Comment by readonthegoapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by readonthegoapp | Hacker News Reader

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i'd guess:

  - burnout
  - world stress
  - aging (you getting dumber)

the burnout happens to everyone. whether you end up killing yourself, or taking a few months off, or switching careers completely or just internally like going to product, or getting fired/pushed out just depends on all the usual stuff - how stubborn are you? do you listen to friends? do you have friends? do you have any sane friends? and/or family? do you have any money saved? did you find a good therapist who told you the truth (you're burned out and you need to change careers or stop for at least six months)? etc.

the world stress is caused because we're all more likely to die more horrible deaths every day that goes by but no mainstream news is talking about our imminent deaths by nuke or gw, and we stay distracted with nba or serials or crypto or drugs or metaverse. you have to find indie news that hasn't been canceled yet to hear anything that is compatible with what you're seeing with your own eyes every day.

aging makes you dumber in the computing sense at least, and also because brain fog creeps in more quickly on a standard garbage western diet. saying this true thing got zuck some pushback ten years ago precisely because it was true, and it's more true today.

> aging (you getting dumber)

The guy is in his mid-30s, ffs. He isn't even at the peak of his career - he has a lot more smartness to get.

I didn't become a really good programmer until my late 40s when I ran out of things to prove and decided to focus on simplicity and high polish while keeping rapid development.

> aging makes you dumber in the computing sense at least, and also because brain fog creeps in more quickly on a standard garbage western diet. saying this true thing got zuck some pushback ten years ago precisely because it was true, and it's more true today.

As a big tech worker I find it insane that so much focused intellectual effort of my colleagues is poured into creating "metoo" competitor products and optimizing ad revenue. We finally live in an age where we have the necessary scientific tools to tackle the hardest problems, such as aging, and yet we mostly waste our efforts on rewriting a product that will be forgotten in a few years.

What saddens me most is pretty smart people who prefer to ignore the reality of aging and disease and feed themselves and others with various life-affirming copes.

Is aging really a problem? On the individual level it is but as a whole the world population has exploded in the past century. Would we have enough resources for everybody if the life expectancy will increase to say 100 years?

One look at the population pyramids of the developed world [1] is enough to conclude that a systemic shift is underway, and the old social order, at least in its current form, is doomed to be upended.

The logic of dependency ratio is hard, you can't circumvent it unless you really do deliver widespread automation of labor, including social service labor. And even then you have obvious concerns of EROEI and "Labor Returned On Labor Invested" - your society-scale park of machinery will require substantial infrastructure and qualified staff just to run it. It's 2022 and despite many attempts, widespread social robotics still hasn't appeared, and robotics startups of our recent history died all the same.

> Would we have enough resources for everybody if the life expectancy will increase to say 100 years?

I think yes, given falling birthrates, continuing emphasis on sustainability and doing more with less. Consider also how much resources are spent on re-educating every new individual, and how much of an economic win is extending the active professional life of an average individual, given it amounts to mere 2-3 decades as of now.

I'd say on the contrary, for our societies to avoid collapse we need to either up or fertility rates, or extend the active part of our lifespan.

1. https://www.populationpyramid.net/western-europe/2019/

Western Europe population is only 2.5% of the total world population

Inverted population pyramids are forming almost everywhere, excluding Africa for now. If you read this 18 year old book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon%27s_New_Map you will see that it wasn't an unexpected development for the policymakers.

Everyone could live _modestly_, like middle class Cambodians but with better healthcare, yes.

The issue is a tiny number of wildly consumptive rich people.

Whilst it's easy, simple and populist to blame a tiny [x] group of people for all that is wrong with society, it does not have a good historical precedence: try asking any Germans you know!

More difficult is to acknowledge the huge middle-class that has been created as a result of globalisation over the last decades.

blaming rich people for the problems they create makes one a nazi. got it.

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