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Comment by teaearlgraycold | Hacker News Reader

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Hmm... I think the majority of people working jobs are mostly just there "for the paychecks."

It'd be rather beautiful if all jobs were purely passion driven, but that is simply not the case. Nor could it be. And yeah, there are programmers with jobs that are mostly driven by passion, but most would pack it up and go home immediately if there was a sudden "we have stopped paying you" announcement.

> Hmm... I think the majority of people working jobs are mostly just there "for the paychecks."

And the majority of software is terrible so ya. Life is generally unfortunate.

There is a large canyon between "just their for the paycheck" and "primarily there for the paycheck". Most have _something_ about their job they enjoy, it's just not usually enough to be the top reason for having the job.

Why else would you "work", if it weren't for the pay cheques to support yourself and your family?

Because I believed in the product! (Firefox, in my case)

May I ask what do you do to financially support yourself, if the gig at Firefox is pro bono?

"just here for the paycheck" vs. "here for the paycheck but also genuinely enjoy parts of the job" are miles apart.

This mis-frames the actual issue. "Being there for the paycheck" isn't bad per se, it's the morality in the manner of doing such.

There's a marked difference in earning a paycheck via genuinely helping someone else out, as compared to... being apathetic to how that happens, or worse: earning a paycheck via deliberately sabotaging someone else's wellbeing.

I think greedy execs are a much bigger problem than "The people just here for the paychecks".

So - most of human society?

In every industry, and we wonder why everything is being enshittified.

I'm not looking forward to using computers or technology over the next decade. There is a non-zero chance myself or a loved one is killed because of vibe coding.

But there is a much higher chance of getting killed by any number of other concerns like by a drunk driver. Putting that one on the list of things to stress about seems unwarranted.

The difference is that drunk driving stocks aren't at an all-time high.

I'm gonna get a bag tonight, after all I have a much higher chance of getting killed by any number of other concerns anyways.

There's also a non zero chance that someone in your life is going to have fun and whimsy and their life improved by vibe coding. Why focus on the negative?

Yes who cares if they die as long as they had some fun and whimsy first! :P

Edit: fr though I have plenty of fun and whimsy without needing vibe coded apps and I'd prefer a 911 call didn't get routed to Burger King because someone vibe coded the comm stack...

To each their own. Would you rather live a long boring safe life, or a fast short exciting one? You decide!

I want to live forever

Not to be rich or famous or powerful. I just want to see where it all goes. I want to see the heights humanity reaches. I want to set foot on other planets, I wish I could see the universe

That's way more exciting to me than doing the kind of shit that leads to a "fast short life"

If people live lives wherein they build important societal systems to be biased towards "short fast exciting" lives, the opportunity to live a long, boring, safe one may just evaporate.

We're all going to die.

Have your fun and whimsy.

If the life of everyone (all 8 billion people) is improved by tech by some margin (pick the margin - 10%, 1%, 0.1%) at the cost of x people (pick the x - a thousand, a million, a billion) being killed by the same tech - is it still positive or negative? How do you even reason about it?

Fortunately, I'm not actually in charge of anything. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. There are some real life trolly problems out there that I'm glad I don't have to answer.

https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

But yeah if you want to put it in a spreadsheet, what numbers do you want for it to work out? Because I'm using a smartphone to access the Internet and post here, which means I have no idea how much human misery went into my being able to do that. Someone has died to make my totally average smartphone came to be in my hands. LLMs are nothing new under capitalism.

I think we are in full agreement. Likewise, I am not in charge of any practical matter, and glad I don't have to answer to any moral or physical dilemma.

The link is fun :). My kill count was 75.

I was hinting at full impossibility to quantify those problems. Starting with un-define-ability (sorry, English is not my native tongue) of the very term "need" upon which the predicate "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Maybe that is why I am leaning towards "deontological" resolution of trolley problems, rather than "utilitarian".

As for LLMs, I use them and benefit from them. For fun, and hopefully for profit too. But if I had a lever I could pull to make this tech disappear - I would not hesitate one second, deontology be damned. Even better if smartphones suddenly follow too.

Loads of people do cocaine and have "fun and whimsy" and I'm willing to bet there are even a few out there that have had their life improved by cocaine.

Why focus on the negative?

Are you fr?

"drunk driving helps people get home from the bar. why focus on the negative?"

Don't drive drunk. I'm pro self-driving cars.

But people have fun and whimsy and their life is improved by drunk driving. Why focus on the negative?

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