nuancebydefault

In fact entropy is relative to what we define as chaos vs what we define as ordered. When we can't explain the order, we define it as being chaotic, and for convenience we model it statistically in stead of in absolute terms. I learned that few months ago from a HN posted article.

> But warmth. Empathy. The ability to sit with someone in their confusion and make them feel understood. The ability to crack a joke at exactly the right moment and remind someone that they're not alone. The capacity to be fully present with another person, to see them not as a role they're playing but as a whole human being… that cannot be automated away and hopefully never will.

To me, that describes for me a human capability that is often overlooked but is in fact at our core. All the rest is almost futile in comparison.

It is true that on an individual level you get more work done if you collaborate less. But very often you will have solved the wrong problem. Collaboration often prevents that from happening because different point of views will make that clear before trying to solve a problem.

So you do not need a text editor anymore, the LLM writes everything? That is not my experience. My experience is that it is for sure much smarter than i am, but still i need to hand-hold it to ensure the code stays readible and the amount of code does not blow up in relation to the actual use case. It usually does not know enough about the actual problem space. It's also not so good at keeping the correct abstractions at the correct place of the code architecture. When not hand-holding, at a certain point the codebase becomes unmaintainable be human nor LLM.

Input (guess)

Output

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I work 4 days a week (started because of a medical condition) and I think more people should do that. I even think that in those 4 days i get as much done as most others in 5 days because I can focus better, and sometimes when I feel like working in the non-work day I work a few hours for fun and interest.

I don't understand where that comes from. So you are saying the climate is not changing rapidly while people who studied it all say it does?

Most energy goes into making up for the temperature delta. If you turn the heating down, the delta at either evening or morning goes up.

Note, some people even think that would take even more energy in total per day, but that's not correct because a cooler house doesn't emit as much energy as a warmer one.

The blog made HN-popular, so congrats! And there's lot's of feedback to learn from. So what you wrote actually already has been proven itself!

I've been a few times in a situation where I needed to make significant changes in a huge codebase with lot's of tests but also with a lot of corner cases, on my own.

I've spent blood sweat, tears and restless evenings scrolling and ctrl-f-ing huge build and test logs to finally accomplish the task.

But let's take a step back.

So they assign you to get that done. You're supposed to be careful, courageous and precise while making those changes without regression. There's very little up-to-date documentation on the design, architecture, let alone any rationale on design choices. You're supposed to come up with methods like Mikado, tdd, shadowing or anything that gets the job done.

Is this even fair to ask? Suppose you ask a contractor to re-factor a house with old style plumbing and electricity. Will they do it Mikado style, or, would they say - look - we're going to tear things down and rebuild it from the ground. You need to be willing to pay for a designer, an architect, new materials and a set of specialized contractors.

So why do we as sw engineers put up with the assignment? Are we rewarded so much more than the project manager of that house who subcontracts the work to many people to tear down and rebuild?

It is exactly the point, stay blank if they ask that question!

That number feels off by a lot to me. I think i can say i'm quite good at socializing, quite above average when comparing to people I meet and work with. I'd rate my engineering skills about average level and i have a firm dislike of fraud and of people acting to be better/smarter/faster than they really are. In my career I've come across managers of the julius type, as well of the narcissistic type, even a sociopath. I would estimate 10 to 20 percent of people are of the Julius type.

To be honest, the 'bush hid the facts' bug was funny and was not really a vulnerability that could be exploited, unless... you understood Chinese and the alternative text would manage to pursuade you to do something harmful.

In fact, those were the good days, when a mere affair with your secretary would be enough to jeopardize your career. The pendulum couldn't have swung more since.

What they are basically saying : a framework built up from bash-or-makefile-ground by an LLM, is better than any existing framework. I don't agree. When I use LLMs to generate scripts for me, I often have to adapt them to fit in the bigger picture. The more scripts I have, the more blurred becomes what that framework as a whole stands for. Then to become a usable framework, refactoring is needed, which means the calls to those scripts need rewriting and retesting as well.

The answer to 'right?' usually is 'yeah', to indicate: yes, I agree.

So 'Ja? Ja.' in German can be translated as 'Right? Yeah.' in English.

The 'ja?' with a question mark means 'right?'. It just happens to be the same word as 'yes'. So no, not same as almost everywhere else.

I think we could summarize all as follows: _everything_ is inter-connected and hence influences its surroundings and hence everything, indirectly. Some connections (in-brain) are stronger/wider than others (human to human etc).

Hence 'I' is relative.

I don't see fascism, slavery etc as part of progress, it is more of a political/ethical choice. AI is a next step in human progress and that is why i see its use as inevitable. Of course there still need to be checks and balances, just like with free trade, free speech, capitalism, private property etc to keep things fair and balanced. But it is never perfect.

Maybe my knowledge of the English language is subpar but what you describe looks more like _transactional_?

> see the employee-manager relationship as adversarial by default.

I don't see how anyone can be happy in their job if that were the default. Maybe I am naive or lucky, but I have a very goed relation with my boss, as well as with the boss above.

When that condition is not fulfilled, i definitely tend to slack off and I will eventually leave. I believe such should be the default.

In fact you are right, there is no escape from this assimilation, at least I do not see how. And the outcome might be worse than becoming the Borg. Nobody can tell right now.

There's resistance but on the other hand there was resistance against light bulbs, trains with engines, automatic press, phones, television, a global internet,...

We're in this in-between phase where we gradually all start to use AI. There is no escaping.

The thing is, not using AI costs so much effort that it is almost impossible to correctly say "I don't use AI" . It is like saying 20 years ago "i don't use a search engine."

Rich people are usually early adopters of new technology. That's how technology gets cheaper. It's fortunate and unfortunate at the same time.

Indeed, the more strong the feeling, the less rational it can become, even though the feeling is there for good reasons. A pure rational solution won't help, pure empathy as well not.

Indeed, the more one knows about what it means to be a good listener, the more one becomes aware of not being such a good listener.

In fact being or feeling useful can be addictive. It goes beyond fixing technical problems. If I know someone is sad or in trouble for a longer period of time, I tend to check in regularly. I need to hold myself back, not to do it too often. The reason is probably the dopamine (or some happy neurotransmitter) effect that respectful or thankful people invoke on me. So it is the help<->dopamine transaction.

> it's more like requirements come in, and results come out.

Wow someone is very good at setting requirements. I have never seen that in 25 years of dev life.

Meetings without any meaningful participation from most people? I guess too many people in the meetings?

I know a lot of very old people who do charity work, and will continue until they fall over or until they just physically can't anymore.

Younger people are at school, a very social institution. After school they do sports or hobby, usually a very social activity. When it's their birthday, a party is organized.

When you are older, you have plenty of social interaction at work.

One of our colleagues is in a divorce. She's often miserable but gets a lot of support from her colleagues, she's invited at every activity, gets emotional support etc.

I do understand what you are trying to say though!

I'm not sure what country you live in, maybe people there are not very social... is there a possibility to move? Sometimes such event gives a totally different perspective on the world.