There's nothing special about me that guarantees "having living parents" but I'm still upset when my parents die. How narcissistic, western, short-sighted of me, I guess?
I really wish I could ascend to your level and never be upset about anything bad that happens, no matter how pointless and obviously unjust.
> I really wish I could ascend to your level and never be upset about anything bad that happens, no matter how pointless and obviously unjust.
To be fair, parent and grandparent are never being upset about anything bag that happens to other people. I've met plenty of this type and you can be assured they'll be outraged when it happens to them....though often they're the type born into wealth so all problems are other people's problems.
Yes of course I am rich and when my grandparents passed I cackled with joy because it happens to other people but not me. I am glad you have determined my type.
I think you are not understanding my premise. I get that my words can sound harsh but someone discussing tough facts doesn't make them your enemy. You can be upset and maybe you should be I'm not one to decide here. What I am stating isn't some fancy eastern enlightenment its logic that most of us in the west ignore.
Being a software engineer professionally in call it 1990 thru 2020 is an incredibly privileged position. We were only able to enjoy such an easy position in life because of supply and demand and the math has changed. We had these positions not because we were special but because investors could make money off of it and needed us.
Suddenly they don't. Or believe they don't. Should we be pissed. Probably. But it doesn't change the fact that we got cozy with things that were revokable.
Your comment isn't a "harsh truth," and I can assure you that I'm not upset with you. Your comment is actually utterly banal and irrelevant.
Yes, I agree, programmers got lucky, and that luck is coming to an end. This has happened to many professions in the past. It's not new.
What is new is two things:
* that it's not just programmers that will be displaced, although we are among the first. Many people, possibly all of them, will have their labor value diminished by AI. This is a systemic issue that requires a systemic solution, not just a pep talk and "Get tough, buttercup,"
* that the success of AI is built on illegitimate grounds, as the training data is built by the people it's displacing; and is serving to enrich a fantastically small number of capital holders, at the expensive of literally everyone else.
So in view of that, I think it's silly and beside the point to say "Hey, tough luck" or to accuse programmers of being entitled, which is certainly the subtext in your comment. Programmers should be upset, but so should everyone else.
I don't really disagree with anything you've said here except the last bit.
We are being entitled. We shouldn't have been sucking at the investors class teet thinking we are special. We along with most white collar workers on the west were being entitled and complacent. My point of view is very far from tough luck.
Who is "we"? Every labor-providing human on the planet? When that many people are economically disenfranchised and you call them "entitled", the problem is you.
> thinking we are special.
Again, it's not clear who you are talking about. Who thought they are special? Human beings who exchange their labor for money, i.e. have a job? I think I've made clear that programmers are not the end of this trend so to the extent your comment focuses on programmers, it is misguided.
> My point of view is very far from tough luck.
In that case, I don't understand your view at all, because it sure sounds like you are blaming the victim here.
> Who is "we"? Every labor-providing human on the planet? When that many people are economically disenfranchised and you call them "entitled", the problem is you.
I'm speaking specifically about white collar workers in western countries. I don't believe they are economically disenfranchised at least not yet. We were behaving entitled-ly by not acting in unison with the other laborers who are economically disenfranchised. If you are some sort of exception forgive me but I doubt you were spending your money to build shared parks and teach programming to the children of Amazon drivers. Most white collar workers here are buying pickup trucks and living it up. Myself included. And now we are in the finding out phase of why that was bad.
Yes. The problem here is cultural and most westerners feel:
- It is reasonable to expect a nice comfy desk job with little stress where they get paid well to explore an interest they have. We are all moderns Thomas Edisons no?
- It is unexpected, undesirable and perhaps objectively bad to not live a life without struggle. I bet most westerners would not sit home in poverty and then fly after years to be with their loved one who has struggled to become a cook or delivery person.
For context I say this all as a westerner who tries to shake this mentality. We don't need all of this supposed comfort we only are addicted to it.
> We don't need all of this supposed comfort we only are addicted to it.
This conversation is schizophrenic because we are conflating two different topics:
* from a perspective of mindfulness and gratitude, yes, it is psychologically better to not attach your identity to your career, living space. Eastern philosophy (e.g. Tao te Ching) teaches us about non-materialism; Greek philosophy teaches us about stoicism. All of these perspectives can be useful coping mechanisms when faced with a materially uncertain future.
* from a perspective of economics, law, and politics we can simultaneously acknowledge that when a business built on intellectual property theft (i.e. AI), focused on enriching a small cadre of capital owners, indirectly devalues labor causing material hardship for much of the population of the world, an injustice as occurred. It seems unfair to us, because the skill that we have worked a lifetime to hone has been cheapened by a selfish business that couldn't exist without the work publicly and freely contributed. That is worth being upset about.
I'll point out that Sam Altman also enjoys a very high level of comfort, which he does not need; and that his comfort seems to be predicated on other people losing their livelihood. So why are (intellectual labor class) HNers suffering while (capital owning class) CEOs are not?
I'll try to continue this in our other thread but the reason Sam is not suffering is that we don't protest like the French or punish the wealthy for their transgressions. I believe for example it would be reasonable for altmam to be jailed for cyber crime and open ai dismantled to pay for damages they have caused but that won't happen.
It’s really funny that you picked Altman, since he 1) was a billionaire before OpenAI thanks to investing in tech companies, and 2) has no equity in OpenAI and takes minimal comp (like under $100k).
So none of his unneeded comforts are predicated on other people losing their livelihood.
If you look at the history they have been working on this for a few months. The announcement probably was tied to this public release being cut for testing.
Replace Modi with Netanyahu and maybe Xi with Kim. These two are dictators but don't really care about things outside of their region (other than Chinese exploitation in Africa). They want to stay in power not take over the whole world.
Israel is abusing Holocaust guilt in Europe to get away with genocide and massive cyber ops against their own allies and open bribery in US elections. And North Korea is so insane that the power transition will be fun to watch. All the generals and family members are waiting on him to die, and when he does there might be a military coup or even a civil war.
The impact (both potential and current) of Xi on the rest of the world is much bigger than that of Kim and I don't think its fair to say that the Chinese are content to stay inside their walls. Kim is more of a puppet dictator of the Chinese and Russians than anything.
