaned up their popular subreddits list years ago, but for a
| while subreddits like r/childfree were constantly in
| everyone's default feeds. Redditors would talk about people
| who had kids as "breeders" as a derogatory term and treat
| them like they'd made terrible decisions with their lives.
|
| I didn't realize how much this carried over into the real
| world until my friends and I started having kids. I knew a
| few people who treated our decisions like we were making
| terrible mistakes and throwing our lives away. I still
| encounter people from younger generations who are confused
| when I say that I like spending time with my kids. They can't
| imagine how that would be enjoyable in any way. When you grow
| up with your chosen social media telling you that the smart
| people are maximizing their bank accounts, minimizing their
| responsibilities, and doing as little as possible to get
| there, they can't fathom how someone could be happy with
| kids.
| sublinear wrote:
| I am about to hit 40 soon and have an alternative take on
| all that. I agree reddit was and still is a very toxic echo
| chamber, but the rest of us who have avoided having kids
| shouldn't be lumped in with those people.
|
| I came from a big family and grew up somewhat poor watching
| remorseful adults who didn't recognize the gravity of
| bringing a life into this world, let alone several,
| basically drink themselves to death to cope.
|
| My social life is mostly offline and I enjoy helping people
| in any way I can, but I am fully aware of my own flaws. I
| find balance by being generous in what seems like a million
| other ways I might not have the energy or time for if I had
| a family. To each their own.
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| This is the way!
| chasd00 wrote:
| I said this in a different comment but the real key is
| just knowing what's right for you. Knowing yourself is
| actually very hard though.
| sublinear wrote:
| I don't really know myself either, just the flaws I have
| (right now). I found them by pushing outside my comfort
| zone.
|
| Sometimes you just need to know when to stop pushing for
| a while and come back later. Later can be sooner than you
| think, or never. It's the whole point of living. I'd find
| it miserable to be over my skis the entire time, but I
| still take risks here and there. How else do you find
| out?
| graemep wrote:
| You seem to be polarising the choices. You do not have to
| have a big family or no kids at all. I have two kids.
|
| For the vast majority people nothing else they can do
| with their lives will be anywhere near as fulfilling as
| having children. There are exceptions, of course, but it
| takes something like an unusual personality, or a great
| commitment to something else (e.g. celibacy in religious
| orders etc.), or something else really fulfilling.
|
| I strongly suspect that someone who has the sense of
| responsibility that you have about children would make a
| great parent and not do what you grew up with.
| sublinear wrote:
| Sorry, I'm not trying to be polarizing. I'm trying to
| emphasize what I've learned at the extremes. That can
| inform a choice much more clearly.
|
| The outcomes of the children are directly correlated with
| the quality of the relationship the parents have. No
| relationship I've ever seen, then or now, seems to be
| stable enough to do much better.
|
| In my case, they made up for it with love and attention
| that brought plenty of comfort but few answers. I know
| many people pine for that sort of thing, but it's very
| heavy for a child to go through. People often foolishly
| romanticize a life where anything seems possible as long
| as they feel supported. They think that support is the
| missing piece. What they don't think about is all the
| times that kid is going to walk directly into a wall and
| have to find the courage to not be mad at the wall or
| lose their shit and turn radical like those people on
| reddit. Love is not enough for hope, and hope is not a
| plan.
|
| On the other end I had some friends whose parents brought
| plenty of answers without much love. Those people found
| some early success in life, but ended up restless and
| unsatisfied following someone else's path.
|
| You can again say I'm being extreme, but my own
| experience with relationships is to bridge this gap is
| almost impossible. Trust is hard and must go both ways,
| and the current social climate makes it harder than ever.
| I am still young enough to give it time I guess. I'm not
| saying no to a family ever. I'm saying I don't know
| enough to be confident I can do better.
|
| To be clear, I'm saying I've never met someone that has
| the curiosity and unyielding stubbornness to truly know
| something (in the Richard Feynman sense) while still
| being strong enough to be vulnerable and really love
| their family over all else. What few out there exist and
| meet that bar must then somehow find each other and
| commit. It's tough.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Yeah, everyone I know who doesn't have a child/not planning
| to have zero connection to Reddit or anything online. Tldr
| is, people find fulfillment without children easier
| nowadays. And as they watch other going child free or 1-2
| children, they realize that life is possible nowadays.
| lukan wrote:
| "Tldr is, people find fulfillment without children easier
| nowadays"
|
| Do they? Or have most just become too distorted to feel
| allright filling their emptiness with empty online
| debates and netflix?
|
| I know people who are really happy without kids (and who
| will never have them), but the majority is rather
| miserably lonely when you look past the facade. And with
| many, there isn't even a facade.
| tasuki wrote:
| The parents aren't lonely, but they're tired and mostly
| miserable.
|
| I haven't asked "why should I even try" in ages. The
| question "how do I even manage this hell" has been on my
| mind more often.
| lukan wrote:
| Well, unfortunately I also have asked myself that
| question way too often, but I cannot agree on the "mostly
| miserable" part when comparing childless single persons
| and parents. Life can be hell, but with kids you don't
| ask the question so much why even get up - because the
| purpose is clear. There are people depending and counting
| on you.
| tasuki wrote:
| > but with kids you don't ask the question so much why
| even get up - because the purpose is clear.
|
| No question about that. My life has become simpler in
| many ways: the annoying big questions have gone away.
| ryanmcl wrote:
| This matches my experience but I'd add a layer = purpose
| from kids isn't automatic. For years I had kids and still
| felt hollow because I was showing up physically but not
| really present. Getting sober changed that. Suddenly the
| purpose that was always there actually landed.
|
| Then I did something unexpected...I started building.
| Taught myself to code at 45 while being a stay-at-home
| dad. Now I have both: the deep purpose of raising kids
| and the creative purpose of making something from nothing
| every day.
|
| The combination is what did it for me. Kids alone didn't
| fix the emptiness. Building alone wouldn't have either.
| But kids gave me the reason to get up and building gave
| me something to look forward to after bedtime (and not
| the leftover scotch glass on my nightstand).
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Kids are a cheat code to finding fulfilment. Some rare
| people are able to make it themselves, but they are the
| exception. I think most people who post on social media
| about living their best DINK lives are either lying to
| us, themselves, or have never experienced fulfilment and
| confuse it with margaritas on the couch with Netflix.
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| This sounds to me like rationalizing the regret of losing
| independence due to having children, and realizing one
| can never go back.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| That's a sweeping statement. I find fulfillment in
| learning things and focusing on issues I care about
| (environment, housing, politics).
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| No DINK I know posts anything about their lives ever.
| Probably the most "quietly enjoying their lives" people
| ever. Most people get jaded through social-media as it's
| just pure hate-rage baited content from all the sides.
| Most people are normal, they're just living. It's not up
| to you, or me to dictate what they're supposed to find
| fulfillment in.
| chasd00 wrote:
| A lot of is biological, all life is hardcoded to be
| rewarded by the success of their offspring. I'm a father
| of two teen boys, the ups and downs of parenthood has
| brought me more joy than I ever thought possible. Two of
| my best friends have no kids while one other has 4(!).
| They all seem to be doing fine and are happy healthy
| people. They key is just knowing what works best for you.
|
| Edit: my friends without kids have more cash for toys
| (boats, trips, etc) but it doesn't make me resentful or
| anything. Besides, they let me play with their toys
| whenever I want :)
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| > but the majority is rather miserably lonely when you
| look past the facade
|
| People make their own choices, and it's not up to me, nor
| you, to make assumptions on their lives. If children give
| you fulfilment, god speed to you. If others can find
| happiness without children, god speed to them.
|
| By the way, I'm speaking as a person who wants children.
| But I totally get my child-free friends. I know people in
| their 60s as well, who debated this question and found a
| life for themselves. There is always a "what if question"
| hanging around, but all in all, they've weighed their
| options and are generally happy.
|
| I think a lot of people who ended up having children to
| find fulfilment did not find happiness in other means. So
| they can't experience the "other side's argument". Same
| applies to child-free people, as they haven't experienced
| the other side.
| lukan wrote:
| Well, I do think I can make assumptions about other
| people's life, but yes it is their choice and life. (But
| I did experience the child free independent state for a
| long time, I wasn't unhappy, it was a different life, but
| I was always clear that I wanted to have children one
| day)
|
| And I did not, nor would I ever say people need to have
| children to be fullfilled. Those who question whether
| having children is the right choice, I would never urge
| to do it. Rather the contrary as you cannot reverse this
| decision and if you find out after the act, no, children
| are too much for me - then it is too late.
| martopix wrote:
| I think this is an oversimplification of a much more
| general social phenomenon. In much of the world, the
| mainstream social message is still that kids are what you
| should get your life's purpose and fulfillment from. Maybe
| not so much for men, but very much so for women. There is a
| reaction to that social expectation, which is independent
| of Reddit (it's true even in China etc).
|
| I'm myself very happy I don't have children. I'm gay and
| can't adopt in my country, so I'm also happy I don't have
| any desire to have children, because that would be a
| problem. However I do really like working with teens, and
| it's very important to me on a gut level.
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| I find the polarization of the child/no-child discussion
| revolting. One side poo-poo:ing on the other, have a child?
| Breeder! The other poo-poo:ing back... no child, you
| f*cking egoist, I'm happy your gene line dies out.
|
| Personally I am of the opinion that everyone is entitled to
| their own life, and that the default assumption should be
| that they make conscious decisions in line with their own
| preferences.
|
| Have a child? Great, but don't complain to me about early
| mornings and stress... you knew that before you had one. No
| child? Go for it! But don't complain to me about loneliness
| and lack of purpose.
|
| I'm leaning towards the no child camp myself. I love my
| long morning, and complete lack of some little createurs
| (rightful) demand on my time. Yes, I won't have the
| pleasure of seeing that little creature grow up, and I
| might have a lonelier old age (but there's plenty of social
| settings I can inject myself into), but that's life.
| There's advantages and disadvantages to everything.
|
| The trick is to find out which ones you like more.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| Agreed except people encounter loneliness and lack of
| purpose for reasons besides choosing not to have kids and
| doing so is absolutely not guaranteed to resolve those
| feelings - you can build community, engage in service,
| etc
| nunez wrote:
| Same. My wife and I very much enjoy being child-free in
| our late-30s, but we avoided joining child-free groups to
| avoid the "parents are breeders" crowd.
| foobarian wrote:
| It strikes me that both these views are selfish, in that
| they focus on direct impact on one's life. But what about
| the broad impact on society for the descendants? What if
| by abdicating procreation we create conditions where only
| communities that force childbearing survive? Ought we not
| figure out a system where we can have both freedom and
| equality, as well as a sustainable population?
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| > Ought we not figure out a system where we can have both
| freedom and equality, as well as a sustainable
| population?
|
| That would be great, but I never heard any realistic
| proposals how to make educated women with good
| opportunities want to birth and rear 3+ children.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I don't understand why people, generally on both sides of
| the issue, just ignore the social effects of it and instead
| just focus on the personal. I suspect most don't intuit how
| rapidly fertility shifts population sizes, because it's an
| exponential. A fertility rate of 1 means each generation
| decreases by more than 50%, compounding. So after just 5
| generations and your generational size is down 97% with
| your population doing the exact same, staggered out by a
| few decades.
|
| And fertility determines not only the size of a population,
| but even the age ratios within that population. Low
| fertility means you end up with _far_ more elderly than you
| do working age. Far from this vision of being a society
| with more for everybody, we 'll be creating societies where
| labor is ever-more scarce, economies are primarily
| dedicated to helping sustain the elderly and simultaneously
| collapsing at the same time. It's not going to be pretty.
|
| For these reasons, and many others, I think the social
| aspect is one of the most important. Self fulfillment and
| these other things are very important and good, but if we
| don't have children then we're going to be creating some
| pretty messed up societies for our descendants. We're
| likely going to get to see this play out in South Korea
| during our lifetimes. And I do wonder what their
| descendants will think of the South Koreans of today.
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| Western societies solve that problem by letting in
| immigrants. I'm not sure what SK or Japan are going to do
| though.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I want to do that some of the time, not all the time, that's
| the difference.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| what does "FIRE" mean in this context? I can't figure it out
| kashunstva wrote:
| Financial Independence, Retire Early
| anal_reactor wrote:
| The problem though is that relationships with others are
| risky. When I look at my social circle about half of my
| friends express some kind of regret related to their
| marriages. Call me an entitled prick, but I honestly believe
| that 90% of people are liquid crap. I realized that in order
| to have a good social life I need to filter very hard who I
| hang out with. Even if I could reproduce by budding, this is
| not an environment I want my kids to grow up in. "Dad, why
| did you make me into a world full of normies?"
| Aurornis wrote:
| > When I look at my social circle about half of my friends
| express some kind of regret related to their marriages.
| Call me an entitled prick, but I honestly believe that 90%
| of people are liquid crap. I realized that in order to have
| a good social life I need to filter very hard who I hang
| out with.
|
| Candidly, if half of your friends are in regretful
| marriages and 90% of the people you encounter are "crap"
| then I would be questioning your social filtering.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| From experience I think 90% of people are really liquid
| crap. filtering can get it down to 50% or less but it
| also means you are WAY more lonely
| N_Lens wrote:
| There's an old saying regarding what you're saying.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Higher social classes have always despised the lower
| ones. Imagine going to ancient Rome and saying that
| slaves should be given full citizenship and treated as
| equals.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| "liquid crap" is obviously exageration but if you take a
| truly random slice of population 90% will be any
| combination of not interesting/not a nice person/hidden
| agenda or want to exploit you/have crazy views/...
|
| many of them are higher class than me. in absolute
| numbers it's more lower class simply because there are
| fewer rich people than poor people but take 5 truly
| random people of either high or low, I think you would
| agree with me that only 1 at best you would want
| something to do with.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| In low socio-economic communities shit behaviors are more
| tolerated.
| eastbound wrote:
| Did you just try to illustrate his point? Not emphasizing
| with someone's difficulty and trying to turn his
| difficulty into a flaw of his character is a good example
| of how society is destructuring itself.
| popalchemist wrote:
| The world is always full of danger. This moment in time is
| exceptional only in the form of that danger, not in its
| substance.
|
| When those of us with noble traits -- intelligence,
| empathy, morality and so on -- refuse to reproduce, we do
| so at the cost of allowing the OTHERS who lack those traits
| to make up a larger and larger percentage of the
| population. They WILL reproduce.
|
| Food for thought.
| rixed wrote:
| Are we back to the beliefs into inherited nobility
| already?
| anal_reactor wrote:
| There are things that aren't true but the wider society
| must believe to be true in order to maintain social
| order. Think of religion for example. "We are all equal"
| is also one of those things.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| This could also be read as a take on the nurture aspect
| of childrearing.
| popalchemist wrote:
| It is literally just game theory. If you don't act,
| others still will. Multiply that times 8 billion and you
| have an evolutionary process that rewards the dumbest
| amongst us.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| So just teach those traits to other people? You don't
| need to have kids to help.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Yes, that is possible, and I didn't claim that having
| kids is the only way to influence humanity... obviously.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Let me guess: you are somehow NOT part of the "liquid crap"
| category?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| No one chooses to be born. Once they are, they may find that
| procreation is impossible for them or just not something
| they'll do well or even want. None of these is necessarily
| depressing.
|
| We have no shortage of humans, so there's no need to try to
| shame the childless. Nor those who focus on themselves.
| jimbokun wrote:
| We are on course to have far more elderly people than young
| people.
|
| A global retirement community without even any grandkids to
| visit them strikes me as a depressing dystopian future.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| I see less burden on earth's environment as a positive.
| ionwake wrote:
| not necessarily connected to the number of people but the
| type - if they are all conservationists that would be a
| net positive, not counting OTT population numbers.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| we're talking about aging in advanced economies - those
| are folks with heavy footprints. if the west could be
| content with africa's growth and allowing for more
| migration, this problem is licked.
| jurgenburgen wrote:
| More likely it will be a larger burden on the
| environment. If there are no future generations to care
| about then why bother investing in a better future?
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| the earth regenerates itself, provided we stay out of the
| way. if anything there's more motivation to care when the
| degredation slows down and makes change feel tangible.
| foobarian wrote:
| The question is what happens after they are gone?
| zwaps wrote:
| Not to contradict your conclusion but many countries
| definitely have an extreme shortage of new humans
| komali2 wrote:
| Lines on a map are just that. Globally we're doing fine.
| And anyway, constant growth can't continue forever, it's
| probably a good thing if we stabilize or even shrink a
| bit.
| asdfe3r343 wrote:
| Sure why not get trapped youself with responsibilities and
| work your life off making rich people even richer.
| boca_honey wrote:
| That's just childish. Eventually you'll have to learn
| responsibilities (towards other people) are a privilege and
| necessary for a full life. You'll just keep getting (more)
| bitter and lonely until you understand that.
| komali2 wrote:
| I think what they mean is that "responsibility to
| society" has been co-opted by capitalists such that even
| our own children are a resource we're expected to raise
| to further contribute to endless growth and someone
| else's profit margins.
|
| None of us are really contributing to each other when we
| work, or the commons, since that's all been purchased and
| is being rented back to us.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that
| life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
|
| Rabindranath Tagore
| tock wrote:
| Something about FIRE makes people have a visceral reaction.
| How DARE people not work like the rest of us. I get the
| purpose part if they were like teachers or doctors or
| something. Nope. SWE at Meta.
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| A lot of people can't comprehend trying to restrain their
| consumption either, they try to poke holes in your plans to
| assuage themselves that their lifeplan is the right one.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > Seems like a terribly depressing way to live
|
| This sounds very judgmental. Don't assume there's a single
| way to live a happy life. People with kids aren't immune to
| depression or lack of purpose.
| thunky wrote:
| > People with kids aren't immune to depression or lack of
| purpose.
|
| Especially when their kids turn into adults and don't need
| them anymore. Having "kids" doesn't last that long.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Having "kids" doesn't last that long.
|
| The day my oldest son (he's 16) was born I was holding
| him and my mom said "enjoy every minute because you'll
| blink and it will be over". I got two years left and he's
| off to college. Just two years, it feels like I'm getting
| fired. She was right, as mothers usually are.
| nanopasta wrote:
| This is a rather uni-dimensional and, might I say,
| judgemental view of the CF movement. People choosing to be
| child-free just want to have "no responsibilities, FIRE, and
| never give to anyone but themselves" - really? What about
| women finally taking agency and rejecting the belief that
| they must have kids to be fulfilled? You also seem to
| completely ignore the economic state of the world. The
| economic conditions we grow up in leave a psychological
| imprint and influence the choices we make, even as adults.
|
| I have the utmost respect for people with kids, but I also
| think that an individual needs to be 100% ready to have one,
| and not just reproduce because it would somehow provide them
| with a purpose.
| mock-possum wrote:
| > I have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to
| have no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but
| themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live
|
| Does it?? That sounds like the perfect life for me - I don't
| need to contribute to others to make myself happy, _I'm
| already happy on my own._
|
| To me, this sounds like there's something wrong with you -
| your capacity to just be happy by yourself is broken, you
| need the happiness of others to validate your life, and
| that's a terrible way to live, always desperate to get what
| you need from others.
| martopix wrote:
| > There's an entire generation of mostly childless adults who
| are shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others'
| happiness.
|
| This is very well put.
|
| I think the culture today is what pushes us towards that: we
| have a very individualistic culture, which I think comes from
| the US. I'm from southern Europe, where family used to be
| very important, whereas now we've adopted a much more
| individual-centered view.
|
| We have "freedom" as a value, but it's hard to tell what to
| do with it. You are privileged, therefore you can do whatever
| you want. But what is it that I want? What do I do with my
| freedom, privilege, options? We also need an objective, and
| "to be happy" is not a good objective, because we humans are
| very bad at predicting what will make us happy. Seeing
| stereotyped photos of happy people on tropical beaches on
| Instagram makes it even harder to remember what happiness is.
|
| For happiness you need objectives, things you believe in, a
| sense of purpose.
| stuxnet79 wrote:
| > We have "freedom" as a value, but it's hard to tell what
| to do with it. You are privileged, therefore you can do
| whatever you want. But what is it that I want?
|
| Well, that's the key question isn't it? What do we actually
| want?
|
| In America it is dead simple. Having successfully cut all
| of our important social ties & creating all this
| existential anxiety via propaganda, "free enterprise" has
| swooped in promising to solve all our ills with the simple
| tap of a credit card.
|
| Lonely? Here pay for a therapist. Need childcare? Get a
| nanny. Need exercise? Buy a gym membership. All in service
| to inflating the vanity metric that is the US GDP.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I agree with you but i'd add our cultures pushed these
| psychological profiles (not far from mine) into running for
| some kind of (supposed) early safety because entering
| adulthood felt too bland heavy and risky.
|
| From the few ive read about previous decades, people joined
| adult life earlier, with easier and better integration around
| adults and cheaper housing or similar needs. This creates a
| different existential landscape imo
| mchinen wrote:
| This has clearly triggered a lot of people, with the full
| spectrum of arguments for and against having kids below. I'm
| bookmarking this as an example of driving engagement by
| taking a fairly benign topic ('helping others was
| rewarding!') with an extreme view on a topic that everyone
| has a stake in ('an entire generation lost the plot on
| life').
|
| How amazing and ironic or a reminder it is that the comments
| below that seem the most reasonable and avoid generalizing an
| entire group of people or way of life are the ones that are
| the least likely to drive more comments because they are
| perfectly reasonable.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but pretty
| common in tech/upper middle class circles.
|
| For some it works for some it doesn't. The hard problem is
| knowing yourself well enough to make the right choice.
| Personally, I'm in the "you get what you give" camp but I
| know not everyone is. Again, the key is knowing which camp
| you actually belong in. I want to add that "knowing yourself
| well enough" is no small task and can take a lifetime
| meanwhile you encounter the forks in the road of life almost
| daily so.. much easier typed than done.
|
| /turning 50 in about 2 months so, while not that old enough
| to be considered wise, have been around the block once or
| twice
| mlsu wrote:
| Yeah it's kind of crazy. My opinion of course, but I think
| it's a big part of growing up to realize that your life being
| "yours" only lasts about 20-25 years. You have your
| childhood, then your time as a young adult to have your fun
| and set yourself up/work towards your own life goals, find
| your place in the world.
|
| Once that's done there really isn't a purpose in life other
| than to pass it along to someone else. Dare I say that's your
| responsibility. What are you gonna do, buy another toy? Go to
| another bar?
| jraby3 wrote:
| Similar for me. Happiest I've ever been was when I was an
| assistant guide for birthright Israel.
|
| My job was to make sure the 40 kids that came were having a
| good time. When your job is to make others happy, you become
| happy.
| et-al wrote:
| Also, I think for a good number of people, their first job out
| of college is oftentimes one they will look fondly back on
| because they've just finished ~17 years of school, have
| financial independence with a salary, and are still bright-eyed
| about _all_ the possibilities.
| perrygeo wrote:
| The entire zeitgeist of software technology revolves around the
| assumption that making things efficient, easy, and quick is
| inherently good. Most people who are "sitting in front of
| rectangles, moving tiny rectangles" have sometime grandiose
| notions of their works' importance; we're making X work better
| for the good of Y to enable Z. Abstract shit like that.
|
| No man, you're just making X easier. If the world needs more X,
| fine. If not, woops.
|
| The detachment from reality makes it all too easy to deceive
| yourself into thinking "hey this actually helps people".
| Swizec wrote:
| > Most people who are "sitting in front of rectangles, moving
| tiny rectangles"
|
| Hey dude these are my emotional support rectangles!
|
| Truth is, anything can be meaningful. We make our own meaning
| and almost anything will do as long as _you_ believe in it.
| If optimizing rectangles on the screen makes you happy,
| that's great. If it doesn't, find something else to do.
| temp8830 wrote:
| Yup, because there are plenty of opportunities to get
| tokens to feed your family outside of moving those
| rectangles. Not.
| bitexploder wrote:
| These are all value judgements that reflect your
| disillusionment rather than some universal truth.
|
| No one is attached to some mythical objective reality.
| Everyone is imprisoned by the same social, economic and
| thought prisons.
| jimbokun wrote:
| It's really just because those of us choosing this profession
| are also very good at optimizing chosen metrics. But don't
| always ask whether they are good metrics and whether they
| become counterproductive past some point.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| This is one of the reasons why I'm so disgusted by the
| mainstream voices around AI. As if I'm going to be "left
| behind" because my only priority isn't increasing shareholder
| value or building a saas that makes the world a worse place.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Even if it's the oldest lesson, it's one we all need to learn,
| sometimes multiple times. Yesterday was the best time to have
| learned it. 2nd best is always today.
|
| There is never a bad time to learn this lesson.
| pickledish wrote:
| Agreed! I'm not sure why the GP comment has a somewhat
| negative attitude about it, I think it's great for people to
| realize this and talk about it, every year a whole new year's
| worth of young adults turn up not knowing it! Insert XKCD
| lucky 10,000 comic here
| bengale wrote:
| Not meant to be negative.
| pickledish wrote:
| Ah -- IME people usually start a sentence with "in the
| nicest possible way" when they're couching something mean
| is all. Often it's even sarcastic, and the meanness isn't
| even meant to be couched, so I wasn't sure how to read it
| popalchemist wrote:
| Agreed, the default connotation / reading of this phrase
| implies a snide attitude.
| bengale wrote:
| Ironically, I went back and added it because I thought
| the comment sounded a little bit unfriendly on a first
| pass. Mission failed.
| steeleyespan wrote:
| I've spent too much time talking to Claude, because this sounds
| exactly like one of its messages
| bengale wrote:
| Absolutely! That's a great point.
|
| For real though, I'm not wasting tokens on comments. I do
| wonder if we will pick up habits when interacting with them a
| lot though.
| ionwake wrote:
| For real the grammar is so good its sus, did you aprse this
| through claude?
| steezeburger wrote:
| I don't think the grammar is "good", it just uses speech
| patterns like LLMs do.
| bengale wrote:
| No. I do have the gammarly tool running though, and it
| often corrects my writing.
| steezeburger wrote:
| I 100% thought this was written by an LLM. You copy its
| style if it wasn't. Or it has copied yours! Lol
| bengale wrote:
| My understanding is it learns from us. It's to be
| expected that it often speaks the way we speak,
| especially in places like this, since it's a free source
| of training data.
|
| I'm not sure playing "spot the llm" is going to be a good
| use of time in many cases.
| Fr0styMatt88 wrote:
| Yep yep and yep. The massive move towards individualism in our
| culture is making people lonely and empty.
| card_zero wrote:
| > Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political
| engagement just loops you back into your own head, helping
| people doesn't. Feeling good is a side-effect of being useful,
| not the goal.
|
| Presumably you imply that moral righteousness, too, is best
| attained intuitively, by being useful to others and helping
| them (to do whatever, like a useful idiot?) without conscious
| thought for what's right.
|
| Or else you're saying "help people for no reason even though it
| isn't right, and you'll end up feeling good that way so it's
| fine".
| bengale wrote:
| This feels like a bit of a staw man argument, I'm not sure
| there's any reason to read into it that you could help
| someone do morally bad things and feel good about it.
|
| To be clear though feeling good is not the justification per
| se, it's pretty much just the signal that you're aligned
| correctly. When you aim outward, morality becomes less about
| self image and more about stewardship which is why it tends
| to work.
|
| I'm also not claiming morality is relative or "attained"
| particularly beyond normal development as an adult. I would
| assert that we already know what's right, the problem isn't
| discovering the moral law, it's obsessing over our own
| righteousness instead of living it.
| joshkojoras wrote:
| ^^ This comment sums up the entire philosophy of happiness very
| well, although you first have to go through life to get the
| context to understand it.
|
| I'm over 40 and single and childless. I work in Tech, have a
| good salary, a house, a car, investments and a second property.
| I have everything people work for in life but I'd give it all
| up for a family. I wish I hadn't been so proud and arrogant and
| full of myself when I was younger and made different decisions.
| I'd much more prefer to not have the material wealth that I
| have today, but instead have a home to come to after work and
| kids to wake me up in the morning.
|
| I used to shrug it off in the sense that there is still time
| and as years went by I suddenly woke up one day to be 40y old
| and realised the time left me behind. I have more money than I
| need but have nothing that needs me. And it's nice to be
| needed.
|
| I did achieve a lot in terms of professional career but now I
| can't help but feel that I was scammed. Nobody cares about the
| things that I had built or features I helped develop and ship,
| I doubt anyone can even see them. All those decades of my life
| completely invisible to the world. All I'm left with now is
| money and countless mental health conditions I have to deal
| with as a consequence of my life choices.
|
| And I don't believe for one second that there are people who
| are 40-50 without any dependencies and feel happy in life.
| That's just bull shit. The reason why people say that is
| because they keep their minds preoccupied and when you don't
| have time to think you have no problems. The problem with that
| is that eventually kicking the can down the road doesn't work
| anymore and you reach a point when you have to stop and take a
| break. And that's when all your baggage comes rushing forward
| into your consciousness and you crash.
|
| I often remember Blaise Pascal's quote: "All of humanity's
| problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room
| alone."
| JuniperMesos wrote:
| Children are not typically known for sitting quietly in a
| room alone. Blaise Pascal himself was unmarried and
| childless, and died at the relatively young age of 39.
| ane wrote:
| It is a good reminder that most of us that work in software
| engineering will never build anything remarkable and will
| fade into history. Even if you do brilliant engineering work
| for a company, said work was commissioned by the company and
| the intellectual property rights belong to said company. It
| wasn't yours to begin with.
| abc123abc123 wrote:
| Plenty of time left. Create a tinder account, or adopt a
| child. Adpoting a child is the most self-less thing you could
| do. There are countries where single men are allowed to
| adopt. If you are rich, move there, become resident, adopt,
| and move back. Problem solved! As a bonus, being a single
| father then makes it more probable for you to meet a woman.
| throwaway1492 wrote:
| This, I got married at 40 to a 36 year old. We both wanted
| kids and a family but for reasons it hadn't worked out for
| either of us. This wasn't a Disney romance by any means but
| we get along and we put in the work to make it work. We had
| two kids back to back and I can say without a doubt what we
| have built is greater than any one of us.
|
| Trust there are some really great women in their thirties,
| they may not have been your first choice, you probably
| wouldn't have been theirs either, but from where I sit it
| was worth it.
| graemep wrote:
| I think the modern idea that it is only OK to marry and
| have kids because you are in love is part of the problem.
|
| Lots of cultures have arranged marriages that most people
| are happy with. There is nothing immoral about seeking
| someone you can live with in order to build a life
| together and to have an raise children with them.
|
| its probably a safer path to happiness than the romantic
| one. I did that and it very definitely did not work out
| and I am now divorced. I do have two kids though and have
| been a single dad for the last few years (the younger one
| is about to turn 18 so that phase of my life is coming to
| an end).
| littlexsparkee wrote:
| Just because you can't relate to a way of living doesn't mean
| it doesn't exist.
| throwaway920102 wrote:
| You could easily still have a marriage and children.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > That kind of outward focus kills emptiness fast.
|
| I used to race on a friend's sailboat. One of the things that
| people noticed on a sailboat is that you need to and have to be
| focused on immediate problems, rather than any problems on
| land. If you fail to pay attention to problems at sea, you may
| no longer _have_ any problems on land, or anywhere.
|
| This can allow you, at least temporarily, to forget any
| problems you might have on land.
| nunez wrote:
| So, as you saw, this provoked the age-old parenting vs CF
| "debate." (There isn't a right answer.)
|
| I'm child-free by choice, so I can only offer the CF
| perspective. If you're a parent who wants to better understand
| our viewpoint, or if you're not a parent but are on the fence
| about kids, I recommend reading "Childfree by Choice" by Dr.
| Amy Blackstone. It's an extremely comprehensive book that
| deeply explores why we choose this life and how we find
| fulfillment beyond the material benefits that come with this
| decision.
|
| (I want to be clear: There are loads of happy and very
| fulfilled parents out there, and it is possible to have a rich
| life with kids!)
| bengale wrote:
| I didn't even mention them being his kids, the point really
| is that focussing on giving to others is the path to
| happiness and fulfilment vs focus on self. It doesn't have to
| specifically be children at all.
|
| I guess I get why that irks a lot of the child-free people
| but it wasn't really the point I was making.
| gedy wrote:
| I "move rectangles on screen" to pay for Kids and House. That's
| what makes me happy, and jobs I enjoy don't. There's no wake up
| call necessary.
| freetime2 wrote:
| I honestly don't understand how anyone has the time and energy to
| be a coach while working a full-time job. My kids practice three
| times a week, and usually have games on both Saturday and Sunday
| - sometimes several hours away. Just getting them to practices
| and games often feels exhausting to me - I can't imagine all the
| planning and scheduling that goes on behind the scenes, or having
| to show up and actually run things all the time.
|
| Hats off to youth coaches - you make a huge difference in kids'
| lives.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Pretty certain the coaching _is_ their job for the soccer
| coaches at our elementary school. 6 years of kids each with 3
| practices a week + matches.
| bdangubic wrote:
| except it is not, no one's actual profession (and only job)
| is youth soccer coach (few exception are retired people etc).
| it would be impossible to make a living if this was your only
| job
| watermelon59 wrote:
| As a father of a still very young boy who might be getting into
| sports later in school (who knows), reading that terrifies me.
| I've heard the same, in person, from friends who have kids on
| their school's soccer team and whatnot.
|
| Why don't school provide transportation to games on the
| weekends? Seems like a massive waste of collective resources to
| have every family drive for hours to get to wherever games are
| played.
|
| Is it an American phenomenon due to the car-centric culture?
| jebarker wrote:
| Personally I want to have my cake and eat it here. Tech has
| amazing potential to make the world a better place to live in and
| genuinely bring people together. The crowning achievement of AI
| so far to me is not Claude Code, it's AlphaFold. I find the
| documentary DM released about developing it inspiring both as a
| technology story but also a team achieving things together that
| make the world better. I want to see more of that and hope I can
| steer my career in that direction.
| daxfohl wrote:
| Yeah, hopefully an outgrowth of this will be new amazing
| applications like that, that we never could've dreamed of
| before. I imagine "distributed services" will be "solved" by
| EOY, and the days of glorified CRUD app coders making 200K
| straight out of college are over for good.
|
| But I think there will be new opportunities for people who are
| willing and able to learn. Entirely new fields will pop up and
| _somebody_ will have to work on them. Most likely, the CS grads
| who are out of a job, or just frustrated and want to do
| something else.
|
| So I don't think the opportunity to do innovative things and
| make a difference in the world is gone. But the opportunity to
| do so by typing code into a text editor may have breathed its
| last.
| RataNova wrote:
| A lot of people aren't actually chasing leisure or money as much
| as they're chasing irreplaceability
| colinnordin wrote:
| > But improving each kid's skill and confidence was the real
| mission. Instead of my desk job, I'd be asking Clayton how we
| could make Corey1 use his body for rebounding. Or how Monte's
| soccer skills could be best leveraged. Or how Evan, our best
| player, could become an on-court leader.
|
| I wonder how software development would be like if we had coaches
| like this.
| matthewpick wrote:
| I miss mentoring junior engineers in-person
| RataNova wrote:
| I suspect a lot of people don't actually dislike software
| development, they dislike developing without anyone invested in
| their development
| data-ottawa wrote:
| I have had managers like this and it was fantastic. I've tried
| to be a mentor like this and enjoyed it too.
|
| It feels like since 2022 the industry has been too rushed to
| run this way though.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| My boss is a technologist. Adding computers to problems makes him
| happy. Getting people out of the way makes him happy.
|
| I'm an IC (no direct reports) and I'm a "humanist". Helping
| people become better and more skilled makes me happy, in the same
| way the coach here got joy from the goofball making a great play.
|
| On paper we should probably switch jobs. I have way more
| technical depth, but the crucial difference is that he is more
| goal-driven, better at managing upward, and more in tune with
| political trends.
| billylo wrote:
| I use my spare time helping kids at a FIRST robotics team. It's
| fun.
| pppoiuy wrote:
| gggoip
| santram wrote:
| gggoip
| carabiner wrote:
| Just a reminder of how millennial-centric HN is. Everyone here is
| in their 40s and moving to the suburbs to raise their kids, and
| this article provides validation.
| ryan_n wrote:
| It is kind of funny that people here tend to dump on Reddit a
| lot (often times warranted, don't get me wrong), when this
| place is an echo chamber in a similar way.
| 0898 wrote:
| Shaan Puri has also talked about how he's been coaching a youth
| basketball team on the My First Million podcast recently. He says
| it's one of the best things he's ever done.
| hinkley wrote:
| To ask the question Ted Lasso never answers:
|
| What _is_ a Hoosier?
| light_triad wrote:
| Every generation of builders believed their tools defined their
| value. Then the tools got easier, faster, automated, and the
| definition had to change.
|
| But programming didn't disappear. Writing didn't disappear.
| Designing didn't disappear.
|
| AI flips the equation: when creation becomes cheap, value shifts
| from how much you can produce to what changes because you showed
| up. The ability to have a positive impact has actually expanded.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't think this whole thing had anything to do with AI or
| not. It has to do with 'teaching kids in a gym' or 'sitting in
| front of a screen in an office'.
| jimbokun wrote:
| What does this word salad mean?
| ioudep wrote:
| "Every generation of builders believed their tools defined
| their value."
|
| People anchor identity to the hardest part of their work. *
| Assembly - craftsmanship * Hand coding - engineering skill *
| Complex stacks - seniority * Writing longform - intellectual
| authority
|
| The difficulty of the tool becomes proof of worth. "If few
| people can do this, then my contribution matters."
|
| So value feels intrinsic to the technical act itself.
|
| [?]
|
| "Then the tools got easier, faster, automated, and the
| definition had to change."
|
| Historically, this always happens.
|
| Compilers replaced assembly expertise. Frameworks replaced
| boilerplate knowledge. Cloud replaced infrastructure mastery.
| AI replaces a lot of implementation effort.
|
| Each time, people initially interpret it as:
|
| the skill is dying
|
| But what actually dies is the old measurement of importance.
|
| Value moves up a level: from execution - judgment - direction
| - taste - responsibility
|
| [?]
|
| "But programming didn't disappear. Writing didn't disappear.
| Designing didn't disappear."
|
| This rejects the common fear narrative.
|
| The activities persist, what changes is why they matter.
|
| You still code, but code is no longer scarce. You still
| write, but writing is no longer the bottleneck. You still
| design, but layout isn't the achievement.
|
| The work shifts from producing artifacts to choosing which
| artifacts deserve to exist.
|
| [?]
|
| "AI flips the equation: when creation becomes cheap, value
| shifts from how much you can produce to what changes because
| you showed up."
|
| This is the core claim.
|
| Old model:
|
| effort - output - value
|
| New model:
|
| judgment - outcome - value
|
| Previously you proved worth by volume, speed, or complexity.
|
| Now production is abundant, so the scarce thing is: causal
| impact
|
| Not:
|
| Did you make something?
|
| But:
|
| Did reality change because you were involved?
|
| You're moving from manufacturing to intervention.
|
| [?]
|
| "The ability to have a positive impact has actually
| expanded."
|
| So the post ends optimistic.
|
| AI doesn't reduce agency, it removes the cost barrier to
| acting.
|
| Before: You needed a team, funding, or org permission to
| affect the world.
|
| Now: A single person can teach, fix, organize, build tools,
| or help communities directly.
|
| Meaning shifts from scale (reach) to consequence (effect).
|
| [?]
|
| In one sentence
|
| The post argues that AI doesn't eliminate human contribution,
| it removes technical scarcity, forcing value to relocate from
| producing things to changing outcomes.
| pona-a wrote:
| Next time you can just tell us you didn't write it.
| ioudep wrote:
| The post predicted this response
| engineer_22 wrote:
| I had a similar coaching experience. I took 2 years off and I'm
| excited to jump back into it this spring. It's tremendous fun and
| the impact is easy to discern.
| tap-snap-or-nap wrote:
| We are just priced out of having this type of happiness due to
| high cost of living in a first world urban environment.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Every single environment that has a critical mass of people
| will have an elementary and middle school. How could you
| possibly be priced out of this?
| deaux wrote:
| This entire concept doesn't exist in much of the world. The
| incredible prevalence of intramural sports, and the
| seriousness of it, at all kinds of age groups is a very US
| phenomenon. Let alone random neighborhood people coaching
| teams.
|
| In most of the world it's more club-based rather than school-
| based, and that's quite different.
| jimbokun wrote:
| But surely they still need youth coaches?
| stopping wrote:
| I find it odd that so many comments here are fixating on the "AI
| can do my job 10x better" throwaway line.
|
| I've been grappling with a lack of meaning in my software
| engineering job for over a decade now, well before the advent of
| AI. Working in a modern software organization means that most of
| your day-to-day effort isn't spent using your technical skills,
| but on navigating misaligned organizational structures in order
| to achieve even the smallest goal. The feedback loop is so drawn
| out that there is no feel-good dopamine rush at the end of a
| project, only relief that it no longer has to occupy space in
| your brain.
|
| I'm driven by solving problems for others and seeing their lives
| improve as a result. But we're so disconnected from real users
| that it doesn't really make a difference if you reduce your
| product's crash rate from 2% to 1%; even with recognition ("You
| did good work", a pat on the back, a peer bonus, or maybe even a
| promotion), it just doesn't do it for me anymore, especially when
| any tangible positive outcome is completely hidden from me. I
| would rather have been ignorant to these problems and not
| suffered the stress in the first place.
|
| Even when I try to help my fellow developers in a way where it's
| much easier to feel the impact, it's hard to make a case for a
| better engineering culture if means that everyone has to put in
| an epsilon of extra effort in a day and age where every team
| ascribes to a scarcity mindset. I actually believe I can have
| more impact building a medium-sized product by myself with the
| help of AI rather than fighting for scraps in a software
| organization which pushes and pulls randomly in all directions.
|
| Over time, my tolerance for nonsense and systemic "injustice"
| (i.e. incentive misalignment) has effectively disappeared. Every
| time I rub against an unnecessary barrier that was put up by
| another person, intentionally or not, my motivation simply drops
| to zero. I constantly have to wear an emotional blanket to keep
| from feeling angry and frustrated, and it makes it hard to
| experience genuine emotional fulfillment in my life outside of
| work. I simply have no patience left to spend in my life outside
| of work, where it actually matters.
|
| I 100% identify with this blog post. I feel more happiness taking
| a friend's kids to the climbing gym and listening to them tell me
| about their experience doing a difficult climb. I feel more
| happiness from mentoring a robotics team of goofy but driven
| teenagers. I feel more happiness when my writer friend tells me
| that she still uses a wooden tablet stand that I built every day.
| I want my life to feel like it's making a difference for other
| people in a way that is unique to my talents and skills.
|
| Life is not an optimization puzzle where the goal is to maximize
| wealth, status, influence, or prestige. Yet it feels like that's
| really all that a corporate job can offer you these days.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| As someone who taught kids in person and fell into a deep
| depression with how Kafkaesque that job was and then found so
| much more gratification as a SWE, all I can say is, the author's
| experience is not universal. (And I am a parent, so it's not
| about disliking kids.) I will say though that remote work is
| definitely dystopia. I need an office and the presence of people
| physically.
| grimgrin wrote:
| I'm sure we've all met an unhappy teacher. As well, ain't no
| way you're pulling me back into an office ;)
| daxfohl wrote:
| Thanks for saying that! I was worried I was the only one. I
| mean, I'm glad I tried it, but I was happy to get back to a
| little more determinism in my day to day.
| electrosphere wrote:
| I work mostly remotely, recently our Fibre internet upgrade
| left us without internet for a week. It forced me to work from
| a nearby university library - which turned out to do wonders
| for my mental health.
|
| I found a little thriving town in the university with all the
| important things I needed and the most important thing of all:
| human social interaction and seeing people around me.
| gehsty wrote:
| Super interesting to hear your experience, I agree that it is
| very dystopian. I have put up with it (with effect on my
| performance and somewhat my mental health), to be around my
| family more. Things like doing pick up and drop offs at school
| consistently has been wonderful.
| kj4211cash wrote:
| So interesting. I also found work in tech, as a DS, more
| gratifying than teaching. But part of that was finding remote
| work freeing. Office work is Kafkaesque. I can easily work 40
| hours a week or produce more than the equivalent amount of
| progress on assigned tickets, but I just can't fake being a
| good officemate for 8 hours a day straight. Plus progress seems
| so slow in the office. So many distractions and interruptions.
| With no opportunity to decompress.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| > I will say though that remote work is definitely dystopia. I
| need an office and the presence of people physically.
|
| I recall being pretty miserable working in a maze of cubicles
| surrounded by coworkers. I don't think there are single
| solutions for any of these questions. What works well for one
| person will not work well for another.
| watermelon59 wrote:
| > As someone who taught kids in person and fell into a deep
| depression with how Kafkaesque that job was
|
| Would you mind elaborating on why that was the case? I'm super
| curious because I've considered switching careers to become a
| teacher.
| dejawu wrote:
| This is exactly why, as someone who thought I'd be an IC with my
| head buried in code my whole life, I accepted a role as a tech
| lead last year. Humans will always need other humans to be human
| for them. I love working with computers, but supporting,
| teaching, and mentoring junior engineers has been rewarding for
| me in ways that writing code never could be. There is no social
| substitute for concrete relationships with specific people that
| grow in visible ways. Maybe they can automate away the part of me
| that's good with logic and reason, but empathy can't be
| simulated.
| watermelon59 wrote:
| Were you able to get into that role without the expectation
| that you'd still be functioning as an IC i.e. holding two jobs
| at the same time?
|
| I had an awful experience as a lead because the massive mental
| context switches between leading and doing IC work were
| unsustainable.
| saltcod wrote:
| Great post. I coach my son's club and school teams. 4 practices +
| games each week. A huge commitment but pays off in so many ways.
| Good for you for volunteering!
| DGAP wrote:
| This is a nice sentiment and all but the issue is that I need to
| make money to pay for goods and services.
| sbussard wrote:
| > I accepted the propaganda that my value to this world only went
| as far as my product could scale. At 28, I'm finally beginning to
| challenge that.
|
| this struck me
| deaux wrote:
| > You know those bullshit leadership positions we all had in high
| school and college? Like how you were "VP of Operations" for some
| club, and all you did was order pizza?
|
| This does a great job at teaching those who didn't grow up in the
| US, how early the insanity starts. Genuinely an insane concept
| for everyone who grow up elsewhere, like right out of a comedy
| show that's supposed to be a caricature.
| sardukardboard wrote:
| It's not exactly nominative determinism, but maybe this could all
| be explained by every Ben Wallace being destined for basketball
| greatness (middle school or nba or otherwise)
| jasleenchhabra wrote:
| really good
| kurttheviking wrote:
| I started coaching my son's little league baseball team a few
| years ago, mostly because that was the only way I could keep him
| interested it and I just wanted him to keep playing a team sport.
| But, that first season showed me how incredibly rewarding the
| whole process can be. Every practice, every game, you see them
| improve. And the more you work at designing a good practice,
| helping each player develop skills, the better they get! And, the
| joy...the pure, unadulterated joy of a short stop making a a
| clean throw to first for an out, a hit into the grass with a
| quick slide into second for a double, a dash across home after a
| wild pitch rolls into the cage for a run on the steal! I don't
| get paid, of course, but it's the best job I've ever had.
| Kiro wrote:
| > If I could give any advice to someone who needs it, I'd tell
| them to write down the things that have made them happy, and then
| explore why.
|
| > But I really hope to live in a world where my future kids find
| sitting in front of a rectangle all day to be dystopian and
| cringe.
|
| What if sitting in front of a rectangle is the thing that makes
| you happy?
| gehsty wrote:
| Amazing story congrats on being a great coach - this kids will
| remember you and that experience.
|
| My experience on tech as a parent (3 kids under 10), I find their
| time on iPads etc playing games, music and audio books to be good
| for them (they don't get grumpy after it, and particularly
| playing Roblox with their friends online is great fun - real halo
| 3 vibes for me), watching shows they get quite difficult after if
| the have watched for extended periods (smaller the screen the
| worse it is), but if they get access to anything with a constant
| scroll / stream of things they go haywire. My son found YouTube
| on his nanas iPad and mainlined it for half an hour and then went
| crazy. My daughter lost it over browsing Amazon.
|
| We are withholding social networks & scrolling video as long as
| humanly possible, but difficult when you don't want them to miss
| out on anything, and there's an element of controlled exposure...
|
| Again great story, makes me want to sign up as a coach. Sorry for
| the tangent!
| gorgoiler wrote:
| If you love helping children and _also_ love moving small
| rectangles around a larger rectangle then Code Club from The
| Raspberry Pi Foundation is crushing it, and needs volunteers:
|
| https://codeclub.org/
| martopix wrote:
| I've quit my career in academia three years ago and teach high
| school kids instead. I can totally relate, I'm just so much
| happier: I love those four things he listed, except the fourth
| for me is physics instead of basketball.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| It's great to do what he's doing, but I just had a qualm with
| pinning this on AI- based on my experience repeatedly trying to
| make AI work every time a new model comes out, what I've realized
| is it requires a huge amount of pre-existing knowledge and
| context/harness engineering to get useful outputs consistently
| over a long time. Even then it's not like AI is replacing you
| more like it kinda helps a bit if you put a lot of effort into
| covering all its mistakes. I do agree there's a huge benefit in
| using AI as an alternative to search, research, prototyping
| though.
|
| Even after adding all that up maybe you save some time. 10%-20%?
| Maybe? You do save a lot of cognitive load as well and it feels
| good but a lot of the times you pay the price later when you
| don't understand the code/project as it gets more complex and you
| need to debug it when the AI can't anymore. The point is there's
| just not enough to replace and even if the research angle saves
| you some time or cognitive-bandwidth why not just use that time
| to do something else? Like more work or more life.
| Toorkit wrote:
| My happiness peaked sometime around 10-11 years old, it's been
| downhill ever since
| toddmorey wrote:
| " For years, you've sat in front of a rectangle, moving tinier
| rectangles, only to learn that AI can now move those rectangles
| 10x better. As someone outside the equity class, you begin to
| wonder what your role is in this new paradigm. And whether
| rectangles were ever your ticket to happiness in the first
| place."
|
| Best summation of my current feelings yet.
| quirk wrote:
| There is another, deeper level of happiness, not mentioned in any
| of these comments. Around 62% of the US population has found it.
| That number used to be higher. In the tech world it's much
| smaller percentage. The powerful love you feel as a father or
| mother can actually be compounded, even when didn't think that
| was possible. It comes from first principles and historical
| truths. There is a book about it - it's the best selling book of
| all time.
| srean wrote:
| > It comes from first principles and historical truths. There
| is a book about it - it's the best selling book of all time.
|
| If you are talking about Euclid's Elements, it has certainly
| been a joy to work through them again in my retirement.
|
| Another joy, spend money on someone in need, someone in need of
| help.
| jjbiotech wrote:
| And turns out the patterns and metaphor in this book can be co
| opted. Without belief in the supernatural, or submission to
| human authority structures. Though still receiving and giving
| the same benefits.
|
| Love isn't owned by a king, it's already built in, inherent to
| all of us.
| dismalaf wrote:
| In a similar but slightly different vein, I found that doing
| things with my own child (now 3.5 years old) is far more
| rewarding than I ever imagined. Nothing makes me happier than
| seeing the joy in his eyes when he discovers something new,
| accomplishes something or even just gets excited when I come home
| from work.
|
| I gave up on most passion work years ago, now just optimize for
| money/time and enjoy my life outside of that.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Odd. I never felt that moving rectangles around was my shot at
| happiness. My whole career I've spent doing things I genuinely
| believe are useful and help people. If moving rectangles is no
| longer useful then so be it, I'll do something else.
|
| I love software engineering but I've never really been great at
| it, if I'm honest. I'll be sad if it goes away, but there are
| much more important things: nature and access to the outside away
| from noise and cars, for example.
|
| What I find quite funny is I don't think we ever really got that
| great at software. There are bridges in my country that are 150
| years old and carry 200 trains a day. Most software projects
| don't even last 5 years and are riddled with bugs.
|
| It still remains to be seen whether LLMs can really do software,
| though. It will be interesting times ahead, for sure. Maybe we'll
| realise that recycling old content over and over again isn't good
| for us, before it's too late.
| whattheheckheck wrote:
| Read some Denial of Death and pick an immortality project that
| won't cause undue suffering
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