4 ms·

We eat garbage, carry a phone all day, stare at millions of micro led lights all day

coldtea 3y ago
Not to mention untold amounts of non-natural (evolutionary adapted) forced lifestyle choices, like sedentary jobs, staying indoors, tons of sugar and ultra processed foods, constant noise (and "music"), air pollution, constant bullshit information fed to us (from celebrity gossip to the "news"). And especially tons of modern-life induced stress - which is death by some huge-ass cuts and thousands of small cuts (a different experience to fewer big stressors in the past, like a bad farming season, otherwise combined with a quite lax lifestyle).
- MichaelRo 3y ago
  >> And especially tons of modern-life induced stress Actually there was an article on HN a few days ago which differentiated work-related distress between stress (induced by too much work) and anxiety (induced by too little work). It's become a nuisance in the background now after many years but each new task usually brings both these 'joys': 1) When I first get "Do/change/add X into the giant ball of mud of application that noone completely understands", I first get anxiety. Literally I have no idea not just how am I going to implement that but if it's at all possible. The definition of "anxiety caused by too little work" still goes, because I'm not "working" (not anything palpable like lines of code that can be measured and PRs be made). I'm just 'thinking', but that isn't much considered in business. Can't charge the customers for 'thinking', you need to produce. 2) Once I get familiar with the complexity involved and have some idea on how things can be solved, it's already too late in the sprint phase, it should have been done already. Now follows stress of delivering on time the 'commitment'. Not to mention that I usually implement half the task before stumbling into new evidence that changes the equation enough to require a different approach or further 'thinking' all while time is running out and commitments are not met. Task solved, another one pops up, rinse and repeat #1-#2.
  - kozd 3y ago
    Any recommendations for how to deal with this cycle? I find I fall into the same pattern you describe.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      See my comment to the parent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39701128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39701128
    - MichaelRo 3y ago
      Alcohol! :) Just kidding. (Well, half-joking only). I really don't know...
    - vouaobrasil 3y ago
      You are a smart person I think if you are worrying about this. I suggest finding a different job completely that does not involve technology. From observing many colleagues including ones that have had breakdowns, I think there is no healthy workspace in tech, only people that seem healthy because there are a few exceptional resistant ones.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Very relatable. What helps is just starting out a prototype immediately in stage (1), not caring about thinking it through deeply first. Then that "new evidence that changes the equation enough to require a different approach" arrives faster and is easier to incorporate. Plus, you get to be seen as "working" all the time (from the point of view of others, which would otherwise consider your pure thinking stage as 'slacking')! Essentially you'd be doing the "thinking" by actively coding (at least a minimum solution), instead of thinking about the problem abstractly first. Though I often do it just like you described it, with all the issues you mentioned.
    - tetris11 3y ago
      Yep, a solution that you rewrote a thousand times as you understood more, is still better than one perfect solution that occupied your head for several days along with the stress of having not implemented anything yet
secretsatan 3y ago
Why do we never mention all that traffic running outside everyones doors all the time?
- 0xEF 3y ago
  Or stress. Our lives are much, much busier and inundated with tasks than those of our predecessors simply because technology allows us to do more work in shorter time (which was supposed to result in us doing less work overall, but that sorta backfired hard because yay capitalism and all that) Our physical health and mental health are both intrinsically linked, and both under attack because it's all very profitable, really.
gruez 3y ago
>carry a phone all day, stare at millions of micro led lights all day The link between those and cancer is tenuous at best.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  Are you sure? The manufacture of phones and computers and all the technology required for them demands our destructive and polluting infrastructure. To make these devices, mining and pollution is necessary (even if it is exported), so in my mind, eletronic devices is still an indirect cause. Just like a person is still responsible for pulling the trigger even if the bullet kills.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    You don't have to snuff mine tailing dust to use a phone.
    - vouaobrasil 3y ago
      We are all breathing a bit of dust, and we all contributed to that mining a little bit by buying phones...
  - gruez 3y ago
    So you're arguing that because phones contain cobalt, and that cobalt mining in africa causes cancer in the local population, that phones are the reason "Why are so many young people getting cancer"? That might be technically true in the sense that some of those miners are young and are getting cancer, but it's a tenuous argument to say the least.
    - vouaobrasil 3y ago
      That is not my argument at all: my argument is that phones represent a larger phenomenon of choosing to produce and use unsustainable products that incudes cobalt and many other types of mining, we choose time and again to pollute the earth with our actions that put a sufficient amount of pollution in the air and water to increase the rate of cancers. Phones are the prime example but they are just one of many similar actions by our society to choose short-term gains in exchange for poisoning ourselves.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jiggawatts 3y ago
Three for three that aren't even in the top ten actual causes of cancer. In Australia, two out of three people will get skin cancer at some point in their lives. That's caused by the Sun, an unshielded nuclear reactor bathing us in dangerous radiation strong enough to hurt. Your food is probably doing less harm than the plasticisers in the container you put it in, especially if you microwave it. Your phone and LED lights contribute almost precisely zero to cancer incidence. Your guilt over your Tik Tok habit doesn't mean that you're also getting cancer from it. You're wasting your life, sure, but not dying as a consequence. As others have pointed out, air pollution from cars is doing real damage to us all, far more than the occasional Happy Meal.

Not to mention untold amounts of non-natural (evolutionary adapted) forced lifestyle choices, like sedentary jobs, staying indoors, tons of sugar and ultra processed foods, constant noise (and "music"), air pollution, constant bullshit information fed to us (from celebrity gossip to the "news"). And especially tons of modern-life induced stress - which is death by some huge-ass cuts and thousands of small cuts (a different experience to fewer big stressors in the past, like a bad farming season, otherwise combined with a quite lax lifestyle).

MichaelRo 3y ago
>> And especially tons of modern-life induced stress Actually there was an article on HN a few days ago which differentiated work-related distress between stress (induced by too much work) and anxiety (induced by too little work). It's become a nuisance in the background now after many years but each new task usually brings both these 'joys': 1) When I first get "Do/change/add X into the giant ball of mud of application that noone completely understands", I first get anxiety. Literally I have no idea not just how am I going to implement that but if it's at all possible. The definition of "anxiety caused by too little work" still goes, because I'm not "working" (not anything palpable like lines of code that can be measured and PRs be made). I'm just 'thinking', but that isn't much considered in business. Can't charge the customers for 'thinking', you need to produce. 2) Once I get familiar with the complexity involved and have some idea on how things can be solved, it's already too late in the sprint phase, it should have been done already. Now follows stress of delivering on time the 'commitment'. Not to mention that I usually implement half the task before stumbling into new evidence that changes the equation enough to require a different approach or further 'thinking' all while time is running out and commitments are not met. Task solved, another one pops up, rinse and repeat #1-#2.
- kozd 3y ago
  Any recommendations for how to deal with this cycle? I find I fall into the same pattern you describe.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    See my comment to the parent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39701128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39701128
  - MichaelRo 3y ago
    Alcohol! :) Just kidding. (Well, half-joking only). I really don't know...
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    You are a smart person I think if you are worrying about this. I suggest finding a different job completely that does not involve technology. From observing many colleagues including ones that have had breakdowns, I think there is no healthy workspace in tech, only people that seem healthy because there are a few exceptional resistant ones.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Very relatable. What helps is just starting out a prototype immediately in stage (1), not caring about thinking it through deeply first. Then that "new evidence that changes the equation enough to require a different approach" arrives faster and is easier to incorporate. Plus, you get to be seen as "working" all the time (from the point of view of others, which would otherwise consider your pure thinking stage as 'slacking')! Essentially you'd be doing the "thinking" by actively coding (at least a minimum solution), instead of thinking about the problem abstractly first. Though I often do it just like you described it, with all the issues you mentioned.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    Yep, a solution that you rewrote a thousand times as you understood more, is still better than one perfect solution that occupied your head for several days along with the stress of having not implemented anything yet

secretsatan 3y ago

Why do we never mention all that traffic running outside everyones doors all the time?

0xEF 3y ago
Or stress. Our lives are much, much busier and inundated with tasks than those of our predecessors simply because technology allows us to do more work in shorter time (which was supposed to result in us doing less work overall, but that sorta backfired hard because yay capitalism and all that) Our physical health and mental health are both intrinsically linked, and both under attack because it's all very profitable, really.

gruez 3y ago

>carry a phone all day, stare at millions of micro led lights all day The link between those and cancer is tenuous at best.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
Are you sure? The manufacture of phones and computers and all the technology required for them demands our destructive and polluting infrastructure. To make these devices, mining and pollution is necessary (even if it is exported), so in my mind, eletronic devices is still an indirect cause. Just like a person is still responsible for pulling the trigger even if the bullet kills.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  You don't have to snuff mine tailing dust to use a phone.
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    We are all breathing a bit of dust, and we all contributed to that mining a little bit by buying phones...
- gruez 3y ago
  So you're arguing that because phones contain cobalt, and that cobalt mining in africa causes cancer in the local population, that phones are the reason "Why are so many young people getting cancer"? That might be technically true in the sense that some of those miners are young and are getting cancer, but it's a tenuous argument to say the least.
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    That is not my argument at all: my argument is that phones represent a larger phenomenon of choosing to produce and use unsustainable products that incudes cobalt and many other types of mining, we choose time and again to pollute the earth with our actions that put a sufficient amount of pollution in the air and water to increase the rate of cancers. Phones are the prime example but they are just one of many similar actions by our society to choose short-term gains in exchange for poisoning ourselves.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jiggawatts 3y ago

Three for three that aren't even in the top ten actual causes of cancer. In Australia, two out of three people will get skin cancer at some point in their lives. That's caused by the Sun, an unshielded nuclear reactor bathing us in dangerous radiation strong enough to hurt. Your food is probably doing less harm than the plasticisers in the container you put it in, especially if you microwave it. Your phone and LED lights contribute almost precisely zero to cancer incidence. Your guilt over your Tik Tok habit doesn't mean that you're also getting cancer from it. You're wasting your life, sure, but not dying as a consequence. As others have pointed out, air pollution from cars is doing real damage to us all, far more than the occasional Happy Meal.