ravenstine

> You don’t have to look hard in tech, especially a few years ago, to find groups of coddled “workers”, doing very little

And whose fault is that? When employers create "fun" workplaces, value optics over excellence, disempower management, and maintain the status quo by the diffusion of blame, what sort of employees should they expect to have? I argue that it is not the fault of lazy workers but employers who encourage and tolerate lazy workers who are getting away blame-free. But the message is that it's always the fault of peons rather than the higher rungs of the hierarchy.

They have no reason to care in globalized cultures that are morally bankrupt and have no sense of citizenry to feel any amount of allegiance to. Business leaders were never perfect, but things are at least different when you have a sense that when you treat your employees and customers unfairly that you are treating your extended friends and family unfairly. The atomization of everything means that sense that your business is a part of your own community is pretty much gone. In a society with a decreasingly coherent morality, nothing matters more than cash flow, and there are many ways to make cash flow besides making a good product at a fair price. In an immoral society, leadership benefits from attributed success but suffers not from its failures. Society has given up on accountability beyond a certain scale. The petite bourgeoisie might be punished for misleading the public or screwing its employees, but beyond that it seems we let leaders get away with quite a bit.

And why wouldn't they want to eliminate employees? That's their wet dream! Many business leaders don't see employees as their asset. To them, employees are a necessary evil. If anything, the employer-employee relationship is inherently adversarial. The idea that C-level execs could one day simply talk to an AI and, boom, there's a business with cash flow and no employees, is too attractive for them to pass up, even if the chance is high it doesn't work out. At a personal level, these people have already made their money and are merely there to make more of it. What happens when AI doesn't work out for them and they still need employees? Either they get a pay raise anyway or they get let go and keep their mansions. If they erroneously let a bunch of employees go, then great, they can replace those roles with cheaper workers overseas working remotely. If AI itself can't take the blame for domestic workers losing their jobs, then they can point the finger at Anthropic and OpenAI. Modern workplace hierarchy depends highly on the diffusion of blame, and AI fits into that paradigm by introducing an entirely new dimension to that blame diffusion.

I wonder why this was flagged. Maybe too controversial an opinion for HN? It is rather unconventional.

Though this isn't directly related to the topic, I do personally believe that too much updating can be a bad thing. We've been fed this narrative to always update because there are so many exploits that need patching all the time. This is certainly not untrue, but it's also not that simple. I think what we almost always ignore is the cost in the churn of both software development (or just patching bugs) and updates being constantly pushed. Every change to code adds the potential for a new exploit, even if a change was intended to fix an existing exploit. The more often you pull updates to a piece of software, the more often you are opening yourself up to either a new exploit or an outright malicious piece of code being snuck in. You also open yourself up to bugs that, while not necessarily exploitable, can cause catastrophic failures or features being broken indefinitely, as we have witnessed time and again with Microslop.

When it comes to developer dependencies specifically, my philosophy is to try and only use libraries that are simple enough that the likelihood they will actually need to be updated is minimal. I also tend to avoid updates for things that I don't truly need, such as a new framework feature. If the current version of a framework I'm using is working totally fine, then I don't necessarily have a reason to update and migrate to a new version just because other developers have introduced a new opinion for how their users should write their applications. Eventually I might do an upgrade, but by not upgrading to every single major, minor, or fix version, the fewer chances there are of bad code ruining my day (or career). Of course I don't treat all software the same. If I'm relying on cryptographic libraries for the purposes of security or privacy, then it makes sense to upgrade rather often.

In my personal life, I rarely update anything like my OS or individual pieces of software. I've had this attitude for over a decade and so far I've yet to have noticed my systems being hacked or my bank accounts being drained. As far as I can tell, the need to always update is massively overrated.

Because the elders haven't extracted enough wealth from younger generations? Because economics has nothing to do with people choosing not to have kids? I'm picturing Germany as Sideshow Bob walking right into another rake.

I agree. Brave New World has some very interesting and relevant ideas, but I just couldn't hold my attention with his writing style.

The problem with the idealism of targeted advertising is that it assumes that there is always an ad that fits your desires. In reality, some people have very niche interests and preferences, and not every business advertises through the same channels or with the same budget. Ads will pretty much always cater to the lowest common denominator even if you account for the individual.

Modals rendered in the DOM are less bad than full blown windows that clutter up your taskbar and automatically play audio.

This seems akin to saying that humans shouldn't be personified because their brains are made of millions of neurons that are all doing different things. But the actions or motives of individual processing units are hardly relevant, especially at the scale of The Google. We don't need to speculate how non-malevolent individuals cause harmful side effects. It doesn't even matter what The Google "thinks". The system is what it does, and what it does is consistently operate in ways that are not for the mere benefit of users of the Web. The conceptual model that The Google hates (or is callously indifferent to) us makes far better predictions than a model presuming thousands of people make mistakes while trying to make the Web more accessible. It doesn't matter if the former model isn't a technically perfect reflection of reality. We are less likely to be victim to The Google when we act as if it is a hostile force. Diffusing the results of its actions across thousands of nameless humans increases the risk that one finds themself posting on HN or X about how The Google spontaneously locked them out of their entire life.

Amen! The only things that made the early web bad by comparison were popup ads and the lack of tabbed browsing. Popup windows that didn't rely on user interaction were always a bad idea and should never have existed. But besides that, yeah, I miss those days. I miss the days when I was a kid and I could stick some HTML on a server and people would actually find it. No SEO, ads, or shameless self promotion required.

Ahh yes, the origin of this classic clip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkl4Yeh-BTo

Holy crap, someone recognizes Neue Deutsch Härte as the legit metal genre it is! And the playlist includes 5 März by the Alexx-era Megaherz! Excellent work!!!

I see Mercyful Fate or King Diamond and I also upvote!

I've found it funny how many people still believe that most places in the US don't take Discover. I almost exclusively use my Discover card and the number of times I've had it declined is a tiny fraction of a percent. Most people also don't seem to realize that Discover is also a bank, so you can use it for both credit and checking/savings. So yeah, you likely don't have to be forced to use the duopoly of Visa and Mastercard. The only time I've recently used one of my Visa cards was when I visited Europe where I found much more places don't accept Discover, although there were still many that did.

Hopefully the acquisition of Discover by Capital One results in lower processing fees so the network broadens globally and makes the notion that Discover isn't viable a thing of the past.

Based on my recent experience, Discover is spotty in Europe but some places definitely accept it. Not that great if you're on vacation and want to avoid hassle, though. Discover is my main driver (both credit and bank) in the US, but I decided to use a Visa card in Europe just to avoid random rejections. But you won't be screwed in western Europe if all you have is a Discover card.

Vibe graduation?

There are butterflies that do this as well! I hate that I can't seem to find the video anywhere, but I clearly remember a nature documentary where they showed a bunch of butterflies drinking the fermented juice from rotting fruit on the forest floor. This caused them to fly erratically, stumble around, and even fall over. It was pretty amusing!

This answer makes two big assumptions that haven't been proven out yet.

- Understanding code without writing it is as viable as understanding code that you've worked with directly or indirectly

- Businesses care that you understand code

I really doubt the first one. Traditionally, understanding a code base in large part came from working with it intimately and building that muscle memory. The idea that understanding code by reading it is as good as understanding it from writing it, in my opinion, is not realistic.

Whether businesses care that their engineers (which they are increasingly viewing as monkeys at LLM typewriters) to understand the code remains to be seen. I don't think they particularly care whether their code runs slow and is buggy so long as it works just enough to churn out features and continue to pull income.

> One of the problems with the Web is that as soon as a monopolistic entity can build a mechanism to extract revenue from it, there will be an incentive to capture the standard and change it to for their own benefit. In the particular case of the Web, this has resulted in a standard that grows out of control in complexity so it increases the barrier of entry for new browsers and reduces the competition.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't really know what the author is talking about here. What parts of the standard? HTTP? HTML? DOM APIs? What?

The only sort of problem this might solve is the insanely low barrier of entry that the Web has in 2026. The Web was arguably a better (albeit imperfect) place when it was dominated by geeks and kids who could learn to use it faster than their elders. It was a club in a sense. Today it's a club where everyone on the planet is invited, meaning it's no longer a club. I know that sounds great to a lot of people, but I don't agree that systems become better with more participation and fewer criteria for that participation.

Even so, those who want to share and access information can already do that via the Web. Nobody has to use scripting. Nobody has to use The Google as their search. Nobody has to rely on an LLM. If there is demand for simple webpages that are free of scripting, they can be built and shared today. Because of this, the proposal comes off as very out of touch and deep within the HN bubble. Strict grammar for declaring documents is merely a fetish. If there's no scripting, then there's no reason for a document to break for some silly reason.

Exactly. I get why multiple people are replying that my company owns what I make on their time, but it's honestly funny as hell to me that people think most management at any company cares about or understands some CLI tool enough that they would know about it in the first place or actually go through the effort to force one to hand it over. That's gotta be really rare. Being concerned about that is like being afraid drive through a red light at an empty intersection when you're the only car on the road at 3am.

Yeah, well, I challenge them to do that. In the meantime, I'll keep it to myself.

What does an 80 year old (or anyone really) need with more than one or two cards on a daily basis where this would be an issue? Not being flippant; I legit want to know what leads to this. I have multiple cards but there's only one I use 99% of the time, and it's pink so it stands out.

I love open source, but you are correct in identifying it as a very similar problem, though it's more a problem with software licensing than source code being publically available. Usually the argument is made that FOSS ends up as free labor, which is true in a lot of ways, but I see FOSS devaluing software as a whole. When software is open and libre, that sends a psychological signal that the software isn't that valuable. There would still be FOSS in a world where even projects like React charged a licensing fee to big organizations, but in that case there would be more choice between YOLO with free software or paying for quality software; as token expenses have proven, many companies could absolutely pay for the latter many times over. In terms of specifically open source, however, companies get a bit of a loophole in that their own employees (or LLM of choice) can be "inspired* by the source code and clone aspects of commercial software. This has the effect of devaluing the skill of individual software engineers to being glorified script kiddies.

> We’ll also be experimenting with reduced pod sizes, including “one person teams” with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.

Experimenting or cost-cutting? Are these one-person "teams" you g to be paid more for having multi-domain roles regardless of how fast AI can churn out pseudo-MVPs?

We're going to see this become a trend beyond Coinbase, IMO. The idea that companies just want employees to be more productive is a farce. The C-suite would prefer to make no profit, have few to no employees, and get personally richer in the process.

It kinda racks my brain how a lot of people don't think this way. For example, way before the current state of AI, I wrote my own CLI to make aspects of my job easier and easier to write scripts to automate; some colleagues have noticed my tool and said I should share it, and my diplomatically worded answer is no. I don't share it with anyone because of the negative return in both supporting it and everyone else being able to be as productive as I am. Moreover, leadership will not recognize my ingenuity as an asset, hence no added job security. No way am I going to help my company out of the goodness of my heart to be potentially let go anyway in the near future.

If developers are worried about their jobs with the way the market currently is, they should treat their personal workflows as trade secrets. My example was not specific to AI, but it applies just as much to AI workflows. In a worker's market, it was sometimes fun to share that kind of knowledge with an organization. In an employer's market, they can pay me if they want access to my personal choices.

Yeah, that's it exactly. Films aren't reality, although they can be a reflection of what we might think how reality should go. Af the end of the day, films are made to capture an audience, not to paint a perfect portrait of the real world.

Also, there are counterexamples to that person's claim, such as the film Before Sunrise, which is an excellent romance film that doesn't involve an arc where the characters are indifferent or dislike each other at first. The films Sideways and even Office Space defy that trope as well.

When I grew up in LA 20+ years ago, seating was way more casual. Now everywhere seems to want assigned seating. I think this is in part because so many theater chains now offer a "premium" dining experience. It's yet another reason I rarely go to theaters anymore, on top of most of the film offerings being crap.

My thoughts exactly. Maybe I'm just wired differently, but if I couldn't work anymore or didn't need to I'd be like "Finally! I can spend as much time as I need to make yeast glow with CRISPR, collect microscopic things, build a chicken coop, learn to fly planes, build a bigger coil gun, actually get proficient at speaking German, go to more pub trivia, build a new Dobsonian telescope, yada yada." And I'm bet someone would say "you're not really gonna do all those things." Well, you're wrong. Those are the sorts of things I've done since I was a kid. I would just have so much more time to do them. There is no way I would retire and have nothing to do.

> Everytime I try to switch, I can't find a single userspace application that works half as good as windows applications.

And if you do find one and update the package, suddenly you find the application has been severely rewritten with the new UI toolkit du jour and the developers dropped a bunch of features they didn't feel like supporting because reasons. Then these same folks act like it's all the fault of Microslop and Fapple that people don't use Linux distros.

I thought it did in fact catch on but most people still referred to it as "RSS".