I am on the fence. As a long time JavaScript developer I am pretty well aware I will never work again unless I create my own company. I can thus create my own company or basically start over from scratch doing something different.
And, no, I don't blame AI for never working again.
I blame an industry whose first five goals are hiring/firing as opposed to product development. It results in a perverted environment of unprepared pseudo-professional developers that jump ship every 18 months and yet cannot write software of their own, not even a little.
It reminds me of that scene in Idiocracy where the security guard called the hero an idiot for standing in the wrong line, which inadvertently results in a rather straight forward prison escape. At some point more experienced people get tired of being called idiots for not doing things the way a beginner would. Let's be real and just admit most of these people have invented a vast complex engineering culture event though all they really do is assign some events and put text on screen. Why bother using a spoon to eat your breakfast when you can use a giant factory of bulldozers?
Long term? Definitely a No because nature is pretty harsh and we spent a few millennia to get out of it. Most common people are not fit or rich enough to live in a forest.
Short term? Yes that’s interesting. Maybe a couple of weeks in a cabin or something. I don’t mind chopping woods to make firewood but I need managed sanitary.
A good middle ground is to live in a small town bordering the wilderness. I’d like to live in some town that neighbours a forest and is about an hour from the sea.
You might be surprised just how many homes run on a well and septic system. Day-to-day, walking into my house, you wouldn't even know the difference between my home and one in the city. We also don't need to chop firewood. My completely standard modern furnace runs on gas, just like ones in the city. Admittedly, I need to supply the gas, but that infrastructure is also well-solved. I just need to make sure to order more when my tank is near empty, and a truck shows up and fills my tank. I pay them instead of the utility companies.
What is more likely to throw you off is services like trash. There is no centralized trash service that just picks it up. You need to handle it. Most of the time, people still hire someone to do it, so it also ends up being the same as living in the city, but you need to actively seek out a solution. Or DIY - I know plenty of folks around here who don't mind taking their trash to the dump once a week or so.
And you cannot order food for delivery. That simply does not exist here.
Not that you are wrong that if we had to go back to living like we did hundreds of years ago, it would not be comfy. But the reality of living out in the country is not as different as you seem to imagine.
Oh that's for sure, I thought OP means literally living in a forest like people a few hundred years ago.
Actually, in the small towns that I described in my reply, people live in homes exactly like yours -- they don't have city sanitary pipelines so they use septic tanks.
I actually don't know about trash! Thanks for reminding me. And I agree with the food part, although I'll probably cook mine.
I bought a small forest. They are not actually expensive in my area. I love walking out of my door when work gets frustrating and walking through it. So yes, the answer to your question is definitely "Yes." But there are middle grounds between dedicating your life to the modern tech dystopia vs. completely walking away. Work remotely. Find a home that is in a natural setting. Go outside and enjoy it.
I got perfect 5G on top of a hill in the forest near me.
As it is I have a nice office above my pay grade in a run down and underpopulated building... It's pretty sweet, particularly compared to the CS building across the street which is an overcrowded WeWork kind of space where I really do think I'd be driven crazy by other people.
No, you aren't the only one, however I know from my uncle who used to do this that it will most likely mean back-breaking work or paid measly (sometimes both), hardly enough to feed a family.
But it's a funny image of usually quiet forests now crawling with former software devs looking for a new purpose.
As a kid I lived somewhere close to a forest, as well my granpa had a tiny farm. I basically grew up in the woods as I'd go there to play with my friends, take care of livestock on the farm, do all kinds of random stuff and also get bitten by a snake and random problems too.
We made a soccer field, built a hut and a couple of other things there. It was fun.
I do miss it, and this isn't about AI or anything, but mostly nostalgia of a simpler time, but it isn't that simple as an adult or to make this a full-time endeavour and just live there.
Nature is fucking harsh, people that are crying about AI getting them unemployed or changing their professions are pretty much mostly softies... and seeing nature as refuge is a mistake. Living there is HARD.
There's a reason why people accept living in a huge city instead of buying some cheap plot somewhere.
Life in the city is so easy as the government typically takes care of a lot of invisible problems you have if you live in the middle of nowhere.
So, living in the woods is very tough, I just lived nearby and we've had to deal with many issues because of it.
If you intend to live there, you are up for a rude awakening. It's very expensive as well, you'd need to invest quite a bit to make it livable.
Also if you want to eventually plant some potatos or something there might be regulations and limitations of what you can do.
With some planning it's definitely doable, but it isn't that simple to just move in there.
An alternative nowadays can be to have a camper, but not all countries allow you to camp anywhere, in the US you are allowed to, but in Europe AFAIK you can't.
Then you can just camp for sometime and see if it's fitting you, and figure out how can you make a living doing it, as inevitably you'll need money and find out how to survive.
> I do miss it, and this isn't about AI or anything, but mostly nostalgia of a simpler time, but it isn't that simple as an adult or to make this a full-time endeavour and just live there.
To me it's about disconnecting from an over connected world. It exhausts some people who need to decompress in peace and that is hard if you live in the middle of a noisy city. Personally, I love being in the country side where there are little to no people around and all you hear are the sounds of nature. It's serene.
> Nature is fucking harsh, people that are crying about AI getting them unemployed or changing their professions are pretty much mostly softies...
No one is talking about living off the land. There are governments and markets in the country side. The expense of some goods is offset by the low cost of living. I fully support peoples decisions to live where they feel most comfortable. If that means a city person like me has to subsidize it, then so be it.
I am on the fence. As a long time JavaScript developer I am pretty well aware I will never work again unless I create my own company. I can thus create my own company or basically start over from scratch doing something different.
And, no, I don't blame AI for never working again.
I blame an industry whose first five goals are hiring/firing as opposed to product development. It results in a perverted environment of unprepared pseudo-professional developers that jump ship every 18 months and yet cannot write software of their own, not even a little.
It reminds me of that scene in Idiocracy where the security guard called the hero an idiot for standing in the wrong line, which inadvertently results in a rather straight forward prison escape. At some point more experienced people get tired of being called idiots for not doing things the way a beginner would. Let's be real and just admit most of these people have invented a vast complex engineering culture event though all they really do is assign some events and put text on screen. Why bother using a spoon to eat your breakfast when you can use a giant factory of bulldozers?
Have you seen the list of SWE turned carpenters/woodworkers?
It's been a common theme even on this site for at least the past decade.
- Why software engineers like woodworking : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31687378
- Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40245601
- Woodworking through the mind of an engineer : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33708851
Long term? Definitely a No because nature is pretty harsh and we spent a few millennia to get out of it. Most common people are not fit or rich enough to live in a forest.
Short term? Yes that’s interesting. Maybe a couple of weeks in a cabin or something. I don’t mind chopping woods to make firewood but I need managed sanitary.
A good middle ground is to live in a small town bordering the wilderness. I’d like to live in some town that neighbours a forest and is about an hour from the sea.
You might be surprised just how many homes run on a well and septic system. Day-to-day, walking into my house, you wouldn't even know the difference between my home and one in the city. We also don't need to chop firewood. My completely standard modern furnace runs on gas, just like ones in the city. Admittedly, I need to supply the gas, but that infrastructure is also well-solved. I just need to make sure to order more when my tank is near empty, and a truck shows up and fills my tank. I pay them instead of the utility companies.
What is more likely to throw you off is services like trash. There is no centralized trash service that just picks it up. You need to handle it. Most of the time, people still hire someone to do it, so it also ends up being the same as living in the city, but you need to actively seek out a solution. Or DIY - I know plenty of folks around here who don't mind taking their trash to the dump once a week or so.
And you cannot order food for delivery. That simply does not exist here.
Not that you are wrong that if we had to go back to living like we did hundreds of years ago, it would not be comfy. But the reality of living out in the country is not as different as you seem to imagine.
Oh that's for sure, I thought OP means literally living in a forest like people a few hundred years ago.
Actually, in the small towns that I described in my reply, people live in homes exactly like yours -- they don't have city sanitary pipelines so they use septic tanks.
I actually don't know about trash! Thanks for reminding me. And I agree with the food part, although I'll probably cook mine.
Nature seems harsh to you now, but back then, it wasn't so harsh. Sure, maybe mosquito bites would annoy you, but back then, not some much.
I bought a small forest. They are not actually expensive in my area. I love walking out of my door when work gets frustrating and walking through it. So yes, the answer to your question is definitely "Yes." But there are middle grounds between dedicating your life to the modern tech dystopia vs. completely walking away. Work remotely. Find a home that is in a natural setting. Go outside and enjoy it.
I got perfect 5G on top of a hill in the forest near me.
As it is I have a nice office above my pay grade in a run down and underpopulated building... It's pretty sweet, particularly compared to the CS building across the street which is an overcrowded WeWork kind of space where I really do think I'd be driven crazy by other people.
I think all of us the solo founders/devs think about this.
You are not, but there's few of us left on here.
I often fantasize about working from a South Pacific beach
No, you aren't the only one, however I know from my uncle who used to do this that it will most likely mean back-breaking work or paid measly (sometimes both), hardly enough to feed a family. But it's a funny image of usually quiet forests now crawling with former software devs looking for a new purpose.
As a kid I lived somewhere close to a forest, as well my granpa had a tiny farm. I basically grew up in the woods as I'd go there to play with my friends, take care of livestock on the farm, do all kinds of random stuff and also get bitten by a snake and random problems too.
We made a soccer field, built a hut and a couple of other things there. It was fun.
I do miss it, and this isn't about AI or anything, but mostly nostalgia of a simpler time, but it isn't that simple as an adult or to make this a full-time endeavour and just live there.
Nature is fucking harsh, people that are crying about AI getting them unemployed or changing their professions are pretty much mostly softies... and seeing nature as refuge is a mistake. Living there is HARD.
There's a reason why people accept living in a huge city instead of buying some cheap plot somewhere.
Life in the city is so easy as the government typically takes care of a lot of invisible problems you have if you live in the middle of nowhere.
So, living in the woods is very tough, I just lived nearby and we've had to deal with many issues because of it.
If you intend to live there, you are up for a rude awakening. It's very expensive as well, you'd need to invest quite a bit to make it livable.
Also if you want to eventually plant some potatos or something there might be regulations and limitations of what you can do.
With some planning it's definitely doable, but it isn't that simple to just move in there.
An alternative nowadays can be to have a camper, but not all countries allow you to camp anywhere, in the US you are allowed to, but in Europe AFAIK you can't.
Then you can just camp for sometime and see if it's fitting you, and figure out how can you make a living doing it, as inevitably you'll need money and find out how to survive.
> I do miss it, and this isn't about AI or anything, but mostly nostalgia of a simpler time, but it isn't that simple as an adult or to make this a full-time endeavour and just live there.
To me it's about disconnecting from an over connected world. It exhausts some people who need to decompress in peace and that is hard if you live in the middle of a noisy city. Personally, I love being in the country side where there are little to no people around and all you hear are the sounds of nature. It's serene.
> Nature is fucking harsh, people that are crying about AI getting them unemployed or changing their professions are pretty much mostly softies...
No one is talking about living off the land. There are governments and markets in the country side. The expense of some goods is offset by the low cost of living. I fully support peoples decisions to live where they feel most comfortable. If that means a city person like me has to subsidize it, then so be it.