I disagree with a lot of these social analysis texts because I think they misunderstand a fundamental premise. There is no pressure from society today, on the contrary. You had that when we were living in villages where everyone knew each other and it is what city dwellers escaped from.

But this never had been reevaluated. Modern societies are detached, nobody really cares what you do, you don't know your neighbours, you have no "third place" or common place any more.

So norms and rules are far less pronounced than in any other time in human history, far less so.

If you go out without pants in a big city, very few people would care. In better situated parts, you can expect that the police will probably pick you up. In less fortunate environments, you would just be pantless.

This is the opposite of expectations and pressures. I think many just aren't really part of a society or environment any more.

For some that is a great loss while others strive in this state as well. For many having some kind of responsibility is a very important part of their lives, but modern societies offer little here. We optimise for as little attachment as possible to stay flexible and dynamic. That of course can be a pressure as well, but not in the sense it is often suggested.

But summarised I think the problem is fundamentally misunderstood: Society doesn't put pressure on anyone, society simply stopped caring about you. I think this is what most societal analysts get completely wrong.

Well said! 5 years ago I could have a pretty solid picture of what my career would look like through retirement.

Today, unclear what that would look like as well as unclear if the career will even exist that long.

One sunny spot I have is that life is very long. I think I have 1.5 careers left in me, and a full pivot is alright. I've been talking with older folks, and loads of people have historically done giant pivots at midlife.

Is that not the epitome of the classic mid life crisis?

You hit a point in your life, reflect back on where you'd thought you'd be when you were in your early 20s, and think.. shit.. what I do all of this for?

This isn't even a flippant comment (especially given the subject matter); being at this age and thinking "I imagined it would all be easy by now" does hit home.

true but the pieces we value are also being pried from our hands.

I also don't think it compares to the industrial revolution, these are primarily sociological conditions - these suicidality figures predate the current AI implications.

> expectations to be successful

+1. Also maybe it's an age where responsibilities start to peak. More senior positions in the workplace, having children, marriage, etc.

I've had a few stressful periods lately where it felt or feels like I can't load any more on to my plate and I don't even have that many responsibilities - no kids either, just an accumulation of small and background things needing dealt with. I think I do understand people who do commit suicide to an extent - if you add the above normal stresses of life to some highly stressful life events like a breakup or divorce and throw kids etc into the mix - and hey why not a pile of work related stress too - I can absolutely see how people get pushed to the edge.

Modern society has not been arranged in a way that sets people up for success. Staring at device screens for more hours year on year likely doesn't help.

I'm sure some sociologists have written this already, but it seems to me that the people who commit suicide aren't those who are miserable and have few options. It's those who have lots and lots of options, but all options lead to unacceptably bad outcomes.

Microcredit in the third world is somewhat notorious for causing a rise in suicide rates. That fits the pattern: there's a huge number of things you can do to get money to pay back the loan, but if it gets out of hand, none of them get you remotely enough money to keep from sinking deeper into debt. Access to capital gives you many options - but it also makes it your fault when you didn't find the option which would lead you out of miserable poverty (which may not even exist!)

What any psychologist will probably tell you (at least, what all of them told me) is that clinical depression makes you bad at seeing options. Could it be that's in some sense a defense mechanism, trying to stop you from putting the really bad options on the table?

On the mark.

I have however run out of fucks and am ignorantly coasting and making optimal survival decisions only. Fuck the business. Fuck the career. Highly recommended.

We feel too old to learn the new rules of the game in time to play well, but not old enough to be able to abstain from playing.

Well said.

Well said.

Part of working through history from (only) 100 years ago is an impression of how quickly societies were changing then. This isn't the first time we've had the table cleared, and it hopefully won't be the last.

Which isn't to downplay the upheaval that people are in - it is definitely traumatic. But we've been through disruption before. Hopefully we'll make fewer costly mistakes this time...

maybe some just don't want to live that long. does everyone need to live as long as possible? you live your youth, and maybe that is enough for some.

if you start to hurt every day, get diagnosed with age-related disease, your cognition starts to deteriorate, etc, you might just decide "hey, i lived enough. i don't want to go through years of feeling like this."

Personally I think it has to do it's harder than ever to meet and find a partner.

> we are living through a period of time where success is very hard to define, much less attain.

Do you think this has changed from say 10 or 20 years ago? To me, I don't get the sense that there has been shift in the social definition of success. Maybe I'm missing something?

no rules/syllabus is an opportunity to be creative. No one has it figured out. Everyone is winging it. If you lock in, you will be the expert!

Never kill yourself, life is awesome after overcoming challenges

This makes a lot of sense to me. I used to have plans for the future, I had the next couple of years mapped out. Then I tried AI and my plans simply dissolved. I have no idea what's going to happen now.

Feels like all the effort I put into coming this far was invalidated overnight. The writing is on the wall, and now I have about five years to get rich at any cost until it's all over. Now I'm firing from the hip in all directions, trying to hit something, anything.

I used to enjoy programming as a hobby, writing articles. It's all so meaningless now. What's the point?

Sorry but it has very little to do with expectations. As a middle aged man you have very little opportunity to start a new career (regardless if there is even any remaining soon). In an absolutely objective way, physically and socially.

I am not sure if the success per se is the issue, but today things are definitely harder for many people compared to, say, 50 years ago for people of the same age. The available options for you, at age 55, are less with regards to success in general. And then it depends a lot on one's life too; for instance, are they single or not, do they have kids or not, and so forth.

> It's a psychologically very difficult time.

That's true, though it depends on how one handles that. But I think it is also clear that there are fewer options available when you are somewhat old already. People at age, say 20 to 25, may not feel a problem when they are gamers. At age 55, it is much harder to reason as to why you may wish to invest many hours per day into games; it just is not that productive, for most people (excluding e. g. playing to have fun, but that still does not answer the question of producitivity; I exclude professional gamers here, as they can often make a living just from donations, twitch etc.. but most people are not like that. Some of these gamers soon hit the age range 50+ by the way, I do watch a few of them every now and then.)

I defined success for myself quite a few years ago: I want to leave the world better than I found it. No high aspirations, no figure. Just better than it was.

Some of that is political advocacy. Some of that is open source code that should exist. Some of that is helping a neighbor. I don't need to hit a certain bar, I just need to know that in a given interaction or situation, I am trying to make things... at least a little better.

That also scales well to differing life decisions. The video game I'm playing, can I get people to play a little nicer with each other and have more fun? Workplaces are full of dumb stuff, success is making it at least a little better. Turns out I have kids now. Wasn't the plan, but now my obligation is to make sure my involvement in their lives is positive. Not a specific bar I have to achieve, but you know, someday I hope someone appreciates how I chose to live my life.

Yup, I tell my partner all the time. I just want the new era to be here already. I hate this waiting. I'm very annoyingly optimistic and think we're headed for post-scarcity.

Eh, I don't think today is really all that different from the last 100 years. We as software engineers may feel different as it's (maybe) our turn in the barrel.