tafox (u/tafox) - Readit News

tafox commented on Panic at the Job Market matt.sh/panic-at-the-job-... · Posted by u/speckx

Absolutely not true, it means you might e.g. be living in Berlin, or in Germany or Netherlands in general. Not everywhere people are nice and in some places they place a particular pride in being assholes.

tafox · 2 years ago

As someone who has also lived in some of those places. This is always my reaction when I hear that quote.

It's like, no, some places really are just filled with assholes.

Maybe in America it's still true, but there I also feel like it's changing for the worse as well.

Not many friendly people walking around this planet anymore it seems.

tafox commented on Taking Risk tomblomfield.com/post/750... · Posted by u/gatesn

CalRobert · 2 years ago

Not the UK, but I'm a Californian who lived in Ireland for ten years. The risk aversion is _intense_.

Me: "I want to build a house"

My Irish friends: "That's a bad idea, you will fail, it could fall down, you don't know anything about houses". They were extra horrified that I didn't want to build it out of concrete blocks because "you can't build a house out of wood"

My Californian friends (but one in particular): "Fuck yeah I'll bring a nailgun"

And this applies to EVERYTHING. If you have any ambition it's "notions". People scold their children for being "bold" (admittedly the word is used differently, but still). If someone makes one euro more than you they're a horrible capitalist bastard.

I point out that workers in my field are paid three times as much in the US (or more) and somehow am a class traitor.... for saying we should pay labour better.

Anyway, Europe has a bright future as a cheap third world backoffice for US companies at this rate. The fact that people here are paid closer to zero than what they'd make in the US is just sad, and they deserve better. The health care isn't even that good (though Ireland is especially bad at this).

Maybe that's just Ireland though. I'm in the Netherlands and it seems a bit better, maybe because the only people I talk to are other immigrants.

(I built the house, with contractors as well of course. It's a beautiful, warm, well-insulated, wood frame house with ridiculous new world features like high ceilings, aircon, and deciduous trees to the south)

tafox · 2 years ago

I also live in Europe (Germany & Austria) and what you're saying is 100% true. I like Europe, but I really miss the positive everything is worth a shot attitude in America.

Everything here is no, no, no, why would you do that? It's so demotivating, and G-d forbid you make a tiny mistake! Long term I also don't see how this place won't just keep getting poorer... unless there is a major attitude adjustment in the near future.

Also, everyone just tries to dunk on everyone with petty status games like owning a fancy car... as if that's the ultimate achievement in life... really lame & depressing.

It's the main reason I would like go back home tbh. There are a lot of problems in America and a lot of things are okay here, so it's hard to say where it's really worse, but I just don't understand why they always need to have these negative attitudes all the time... it costs nothing to have a positive attitude...? Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand.

tafox commented on Physically healthy 28-year-old woman schedules euthanasia due to depression themirror.com/news/world-... · Posted by u/pankajdoharey

iagooar · 2 years ago

I am terrified of the thought of legally killing people and this article has made me feel quite odd, even slightly sick I would say.

My gut just screams at me: this is wrong. And I cannot help.

The rational arguments do not convince me at all. Call me old fashioned or whatever but this is how I feel about it, and since there is an article about this I imagine that there might be certain interest in this being out of the ordinary.

tafox · 2 years ago

Maybe if we weren't treated like de facto slaves for the rich life would be worth living.

tafox commented on It's not a labor shortage – it's a wage and workers rights shortage thehill.com/opinion/finan... · Posted by u/rectang

zthrowaway · 5 years ago

Nice framing.

Or it’s to get paid for bearing all of the risk of starting and running the business, and being financially on the hook for when it fails and gets to deal with years of being sued.

tafox · 5 years ago

Exactly. Just like the financial crisis.

All those big CEOs getting caught on the hook.

tafox commented on Why Can’t I Sleep? ucsf.edu/magazine/why-can... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

Clampower · 5 years ago

Since about three weeks ago I cannot sleep. It’s very strange. I know the feeling of anxiety and how it leads to not sleeping, it’s something I’ve had in the past at very stressful jobs. I’ve learned techniques to deal with this, like breathing and mindfulness. But right now this feels different. I’m tired, I’m lying in bed, and I don’t have any stressful thoughts. Yet somehow I just don’t fall asleep. It feels like something in my brain doesn’t “click”. When I do sleep meditation I can feel myself “sinking” towards sleep, but then I just remain awake.

I’ve been to the doctor and all she did was give me benzodiazepines which I don’t want to try. Has anyone out there ever experienced something like this? I feel so thoroughly broken after not sleeping for nearly a month.

tafox · 5 years ago

This sounds a bit like it could be the prodromal phase in psychosis. I would take this seriously.

tafox commented on You Are Not ‘Behind’ (2016) zackkanter.com/2016/01/13... · Posted by u/enigmatic02

danielscrubs · 5 years ago

My parent is a globally famous doctor basically invented scores that are used in the US and Europe. What they do that almost no one does: focus on a single super specific thing for decades. Everyone wants to jump around to their heart’s content and try different things. Few want to study for example Scott–Strachey semantics for decades, which is exactly why you can compete if you do it.

It’s a fight against your heart or at a very least a fight for motivation.

tafox · 5 years ago

Surviorship bias.

Your parent is one of the few successful ones, whose niche paid off. You don't hear about the vast majority of researchers & scientists, all smiliarly talented and motivated, where at least in their lifetime, their research didn't payoff.

For the average person, the expected value of staying flexible and having decent breadth, is way higher than betting your entire life on some tiny niche.

tafox commented on Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do? · Posted by u/iamcirou

wayoutthere · 5 years ago

I’m glad you have time for this! I’m 37 and haven’t had time for personal tech projects in years; family, home ownership and life have all gotten in the way. I’m on the management side (senior director equivalent), but I do make more than any of my engineers and I probably spend 50% less time working. I do a mix of people management, architecture design and executive communication, but it’s 95% stuff that falls into “important but not urgent” so I delegate most of what I can.

I don’t get the satisfaction of being happy with what I made, but the quarterly bonuses and stock grants make me ok with that :) Management is a great 9-5 job if you do it right, and if you’re a people person it’s super easy. Lots of potential career growth if you’re willing to put in the face time and play politics; your knowledge is less important than your style the further up you go.

tafox · 5 years ago

Are you openly bragging about making more money while working half as much as the people you are supposed to be responsible for?

I would be embarrassed to write that.

tafox commented on 7% of Americans don’t use the internet. Who are they? pewresearch.org/fact-tank... · Posted by u/ipsocannibal

sammalloy · 5 years ago

I think the OP is also indirectly touching upon the benefits of the slow movement, which has serious (and positive) implications for technology and how we use it. People in big cities and urban environments might find the transition to this kind of thinking jarring and difficult. I've found it takes on average about two years to adjust to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_movement_(culture)

tafox · 5 years ago

I don't see life slowing down, maybe after some natural or man-made disaster wipes out half the population and most modern infrastructure, but until then, I only see things getting faster.

HFT is the perfect example of the benefits of being fast, literally by trading faster, not necessarily better, billions in profit are made. In other fields, first-movers often have a massive advantage, AWS for example.

Just look at Europe, things are slow and rather relaxed here... and as a result they've missed out on about the last 3 generations of technology.

I think many people won't be able to keep up, but the future of evolution is probably people who can sit still for days on end, just consuming information non-stop, with the ability to react very quickly as soon as the information signals opportunity for a reward. Some sort of really autistic apex predator stuff.

Ironically, even though computers can do so many tasks faster and better than humans, one would think we could all relax and let the computers work, but instead the trend seems to be, that we constantly have to be even faster in the remaining fields where computers are not yet superior.

The result of for-loops and automation hasn't been that humans no longer have to rush around doing mundane tasks, but rather that now we have to rush around writing for-loops and fixing all the bugs introduced by rushing... and so it continues...