The purpose of software is to be useful to users, not provide a reason for you to get paid a salary to solve puzzles very slowly.
The purpose of software is to be useful to users, not provide a reason for you to get paid a salary to solve puzzles very slowly.
If that was the purpose, we wouldn't dimiss consumer sentiment of software getting constantly worse with a shrug.
We all know the real purpose of Big Tech.
And what's the point of spending most of your life doing work that sucks so that others can hate their job too? It seems like a bad idea to make everything worse so we can have more bad software.
And, yes, the resulting software also sucks, and I'd pay extra to avoid it. There's been a noticeable drop in software quality over the last year or two.
The point is to survive and care for your family.
In a free market economy, you get from the butcher the meat only if you can give the butcher something in return. It might be cleaning the store, or throwing out the smelly bloody stuff out.
It's not pretty, but life is not pretty.
It is great to find a way to swap for other's needs what you're good at and enjoy, and sometimes it's possible.
However, since you need to solve another's person problem to barter with from something, it's by default not something you like, but something the other person needs. And this frequently is not what you would like to do at the moment.
So basically, this is life, sometimes we can write beautiful code, sometimes we need to fix a messy code our client uses every day.
And sometime we don't have the pleasure to work on the computer at all, because AI took our job away, and we end up cleaning the store.
Cool, "Life is getting worse, shut up and deal. Altman needs his returns."
Got it.
Dude, it's not Altman, it's the real world.
If you can do something for your client, then you get to eat what you both voluntary agreed the deal is worth.
Does a plumber work for Altman, or for himself? Why this need to have a boss and not live by the direct fruits of your own labor?
Ah, my bad -- "Suck it up, shits getting worse for everyone because of what this industry is doing. The future sucks because of us, get used to it."
> And what's the point of spending most of your life doing work that sucks so that others can hate their job too?
I mean in my case i'd be absolutely fine doing work that sucks infinitely if that means that my users are happy. It really drives me crazy all the discourse I've seen over the years about devs that care about their own quality of life/job. Like, no, the only thing that should matter to you is your users, no matter the job. If what makes them genuinely happy is for you to take dirt out of a hole and put it back, and on top of this you get paid, we live in completely different planets if you don't rush to the nearest shovel.
It's okay if it did both. The pre-AI world was not some hellscape - people felt they had a purpose. Not so much now.
yeah, some people - wanting to derive some enjoyment and meaning from the work they spend most of their lives doing to further enrich someone who is already rich - like give the calvinism a break am i right folks?
Calvinist "work ethic" is a problematic doctrine, but it's still more moral than a structurally oppressive synecure.
You're comfortably ensconced within a powerful economic inequality machine, and you're fighting for your right... to party? It's a bit gauche.
At least I tell myself I'm keeping the lights on for many families.
yes i think happiness is meaningful and in a just world would be a non-negotiable part of participating in society (economically or otherwise)
You're right—happiness is meaningful, and the pursuit of eudaimonia may well be the most moral act.
Can you truly be happy while billions suffer unnecessarily?
By this logic, no one is ever allowed to ask for more except for the person who has the least. It is nonsense.
Can't we ask on behalf of one another?