thewarrior

Wow this is such a great line. I hope it becomes famous and you get credit for it :D

Are managers and senior middle management more protected from being laid off ?

Yes but only to an extent. We cannot have an economy only of rappers and influencers.

Because software cannot produce resources just because it exists. Productivity refers to being able to actually manufacture more widgets and things like food, roads. Yes technology has made things cheaper. By moving things across the globe and creating a complex supply chain that can produce more goods for less energy and raw material input.

But the per Capita availability of energy and minerals is a fundamental bottleneck that things like CRM software can only go so far in helping.

The article talks about software that allows a call center employee to handle more customers better. This is great but how does something like this help society produce more heating and food which are currently in short supply ? It makes the company more profit and saves customers some money. But if they try to actually get more food it will cause inflation.

I would highly encourage people to read the work of Vaclav Smil. In the grand scheme of things iPhones are irrelevant.

Half the world depends on natural gas and ammonia fertilizer so they don't starve to death. We are living through the consequences of this as we speak.

Software simply isn't on the scale of things like coal, oil, natural gas, electricity or even washing machines.

Computers might be more like the printing press. Perhaps centuries from now we can look back and say what innovations came about due to multi century second order and third order effects.

We in the industry have become lost in the world of bits and "productivity" in producing TikToks and targetting ads for mobile games doesn't help as much as we think towards supply. These are fundamentally ways of aggregating and coordinating demand.

The problem is now on the supply side. We need software that runs on robots eliminating workers and working 24x7 doing things like mining, agriculture and warehouses. We also need eliminate middle men and deliver directly to the consumer.

Beyond that we need fundamentally new energy sources. Software can help here but increasing digitization mainly creates fat middlemen who don't add as much productivity into the world as they take.

Hence I think Chinas new approach to tech regulatuion that curtails middleman platforms and encourages startups on the supply side makes a lot of sense.

Yeah we are “just” going to build flood defenses for every single major city in the world just like Amsterdam. Easy peasy.

How can every single manager become a director ? That seems impossible.

It’s basically cargo cult engineering. There’s the appearance of engineering and sophistication but the actual substance is hollow.

Honest question - how does one provide value in this reality. It’s something I’m trying to understand

So we can’t even get an AI to recognize basic obstacles in its path but self driving cars are coming any day now ?

I am puzzled at how a system with such basic bugs is rolled out to production. Even obstacle detection hasn’t been solved yet. Yes it might be hard but an 8 year old in a GoKart would do better than this.

I guess this would suggest that keeping physically fit and calm is the key to getting the best out of your aging brain.

It's all a big Fugazi

Okay so I've been programming for many years, work at a well known company and all that. But when it comes to writing tests and designing my code (OO or FP) I still am not sure what the best way to go about it is. There is so much contradictory and sometimes just plain confusing advice.

Mocks vs stubs vs no mocks. Integration vs Unit vs End to End tests. TDD vs no TDD. OOP vs FP.

Grey beards of HN. Where do I learn the best ways to do testing ? I am happy for any kind of pointers. Whether they be books, talks, blog posts or code bases. Anything outside of the usual examples would be doubly welcome.

Struggling to understand whether this comment is serious or sarcastic. Maybe that was the point.

Doesn’t Microsoft research pay top dollar ?

Loved this post

But the people working those jobs don't have recruiters beating down the door offering them other jobs.

This post doesn't contribute anything new to the discussion. These problems have been known for years and the company continues to do well.

Nothing will change until it hits the bottom line.

Apples moat is simply enormous. From SoC design to camera design to manufacturing to software and compiler engineering.

Competitors could spend 10 years catching up. Cook simply needs to keep the machine going till he retires.

And yet competitor products are still worse.

Sure and that slows GDP growth by 40-50%. They’re still growing by a lot. It just moves the date by a few years.

Demographic doom is frequently cited for China but I rarely hear about the doom of Europe which has worse demographics. Demographics can be topped up using immigration. Without immigration the US would also be in demographic decline.

Here you go https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55454146

Let’s not miss the forest for the trees. China will continue to grow and get very close to the size of the American economy.

China is already the worlds largest economy in terms of raw output (PPP terms).

China is already the worlds largest consumer market.

There’s a reasonable chance it exceeds USA in nominal GDP it if it grows at 5+% till 2030. This year they grew at 8.5 %

Nobody uses Facebook anymore. Apple is doomed. Google search results are terrible. Amazon is terrible.

And every cycle of quarterly results there’s surprise on HN.

This is the case for all companies in the world eventually. China will overtake the US economy in the next 5 years.

They also have lots of vitamins and nutrients.

They are easy to understand even for average people.

I agree with the above advice but it’s not immediately actionable for someone in OPs situation.

You have given a how but it’s hard to do without a why.

Burnout and lethargy are due to both physical and mental health factors that feed into each other.

A two track strategy is needed. First for your physical health

- Increase the amount fresh fruit and veg in your diet. Reduce sugars and carbs.

- Go for a run in the morning get some fresh air.

- Have a nice warm bath before you go to bed have some soothing tea and get good sleep.

This alone will not be enough if you’re seriously burnt out. Next we move to psychological factors

- Introduce noise and variety into the system. This can be as simple as visiting an interesting new place to a full blown crazy experience.

- Start meditating and learn about how to use it to calm your mind.

- Think about the kind of person you want to become and why you want to do it. Your current ideal you and your strategy to go about getting there aren’t working or providing you with satisfaction. Be honest with yourself about where you went wrong, what your strengths are and what you can bring to the world. Once you do this you have a vector pointing all your actions towards a new ideal you informed by your past mistakes.

Your physical health should provide you the foundation to go for it.

Happy to discuss further over email / DM if interested.

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MLK was never popular he was considered too left wing, too radical and socialist before he was appropriated and then turned into a mild mannered reformer.

That would create a huge explainability problem.