[rhacker]

It points to developer apathy. I sometimes wonder if that's just the global feeling at the moment. Everyone that's working on widget X suddenly doesn't care because of all the crises going on. Rampant inflation, extreme inequality. By continuing to work on widget x they are just supporting more of the same. Think people want society to change a bit before moving forward with being happy.

[killjoywashere]

Adjacent thread in a different market, currently at the top of r/medicine: "Is it just me... Or do things feel off?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/w9ufnt/is_it_just...

[LordDragonfang]

Man, that thread is sobering. I knew things were bad, but to see a whole thread of people agreeing that things are worse than ever does not make me hopeful.

[decebalus1]

The thread scares me, as it confirms some of my own feelings for the past year or so. To see it written down by strangers is just.. eerie

[pojzon]

I like to think IT is mostly inhabited by really smart ppl.

One thing really smart ppl have in common is that they see the world as it is. They are aware of thr glaring issues incompetence has brought upon this world.

And that causes depression. Looking at the future there is literally nothing to be happy about.

Ppl are slowly preparing for civil wars, power outages, food shortage and worse.

And those are ppl you would often consider pretty layed back about life in general.

[hinkley]

> One thing really smart ppl have in common is that they see the world as it is.

I wish that were true. Some use they power against themselves, making better delusions instead.

[SantalBlush]

>One thing really smart ppl have in common is that they see the world as it is.

This is completely false. Isaac Newton spent more time studying alchemy and biblical prophecy than he did on mathematics and physics.

[trinsic2]

Are you saying alchemy and spirituality is not as important as science? If that's the case, good luck with that view. Understanding and contemplating on both creates a Wisdom. Intelligence can only take you so far, the world is way bigger than science could ever be capable of containing.

[SantalBlush]

It was quite clear what I was saying; the study of science is better at improving our ability to see the world "as it is" than things like alchemy or prophecy, and yet Newton pursued the latter two things much more, despite being a brilliant person. In other words, there is considerable evidence that he did not see the world "as it is".

>Understanding and contemplating on both creates a Wisdom. Intelligence can only take you so far, the world is way bigger than science could ever be capable of containing.

If you believe that, say, trying to create gold by mixing crushed rubies with distilled water while Saturn is in the seventh house of the moon demonstrates that someone sees the world "as it is", then the onus is entirely on you to show that. In the meantime, I have no problem declaring you wrong. Moreover, the above comment is full of platitudes that aren't really relevant to the discussion of whether or not very smart people see the world "as it is". I'd rather not digress any further, so I won't reply again.

[Aeolun]

One could argue that at the time those weren’t as far removed as they are now.

Newton mostly figured out how things work, not necessarily why.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

This is just intrinsic to how businesses are run.

Businesses are run by decision makers. Decision makers delegate tasks to do-ers. If do-ers mess up, it is solely their fault for underdelivering (in the eyes of the delegator/decision-maker).

The idea that do-ers can make decisions or inversely - that decision makers can do (anything beside delegate) is alien in business.

[goodpoint]

> The idea that do-ers can make decisions or inversely - that decision makers can do (anything beside delegate) is alien in business.

No. Knowledge workers are never mere executors, by definition.

Additionally, not all business exists to benefit only the "decision makers". There are such things as coops, social utility companies and no profits.

[hinkley]

We generally are talking capitalists when discussing such things, and those other people you list are “socialists”.

[infamouscow]

And if decision makers mess up, it is solely the decision makers fault for making a bad decision. Of course, holding decision makers accountable for their error never happens in real life, so the do-ers go elsewhere.

I don't understand why this is so hard for people to grasp.

[malermeister]

This sounds a lot like the Marxist theory of alienation [0] in practice.

Because do-ers can't decide what they do, they get alienated from their work product and get apathetic.

The fact that it is happening during a capitalist crisis only adds strength to the theory.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation

[goodpoint]

> Rampant inflation, extreme inequality

[I'll add climate change to that.]

It's well known that burnout is often caused by work goals being misaligned with personal goal.

Obviously millions of people don't feel like the purpose of their life is to make some billionaire more wealthy.

People feel burned out by working on SEO instead of things important for the future of humanity.

[trinsic2]

Good insight. Thanks for the different take on this situation. After thinking about this, I tend to agree. This could be happening in the background, unconsciously, without anyone noticing. Maybe this will be the on of the catalyst's for change.

[zackmorris]

Thank you for succinctly articulating what I was trying to say long-form.

I wallow in the negative as a result of decades of troubleshooting and negative reinforcement loops making me risk-averse. I'm over 50% confident that I will find a fatal flaw within seconds of using any tech for the first time. This is the lens through which I see the entire tech community and all of its failings. Loosely, the tech community appears to be racing towards empire, while I've always felt a kinship with rebels.

So, here are 10 off-the-cuff alternative future achievements that I thought were going to happen after the internet arrived in the mid-90s. I believe that our suffering today is due to living in this bizarro future that we got caught up in instead:

1. Developers get connected with real capital on the order of a year's income to get "real work done" outside of the mainstream venture capital and corporate structure.

2. Developers are able to spend their time automating processes instead of having to do the same thing by hand over and over again.

3. Developers live on a modest income under $100,000 in 2022 dollars, requiring less than a 10 hour weekly commitment to meet basic expenses, with the rest of their time going towards getting real work done.

4. Developers have the time to automate such things as solar power, hydroponic robotic gardens, electric transportation, hempcrete buildings, etc so they can put in short one-time risks for a lifetime of reward.

5. Developers are taught how to set boundaries and communicate from the beginning, to prevent getting stretched too thin and burning out after putting in tremendous effort for months/years of their lives thanklessly.

6. Developers have the time to have hobbies outside of video games, to write a blog or travel or exercise or take care of their health or do any number of positive things instead of dying prematurely of preventably illnesses.

7. Developers live in a society where people are informed and educated so that they don't have to spend nearly the entirety of their time performing basic troubleshooting for people who are technologically illiterate.

8. Developers are free of the infinite liability of obligation after helping someone troubleshoot something or working somewhere that was their meal ticket at some point in the past.

9. Developers have a life outside of work, free from artifical deadlines and the expectation that they will perform tasks in a timely manner that were assigned by people who can't do them.

10. Developers have the personal freedom to write languages and frameworks they feel born to make, instead of facing a lifetime of putting up with the lacklusters tools which hold them back.

I could go on literally forever so I'll stop there. The thought of signing on for yet another 40 hour job that steals the entirety of my time and motivation makes me feel sick. I hesitate to say these things, because it's like speaking with a therapist. Some things are so negative that they're unthinkinkable, unsayable, as the very act of uttering them can shatter illusions and dissuade a young person from working towards their goals.

My goal here is not to be negative, but to find a way to get back to the positive vibes of the late 90s, before the Dot Bomb and 9/11, when the future was so bright that we had to wear shades. This 20 years of dogmatic idiology and wealth inequality and all of the other unenlightened greed and ego-driven kool-aid drinking is unsustainable and has got to end. We can choose a future of windowless warehouses filled with human drones, or one with self-actualization where machines do the work and we all reap the benefits with dignity as human beings.

If none of this applies to you, good for you! Go pay it forward and liberate one of the countless millions of people trapped in the rat race who are so tired of it all that it takes everything they have just to make it through each day.

[zackmorris]

After meditating on my rant here yesterday, I had a couple more insights:

* Human beings evolved as hunter-gatherers working 2 hours per day to meet their basic needs, or about 1-2 days per week. We're designed to work hard in short bursts and save for lean times, not every single day in overcrowded communities just to scrape by. Until modern tech (and civilization itself) can provide that level of affluence for everyone on the planet through automation, it's self-evidently a bill of goods.

* To accomplish this, "People" should be substituted for "Developers" in the list above, and resources to achieve self-actualization should replace the tech-related subject matter.