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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   5504 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 14, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Anyone else notice they are they getting downvote more often on the 'orange site' (for those who use it) or reddit or are getting much more negative pushback than usual? Or antagonism? I have at least. I am not referring to here. I think a lot of people are having a bad time, are struggling, and this is manifested in the form of increased anger online. It cannot be blamed on Covid anymore, as that was years ago, but it seems worse now than shortly after and during the pandemic.

What is "the orange site", if not reddit? I'm having trouble understanding the first sentence here.

FWIW, I stopped using reddit when the Motte migrated.

Hacker News / Y Combinator. I heard people say it's a bit less insufferable than reddit, but I never noticed.

it has sane moderators which usually keep the discussion within decent bounds and mostly on topic, and also it's too boring for most Reddit trolls.

I’ve noticed it in a lot of places. I do retail so I’m dealing with the public and it just seems like nobody has any patience to wait their turn.

It feels like society is degrading. But people always say this, even during times when society is actually becoming more polite. I wonder if there's a more objective way to measure it.

I've degraded. I dont see much reason being an upstanding citizen when I can be locked away for months on end at a moments notice. Thef fuckwits I live with dont deserve good citizenry.

I mean I think it’s plausible to look for indicators of breakdown in social cohesion. It would likely show up in beliefs about the world, in number and depth of friendships, in things like vandalism and road rage and the like. It seems like if people are becoming less trusting and less friendly and so on, it would probably show up in data that measures the breakdown of that. If the majority of people don’t trust their neighbors, if road rage and vandalism and domestic disturbances are increasing, that would be pretty strong evidence.

Somewhat related. I've noticed that the quality of hackernews discussion has decreased in the last year.

There are a lot more Communist teenager vibes now then there used to be, and I'm afraid its heading down the same path as Reddit with left-wing politics drowning out everything else, even topics completely unrelated to politics.

I suppose a lot of mediocre people entered the software field with expectations of easy work cheap money and now they are pissed and have way too much free time.

Also it is terrifying for any FAANG employee to watch Elon take over Twitter, fire 90% of the work force and keep the site functioning just fine.

Also it is terrifying for any FAANG employee to watch Elon take over Twitter, fire 90% of the work force and keep the site functioning just fine.

For 90% of the employees.

Hiring methods of top software firms are heavily tuned for eliminating false positives at expense of lots of false negatives. This works alright because there was also a massive boom in the industry which meant you could just apply to 30 high paying jobs and would surely get some offers if you knew what you were doing. If this system gets 10 times more competitive even the most competent engineer will suffer quite significantly.

I've been through dotcom crash and the Great Recession. It wasn't fun, but not only the industry survived - all competent people who I know not only found jobs, but prospered and advanced. It is true that one may suffer temporary setback and find oneself temporary unemployed or financially disadvantaged, but I think the demand for competent engineers is still strong. Maybe not with over 500k salary, but I think it is possible to eke out a modest living on something like 5x median national salary too.

Also it is terrifying for any FAANG employee to watch Elon take over Twitter, fire 90% of the work force and keep the site functioning just fine.

Notable that I STILL haven't seen anyone admit they were wrong about this. Where are the mea culpas? So many people were confidently predicting the site would go down, even here.

I think the tech has been lefty for a long time now. The whole thing that techbros are somehow "libertarian" is bullshit (well, excepting maybe rare few exceptions, I am talking about the majority trends). It's just that they had this new thing going and didn't want the old guard to intervene and mess up the game, so they were all "freedom" and stuff. But now they already got their thing established and entrenched, they have no use for freedom anymore, but they have a lot of use for corporate welfare and regulatory barriers of entry. Plus a lot of them are as woke as one can get after spending significant time on academic campus. A lot of them have access to a lot of money, but that changes surprisingly little.

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