> I go to sleep wishing for the day when I can automate everything away.
I've been sitting here trying to suss out why something about saying this outside the context of a job interview feels so cringe to me. Best I can figure is that it's two things. 1.) Having that thought as a central part of your inner life implies that you have a very limited social life. 2.) The lack of worry about your own well being - "we'll have UBI or a dystopian hellscape, oh well" - feels almost ... subish in a sadomasochistic sort of way. Like you're bottoming for the economy (not that there's an issue with bottoming, lol).
If you owned your own business it wouldn't strike me this way, but if you're just a programmer at a company you don't actually get to work less by automating things, you just get to work on different stuff. But if you automated everything you'd just be tossed aside and reap no benefits. Wishing that on yourself is just.... so strangely pathetic. I know you didn't mean to sound pathetic. You probably consider it cool or heroic (in a nerdy sense) to talk about how much you want to automate everything.
Sorry to derail like this. I'm just fascinated by my revulsion and trying to untangle it.
I don’t literally think of this every night. I was exaggerating and should have been more clear about this statement not being literal.
I’ve never actually ended my day wishing for automating everything. But it is an ideal that I would like.
I wouldn’t be tossed aside from automating my own business as I own it and no one could toss me aside. There’s not a requirement that I have an employer.
So I don’t think automating all my work away means I won’t have a purpose any longer. I think it will lead to more interesting and meaningful work.
I could be wrong but I’ve automated hundreds, maybe thousands of processes over the years for various companies and it’s always led to me working on more interesting stuff.
I don’t think it’s cool or heroic, whatever that means, just part of fun problems that I get to solve.
My lack of worry is based on not having any control over the situation so instead focusing on other things. It’s just a reductive analysis that lets me think I don’t have to worry about it.
In the extremely small chance that it is possible to automate everything so that there’s no more work, I don’t have control over it. In hellscape mode, that sucks and is not fun. In UBI mode that’s great. Either way, it’s not affecting my decisions today. I certainly don’t wish for the negative outcome or relish it’s potential.
I think your revulsion may be due to misunderstanding some of my motivations.
I've been sitting here trying to suss out why something about saying this outside the context of a job interview feels so cringe to me. Best I can figure is that it's two things. 1.) Having that thought as a central part of your inner life implies that you have a very limited social life. 2.) The lack of worry about your own well being - "we'll have UBI or a dystopian hellscape, oh well" - feels almost ... subish in a sadomasochistic sort of way. Like you're bottoming for the economy (not that there's an issue with bottoming, lol).
If you owned your own business it wouldn't strike me this way, but if you're just a programmer at a company you don't actually get to work less by automating things, you just get to work on different stuff. But if you automated everything you'd just be tossed aside and reap no benefits. Wishing that on yourself is just.... so strangely pathetic. I know you didn't mean to sound pathetic. You probably consider it cool or heroic (in a nerdy sense) to talk about how much you want to automate everything.
Sorry to derail like this. I'm just fascinated by my revulsion and trying to untangle it.