ianbutler: Congratulations! You're a car mechanic! And to be blunt, fuck anyone who disagrees with me!
Nobody is a programmer, really. We live in particular moment of the world where this new idea of professionalization tricks you into thinking sometimes what you are is first and foremost defined by what you trade on the labor market. And this is an especially potent spell for those, like us, who for right now particularly well compensated in this market. But either way you must try not to forget that this is just a kind of illusion. That we are more united by shared capacity than discriminated by "skill".
Why not take joy in the idea that what you have devoted yourself to, presumably, can be a more shared and understood thing for the world at large than that of a doctor or college professor?
You're standing in the dojo wearing the black belt you bought at Wal-Mart and condescending to the masters for acting as if any of the discipline and hard work they put in meant anything, because look - you have the same belt as everyone else, and didn't have to do shit for it.
This is why people hate AI and the people who use it.
For me personally, I just hate that they don't stop talking about it!
I think focusing on the AI-shit is missing my point: why do you even care about this? What is really at stake in this? Is it really just the idea that there is some kind injustice being done? An injustice to whom?
If you spend your life doing all the hard work it takes to excel at something, the rewards of that hard work are intrinsic to your new mastery. What someone calls you or not because of your skill is like the least important thing about the entire pursuit.
I too am quick to point out how annoying the AI stuff is, but I think if we are going to defeat them we need to hold on and affirm shared human capacity more than we need to protect titles.
Fine. Don't say you weren't warned, though.
At least for the first one: I definitely do! "Defeat" is maybe a little clumsy, and its less wanting to squash AI itself (for one thing, because this new stuff isn't really "AI"), but rather what it represents and who is going to use it, or even right now, who is going to use the bare idea of it to hurt workers and demoralize us in general. The whole hype train is a big jumping of the shark of an already fraught and misguided industry. An industry propped up by senseless financial instruments and false ideals of technological determinism. It is no good!
If you really can only see this whole argument as only a pure black and white dilemma, that either this guy is a "programmer" and AI is good || this guy is definitely not a programmer and AI is bad, then I would urge you maybe to invite more nuance into your thinking. But also not a big deal! It's more important we are on the same side about the big stuff, then whether we agree about words. Which was kinda my whole point all along!
And you all sound like luddites.
what's your plan for when the only humans needed for the world economy to function are Musk and Zuckerberg?
you certainly won't be needed
I don't think so
Yes. It does make me mad. And I should be mad. Everyone who cares about anything but the bottom line should be mad. The wholesale commoditization and destruction of human intellectual skill and creative talent in service of the relentless pursuit of capitalism through automation is a bad thing and you should feel bad for cheering it on. "Adapt or get left behind" isn't what someone who actually cares about the quality of their craft says, it's what the Borg say before injecting their nanoprobes into your brain. "we only want to improve quality of life." Fuck that.
Maybe the luddites made it clear that destroying capital doesn't make for a winning endgame, the Amish might be a better model - they still participate in the broader economy but they've built their pockets of antiquity where they get by with more elbow grease than they otherwise would have to, and have a spiritual basis for meaning that most of secular society lacks. I probably won't be joining them but could see a new movement that accepts diesel engines, lithium batteries and computers, but draws the line at anything that starts to mention "hidden layers" or "nondeterministic behavoir" (outside that randomness needed for accurate simulations and cryptography)
Haven't come up with a name yet.
Hardly anyone ever asks where this progression is leading, and if they do, usually the answer is to "more progress." Which, to me, doesn't really sound like progression at all! It's just a way to justify not actually changing anything that matters, and to make sure there is always some faux-horizon of greener pastures to promise your customers.
You should be angry!
>I don't want to simply be forced to adapt to a life where my only option is to blindly consume what the machines feed me like I'm in a tube in the Matrix.
How is that any different from your life now, except it's humans feeding you slop instead of human-guided machines?
>Everyone who cares about anything but the bottom line should be mad. The wholesale commoditization and destruction of human intellectual skill and creative talent in service of the relentless pursuit of capitalism through automation is a bad thing and you should feel bad for cheering it on
Go join an Amish commune then. I love the irony of a programmer (I'm assuming) complaining about automation.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/ae379k/luddites-definition-w...
https://doctorow.medium.com/brian-merchants-blood-in-the-mac...
Huh. So, being almost 50, having spent 35 of those years writing code and orienting the majority of my life around it - somehow that's separate from my identity?
Do tell.
"No one is an artist. No one is a programmer. No one is a football player."
It doesn't make any sense of course, but it makes them feel like less of a loser.
It's a sad coping mechanism.
Life can be many things to people, friend. I feel like I know the meaning of commitment, and focus, but even if I didn't, that wouldn't make me a loser! You can live a life in ascetic focus toward mastery, or one filled with family and companionship and simple pleasure. Or something else entirely. It's all just people living life!
I just think its more important to focus on what we do, rather than what we call ourselves. I don't think that precludes the existence of talented, amazing people!
And to describe what we do, we use words. I use the word "programmer" to describe how I spend my work day, mostly programming. I use the word "Londoner" to describe where I live, London.
You can't escape using words to describe yourself!
You will never reach the peak, and there will almost always be people below looking up at you. Try to find peace in this.
It has led me into this sorry, loser state where I constantly deny myself the humility due to me, of appreciating the single minded devotion and sacrifice of great masters of craft and skill and knowledge! Instead, I reject this beautiful aspect of humanity, plunging everybody into a purgatory of dilettantism!
Perhaps one day, when I am tired keeping this up, when my own existential failures have exhausted even my own bad faith arguments, I will stand back and see life for what it is. I will see the programmers and the doctors. I will notice the calm adeptness and global purview of the grandmaster. The life-or-death meditation on the body and force of the karate master. The almost impossible marriage of precision and emotion of the musician.
I will see this eventually, after my insecurities wither in age and malnourishment. All along I thought it was a source of pain, these great people, a reminder of my own inadequacy. But I'll realize, in the future, that this can actually be the most affirming thing about anyone's life! To even know of these great people! To be given a horizon itself, a set of peaks to aim for, is all that matters. Humility and admiration are blessings of life, and the high bar of human achievment only generates ever greater accomplishments for the world at large. It is important, even necessary, to recognize and attribute mastery and great accomplishment only where its due. Because otherwise nothing is real and everybody is fake.
But I'm not there yet. I am young and I am more a dilletante than most, so it will take some time.
Also anecdotally, I know several people who majored in philosophy (one with a CS minor) and they all do quite well. I'm in my mid 30s and the people I'm talking about are between 28ish and 45.
citation please!
Not sure if you'll still find this relevant, but here's a source I had saved where you can see philosophy is in the highest third:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/which-college-degrees...
And a now-somewhat-broken 538 article: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-m...
https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/valueofcollegemajors/
For some reason it groups "philosophy and religious studies" and the latter might not lead to very high paying careers, so it's hard to tell what that means for "just" philosophy.
The report [0] has them below the median of all "humanities and liberal arts" majors.
[0] https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/The-Economic-V...