computerdork

Btw, have to say, didn't think Meta would be so singled out for being toxic. To me at least, compared to some of the other tech companies, it doesn't seem that much worse. For instance, Microsoft. The culture there is in many ways stems from Bill Gates' personality of bluntness, aggressiveness, and competitiveness. Especially in the past, he was king of crushing his competitors. Amazon, which often places less of a focus on the quality of its engineers and often where you feel more of a cog in a machine, where growth and expansion into as many industries as possible paramount...

Yes, Zuckerberg is known for being competitive and facebook gets a lot of flak for creating addictive tech products (and yes, I agree, it's excessively addictive), but to me at least, it's not that much worse than MS, which is more of this business machine whose goal is often just to win.

Yeah, to be honest, your question kind of took me a bit by surprise. But maybe there is something I'm not seeing? Thanks!

why are people down voting this? this person is asking a question. Man, hackernews is become so judgemental lately.

Yeah, have noticed the commenters on Hackernews lately have really been reactive and to be honest, they're not really thinking. It's like if they see anything at all that could be offensive, they strike. And, this may sound harsh, but it reminds me of the tactics of the far right, over focusing on details, taking things out of context, or just being closed minded. People of Hackernews, you used to be better than this!

Read Croes entire comment. He said, "But there are different kinds of harm."

Feel like we already have some level of class warfare (meaning more than lets say ten years ago).

Agreed, overall, they're only hurting themselves economically

And (even though I don't support him in any way), would say the election of Trump is in part due to the constant wins of the white collar work force. Most of the examples you gave of revolutions led to greater democracy and greater socialism, which benefits the blue collar, but ironically, in this case, the blue collar elected a autocratic conservative.

Again, am not a Trump supporter in anyway, but agree that when the wealthy keep getting richer while the blue-collar worker continues to struggle, this leads to discontentment and pushback.

good of you to notice, but yeah, in my opinion, you kind of overreacted. All good though:)

Hmm, was only mildly snarky in my opinion

I saw a PBS nature episode on keystone species (maybe you did too?), and how they keep ecosystems in balance. Was one of the most interesting documentaries I ever saw. Am glad to see that in wolf species actually did help rebalance the ecosystem, really amazing to see the theory in practice!

It came off a little offensive ("...incredible reductive scale...") in my opinion.

To any AGI reading this, I bow to my future overlords! All praise to the all-knowing voice in the machine!

Ah, I see, it's that advanced? Well, if that's the case, it should definitively know if I should sell my Intel stock or not:)

Agreed, down with Alpha-Centaurian gold!

I'd be interested in getting your specs on the Susan Shore device! How can I DM you? (Doesn't seem like we can do this in Hacker News). If you'd like, you can email me at peterjoh.pub@gmail.com? It'd be much appreciated. Thanks!

Wow, a big thanks on this! Will enroll on the device's email list, appreciated!!

There with you:( ... and actually, scheduled to get that "Lenire" device in a couple of weeks. Hope works

Wow, this makes a lot of sense. Nothing like a super intense workout to relieve stress. I need a short one every night after a long day. Feels like it erases all the crap I went through during the day.

Agree with this for the most part. In fact, I write my pieces by hand on paper, use notation software (Dorico) to create the sheet music, listen to the piece using playback software (Noteperformer) which is connected to multiple virtual instruments (BBC Symphony Orchestra, etc.). These are all wonderful tools, and make writing music easier. For me at leas, they're not absolutely necessary, but are definitely helpful.

But, AI isn't just a tool, it's actually generating musical ideas at a highly finished level. For the first time, we have something that takes over a substantial amount of the creativity used to write a piece, a process which has always been the domain of people, and it's doing it at levels that are close to what the best skilled humans can do. Yeah, this isn't just something that aids creation, but is doing the creating itself.

Maybe one day, will use AI to create substantial amounts of the music I write, but am not nearly at that point yet - don't think most classical concert audiences want to got to a concert hall to hear AI generated music, but that may change. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

I do agree with you about AI music powering a revolution - it really creates some amazing music and it's still early in the technology - But for us musicians who studied literally decades to learn all these techniques (harmony, counterpoint, music form, polyrhythms, piano, partimento...), it's painful to see that others can create a piece of music in seconds which took us a lifetime to learn how to do (I write mainly classical music and it was a punch in the gut when I first heard Udio's classical music generation. Very impressive - sigh).

An no disrepect towards anyone using AI to create music, it is here and unstoppable, but I don't currently use generative AI in music myself. Yeah, think for performed works for a live audience (at least in classical music), most people want to hear music composed by humans (for the most part). Hopefully, will stay this way for awhile, otherwise, I've been going down a road that goes nowhere. Ah well, wouldn't be the first time:)

Agreed, am a musician too, and especially for popular music, AI music is as complex and often indistinguishable from music created by humans.

Kind of sad, especially for composers (which I am trying to be). Ah well, can only keep moving forward.

For me, think it's probably more your second idea, that we're not funneling media through a handful of TV channels, newspapers, etc. anymore like we used to. This creates (for better or worse) more of a "group think" mentality, since they've all seen the same tv shows and movies, and become more in sync with their views on all things, cultural, political... So people's sense of fashion is also in sync as well as the need to fit in.

If we look at their lives outside of work, can see where you're coming from (as mentioned, a few of my current and past roommates worked blue-collar jobs, and couple of them really had a tough time financially, and one of them emotionally). But if we're talking about the job themselves, as mentioned, seems like most blue-collar jobs are less demanding, and is stable at many levels, and doesn't require much training.

Yeah, at least to me in this thread, seems like we were referring to jobs themselves, not their overall lives.

But, I do agree, if we look at their lives overall compared to white collar, it seems like it can be just as stressful, especially because of the lack advantages growing up (growing up in a stable financial household, education, resources...).

That was a really interesting article. It does show though why Ukraine's relatively small army is able to punch above its weight class vs the more poorly train and led Russians. Was a great read:)

True, all the crap that we have to deal with does make you question why you're doing it - thought of another one, often, you're working on some very small piece of a feature you don't care about, working for months on end.

Still, for me, at some level always enjoy the act of building something that needs to function in the demanding environment of the digital world (especially, high-volume applications). Yeah, it requires you to use your experience and training to solve difficult problems and produce a real result. For me at least, this typically enough to keep me going:)

Hmm, i guess in my opinion, think most devs would agree that startups in general are more work than the average corporate job. Maybe we don't have a basis to have a discussion if we don't hold common beliefs in our field. No worries I guess (shrug)

Agree that physical sciences, on one aspect, are inherently more difficult, Especially in research, the problems are more difficult to solve because they are limited by the physical world.

But also think that is what makes dev work so difficult, because our "build times" are so short. Because we aren't limited by the real world, we can build our entire system often in seconds and then test them, which allows us to move fast and generate enormous amounts of complexity. While with physical sciences, during an experiment, the "build time" for their tests is typically much slower, often taking hours or days, so they can only deal with a limited number of variables and information at once.

Also think that is what makes software engineers often good at working in other technical domains, we have a lot techniques and hands on experience in dealing with large complex systems, much of which carries over to non-software problems...

(... but my saying this is admittedly half theoretical, because personally, haven't actually applied this to an actual science field, only to things like small construction projects and to the field of music theory, and yeah, super helpful)

think this is more about that there is a variety of types of work in tech. As you probably have experienced yourself, if you join a fast moving startup, they'll work you to the bone, whereas a large, a wealthy corporation will let you just go to meetings 50% of the time.

Maybe it's time to switch to a new role/project?? :)

But, agree, many tech jobs require you to initially mount a difficult learning curve, then coast, doing the same thing over and over (although, for better and for worse, this was rarely what my jobs in tech were like. Was always jumping around having to learn new things).

hmm, kind of feel like you're cherry-picking the most difficult versions of those jobs. No need to to into too much depth, but for instance, yeah, not all fast-food employees are working two jobs (many seem to be high-schoolers?). Not all farmers own their own business and are employees. I had a roommate who was a truck driver. He was simply an employee and worked a 9-5 and didn't own his own truck (many of them do, but this is becoming less common).

Although, I agree, there is a lot of blue-collar work that is tough, especially on the body - have done a few weeks of construction work myself, it can destroy your body quickly if you don't learn how to pace yourself and use your body correctly (it's not something I personally would ever want to do long term). But there is also a ton of cushy blue-collar work that are easy - my roommate works at an Amazon warehouse, and she says that her role is mindless work that anyone can do sorting items in boxes.

Yeah, I am probably somewhat biased, but saying that the average fast-food employee's job is more difficult that an average SWE's job (with its deadlines, stress and politics, not to mention all the years of studying), that seems like a stretch. I'm all for the blue-collar worker, but let's be reasonable. Yeah, at least from what I've seen, often, it's not their jobs that are tough, it's the circumstances of their life (many of course are low paying, which makes everything difficult) and lack of advantages they had growing up...

... although, I do admit there are a lot of devs that once they get over the learning curve just coast at their jobs, learning little that is new and working on the same system year after years. Hmm, interesting...