4 ms·

Sitting in an air conditioned room mentoring engineers and writing code? I mean, it beats what most people did for the vast majority of human existence to survi

Sitting in an air conditioned room mentoring engineers and writing code? I mean, it beats what most people did for the vast majority of human existence to survive.

riehwvfbk 2y ago
... and it sucks that this is the most excitement you (or I) can muster. This means that our sense of agency is dead, along with the ability to innovate.
- linotype 2y ago
  What should I be doing instead? The company I work for is paying me to learn and work on machine learning while mentoring software engineers. They’re also paying machine learning engineers and data scientists I can learn from. It’s hard for me to understand what better a situation I could have.
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    I wonder if they’re hiring…
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  That's a very uncharitable reading. I took it to mean that's the floor. That's a pretty good floor - it's up to you to do the rest.
askonomm 2y ago
I'm sitting at my home office, able to play with my dog during breaks, while simultaneously having a lot of autonomy at my job. I love it, and would not trade it for anything. People seem to really get used to their way of living and lose perspective, then becoming unhappy. We've got it really really good.
closewith 2y ago
It's more comfortable, for sure. But comfort is not the only aspect to life. It might even be a negative given how miserable software developers tend to be compared to those with much less comfortable jobs.
megadopechos 2y ago
Yeah, I'll take it all day long. I'm not even done with my first year of my first software engineering job so perhaps I'm full of optimism and hope. But in a previous life I was cooking on a line and moving tons of gravel with a wheelbarrow with my brother. I much prefer my situation now.
goodpoint 2y ago
Absolutely not. Human happiness is a tad more than having air conditioning.
- gorfian_robot 2y ago
  spoken like someone who has always had AC
  - goodpoint 2y ago
    Plain wrong.
ramblerman 2y ago
> Every age, every culture, every ethos and tradition has its own style, its own varieties of gentleness and harshness, of beauty and cruelty. Each age takes certain kinds of suffering for granted, patiently accepts certain evils. Human life becomes a true hell only when two ages, two cultures, and religions overlap. Someone from the Graeco-Roman world, forced to live in the Middle Ages, would have died a miserable death, just as a savage would in our civilized world. There are times when an entire generation is caught between two eras, two styles of life, so that it loses all sense of morality, security, and innocence. A man like Nietzsche had to endure our present misery more than a generation ahead of his time. Today, thousands endure what he suffered alone and without understanding.” — steppenwolf
morning-coffee 2y ago
As a bit of a stoic myself, I appreciate the appeal to the "some people have real problems" argument. I think a big part of the frustration or unhappiness of some subset of this generation of software engineer who cut their teeth in "The Golden Age" is lamenting or longing for "what could have been...". Maybe it's our slow realization of Sturgeon's Law and wish that we would have discovered this seemingly universal truth ages ago. Software, being mainly a construction of the mind, has the potential to be truly great (and some is), yet the state is basically "All Software is Shit". Squaring the expectations of my junior self with the realities of my senior self is... disappointing.
- linotype 2y ago
  As a fellow stoic, I’d encourage you to embrace the dichotomy of control, virtue and to seek inner growth. For instance, I have been focusing on mentorship, helping others grow. We will never be satisfied if we only lament.
martindbp 2y ago
I think what we actually want is to be the equivalent of a gentlemen scientist supported by family wealth or a patron, sitting in our study doing what interests us, corresponding with other smart people interested in the same topic, going for long walks thinking about hard problems. Even though we shouldn't complain, we can still strive for this.

Sitting in an air conditioned room mentoring engineers and writing code? I mean, it beats what most people did for the vast majority of human existence to survive.

riehwvfbk 2y ago

... and it sucks that this is the most excitement you (or I) can muster. This means that our sense of agency is dead, along with the ability to innovate.

linotype 2y ago
What should I be doing instead? The company I work for is paying me to learn and work on machine learning while mentoring software engineers. They’re also paying machine learning engineers and data scientists I can learn from. It’s hard for me to understand what better a situation I could have.
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  I wonder if they’re hiring…
madeofpalk 2y ago
That's a very uncharitable reading. I took it to mean that's the floor. That's a pretty good floor - it's up to you to do the rest.

askonomm 2y ago

I'm sitting at my home office, able to play with my dog during breaks, while simultaneously having a lot of autonomy at my job. I love it, and would not trade it for anything. People seem to really get used to their way of living and lose perspective, then becoming unhappy. We've got it really really good.

closewith 2y ago

It's more comfortable, for sure. But comfort is not the only aspect to life. It might even be a negative given how miserable software developers tend to be compared to those with much less comfortable jobs.

megadopechos 2y ago

Yeah, I'll take it all day long. I'm not even done with my first year of my first software engineering job so perhaps I'm full of optimism and hope. But in a previous life I was cooking on a line and moving tons of gravel with a wheelbarrow with my brother. I much prefer my situation now.

goodpoint 2y ago

Absolutely not. Human happiness is a tad more than having air conditioning.

gorfian_robot 2y ago
spoken like someone who has always had AC
- goodpoint 2y ago
  Plain wrong.

ramblerman 2y ago

> Every age, every culture, every ethos and tradition has its own style, its own varieties of gentleness and harshness, of beauty and cruelty. Each age takes certain kinds of suffering for granted, patiently accepts certain evils. Human life becomes a true hell only when two ages, two cultures, and religions overlap. Someone from the Graeco-Roman world, forced to live in the Middle Ages, would have died a miserable death, just as a savage would in our civilized world. There are times when an entire generation is caught between two eras, two styles of life, so that it loses all sense of morality, security, and innocence. A man like Nietzsche had to endure our present misery more than a generation ahead of his time. Today, thousands endure what he suffered alone and without understanding.” — steppenwolf

morning-coffee 2y ago

As a bit of a stoic myself, I appreciate the appeal to the "some people have real problems" argument. I think a big part of the frustration or unhappiness of some subset of this generation of software engineer who cut their teeth in "The Golden Age" is lamenting or longing for "what could have been...". Maybe it's our slow realization of Sturgeon's Law and wish that we would have discovered this seemingly universal truth ages ago. Software, being mainly a construction of the mind, has the potential to be truly great (and some is), yet the state is basically "All Software is Shit". Squaring the expectations of my junior self with the realities of my senior self is... disappointing.

linotype 2y ago
As a fellow stoic, I’d encourage you to embrace the dichotomy of control, virtue and to seek inner growth. For instance, I have been focusing on mentorship, helping others grow. We will never be satisfied if we only lament.

martindbp 2y ago

I think what we actually want is to be the equivalent of a gentlemen scientist supported by family wealth or a patron, sitting in our study doing what interests us, corresponding with other smart people interested in the same topic, going for long walks thinking about hard problems. Even though we shouldn't complain, we can still strive for this.