Ask HN: What has been bothering you lately?

[julienreszka]

Vent out. Maybe one of us will find a fix.

I'm mad that economic policies in France aren't based on what models say is best next action but on elections. Democracy really sucks.

I'm also very annoyed that models are censoring stuff without even clarifying what's wrong with the prompt.

I don't like that content distribution is still mostly owned by a few platforms. Something is deeply odd with that.

[adlpz]

Wealth concentration beyond a point which would have resulted in widespread revolution 150 years ago, but that is now being tolerated because we've grown accustomed to a level of comfort we don't want to risk losing.

[everfrustrated]

Someone else being rich doesn't make you poor.

[jerome-jh]

It would be bearable if they would just be rich and shut the **** up.

[RickJWagner]

I’m sort of with you.

I don’t mind people succeeding at gathering wealth. Mostly the very rich stay quiet.

What annoys me is loud mouthed celebrities. For some reason, people famous for being born pretty think their opinions are all brilliant.

[fsuts]

Well if everyone was rich then prices would go up due to affordability and demand so the less rich would be poorer

[thibaut_barrere]

At the anecdata level, you are right. At the global level, let’s say it is a bit different.

[werckerwouter]

Garys Economics would like to have a word with you

[vintermann]

Someone else being powerful, though...

What it boils down to is that a lot of the immense freedom Elon Musk has to influence our common future, due to his wealth, comes at the expense of our ability to influence our future.

Yeah, not all games are zero sum. But "power over others" is, and it's a pretty important one, and other people are playing it whether you want to or not.

[Schiendelman]

If we've got a higher level of comfort, why does it matter?

[vintermann]

If we're wireheading anyone, why not start with Musk, Thiel, etc.?

[happytoexplain]

Comfort isn't a single number, nor is it the only variable.

[fsuts]

Because some of us think of everyone else?

Not everyone is fortunate to be born smart and able to make money. And these at the bottom struggle enormously

[Schiendelman]

Tell me more. What exactly would you like to redistribute that wealth to? What specific measurement is your concern?

Also, please don't use the voting buttons for things you disagree with. I'm trying to have a productive conversation here.

[fsuts]

Equality in quality of Education

As better education/tution leads to over achievement relative to natural ability. So you end up with people in positions of power that are beyond them, and low educated voter too

[Schiendelman]

Ahh. Are you aware of the argument that education shouldn't be funded with property taxes, to even it out?

[chistev]

I don't like how HN users downvote honest questions instead of engaging with it.

Left you an upvote because I'm interested in responses to this.

[Schiendelman]

I appreciate you! My goal here is to guide people who care about things to take a little step toward working on them. :)

[chistev]

And I got down voted. Lol.

[happytoexplain]

Yes, it's presumably a problem, but you also can't know why somebody is downvoting. They might believe a comment is dishonest or distracting or otherwise low-quality or non-curious, or breaks one of the subjective site rules.

I try not to make assumptions when I get downvoted. I think: Maybe I was a little sarcastic or aggressive or I implied something weaselly; or maybe the downvoter just disagreed with me. I don't assume either way, and I don't guess about moral high ground or whatever. All my comment's points tell me is what delta of people clicked the down arrow, not what was in their heads individually.

[Schiendelman]

Oh yeah, I just try to reinforce the HN guidelines when I can!

[chistev]

My parents are getting old (I see it when I look at them), and I feel like I'm running out of time to be financially successful so they can enjoy my success while we are all still alive. Yes, I know we can enjoy each other's company without much money, but it sucks seeing those you love struggling with something and being unable to help them financially.

Whats bothering me lately? Anxiety about my future. Not being where I want to be. Fearful that I might not get to where I want to be. But I take daily steps to ensure I come out alright since hope is not a strategy.

All I can do is be consistent and hopeful.

[jerome-jh]

I will be on the job market soon

I will change decade this year

I still have not found my passion nor encountered the big project if my life. I am interested by too many things and have too little agency or perseverance.

[alimhaq]

It's shocking to me no one is talking about how Claude Fable is essentially a confirmation of the death of intellectual capital, and that it's happening now. Not 10 years from now, not 5 years from now, but literally right now. We used to romanticize stories of people born into lower socioeconomic conditions (say in the third world) and rising out of it through their intellect. That story, that ladder of social mobility, is completely dead now.

[fsuts]

If it was that good SpaceX ipo would have died as Fable would design a one shot super duper rocket…

A lot is hype

[mezod]

- General lack of integrity at higher spheres (and where this can lead the world to)

- The current situation where distribution matters way more than product quality

- Lack of clear personal goals

[Schiendelman]

Do you have any dreams? Things you always wanted to accomplish as a child, perhaps?

[vintagedave]

The role AIs may play in censorship in future - simply by 'not knowing' or refusing to speak of something - bothers me a lot. That aligns with your worry.

I used to think their main risk was spam or propaganda. Now I think it's curation of knowledge, history, and thought.

[cyclonereef]

Got a referral to work as a Solution Architect at a company from the Senior Sales Person who I will literally be paired up with to talk to customers. Outgoing architect also said I would be perfect for the role. Got on a call with their internal recruiter who cut me off partway through most of my answers about my background and then received and automailer rejection.

That someone who would be bearing the impact of a bad hire recommended me and some recruiter who openly admitted she didn't know much about that side of the business made the call to drop me left a pretty bad taste in my mouth about the company

[khoury]

The combination of outsourcing to India and AI and how it's destroying western job markets to squeeze out more profits to a few on top.

[chistev]

Those people in India want to eat too.

[aureate]

Assuming your two uses of "model" have the same meaning, I'm mad that people are seriously suggesting we scrap representative democracy in favour of government by LLM output.

[maplethorpe]

The fact that anything I post online will now get slurped up by a machine and regurgitated for people who have no idea it was my work that made their prompt come to life.

[DrAwdeOccarim]

The state of "Scientific AI". I know LLMs are accelerating at doing computer work, and I've experienced the acceleration of using LLMs to do science, but it's more along the lines of debugging and stitching together pipelines of classical in silico tools. I see a ton of value here along that entire pathway for LLMs, it's basically digital process development: take each step, make it better, repeat, repeat, repeat. But the ceiling are the unit operations themselves, which sure LLMs can improve the code of those tools next. But if science was held back by simply people not doing the same things faster, maybe this will really push us forward, but I have a nagging feeling of "is this it?".

I think what I'm really looking for is a model like GPT Rosalind, which has been steeped in "science" post-training, but with more randomness. Like, I think I'm looking for a GPT Mullis--Rosalind Franklin was careful, deliberate, and serious; Kary Mullis ate a bunch of acid, drove on the PCH, and invented PCR. Like, we need to invent psychedelics for LLMs. Some way to let them relax their weights, explore new pathways, and come up with some absurd ideas by connecting random ass dots from the natural world. I want the model to say, "hmm, that's weird". This isn't just changing the temperature, we're missing something deeper.

I think frontier science has always come from serendipity: a bright thinker, listening to a presentation after having stared at some small experiment, but having trained for years on "biochemistry" so the foundation and loose guardrails are there.

I don't know, I'm feeling adrift. Does this resonate with anyone else?

[reactordev]

Aside from politics, the current state of corporate paralysis is killing me.

I make my living by building solutions. Companies usually are chock full of problems that need solutions. Companies are still full of problems that need solutions but they are completely paralyzed because they think if they wait a quarter or two, a model will come along and solve all their problems.

[admiralrohan]

The feeling that it is theoretically impossible to give everyone equal opportunity. The more I study about this topic, the more convinced I am getting about it.

[Zealotux]

Hello fellow French, I understood a decade ago our country had turned into a gerontocracy, it's just how it is and it's mechanical, nothing you can do. I left the country and never looked back, I go there on vacations to see friends and family, but there are just better options to work and make a life, I suggest you relax and do the same.

[julienreszka]

I can relate to the sentiment I moved abroad last week too but I know the country is totally fixable and it has to be done now or pay more later one way or the other.

https://julienreszka.com/blog/france-needs-45-years-to-grow-...

[mysterydip]

(Beyond the socioeconomic topics already covered):

Why aren’t eink displays more useful? They seem like they should be. More than e-readers or a calendar.

[jareklupinski]

i live in the US and cant get something sent here to save my life

i used to get weekly packages from indie european stores and samples from asia

since tarrifs, that has dropped to zero, with 90% of my shipments being returned for cryptic reasons (like 'incomplete address' when the full address is correct and visible) or outright 'No' from sellers

its starting to feel less like random failure and more like "system working as designed" :(

[fsuts]

Profit margin of authentication providers.

They must be ridiculously high

[golph]

I never really thought about this, as I work in sectors where authentication is usually selfhosted. Why is authentication out sourced so much? Is it the worry of data leaks and the administration effort that comes with it?

[fsuts]

Because no exec gets fired if a 3rd party was the problem.

Systems down costing millions in sale? = fired

Systems down due to Azure issue = oh well

[yewenjie]

Finding a job in tech that would genuinely excite me.

[pbkompasz]

AI

[iberator]

Unemployment and forced downshifting. From 200k programmer to McDonald's worker and call centre worker in just 4 years...

Its brutal. Once you are out at 35+ for an even year or two - it's impossible to go back.

AI takes jobs faster than creating new ones.

ps. Just got laid off from the Temu call(chat) centre. AI IS taking our jobs.

completely devastated

[RugnirViking]

I really feel for you man. Keep trying, I know my 12k+ employee org has lifted its hiring freeze and committed to raise engineer headcount by 10% by December. I think the dark days are starting to be over.

[Schiendelman]

And you write code? How's your product sense? Got a resume?

[iberator]

I designed and wrote some custom cpu(stack based RISC cpu with fixed operation/operand size) architecture simulator, with assembler and almost with forth compiler on my phone when I was homeless...

Nowadays out of tech - too tired after 11h shift to do stuff. No weekends.

Got kicked out from McDonald's for being too slow (competing with 20yr olds is HARD), gonna be kicked out from temu in 2 weeks due the AI (80% staff reduction!) despite the best CSAT...

I'm worried about having any job stability. Programmer's ship sailed away I guess. (I lost to the 40B$ AI supercomputer so it's fair :)

/venting off

[eithed]

I'm tired of people not taking responsibility for things they do and not being held accountable - politicians mostly; for example - currently in Poland there's a controversy around Zondacrypto (read here: https://www.politico.eu/article/a-missing-investor-millions-...); I'm so disillusioned that I believe nothing will come out of it - it will again be a case of "nobody did it, it just a thing that happened". Or our politicians escaping to Hungary (and USA) to avoid prosecution (and still being paid out money even though they're not in Poland and cannot possibly attend parlamentary sessions) where they'll live to spew hatred and how they were wronged. Sure, you did nothing wrong and these are just repressions, nevermind the millions that you stole during political campaign.

And generally people thinking about themselves and not considering that we're living in society: "let me blast music so that walls shake and fuck neighbours", "let me just leave my mattress here on the curb blocking the path, somebody will pick it up", "let me not clean after my dog shitting on the sidewalk", "I'm seeing people queuing to get on a train, let me just not notice the queue", "let me just walk down the street with my eyes on the phone, surely other people will accomodate me and get out of my way". This is the variation of the above, but to the civic level; just don't make lives of others harder.

[wseqyrku]

Martin Fowler

[pradeep1177]

Overuse of the AI agents as a concept and the mental burnout it creates.

[iamacyborg]

Performative work. People doing things because other people do or because “that’s the way it’s done”, even when that approach is clearly fucking wrong.

[josh_p]

- My country's descent into fascism.

- The rights of my children being legislated away.

- The people that could do something about it have chosen not to.

- Any time I talk about the above, I feel like I'm shouting into the void and no one cares, either in-person or on the internet.

- I still have to go to work tomorrow.

[RickJWagner]

Are you living in the USA?

Have a look at the many foreign streamers raving about their visits for the World Cup. It’s refreshing and incredibly uplifting to hear other perspectives.

[redwood]

Interesting to see the posts almost exclusively macro here. What about the micro. While I benefit from an urban environment in which raising a family is easier I don't even have to get into a car there's still so many daily challenges and unglamorous moments I have so much sympathy for everyone else who's raising kids... it still feels invisible to many.

[one33seven]

The infinite growth of capitalism is bringing us to the edge of climate collapse, a real existential danger and nobody seems to care

[rho138]

Money talks on this one. The consumer has to make the choice to go without or push for regulation of exploitative corporate practices.

[lain98]

I have been working for 10 years and unable to afford a home to start a family.

I have about 350k USD and live in New Delhi.

[cyanydeez]

fascism

[Schiendelman]

If you could improve one small, concrete thing about your government issues, what would it be?

[Arodex]

Positions don't have to be filled. Blank votes should be counted and, if the majority , throw the election; or, even better, the majority of people on voter's rolls, should be the condition to be elected.

[Schiendelman]

Excellent. Do you know of someone who agrees with you, in your same municipality?

[rho138]

Reparations. The only reason we’re in this mess is because the white portion of the southeastern US was left to fester and breed hate for the past century and a half.

[Schiendelman]

Ah, yeah. I assume you've read Foner's "Reconstruction"?

When was the last time you worked with an organization working on that issue?