[perrygeo]

The entire zeitgeist of software technology revolves around the assumption that making things efficient, easy, and quick is inherently good. Most people who are "sitting in front of rectangles, moving tiny rectangles" have sometime grandiose notions of their works' importance; we're making X work better for the good of Y to enable Z. Abstract shit like that.

No man, you're just making X easier. If the world needs more X, fine. If not, woops.

The detachment from reality makes it all too easy to deceive yourself into thinking "hey this actually helps people".

[Swizec]

> Most people who are "sitting in front of rectangles, moving tiny rectangles"

Hey dude these are my emotional support rectangles!

Truth is, anything can be meaningful. We make our own meaning and almost anything will do as long as you believe in it. If optimizing rectangles on the screen makes you happy, that’s great. If it doesn’t, find something else to do.

[temp8830]

Yup, because there are plenty of opportunities to get tokens to feed your family outside of moving those rectangles. Not.

[jimbokun]

It’s really just because those of us choosing this profession are also very good at optimizing chosen metrics. But don’t always ask whether they are good metrics and whether they become counterproductive past some point.

[bitexploder]

These are all value judgements that reflect your disillusionment rather than some universal truth.

No one is attached to some mythical objective reality. Everyone is imprisoned by the same social, economic and thought prisons.

[slopinthebag]

This is one of the reasons why I'm so disgusted by the mainstream voices around AI. As if I'm going to be "left behind" because my only priority isn't increasing shareholder value or building a saas that makes the world a worse place.