vbtemp

PSA: I'd also like to point out sometimes people who are smart but suffer from anxiety or depression concoct elaborate philosophical systems in order to rationalize their maladaptive thoughts and behaviors.

For all readers who have anti natalist passion: Depression and anxiety are so common now, please get help if you need it. Please do so before diving into philosophies or movements that reinforce depressive, morbid, or otherwise unhealthy views and actions, like antinatalism

One shtick I have is the "Young person, why don't you have a brokerage account"?

I know so many people, who are not so young any more, who are professionals and with solid salaries, who will do things like have credit cards, have cars they finance, a coinbase account, maybe a robinhood account, certainly a facebook and instagram account.... but no Schwab, Vanguard, or other basic Individual brokerage account.

They have the income and technical know-how to make complicated online accounts and make use of financial services.. but even though it takes ten minutes to make a Vanguard account, and 2 business days to credit it and buy boring index funds... so few people who can (ie have money and knowledge), actually do... or even have much interest. It's sad and fascinating at the same time.

It does, at least, facilitate micro management and burnout.

Excellent point, and I think in our contemporary age something similar is happening with "Agile". It has ceased to become a project management technique useful for a certain class of products. It has instead become redefined to mean "good" - for example, in popular imagination, if a team is not "Agile" then they are somehow backwards or out-of-the-loop. Now teams, products, and situations where Agile is not appropriate are finding themselves having it forced upon them, or spinning what they do as agile.

  Location: DC Metro, Northern VA
  Remote: Remote or Hybrid
  Willing to relocate: Probably not
  Technologies: rust, python, C, docker, Linux, distributed systems, network programming, QA and V&V, embedded systems, systems engineering.
  Résumé/CV: https://billvb.github.io
  Email: vb.temp@gmail.com

Started my career as a spacecraft flight software engineer, and carried that rigor with me throughout.

Much more info about the types of teams I work with and problems I solve on the website.

It's a little cheeky and at times a little hyperbolic, but I stand by it.

What that permitted me to learn about myself is that - at the end of the day - I just like solving interesting and challenging problems, working with colleagues as equals, and creating products and solutions that I'm proud of. I have utterly no interest any more in climbing any sorts of ladders, or "chasing" a role, position, or title because I think that'll somehow be the road to riches. Having autonomy, the flexibility to work when I'm productive and inspired (and to not work when not), and interesting/meaningful work is infinitely more important than role or salary. I also feel like I'm not the first person to come to this conclusion.

> It's also why I think that today's engineering culture of "24 months, max" at corporations is pretty corrosive to Quality.

This is something I think a lot about. The problem is this is the incentive gradient that is an emergent effect. Obviously, if it was generally in organizations' interest to retain people, there would be some kind of incentive sink to keep them there (i.e., everyone would stop finding more competitive compensation at other companies).

- Someone else in this thread correctly highlighted that on stackoverflow, for example, simply having one answer to a question puts you in the top 25th percentile. Most accounts are probably idle or passive or abandoned, so using those to get the result is obviously wrong. Maybe, what are the expected earnings for users investing more than 8 hours/week (purchasing equipment, producing content, editing, publishing, marketing)?

- People on this thread need to stop looking at the $145/month figure from the title. It doesn't come from anything. A lot of people are kind of stuck on that. By no means what so ever should it be interpreted as "girls who have only fans make $145/month", which people seem to be doing. Based on the income distribution, virtually no one makes approximately $145/month. It's just an artifact being the quotient of two numbers the author chose. A small-ish proportion of total users make _way more than $145/month_, and a large proportion of the user base (including idle and abandoned accounts) makes pretty much zero. Maybe I'm just broadcasting my lack of statistical knowledge, but I'm struggling to understand what does an average or median even signify for extremely long-tailed, skewed distributions?

- And finally, if one is making a serious analysis - lots of jokes and euphemisms about masturbation and theatrical contempt for the consumers - seem to suggest either discomfort on the part of the author or some kind of motivated reasoning to arrive at their results.

And also, thanks for your reply there, nice to hear from you again!

Basically, why do I get such big raises when I switch companies, but getting a nontrivial raise when at a company is like pulling teeth?

How come every company I work for is willing to give me a huge raise and reward me for my achievements at other companies, and not do the same for achievements at that company?

The discussion that followed was illustrative. But I just came to accept it as a fact of life. I wish I could find a place to invest myself in long term, but that has yet to be found...

It seems like the similar thing here - literally everyone sees how agonizing, exhausting, detrimental, and counterproductive the current system is. No one likes it. But yet, despite that, there's some gradient it goes against that prevents clearly better alternatives from emerging. I wonder what that case is in Korea, the subject OP, Japan, Taiwan, and other countries.

  Location: DC Metro, Northern VA
  Remote: Remote or Hybrid
  Willing to relocate: Probably not
  Technologies: rust, python, C, docker, Linux, distributed systems, network programming, QA and V&V, embedded systems, systems engineering.
  Résumé/CV: https://billvb.github.io
  Email: vb.temp@gmail.com

I found my current job through Stack Overflow, which was great (I'd prefer to avoid LinkedIn and the spammy ones). However, there aren't as many hits on Stack Overflow as there used to be.

I think you are right that certain things cluster together: Jobs where you are treated like crap pay you like crap, jobs where you are paid in riches treat you like a princess. Exceptions apply.

I'm curious why solutions that satisfy those bulleted items you mention don't exist? Whether for dating or opportunity-talent-matchmaking.

My hunch is that there's some perverse incentives that keep us stuck in a local maxima. I don't use any of the dating apps, but I would think it's fair to say that the popular apps and networks are an extremely soul-sucking, relentless grind.... but yet, they stay popular, and innovative alternatives aren't really taking off en masse. Why?

I guess here are a few thoughts:

- This reflects the absolutely massive asymmetries and inequalities that infect everything. It sometimes seems like there is no "average" anymore - everything is bi-modal. There are the FAANG total comps, and the total comps of everyone else - with a huge gap between them. Massive wealth gap for people have have been invested in real estate and/or stocks for a while, and those that have not been. And in dating: The massive gap in desirability between young or attractive women - and everyone else (for example, it's not like an attractive 25-year-old woman gets twice as many messages as, say a 25 year old male.. she'll get literally a thousand times more)

- In a globalized, massive, and mostly anonymous marketplace, there is little incentive to constrain oneself to cooperate. And this includes preferring free-for-all networks over ones that "enforce" cooperation. For recruiters: I suppose spamming endlessly, while not pleasant, is probably a local maxima. Being a cooperative agent (reducing spam, investing more in each possible connection) just reduces their chances of getting a catch. I'd imagine a similar things for males in a dating market.

Should the US not have intervened to prop up RVN, disrupting millions of lives of young americans (and losing 50,000 of them), and killing hundreds of thousands (millions?) of others from carpet bombings, napalm, etc? No, and continuing escalation was criminal on the parts of Johnson, Nixon, and their henchmen.

But somehow people need to take that into somehow supporting and idolizing the exact horrific, militant, violent, racist traits they claim they are against. At the end of the day, they just don't like the US (or use opposition to the US as a virtual signal) - it has nothing to do with opposing unethical things.

Lol, guys, it's a joke.. kinda.

By all means, continue grinding your axe if you really got to get it out, it's all very baffling and amusing.

It's kind of amusing and baffling watching all these people speak with such certainty and conviction. If crypto currencies collapse, meh, oh well. If they spike another order of magnitude, nice, I'll just sell to keep my allocation on target. Like you, it just seems prudent to have limited downside (ie a crypto collapse won't ruin you.. at all) but also having some exposure to big positive swings, and never basing ones hopes and dreams on it. Anyway, here's to enjoying the show.

Edit: when you disclose something like this, and people get viciously defensive about it, it usually means you're on course (see comments below).

Applicant A has the precise set of skills Business B needs desperately at that moment. Business B is willing to pay whatever needed to get Applicant A ASAP (because they are growing quickly, or in crisis, or just need that role filled fast). This is normally what causes salary bumps in job switches... because A would not accept an offer if it _wasn't_ substantially above what they make now.