I read more than ever, but Substack is taking a sizable share of the pie whereas lit and non-fiction is now my late evening. I don't do the audiobook thing, though I understand that has become increasingly popular yet not really given much credence.
Desire might be theoretically limitless, but time and attention is not. Time I spend reading is time I'm not consuming endless short-form videos. People have gotten hooked on phones and the medium dictates what they consume.
There could be boom and bust cycles for this. Trends lose lustre and people are always looking for ways to signal status/competence. It's probably why "booktok" is a thing.
Employers care about credentialization, a lot. And not just from elite universities based on wage data. Diplomas are a signal that you're conscientious enough to grit through large amounts of dull lectures, work and cramming, and that you're probably able to grasp some abstract concepts. You're underselling their value.
> Learning by doing and building a portfolio sounds like a better way of getting in the industry today than getting a multi-year degree with nothing or little to show for it.
Graduates do this too. The industry has gotten highly competitive. So who do you think employers would rather hire, a CS grad with a portfolio or high school grad with a portfolio? It takes a lot more for apps to impress today, in no small part because LLMs expedite the process.
Going so far as to as to found a company might be necessary if the goal is to work at a FAANG co or whatever, but most developers don't work there.
The major blocker for manual labor automation in that fashion is cheap energy. China is ahead of the pack with the States' weight behind aggressive expansion of solar tech, and still can't do that.
Ostensibly, due-diligence should not change. But people are lazy, just as they've always been around testing/QA/definition-of-done.
I'm not even certain that laziness gets them further along than it used to; I think it's that people have not had their overconfidence painfully corrected yet. Behaviors will re-align pretty fast when people realize that no, they're not going to get away with just pressing a button and saying everything is "good". That is happening right now.
You could make the same argument for the internet pre-LLM; it could be relied upon over immediate connections. It's also reminiscent of Socrates's skepticism of written text over oral tradition.
Speeches haven't gone away, videos are more popular than ever, and consulting within our social circle will continue on.
I think there's something to be said about there being an isolationist phenomenon in society that might be contributing in part to low fertility, but that significantly pre-dates LLMs. It's easy and convenient for us to be alone - people create friction. We've been entertained by the TV set for a century now. That said, we remain social creatures and enduringly have a need to be with others, at least to some extent.
They should, but they (some) don't. As with most things, it's more attributable to ignorance than malice. Not much I want to do with what this "tells" me.
Norms surrounding the use of LLMs are in the process of being established, it's a new frontier. Many people rely on these signals over common sense. The feedback loop will lead to corrections in time, for now people are sussing out where the boundaries of appropriate-use are. Corp/gov policy is still lagging as well.
Growing pains. We haven't yet established norms surrounding use of LLMs, and people are lazy. We will have to learn from mistakes first, unfortunately. In this case that means diminishing trust.
Per learning from others after encountering an unfamiliar problem, I think there are rose-tinted glasses here. 90%+ of the time, either someone else had already provided the relevant answer at Stack Overflow or I could find it on a documentation page, a blog. There is no social engagement then. Just search. That also hasn't gone away, as LLMs can also provide sources to justify their answers.
Per the human element, the author is in part relaying about formative experiences from youth that you won't easily repeat, and also experiences that are not decoupled from the work as it still exists, unless you are entirely remote, which is not a LLM-specific problem.
All of which to say, the emotional element behind it is valid, but the diagnosis is off the mark. I think the human element, should it be jeopardized, is in part through the complacent convenience of remote work and disinterest in community participation. But, communities still exist, and tech communities historically were always niche. As it stands they're probably bigger now than they ever were.
There are still new frontiers with software where LLMs will be less effective. Yes, there is less friction than before for learning technologies, but all this does is move the goalpost as we can accomplish more with our time.
Instead of hacking things out through trial and error on mature stacks (with or without others), you'll be closer to the cutting edge and have different problems. Many of which will still be technological in nature.
I think there's something to this. For gentiles especially, Christianity was more attractive and life-affirming than what they had, as long-suffering subjects of the Roman Empire with little to hope for. Notwithstanding the enduring core messaging, the allure might have shifted over time between some components as quality of life improved (for instance I think the role of 'sin' and 'salvation' qua deliverance from guilt became more significant later for adherents, where earlier on the "afterlife" sells itself when life is shit).
That is one important aspect, but there are several to my mind
- Life in the bronze age was very rough, and quality of life in cities was basically inhumane. Women were highly represented among earliest converts, as Christianity comparatively was rather progressive and demanded baseline respect for them. Also, pagan religions of the time, despite cultural significance, didn't promise much of a payoff for plebeians for all their toil. Conversion was easy after Paul pushed the case that they shouldn't have to convert to Judaism, with all that would entail.
- Especially in the early days, this was very much a pacifist religion, in addition to having an apocalyptic fixation. To Rome, "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's" is a handy sentiment for the populace to have. They fought and won several uprisings just from the Jews who wanted their independence (and expected their forthcoming Savior would literally help deliver this), and the vast empire was beginning it's slow decline. Killing Christians and making martyrs out of them didn't make much sense in the long-run.
- There is a magic sauce in universalizing, it extends the shared culture within territories and makes it easier to convince people to wage war for you. Prior, the motivators were mainly tribal/blood connections, and money.
The Jews for their part were content with what they had, Christianity didn't provide much value-added, especially for the "zealots" who were ready to die for freedom. The "Love-thy-neighbor" sentiment is sort of similar to parts of Leviticus, but the cranked up pacifism and relaxed outlook over some rules was a departure. I think the "afterlife" bit was a lot more persuasive for gentiles. Then of course the rituals and conception in the collective consciousness evolved over time, from influences like Augustine and others.
By the time there was a true Christendom, powers that be dropped the (absolute) significance of pacifism, as that was no longer as useful as it was.
There's an element of that, but it also exists alongside Postmedia and plethora of other online news media sources. It doesn't serve to replace everything, and as in all cases, getting news from more than one source is necessary to counteract bias and distortion.
All of which to say there are some things that CBC reports on pretty well. I does scrutinize the govt at times, albeit selectively (like everyone else). Maybe the problem people have with it is that it's a public service that has a clear liberal bias.
Desire might be theoretically limitless, but time and attention is not. Time I spend reading is time I'm not consuming endless short-form videos. People have gotten hooked on phones and the medium dictates what they consume.
There could be boom and bust cycles for this. Trends lose lustre and people are always looking for ways to signal status/competence. It's probably why "booktok" is a thing.