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swatcoder commented on Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten   picower.mit.edu/news/dopa... · Posted by u/gmays
abhisek · 4 months ago
I have a simple question. How do I control dopamine in "my" brain so that I can focus on "here and now" instead of HN and GitHub.
swatcoder · 4 months ago
This may sound flippant, but one real option is to just quit doing so and not start again.

Maybe it's not obvious to you, but many of your real-world colleagues and role models don't visit HN or anything comparable. And they're still working at the desk next to you, and in the office you aspire to have some day. For all that stuff like this might feel justified or even necessary, it's not. And if you're finding that it introduces difficulties into your life or psyche, you are entitled to and capable of quitting altogether. You don't need to try to moderate it.

(And frankly, I personally don't even know what you're doing on GitHub so compulsively. I didn't even realize that was a thing, if that helps speak to how irrelevant it can be.)

swatcoder commented on The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis   chris-martin.org/2025/the... · Posted by u/dralley
arnaudsm · 4 months ago
I partly disagree, software still sucks and it's a great time to build.

The #1 OS is slow and crashes all the time. The #1 email client takes 10s to load on my mother's laptop. Most popular products are slow, buggy, filled with spam, & filled with dark patterns. Enshittification won. FAANGs are the new IBM. Let's build better stuff.

swatcoder · 4 months ago
Unfortunately, we've reached the point where a generation of new adults take janky technology as normal, both as consumers and producers.

Their entire life was in an environment where nothing was stable or cohesive or efficient and everything was either "free" or rented. They don't recognize what they're missing or why it might matter.

So as consumers they don't know to care when you build better stuff, and as producers they don't even know what it means to build better stuff. And soon these people will graduate into leadership and management with the same understanding of the world.

Surely, there's plenty of opportunity for the rest of us to keep quietly rescuing these janky projects from disaster, shoring them up as their sloppy compromises overtake them, but unfortunately it's very possible that it'll be a long while still before a strong and viable demand for "better stuff" returns.

swatcoder commented on The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis   chris-martin.org/2025/the... · Posted by u/dralley
cruzcampo · 4 months ago
It really does feel like most tech leaders are having an internal struggle that they externalize and make all of our problems.

Have you seen Musks Twitter timeline? That guy is so chronically online and desperate to be liked that it's just sad. How can you be the richest man in the world and yet so deeply pathetic?

Same with Zuck's attempt at being "cool" now and don't even get me started on Benioff's whole weird "Aloha" thing.

Deeply insecure, unhappy people, despite having all the wealth in the world. And they're gonna make sure all of us are just as unhappy, because if they can't buy happiness, why should anyone else have it?

swatcoder · 4 months ago
You're right about the individuals you're calling out, as well as some others, but I don't think it's fair to say "most" tech leaders.

It's just a few of the most troubled celebrity wealth-addicts making public the inherent ego-fragility that tends to drive addiction in the first place.

Meanwhile, there's still sooo many other tech leaders just trying to develop whatever vision they have for their business, industry, career, etc

Not all tech or business leaders are addicts, but some are, and as a society we tend to enable and even celebrate their addiction for whatever reason. Because of that, and because of power that comes with wealth, some of them wreak havoc as they use that power to manifest their very deep troubles in the public sphere.

And it's not a new phenemonom, nor particular to the tech industry. You can see it happen again and again and again throughout history.

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swatcoder commented on Vanguard 50-year anniversary CEO letter   corporate.vanguard.com/co... · Posted by u/telotortium
UncleOxidant · 4 months ago
My grandparents were children of the Depression and given their experience living through that they always considered the stock market to be gambling and thus never invested in the stock market. My parents absorbed that ethos and also never invested until they had to when they got a 401K (but they were well into their 50s)... then they liquidated their holdings as quickly as they could like they thought stocks were dirty, or something.
swatcoder · 4 months ago
Market/fund investment for us normal folk is so passive and disempowered that it really does amount to gambling. You put some share of your hard-earned wages in and hope for the best.

It's been shown to be a mostly rewarding strategy over the last century of so, averaged out at least, and so of course it's not really a foolish bet for most folks, but it's not the only way to secure one's financial health and isn't the ideal one for everybody.

Scrappy hustlers, skilled trade workers, and (SMB-scale) entrepreneurs in particular can often see a better return by investing in themselves and in ventures in their own community, where things are not so passive. Likewise, people with modest dreams and a preference for stability often might prefer securing a paid off house, car, etc before throwing too much money into the casino -- even on good bets. And others with strong and healthy family bonds benefit most by prioritizing enrichment and opportunity for family members who can be trusted to return the favor in less flush/capable times. etc

Many young people have only really been exposed to the idea of market investment as a retirement strategy, and its a good one for many, but there are a lot of roads to staying financially healthy through late life.

swatcoder commented on Ask HS: Career Advice for Someone Struggling    · Posted by u/aireo
swatcoder · 4 months ago
To rip the bandage off: you got really unlucky and you're going to have a very hard time finding a worthwhile job in the industry any time soon.

Between layoffs and the economic contraction that garnered them, plus prevailing interest in exploring AI for junior-level tasks (regardless of its wisdom), there's just not going to be demand for inexperienced software engineers for a while. If you do manage to find opportunities, they're most likely going to be the marginal cast offs that were left to rely on you as a last resort for some reason, not the enriching or exciting experiences you want to have.

Only you know what your alternatives are, but you should probably just assume that good work won't be coming and focus your job hunt elsewhere. If you're really passionate about the industry, you can think of the next few years as a kind of self-administered graduate program where you keep your skills fresh and develop new ones while you attend to some other day job.

While you do so, you'll want to think about building a tangible and compelling portfolio the way any other early-career artist might, so that you can show it off when the market turns again (which it will). You might also casually monitor and apply for jobs/gigs just to test the waters here and there, but you're only wasting your own time and your own emotional reserves in trying to hold out for one.

Sorry I couldn't be more encouraging. You just got stuck with bad entry timing into an industry long beset by boom/bust cycles. We're in the bust now. You have to wait.

swatcoder commented on Young people aren't as happy as they used to be [Global Flourishing Study]   nytimes.com/2025/04/30/we... · Posted by u/marojejian
PartiallyTyped · 4 months ago
I currently rent with roommates at 28 and commute 40 minutes, it does feel a bit embarrassing but I get to save a bit.

But that is not enough to build any meaningful wealth, 12k over a year is peanuts, it takes over a decade to save 100k good luck buying a house…

I am genuinely baffled as to how I could potentially escape this…

My only exit is over employment or launching some successful business.

swatcoder · 4 months ago
> I am genuinely baffled as to how I could potentially escape this…

> My only exit is over employment or launching some successful business.

This reads like you've already reached the peak of your career at 28. Do you really feel that way?

That seems pretty unusual for a skilled worker, like you'd seem to be if you're able to bank 12k in savings per year already, and as most commenters on HN are.

More usually, you'd expect to be earning much more in 10 years than you do today and perhaps even a fair amount more 10 yeads later depending on what you're capabilities and opportunities turn out to be.

Do you not feel like that's in the cards for you? Why?

u/swatcoder

KarmaCake day12080March 23, 2015
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Beeps and boops, I've made a few. -- If you want to reach me privately, this should do it: spry.rain7087@fastmail.com
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