This logic is fundamentally flawed. Pointing this out to people (often in strong language) makes them defensive. This creates the perfect combination to get people to vote against their best interests.

It's not about "being progressive" or "elite". It's about playing to the fears of people who are already fearful.

I saw a tweet where some Zoomer was roasting an "Elder Millenial" for switching devices from a mobile phone to a desktop when making a big purchase (airline tickets? I forget).

I didn't feel like wading into that argument (what's the point? like spitting in a campfire), but... yeah.

Some folks say that we are regressing wrt technological proficiency, but it's really just that more people use technology than they used to. Regression to the mean, maybe? Is that the right expression?

It's quite possible that the lasting effects are more dramatic, as this plays out over time and we move increasingly towards casual dress.

I think part of the problem of this talk is that it introduces the fact that older people/people with disabilities are judged on their appearances instead of their capabilities (which, with respect, you have just demonstrated). Then the talk sortof goes off into a "how to age gracefully" direction and abandons that original line of thinking (disclaimer, I only watched the first 30 minutes so far).

I definitely would be interested in addressing the first issue because, as they say, everyone becomes a old and/or disabled (unless like Tom Petty, you're dead).

"Explain it like I'm a lowly web dev"

Or I'll go to great pains to be explicit about what I want (no code snippets unless I ask for them specifically, responses hundreds of lines long with dozens of steps it wants me to take), and for a little while it does that, and then boom, back to barfing out code snippets.

People talk about this tool as some kind of miracle worker and to me while it is helpful it is also a source of major frustration for me, because it cannot do these most basic things. When I hear about people talking about how amazing LLMs are, I'm extremely confused. What am I doing wrong? I really would like to know.

I dislike arguments made in this vein, it's sortof a way to intellectually dismiss someone's point without addressing it.

I share the grandparent poster's concern. Parasocial relationships feed us in a certain way, but do not nourish.

Don't get me wrong; I'd rather have OnlyFans than pimps. But that's not the point.

I think it's because they look so fucking cool.

We moved during COVID from one of those cities where "a park is a giant empty field of grass". Major life changer.

Having kids is hands-down the best thing I've ever done but also the hardest. Not because of the amount of work, because it's really not that much work. It's more of the dramatically uncomfortable shift in perspective: Realizing I'm not the main character in this story. It still hits me sometimes.

There's the (now) old saying, "if the product is free, then you are the product" but that's not entirely accurate. You are the source of raw materials. These materials can then be fed into a model which will predict your behavior. Right now this can be seen simply in the space of funneling content to you, in order to get you to buy things. But companies are not governments and can sell their product to anybody (including governments) in order to predict or direct your behavior.

Simply, it's not helpful. Fat people know they're fat because they have a caloric surplus. They've tried eating less. They're not stupid.

I think the defensiveness people exhibit is a byproduct of their cumulative reactions to a bunch of unsolicited advice. My own (unsolicited) advice would be: don't give people advice, unless they specifically ask for it. I can guarantee you that every depressed person on the planet has heard that exercise is good for your mental health. Instead, you can say something like, "I'm very sorry that you're having a hard time. I want you to know that you're important to me, and if there's ever anything I can do to help, let me know"

I agree with you about therapy and medication: in my experience, they are the only things that work. Expensive though.

As a side note, I sort of feel triggered by this kind of article.

Depressed? Have you:

- exercised enough?

- drank enough water?

- slept enough?

- meditated enough?

- gotten outside enough?

It's passed as "helpful advice" by well-meaning people but always makes me feel like I'm not "enough". If I've done all those things but I'm still depressed, I must not have done those things "enough". Does that make sense? I'm so tired of trying to explain how hard I'm working, I just don't talk about it with people for fear they'll bring out "the list" of things I ought to be doing, and I'll have to explain that, yes, I get 8 hours of sleep a night. Yes, I drink a gallon of water a day. Etc.

This is just an idea that I have, I'm not sure if it's even true. In any case, corporate speak is and always has been tuned to what the public expects of the corporation (current example is the whole LGBTQ+ signalling). Don't get it twisted: corporations aren't people and they don't really have feelings. They don't care about you; they're incapable of caring about you.

Looking at it from their perspective, I would have made the choice to lay me off (or fire me). The reality is that I just did not get enough meaningful project work. I talked to my manager frequently and it was always something "just around the corner". My manager went on parental leave 3 months after I started. Pretty much everybody took most of December off. Our division did a re-org which shook everything up, wasted more time. I didn't get any meaningful projects until the start of February, my 6th month of employment at Shopify. I was doing really well there, felt good about my work and my contribution, whereas I'd been floundering for 6 months with impostor syndrome and existential crisis.

But it was just too late. I got the axe. I don't feel too personally bad about it, although I hate interviewing and have performance anxiety when it comes to technical interviewing stuff. I want to take time off to rest but I'm afraid I'll use all my savings up and still not have a job.

I wasn't there long enough to really know for certain, but I feel like part of the problem is the monolithic nature of the codebase. Getting projects greenlit required a bunch of political wrangling and convincing of the senior leadership team by the product folks. Things just moved really slowly. The "Get Shit Done" (I kid you not, that's what they call it) process of shipping projects seemed interesting but nobody really followed the documented process. I got the feeling it was a lot of back channel conversations, gate keeping by higher up folks, with people every step of the chain asking themselves, "Will this decision make me look more impactful in my upcoming review?". Kinda feels like the way I imagine the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union operated.

I don't know. I have a lot of feelings about all of it, I'm personally really sad because I feel like I really had something to offer, something to contribute, but I spent most of my time just fucking around. Scale that up to a company the size of Shopify and it's just a tragic waste of human potential. But they will just pat themselves on the back, congratulating themselves on "making difficult decisions".

The 16 weeks severance is nice though. Takes the edge off.