hugh

Thanks for your perspective! I absolutely don’t think trade work is easy, it can be extremely demanding, and I don’t think I’m physically capable of it now. My back was destroyed for a week after putting up ceiling panels recently. I’m not romanticizing it, just comparing it to most software development roles that involve finishing tasks that are not very useful to anyone and exist mostly in service of either shareholders or making things a little easier for their employees, often at the expense of the users. If you build a wall, that’s a real useful thing for some people. I’m sure there are a million other examples of jobs like that (care work, teaching, arts, governance, etc) but trades was the subset I personally wish I had done instead while I still had the physical fitness.

I was unemployed for over a year. Recently got a job in SWE. I regret it. Waste of my life. It’s worthless work, I don’t do anything that matters to anyone but shareholders. Contemplating quitting during my probation period and learning a trade (it would be a no brainer if 10 years as an SWE at a desk for 16 hours a day hadn’t physically destroyed my body) or getting more involved in political activism.

In your situation, if you insist you want to get into tech, I would recommend applying to jobs that closely match your skillset and then spend some extra curricular time making friends with the in house programmers, finding ways to collaborate, and showing that having you spend time with them is valuable.

Never underestimate the sycophantic idiocy of individual tech workers. One developer does not make a corporate policy. I’m not defending Plex though, if I used them I’d switch away.

Test 16

Edit: From Voyager app

I mainly avoid doing anything with any appreciable covid risk. If I can't, like, if I have to go to a doctor, in person, then I will wear a mask. Turns out I still think giving people brain damage is a morally bad thing to do. And if you do any basic modelling of virus spread, any one infection becomes the ancestor of many thousands of cases in the first two years. From there you just apply the long covid rates and death rates, which shows trivially that spreading covid is morally equivalent to killing people, and maiming hundreds of people. So I do whatever I can to avoid that, including masks where appropriate, but more importantly, avoiding situations where you even have to mask. In my view each individual's right to go to a restaurant or whatever does not outweigh the consequences of covid spread (before you even factor mutation in). Of course, I realize this won't solve anything at a societal/global level. But individual morality is still a thing in my view.