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> If you're an artist or a musician or a developer or, well anything really, what does it mean to be able to go online and are hundreds, thousands, millions of
by scoutt 4y ago
> If you're an artist or a musician or a developer or, well anything really, what does it mean to be able to go online and are hundreds, thousands, millions of people who are far better at a thing than you are?
"hundreds, thousands, millions of people who are far better at a thing than you are" existed much before internet.
But when the world gets too big I take a walk downtown, and ask myself how many of these people I am looking at are famous, content-producing top talent developers.
Probably I am the only embedded C developer walking on this street right now. Maybe the only one in town?
How many of these people care about Vim vs Emacs, Rust vs C, etc? How many care about that guy that cheated on the wife?
How many towns like this, with none or a few software developers, there are in the world?
The answers to all those questions confort me.
- cableshaft 4y ago> "hundreds, thousands, millions of people who are far better at a thing than you are" existed much before internet. Yes... but the population has exploded so exponentially that 8% of all people who have ever lived in history are alive today[1], so people back then also had less people to compete with to stand out during their time. They also had less and less previous generations of people's achievements accumulated to study and be aware of to build off of as well. Also they had much more low-hanging fruit they could tackle. It's much harder to find something novel or likely to lead to a scientific breakthrough to pursue, creative or scientific, nowadays. And also didn't have an internet full of constant distractions, so they were likely more productive in their respective field(s). https://www.techopian.com/eight-per-cent-of-people-who-have-ever-lived-are-alive-today/ https://www.techopian.com/eight-per-cent-of-people-who-have-...
- scoutt 4y agoI'm not so sure. Isn't this like justifying why we "fail"? "Back then there was less people to compete with. Accumulated knowledge was less than today. There were more easier topics to explore. On top of that, I am constantly distracted. It's OK if I don't breakthrough in anything today". 10000 years in the future there may be someone saying the exact same thing as they travel through a lab-generated wormhole to their home in another galaxy.