Ask HN: Am I the only dev who, with the advent if AI, want to work in a forest?
Am I the only software engineer who, with the advent of AI, is thinking about going to work in a forest, surrounded by nature, to change completely life prospective?
It's been a common theme even on this site for at least the past decade.
- Why software engineers like woodworking : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687378
- Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40245601
- Woodworking through the mind of an engineer : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33708851
Short term? Yes that’s interesting. Maybe a couple of weeks in a cabin or something. I don’t mind chopping woods to make firewood but I need managed sanitary.
A good middle ground is to live in a small town bordering the wilderness. I’d like to live in some town that neighbours a forest and is about an hour from the sea.
What is more likely to throw you off is services like trash. There is no centralized trash service that just picks it up. You need to handle it. Most of the time, people still hire someone to do it, so it also ends up being the same as living in the city, but you need to actively seek out a solution. Or DIY - I know plenty of folks around here who don't mind taking their trash to the dump once a week or so.
And you cannot order food for delivery. That simply does not exist here.
Not that you are wrong that if we had to go back to living like we did hundreds of years ago, it would not be comfy. But the reality of living out in the country is not as different as you seem to imagine.
Actually, in the small towns that I described in my reply, people live in homes exactly like yours -- they don't have city sanitary pipelines so they use septic tanks.
I actually don't know about trash! Thanks for reminding me. And I agree with the food part, although I'll probably cook mine.
It was always more "nerdy" dream than "independence" dream, as in, I'm more interested in the process than the result. We plan to build a fully DIY WikiHouse on a fully DIY CNC machine. Many planned furniture pieces are also CNC. I also like the idea of Farmbot, or some kind of automated aero-/aqua-/whatever-ponics container, though not sure it will work out. Of course, DIY solar.
I also enjoy growing things and cooking. We used to can, salt, cure and otherwise preserve stuff when I was a kid. I know it's all tough work, but tough work makes a man. I don't want to be a levitating fat puddle from Wall-E. You also need to build a good muscle surplus in your 30s and 40s to be able to work into 60s and 70s.
Ironically, AI helps a lot to lay down plans, find things I didn't realize etc. I'm sure it will break against reality in many many places ("You are absolutely right! I made a mistake."), but it definitely works for more mundane things. For complex financial simulations as well.
As it is I have a nice office above my pay grade in a run down and underpopulated building... It's pretty sweet, particularly compared to the CS building across the street which is an overcrowded WeWork kind of space where I really do think I'd be driven crazy by other people.
And, no, I don't blame AI for never working again.
I blame an industry whose first five goals are hiring/firing as opposed to product development. It results in a perverted environment of unprepared pseudo-professional developers that jump ship every 18 months and yet cannot write software of their own, not even a little.
It reminds me of that scene in Idiocracy where the security guard called the hero an idiot for standing in the wrong line, which inadvertently results in a rather straight forward prison escape. At some point more experienced people get tired of being called idiots for not doing things the way a beginner would. Let's be real and just admit most of these people have invented a vast complex engineering culture event though all they really do is assign some events and put text on screen. Why bother using a spoon to eat your breakfast when you can use a giant factory of bulldozers?
The actual determination is how involved are you in your company's product and business? Are you present in product / strategy / planning meetings? Are you able to contribute, make suggestions, answer questions instantly and accurately about current system architecture and direction? How and why the company should implement or tweak feature X - this way, instead of that way? Do you have a track record of being right?
We made a soccer field, built a hut and a couple of other things there. It was fun.
I do miss it, and this isn't about AI or anything, but mostly nostalgia of a simpler time, but it isn't that simple as an adult or to make this a full-time endeavour and just live there.
Nature is fucking harsh, people that are crying about AI getting them unemployed or changing their professions are pretty much mostly softies... and seeing nature as refuge is a mistake. Living there is HARD.
There's a reason why people accept living in a huge city instead of buying some cheap plot somewhere.
Life in the city is so easy as the government typically takes care of a lot of invisible problems you have if you live in the middle of nowhere.
So, living in the woods is very tough, I just lived nearby and we've had to deal with many issues because of it.
If you intend to live there, you are up for a rude awakening. It's very expensive as well, you'd need to invest quite a bit to make it livable.
Also if you want to eventually plant some potatos or something there might be regulations and limitations of what you can do.
With some planning it's definitely doable, but it isn't that simple to just move in there.
An alternative nowadays can be to have a camper, but not all countries allow you to camp anywhere, in the US you are allowed to, but in Europe AFAIK you can't.
Then you can just camp for sometime and see if it's fitting you, and figure out how can you make a living doing it, as inevitably you'll need money and find out how to survive.
To me it's about disconnecting from an over connected world. It exhausts some people who need to decompress in peace and that is hard if you live in the middle of a noisy city. Personally, I love being in the country side where there are little to no people around and all you hear are the sounds of nature. It's serene.
> Nature is fucking harsh, people that are crying about AI getting them unemployed or changing their professions are pretty much mostly softies...
No one is talking about living off the land. There are governments and markets in the country side. The expense of some goods is offset by the low cost of living. I fully support peoples decisions to live where they feel most comfortable. If that means a city person like me has to subsidize it, then so be it.