Comment by ozim
20 hours ago
Those were not programming tricks, but computing tricks or command line/sql tricks.
Anyways I find it mind boggling how many useful actions are not known by „normal people”. Most people are really using computers in a very inefficient way.
My idea is if we would spend time making people learn computers or software they use daily better - we wouldn’t need AI agents and we would triple GDP.
> if we would spend time making people learn computers or software they use daily better - we wouldn’t need AI agents
There's no amount of skill/efficiency/productivity a human worker can reach that will make employers give up on the dream of one day replacing them with software. The AI companies looking to profit from renting out the collected works and creativity of humanity certainly wouldn't shut down if the GDP tripled either.
People should still take time to learn how to use computers though. As long as they're going to use computers they can save themselves a lot of trouble and anxiety by investing some time in learning about them a little. Same with many other things people use and depend on.
> There's no amount of skill/efficiency/productivity a human worker can reach that will make employers give up on the dream of one day replacing them with software.
I agree... but also this is so wrong it's painful. If you do have a good worker, they don't cost money, they MAKE money. Of course if you as the CEO think you are smart enough to cover everything and anybody but you is just wasting money, then that doesn't work and optimizing makes sense. Corporations have grown in size to be mindless heartless engine, literally, and that comes at the heavy price of ... not thinking, just an automaton with a single goal, growing profit, leading to an even more inhumane setup within which removing costly humans makes perfect sense.
Maybe, but there's all sorts of habits and skills that would make us enormously more productive/healthy/etc. if only the masses would learn them. This is a very old problem.
For sure! It was on Hacker News too that I learned not that long ago via this thread[1] how to tie my shoes in such a way that the knot won't come undone by itself. It has definitely saved some time with some shoes with laces that would always undo themselves on their own with my old method.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397028