/tech/ burnout

I remember times when tech was really fascinating (you know, new phones, computers, stuff like AR being used) and I feel like it died in me some time ago. It's all AI now, all cloud and I just lost interest. I haven't been tinkering with any computers or anything for past few years really, except adding components to my main PC or doing really simple things (install OS on neighbours laptop, add RAM or something when they asked). How do you feel about things lainons?

>>80089 Its age. When I was a kid in the 90s and 2000s, computers were relatively new for ordinary people and they had this air of magic about them. Now everyone has these devices, there are a ton of gimmicks, and every other person is a comp sci major or app developer. The social media + smartphone combination has led to content saturation and overconsumption. In the past cyberspace was an escape from the meatspace, today the internet is just so overwhelming and filled with junk that using it is mentally exhausting. Its not magical anymore, its common place and headache inducing. The novelty has worn off and playing around with this stuff isn't rewarding anymore. That's probably why a lot of people these days pine for the internet and retro tech of their childhoods/teens (even though it was soykaf) because it still had that magical Alice in wonderland feeling and was less mentally overwhelming and boring.

Mainstream tech really is less interesting today, core tech only exists as a buried engine deep below all the proprietary surveillance crap they dangle in front of your face. Nothing is made to be hackable, interoperable, open anymore. FKIN NORMIIIES I am angry >>80092 >the internet is just so overwhelming Agreed, recommend OP to get off mainstream websites, "apps". When aimlessly browsing, seek out smaller sites, blogs, manuals, howtos. Use a terminal web browser or an RSS reader to make it more special. What do you spend free time, screen time on? Scrolling 4chan, social media? Playing vidya? Returning to childhood levels of wonder may be impossible, but I believe computer magic can still be experienced. Phones are kind of a lost cause, but you can still enjoy custom roms if you're into that. PCs are not locked down yet (what a time to be alive), that can also be enough to satisfy tinkering needs. Set up a home server if that's something you can use, try out different server software, see what they're like. Start a cringe PC build/repair business. [Optional] Make it based over time. Open source software (languages, tooling, libraries) is better than ever. If you're tired of installing Gentoo, write some Python scripts, do dumb C, C++, Rust, Go, whatever projects. We already have more hardware performance than we can handle, the limit has been software complexity for a long time, time to write some quality software (eventually). Keep it simple, understand the basics at first, as opposed to pulling in mystery meme frameworks for no reason.

>>80089 I switched from CS to IT in college. I'd rather just fix things instead. I also embraced a more minimal lifestyle and filled it up with reading more books, passively browsing things in my rss reader, adding to my website, and showing up to more social spaces in real life. What use to be the time where I would massively consume social media and new soy technology has been instead just writing, having conversations, thinking up projects, and contributing to open source. I think it's way healthier.

It's not just you. The whole tech world of computers, smart phones, software, etc has become so commercialized and taken over by corporate suits that it really is massively more fake and boring than it used to be. Throw in all the dumbass Beavis and Butthead types that use the internet now and the political bullshit, and it's just become a big river of soykaf.

>>80096 Commercialization is as old as Bill Gates open letter to the hobbyists, Jobs taking Wozniak's homebrew computer and selling it, and the dozens of corporations involved in the electronic business long before that. Computer geeks and hackers have always had to deal with that. The difference is that less stuff was commodified back then. Nowadays, corporations are A. turning everything into a commodity or a service B. keeping everything proprietary and in house following Apple's walled garden model C. have cultivated an attention economy where 'content' is highly commercial and they are trying to squeeze as much attention out of people to sell ads and personal info. Community has also changed a lot. In the past, computers weren't cool and if you were into tech stuff you were among a small community of like minded people. In the 2010s, there was a big push by Gates for schools to churn out app developers and programmers and then the tech job became cool and the latest hype and now suddenly every normal user and hipster scum were getting into tech, the Apple fanboys, and along came the gymbros and Joe Roganites obsessed with weed, crypto, and liberatrianism. Then you go online and its just constant flamewars and arguing and life's just not worth it. Is there any fun to be had in tinkering? In the past, a lot of developments were thanks to tinkering (homebrew computer club, Linux etc) but now the technology has plateaued in terms of cost meaning nobody outside of corpos and universities can afford to make breakthroughs because the cost of R&D is too high and whenever a bunch of people develop something new the corpos can swoop in, steal their idea, and do it better thanks to a higher budget.

I think I'm wrapped up in wanting to do too much. Everything I'm interested in seems to take a lifetime to master. I race through the beginner stage of a new obsession with burning passion and then get stuck at the bounds of the intermediate. My ego gets caught up in the awareness of that which I don't know. I haven't the grit to nut up and slide down the Dunning-Kruger slope so instead I sit at the top, white-knuckled, sneering at those behind me and enviously dismissive of those ahead. Everything I'm good at I got good at unconsciously. It seems the moment I try to actively pursue something it slips from my fingers and I just go through the motions, losing the passion instantly until I don't want it anymore. Feels like the burnout that never ends. >>80094 This hits home. You've described almost exactly how I want to live my life. What kinds of things do you have on your rss reader? What kind of projects do you make/contribute to? How'd you find the process of adopting a more minimal lifestyle?

>>80093 I gave up on doing anything with phones years ago, after some fuarrrking around with custom ROMs or soykaf that requires root on some old Android phones. Now I just get the phones with least bloat and use them stock. Might just go back to a dumb phone too. I got a thin client recently and I'm thinking if I should make a local file server (it only got one M.2 SATA slot though, so I would either need to use USB or pray the SSD won't die quickly) or a media server connected to my TV and maybe streaming to other devices. Also I want to take out my win98 PC, clean it (it's probably full of dust) and do a clean install to play vidya.

I feel like part of the problem is that tech was actually taken away from the suits. Because it wasn't the street that took the controls and the drive away from the suits. It turned out that the polo shirt sunglasses aggressive risktaking young cutthroat capital finance adventurers and the casualwear jeanspants CEOs were worse than dumb stodgy Big Blue. You knew where you stood with IBMicrosoftworks Extracorporated, and there was slack in the system for anyone adventurous enough to identify workarounds. And for a period you could ride the wave of the blockchain bros moving into the financialization of those workarounds.

I felt that for a while lainon. I've just tried to shut out any news about artificial intelligence. Before that, the AI/VR/AR/BC newscycle was just annoying, but now it's almost exclusively AI with a little BC now and then. I tuned it all out. Don't care, just want to graduate and do embedded systems, I want to write firmware code. If the field gets soykafted up somehow, I plan to just go into my own business venture. Scrape by meagerly, but at least be happy. There are some things to be excited about anyway. E-ink has been entering various applications, somewhat unnecessarily but at least it bodes well for the future of the companies if nothing else. I'm waiting to see if those E-ink monitors will continue to be improved and sold into the future. A part of me thinks the AI thing will blow up in everyones faces in a few years. Don't know how exactly yet. That will be something to be excited for at least.

don't let retarded AI bros bring you down, they can continue riding their hype train until it rolls of a cliff maybe try messing with your operating system? try out alternative oses (niche distros, bsds, esoteric stuff like haiku or serenity) and different window managers and/or desktops. generally just mess around with your current workflow to find more fun or efficient ways to get soykaf done >>80093 >When aimlessly browsing, seek out smaller sites, blogs, manuals, howtos. Use a terminal web browser or an RSS reader to make it more special. this but with a graphical browser. (perhaps an alternative browser like pale moon, seamonkey or netsurf) you miss out on a big part of what makes personal websites so fun; the layout. >Phones are kind of a lost cause, but you can still enjoy custom roms if you're into that lineageos without gapps is pretty good. just make sure you get a phone that lineageos supports volte on or check if 2/3g towers are still up in your area.

Even though i've always leaned more on the "end user" side (xp user), i feel the same way as you. I just started really getting into the tech world like 2 years ago but after like win10 got released ive just been getting tired of the tech mainstream. Have you seen this corporate artstyle that has gone mainstream these years? That annoying, preachy, obnoxious passive aggresive feeling is the same i feel when i think about the current tech soykaf. Every time they talk about cloud revolution and IoT and "AI will develop consciousness" i can't just help but roll my eyes back from the cringe.

>>80124 It's like you have taken the words out of my brain, anon. In my personal case, a series of stupid fuarrrk-ups regarding my entrance at the academic field in college after graduating from high-school severely damaged my self-steem and intellectual abilities and, while sometimes i feel a glimpse of hope for the times gone, in general i just feel like, how you yourself say, i can only go through the motions of a new passion by innate, rather inconscious capabilities that i don't even think are even that unique or "intelligent" anymore (i have more respect for the usual "normal person" out there nowadays), and even then that only lasts like a couple of weeks or months until i hit a plateau where my lack of discipline, general unability to keep up after the initial energic bump, and immature tolerance of frustration stops me like a solid wall and it justs fades out like a meme and i give up again in a really depressing and pathetic state of not doing anything in general the whole day, not even browsing the internet that much anymore.