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the #1 advice I would give to a young engineer entering their career is to do everything they can to avoid becoming cynical. technology has cycles, but it also
by gfodor 5y ago
the #1 advice I would give to a young engineer entering their career is to do everything they can to avoid becoming cynical. technology has cycles, but it also moves forward. it's a helix. most people who churn through a few cycles end up becoming cynical, failing to see the orthogonal dimension of progress.
how to avoid cynicism? the primary way is to remove cynics from your life, and add optimists. second to that, keep working on new enough areas that you maintain a beginners mindset and can offset some of the pattern matching that leads one to thinking everything worthwhile has been done before.
- nthngtshr 5y agostep 3 — quit reading twitter
- gfodor 5y agotwitter can be good or bad depending on who you follow + engage with
- Talanes 5y agoI just wish the controls were more granular. There's people I follow for their actual posting who also just drag in a bunch of drama that they hit like on.
- nthngtshr 5y agoI like the people I follow but they get like 5 likes on interesting things they have to say, and 500 likes on depressing takes like "computers were a mistake", or "everything is bad because capitalism" or fake uplifting content like "my title is senior engineer and I googled a thing today, normalize failure". I think twitter algorithm promotes that kind of content and I guess they have to adopt if they want their follower count to go up.
- hathawsh 5y agoIn fact, I would call it a hyper-dimensional helix. :-) With each new iteration (or rewrite), we're often expanding in a conceptual dimension we couldn't realistically reach or even imagine before.
- LAC-Tech 5y agoOne thing I've noticed is that if I talk about the stuff in tech I'm passionate about - people tend not to give a shit. If I talk about the things I dislike, I am flooded with imaginary internet points.
- Talanes 5y agoPeople who disagree automatically feel like they have new information to bring, while it's often hard to express agreement while still feeling like you're adding to the conversation.
- jacobn 5y agoThe cynics are reading & commenting, the optimists are busy building? ;)
- someguydave 5y agoyes precisely this
- bee_rider 5y agoYes, that's the worst thing about social media. Now, here are some other things I hate about it...
- ok123456 5y agoThen the solution is to be passionate about the things in tech you dislike.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoSince this sounds like a complaint, I will upvote it :)
- c048 5y agoJust make sure you fill your life with healthy optimists, and not dreamers.
- lodovic 5y ago"Removing cynics from your life" sounds a lot like living in a bubble. Like exclusively watching Disney movies and thinking that is the general mindset. Instead try to accept reality for what it is.