Man, same here. I was initially a massive AI evangelist up until about a year ago, now I just feel sad for some reason - and I don’t want to feel sad, I’m a technologist at heart and I’ve been thrilled by every advance since I was born. I feel like some sad old boomer yelling at clouds and I’m not even 30 yet.
My only hope is this: I think the depression is telling us something real, we are collectively mourning what we see as the loss of our humanity and our meaning. We are resilient creatures though, and hopefully just like the ozone layer, junk food, and even the increasing rejections of social media and screen time, we will navigate it and reclaim what’s important to us. It might take some pain first though.
Society is failing these people. In some ways, they’re given the most advanced amenities humanity has ever been able to offer: fastest internet, the nicest cars, affordable global travel. In other areas, society is completely failing them. Connection, meaning, career prospects.
They’re spoiled in some ways, completely lost in others. It’s important we don’t ignore that.
Advanced amenities honestly is a very bad excuse for lack of empathy towards the younger generations.
I was born in 82 so I had the experience of life without mobile phones, cheap travel, Netflix, etc. Life wasn't harder in practice, because you don't miss things that aren't basic needs and that no one has or don't even exist. We had plenty of fun with what we had, we weren't thinking "oh, my life is so hard because I can't choose what I see on the TV or book a plane ticket from a tiny device in my pocket". If I went back in time and had all those things, I don't think my life would have been happier or easier.
(As an aside, the exception to this is medicine. For example, many cancers that could kill you easily back then have now a much better survival rate. That of course does make life much better for people who have such problems. But for those of us that are/were healthy, life wasn't worse back then).
You know what you do miss if you don't have it, and can make your life more miserable? Not being able to afford a home, raise a family, etc. Basic needs, and things that your parents and other people that you know had. That's a real problem. Not having Netflix or a smartphone when it wasn't even a thing is just not a real problem, it was a non-issue, and using it as an argument to minimize young people's complaints is dishonest.
I can't wrap my head around "society failing people" - society is people. Average person has no influence, not even a little bit, on any of those things. Meanwhile, a small subset of the people have all the influence and they mostly operate in their own self-interest.
> I can't wrap my head around "society failing people" - society is people.
Effectively, societies are Boomers and older generations. These form the majority of the population that is of voting age and they hold most of the financial (in stocks and real estate ownership) and executive power.
So yes, it can be said that society fails the younger generation.
I disagree, everyone operates in their own short term self-interest, leading to a massive scale prisoners dilemma and crab bucket mentality.
The vast majority on this planet believe in a perverse expected value calculation:
probability of becoming a billionaire * billion dollars > assets in fair society
where "assets in fair society" is higher than it currently is, maybe 2x or 3x, but it pales in comparison to the chance at 10000x and the optimism that distorts the "probability of becoming a billionaire" to be higher than it really is.
There is a perceived equilibrium between the remote possibility of undoing all the bad things that happened during the course of your life instantly and a more just society that merely gives you a little bit more money, but otherwise keeps most things the same, but with less stress and conflict.
We, humanity, are on the verge of a question we’ve never had to answer before: what does it mean to be human, and do we even want to be? Because for the first time in history, we might be able to answer “no”.
In many major facets life we’re about to transcend the boundaries that have limited us since we started talking to each other. Health with ozempic and CRISPR, relationships with AI companions, entertainment with social media and AI generated content.
The decision Australia is making is not an individual one. It’s a societal one. It’s “do we want our kids to grow up in a society free of social media”.
Australia tends to be more willing to make collectivist decisions like this, unlike America which places immense value on individual choice.
It’s similar to Salesforce, Dynamics etc, they rarely achieve what they promise - the entire business is making executives feel like they’re transforming the business without taking on any risk.
The idea of a computer being able to solve IMO problems it has not seen before in natural language even just 3 years ago would be completely science fiction. This is astounding progress.
I'm Australian and have always wondered about how easy it is to get an E-3 visa. What does it take from the sponsoring companies side to actually do it and get me over there?
We handle a lot of E-3 visas and it's arguably the easiest U.S. work visa to get both from a company standpoint and an applicant/employee standpoint. The company requirements are minimal. For example, startups with limited or no revenue and limited or no funding can sponsor an E-3 visa. That being said, there is a prevailing wage requirement so a company - while it doesn't need to demonstrate to a U.S. Consulate its ability to pay a specific wage - in the end has to be able to pay a specific wage.
I'm stuck on the part of finding a job offer for the E3. Is there a path you recommend to that or is it just the same as anyone finding a job? I've got a limited network, I met someone at a party recently who leads a company in California but i'm reluctant to ask for a job.
Australian who's been in the USA almost a decade in 4 different roles, each requiring a new E3 as well as multiple E3 renewals;
I've found that companies are pretty eager once they hear that you only need an E3 visa. Unlike H1B the quota for E3 visas are never hit. Companies view it as a very straightforward and guaranteed process.
Assuming the company files their side of the paperwork in a timely manner, From accepting a role you can be working in the USA within 2 months end to end. The consulate appointments in Syd/Mel are the biggest pain point. It takes some refreshing since they are booked out for months at a time and you need to look for cancellations each day. That's literally the biggest pain point though, everything else is painless.
West coast climate and culture is the same as East coast Australia so that part is straightforward. Easy to make friends and a good life in that aspect.
For work-life balance I will acknowledge the biggest boom times are over. It was ridiculous at one point and the best move of my life. Nowadays though all big tech are starting to adopt some form of stack ranking and demands and pressure are going up while benefits are falling so it's not nearly as good as it once was.
Big tech is still ~5x take home pay though. I see a stint of working in the USA as necessary given Australian house prices. Do it for as long as you can stand, don't live up to the lifestyle of the wages. The net result is a big win for your life. As in if you work here for a year and get hit with layoffs? You'll still have 5x in savings for that year as you would have had in Australia.
warning you might end up with an american partner and get stuck there, ask me how i know :). But yeah, the comp difference is crazy, if we ever move back to aus we will have set ourselves up for a very nice life with our US earned savings.
Plus, far more interesting companies to choose from.
Many non fiction books are too long, I agree. But there’s also something lost when you treat these books as “extract lesson as fast as possible and move on”. There’s a joy sometimes in engaging with the material and taking your time.
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