Nobody cares
(grantslatton.com)985 points by fzliu 3 days ago
985 points by fzliu 3 days ago
In Japan this attentive behaviour is often out of fear or boredom. Either way the service is good overall.
I live here. Sometimes the service isnt good and staff behaves like an insentient robot who repeats a script and fucks off.
If you know Japanese and actually talk to them, its obviously the same ape base mech the rest of us are driving.
One thing that rarely mentioned in Japanese 7-11 efficiency is the "employment ice age" problem that contributed to it: there was a massive job crisis around 1993-2005 and major STEM university graduates were dime a dozen. A McDonald's but with only clones of Gordon Freeman as employees tends to become a bit different place than a regular hamburger shop.
theres an effect in countries with high average iq where the quality of low skill labor workers is higher. I dont remember the name, but was convinced it was causal.
its similar to what you are saying, but applies across the board, not just to university grads, and in taiwan also.
i suspect japanese workers at 7-11 now are not college grads still working there from the 90s. its mostly young part time workers. i see middle age people sometimes. Noteably theyre losing the high quality service reputation entirely because many of the stores are being run by immigrants from nepal and the philipines now who dont follow the japanese service memes.
They also mess up the sushi at sushiro/kurasushi and your fish come sideways.
Oh.. do people not do that anymore? At the little grocery store I worked at in BC Canada, if there were like 2 or 3 people in line we'd call for help if they weren't already on their way. Seems like a pretty basic thing.
Here in the US, I don't know what's going on with the cashiers. They're slow. They don't say a single word to you, not even to give you your total. And they're awful at bagging. I just don't get it. It's not a hard job.
How roles are perceived, becomes how people perceive themselves, becomes how people act out those roles.
Or more to the point: Its easier to be what people expect you to be.
In my experience the US is especially susceptible to this 'roleplaying', probably because all (entertrainment) media comes from the same overarching culture.
What, we expect cashiers to be slow and bad so that's how they act? That's ridiculous. I expect them to scan my groceries at a reasonable pace, put the eggs and bread on top, and read me the total when they're done. I expect their managers to give them heck if they're clearing lines at half the speed as the next cashier over. That's about it.
It's not a shameful or embarrassing job. My sister-in-law made a career out of it. She's happy there, so I'm happy for her. She gets good benefits and decent pay. Just do your job and everyone's happy.
It's not a hard job to check out any single customer's groceries. It's a hard job to do it all day, especially when you're not allowed to sit down.
I've literally done it. It's not hard. Maybe if you have some health conditions that make it difficult to stand, but I hope the store will provide accommodations if you do.
I used to rank the McDonald's in Toppongi hills Tokyo as having the best employees anywhere after I saw one run from one side of the little shop to the other when the French fry buzzer went off.
However, it got beat out by the McDonald's in Arkadelphia Arkansas, where the employee fast walked as quickly as hen could to take the order to the car waiting in the Drive-Thru, and then also fast walked back. Running of course would have been against OSHA and gotten hen in trouble so hen did the best hen could.
Are you Swedish? Just wondering because I've never seen the gender neutral pronoun "hen" in English.
"hen" is my go-to gender neutral 3rd person singular pronoun.
I realize that English speakers use "you" for both singular and plural, having retired "thee" and "thou", but the resulting ambiguity has led to the creation of a new word, "y'all", or sometimes prepending it with "all of" for clarity.
Using "they/them" in the singular will just lead us down the same path.
Why not short circuit it and just add the pronoun English speakers have needed forever?
How often is the gender of the pronouned person(s) relevant? In my experience, almost never.
Right now I am reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer for the first time and guess what, back in 1984 there are uses of “they” in a situation where gender of a hypothetical singular third person is irrelevant. It is not confusing in the slightest, compared to a completely new artificially created word.
The run usually isnt because they care its because theyre scared of senpai and (bucho/shacho) big boss.
If the management is chill they arent gonna run.
I'm not sure what was going on in tokyo, but in arkadelphia it was simply that there are a huge number of people waiting for food and the employee did not want them to wait any longer than they had to.
Man, I've been the engineer in situations like that bike lane and believe me, we care. Usually the engineers care. 99% of the time the contractor had some "value engineering" suggestions that the client was all too happy to take because it saved them a little money up front. As the engineer you can try to explain that it will be shitty, but they ... don't care.
A well known CEO noted that in a failing organization he was trying to devise a turn around plan for that everyone in the organization invariably blamed... the other teams! Not a one said "our team is responsible for our failure".
The engineers blamed product, the product people blamed sales, etc.
He said he provided this suggestion, "You are of course right (it's the other groups fault, and it might have been so), but what can you do, in your group, as part of a solution we all work towards to help fix this?"
So yeah, it is the other guys fault. But what you can you do to help fix it?
Classic CEO. "How can you, the powerless IC, fix an organisational problem? No, I mean without me having to do anything meaningful or risky"
Not at all.
The CEO in question publicly declared his own job would be forfeit within a year if he didn't meet goals that were in the recent past history of the company, absolutely impossible.
He met and exceeded those goals.
The IC isn't powerless with good management.
This is such a low effort learned-helplessness response. Look, there are good CEOs and bad CEOs, I'm not here to defend them, but one thing you have to understand is that CEO action is an extremely blunt instrument. Of all the problems in an org, the vast majority can not be directly solved by the CEO, they can just sort of broadly steer the culture in the right direction, but folks down the chain need to solve problems at their own level. Of course there are tradeoffs in an organization and so not every problem can be solved, but if folks who understand the details can't propose any kind of solution that doesn't A) require CEO action or B) every other person to act exactly the way they propose, then they're not really helping.
I understand there's a lot of toxic environments where it's not worth trying to improve things, but a blanket statement pointing at CEOs en masse as the root of all problems is just as stupid and reductive as CEOs who don't do anything to empower ICs and learn from the front-line expertise.
Sure, that's great if you all work for the same organization and everyone involved asked themselves that and they all benefited from the organization's overall success.
But that is not the case here. That is not how bike lanes or many other things get built. The engineer is a consultant that works for one independent company. The contractor is a different independent company. The client is another company or a government entity. Possibly the client involves several different entities with competing demands and priorities.
And "success" for the engineer doesn't really mean building a good thing. It means a happy client who will come back for repeat business.
How does this problem get fixed? Well, eventually someone hits that curb and breaks their neck and sues the city. Then the city hires an engineer to create design standards that they include in future contracts when they build new bike lanes.
There are two groups of people: blamers and doers. For example, people will often blame local government for issues such as not disposing of fly tipping garbage quick enough, but they will not do much to clean up the pavements with sofas or fridges around their house – a man with a van can often drive over these large bits of garbage to a recycling centre for like $30/£30 an hour. Sometimes people will say government is spending money poorly, but they will not have participated in any of the consultations the government did on the matter, even if they were online or accepted mail-in comments. And in workplaces, they will often blame other departments without having put in elementary effort to resolve the issues with them. Sometimes people will blame government services for collapsing – there are certainly many YouTubers that constantly moan about how bad public transit is in many regions of the US, but few will donate to groups and politicians that genuinely want to replan public transit. Few will campaign for them, which can be done online in the fraction of a time it takes to produce a video.
If an org gets taken over by the blamer culture, it is doomed. These people will make no attempt at fixing problems, even when that would sometimes take 5 minutes and an email, but they will moan. And they will blame, and sometimes they'll blame the person suggesting an easy and workable course of action to resolve the problems.
Interestingly, sometimes resolving the problem takes less effort than sustained moaning, and certainly less mental strain. And still, people who tend towards the blamer group will blame and moan. Though I make no insinuation that moaning doesn't have any other benefits (such as YouTube video revenue, virtue signalling, and similar) – it is clearly appealing to one of the two groups I mentioned.
> Interestingly, sometimes resolving the problem takes less effort than sustained moaning, and certainly less mental strain.
That would involve actually doing some kind of work that people doing the complaining would like to avoid in the first place, because it's "someone else's responsibility to get it right!".
The irony is that the CEO is essentially blaming the employees in this case without listening and figuring out what the actual problem is.
Definitely a cultural problem where any sort of flaw is punished. We definitely need to root that out if we are to come together.
Its worse than that. There is a logic to society, growth and scaling that involves accumulating obligations. This is like a gravity or a gang hivemind that due to scale inverts the value of bettering to the value of self-preservation of a corrupt society theatre. They dont want improvement but containment i.e. inhibition of creative destruction. What really gets me here is just how much people normalize lying.
When you know this (if you arent obligation enslaved) you can then just work orthogonally to the system to make something way better. In fact it kind of breaks reality for you.
"does this dress make me look fat"
is it lying or not? People lie all day every day, and if you dont they wont like you. They expect you to lie.
Someone invites you somewhere. You respond you dont want to go because meh. They get angry. "Atleast make up an excuse or something dont just tell me you dont want to go!!"
Very common. More common in women.
I refuse to socialize with people who cannot handle my way of communication, unless I strictly require them in a professional setting. Recently I organized a party and it was so amazing to be able to communicate in a group without any barriers at all.
I am the guy who cares or cared! I will bring lost lady back to care home. I will help a kid to find his lost key in the playground. I will start fixing technical debt in a product at work. While two first cases were naturally the right thing to do I didn’t expect anything. With technical debt I was stopped because I was wasting company’s resources. I observe in my diary, that I am turning into do not care type person. One can’t cary about every pothole in the world.
Please never give up the fight against entropy. We can keep the flame alive a little longer.
Resist the cold churn toward pride-fueled apathy that this rant exhausts.
After reading this, if this is supposed to demonstrate the psyche of the sort of person who “cares”, I really hope he keeps indoors and spends a little bit more time on his self before stepping out on others.
The thing is that I might be another psycho. But there is a city center, winter and an old women with blueish hands. Wearing no proper shoes and having only a sweater. There are hundred other caring and loving persons and missionaries around, heavy car traffic too. But somehow I am the one bringing her to the care facility a mile away. How can it happen!? Why do you think, that only a Good Samaritan can care and a psycho can’t?
I think that's actually a known psychological phenomenom. The more people there are, the less likely someone steps in to help. Because if help was needed, someone of all the other people would have already helped. Same with driving past car accidents for example.
It's good to keep this in mind. If you see something and no one is helping, it's good to check. Especially when there are other people around.
Personally I just try to do right within my influence. And helping someone find their keys, or going after a stray pet, and similar fits right into that. It won't change the world, but it makes life better for someone and I'd hope to be treated similarly if I was in that situation.
And caring at work in an institution? I don't know, it seems part of survival to learn to not care there.
Well, pardon me. It doesn’t seem to me like you’ve gone mad, but if you are a psycho indeed, I don’t want to do you further harm.
If you really are “all right” and just an honestly styled man trying to cultivate good in a barren city with crushed soil and souls, then I reckon there’s some care in you of some kind much to be desired from others and you know it.
And I suspect that it’s the psychos who believe that they’re “Good Samaritans” and if your word is true then we can tell that apparently they’re unwilling to provide actions that confirm their claims. Crazy.
So, my guess is maybe the world’s gone so mad that anyone trying to behave sane looks strange, and the ones who are mad pretend to be right until wrong shows up.
As an antidote to this, one thing I like to do is notice when something is subtly nice.
I've bumped into those little wobly plastic things making a narrow turn. Saved me from a scratch.
The lights in my apartment are arranged so its quick to turn them all off when walking out the door.
That sort of thing.
One of the best parts of living in society with as much specialization as we have is that everything usually has a lot of thought beind it. Sadly, that thought is often towards making it more extractive and not better for me. But when it does work out its such a lovely feeling. That someone out there did this gift for me and we will never meet but share this invisible connection.
I really enjoyed your comment. Without digging deep into design philosophy, it really is a fun practice to try hard to notice the things around you (especially in the physical world as opposed to digital) that were specifically designed for you in mind and have actually positively affected you. Most of them were quite intentional, indeed! Isn't that great?
>The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care.
The author could stop eating at McDonald's and send a message to the company with his behaviour. But he does not care.
>The guy on the hiking trail is playing his shitty EDM on his bluetooth speaker, ruining nature for everyone else. He does not care.
The author could ask the guy to turn off the music and make the hiking trail more pleasurable for everyone. But he does not care.
Et cetera. He cares for views on his blog so he writes on his blog.
Broadly speaking yes.
The goals of managers (and business in general) are profit maximization, and of course upselling exists exactly for that. And if a manager decided that we need to add another upselling screen then it's more or less futile to disagree from the position of a subordinate employee. The decision has been thought of and made.
One time I asked a guy on the bus to turn his music down. (He was wearing headphones but also blasting music out of a bluetooth speaker.) He got extremely upset and threatened to beat me up. Everyone else on the bus got away from us. Nobody seemed willing to help me if he attacked. Fortunately the bus came to a stop about 20 seconds later and he got off.
I have since moved out of the SF bay area and I drive everywhere. My life is much more pleasant.
I get where you are coming from and also got the impression that this guy is just bitching about people not doing things the way he wants them to.
But, I catch myself doing this sometimes, though the motive for my gripe may be a bit different. The music on the trail one is a good example, since I like to hike. Generally speaking, most people are respectful out on the trails because we are all there for a similar reason; to connect with nature and relax our mind/spirit while we get our dose of motion medicine. It's an immersive experience, but that immersion and the comradery that comes with it is broken by people who disrupt the serenity of the experience by not considering how their actions effect other people around them.
If I apply that to the examples, that "nobody cares about the impact of their actions on the lives of others" it clicks. Yes, it's heavily cynical, but it is hard not to be, most days, which is why I hike (among other hobbies) to get out of my own head and shed that default cynicism for a bit.
Maybe the author feels that way, but didn't articulate it well enough? Or maybe it's just a hard thing to convey since it always appears as just bitching about the way things are. I guess I empathize, but would have approached it differently.
The author should really move to Japan if they’re so impressed. Then they’ll get to find out what things in Japan no-one gives a shit about, and the shine will wear off.
People often seem to caution against romanticizing Japan, and I think that is a good instinct no matter what, but at least among my cohort, I don't know anyone who has moved to Japan and shown any signs of having regret for having done it. I've never considered moving to Japan, but based on what I know and people I've talked to, I suspect I'd probably enjoy it too, though having only one year of Japanese class under my belt, it'd be quite a long road for me.
But actually, I like a lot of aspects of the United States, too, and I also wish more people gave a shit here. They're clearly speaking in hyperbole but I think the overarching point rings true; less people give a shit than you'd hope. Hell, I struggle to give a shit some days.
Hmm, I've met quite a few people over the years who spent time living in Japan and moved back, they usually weren't in any hurry to return. Seems like some really love it and others think they will, but don't.
The flight is long and expensive, the exchange rate fluctuates, and people like to be near their families. Also the language thing is kind of tough without consistent practice and it can be harder to remember over time.
I say this as someone who loved being there but can't quite afford to go back and see my friends who are still inviting me to visit again.
In terms of permanent residency, I think that Japanese culture Does Not Care about employees' work/life balance. The USA is working hard to catch up here so that's only a temporary gap.
This is where the author lost me as well. Massive peer pressure to conform is not the same as not caring. Maybe thats a little reductive, or the worst possible way to look at it, but no place that really cares would have such a bad reputation for terrible working conditions.
I would like to a make a small joke about something that Japanese culture does not care about: Home insulation! I have been in so many older, frigid homes and small hotels with paper thin windows and walls. It is like they are allergic to building insulation! Of course, newer homes and buildings are much better now.
I've been living in Japan for more than 9 years. I think that the author is right in the sense that people in Japan seem to care more. Of course, the stress is on the word "seem". Some people truly care, but there is also the cultural expectation that you should care. I don't know if realising that counts as the "shine that will wear off", but it seems to not a bad default.
I recently spent some time in the ER in a criminally underfunded and understaffed public healthcare system. People in quite severe pain were languishing waiting their turn but the nurses went out of their way to show a semblance of care and humanity to the patients and even apologize to them when they didn't have to and weren't expected to. Maybe that overall situation shows that key people in the society or government don't care but clearly the frontline people still care. I choose to focus on them and do my little bit to make things around me a little bit better when maybe no one expects me to either.
I doubt people in Japan care more or less than anywhere else. They just buy into a different social contract, one where they believe that if you behave a certain way towards others, your life in turn will be better as well. Japan is right to discourage foreigners from moving and living there. Those sorts of social contracts only work when everyone is on the same page.
> I doubt people in Japan care more or less than anywhere else.
> Japan is right to discourage foreigners from moving and living there.
This is how trains work in Bangkok also, and Thai culture is very different from Japanese culture.
This is just how trains work in that place. It’s not deeper than that.
Same in the UK. Isn’t waiting for others to get off before you get on just basic courtesy? There are definitely individuals who don’t do this, but most do. Same in lifts.
Other than that, I completely agree that people in Japan seem to care and take their jobs more seriously than elsewhere. Though my Japanese friends would probably tell me that it’s not because they deeply care — really they’re just terrified of standing out. Still, perhaps the resulting society is worth it! High trust is great.
Not sure what train you got in Thailand, you were perhaps lucky. Usually it is the opposite. As a westerner working in BKK this drives me mad that they do not wait. They will only wait if there is no gap to try push in on.
I’m talking about the skytrain, where they paint arrows on the ground to tell you where to stand to await boarding.
> Have been to the DMV? It sucked? There is a human being whose job it is to be in charge of the DMV. They do not care that it sucks.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've actually never had a bad experience at the DMV here in Seattle. The staff have been efficient, fast, and friendly every time.
I've had experiences with the DMV in three US states, and in two out of the three it was highly efficient and worked great. In one of them it was mediocre to unpleasant, but nothing to write home about.
I suspect the DMVs in LA and NYC are particularly bad and that's why it's a cultural meme.
My experience has been that it sucks but not as bad as private customer service.
Getting a refund from UHaul was fifteen hours of pulling teeth. DMV was a 45 minute wait.
Worse in Texas where they dont fund it ofc.
The service is fine. The lines and waits are horrendous and a DMV never seems to have the seating room for that. So you spend an hour before you even get in the door like you're waiting for a new iPhone or something.
DMV in Virginia has been efficient and relatively painless in my experience.
Indiana's BMV used to be the Kafkaesque when I went with my mom in the 1970s. She waited in a huge line only to find out it was the wrong line...waited again to find she didn't have a certain document and had go home to get it.
About 20 years ago the would check to see if you had everything right as you came in.
Now it's almost magical how fast friendly and efficient they've become for the few times you actually have to visit. Most transactions are online or via mail.
I've had wonderful experiences at DOL offices (which are 3rd party contracted), not so much at the DMV. Which one are you going to? Honestly worth a drive (or bus ride, depending on the issue) to go to a a decent one
Ironically, we may look with fond memories of the days when an actual human being handled our DMV paperwork.
An AI chatbot with an unblinking stare and frozen smile is likely to be your new DMV virtual assistant!
Why do people in the US need to go to the DMV at all?
Here in the UK, pretty much any interaction with our equivalent (DVLA - Driver and Vehicle Licensing) can be done online or by phone.
If you want/need to apply in-person for a licence or to pay vehicle tax, you can do it at many post offices.
I guess it is a centralised system, while the DMV is per-state.
I think I have dealt with such organization thrice in my life. 3 driving tests. And on all times it was as pleasant experience as possible.
Only complaint I really have with that system is them caring too much. Why does my car need "type certificate" sticker... It is all online and tied to VIN... Replacement cost like 200€ and then tens more for showing them paperwork new one was ordered...
This is cynical. There are a lot of people who do care. Consider that someone cared enough to build a bike lane in the first place. IMO life is hard for most people and as much as most would love to "care", they have to take care of themselves and their families first. The caring is focused where it is best applied.
I also don't think Elon would bother fixing a bike ramp or installing dog bag dispensers around his home(s). So if he does "care", it's not about things you care about.
I think it is the direction of the situation, rather than the state of things, that is concerning. The general direction is that everyone is incentivized and rewarded to look after their bottom line and personal gain and then everything else.
IMO, not caring about the wider impact of our actions is something that will keep happening at an increasing rate.
I'm so glad that someone else had the patience and articulation to write this article so that I didn't have to (as a personal venting exercise). My personal takeaway of the mutually shared frustrations in poor design has been apparent since maybe the 1990's onwards. It is very sad to see throwaway consumerism, permeate culture to the point where from an industrial design POV you need to buy vintage or ludicrously expensive appliances to have a beautiful and functional product that is also reliable. In the past decades, companies like Braun were able to bring beauty into the house, where now Temu disposables have taken their place.
Thank you to the author for putting the feeling I have had since years into words. It's not just the US that is this bad, it's also in Europe. Just looking at the COVID pandemic tells you all you need to know about countries where people care and where they don't care. Maybe the west emphasized individualism too much? See also: Communitarianism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism
Mindfulness of others is a very rare trait.
but once you start accounting for what the other person is going through, none of these may look as bad as they are.
A person could've lost his dog and want to free his mind by working out and forgets to put the weights back! one time its fine! few times its OK! happens every day, someone has to intervene!
Everyone cares, but:
- everyone has a different idea of what that means.
- many problems can't be solved by one person.
- caring has an opportunity cost.
- caring introduces liability.
- we live in a society.
Caring is a luxury, most people are just trying to survive.
This list is quite well-put.
Also, for a large number of roles, people are judged by the net value that they've contributed (net of mistakes). In a pretty large subset of such roles, it's usually the case that small-ish mistakes result in small-ish penalties, or sizeable penalties that aren't apparent immediately – so in the short-term, the here and now, folks in these roles are incentivized to focus on the big picture, and to ignore what they might feel could cause small-ish mistakes.
Consider a person involved with the modification of city street infrastructure to better cater for bikes. It's pretty good by most people's standards to have made progress by building reasonably use-able bike pathways, stands, etc. in say, a 4 km radius in a year. If it just so happens that like three out of, say, sixty of such constructs are problematic (mistakes) but they aren't big-ish problems, then on the whole, this person would be, quite justly, credited for having contributed to at least fifty seven functioning constructs; all in all, pretty good work despite three problematic constructs.
Of course, not all types of work is like that. That is, not all work are that forgiving in the sense that most earnest mistakes turn out to be small ones relative to the overall value produced. E.g., trading: algorithmic or otherwise.
Now, just a note in closing, the distribution of the price of mistakes in a given role is a different matter, can be an art in that it involves qualitative judgement, may be largely sensitive to context, and may be quite opinionated depending on who is reached for comment.
In my experience it isn't individuals not caring as much as there is no one individual accountable for making these kind of decisions. Whomever designed the bike ramp probably followed a set of curb-and-ramp regulations set by some committee, thought they were stupid, but then remembered that the last time he pushed back it was a huge hassle and he got reprimanded by his boss. The committee people probably cared about the rules in general but didn't foresee all use cases and didn't make their rules flexible enough.
A McDonald's kiosk is a masterpiece of engineering perfectly designed to make as much money as possible. It's by no means lazily made or without afterthoughts or care. Every detail in the interface has was decided after tons of experiments and hours of meetings.
They do care a lot, but about the wrong thing.
I set up a weekly auto-buy for a stock about a year ago with Cashapp.
I noticed the stock was way up today so I logged in to sell. Well, turns out the auto-buy has just... Not been firing... For a solid year. I have two purchases and then it stopped. It still says I have a weekly auto-buy set up, but I have not been charged.
In a just society, I would be owed my potential winnings for these unprocessed purchases, but having dealt with Cashapp support in the past I know damn well there's no way they're going to agree to that. I would be lucky to even catch the ear of a human being. It's sure as hell not worth taking them to court over a loss of maybe a couple hundred dollars at most.
The opaque and useless support of modern companies is literally in my eyes the worst part about the modern world. They quite literally do not care.
> having dealt with Cashapp support in the past
Yet you're still a user? Perhaps you also do not care? Actually the "do not care" covers a lot of ground here, perhaps you still find it useful and reliable enough, that you are willing to forgive this one bug due to the general convenience of cashapp.
No, I despise their stock feature. It was just easy to set up, but is fundamentally terrible in every aspect. The rub is I have a bunch of stock with them from the start of the pandemic and am pretty sure there is no way to move it to another service without triggering a taxable event.
So I guess I don't care in that I don't care enough to lose money on switching, or complicating my taxes even further by utilizing multiple investment firms.
They have an option to do an ACATS to another brokerage account. They do not mention specifically, but it looks like this would be considered a stock transfer "in kind" which should not be considered a taxable event.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Fidelity/comments/la7tj6/can_someon...
https://cash.app/help/5026-transferring-stock-to-another-bro...
As HN loves to quote Hanlon's razor: <<Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity (or incompetance).>> First, assume that they shares were purchased, but not correctly credited to your account. Second, confirm that with CashApp. (Doubt it -- but try that first.)
Assuming CashApp is a US-based brokerage, I would first raise a complaint with CashApp. If you get the blow-off (which I fully expect), send a written letter to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and CC CashApp legal and compliance team. (Make it clear in the letter that you are CC'ing CashApp L&C.) Usually, brokerages are not allowed to make a customer whole after an execution mistake. However, if they make enough mistakes, SEC will slap them with a huge fine. (See: Robinhood.) It is very important to formally register your complaint with CashApp. In fact, I would use this exact phrase: "I would like to formally file a complaint about poor execution service from your brokerage firm." Everything is recorded in brokerage firms these days (voice or written). There will be absolutely no doubt that you wish to formally file a complaint, and I can guarantee you that it will be taken seriously by either CashApp (L&C team) or SEC (enforcement team).
This is great advice I hope GP follows, but this also highlights something that I wish the original article addressed: not caring is contagious.
The reason corporate interests push a façade of not caring is so that many customers will also not care.
Between binding arbitration and other legalese-fu, the process for remediation slowly chips away at people who at first thought they cared.
I don’t think people don’t care, I think they have too much to do. Kids at home, too much work, and still barely making ends meet. Our society is set up to push people to the max, prioritizing quantity and “good enough” over quality. Most people do not have a career where spending 1% more time on a curb design instead of spending that time with their kids results in any more pay, much less the spare time to focus on craftsmanship for its own sake.
Thanks for complaining about McDonald's self service, which is truly dreadful and just gets worse (no I don't have the app, why would I want something you people made on my own phone, stop asking!).
Another "they don't care" is the TV screens that have the menu on in the background, that used to have menu and prices when you went up to order, and now display "cool animations" half the time so you can't read the menu while you're up there ordering and have to wait and look like an idiot for the menu to come back.
That bike lane ending might be so because it forces you to slow down. You are not supposed to crash into unsuspecting pedestrians when the bike lane ends. You should actually stop and get off the bike at this point.
Given the design, looks like the rider will definitely be getting off the bike one way or the other.
The author stated that a sign should be BEFORE the end of the lane. When riding, it's not clear that your lane will all of a sudden disappear so that you have time to slow down and change 'modes'. That wouldn't be allowed for the equivalent car lane without advance notice/signage.
The "bike lane ends" sign is...at the END (almost as bad as it saying 'bike lane has ended). And, it conflicts with the messaging on the road itself which features a "this is a bike lane and its going right" marking even up to the end." That marking is trying to say "this is turning into a combined pedestrian/bike pathway" but that's not clear and it makes it extremely dangerous for pedestrians.
Here's the streetview of the bike lane in question:
From skip-reading, this is not about motivation (intrinsic or otherwise) in general. This is about other people not caring about you, or what you care about.
I care a great deal about DevEx, and since no one else tends to care as much as I do, I can do good work for a few years, but then I'm worn out from fighting alone. I move on and hope things are more aligned somewhere else. Doesn't mean my co-workers are wrong for "not caring", just that I haven't found my peers.
The driver who doesn't let you into her lane perhaps cares deeply about not being late, again, to pick up her kids from daycare. Or her brother is about to do that stupid thing again, and if she doesn't try to stop him, she'll feel bad forever, again. Which lane you're in doesn't even register on her list.
It's really about culture. The US is high individualism, low in long-term orientation, and high in indulgence. The US has a bad culture for caring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede%27s_cultural_dimensio...
I invite the author to work for a large corp or a government and try and improve things. The most supportive people for improvements will be your team. The least supportive will be the higher-level managers. And no, the Director of Transportation is not the real manager. That's the mayor or city council.
Why? They get measured on the sweeping stuff, by the broad demands, and the people who actually pay them (in money or votes).
A better bike ramp that involves user testing but involves a delay that pushes work into the next quarter, changing accounting? That's a problem. I've lived this scenario where user features got axed to ensure all work could be budgeted under a particular quarter. Or a sign? That costs money and also needs approval, perhaps from another department.
Oh, and you are improving one bike ramp? Can't do that without people complaining. Got to improve all of them. So that is now a multi-million dollar project.
In a large org, it often isn't clear who owns overall design control, if anyone.
Lights that are great for drivers but suck for everyone else? That's many things in most cities and that is because drivers are the most vocal (and often the largest) population. Drivers win on everything from parking to infrastructure spending and drivers will tell city council what's on their mind.
For the corporate software I worked on, many users hated it. Tons of complaints. Team agreed. Team created proposal to fix it. Team managers pitched it to those above for the broader roadmap. Management explicitly said they didn't want to waste time on UI as the people paying were not the same as the people using.
Never worked for the DMV, but know a guy who maintains some software for one. What's the priority? Cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Nobody wants to fund the DMV. Nobody wants to pay for technological improvements for it. Nobody wants to pay for staffing. It is where small amounts get shaved off to pay for things people do care about. The guy in charge of the DMV is tasked with keeping costs low.
Maybe the Will To Have Nice Things is solved by culture not process.
I’ve seen the above too. Imbuing an organisation with the Will To Have Nice Things seems unsolved because, as you say, the value is constantly traded off against more measurable outcomes.
I think the solution has to be building and rewarding a culture of doing the right thing, taking pride in delivering not just to spec but excellence. So when the org plan demands a giant construction barrier near the kids playpark of course the person responsible also commissions a dinosaur mural for it. Not because it’s a KPI or was debated and traded off on the functional spec but as a matter of personal and professional pride.
Interestingly I think the drop in taking pride in your work coincides with the relative anonymity of society in which reputation is no longer tracked through past interactions or word of mouth but is institutionalised in rating systems. This is perhaps related to why a more insular and smaller society in Japan has managed to retain it to a higher degree. Certainly there are elite groups around the world in which everyone knows the other players and so reputation and (from an institutional perspective) over-delivery are still valued, and these groups are the ones that accomplish otherwise unachievable advances. The broader anonymous society that delivers only to spec ends up with leaky abstractions that gradually collapses under its own weight of incompetence once the former culture of Wanting Nice Things degrades to Somebody Else’s Problem.
If true this predicts a stable rule-of-law-based society or organisation in which the most powerful all know each other and which otherwise is broken into small mostly-stable communities would foster the Will To Have Nice Things more than an anonymous interchangeable mass would.
I can hear patio11 reminding me that this should have been a blog post.
I imagine so. You need agreement on "nice things" first.
My city constantly fights over this. Is a mural a nice thing or is the tax saving? Heck, is colour printing too much? I've heard people whine about them printing city handouts for council in colour.
It’s not a case of not caring, but rather caring about something else more. If you live in a country that emphasizes profit and watching out for self as priority then yeah you’re not going to get a whole lot of wholesome selfless community minded behavior.
It’s not really a fault of the individual but rather a necessary consequence of the collective priorities.
Sometimes people don’t care, but often they are just unaware because there is no mechanism for feedback to make its way to them after they have designed the thing. Whoever designed that bike ramp probably designed a thousand other road features, lives many miles away, and never communicates with the people that handle injury reports; he knows none of the visceral details that you see every day in your specific corner of the universe.
Why don't people care? Maybe because they can't anymore? Look at the skyrocking number of silent quitters, of people doing the bare minimum. Look at the perpetual doomposting from the media since around 2015. The world is in a perpetual decay, it's not a single bit the same as it was pre 9/11. The world most of us grew up in is lost.
So why care? If the past decade was nothing but disruption, change, disruption, change, why would anybody put in "constant" effort? Many still do, as I hear from the medical professions and those running the grid. But man, if those higher up the ranks won't start to listen to the friendly outcast from the bottom, things will become worse and worse. They either don't listen or they listen to the outcast that hates them. Both are ways to make the world worse.
It's most likely capitalism doing this to us. A lot of people are disenfranchised in society, most are alienated from their labor, don't feel happy about the work they do –if they have any control over it at all. Most of us don't have "third places" we go every day, we don't spend our days hanging out with our loved ones. Most of us are mainly isolated, maybe not intentionally, but work-rest-sleep-work cycle doesn't leave a lot of room for recreation or socializing.
Money doesn't fix any of our problems either, even if you're one of the few lucky to have enough of it, you can't possibly be happy living society perpetually decaying. We'll always be as happy as our neighbor.
I agree with author's frustrations. So many things could be better if people cared and did the right thing.
Japan is indeed slightly better in this regard: the work culture emphasizes doing your job as well as you possibly can, no matter how menial the job is. That's why you'll so often see attention to little details, which makes life better for everyone. It is very noticeable on a daily basis.
In smaller communities, people care more. There is a reputation social cost associated with being a self-centered asshole when everyone knows each other. If one doesn't care about others, they'll soon find themselves excluded from social circles, not offered help when they need it, and similar.
This is not the case in large cities – show 1 million people you do not care for them and there are still millions that will treat you reasonably well, especially if you can make a nice first impression. In some way, this social environment optimizes for not caring.
This is why I spent 30 years living in large cities around the world and now moved to a relatively small town. And I couldn't be happier. Streets are tidy, the town administration fixes most known problems, the public spaces are refurbished and the parks are maintained, businesses are pleasant, and everyone is friendly – I think I could ask for a favor from my taxi driver and they'd probably try to help.
There is a list of grifters we all know and keep in our heads, and I don't think the community will ever do them any favors. That is justice – these people wouldn't do anything for the community, too. And this list happens naturally in small places – you know the character of those around you. Reputation for having good character has social value. And this is natural.
There must be a name for this bias. "Everyone else's stuff sucks but the reason my stuff sucks is because someone is keeping me from doing good work"
Other people are always the problem. It's like the anecdote that most people think they are better than average drivers. "L.A. has bad drivers, but not me. The quality of everyone's output is down, but not mine."
Ask an engineer why their code is bad and they blame past engineers or managers, ask past engineers and they blame time constraints, ask managers and they blame bad engineers, ask a CEO and they talk about boards and stock price
It's always really interesting to see.
Illusory superiority - "a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their abilities compared to others"
We have really developed an entire culture in the US around illusory superiority. It seems like the average person in 2025 thinks they are above average in basically everything.
I think this is a big reason why sports betting has taken off the way it has in the US. Every sports fan basically thinks they are way above average in their understanding of sports.
Well, we live in a punitive culture that ascribes great social value to appearances.
To your example, if I tell my friends that I had a tough day at work because the old code was broken I will get more sympathy then if I say I wrote some shitty code last week and it made my day awful.
Another example, in a minor traffic accident, it might be nice to say "oh I'm sorry that was my fault" but I would be penalized by my insurance carrier for making such a statement.
We have successfully integrated the results of capitalism and game theory directly into our language. And I believe that has a knock on effect: people's actions follow from their thoughts which are influenced by the set of things they're allowed to or not allowed to vocalize.
We have aggressively evolved away from anything like humility or empathy being expressed in this culture because we punish that behavior.
> We have examples like Elon who, through sheer force of will, defeats armies of people who don't care.
The interesting part of this article and the comments this site have produced is this statement and the fact you’ve all either ignored it or just accepted it as fact.
You’re all part of the problem.
Bloggers mention Musk like they do Trump to politicize their writing for some stupid reason. Ignoring it isn't part of any problem. Starting a flame war over it is.
I care. It's frustrating sometimes, but I still can't help myself.
Working with people that also care (and are empowered to do something about it) is the greatest thing. I've worked in several such teams over the years and it's absolutely awesome.
On the opposite side, working on a team that doesn't is the worst.
I've actually been reprimanded by middle managers for caring, because caring sometimes takes more time than planned, and an arbitrary internal deadline wasn't met. I've come to realize they do in fact care, just not about the software but only about their own promotion. And the core issue is that they don't actually know why their own deadlines and feature requirements exist, they just get them handed to them.
This is different when you work closer to and with a customer directly. They know exactly what's important and why they need X or Y. When someone actually has to deliver results and deal with the users, they are more invested in having a working system. Here, caring involves finding the "right" person (usually not the one in charge), talking to them and figuring out what they really need (not want) and how they're using the system.
In such a setting, caring and building stuff that truly works is also reflected in performance reviews as everyone including the customer is happy.
You really have to pick your battles. I've had to make some concessions myself: some stuff turns out to be more complicated or unclear than it is at first glance, and sometimes you really don't have and can't make time for it. And in really large companies, there are sometimes so many people involved that you often can't get the answers you need or access to the person you need. Or you end up at legal which is more often than not a dead end.
I admit the article is rather whiny but it did resonate a bit with me.
A good example - we are provided free Keurig cups at work. Lots and lots of disposable plastic. At the same time there’s been quite a number of changes put in place to “be more green” and help the environment.
I asked my coworkers one day why we use Keurig machines instead of making a pot of coffee and everyone just shrugged. I asked the administrative staff if there was any plans to switch to grounds to reduce the number of Keurig cups and they basically said “No, that would be too much effort.”
In that moment, it really did just feel like everyone around me did not care, so I dropped the subject.
My experience is that such indifference comes with seniority. Unfortunately most people tend to try and change things outside of their control, ignoring what they can change and quickly burn out. With that said:
> It's painful to work with people who don't care if you care a lot, and eventually I left because of it.
This really hits home as it's happened to me several times. Eventually, you stop caring as well and just cruise through. On the flip side, stress has gone down by quite a bit :)
> It's painful to work with people who don't care if you care a lot, and eventually I left because of it.
I have a few people on my team that do not care and seem to be incapable of caring. I'm trying to get them removed but it takes months.
In the meantime, I'm deeply worried that the solid performers will find other opportunities and leave because they can find new jobs in a few weeks.
The Dead Sea effect in action [0] (and HN responses [1]).
[0]: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...
You know who really cares? The Karen in the HOA who relentlessly hounds the board because one of the units in the complex has the wrong color paint on their door. Be careful what you wish for, or the grass is always greener.
Most Karen's are actually great. We only hear about the unhinged ones on social media because the algorithm rewards outrage. But most Karen's are kind and they care and they work hard and they set an example for all of us. It's the Karen's in the world that keep all the small things from being shitty all the time.
No there is most definitely more to it. There is a generalized trend as to what unhinged social media Karens care about. A Karen isn't a Karen if she is just spouting conspiracy theories loudly at you. She is only a Karen if she is adamant that you follow the established rules of good society, whatever she is convinced that these rules are. Karens value "good" group behavior, whatever their definition of good is, and they are willing to tell you to get in line. Karens care that you don't put external costs onto others. Karens care.
A "hinged" Karen is your common group mom stereotype, who makes sure everybody is doing well and that everyone understands what is up and is following along. She has no problem telling you what you should and shouldn't be doing, but you love it because she is lovely. Hinged Karens are simultaneously the scaffolding and lubrication of good society.
If it’s unimportant then why is there a rule against it? Why did everyone agree to this rule when they bought a home there if it didn’t matter? Clearly it exists for a reason and if no one enforced it then it’s completely pointless
You bring up an important adjacent point. OP believes bikers and non-drivers are substantial stakeholders, but ignores that the tax complainers and drivers may prefer the world that way. And they do hound council.
This guy is this close to rediscovering worker alienation.
Most people don't care about doing their jobs well because they don't really choose what they work on, they don't own the product they're working on and don't enjoy the fruits of their labor. They know working harder won't improve their material condition either, only tire them more, seemingly pointlessly.
And so society turns to sh*t, but a lot of value is created for shareholders in the process, so who cares?
> This guy is this close to rediscovering worker alienation.
A lot of people in the comments are, too. It's been a real interesting case study for me.
I feel this way a lot, i would suspect however that these "1% improvements" are really obvious to some people and completely not obvious to the person who did it.
People are lazy, which means if it isnt obvious to them, or more importantly, if they don't see a direct incentive to their life, they don't do it.
In reality "1% effort" probably looks like 10-50+% effort... and society would be 10-1000x better for it but the incentives are wrong.
I used to care so much 10 years ago. I didn't have to factor the state of the world or society into all my decision. I trusted society fully like I trusted air.
Now I feel like the boiling frog and I only trust a handful of people. I don't trust the system. I don't trust that it's fair. I feel like being honest is harming my survival odds.
Imagine you have to live in North Korea... Your awareness of how that society operates can make it challenging to sing your praises to your dear leader.
I really hope things change. I live outside the US and it feels like we get the worst of everything. It's as though the political machinations which used to take place in Africa to keep the people poor has spread on to parts of the western world in a slightly different form. In Africa, the environment is about artificial deprivation of resources and rights; in the west, it's about deprivation of opportunities.
In Africa, the goal is to deprive people of resources and rights; to allow corporate monopolies to exploit their labor as much as possible. In the west, the goal is to deprive people of opportunities to prevent them from competing against monopolies.
In the west, we have a fake society where everyone pretends to be on the same playing field, but we're not even close.
> The doctor misdiagnoses your illness whose symptoms are in the first paragraph of the trivially googleable wikipedia article. He does not care.
This one is the hardest for me to digest. But I’ve seen it first hand a couple of times (here in Sweden), so impossible for me to dismiss.
Personally I think it’s an incentives problem, but one consisting of a lack of negative consequences. Once incompetence (and sometimes what I’d even call malevolence) reaches a certain level feedback mechanisms are overwhelmed: those who do care can no-longer impose negative consequences on those who don’t. Their boss doesn’t care either, their careers progress just the same, they make the same money, their jobs are just as secure. It snowballs from there.
At least here in Sweden it’s taboo to say it, but I think we just need to get back to individual negative consequences for not caring.
This is a great way to get all doctors who care out of the profession.
Healthcare is always going to have the most severe consequences when mistakes are made. Diagnosis are also hard and there are many risks with treatments. If you are going to demand punishment for mistakes consider punishing yourself next time you make a normal mistake at your job.
The thing is, I care a lot when I make a mistake. To me some kind of “punishment” wouldn’t make a dent. I already imagine I do get “punished” for my mistakes, in the form of reputation and missed opportunities down the line (even if that may not be strictly true).
But if you don’t care and you expect zero consequences, then yes: “punishment” would make a dent.
And to be clear, the kind of “punishment” I think is needed is e.g. that a regulatory authority keeps a score of severe misdiagnosis that is publicly accessible. Every doctor would probably have a few in their career, nothing to worry about. But if you routinely misdiagnose patients then it’s going to add up over the years.
I agree with that.
US is becoming a culture of 'Good enough'
This is very prevalent in Eastern Europe, near east, probably China and India, not sure. Certainly not Japan.
Culture - is what people do when nobody is watching (or they think that nobody is watching) (I am stealing this definition from somewhere else).
So changing from good-enough culture to 'We are closer to perfectionists, culturally' -- is a big change that would take generations.
To be honest -- I am not if there is a 'one thing' that would drive this, may be it is an instinct, something built-in, more prevalently, in specific ethnics groups but not in others? if it is an instinct, then it should be preservable during immigration. Are the Japanese when living for more than on generation in a 'good enough culture' preserving the perfectionist traits ?
If nobody cared, art would not exists. Nobody would do science. Civilisations would not be built. Health care would not exists. And nobody enjoys living in a shit hole. People collectively do make decisions which are selfless, so long they know there is a positive outcome. People stop caring about something soon as they recognise their efforts is wasted or it's all for nothing.
I tend to agree. Anytime I encounter negativity or cynicism of this level, it reminds me of a speech by David Foster Wallace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms2BvRbjOYo
In text if preferred: http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html
Why should someone working at big tech care? Their mission is , generally , to 'capture value' from elsewhere and in the process make the world worse. Hard mission to get behind.
And why should a 7/11 worker care? Their employer doesn't care about them. Minimum wage / minimum effort and all that.
And Elon Musk as the sole positive example is so lame.
All this bothers me because despite everything I do still care. But finding a way to express that is so hard. And after a while of it not mattering its hard to justify. And finding somewhere where your work actually matters seems impossible when we're funding everything except what's important
> And why should a 7/11 worker care? Their employer doesn't care about them. Minimum wage / minimum effort and all that.
Because their actions affect the customers they interact with, who have no direct bearing on their jobs or salaries. To make your customers suffer because you're angry at your boss is misdirected at best, and selfish at worst.
No that's true- I totally believe that everything is connected, that by putting good energy into the world you make other people's lives better and in return feel good about yourself and inspire others to do good as well.
There's a certain amount of lack of agency and connection that the modern worlds taken from us though. A McD's employee doesn't see the same customer twice. They're thoroughly disconnected from whether the company makes record profits or not. They are not empowered to change things. And management is often putting out bad energy.
The incentives are such that caring is more effort than not and doesn't accomplish much other than appealing to internal pride. If that gets grinded down its over.
it's a chain of broken windows. Their employers should care about making sure the primary interface with business cares. But they don't. So it goes down the chain until we simply say "7/11 is a sad place to be"
Agreed about Musk. Elon Musk as an example of caring, is ignorant of his actions vs his narrative. Example him saying he says he's the best diablo player in the world, vs seeing him play poorly.
We live in a world full of people doing good who don't do it for the "player 1 energy"
90% of "not caring" is actually external limitations where trying to overcome those would so far outweigh any benefit or even tangentially have anything to do with the original problem, that you must be a lunatic to waste energy trying to change it.
His "snowball of care" doesn't work if your 1% effort needs to put out the house fire first.
I don't have faith that this is something we can fix in the short term because most of us have been educated in a very competitive environment where individuals come first. I'm not saying that the opposite is good either, but we should find a balance in between. I also feel like that we are all becoming more disconnected, alone, and where the center of gravity is only ourself. Despite my premise, I still have some hopes for future generations, but unfortunately I think that things will get way worse before correcting.
> most of us have been educated in a very competitive environment where individuals come first
This is definitely intertwined with rampant individualism, but I don't think it's just our education or lack thereof that's to blame. It's also the environment we're born into and therefore never really question where it leads us and why. Century of the Self [0] makes an excellent case for where/how things went wrong, and we never deviated from this path because capitalism and its consumption-first economies would never permit such a thing.
For those comparing post-WWII to now, the only real difference seems to be capitalism becoming ever more desperate to squeeze all remaining profits. Capital concentrates [1] and profits continue to trend toward zero as Marx warned they would. It's a fundamental contradiction built into capitalism that has yet to be addressed except for by those few who are already disproportionately benefiting from the arrangement at everyone else's expense.
Consider how the average baby boomer was treated by their company of employment compared to the average worker in the 21st century. Employers now make it painfully obvious that everybody is disposable, and the only thing that matters are the metrics tied to their own compensation, no matter how disconnected that is from producing results that are actually good for society. The workers are all incentivized to become back-stabbing careerist wolves fighting and hoarding secrets instead of cooperating to build actual Good Things. The best way to get a raise is to jump ship to another company. Etc.
Given all of the above, it'd be very strange if we didn't end up in the hellscape that we are currently in.
[0] https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/how-asset-managers-h...
> we never deviated from this path because capitalism and its consumption-first economies would never permit such a thing.
While I haven't read Century of the Self, I will say that most of East Asia outside of China and NK are fiercely capitalistic. Ads are everywhere and obvious. There's a huge focus on consumption and status. There's generally much looser restrictions on zoning, gambling, and prostitution than the West. And yet the cultures continue being a lot more collective and understanding of their fellow person. South Asia is less capitalistic (having transitioned from more socialistic modes of economic organization somewhat recently), but is still quite capitalistic.
I think capitalism might exacerbate this in the West but it is fundamentally a Western problem. Most of East and South Asia still operates on an extended family model where there's an expectation that when a person or a family is having a hard time they take resources from their family and when they're in a position to do well they give resources to their struggling family members. Lots of extended families have family members who are ... problematic. Many of these folks have gambling issues, can't hold down jobs, have mental health problems, etc. But families support them. They never really thrive but they usually have food, shelter, companionship, and understanding around them. I think this creates a level of empathy that's just absent from Western society.
My partner and I are Asian but we have caucasian friends. Many of our caucasian friends will cut off problematic family members immediately. Indeed a lot of caucasians I know are very quick to cut people they don't like or who don't align with their values out of their life. This culture of individual supremacy is what I think really plagues the west which used to at one time have a less individualistic nature and now finds its hyper atomization eating away at the foundations of its societies.
Yes, this is the correct understanding of the problem. The thing is, correctly understanding the problem is highly disincentivized, much less doing anything about it.
He's really talking about aesthetics (the philosophy of beauty) and how we lost the ability do admire beautiful things. The only means we have to assess & debate merit are quantitative (and lossy) so the grotesque dominates.
There are a couple exceptions about apathetic doctors and degrading community, but most of his examples are complicated and ugly things (McDonalds app, the bike ramp, dog mess , etc)
America glorifies hustlers and hustle culture. Society is about bragging and showing off how successful you and your family are compared to everyone else. What do you expect then? Of course no one cares enough to do more than they have to to get ahead of the other guy!
Whatever your locality is, there are existing opportunities to volunteer. Even if you don't particularly care about whatever that organization does, it's a great place to meet people who care, and they usually care about more than one thing. Maybe ask them about mutual aid.
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There is a very real danger in being too helpful in some organizations. I was too helpful and I got looks from my coworkers. People would call and ask for me specifically, which pissed them off.
In some organizations being too helpful is threatening to the boss. Are you trying to take their job?
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Another problem is the legacy mudball - it's not just for source code. The sidewalk fix that would cost less than $1000 in materials may wind up costing $100,000 after bubbling through all the required layers. The layers are there because of very real historical failings, but they create failures NOW. It's hard to build things now because of 'the sins of the father'.
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You can't fix bureaucracy all at once - it's not one thing, and it has many different causes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42645391
The world is what it is today because 1% of people do care. Or more probably, 5% of people care for about 20% of their life.
Whatever you do today, through action or inaction, it will ripple through eternity with both intended and unintended consequence.
What make OP think they do not care? They apparently care about themselves more than anybody else to not care about anyone else. What is it called: selfishness!
I ran out of (good) things to watch on Netflix so I watched a couple of Japanese drama shows (TBS product I think). At first it seems boring as heck: no sex, no violence. But after a while, I think I got hooked. The usual theme is always something around respect, self-sacrifice, leaving a place better than when you found it kind of feeling. It is just a departure from the usual US based drama.
Is it just the general direction we in the US live everyday for the last decade?
Or I guess, put another way, IMO this is about Apathy. The feeling where doing things or not doing them, what's it matter anyways.
I think, a lot of the apocalyptic sentiment lately has a lot to do with it. Climate change is already ruining things and will only get worse and also has started getting worse faster. Politically, economically, things are pretty hopeless. What use is picking up trash or wearing a nice shirt in the face of all of this. What are we building towards, and does anything I do mean anything
Societies decide if they are pro-social or anti-social.
Pro-social is more work. It’s harder. It is caring, sensitive, flexible. You have to give a shit because society actively disapproves of and discourages not giving a shit. No one wants to be your friend cus your the asshole who doesn’t give a shit.
Anti-social is easier: you don’t have to care. My industrial effluent will cause cancer? I don’t care. My bigass truck is more likely to kill pedestrians? I don’t care. Masking during a pandemic jmight save someone else’s life? I don’t care.
Everyone wants to live in a prosocial society. Certainly many people complain about the fact that society isn’t pro-social, yet themselves are deeply anti-social.
“No one wants to work! Do you pay a living wage? Benefits? Heck no, my business wouldn’t be as profitable”
Unfortunately, the ability to freeload off the collective relatively more pro-social past is coming to a rapid end.
I used to feel the same before having a kid.
Nowadays, the scope of what I can care about is drastically reduced. But one area where I don't allow care to be dissolved (apart from my family) is the work I do.
I had to leave a job where co-workers wouldn't care and it was about to influence my own level of care by the end.
Zooming out of your own world is a gift that can be taught. You have a gift that 100% makes your life easier, with the side effect of the occasional frustration.
I feel compassion for those people who live in their own body and keep hitting walls.
You can help people care, it's your path.
I think there's an undertone of why should I care? or the idea of motivation. In Japan, theres definitely a social pressure to care, only because you'll become ostracized if you don't. In the west there are phrases from pop culture such as,"If it ain't broke don't fix it, Welp not my problem, ..." So the question is where does this stem from. Why do we not care?
It really sucks to be the one person who cares amongst colleagues that don’t care. You’re seen as creating work for others, making waves, causing instability, etc etc. Or because you care, you get burned out by trying to fix everything.
In these places you’re pushed to not care.
People obviously "care", as in: we are social animals. We survived and thrived through coexistence and caring.
But how do you scale "caring" to huge and complex societies where vast numbers of individuals pursue a vast number of (possibly conflicting) interests?
When it appears that nobody cares its more a manifestation that the amount of systematic care we have invented and organized is not matching the need.
One powerful but ultimately limiting tool we invented is money. You can think of it as tokenizing care. "I have cared for $x worth of cleaning you now you care for $x worth of feeding me in return".
Many of our caring problems link to the primitive and oversimplifying traits of financialization. Which - in addition - over time have become grossly abused by shrewd operators.
Parents don't need to get paid to care for their babies and no amount of money will produce equivalent quality of care.
Elon does not care about others hundreds of billions of times more than a "normal" person does.
But the organizational failure from monetizing everything is only one pathology. There are many others:
As social animals we also care a lot about power structures. Organized violence and destruction shows that caring about others is not universal behavior in time and space.
Above all, intrinsic traits are groomed in childhood in a positive feedback loop. An educational system that reinforces caring behavior does not fall from a coconut tree. It needs to be cared about.
This person is missing that modern global society is rigidly organized around principles of competition. It's not the case that people don't care -- instead we are systemically pressured into putting all of our care into getting one over everyone else and taking care of our own. A society organized around different principles would give us the space to care about our collective wellbeing. Hopefully one day we'll get there.
Republicans want to tear government apart and privatize everything. Democrats have big ideas but sacrifice them on the altar of protecting public unions. Nobody fights for good government. I'm sick and tired of the endless big vs small government argument, I want to vote for good effective responsive government, good hang for the tax buck whatever it's size.
Far as the bike lane/sign thing goes at least there’s a bike lane. Many streets in Seattle don’t even have a sidewalk let alone a bike lane. And I got hit by a car while biking in seattle a few years ago. Either way wear a helmet while biking
My instinctive, gut reaction is to hate this article, because I suspect its written by the kind of person who thinks they are better than everyone else.
But on deeper reflection I think they are actually right. Our civilisation became great because people took pride in their work - and not just at the crop level: the average poor tailor or cobbler would take 100x more pride in their work than the average government employee today. This is a problem — I suspect largely caused by the internet and technology warping people’s reward mechanisms - and it needs addressing.
| Does such a community really exist? Where everyone cares? Or at least a | supermajority? Or does it need to be built?
Yeeahhhh... I'd stay as far as possible from Miami.
I think the undue romanticism for East Asian societies is an instance of not caring. I think it’s racist too.
East Asians are regular people, with regular problems, and regular levels of care or indifference.
I think the same of anyone who believes in the magic of ancient Chinese medicine. It’s not endearing to believe that the Chinese have some mystical otherworldly powers. It’s just racist.
It's a sad realization. When our culture only values profit as a measure of success there is a strong incentive to cut down costs (now) in exchange for quality (that will only be perceived in the future). It slowly moves down the threshold, bit by bit, until you suddenly realize how much we all lost for a few very rich people to become a little bit richer.
I relate to this a lot. Someone is referring to this take as “bullshit” contrasting the experience of the average worker to a software engineer.
I’d argue the average worker is in the position they’re in because of a whole chain of people that couldn’t be bothered to care.
Our government has let go of its principles, because no one in charge could be bothered to give a fuck. There’s a certain nihilism to life in the US in 2025 that has been enabled entirely by people not speaking up.
I’m myself guilty of staying on the sidelines. Starting to realize that perhaps I need to be louder, because no one else is speaking up and that “giving a fuck” is something that must be led by example.
>Our government has let go of its principles, because no one in charge could be bothered to give a fuck.
Oh they care... about money. We're being sold out but keep re-electing the same perpetrators simply because "it's better than the other person".
Meanwhile a third of our country is a mix of "not caring" or legitmately unable to keep dates in mind and find a poll booth to vote. Who knows how things would change if voting was compulsory, as was receiving a ballot in the mail.
> I’d argue the average worker is in the position they’re in because of a whole chain of people that couldn’t be bothered to care.
This is a lame excuse. My caring is a choice I make. I can choose to care whether you care or not. I make the choice for myself.
It's human nature. You don't put your hand into a fire because early in your childhood, you learned the consequences of those actions.
>what exactly are you advocating for here
Nothing really. Bad people do bad things to keep good people down. figure out how to prevent that.
I’m not advocating for anything. I’m pointing out the cause of the effect you’re noting.
Concretely, I suspect it’s a side effect of ‘how dare they’ type political attacks and increasing balkanization. What a lot of folks would call ‘California style politics’.
Short of everyone taking a step back and actually evaluating what they want/need as people and having a productive conversation about it and a useful compromise (hah!), I imagine we’ll just end up with a ‘strong man’ who can do all the ‘bad things’ necessary to pull everyone together into a consistent direction despite whatever hate might be thrown in their direction.
Though typically that is just what someone pretends to be so they can loot everything… at least unless people are really careful to look at the persons track record of outcomes instead of what they are saying right now. And since everyone will be all angry and pissed off while this happens, lots of room for various bullshit to happen, ‘others’ to be made and punished, etc, etc.
Oh wait….
And yes I know this is a symptom of the problem, but I’ve also literally had enough of my life destroyed trying to discuss elements of this already to not do anything else. Murder anyone trying to be a hero, and what else is going to happen? You’ll either have villains, dead bodies, or cowards.
What the author of this post is actually mad about is that most people don't care about him. The people who designed the DMV don't care about him. The people who made the crappy Oracle HR software he probably has to use don't care about him. The people who designed the bike lanes don't care about him.
It's not their job to. They have about a million other priorities, they're not sorry about it, and they shouldn't be.
The DMV, the HR software people, the engineering people, they care about lots of things: Following the laws they are required to follow; maintaining regulatory compliance. Handling the latest set of changes and rules from a higher office who demands they be implemented yesterday. Not overwhelming the underpaid staff they have on-hand. Figuring out how to deal with a generally unpleasant general public, including the guy who wrote this. Holding back an ounce of sanity so they can get home at the end of the day and be happy and not drink themselves to death.
The reality is that life is a series of tradeoffs. Even if I am giving 100% at work (and I have a family and a life, so often I am not), that 100% does not get allocated entirely or even mostly to "deliver the best experience for the specific needs of the author of this article." It's dedicated to getting work out the door at an acceptable level of quality; monitoring our systems so they don't crash and lose us money; complying with the rules and procedures my employer demands I comply with; being tolerable and decent to my colleagues so they don't resent me and make my life harder. If I think about the needs of one specific customer out of the millions that transact business with my employer every day, it's because something extraordinary has happened with implications for one of the things above.
What sets people like Elon apart is that they are single-mindedly dedicated to getting people to appease them, and also pretty good at it. All Elon cares about is whatever interests him day-to-day, his ego, his impact on the world, whether people like him or hate him. He's "successful", by this author's metric, because he's self-obsessed.
All that said, the UK has a phrase for someone who cares only to do the bare minimum: a jobsworth, as in, more than my job's worth. A jobsworth is unhelpful on purpose, or because enforcing apathy is more valuable to them than doing anything that might impose upon them later an obligation to act. The thing is - those people are universally reviled. They are not liked or approved of in society. They're also a severe minority.
Most people are doing their best to stay above water on a dozen different things, and you are only one of them. The author ought to have some humility and realize that.
He only thinks it's that way because in Japan, he's the big man with the big bucks the whole society caters to. An average Japanese person probably makes a terrible salary, has few if any economic prospects, sees a stagnant economy, and also is very unlikely to even start a family. I'd much rather have a family than have store clerks obsses about serving me.
If you have tons of money in Seattle area and live in an exurb, and only go to Seattle for the orchestra and a baseball game in a box, you probably think everyone in America cares too
Those are a lot of very wrong assumptions. Salaries aren't US level but more than liveable because even most non-tokyo housing is perfectly reasonable. The economny is stagnant (and now recessionary) but they have a decent amount of safety nets. They don't need to worry about walking to work one day to be locked out or being in debt if they collapse (yes, there are some very dark work patterns to "lay off", but you won't suddenly have zero salary next month).
>I'd much rather have a family than have store clerks obsses about serving me.
Okay, the US has neither. So...
>If you have tons of money in Seattle area and live in an exurb, and only go to Seattle for the orchestra and a baseball game in a box, you probably think everyone in America cares too
These are small micro-behaviors, not a larger mindset. Even a rich tourist would notice the difference between someone taking your ticket for an orcheastra and going to a corner store in Japan.
It's cultural. Japan and Asian in general is a lot more conformist and taught to care about the larger society. Huge contrast of the individualism of US enforcing "hustle culture" and "dog eat dog world".
Japan also has an entire group of people so disillusioned with society they completely lock themselves off from it (0), record high suicide rates (1), record low fertility rates (2), and a far lower rate of self-reported happiness.
I don't know why they prioritize differently, but I don't think it's working out for them.
Which set of tradeoffs would you rather live under?
(0) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori (1) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-33362387.amp (2) https://apnews.com/article/japan-birth-rate-declining-popula... (3) https://countryeconomy.com/demography/world-happiness-index/...
>Which set of tradeoffs would you rather live under?
I'll take the one that doesn't lay me over every year to hit record profits, thanks. There's degrees of not caring and the US is very far on the "you are just a number" peg. The fake drinking parties at least try to make me feel involved.
This article resonated with me and OP was able to clearly articulate what I have been feeling pretty much my entire life. It’s probably not as extreme as OP makes it sound but it’s there. Enough to make you feel defeated. The dreaded feeling of “yeah we are going to be so f*cked 100 years from now” because no one gives a shit. In Japan this feeling transforms into optimism and hope because people generally do care and take things seriously. It has given me the strength to care and try to do my best. The power not be an asshole to the person next to me. The ability to see the bigger picture.
This post is angry detritus. I’m sorry someone upset you recently Grant, but seriously?
Billions of people care. And if you bother looking for them, you’ll find them. Most of the problems he describes result from complex systems being challenging and individuals having limited ability both to comprehend and influence them.
And no I don’t mean “this software module is complex” complex. I mean, “this social problem has hundreds of interacting incentives, changing any of them in isolation makes things worse, and it will take years and millions of dollars to change things, all while political winds of change are trying to blow down the consensus to tackle the problem.”
Karl Marx talked about alienation -- we are alienated from our work, we are alienated from one another, and eventually alienated from our humanity.
I disagree with Marx about a lot of things, but I do think that this theory makes a lot of sense. As we become increasingly mechanistic in our work, we feel less agency. Less control. Less attachment to the work. We stop caring about the product.
You can pay people to care, for agile, but ultimately the alienation wins. The solution? I'm not sure! Probably several possible things, not least of which is probably work that's focused on building one's community and helping meet their needs.
Ctrl+F'ed to see if anyone mentioned alienation, since this post basically seems to be OP talking about alienation without them knowing.
I think fundamentally if we want people to care about things again, we are going to need to give them ownership of the things they produce. Otherwise, why would anyone care?
In my experience, most people don't care because they are lazy. Initiative on the job requires effort, IF they're allowed to have initiative. If someone is put into a thinking job, but are more suited to have an assembly line job, failure will ensue.
But their _are_ some people who care. I've been busting my ass in the software world for over 10 years, documenting it as I go. Largely everything I give away for free, or at the very least offer a free tier. I cant control what other people do, but I can keep chugging along doing the best that _I_ can do.
The 12 years or so I have lived in America I have observed that people always keep the door open for those walking behind them. Always. Everywhere. DC, Boston, LA, New York, Seattle, Cupertino, everywhere.
Nobody cares about anything. Somebody cares about something. Everybody cares about everything.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. This makes me optimistic. At least, its nice that people care to hold doors open : )
People are often not compensated enough to warrant the mental energy of caring more, or the effort or making those around them care.
Sometimes people did care, but they left because they didn't want to deal with the rest who didn't any more, and found better conditions elsewhere.
On caring as a software developer:
I like to think I care about putting out good quality work, but, the nature of agile and especially standups and reviews means I am under pressure each day to be able to say I have completed a jira story.
If that story's acceptance criteria doesn't say "take the time to make this perfect" which of course it doesn't, and mr big balls bullied us into it being pointed a 2, then am I going to spend an extra day or two really making it perfect with perfect test coverage etc? When I am surrounded by (competing with) contractors who don't have to do anything other than churn out sprint work and rack up points?
On Japan caring so much:
They live in a society where pretty much everyone's ancestors are from the same geographical location, they all look similar, they are basically a nationalistic society, they all feel "Japanese" and they all pull together in the same direction more or less.
America on the other hand...
> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care.
They absolutely do care! But they have competing interests.
The sad part, the "do not care" attitude is infectious. Maybe there is a bright-eyed programmer who just joined and who wants to make UX better.
They are full of enthusiasm, but nobody (around them) cares.
They are fixing the most annoying bugs that users complained forever about.. but they is not recognized, because nobody (around them) cares.
They hope to show a good example but nobody cares. Instead they get negative feedback when instead of blindly implementing horribly-designed feature, they are trying to fix it so it won't be so user-hostile.
Eventually they give up and stop caring. When asked what they like about the job, their answer is "stability" and "job security".
That's one possibility -
Here's a story of the burnout of one of the GNOME terminal maintainers
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vte/-/issues/259
In a situation where no amount of effort seems to be enough its really easy to not see the point anymore
I don't think it's similar at all, unless you have some sort of directors/investors telling you what to do (based on your comments, you don't)
I (and OP) was talking about people who have power over the product (software engineers, managers, designers) not caring.
In your case, people with power over product (you) clearly care very much, it's just the product is not interesting to others. (Which kinda makes sense? It's yet another PHP framework with AI and Crypto, and there is plenty of them...)
I just took a look at your project - you really need to simplify the README. I read the whole thing but it’s still not clear to me what you app actually does.
I have no idea what a “Social Operating System” is supposed to be. Seems like it’s a web/mobile app framework, but it’s completely unclear why I would want to use it. You need an “elevator pitch”.
There are hundreds of frameworks, if you want developers to use yours, maybe show some example code? No one is going to spend a bunch of effort trying to build with your framework if they can’t see an advantage.
Not trying to be a hater, I care and want you to succeed
Edit: just read some of the links in the readme - so it also has something to do with crypto and micropayments? Why would I want to use your “QBUX”? Would a developer only be able to get paid in your crypto? If so, why should they trust that you won’t rugpull? If you want people to care about your project, you need to think about what they care about (pro tip: nobody cares about making you rich via support contracts or shitcoin schemes. Sorry.)
I am not sure what you read that said any of the things you asserted in the "Edit" section. None of that is true. The token doesn't even exist yet. There is no "rugpull" possible in any event.
But I think this illustrates perfectly what I said originally. Context matters. The context on HN is "I see a word that triggers me (token / web3) somewhere and I immediately assume all these things I haven't seen or read, and forget about anything you actually did."
That's why it is very important how you present things. The original Facebook was just a bunch of profiles in php. And yet people used it like mad and investors camped out Zuck's dorm room. It's not so much about what you build but how you present it.
See also: Zombocom problem [0]
Downvoted because this is off topic and should be on a proper Show HN, not in a random thread.
I think it's on topic as it shows exactly what OP was talking about (Instead they get negative feedback) is not confined to workplaces, but is prevalent right here, too. "No one cares" is almost correct. Some people will care, but most will downvote you and criticize you.
Oh by the way ... I tried doing a "Show HN" with it. It just got buried after getting 1 like. If you post something that people take a while to engage with, then they don't come back to HN to upvote it fast enough. So it gets eclipsed by stuff that's memey and fun. Result: no one cares.
> You might think "something something incentive systems". No.
It's exactly that. All your government and regulatory capture examples are precisely about bad incentives leading to bad outcomes (including people who cared but stopped caring because these perverse incentives punished them for caring one way or another)
But wait, the author understands this!:
> Over time, incentives attracted a different set of people who didn't care as much.
So it's a YES?
Japanese culture might have the impression of caring but if you get to spend more time there it’s all a face act. On the surface they pretend to care but well, People are people and they don’t care. The magical city the author wants is something you need to create and fight to maintain. It’s not out there waiting for you. The smaller the town the easier it is to accomplish. You aren’t gonna change Seattle and certainly not New York City.
The sad thing about this article is that they can't be happy making the world a better place, instead they focus on what other people aren't doing.
"I am proud of my work" >> "You should work harder!"
I don't think it's wise to assume everyone is going to be perfect at their job. Yes, that bike line sucks. But haven't you ever made a mistake at your job? Expecting everything to work perfectly in life is a recipe for misery.
Nah, I moved from a big city where people are feeling squashed by the pressure, to a small town, where people feel a bit more relaxed, and I am constantly surprised by how much of a shit people give. I’m not advocating for small towns here, I like the city, I’m advocating for making a society where we act like people matter and stop calling anyone who doesn’t want to kick everyone in the teeth to get ahead a communist, and stop calling people who do inspiring visionaries
I've lived in most every manner of setting the US has to offer. The best by far is the micro-urban settings. Where as opposed to a small town with strip malls and neighborhoods, there is high density around an urban center that pretty much immediately transitions to rural. That way you can still have walkability and the mix of bars / restaurants / activities that urban settings inspire without all the overhead of actual large cities. Even when I lived in large cities I spent most of my time in just a few blocks. So a few blocks of city and then all the recreational activities of rural areas is pretty great.
There's still issues with people not caring, but it seems like those are more so outliers than anywhere near the norm and it's a lot more expedient to get in contact with someone that does care and can take actionable measures where there is a problem.
Just as an example there was a water leak from the municipal system in the right of way in front of my house. It was repaired quickly but they had to dig up a lot of the yard, which they filled back in. But after a few heavy rains it washed out a fair amount. It was a little annoying but I just said "Oh well". A few years ago in Atlanta my neighbors had reported a sinkhole FOR YEARS, and nothing was done about it until it finally caved in and swallowed an entire intersection.
I had a friend come over though and this had been like 3 months and he asked about the hole. I told him the situation and he just said "Call the city and tell them you need dirt." So I did, and told someone that took a message. A couple hours later they called me back and confirmed my address and that I needed dirt. He said they were busy but would do it tomorrow, and sure enough the next day they came with a dump truck, a trailer of equipment and filled in the hole, compacted the area, smoothed it all out and planted grass. All in 24 hours for a problem that impacted no one but me.
It's interesting how people react first when you start acting different, doing little things like picking up garbage you didn't throw on the ground.
Even my kids went: Why are YOU picking this up, you didn't do it?
I just ask: Why not ME?
After some of similar experiences my kids asked to help and they were so excited when a friend of my wife bought them trash tongs to help me.
It's not that I'm proudly making the world a better place by doing something very difficult (like in the movie Pay it forward), but just doing small things that aren't difficult to do. Somehow it feels nice.
Japanese culture might have the impression of caring but if you get to spend more time there it’s all a face . People are people and they don’t care. The magical city the author wants is something you need to create and fight to maintain. It’s not out there waiting for you. The smaller the town the easier it is to accomplish. You aren’t gonna change Seattle and certainly not New York City.
Don’t worry.
People can’t have nice things, so they get grumpy, unhappy, and stressed. This creates a market for therapists and dietary supplements to offset stress.
And why care? The second law of thermodynamics will inevitably march on. Let’s dissolve in entropy now!
What a worthless rant. There are big problems and there are small problems and/or inconveniences. People do care, when they have a budget for caring. Unfortunately the modern world depletes that budget with the day-to-day life. I live close to where the author does and trust me, the city has way bigger problems to deal with than the nitpicky bullshit OP is calling out. In the suburb I live in, we have an app where the city does receive and implement reasonable recommendations. The reason why is that it's a small town with large pockets.
The rest of the things are just rants aimed at society? big tech? I don't get it.
> When I joined my former Big Tech job, everyone cared. Over time, incentives attracted a different set of people who didn't care as much. Eventually those people became the majority. It's painful to work with people who don't care if you care a lot, and eventually I left because of it.
No. Bullshit take. I used to care. But then in 2008, my employer showed me that I'm not the 'developer! developer! developer!' Steve Ballmer was excited about, I'm just a number on a spreadsheet governed by some pencil pushers in finance. All employers since have showed me again and again that if times are tough, I'm the ballast the company can shed to stay afloat. And in the past 4-5 years they've showed me I'm ballast even if the company is doing great, because 'activist' investors say so. So why should I care? I care about my family, I care about my personal projects, I care about my craft and I care about my health and the people around me. Do I care about your little annoying bug? Fuck no. Why would I? It's not even my intellectual property.
> Have been to the DMV? It sucked? There is a human being whose job it is to be in charge of the DMV. They do not care that it sucks.
I have. It's actually called the DOL where we live, OP. And it's great. I need to renew my license in person because of my disability and it takes me 15 minutes in-and-out, I barely have to stay in line. I also renew my car tabs online exclusively with 0 problems. I really don't understand the DMV meme, at least in Washington state.
> We have examples like Elon who, through sheer force of will, defeat armies of people who don't care. For his many faults, you can't say the man doesn't care.
Oh, you shouldn't have gone there, you lost all credibility my friend.
I agree the authors examples were all nitpicky and omg Elon was the worst example you could have picked.
But it does touch on a sort of apathy and nihilism that I can feel myself falling towards.
> I've met a few people that work for municipal governments. Not politicians, just career bureaucrats deep in the system. I ask them what their favorite part of the job is. They all say "stability" or "job security" as their #1. It takes 18 months to get the city to permit your shed? They. Do. Not. Care.
This is dumb. Of course people enjoy job stability. It's irrational to draw a line from "I value being able to feed my family" to "I do not care about actually doing my job".
And beyond that, does the author actually know why it takes 18 months to get a permit? Does it actually take that long? Or is he doing a stand-up bit, and that's just a line that's designed to elicit the 2 seconds of laughter from the audience as a punchline?
> But I've come to accept that I just don't have the disposition to fight all the time. I'm not a fighter. I care a lot and I just want to live in a place where other people care.
So the author cares, but is sufficiently burned out that he's done caring. I wonder what he'd answer when he finds his magical Japan-like community - presumably one with stability - and is asked what his favorite part of living there is.
Well, I don't know about the other things, but I absolutely hate the orange street lights. Bad color reproduction, and make me sleepy.
> They spend all their free time doing activist stuff
Having free time is a privilege. The author is privileged and they don't know it.
Care does not come from without, but instead from within.
To proclaim "Why does nobody care about anything?" is to neglect an oft quoted axiom:
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.[0]
Okay, I now care passionately about each and everything I do. The bike ramp still sucks. What now?
The Maryland DMV used to be quite efficient. Once, having mislaid my driver's license (at my mother-in-law's, 100 miles away), I drove to the Wheaton DMV, and was out within 20 minutes with a new license.
This was about two years before 9/11, after which a whole lot of rules came down about verifying one's identity, and the DMV then crawled.
Believe it or not, there are many super rural places in the US where people care because there is such a close knit community
Maybe I'll retire to one. Will I be welcome as a transgender person? How far do I need to drive for tofu? I've been eating a lot the last few weeks and I don't want to give it up
Human beings evolved to be surprisingly efficient. At any give moment, we are running in our heads a statistical analysis with a massive number of simultaneous inputs. We think about what we need, prioritize this list by level of necessity, analyze the perceived costs, multiply by probability of success, and divide by predicted time to reward. From this analysis, we make our choices whether or not to take action. In a system where people generally already have what they need, caring would be an inefficiency and an aberration. We have a salary, a house, food, water, companionship. We are comfortable. Why would a comfortable man care? To care for the sake of caring goes against 6 million years of evolution.
I care way too much and it causes burnout because those in power do not care.
That's probably my take on this: those in power do not care anymore. Money has turned into political influence in America, so now politicians are there for money first of all, and the needs of their communities are an afterthought. Even back in the day when you had shitty politicians or robber-barons, they still wanted their local area and America to succeed because they lived there, but in today's world the oligarchs and their appointed cronies (execs, upper management, etc.) just jet around the planet and could not care less about how well people are doing in one area of the world over another. This leads to the regular American seeing the lack of responsibility and lack of punishment for injustice and they also stop following the rules or caring about doing a good job, or they are too busy to do so, and you can't really blame them.
Solution: Money out of politics first, then we need to instill a pride and responsibility for the local community into the new generations of Americans, but in a non-propagandized way because they actually have to have real pride and not some fake patriotism like today.
I recently used the system to order a bunch of chicken nuggets for my four kids. When my order came out, I got a bunch of spicy nuggets. If you have young kids, you know that this is a disaster. Anyway, I said, "Uh, spicy nuggets? That's not what I ordered." The supervisor sighed and immediately said that I could keep them if I wanted to, but he'd fast-track a new order of regular nuggets for me (on the house, of course). Then he started complaining about how the kiosk UI confusingly puts the spicy nuggets as the first choice, so this happens all the time.
Meanwhile, an old man was hollering about how he wanted to pay with cash, but the kiosk wouldn't take cash, so another employee was trying to figure out how to transfer his order to the register at the counter to take his payment.
So in addition to being a horrible experience for customers, this whole thing appeared to be a disaster for the company in terms of both employee time and real money.
When I know what I want, I order at the counter, which is faster and there's never a queue because everyone else is using the kiosk. There isn't a cashier waiting but you just stand there and somebody will stop to take your order pretty quickly.
My hot take on this is that it is due to a lack of energy. I liked the phrase “a will to have nice things.”
We all want the nice things. However, they require conscientiousness. People who are run down and lack energy struggle with conscientiousness.
So why are we all rundown and lacking the energy required to have nice things? There are many reasons, some controversial.
One that is not so controversial is the industrialization of food. As the quality of food that our mothers consume has degraded, so have their offspring. I believe in TCM this concept is called maternal jing, or the essential life essence that you receive from your mother. Healthy moms breed a healthy populace. This is a problem generations in the making that keeps getting worse.
One that is more controversial is the impact of banking. Money is the life blood of society, and we’ve given bankers the right to siphon off our blood as they see fit. Generations of wealth transfer from the working class to bankers has left the populace anemic.
Japan has it better because they have maintained a more traditional way of life.
>DMV
>software […] found some regulatory capture
>a large healthcare company that engages in regulatory capture
>municipal governments
>department of transportation
>Street lights
>airport
What do they all have in common?
I think he dismissed “incentive systems” way too early.
I would also argue that people not following the law (e.g. not picking up their dog’s poop) or proper laws simply not existing (e.g. playing shitty EDM on a trail) have the same root cause.
Governments don’t care.
It’s still amazing to me how some smart people still want the government to manage an even larger part of their lives when we should clearly be pushing in the other direction.
Of course they only want this when The Party I Agree With(TM) is in power, not so much when it’s The Party I Don’t Agree With(TM).
regarding "These new lights objectively suck to anyone not driving. If your house is near one, they suck."
I have a blinding street light across from my house. I complained to the city and they put a shade on the light so that my house is now in the dark. Its so much in case anyone else has the same problem.
Nobody see's the time or effort that went into a thing only it's outcome. Unfortunate reality.
My gut says that it isn't a lack of caring, or anything nefarious.
I think Hanlon's Razor is handy here:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
In this case I'd modify it slightly, as I don't think it is stupidity at play, but ignorance. It takes activation energy to address ignorance, and its too easy to kill activation energy inadvertently. It could just be that the person who could fix it is not aware of the issue, and everyone else just looks at it and thinks, wow, someone should do something.
There was a crummy, barely used, mostly abused, walking path with a sitting area near my old apartment complex. [0]
One day I decided to pick up all of the trash/cigarette butts, installed a butt bin, and planted a bed of flowers in the center. Big sunflowers.
The next day I went out and someone had destroyed the cigarette bin. When the flowers sprouted someone immediately doused them with something and set all but one on fire.
I replaced the butt bin same day and replanted the flowers the day after they were burned.
Nobody cared, they even resisted at first, but, eventually people stopped trashing the place and what was an empty sitting area started filling up with people.
It’s worth trying. Sometimes people will care.
[0]: Turns out (and I learned this way after the fact) that the path marked the site of a WWII POW work camp. I didn’t know this but German prisoners were shipped to the US to make up for the farm labor shortage during by WWII.
Anyway, the path was a loop with a sitting area at the entrance. Imagine the most out of the way, inconvenient place you could put a plaque. That’s where they put it. The plaque informing you that your apartment complex was built on the former site of a Nazi work camp was at the very back of the loop with the text facing away from the path.
Trust me: You don't. You'd go insane.
See for example everyone who has to live with an HOA.
Classically underspecified, you are right. The care has to be about others and respecting them, not about oneself. Like in a good partnership. Care about giving, not taking.
But as the article frustratedly states, it usually goes the other way. Like Jethro Tull progressing into desillusion from
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=luDfuZkeqKU
to
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7SGq7jMdSU
This planet is such a beautiful marble and all we do is trample it with our feet. Guys, make a random somebody smile today, will ya?
Reading the original article I reflected: "I can totally see how this can happen, but for some reason it doesn't happen where I live"
I moved to Switzerland 9y ago. People care. I believe this is due to high trust society which evolved not that long ago from small, poor, tightly woven communities.
I had the great displeasure of working with a colleague who thought he was the only one who cared. He told me flat-out that "its OK to care!" during a disagreement.
I did care. I just cared about different things than he did. He cared about fixing little hinks in code that drove him made. I cared about fixing things users cared about and would notice.
I care about the work I do.
Just sayin'.
Of course, I'm kind of outside the "incentive system," so I do it for different reasons.
Yes, it's frustrating, when I encounter obvious "Person didn't care" stuff. Sometimes, it infuriates me, but usually, it helps me to feel that I need to care more about my own work.
I'm not sure that I buy that every example given is a "Person didn't care" instance. I feel that personal values may play a part, in interpreting the work.
Also, when you run large organizations/municipalities, small numbers become big numbers, quite easily, and you are often serving folks with very different priorities. Can't make everyone happy. Often, unfortunately, folks decide to make the weakest people unhappy.
Want people to care? Incentivize them. That's not just money. Treat the people (and their work) better. Hire and promote good managers. Stand up to unreasonable demands from above, etc. If you are an "above" person, then don't be insecure. Let the people under you, stand up to you, if you are being unreasonable. It really doesn't hurt as much as you might think. You always have the power to force your will, anyway, but I found that it was a good idea to listen to my employees.
I mean, it’s a symptom of scale right?
When you deal with a wide variety of people, constraints, etc you develop processes to deliver output. The DMV is that way for a reason, sidewalks get made a particular way for a reason
And that’s that, you don’t rethink it every time. It’s all transactional. human APIs interfacing with other human APIs
It’s a long cry from the old timey village where you had people: Bob was the only baker, and your neighbor. You also need his help to shovel your driveway. But he needs your help to make house repairs and get eggs from your chickens. If you don’t care then you have longer term personal consequences.
That’s not the case today - if you don’t care and deliver subpar experiences, people rant then move on to their next transaction and you to yours. You aren’t affected one bit in the long run. (Assuming people don’t have a choice - if they do then you do care just enough to get the sale)
I tend to agree with the author. But then, look around: a lot of stuff works really really well.
> I want to live in a community where everyone cares.
This summarizes the whole thing quite well.
>White LEDs reduce car crashes by 0.1% and that is measurable, but sleep quality and aesthetics are not measurable. You just have to care about them. And nobody cares.
I've always been sensitive to the flicker and broken colour spectrum of fluorescent lights, it has been a longstanding "How come everyone is so willing to spend all day every day under these horrible lights?" type pet peeve.
This guy has a problem with white LEDs and I'm not sure what his issue is. He really hates them but didn't explain why. I can't empathize, I don't understand.
Also he says that they switched to white LEDs because they don't care when they likely switched to save on their electric bill.
I don't care because I honestly believe that caring in a world of stupid cunts is not worth the limited time I have on this Earth, which I'd rather spend doing things that make me happy, instead of being perpetually frustrated and disappointed. There are some people who keep pushing out good value despite the frustration and I think they're the real heroes, but I'm not a hero myself. BTW the society is constructed in such a way that I won't have kids so all of you can go fuck yourself once I die.
Contrary to the author's quip about incentive systems, I wish I'd learned earlier that it's a fool's errand to care about things that have no positive feedback loop, no relevancy in my life, that I have no actual influence over, or that are otherwise beyond my purview. To 21 year old me, and probably many others, it would seem heartless or self-serving, but by doing so I get to focus on the few things I can authentically care about without worrying about how much they're reciprocated, and I don't need to passive aggressively try to influence broader behavior indirectly. If a neighbor or random stranger needs a hand, I give it to them and don't ask for anything in return. Likewise if someone wants to strike up a convo. I give people my time and energy if I can afford to and want to. I try to make that possible more often than not, and it leaves me with a very healthy social life, along with a non-burnout inducing work life. Beyond that, it'd be self-destructive and non-economical.
I realized years ago that in retrospect it was stupid to care beyond what I was rewarded for caring about or that my success was measured by, which was time, not quality, or accessibility, or usability, or anything else, and that's usually the case. If you have 2 weeks to get something completed, and it's not in the definition of completed to make sure screen readers can parse the website or whatever, then it's not your job to do that unless you'd be there anyway and get the rest of the stuff done with time to spare.
If you work at the DMV, you're sure as hell not wise to try and fight for different higher level decisions, it's not worth losing it for, and you're not measured by how happy of a place it is. Sure, engage in your interactions with people with respect, but don't take on responsibilities you're not paid for.
That said, if you could otherwise afford to spend a bit more time or effort outside work on things that aren't entirely self-serving, after you've done things that do bring you only personal value, but deliberately choose not to all the time, then ya that's just lame af.
Lastly, I do ultimately agree that some people are just absolute careless assholes on an individual level or deeply antisocial unfortunately, and we shouldn't be cultivating that in our cities, but that's a different convo. The worst I tend to see on a daily basis is cigarettes being tossed on the sidewalk and dogshit left by owners who I'd prefer didn't have them.
I feel like I’ve been in his shoes before and they tend to run you toward running people away from you who do “care”…well they may not care about how long it takes a guy to get a shed approved or order McDonald’s (can a man claim to care who cares to wish to expedite his order of that?) or that nobody wants to help him lace the streets with dog crap sack sticks when they’re worried about actual human issues like they’re well-being, dignity and identity.
I’m conflicted by this article. Because I hate most of it, because I relate to it.
Institutional gripes are low hanging fruit that are only significant in relation to taking care of what’s relevant to a mundane life but not relevant at all to a life worth living and dying over as a man. Maybe a man-child, but not a man.
This reads like “Suicidal Tendencies All I wanted was my Pepsi” remixed into Yacht Rock. This is not a rant, but a wining pantomime griping over things that a town elder would roll his eyes over his grave and take pity on the youthful.
So yeah man, I felt you. I felt you. But I beg Allah that I never have to feel where you’re coming from again beyond knowing about how I once felt myself & the destruction it caused me and the disdain it arises from the people who I thought I was just trying to help.
> You might think "something something incentive systems". No. At my big tech job I had the pleasure of interviewing a few programmers who worked for a large healthcare company that engages in regulatory capture. Let me assure you: They. Do. Not Care.
Regarding programmers specifically I can concur, but with a caveat. Devs often care quite a lot about many things, but often one of those things is not doing the job they were hired for. The tedium of building software for businesses, even what we now call "big tech", is universally unappealing and definitely not the reason most devs started tinkering with computers. So they care very little, and it shows in the tech taking over the clerical aspects of every day life.
Has the author been tested for ADHD? Not that people with ADHD are the only ones that care. They just care really hard about all the little things, and have a really hard time switching it off for their own benefit.
What you’re describing sounds more like OCPD than ADHD to me
I mean that's in the anxiety disorder family so it probably bleeds between both.
> They just care really hard about all the little things
Maybe they just care and the world has become an endless distracting sea of little things that get in the way.
I mean, there's a lot of people trying to shift others attentions to little things, like ego.
Was just thinking about this the other day. I feel vindicated that I'm not the only one who thinks this.
> You might think "something something incentive systems". No. At my big tech job I had the pleasure of interviewing a few programmers who worked for a large healthcare company that engages in regulatory capture. Let me assure you: They. Do. Not Care.
How does the second part of this paragraph disprove "something something incentive systems" ?
I am sincerely curious, as I can't make the connection myself, and of course "something something incentive systems" would be exactly my argument.
Saying engineers don't care is victim blaming. The way to survive at a company with "blah blah incentives" is to _not care_. You have to stop caring until you have an opportunity to move to another job.
Preach brother. I am in the same boat but in the caring side of things. I read e-mails, I respond to them as promptly as I can. I read the tickets and contact the users to resolve their issues as quickly as I can. I attend to meetings, do the required things and long story short, I give two shits about what is going on around me.
You know what I get? Additional assumed responsibilities is what I get, because I read the goddamn mails sent to the goddamn regional IT staff distribution list - I am the "knowledge base". If you are naivé you might, just might, assume that additional responsibilities involve a raise or a title change.
Hell. No.
The final straw was a person got promoted without any interviews etc. to a position I am de-facto doing. So you keep the people who care in the same position because "they get the job done" and you raise the people who doesn't care and the end result is this situation.
But hey! KPIs are green, the job gets "done", right? Who cares?
I think the author is very myopic in understanding that other people care - just not about the same things he cares for. Most people don't care about publicly available dog poop bags or fixing a random bike lane that's sort of wrong. In fact you could argue that the things he cares about are not the most important things. Other people might care more about family than work, or about animal activism than petitioning for green space. It's not that others don't care, they just care about different things - sometimes more important and sometimes less.
I've always been perplexed and dumbfounded by this to the point where it had a really bad effect on my life because I just couldn't believe that it's happening, in a sense my life was on hold. I couldn't believe that people don't understand the simplest things in life, that my own parents or brother or friends don't seem to care at all. I grew up with them at the same time after all, it didn't make sense to me. Even back in school when we were clearly not learning anything and the whole system was a joke, nobody said anything. Nobody cared. To me it was obvious that it can't be an IQ problem, they are human and go through the same systems as me and it doesn't even require intelligence to understand. What I ended up realizing much later is that people intentionally don't care and they intentionally make an effort not to know better. It's an optimization strategy that people develop consciously and subconsciously so that they don't have to do any more work, don't run into more risk, don't offend etc. They literally just give up while outwardly keeping up the pretense of caring.
I noticed the same thing that the article writer noticed: You can point out obvious problems to the exact person responsible for them and they will agree with you and later they still don't fix it. They just don't care, it's like you mentioned some geographical fact about a town in South Africa to them. A normal person would call this psychopathic behavior but now it's the human norm. I decided to cut people out of my life that don't care [about anything except themselves] because obviously there is just no point in interacting with them. To be honest, that's almost everyone in society. They are self benefit machines, hyper optimized for their own wellbeing. Fine, be a machine then but don't be surprised when I recognize you for what you are and I don't start playing tetris where the only outcome is benefit for you.
It's also sad how even in this thread on hackernews almost everyone disagrees with the author and they keep claiming that people do care about some stuff and it's okay and we are all human after all and so on. I want to emphasize: You aren't supposed to have to care about everything. But some people do in fact have jobs and specific duties and they are paid to care about them and still don't do it.
this articles has a ton of typos but that reinforces the emotional state the author was - an emotional state that i think is becoming more and more common. theres an underlying anxiety here; the world you grew up in is gone. this is bad and we (the author and myself) are not falling victim to nostalgia. all the things i interact with are becoming more and more dysfunctional. everybody has their answer to whose fault it is, people to blame for the fact that things simply don’t work anymore, but i think an analysis of this “lack of care” or “i just dont dgaf” attitude on the part of the workers, the employees of the companies who, theoretically, make the USA and similar countries the beacons of good living that they appear to be, might be fruitful. i’ll definitely be thinking about this observation for a while.
I have a feeling this is a very common sentiment as one gets older though.
When you live somewhere where wages and costs diverge further and further every year, as you get to be 30-40-50-60, etc. you feel more and more like the world was better back then
I also think part of the realization is that as you grow up, the world was "whitewashed" for you when you were younger. Your parents took care of going to the DMV, or taking you to the dentist and paying / using insurance, and making sure there was someone to drive you there.
Now, you're the parent, and you have to figure out if you can drive your child, make sure they're covered by insurance, make sure you can pay the dentist if your insurance is maxed out for the year, heck, just in the last year, find a new dentist because the one you had for 20 years switched to "not taking Delta" and suddenly wants you to pay $500/checkup instead of previous $0, etc. And if you can't pay, well.. sucks to be you..
I'm in my 50s, and I kind of understand this attitude, and I also understand why people get cynical. I moved to the US due to finding someone to marry online (from Canada), and while I had heard some stories of how bad the US was, I felt like I had my eyes open going in, knew about insurance, etc. I never figured I'd have to worry about the government going openly hostile, somehow embracing Russia AND Nazis at the same time, etc - I always figured things would slowly improve over time (especially when Obama was elected), not get drastically worse. So I've stopped caring as much - during Covid, I canceled several charities we used to donate to regularly - suddenly, after feeling quite secure financially (not rich, but ok), I didn't feel that way anymore. I got laid off the day after my 50th birthday and after transferring to another position in the same company, again 1.5 years later and I stopped donating to the local food bank where I was employed. Finally found a job ~1 year later - actually with better pay, but less WFH and it's hard to go back.
Eventually life gets to you. Looking around, there are a whole lot of people who care greatly - but what they care about is hurting specific groups of "others" in specific ways.. Or in grifting as much $$ as possible. So now I don't care as much. I just want the ants to stop crawling into the house and the neighborhood dog to stop barking at night so I can sleep. Because I'm (*&@#$ TIRED.
Rich (relatively?) software bro wants other people to care more. Does not reflect on the economics. Everything is economic. Tech has exacerbated the hyperfinancialization, enshittification, and general reduction to meaninglessness of every action.
Caring requires time and energy. Most tech companies aim to consume every freaking instant of your life (or else they serve the other tech companies that do that). For many people there is little time or energy left to care (or there is a sense that there is little time or energy left). Gotta hustle more, gotta hurry up so I can look at my phone.
Caring is not financially rewarded. Caring is generally penalized because no one else cares, so you're just wasting your time. How many ppl in this world can say this: "There are legal jobs I would not take, no matter how much they pay, because they make the world shittier." Caring doesn't make you money, and money is what the world wants. Until that changes, the problem persists.
Fix the values, fix the world
Give me a single actionable item that will enable me to fix the values of anyone else and I will move the world.
"Fix the values, fix the world" should go on the wiki page of examples of things that are easier to say than to do
What's sticking out to author like a sore thumb is a normal for majority. One can not imagine a better way of things until they have experienced a better one. Even if they are badly bitten by one, majority still can't come up with any better idea.
It's not that nobody cares, they just don't know any better.
I don't like this post, mainly because I think I don't like the attitude behind it. It seems somewhat obvious to me that people who do care exist and are out there; all you have to do is go and ask people what they care about and you'll get some interesting answers. You can choose to view the world as having no one who cares, but that seems seems a distorted way of viewing the world. And distorted in way that will make you more lonely, since you aren't looking for other people like yourself, since you've concluded they don't exist.
I read the blog post feeling the author's rage, but your insight is far more important. Humanity's collective goodwill is stifled by friction and inertia while moneyed interests are given jetpacks.
When people ask me what cope is, I'll be pointing them to the comments here.
All of the things he mentions really could be better. It's lazy and careless to say that there's a constraint so something had to be bad. Every engineering problem has constraints.
By “nobody cares”, I think they mean “not everyone shares my exact priorities”.
I see this rant against the exact way a bike lane was installed- installed because someone cared ALOT to get it approved and built- and all they can think to do is complain?
The world is a complex place full of trade-offs and compromises, I feel for the people that worked so hard to get this project done.
The fact that there are reasons for things that they are how they are is one thing, and it's true he does not elaborate - but I take it his point is one of general attitude: U.S. Americans are different from Japanese. I would not say either group cares less; instead, they probably care about different things (different cultures have different value systems; the weight put on individual versus society plays a large role here, too).
It's easy to spot problems everywhere, especially if you are an analytical mind. Somebody else might care, but they may not perceive things as problematic to begin with.
Different people have different levels of sensitivity and granularity of perception: I buy "just cheese" when my wife buys "Gruyère français medium-aged" and don't you dare getting her the wrong brand.
Then, some people actually like the things how they are, so there are differences in opinion and personal taste, heck, some may even financially benefit from the status quo financially (distinguish those who don't care to help make change happen but would enjoy it if others did the work from the ones who genuinely don't care about either outcome, and both of them sit next to a third group, who do not what that change, full stop.
The post was more than just a rant: he notices where he lives, his community and him do not have "value fit" (to borrow and modify the concept of "product-market fit", since this is HN), and he is comtemplating a move. But when he says he won't move to Japan (where in any case he would always be an outsider) he is looking for middle ground - so I read his blog post as a "search query aimed at human blog readers", a call for information to find out where may be more likeminded folks, which is a good idea, given his situation.
That people do not see the need for change, one former co-worker of mine calls the "fish bowl effect": a new person joins a company, and they see everything that is broken immediately. But all the other people who have been there for 20 years don't get it. Like a new fish that joins the aquarium, who blurts "hey guys, the water in here is pretty dirty!" and all the other fill shake their head about such a weird statement, "What is he talking about?" They have been around for so long, they can't even perceive the water as "not clear" anymore, perhaps a survival adaptation to avoid permanent state of frustration.
So I wish all readers of HN that they will never become that kind of fish who stops seeing things! (Belated happy New Year, too.)
And yet:
People who care too much are angry.
People who care too much fight over stupid things.
People who care too much self-righteous.
People who care too much are intolerant.
People who care too much are not adaptable.
People who care too much are bullies.
People who care too much are trolls.
People who care too much write rants on their blogs.
People who care too much are miserable.
Some of this I think is misjudged - there is an implication that people know what they are doing or what their actions' consequences are, but do not care about it.
I would argue that for a bunch of things, people just don't think.
It's not that they don't care: they've not even reached that stage of awareness. They just don't ever get to thinking about if what they're doing has any kind of follow-on consequences or implications. It doesn't even enter their minds.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but as I've grown older I think I've learnt that not everyone thinks like I do. I guess here on HN and at work we're surrounded by people who are ultimately "knowledge workers" who are paid (and selected for) their ability to think. We're doing mental gymnastics and playing 4D chess against ourselves in our head all day. Meanwhile outside of tech, people aren't and there are IMHO lots of people who just think in a totally different way. It's like they stop at Step 2 or 3 of a linear thought process, but we as tech engineers etc are already on Step 7 of a decision tree with multiple branches etc even if we don't actively realise we're doing it.
Not saying we're any better/smarter, but we're at least implicitly trained and attuned to thinking things through, identifying edge cases, defensively coding to handle inevitable misuse/issues etc etc. Not everyone thinks like that.
Some stuff though is just experience or lack of it. I never knew how much of a pain it can be to push a kids buggy around until a did it and I would see sometimes the difference in others when I was struggling with one: some people (other parents with older kids, grandparents etc) would offer to help or to go out of their way to move out of the way etc, while others were blithely unaware (as I was!) and just don't realise because they have no knowledge or experience of the situation so even with care, they just don't know (which is fine - this is why we have schools and books etc, to teach people things they don't know). That bike lane in the article looks totally fine to me for example - even if I think think a whole range of scenarios in my head, I have no in-depth knowledge or experience or understand what the problem the author of the article is talking about as it looks totally ok to me but I only have very simplistic knowledge of riding a bike.
Tl:Dr - not always malicious or deliberate, just a lack of awareness and experience.
"Nobody Cares [about the things I think they should care about in the specific way I think they should]"
The author seems very conscientious and civic minded, but there are often unsatisfying explanations for why things are they way they are or why people act how they do.
This article is dumb.
Maybe the bike lane is that because of real world engineering, regulation, or design limitations?
Perhaps the author should appreciate the bike lane existing in the first place. It's better than no bike lane.
I get the sense a lot of these cynical types feel a desperate need for control over every component of their lives. Relax, some things aren't perfect but they're probably better than they were a hundred years ago. Progress takes time, accept that it takes time.
trying to fix half this stuff would burn you out, the other half would leave you jobless
I tried to fix the neighborhood playground and it took 2 years to get funding for a renovation that might happen 2 years from now... I gave up pushing for it because I don't have the time anymore... who knows if it will happen
most americans don't have a strong enough support system that gives them the space to care
> Don't take anything here too seriously
550 comments later...
There are an infinite number of things to care about (which is to say, to spend resources on, because that's what caring about something actually means), a finite amount of resources allocated to everyone except about 6 people who have a practically infinite amount of resources, and a social organization system that revolves around getting as much of those resources as possible and nothing else. What you're looking at is the real end product of "there is no such thing as society, only the individual and the family" neoliberalism. It's not just that no one cares, it's not even that no one has answered the question "Why should I care?". It's that the majority of people simply cannot care.
I mean, you talk about the problem, and everybody loves you and rushes to agree with your observations.
You talk about the [underlying reason for the problem][1] and everybody hates you.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation
A lot of this is attributable to the way our society is designed at a high level
With the exception of a tiny number of people in exceptionally autonomous jobs (either working for small organizations or in high-powered roles) both government and corporate bureaucracies optimize everything they can for efficiency and replicability at a massive scale, which means that their processes are ironclad, most people have no ability to make decisions that matter, and caring about the results of those decisions cause them either to break protocols and be punished, or try and fail to create different outcomes under those constraints. Most people are unable to choose a job that does better than this and still support themselves. Thus, most people spend a significant chunk of their life, the part where they're supposed to be the most engaged and alert, under a condition of essentially learned helplessness
Increasingly, people's options are restricted in terms of what they can do outside of work too. A lack of third spaces means that most socialization takes place in your home, your friends' homes, or more realistically, an internet platform that is designed and controlled by the same bureaucratic drives. Digital platforms for things like payments, combined with monopolization of most sectors of the economy, has made commerce involve fewer meaningful choices and salient interactions for the "consumer". Increasing use of digital mediators for other interactions and increasing control exerted by the companies that run these mediators create fewer meaningful choices they can make there, too. People often cite the high degree of convenience of many everyday activities as a quality of life improvement that past humans couldn't imagine. This might be true, but the way it's implemented comes with a tradeoff at every turn with meaningful choices. We have in many contexts traded knowing things and deciding things for having a company do it for us, and I say "we" because this is by and large a tradeoff that most people didn't individually choose
A lot of people get this idea in their head that most people are stupid. But even people who aren't particularly educated or bright have a lot more vibrancy, a lot more ability to care when they have autonomy than even very educated and intelligent people do when they don't, and autonomy is a muscle that can grow with use and atrophy with disuse. The design of modern societies has drastically limited the ability of people to act autonomously, to choose most things that matter, in a ton of contexts that take up most of most people's time. Of course they don't care. But like most systemic issues, this author is so unwilling to consider systemic solutions that even after walking up to the brink of seeming to get that this isn't a problem you can just solve at the ground level by caring yourself, the conclusion is still just that people suck, most of them, but somehow individually. Like many people who think they're surrounded by idiots, the author's one example of someone who "cares" is a literal billionaire who is personally responsible for creating similar immiserating authoritarian conditions in workplaces he runs and for people who use the products of his businesses, a textbook defector who has claimed more autonomy for himself exactly by contributing to the systematic ways in which others are deprived of it. There is no way to solve systemic problems at an individual scale
I think this is just the flip side of disengaged workers and managers.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/654911/employee-engagement-...
To care is to be engaged.
I mean... This guy must not have kids in school—because to be a teacher, you have to be nothing but a ball of caring because the job sucks the life out of you at every step. No money, half the country thinks you want to turn their kids into trans people and want you to teach their specific brand of a religion and so they defund you at every step. I feel bad for teachers—they really, really care.
This guy must not ever volunteer for anything—In my town we have volunteers who will find houses with dogs chained up and offer to build them a fence for free because they don't like seeing dogs on chains. We have volunteers who work community evenings and do cleanups at schools, parks and graffiti removal for community spaces. My city has hundreds of volunteer fronts, and they always need an extra hand.
This guy must not ever have bought girl scout cookies or got a Christmas tree from the boy scouts, a lot of people volunteer to make sure all that happens and the money goes back to the kids, and nobody there is getting "paid" and they all care.
This guy must never have talked to a fireman or a parks worker, they have crap pay and dangerous job conditions (Park rangers are assaulted at the highest rates for any job). They do it because they care.
This guy must never have been to a museum... actually, I could go on all day about people who care ...
At this point, all I can figure is this guy has his head firmly lodged up his rear-end.
Tldr: smorgasbord of 0.1th to 1st world problems designated as horrendous failures by me ain't fixed, so I decide that people in their jobs don't care.
I actually like the bike ramp. Cyclists merging to a footpath at 20mph are a danger. Take em out before they hit the pedestrian.
This is a bullshit take considering the amount of pressure put on the average worker and their family in the US.
And in software youre going to have to close a ticket or two that piss you off. You want to chase bugs into the sunset and never deliver new features? Cool, see you in Japan bro.
> the amount of pressure put on the average worker and their family in the US.
Broken windows. To use his example with bikes: the firms didn't care enough to allow the engineer to properly angle that entrance to the sidewalk. The engineer didn't care to push back because they were underpaid and things are getting more expensive at home. Things get more expensive because landlords are taking advantadge of the situation to jack up prices, because no regulation cared enough to stop that (or worse, regulation cared about money more and landlords "donated" to him to sway their ruling).
This apathy is a virus that spreads. At some point it becomes hard to figure out where it started. It's just this fog that seemingly always existed.
>You want to chase bugs into the sunset and never deliver new features?
I don't get paid to deliver features. If that bug is really critical enough I may push back on it.
Or I simply realize it's above my paygrade, don't care, leave a paper trail down the line for when they inevitably blame me, and do what I'm told like a proper worker.
Everyone has a breaking point and negativity bias makes the awful stuff pile on quicker.
Put it another way: Things are getting worse for more people. It may still be "amazing" for most people, but the ones next to the metaphorical "awful" line see it creeping. So it can feel very arrogant when someone a mile out says "why aren't you happy, it's great" as you see the line start to take your amazing things.
I hear you. I also sense people generally are becoming more anxious. More and more we took granted for decades has a question mark next to it.
But I didn't expect the author to feel happiness, or be grateful for the state of things. However, we can pause and realize how much people still do (for a salary or otherwise) for each other, despite things getting worse for them.
A good bike road with one bad turn is still mostly a good bike road. Still took a lot of caring to build. There's only so much capacity to fix mistakes.
You should not care. The universe does not need your help.
Universe instantiated you in this reality in a random body in a random timeline with zero input from your side.
It's just your ego that think your care actually makes any difference in this reality.
The universe will continue to run creating bodies, life forms and so on. It keeps destroying and recycling stuff.
Nothing is permanent. The more you care about impermanent things the more you suffer.
I do care. In fact, I bring a sort of "fuck it, we ball" vibe to the existentialism that nihilists don't really like.
Everybody cares actually. Obviously the author cares more about investing the time to write this blog post than to take a sledgehammer and some concrete and fix the bike ramp himself. Or he cares to avoid the potential interactions with law enforcement that would result from such ridiculousness.
The problem isn't with people not caring, it's that the deepest affections of the heart are selfish - incurvatus in se (curved inwards).
"Our nature, by the corruption of the first sin, [being] so deeply curved in on itself that it not only bends the best gifts of God towards itself and enjoys them (as is plain in the works-righteous and hypocrites), or rather even uses God himself in order to attain these gifts, but it also fails to realize that it so wickedly, curvedly, and viciously seeks all things, even God, for its own sake." - Martin Luther
>Or he cares to avoid the potential interactions with law enforcement that would result from such ridiculousness.
uhh, yes? What was the point of this ridiculous metaphor you yourself created?
>The problem isn't with people not caring, it's that the deepest affections of the heart are selfish
It's a bit more basic than that. If people aren't happy they care less, because their senses dull to focus only on survival and not assisting one's community.
A lot of people are unhappy these days.
I love looking at the About Me section of a site when I read a blog post that can be summed up as “The world would be objectively better if I were simply put in charge of it” because it’s always like “When I’m not blogging I’m working on chat with a blockchain for scooter thieves” or whatever and in this case our new overlord is “a founding engineer at Row Zero where we've built the world's fastest spreadsheet”
> In Japan, you get the impression that everyone takes their job and role in society seriously. The median Japanese 7-11 clerk takes their job more seriously than the median US city bureaucrat.
My favorite example of this is how, if you visit 7-11 in Japan and an employee isn’t busy, or is busy but with an unimportant task, they will jump to open a cash register and check people out the second a queue forms. They will move as quickly as possible to clear the queue of people, seemingly aware that everyone has some place to be that isn’t a checkout line. It’s wonderful.