Episode 266: Strugglemaxing
They say history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes, and apparently so do show topics. A year on from our episode on the value of friction, the crew are back to discuss value of struggle. The question this time: now that AI will cheerfully do the hard part for you, which struggles are worth keeping, and which you can finally hand off?
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Mentioned in this episode:
- Ronny Chieng's Harvard Class Day speech — the "your generation's job is to kill AI" address.
With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.
Transcript
Spot an error? Send a pull request on GitHub.
[00:00:00] Cold Open
[00:00:00] Tim: Mhm
[00:00:00] Adam: I think there is value in struggle for people who find value in struggle.
[00:00:07] Ben: That's very.
[00:00:07] Ben: That.
[00:00:07] Ben: And that could be it right there for sure.
[00:00:10] Carol: Mhm.
[00:00:10] Adam: That's Tuttle's law
[00:00:31] Intro
[00:00:31] Adam: Okay, here we go.
[00:00:32] Adam: It is show number 266.
[00:00:33] Adam: And on today's show, we are going to talk about the value of struggle.
[00:00:37] Adam: And I'm sure we have plenty to say on the topic.
[00:00:39] Adam: But first, as usual, let's start with the triumphs and fails.
[00:00:41] Adam: Get the whole crew on board again tonight.
[00:00:44] Carol's Triumph and Fail
[00:00:44] Carol: Hey.
[00:00:45] Adam: Uh, and Carol, it is your turn to go first, my friend.
[00:00:48] Carol: Awesome.
[00:00:49] Carol: Well, I'm going to kick us off with a triumph and a fell because, I started playing Subnautica 2 with my husband, which is so much fun.
[00:00:56] Adam: Mm, mhm.
[00:00:58] Carol: Like we're just having a blast playing this game together.
[00:01:02] Carol: but it has bugs in it.
[00:01:04] Carol: And bugs are fun until they're not anymore.
[00:01:07] Carol: So for example, you go up to the top of the water, except you never stop going.
[00:01:11] Carol: So you're, you're suddenly like 14,000 meters away from your base, just waiting to see if you fall back onto the map somewhere and then you lose all your stuff.
[00:01:12] Tim: To the moon.
[00:01:23] Adam: Oh.
[00:01:23] Carol: Um, the other thing is that it's an early release right now, so the map is tiny.
[00:01:27] Carol: So we've already beaten like the early release part of it and now we're just going through and hunting for things and like scanning objects.
[00:01:27] Adam: Yeah.
[00:01:30] Tim: Mhm mhm
[00:01:34] Carol: But for me, the triumph is that I'm getting to play a game with my husband, who is just sitting at the desk behind me.
[00:01:39] Adam: Mhm.
[00:01:41] Carol: And we're talking to each other and we're enjoying this and it's taking no effort.
[00:01:45] Carol: I kind of get to just check out.
[00:01:47] Carol: But the fail is that, uh, an hour turned into like four and a half hours
[00:01:53] Carol: twice.
[00:01:54] Carol: So it happens, you know, a couple times.
[00:01:56] Carol: I'm sure whenever the actual, the next update comes out, there'll be more of that.
[00:02:00] Carol: So.
[00:02:00] Carol: Definitely sucks you into a hole when you're doing it.
[00:02:03] Carol: And then, you know, like I said, the bugs.
[00:02:05] Carol: Bugs are fun until they're not.
[00:02:07] Ben: M I, I know very little, and by very little I mean nothing about video games really, since college.
[00:02:11] Tim: mhm
[00:02:13] Ben: but when I was very young, I played Grand Theft Auto on the computer, actually.
[00:02:18] Ben: I think that's how it was originally released.
[00:02:20] Ben: And I just heard a radio piece the other day that Grand Theft Auto 6, I guess, is finally in pre order after like 10 years or something.
[00:02:29] Adam: Yeah.
[00:02:31] Ben: And they've already, I think it's like already 30 million in pre sales or something.
[00:02:32] Tim: mhm mhm.
[00:02:36] Ben: Like 30 million orders.
[00:02:39] Ben: Um, and I don't know how much it costs, but quite, quite a bit more than a dollar.
[00:02:39] Adam: Okay.
[00:02:41] Carol: The most expensive game release.
[00:02:43] Carol: Yeah, the most expensive game release in I think ever for just a regular game.
[00:02:48] Carol: It's like $89
[00:02:50] Carol: for just a regular like buy of it.
[00:02:53] Carol: And no expansions, no extra stuff.
[00:02:53] Ben: Cray cray.
[00:02:55] Carol: It's nuts.
[00:02:56] Carol: But uh, I think I heard it took billions to make it.
[00:02:59] Ben: Oh my goodness.
[00:03:01] Carol: Yeah.
[00:03:01] Adam: I'm not surprised.
[00:03:02] Adam: GTA 5 was an amazing game.
[00:03:04] Adam: I played that one.
[00:03:05] Carol: So good.
[00:03:05] Adam: I played that game like four times.
[00:03:07] Adam: Ish.
[00:03:08] Adam: it's just a really good story and it's kind of a choose your own adventure thing so it can go different ways.
[00:03:12] Adam: And I wanted to see like, you know, a bunch of the different endings you can get and that sort of thing.
[00:03:17] Adam: can.
[00:03:18] Adam: For me, it was like watching a movie, but the movie was like 40 hours long.
[00:03:18] Carol: Mhm.
[00:03:22] Adam: And you can, it's, it's dynamic, right?
[00:03:24] Adam: You're participating and, and it can go different directions.
[00:03:25] Ben: Sa.
[00:03:27] Adam: So it was, it was great.
[00:03:28] Adam: It was the best, like 60 or 80 bucks I ever spent.
[00:03:31] Tim: Uh, I can't play Subnautica.
[00:03:32] Tim: My kids have, have Subnautica, the original.
[00:03:35] Tim: I just get so motion sick.
[00:03:37] Tim: Oh my God.
[00:03:37] Ben: Mhm.
[00:03:38] Tim: It's as.
[00:03:41] Carol: It's also bad because it's underwater and it's supposed to make you freak out.
[00:03:43] Tim: Mhm.
[00:03:44] Carol: So there's been multiple times I can't find my little pod thing to get back in to drive around.
[00:03:49] Carol: I'm running out of oxygen.
[00:03:51] Carol: It gets dark, I start panicking.
[00:03:52] Carol: I'm just shaking my mouse around frantically.
[00:03:55] Carol: And Steve's like, it's okay, you're just gonna respaw.
[00:03:58] Carol: I'm like, why am I sweating?
[00:03:59] Carol: Because my character's dying underwater right now.
[00:04:03] Ben: Mhm.
[00:04:03] Carol: but that's me that you, Tim?
[00:04:05] Tim's Triumph
[00:04:05] Tim: that's kind of, I'm kind of struggling to come up with anything.
[00:04:07] Tim: I mean it's a really short week, probably only like 2, 3 days of work week since we last recorded.
[00:04:11] Adam: Mhm.
[00:04:14] Tim: But I'm gonna go with the triumph.
[00:04:15] Tim: You know, survive the Georgia heat during the, I mean it was brutal here.
[00:04:16] Carol: Mhm.
[00:04:20] Tim: It was like, I don't know where the news and the weather channels get their temperatures because it never matches what's on the um, temperature gauge on the, you know, near my house.
[00:04:30] Tim: It's like it was 110in, in our backyard and it's like.
[00:04:31] Adam: Mhm.
[00:04:33] Ben: Oh,
[00:04:33] Adam: Oof.
[00:04:35] Tim: And you could feel like just the sun is so hot, it's just baking you.
[00:04:37] Carol: Mhm.
[00:04:38] Tim: And I have all these new plants that I'm just trying to help them survive.
[00:04:42] Tim: They're struggling there, but they're, they're making it, they're slugging through the heat.
[00:04:46] Tim: So yeah, that's, that's, that's my triumph.
[00:04:47] Tim: That to survive the heat stayed a lot indoors.
[00:04:50] Tim: I mean even the pool water, the pool water was like 91, 95 degrees depending on what time of day you looked at the thermometer.
[00:04:54] Ben: Mhm.
[00:04:55] Ben: Oh my goodness.
[00:04:59] Tim: I mean that's like a Jacuzzi, so.
[00:05:01] Adam: Yeah.
[00:05:01] Ben: Sa.
[00:05:02] Carol: yes.
[00:05:03] Carol: Since moving to Georgia, I'm getting that same, the same heat over here.
[00:05:06] Tim: Mhm.
[00:05:07] Carol: And it sucks.
[00:05:08] Carol: 110 in Texas and the desert was bearable.
[00:05:11] Adam: Mhm.
[00:05:11] Carol: And when you were in the like a shade, it didn't feel bad like you were, you were able to tolerate it.
[00:05:17] Carol: I go into my backyard and my shirt is just soaking wet with sweat.
[00:05:21] Carol: Like within 60 seconds I'm sweating.
[00:05:24] Tim: Yeah,
[00:05:24] Carol: It is miserable.
[00:05:25] Carol: And I told Steve when we were moving back here, I was like, the humidity is going to kick our ass.
[00:05:30] Carol: He's like, oh, we'll adapt, you know, we'll, we'll acclimate.
[00:05:33] Carol: I ain't acclimating, I'm just going.
[00:05:35] Ben: Mhm.
[00:05:36] Tim: Some staying indoors.
[00:05:39] Carol: Not for me.
[00:05:39] Ben: Think the thing that always gets me is summer.
[00:05:43] Ben: The highlight of summer for me is being able to drive with the windows down.
[00:05:47] Ben: And when you get to days like this where it's so hot and you open up that window, it's like you're just in a convection oven.
[00:05:54] Ben: And my eyes start,
[00:05:54] Adam: Yeah.
[00:05:54] Tim: M.
[00:05:56] Ben: my eyes start aching.
[00:05:57] Ben: They're kind of like burning.
[00:05:58] Ben: And I don't think it's from allergies.
[00:06:00] Ben: I think it's literally just from like the heat and the dry wind and it takes.
[00:06:04] Ben: That's.
[00:06:04] Ben: That's such a disappointment for me.
[00:06:05] Ben: It's like pulling out onto the road, popping those windows open.
[00:06:09] Ben: Me like, nope.
[00:06:10] Ben: Back into the air conditioning.
[00:06:10] Carol: Mhm.
[00:06:10] Tim: Yeah,
[00:06:12] Tim: we used to have a convertible, but man, when it was that hot it's like, no thanks.
[00:06:18] Ben: Yeah.
[00:06:18] Tim: Don't want to be a baked potato in a little Volkswagen Cabrio.
[00:06:21] Carol: Mhm.
[00:06:24] Tim: So anyway, that's me.
[00:06:25] Adam's Triumph
[00:06:25] Tim: Not very exciting, but what you got, Adam?
[00:06:28] Adam: Well, I'm gonna go with a Triumph and that is that.
[00:06:30] Carol: Sam.
[00:06:31] Adam: My first Rivian road trip went really well.
[00:06:33] Adam: so I think the last time that we talked about my truck, um, was about, two weeks ago.
[00:06:35] Tim: Mhm
[00:06:39] Adam: or two shows ago at least.
[00:06:39] Ben: mhm
[00:06:41] Adam: about ten days ago, I took my family down to visit my brother.
[00:06:45] Adam: He lives about three hours drive away.
[00:06:47] Adam: Um, and so, and we pulled our pop up camper as well.
[00:06:51] Adam: And so towing with an EV is kind of in a, not an unknown, but it's like a, it's a gray area.
[00:06:51] Carol: Oh fancy.
[00:06:51] Tim: mhm.
[00:06:55] Carol: Mhm.
[00:06:56] Ben: mhm.
[00:06:57] Adam: Right.
[00:06:57] Adam: You don't know exactly what kind of mileage you're going to get.
[00:06:59] Adam: And uh, it went really well.
[00:07:01] Adam: You know, we, uh, left the house expecting to arrive with like 12ish percent battery.
[00:07:07] Adam: And there's plenty of chargers on the way.
[00:07:08] Adam: I could have stopped and charged.
[00:07:09] Adam: I just, you know, it it said we should arrive with like 12%.
[00:07:12] Adam: We got there with like almost 40%.
[00:07:14] Ben: Oh, wow,
[00:07:14] Adam: So, we did much better efficiency than expected.
[00:07:17] Ben: that's awesome.
[00:07:18] Carol: Wow, that's way better than Tesla.
[00:07:21] Adam: Well, you know, we're, it's kind of an apples and oranges thing.
[00:07:23] Adam: Like the battery is different.
[00:07:25] Adam: I'm towing, um,
[00:07:25] Carol: Yeah,
[00:07:26] Tim: And Tesla's bumper won't stay on to pull.
[00:07:30] Carol: Well that's what I'm saying.
[00:07:31] Carol: Like we have a Model uh Y and it gets 2 like with 80% charge it'll get like a 220 mileage range.
[00:07:34] Ben: Mhm mhm
[00:07:39] Carol: But that's not towing anything.
[00:07:40] Carol: That's just,
[00:07:40] Adam: You're talking about 2.2 miles per kilowatt hour.
[00:07:43] Carol: oh, I don't know any of that.
[00:07:44] Carol: 220 miles for the 80% charge.
[00:07:45] Adam: Oh, uh, gotcha.
[00:07:47] Carol: I know that far.
[00:07:49] Tim: Mhm
[00:07:50] Adam: Gotcha.
[00:07:50] Carol: So yeah, I feel like you get really good mileage if you're also pulling.
[00:07:54] Adam: Yeah.
[00:07:54] Adam: so I have seen, um, like doing city driving.
[00:07:57] Adam: I'm getting like 3 to 3.4, miles per kilowatt hour at the absolute best.
[00:08:03] Adam: And that's you know, taking full advantage of the regenerative charging.
[00:08:06] Adam: So that's why city driving actually gets better with an EV than highway.
[00:08:06] Carol: Mhm.
[00:08:08] Tim: mhm
[00:08:11] Adam: Um, but like when you average it out on a trip, like you know a trip you're going to have some city driving to get onto the highway, some highway time and then some city driving when you get there.
[00:08:13] Ben: mhm
[00:08:13] Carol: Mhm.
[00:08:19] Adam: And so average for a trip I'm getting like 2.7, 2.5 ish miles per kilowatt hour, which is pretty, pretty good, pretty efficient.
[00:08:26] Carol: Sam.
[00:08:28] Adam: and then on the trip when we were towing, I was seeing like 1.8, I think maybe 1.7, which is you know, a hit.
[00:08:28] Tim: mhm
[00:08:34] Ben: mhm.
[00:08:34] Carol: Mhm.
[00:08:37] Adam: quite, uh, half, a little more than half of what I was what I get not towing.
[00:08:42] Adam: But it was a very anxiety, uh, reducing experience.
[00:08:45] Tim: mhm
[00:08:47] Adam: Right.
[00:08:48] Adam: Range anxiety is a real big thing I guess when you first start with an EV And that was great.
[00:08:50] Ben: Yeah,
[00:08:50] Carol: Yeah.
[00:08:51] Carol: Mhm.
[00:08:53] Adam: It really put my mind at ease.
[00:08:55] Adam: For our upcoming trips.
[00:08:55] Ben: Sa.
[00:08:56] Adam: We're going camping and we're going like up into the Appalachian Mountains we're visiting a campground where they're like yeah, you can't really charge on our, on our grid here.
[00:09:04] Tim: mhm
[00:09:06] Adam: It's not built for that sort of thing.
[00:09:09] Adam: There's a Tesla Charger not too far away.
[00:09:10] Carol: Mhm.
[00:09:10] Adam: It's like 15 minute driveway but still, you know, it's just kind of puts my mind at ease that we're going to get better
[00:09:17] Adam: range, I guess out of it, I don't know, more, more miles out of a charge than initially was expecting.
[00:09:19] Ben: Mhm.
[00:09:23] Adam: So I'm happy with,
[00:09:27] Ben: Yo, can I just take a minute to give a shout out to a different podcast which is,
[00:09:29] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:09:32] Carol: Mhm.
[00:09:32] Ben: uh.
[00:09:32] Ben: And there's a reason for that.
[00:09:34] Ben: So I've been.
[00:09:34] Adam: I was gonna say it sounds like a total non sequitur, but sure.
[00:09:36] Ben: No, no, no, it's, it's not a non sequitur.
[00:09:36] Adam: Go.
[00:09:38] Ben: So between Carol talking about video, I'm not video video games, and me being able to talk about Grand Theft Auto, you know, if only 10, you know, briefly, and you talking about the Rivian and me having some sense of how EVs work and range, etc.
[00:09:50] Carol: Mhm.
[00:09:55] Ben: Uh, a lot of that kind of just, um, ambient information in my head comes from what I listen to.
[00:10:01] Ben: And one of the podcasts that I've really been enjoying lately is the Vergecast.
[00:10:04] Tim: mhm
[00:10:06] Ben: And they recently went from a weekly show, I think, to a daily show or like a week, you know, like week daily show.
[00:10:06] Adam: Mhm.
[00:10:10] Carol: Mhm.
[00:10:14] Ben: Um, and they're shorter and they're, they're just kind of all over the place as far as tech news goes.
[00:10:19] Ben: Like, they, uh, they talk about video games, they talk about the movie and TV industry, they talk about software, they talk about home automation, they just Have a lot of fun.
[00:10:25] Tim: mhm
[00:10:27] Ben: And it's.
[00:10:28] Ben: I, you know, I have it on just while I'm driving kind of stuff.
[00:10:30] Carol: Mhm.
[00:10:31] Ben: And uh, I just really enjoy it.
[00:10:32] Ben: And it's.
[00:10:32] Ben: It, it, it's tech, so it feels related, but it's not about software most of the time.
[00:10:39] Ben: So it's feeling like I'm expanding my sphere of understanding ever so slightly.
[00:10:44] Ben: So just a shout out to them, but they talked, they had a whole episode just recently.
[00:10:44] Tim: mhm
[00:10:49] Ben: Not a whole, maybe not a whole episode about Rivian.
[00:10:49] Adam: Mhm.
[00:10:50] Carol: Mhm.
[00:10:50] Ben: And they're just about to release a new model, I think.
[00:10:54] Adam: It's out now.
[00:10:55] Adam: Yeah,
[00:10:56] Ben: So it's fascinating.
[00:10:56] Adam: they're, they're starting to make some deliveries.
[00:10:58] Adam: Yeah, the R2.
[00:10:59] Ben: Yeah,
[00:10:59] Adam: Well it's nice of you to give them the Working Code bump Um, but uh, yeah, you know, so that's, that's, I got a real simple one today.
[00:11:02] Ben: you're welcome.
[00:11:04] Tim: mhm
[00:11:08] Adam: That's it.
[00:11:08] Adam: So that's it for me.
[00:11:09] Adam: How about you, Ben.
[00:11:09] Ben's Fail
[00:11:09] Carol: Mhm.
[00:11:11] Ben: going to go with a little bit of a failure, which is just that I feel like my productivity lately, just my ability to produce has been really low.
[00:11:22] Ben: I, I have always thought of myself as someone who can just deliver, whether it's things for myself, whether it's things for other people.
[00:11:23] Tim: mhm
[00:11:29] Carol: Mhm.
[00:11:31] Ben: That's kind of part of how I self identify is I can just usually get things done.
[00:11:34] Adam: Sa?
[00:11:37] Ben: And um, I just have.
[00:11:38] Ben: I don't feel like I'm doing that.
[00:11:40] Ben: And I honestly don't feel like I've been doing that for a hot minute.
[00:11:44] Tim: mhm
[00:11:45] Ben: Uh, and, and I, it's extra failure feeling today.
[00:11:49] Carol: Mhm.
[00:11:49] Ben: I, uh, you know, in today's world, because AI is supposed to make me so much more productive.
[00:11:55] Ben: And I feel like, if anything, I feel the opposite.
[00:11:57] Ben: That
[00:11:59] Ben: if anything, it's like a, um, paradox of choice.
[00:12:02] Ben: It's like a paradox of productivity that I could build anything.
[00:12:04] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:12:07] Ben: And because of that, my ability to commit to building anything feels greatly diminished.
[00:12:07] Adam: Mhm,
[00:12:10] Carol: Mhm.
[00:12:15] Ben: And the few things that I've kind of just taken a swing at, I feel like I'm losing interest in them very quickly.
[00:12:15] Adam: Mhm,
[00:12:23] Ben: Um, and I don't know, I just, I don't feel great about it.
[00:12:25] Ben: I don't love that.
[00:12:26] Ben: I don't love that for me.
[00:12:28] Ben: on top of that, at work, you know, we've done a lot of vibe coding stuff at work, which I've talked about in some previous episodes, and I feel like that is coming back to bite me in terms of my ability to produce.
[00:12:28] Carol: Mhm.
[00:12:42] Ben: Because while I think maybe we made a lot of really fast progress early on, I didn't develop, I think, a strong enough understanding of how the whole application fits together and all of the moving parts.
[00:12:43] Tim: mhm mhm.
[00:12:48] Adam: Mhm,
[00:12:49] Carol: Mhm.
[00:12:52] Adam: mhm.
[00:12:55] Ben: And now I'm finding that when I go to pull on a thread of how something works, it's not like I'm pulling on a thread on a sweater, it's like I'm pulling on A thread on a sweater that's inside of a walk in closet that I didn't even know was there.
[00:13:07] Ben: I feel like I'm just struggling to get tasks done because every time I have a question about some um, nuanced issue within that task, it's uncovering some giant rock and I go down some rabbit hole and that rabbit hole leads to other rabbit holes.
[00:13:07] Carol: Mhm.
[00:13:10] Adam: Mhm.
[00:13:23] Ben: And I don't know, like I, I just like all across my whole life right now I feel like my ability to produce is noticeably worse than it was before.
[00:13:28] Carol: Mhm.
[00:13:31] Adam: Mhm.
[00:13:33] Ben: M.
[00:13:34] Tim: I mean, you have changed jobs, right?
[00:13:36] Tim: You were in the same job for how many years before this?
[00:13:38] Ben: A lot of years.
[00:13:39] Tim: Yeah, so a lot of, so I mean you had a lot of institutional knowledge and you know, it's like.
[00:13:39] Ben: 13, 13, 14 years.
[00:13:43] Ben: Yes.
[00:13:43] Ben: 100%.
[00:13:44] Tim: And now you're in.
[00:13:45] Tim: Not only you're dealing with a new job, you're dealing with this new approach to coding with the AI that no really has an answer to right now.
[00:13:50] Carol: Mhm.
[00:13:53] Tim: Um, so I mean, it'd be surprising if you didn't feel a little unproduct.
[00:13:59] Ben: Yeah.
[00:13:59] Ben: I think that's, you're being very, you're being, I think both accurate and generous.
[00:14:03] Ben: But I, I'm just feeling this.
[00:14:04] Tim: Mhm mhm
[00:14:05] Ben: Even outside of work, I'm just feeling like my brain is dead.
[00:14:10] Carol: Mhm.
[00:14:10] Adam: Yeah.
[00:14:10] Adam: So when you were talking about I could build anything, that kind of made me think you were talking more about personal time and like, you know, so your side projects, you're you know, building on your blog, that sort of thing.
[00:14:15] Ben: Mhm.
[00:14:20] Adam: But then also you said the vibe coding at work.
[00:14:23] Adam: I'm curious how much of that in know if you're thinking of the time as unproductive, uh, how much of that quote unquote unproductive.
[00:14:30] Carol: Mhm.
[00:14:30] Adam: Time is waiting on the LLM to finish generating whatever it's generating.
[00:14:37] Ben: I, I don't think that's it for me personally because
[00:14:41] Ben: at work
[00:14:43] Ben: I'm, I'm not one of these people who run stuff in these, in these large loops or the Ralph loops or even has, you know, multiple agents running.
[00:14:45] Tim: mhm
[00:14:48] Adam: M.
[00:14:48] Adam: Yeah.
[00:14:51] Ben: I, I do think actually the models feel to me like they've gotten a little bit noticeably faster lately.
[00:14:57] Ben: but in my personal stuff, I'm still using AI almost primarily as a conversational buddy and less so as a co generation buddy.
[00:15:04] Adam: Mhm.
[00:15:05] Tim: mhm
[00:15:07] Ben: So in, in those cases I don't feel like I'm waiting for it too much.
[00:15:10] Ben: The conversational cadence feels pretty solid, but I just, I just feel like I can't commit to doing anything.
[00:15:11] Carol: Mhm.
[00:15:14] Adam: Interesting.
[00:15:18] Ben: I feel uh, like I don't care.
[00:15:20] Ben: It's like I'm finding what I'm feeling is like I just don't care enough
[00:15:24] Tim: mhm
[00:15:26] Ben: to pick something and move forward with it.
[00:15:28] Ben: But.
[00:15:28] Carol: Are you feeling a little burnt out?
[00:15:30] Adam: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Carol: That's usually.
[00:15:30] Adam: I was thinking like decision fatigue,
[00:15:31] Carol: Yeah, that's.
[00:15:32] Ben: Yeah, I think it is part burn.
[00:15:34] Ben: I think it's part burnout, I think it's part depression, I think it's
[00:15:38] Ben: part overwhelm.
[00:15:41] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:15:41] Adam: That uh, depression.
[00:15:41] Ben: Uh,
[00:15:42] Adam: Do you think that's because the AI is doing the part of the job that you found most rewarding and so it's kind of taken away that part of your experience?
[00:15:55] Ben: I think that's probably part of it.
[00:15:56] Ben: I don't think that's an entirely it.
[00:15:58] Carol: Foreign.
[00:15:59] Ben: I don't think I can like really are articulate.
[00:16:02] Ben: I think it's like, I think it's a multifaceted issue.
[00:16:05] Ben: I don't know.
[00:16:08] Carol: Creative mind.
[00:16:10] Carol: I'm sure everyone else does too.
[00:16:11] Carol: And it feels like a lot of what we do now has taken some of that creativity away from us.
[00:16:16] Carol: So I wonder how much that plays into how you're feeling.
[00:16:20] Carol: You know, the decisions aren't so much on your shoulders now and more into a conversation of how it goes.
[00:16:21] Tim: mhm
[00:16:23] Adam: Sa.
[00:16:26] Ben: So I.
[00:16:27] Ben: Okay, so I want to, I want to just dig into that for a second because I do feel like I'm a creative person, but I also feel like a lot of that creativity comes from being triggered by someone else.
[00:16:28] Adam: Mhm.
[00:16:39] Ben: Meaning typically a customer has a problem, teammate has a problem, someone mentions something interesting and then that kind of sends my Mind down, you know, various directional adventures.
[00:16:40] Carol: Mhm.
[00:16:40] Tim: mhm mhm.
[00:16:45] Carol: M.
[00:16:50] Carol: Yeah.
[00:16:50] Carol: Hm.
[00:16:52] Ben: and I I think what I'm missing is that opportunity that I'm not.
[00:16:56] Ben: I'm.
[00:16:57] Ben: Because I'm in this sort of green field, extremely expansive,
[00:17:02] Ben: exploratory phase of a project.
[00:17:06] Ben: It's almost like.
[00:17:08] Ben: It's almost like there's nothing creative about it right now.
[00:17:11] Ben: It's.
[00:17:12] Ben: It's.
[00:17:13] Ben: I don't know how to describe it.
[00:17:15] Carol: Analysis paralysis.
[00:17:17] Ben: It's.
[00:17:17] Ben: It's just.
[00:17:18] Ben: Yeah, it's like.
[00:17:18] Ben: It's overwhelming to the point where it almost.
[00:17:19] Adam: Mhm.
[00:17:20] Carol: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Ben: I feel like I can't have inspiration.
[00:17:24] Adam: Mhm.
[00:17:25] Tim: So it sounds like you're struggling.
[00:17:26] Tim: What would you say the value of that struggle is?
[00:17:30] Carol: Sa.
[00:17:31] Ben: Well played, sir.
[00:17:32] Ben: All right.
[00:17:33] The Value of Struggle: Everyone's Wired Differently
[00:17:33] Ben: Yeah, I don't want to pontificate too much about my feelings of failure, so, yeah, maybe we just roll that beautiful segue to transition, uh, from Tim into the topic of the show, which is the value of struggle.
[00:17:33] Tim: Mhm.
[00:17:45] Ben: Um.
[00:17:45] Adam: Segue, segue, segue.
[00:17:47] Carol: Mhm.
[00:17:48] Tim: Pew pew.
[00:17:49] Ben: All right, let me.
[00:17:49] Ben: Let me just do, like, a.
[00:17:50] Ben: Like a stream of consciousness for a second, because I.
[00:17:53] Ben: I don't have a great way to articulate this, but it has.
[00:17:53] Tim: Mhm
[00:17:56] Ben: And I'm sure that a lot of the things that I'm feeling are not necessarily the same thing.
[00:18:00] Carol: Mhm.
[00:18:01] Ben: I feel like they have some similar symptoms, but they're probably not the same thing.
[00:18:03] Adam: Mhm.
[00:18:05] Ben: So I think I'm gonna conflate a bunch of stuff.
[00:18:08] Ben: Um, I.
[00:18:09] Ben: I've been thinking about this value of struggle.
[00:18:11] Ben: I think much more in depth in the last.
[00:18:14] Tim: mhm
[00:18:14] Ben: I don't know, I'm say, like, two years probably.
[00:18:17] Ben: And, uh, I've found it to be a little bit unsettling.
[00:18:20] Carol: Mhm.
[00:18:22] Ben: And the root of it.
[00:18:22] Adam: Mhm.
[00:18:24] Ben: I think the thing that.
[00:18:26] Ben: The thing that really triggered this in my mind is beginning to understand as I'm getting older, just how radically different everyone's worldly experience is.
[00:18:34] Tim: mhm
[00:18:39] Ben: Um, and I don't know how to explain it other than through examples.
[00:18:43] Ben: Like, if I got onto an elevator with other people,
[00:18:47] Ben: it would.
[00:18:48] Ben: I, uh.
[00:18:49] Ben: It would never even cross my mind that it would be appropriate to whistle in a closed, confined space with other people.
[00:18:53] Tim: mhm
[00:18:54] Adam: Mhm.
[00:18:55] Ben: And, like, everybody knows someone's like, oh, that's totally my dad.
[00:18:58] Ben: My dad gets on an elevator and he starts to whistle.
[00:19:02] Ben: And to me, that's, like, horrific.
[00:19:04] Ben: And in.
[00:19:06] Ben: In my mind, like, that's so wildly inappropriate that I'm like, this other person who wants to whistle in an elevator must be, like, unwell.
[00:19:11] Adam: Inappropriate.
[00:19:15] Ben: Right?
[00:19:15] Ben: And, like, obviously that's not true.
[00:19:17] Tim: M.
[00:19:17] Tim: What's your take on elevator farts?
[00:19:19] Carol: Mhm.
[00:19:24] Ben: Okay, so.
[00:19:26] Adam: Only M Right after or right as you're about to leave and then the door shuts and there's a big crowd in there.
[00:19:27] Ben: So.
[00:19:30] Carol: Mhm.
[00:19:31] Ben: So there are things that just seem obvious to me in the way that the world should be interacted with that are not obvious to other people.
[00:19:31] Tim: Mhm mhm mhm
[00:19:37] Ben: And as I've gotten older, what I realized that is it's not that those things are obvious to me and not obvious to other people.
[00:19:37] Carol: Mhm.
[00:19:40] Adam: Mhm.
[00:19:42] Ben: It's that those things don't occur to other people because they just don't matter.
[00:19:47] Ben: And I don't mean don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
[00:19:50] Ben: I mean, just don't matter to, to them in the way that they matter to me.
[00:19:55] Ben: And I feel like a lot of that is just the way that I'm wired and a lot of that is just the way that they're wired.
[00:19:58] Carol: Mhm.
[00:20:02] Ben: And as I've started to have this realization, it's, it's like it's really thrown me through a loop because I feel like so much of how we operate in the world is predisposed on this notion that we all sort of agree how things should work.
[00:20:19] Ben: You know, for the most part, we agree that red is red and green is green and obviously we have color blindness and all that kind of stuff.
[00:20:26] Ben: Right?
[00:20:26] Ben: So that's even, even, that's not a, a good thing to think about.
[00:20:29] Ben: and then, okay, again, just, you know, cut me some latitude here with my stream of consciousness.
[00:20:31] Tim: mhm
[00:20:34] Ben: And then all the, the GLP-1 stuff.
[00:20:36] Ben: The GLP-1 drugs that have come out, I mean they've been out for decades, but they've become popular in the last couple of years.
[00:20:41] Adam: Mhm.
[00:20:41] Carol: Mhm.
[00:20:44] Ben: And what we're finding now as a society, um, is how much of our
[00:20:51] Ben: food noise, our internal struggles with addiction, alcohol use, gambling use, these all seem to be heavily affected by the GLP-1 drugs.
[00:20:52] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:20:59] Carol: Mhm.
[00:21:01] Ben: Because whatever pathway they're affecting seems to have a direct impact on the way we feel about addictive things within our lives, compulsions within our lives.
[00:21:11] Ben: Which again, going back to this idea that why would you whistle on an elevator?
[00:21:15] Ben: That's crazy, is to me, uh, you know, who I have like relatively good control over my addictions.
[00:21:17] Adam: Mhm.
[00:21:19] Carol: Mhm.
[00:21:22] Ben: To someone who doesn't have good control over their addictions, drugs like this are, are a miracle drug.
[00:21:28] Ben: Um, and you know, if you think about weight control over the last several decades,
[00:21:33] Tim: mhm
[00:21:33] Ben: a lot of it is, moralized.
[00:21:35] Ben: You know, oh, if you only had more self control or if you only had more discipline, you could, you know, get your weight under control.
[00:21:39] Carol: Mhm.
[00:21:43] Ben: And you know, I think we've all had thoughts like that.
[00:21:45] Ben: And then I even think about things like, I feel like it was a decade ago they started to talk about, oh, kids developmentally, they shouldn't be waking up at 6 o' clock to go to school that really, they should be sleeping later so they can develop more, and school should be opening later.
[00:21:53] Tim: mhm.
[00:22:00] Carol: Mhm.
[00:22:02] Ben: And I was always like, I never had trouble waking up in the morning.
[00:22:03] Adam: Mhm.
[00:22:05] Ben: I'm a morning person.
[00:22:06] Ben: So I look at that kind of information.
[00:22:08] Ben: I'm like, you know what?
[00:22:10] Ben: Learning to wake up when you don't want to wake up is just part of life.
[00:22:14] Ben: Like, we're not going to all start, um, adjusting our school schedule so that kids can sleep in, you know, and, like, in my way, I'm moralizing the idea that you should just wake up when you need to wake up.
[00:22:25] Tim: M.
[00:22:25] Tim: You know, you sound like.
[00:22:26] Tim: Right
[00:22:28] Tim: back in my day.
[00:22:28] Carol: My grandpa.
[00:22:29] Ben: No.
[00:22:30] Adam: M.
[00:22:30] Adam: Yeah, I was gonna say old man yells at cl.
[00:22:33] Ben: Right, okay.
[00:22:34] Ben: So.
[00:22:35] Ben: And, and okay.
[00:22:36] Struggle vs. Efficiency: Reading, Writing, and AI Code
[00:22:36] Tim: Mhm
[00:22:36] Ben: And okay, give me, like, two more minutes of just stream of consciousness here.
[00:22:42] Ben: Right.
[00:22:42] Ben: So when I was younger, I used to read.
[00:22:44] Ben: I mean, not ferocious voraciously or anything.
[00:22:45] Adam: It.
[00:22:46] Ben: I was never a big reader.
[00:22:47] Ben: But then when, audiobooks became very popular, I started to love audiobooks, and now the podcasts are very popular.
[00:22:55] Tim: mhm
[00:22:55] Ben: I started to listen to podcasts almost, I'd say probably too much.
[00:23:00] Ben: Um, and I'm beginning to question things like, should I force myself to just sit down and read a book?
[00:23:01] Carol: M mhm.
[00:23:06] Ben: And definitely part of why I want to do that is because I think it's more challenging than listening to a podcast or listening to an audiobook.
[00:23:07] Adam: Mhm.
[00:23:15] Tim: mhm mhm mhm
[00:23:16] Ben: And I don't know if there's a value in that.
[00:23:20] Ben: If the.
[00:23:20] Ben: The struggle of sitting down and saying, I'm going to block off these two hours, and I'm going to sit on the couch and I'm going to do nothing for two hours but sit here and read and focus and retain the pros, that's going to be a lot harder than walking down the street and listening to a podcast, you know, at 20% attention, but maybe that's a good thing.
[00:23:22] Carol: Mhm.
[00:23:25] Adam: Mhm.
[00:23:36] Adam: Sam.
[00:23:41] Ben: Or am I just celebrating the idea that it's good because it's hard?
[00:23:43] Carol: Mhm.
[00:23:46] Adam: Mhm.
[00:23:46] Ben: And then that obviously kind of parlays into all the AI stuff.
[00:23:50] Ben: You know, if I can hit a button and have AI generate code,
[00:23:56] Ben: is that better?
[00:23:57] Ben: Or would it be better for me to do a little bit more struggling and write the code and feel the pain of having to do that and feel the pain of having to write something and then regret writing it and then go back and edit it and then move it around and then relocate that code and then work on the abstractions a little bit more?
[00:24:14] Ben: I, uh, could do that with a prompt, but I could also do that by writing.
[00:24:15] Carol: Mhm.
[00:24:18] Ben: And maybe writing makes it a bigger struggle, and maybe there's something inherently valuable in that struggle.
[00:24:18] Tim: mhm
[00:24:19] Adam: Hmm.
[00:24:25] Ben: I don't know.
[00:24:25] Ben: So that's, that's like you know, all of it right there.
[00:24:28] Carol: M
[00:24:28] Ben: I mean there's, there's probably so much more
[00:24:31] Ben: but I'm um, I, I, I think I'm conflating a lot of things probably.
[00:24:36] Ben: But anyway.
[00:24:38] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:24:38] Ben: Okay.
[00:24:38] Ben: Any, any reactions?
[00:24:39] Carol: Okay.
[00:24:39] Carol: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Carol: From your very last statement you said that, you know, you need to spend more time writing your own code and figuring out everything.
[00:24:39] Ben: Car.
[00:24:47] Carol: I want to know what model you're using because what I currently generate I still have to go figure out.
[00:24:52] Carol: I still have to rewrite, I still have to spend time in there.
[00:24:54] Ben: Mhm.
[00:24:55] Carol: I don't get anything produced that I am just happy with unless it is JavaScript.
[00:25:01] Carol: And that's because I don't care about JavaScript.
[00:25:03] Carol: So I let it go.
[00:25:04] Carol: Um,
[00:25:08] Ben: In my personal stuff I use Opus, but it's primarily as a conversational partner.
[00:25:11] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:25:12] Carol: Sam.
[00:25:15] Ben: If, if I'm going to have it generate code in my personal world, it's very rote.
[00:25:18] Carol: Mhm.
[00:25:20] Ben: It's more like I need to change this method name in 47 files.
[00:25:26] Ben: Go do that for me.
[00:25:27] Adam: Mhm.
[00:25:27] Ben: But it's not, it's not really generating net new code.
[00:25:33] Ben: It's more like either
[00:25:36] Ben: fast copy paste or fast you know, regex find replacement.
[00:25:39] Carol: Mhm,
[00:25:42] Adam: This is wild.
[00:25:43] Adam: I don't think it would be possible for you and I to be further apart on the spectrum.
[00:25:49] Adam: I was thinking about this the other day.
[00:25:51] Adam: I think it's.
[00:25:53] Tim: mhm
[00:25:53] Adam: If we, if we ignore the outliers of like something that was so obviously trivial that I just went ahead and wrote the code myself.
[00:26:03] Adam: Like, oh, I just want to change this, this uh, form, field, label, I want to make it plural, add an S, that sort of thing.
[00:26:07] Carol: Right.
[00:26:10] Adam: That would be an insane thing to ask an LLM, um, to do.
[00:26:13] Ben: Yeah, yeah, I, I agree with.
[00:26:13] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:26:14] Adam: Like we're going to burn so much electricity and water to do that, right?
[00:26:17] Adam: So in those cases where I find myself going, no, don't do that, just go find the file and add the S yourself.
[00:26:24] Adam: Right?
[00:26:25] Adam: If we, if we exclude cases like that.
[00:26:28] Adam: I was, I was trying to figure out, it may have been at least six months, possibly as much as a year since I have written any code.
[00:26:38] Carol: Mhm.
[00:26:38] Ben: Mmm, mhm.
[00:26:39] Ben: Pretty good.
[00:26:40] Adam: uh, I.
[00:26:40] Ben: Mhm.
[00:26:41] Adam: And I'll, I will iterate, right?
[00:26:42] Adam: I'll have it write code and I'll look at it and go, no, this could be better.
[00:26:43] Carol: Right.
[00:26:46] Adam: This was a dumb choice here.
[00:26:47] Adam: Like base it on this decision from before and have it rewrite it.
[00:26:50] Tim: mhm mhm.
[00:26:52] Adam: But still I like I and I use, I have an editor installed and I open it and I'll, I'll use it to like browse context and better understand things for myself.
[00:27:01] Adam: But again, I'm not writing any of the code.
[00:27:03] Ben: Mhm.
[00:27:04] Carol: I will say I write a lot of SQL though.
[00:27:06] Carol: I write in my, I write a ton of my own SQL statements and loops for what I'm trying to find.
[00:27:13] Carol: I may ask it to make it more efficient, but I don't, I don't know.
[00:27:13] Adam: Right.
[00:27:17] Carol: I just tend to go there and that makes my brain happy to write it myself.
[00:27:21] Adam: So two things, SQL and JavaScript.
[00:27:23] Adam: To your earlier point, a lot of the code that I write is JavaScript, right?
[00:27:26] Adam: We're moving towards SvelteKit So that's.
[00:27:26] Carol: Uh,
[00:27:27] Adam: No, that's.
[00:27:28] Adam: It makes my heart happy.
[00:27:31] Adam: Um, makes my tum tum happy to use a Ben ism.
[00:27:34] Adam: Um, but the uh, SQL as well.
[00:27:36] Adam: Like I have, I went through this process where I like we have an Enormous database schema.
[00:27:38] Carol: Sam?
[00:27:39] Carol: Mhm.
[00:27:41] Adam: Okay.
[00:27:41] Adam: I went through this process to like try and condense it as much as possible.
[00:27:43] Ben: Sa.
[00:27:45] Adam: We might have talked about that on the show.
[00:27:47] Adam: Um, and so I have this like basically DSL set of files that can describe the whole database.
[00:27:55] Adam: And so I can have the LLM like okay, you could reference.
[00:27:59] Adam: This is the database schema and it's broken up sort of by like topic and module of the application.
[00:27:59] Carol: Mhm.
[00:28:04] Adam: And so it can jump into any little section and be like oh actually that, that, that column is an int, not a float or whatever.
[00:28:08] Tim: Mhm.
[00:28:11] Adam: It's very useful.
[00:28:12] Ben: Mhm.
[00:28:12] Adam: And for, for that kind of reason I haven't written any SQL either.
[00:28:17] Adam: I do write SQL, I guess if I'm like poking around in the database, debugging, trying to figure something out.
[00:28:20] Carol: Yeah, fine, thanks.
[00:28:21] Ben: Mhm.
[00:28:21] Tim: Yeah,
[00:28:21] Ceremony, Aristotle, and Finding Meaning in the Task
[00:28:21] Adam: But.
[00:28:23] Tim: so going back to your premise there, Ben, um, a little bit is, you know, man shaking fist at sky, get off my lawn.
[00:28:32] Tim: I mean he sound a little bit like Aristotle.
[00:28:35] Tim: And when he said, when he's, when he said, uh, the young people are high minded because they've not been humbled by life nor have they experienced the force of circumstance.
[00:28:35] Ben: Well so, so.
[00:28:37] Carol: Mhm.
[00:28:43] Tim: They think they know everything Mhm and are quite sure about it.
[00:28:43] Ben: Yeah.
[00:28:47] Ben: Well, you said something to me the other day or in response to something I, I was listening
[00:28:47] Adam: Yeah, well.
[00:28:49] Carol: Sam.
[00:28:54] Ben: to something on a podcast about home automation I think it was.
[00:28:58] Carol: Mhm.
[00:28:58] Ben: And, or uh, maybe it was about OpenClaw You know, it's about one of these things like here's all the ways you can automate your life.
[00:29:01] Tim: mhm.
[00:29:02] Adam: Mhm
[00:29:04] Ben: And I said something to the effect I think in one of the chat rooms that I don't like to automate a lot of stuff because I like the ceremony.
[00:29:07] Adam: mhm.
[00:29:12] Tim: Yeah, you don't, you don't set it on.
[00:29:14] Tim: You manually set a wake up alarm every day.
[00:29:16] Ben: Yeah.
[00:29:17] Ben: So every night.
[00:29:17] Tim: And your wife, your wife is like, you know, you can just have it repeat,
[00:29:19] Ben: Yeah, so every night at night, like 9:00pm, 9:00pm's around.
[00:29:20] Adam: It.
[00:29:24] Ben: Kind of like when I start to make the machinations of going to bed.
[00:29:28] Ben: I get my, my undies and my socks out and my T shirt ready for the next morning like a, like a five year old.
[00:29:34] Carol: M.
[00:29:34] Carol: Or an old man?
[00:29:34] Ben: And uh, yeah,
[00:29:37] Ben: and I set my alarm and my wife looks over at me and she's like, you know, you're an idiot.
[00:29:40] Carol: Mhm.
[00:29:41] Ben: You could just have it reset automatically every day.
[00:29:44] Ben: And I, and the way I look at it is I like the ceremony of setting the alarm.
[00:29:50] Adam: Hmm.
[00:29:50] Ben: It makes me think about it.
[00:29:52] Ben: It kind of,
[00:29:54] Ben: I, I uh, don't know how to articulate it other than to say like it grounds me in the process of having a daily schedule and there's something about that that feels precious to me in the same way that I wake up the same time, even on the weekends because I like the idea of waking up at a particular time.
[00:30:10] Adam: Mhm.
[00:30:12] Tim: And I love that for you.
[00:30:13] Tim: I think my question to you was, have you ever been diagnosed for OCD
[00:30:16] Adam: Sam.
[00:30:17] Ben: No, I have not.
[00:30:17] Carol: Mhm
[00:30:17] Tim: It
[00:30:19] Ben: But, but this goes back to the idea of the value of struggle.
[00:30:20] Tim: mhm.
[00:30:20] Carol: mhm.
[00:30:22] Ben: Like and ah, I think part of what I appreciate about struggle is that it connects me to something and that if I remove the struggle, I think I am in uh, some way deconnecting word, disconnecting myself from the thing I'm interacting with.
[00:30:29] Adam: Mhm.
[00:30:39] Ben: And that's, and here's where I think I'm probably just conflating a lot of things.
[00:30:39] Carol: Mhm.
[00:30:40] Tim: Sa.
[00:30:42] Ben: I don't think that's always valuable, but I think it's probably valuable,
[00:30:48] Ben: um, more often than we give it credit for.
[00:31:06] Adam: Um.
[00:31:06] Ben: Like, I, okay, so I will, I am very happy to take a hot dog out of the wrapper, pop it in the microwave and eat while standing over the sink.
[00:31:08] Adam: Mhm.
[00:31:15] Ben: And like that to me is not sacrificing like a quality meal.
[00:31:19] Ben: My wife, on the other hand, is happy to spend three hours putting together a salad that will then take her another two hours to eat.
[00:31:27] Ben: And that's like, but that's the joy of it for her.
[00:31:29] Ben: And that to me represents no joy.
[00:31:30] Tim: mhm.
[00:31:31] Ben: So here's an example where I think she genuinely does enjoy the struggle of making and then eating the salad for seemingly an endless amount of time.
[00:31:41] Ben: And.
[00:31:41] Adam: Tell us how you really feel.
[00:31:42] Ben: Yeah,
[00:31:44] Ben: and I enjoy the efficiency of nuking a hot dog and shoving it basically directly into my stomach.
[00:31:49] Adam: M
[00:31:51] Adam: two bites.
[00:31:51] Tim: So.
[00:31:51] Adam: Right?
[00:31:52] Ben: Yeah.
[00:31:53] Tim: So I wonder if the value struggle is when it is something that that Like, uh, we feel should have more meaning to us.
[00:31:58] Ben: Right when we're communing with it.
[00:31:59] Carol: Mhm.
[00:32:00] Ben: I think.
[00:32:00] Adam: Well it's like when, when the, the act of doing the work to complete the task.
[00:32:06] Adam: When it's the doing the work that is uh,
[00:32:11] Tim: Right.
[00:32:11] Adam: not the, not that the task is completed.
[00:32:14] Ronny Chieng, Killing AI, and Code You Remember
[00:32:14] Tim: So you guys know Ronny Chieng He um, he was Daily Show uh, correspondent and also host and stand up comedian.
[00:32:17] Ben: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:17] Adam: Correspondent.
[00:32:18] Adam: Yeah.
[00:32:19] Ben: And he's a stand up comedian, I think.
[00:32:21] Tim: He was the Harvard, he gave a speech at Harvard for graduation
[00:32:26] Tim: like back in May.
[00:32:28] Tim: And his theme of his talk was that it was their, it's their generation's job to kill AI.
[00:32:35] Carol: Mhm mhm.
[00:32:35] Tim: I was like, that was a takeaway from the talk.
[00:32:37] Tim: He's, everyone else is telling you need to learn it.
[00:32:38] Tim: I'm like, no, I mean you guys need to kill it.
[00:32:40] Tim: That's your job.
[00:32:41] Tim: Kill it.
[00:32:43] Tim: Um, and he gave.
[00:32:44] Tim: And I'm like, all right, Ronny let's, let's hear where you're going with this.
[00:32:46] Ben: Mhm.
[00:32:47] Tim: But he did give one good example.
[00:32:48] Adam: Mhm.
[00:32:49] Tim: He said, so he gave.
[00:32:50] Tim: A friend of his was asking him about Buddhism and so he, you know, as a gift gave his friend a book about Buddhism.
[00:32:58] Tim: And then his friend managed just put it into an AI and asked for a summary of what it means to be Buddhist.
[00:33:08] Tim: And he's like, that is completely not the point.
[00:33:09] Adam: Mhm.
[00:33:12] Tim: If you just want a summary of what Buddhism is, then you really aren't interested in Buddhism.
[00:33:18] Tim: So.
[00:33:18] Ben: Yeah.
[00:33:18] Ben: That's funny.
[00:33:20] Carol: Mhm.
[00:33:20] Tim: And that's, that's a fair point.
[00:33:21] Tim: If, if the thing itself needs to have meaning, then it is a cheat to throw it in.
[00:33:26] Tim: But it's like if we're doing this for work and it's like the thing is to get it done with and try to do it in a quality way while getting it done, then
[00:33:30] Adam: Mhm.
[00:33:35] Tim: yeah.
[00:33:36] Tim: I don't know if lovingly uh, meaning and manually writing code these days makes a lot of sense,
[00:33:39] Carol: Mhm.
[00:33:43] Ben: I'm not entirely convinced only because
[00:33:43] Tim: but that's just me.
[00:33:47] Ben: the, the initial generation of code is just the beginning and I, I just like, I honestly just don't know how it plays out in the long term.
[00:33:48] Adam: Mhm.
[00:33:51] Tim: Mhm
[00:33:57] Ben: And I, you know, I don't think anyone does because we're so new here to this journey.
[00:33:59] Carol: Mhm.
[00:34:03] Ben: but I, you know, a bunch of us have worked on applications for a number of years
[00:34:09] Adam: Mhm.
[00:34:10] Ben: and
[00:34:11] Tim: mhm,
[00:34:11] Ben: application maintenance becomes harder over time.
[00:34:14] Ben: Even in the cases where we're intimately involved in the making of that application and that software and all of those architectural decisions.
[00:34:19] Carol: Mhm.
[00:34:23] Ben: I, I don't know, it, it feels like that will become harder to keep in your head.
[00:34:27] Adam: Mhm.
[00:34:29] Ben: You know, have you ever heard the phrase, like, was it the things that fire together, wire together
[00:34:36] Ben: that.
[00:34:36] Ben: The ability.
[00:34:37] Ben: So the, the uh, this is, I mean, I think this is kind of the basis for how the LLM models are designed and how the, the way the brain neurons organize that.
[00:34:38] Carol: Mhm.
[00:34:45] Ben: You, you have all these experiences and you have all these thoughts and you perform all these actions and the
[00:34:48] Adam: Mhm.
[00:34:50] Tim: Mhm,
[00:34:52] Ben: association between the neurons in the brain, my understanding is things that fire together start to wire together and you get all these associative understandings and kind of collective memory organizations inside of your head.
[00:34:59] Carol: Mhm.
[00:35:06] Ben: And uh, I think if you start to decrease the amount of firing together, I think the wiring together also decreases.
[00:35:08] Adam: Mhm.
[00:35:11] Tim: mhm.
[00:35:16] Ben: So your ability to recall things about how applications work.
[00:35:19] Carol: Mhm.
[00:35:20] Ben: I mean, this is just a working theory here.
[00:35:21] Ben: I'm not saying this is actual science.
[00:35:23] Ben: I'm saying that, you know, my ability to remember very intimate details about how the InVision app works, despite having, uh, the company closed over a year and a half ago, uh, like that, I think is only attributed to the fact that I was very intimately involved in the writing of the code.
[00:35:29] Adam: Mhm.
[00:35:41] Ben: And if I had just generated it, would I remember any of it at this point?
[00:35:45] Ben: I don't know.
[00:35:46] Tim: Which might be the marketing plan for AI to like, well, you don't, you don't, you don't know how it was written.
[00:35:49] Ben: Yeah.
[00:35:49] Adam: Mhm.
[00:35:51] Tim: So you need to keep paying for us forever.
[00:35:53] Ben: And like, I don't mean for this to be an AI conversation.
[00:35:53] Carol: Mhm.
[00:35:56] Ben: I think AI is just one of the things that I think about when it comes to this kind of stuff.
[00:36:02] Good Struggle, Bad Struggle, and the Morality of Hard Work
[00:36:02] Carol: I was gonna say, like for me, when I think about a few things that I struggle with that I enjoy, the only one that comes to the top of my mind is when I'm running.
[00:36:06] Adam: Mhm.
[00:36:11] Carol: I enjoy that last mile when it's starting to get really painful and I can't, like, I'm not for sure how I'm going to make it.
[00:36:13] Tim: Mhm mhm.
[00:36:19] Carol: And I'm like, okay, just do it.
[00:36:21] Carol: Uh, just do it.
[00:36:21] Carol: Like that struggle is good.
[00:36:22] Carol: But when I go to work and I can't focus, I don't want that I have to take ADD meds.
[00:36:27] Adam: Mhm.
[00:36:28] Carol: I don't want to struggle all day to pay attention.
[00:36:28] Ben: Mhm.
[00:36:31] Carol: So I need that barrier completely removed for me to be productive.
[00:36:35] Carol: If I spend days not making progress or feeling stuck, I'm going to feel really depressed.
[00:36:41] Carol: But running, I like a little, a little struggle.
[00:36:43] Carol: I want it to be a little hard to lift my legs at the end.
[00:36:48] Adam: Mhm.
[00:36:48] Ben: So here's something super interesting.
[00:36:50] Ben: Uh, literally, like.
[00:36:51] Tim: Promise.
[00:36:53] Ben: Yes, literally.
[00:36:54] Carol: I don't believe you.
[00:36:54] Tim: Mhm
[00:36:55] Ben: Uh, right before we got on to do this recording, I was listening to a podcast.
[00:37:01] Ben: Uh, it was a TED It was one of the TED Talk.
[00:37:02] Ben: It was the TED Talk podcast.
[00:37:04] Ben: So they release like a new TED Talk or an old TED Talk every day.
[00:37:08] Ben: And they just had one about the moralization of hard work.
[00:37:08] Adam: Mhm.
[00:37:11] Tim: mhm mhm.
[00:37:12] Ben: And essentially they run these experiments, thought experiments, where they propose two different sets of people.
[00:37:19] Ben: And in one of the sets the people work harder, um, objectively in the description.
[00:37:19] Carol: Mhm.
[00:37:24] Ben: And in one set the people work less hard.
[00:37:27] Ben: And basically in every culture around the world, regardless of how work focused that culture is, the people who work harder in these stories are considered to be more moral and more trustworthy.
[00:37:29] Adam: Mhm.
[00:37:40] Carol: Mhm.
[00:37:42] Ben: Even, they say, like even in hunter gatherer societies where it's not basing their whole society around, you know, clocking in and clocking out at work.
[00:37:49] Ben: Even in those societies, the people who struggle to do the same work as other people tend to be viewed as slightly higher morals.
[00:37:50] Adam: Mhm.
[00:37:59] Ben: And it almost feels like there's something hardwired in our evolutionary psyche to believe that struggle is just somehow better.
[00:38:01] Carol: Mhm.
[00:38:10] Tim: I mean, biologically, you're going to want a mate who's going to stick with you and in tough times and not bail.
[00:38:10] Adam: Mhm.
[00:38:15] Tim: Right?
[00:38:15] Tim: Otherwise you're not going to reproduce.
[00:38:18] Tim: So.
[00:38:18] Ben: M.
[00:38:18] Ben: Yeah.
[00:38:18] Ben: And.
[00:38:18] Ben: And so then part of me is like again, going back to this idea of so much of how I go through life is just how my brain is wired and not because I have any particular superpower to do anything, is my sense that there's a value in struggle just some old hard wiring that I'm having trouble coping with in a new age of constant efficiency maxing.
[00:38:22] Carol: Mhm.
[00:38:32] Adam: Mhm.
[00:38:43] Carol: Mhm.
[00:38:43] Tim: Yet that's exactly what we've done all through human history is we create technology to make things easier.
[00:38:49] Tim: This is what we do and we're really good at it.
[00:38:53] Effort as a Signal: Handwritten Notes and the AI Smell
[00:38:53] Ben: It's true.
[00:38:54] Ben: But then like
[00:38:56] Ben: it's okay, so like, taking, uh, an email versus a handwritten note.
[00:39:01] Ben: There.
[00:39:01] Ben: There is something.
[00:39:02] Ben: Okay.
[00:39:03] Carol: Mhm.
[00:39:03] Ben: If I get an email from someone, that's nice.
[00:39:05] Ben: It's, you know, makes me feel like I'm being thought of.
[00:39:08] Ben: But Uh, if someone mails me a handwritten note, that's just a different feeling.
[00:39:10] Adam: mhm.
[00:39:12] Tim: Mhm.
[00:39:13] Ben: And it's 100% related to how much effort that was.
[00:39:17] Tim: Yeah.
[00:39:18] Tim: So you're talking about the impact and in impact and intent being important.
[00:39:22] Ben: I don't know.
[00:39:22] Carol: Mhm.
[00:39:22] Ben: It's all just.
[00:39:23] Ben: It's all just, like, jumbled together.
[00:39:25] Ben: That's what I'm saying is like, I don't think these are all the same thing.
[00:39:27] Ben: I'm just saying that there's some sort of collocation of struggle and value.
[00:39:31] Adam: Mhm.
[00:39:33] Tim: Yeah, I, I will say this.
[00:39:35] Tim: You know, up until recently I knew everyone's email style.
[00:39:38] Tim: Like there were certain people.
[00:39:39] Tim: I'll be like, I'm not reading her letter, I'm not reading her email right now.
[00:39:42] Tim: That's, that's gonna be, that's gonna be 15 paragraphs and 17 bullets under each pair.
[00:39:43] Carol: Mhm.
[00:39:48] Tim: And then there's other people like, okay, I'll read theirs.
[00:39:50] Tim: And now with AI, everyone's like checking, you know, their spelling and all that.
[00:39:53] Ben: Mm.
[00:39:53] Ben: Mhm.
[00:39:54] Tim: And it's like, all right, I know there's no way that you put much effort into writing this, so therefore I'm not going to put much effort into really reading this.
[00:40:03] Ben: Yo,
[00:40:04] Carol: Mhm.
[00:40:04] Adam: I get uh, on that same topic of low effort writing, I get,
[00:40:10] Adam: I think uh, it affects me the same way as uh, like a phone robot, right?
[00:40:12] Ben: Sa.
[00:40:16] Ben: Mhm.
[00:40:16] Tim: Mhm
[00:40:17] Adam: The systems where they make you like speak to it and, and it takes forever to listen to what they want you to, to say or whatever.
[00:40:19] Carol: Mhm.
[00:40:27] Adam: And
[00:40:29] Adam: uh, like I have gotten some code review feedback that I could tell uh, just at a glance was AI generated.
[00:40:34] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:40:37] Adam: But in its defense it was succinctly put and all valuable.
[00:40:38] Carol: Mhm.
[00:40:43] Adam: And it's like if, if I, if it didn't have that smell of this is AI generated I, I would have no emotions about it at all.
[00:40:47] Ben: Mhm.
[00:40:50] Adam: This is great.
[00:40:50] Adam: Thank you for the feedback.
[00:40:52] Adam: But just because it like the way it's formatted or something about it clues you into the fact that it was AI generated.
[00:40:55] Ben: Mhm.
[00:40:58] Adam: It's like this is a copy paste.
[00:41:01] Adam: The, the
[00:41:03] Adam: lack of effort is showing somehow in context clues and it just makes me angry and I don't like that about myself.
[00:41:05] Carol: Mhm.
[00:41:10] Adam: I.
[00:41:11] Adam: But also uh, I don't know, like I think expectations should be higher uh, because I want my own effort to be higher.
[00:41:15] Tim: mhm
[00:41:19] Ben: Okay, can I.
[00:41:20] Ben: Can I put out just something very fascinating?
[00:41:20] Carol: So
[00:41:22] Ben: Sorry, Carol, you about to say something?
[00:41:23] Carol: I was, so I have an agent in Claude that I run that's called PR Um, review comments that I've run on any comments that I know are AI generated.
[00:41:31] Adam: Mhm.
[00:41:35] Carol: Because if the person didn't take the time to do it, I'm not going to take the time to respond.
[00:41:36] Tim: mhm mhm mhm mhm
[00:41:40] Carol: So if they created it, I'm just going to have an agent go check it for me and say, hey, is this valid or not?
[00:41:45] Carol: And then move on.
[00:41:47] Ben: There you go.
[00:41:48] Ben: Just agents all the way down.
[00:41:49] Carol: Yeah.
[00:41:50] Ben: Okay.
[00:41:51] Ben: But here's.
[00:41:51] Ben: Here's something that's fascinating as we're having this conversation.
[00:41:54] Ben: And I, uh, again, I don't necessarily think it's apples to apples.
[00:41:58] Ben: It feels like when we are consuming something generated by AI we have a lot of stronger feelings about, uh, that doesn't feel right.
[00:42:01] Carol: Mhm.
[00:42:07] Adam: Mm mhm.
[00:42:08] Ben: It has a smell to it, et cetera.
[00:42:11] Ben: When we're on the other side and we're like, we have to produce stuff with AI Suddenly it's like, oh, well, no, it's not about the production.
[00:42:19] Ben: It's about the end product, and it's about delivering the value, and it doesn't matter how it gets built.
[00:42:22] Carol: Mhm.
[00:42:24] Ben: And I wonder if this is like a weird cognitive dissonance between being a producer versus a consumer.
[00:42:28] Adam: Mhm.
[00:42:32] Adam: I think I only see that laissez faire attitude about production in places where it's intended to be consumed by LLMs.
[00:42:42] Adam: Right.
[00:42:42] Adam: So this, it's like maybe, maybe a naive perspective, but I think that there's an argument to be made that code from here on out only ever needs to be read by LLMs.
[00:42:43] Carol: Mhm.
[00:42:53] Adam: It should explain to us what it sees, we can make some decisions and then we can tell it to write some other code or refactor this or that, whatever, effectively, potentially we don't ever need to look at the code again.
[00:42:59] Tim: mhm mhm
[00:43:02] Ben: Mhm.
[00:43:03] Carol: Mhm.
[00:43:04] Adam: And so because of that, I don't necessarily need to care too much about the shape and style and structure of the code as long as it's going to be efficient.
[00:43:17] Adam: And I want to say clean, but obviously I'm arguing against that.
[00:43:21] Adam: I don't know what the right word is, but there are some, characteristics of it that I will say are still going to be important to check for.
[00:43:22] Carol: Mhm.
[00:43:24] Ben: Right.
[00:43:27] Ben: Sa.
[00:43:29] Adam: I just, uh, I don't have them extemporaneously to offer.
[00:43:32] Adam: but I think the people that are doing it right are
[00:43:37] Tim: mhm.
[00:43:38] Adam: very aware when they're generating, you know, a paragraph of text or, or when they need to come up with a paragraph of text and they go, okay, well I can't have an LLM write this because it needs to be, it needs to feel genuine from a person.
[00:43:39] Ben: Mhm.
[00:43:41] Carol: Mhm.
[00:43:53] Adam: And there's nothing wrong with getting a first draft from, or a list of ideas from an LLM and then using your human meat brain to, to, you know, turn it into something good.
[00:44:02] Carol: Mhm.
[00:44:04] Adam: But yeah, like I think there's that distinction there to draw.
[00:44:09] Adam: Who is the consumer?
[00:44:10] The Friction Episode, Landmarks, and Seeing the World Your Way
[00:44:10] Tim: this is the exactly same episode from last year about Friction.
[00:44:14] Ben: Yes.
[00:44:14] Adam: Hello.
[00:44:14] Adam: Um,
[00:44:15] Ben: Very, very much related, for sure.
[00:44:17] Tim: Way to sneak that one back in.
[00:44:21] Ben: Because friction's so meaningful.
[00:44:22] Ben: Ah.
[00:44:23] Ben: Uh.
[00:44:23] Ben: Um.
[00:44:24] Tim: Just.
[00:44:24] Tim: You just changed words to struggle.
[00:44:26] Adam: mhm.
[00:44:28] Tim: Mhm
[00:44:29] Ben: I mean, uh.
[00:44:29] Carol: Mhm.
[00:44:29] Adam: Sam,
[00:44:30] Ben: So, okay, here's.
[00:44:30] Ben: Here's an interesting one.
[00:44:32] Ben: Sometimes me and my wife will drive somewhere for the first time.
[00:44:36] Ben: You know, we'll pick a destination restaurant to go try or a town to go visit.
[00:44:41] Ben: And then we'll get in the car and she'll say, do you want me to map it back, or do you want to just try to feel it out?
[00:44:45] Carol: Mhm.
[00:44:46] Ben: And I want to feel it out.
[00:44:48] Tim: mhm mhm.
[00:44:48] Ben: I want to, like.
[00:44:49] Ben: I kind of have a sense of where we came from.
[00:44:51] Adam: sa.
[00:44:51] Ben: M.
[00:44:52] Ben: I don't know any of the road names, but I remember we passed the gas station with the green light, and then we passed the giant rooster, and then we passed past that weird red barn.
[00:45:01] Ben: And like, for me, There is a certain degree of pride that I get from being able to make my way back home based on visual landmarks without just instinctually going to the Google Maps every single time.
[00:45:18] Ben: Uh uh, and uh, like again, maybe that's just how I'm wired.
[00:45:21] Ben: Maybe that's there's a value, there's like a tingle that I get that other people don't get from that.
[00:45:23] Adam: Mhm.
[00:45:26] Carol: Nope.
[00:45:27] Carol: I, uh, I get no, no tingle from that at all.
[00:45:29] Ben: You get no tingles.
[00:45:30] Ben: You're tingle free.
[00:45:30] Carol: None whatsoever.
[00:45:32] Tim: No, no bend ting.
[00:45:33] Carol: Actually the opposite.
[00:45:35] Carol: I don't understand why, why I would want to retain it, uh, if the information is available.
[00:45:39] Carol: If I'm never going here again, I'm never going to go here again.
[00:45:42] Carol: It's different when I'm like, how do you go to the grocery store the first time?
[00:45:45] Carol: Okay, how do you go back?
[00:45:47] Carol: I know now, but when it's to a restaurant out in the boonies.
[00:45:50] Carol: I don't need to remember how to get back home from there.
[00:45:54] Adam: Mhm.
[00:45:54] Ben: So I guess just maybe to sum it up here, I, I wonder again, going back to this idea that I've been grappling for the last couple years with just how different I'm starting to understand that everyone's experience through the world is.
[00:45:58] Carol: Mhm,
[00:46:08] Ben: And
[00:46:10] Ben: what I used to think was probably mental illness running rampant in our society.
[00:46:14] Ben: It's probably just like people who don't mind whistling in an elevator because it doesn't occur to them.
[00:46:14] Adam: Mhm.
[00:46:19] Ben: Um, and maybe it's silly for me to think that people should see the world through my eyes and it's probably equally silly for me to feel the pressure to see the world through their eyes.
[00:46:22] Carol: Mhm,
[00:46:30] Tim: Sa.
[00:46:32] Ben: but I think
[00:46:34] Ben: part of the problem is I think as a society
[00:46:34] Tim: Mhm.
[00:46:38] Ben: we're all in some capacity being told how to see the world and not necessarily feeling like we can see the world
[00:46:39] Carol: Mhm.
[00:46:47] Ben: through our own set of preferences.
[00:46:51] Ben: I don't know, maybe that's just me thinking out loud.
[00:46:53] Adam: So to sum up, Ben has feelings in his Tum Tum.
[00:46:57] Ben: I'm having feelings in my tum tum for sure.
[00:47:00] Carol: About those Dark whistlers,
[00:47:00] Ben: And that is a cosmic perspective.
[00:47:03] Tim: Yep.
[00:47:05] Adam: Whistlers in an elevator.
[00:47:05] Carol: Sam.
[00:47:06] Patreon
[00:47:06] Tim: He wants to talk to Whistler's mother.
[00:47:11] Adam: I, uh, think we'll wrap it up there.
[00:47:12] Adam: So this episode of Working Code was brought to you by using GPS to visit your next door neighbor
[00:47:14] Ben: Mhm.
[00:47:18] Adam: and listeners like you.
[00:47:18] Tim: Mhm.
[00:47:19] Adam: If you're enjoying the show and you want to make sure that we can keep putting more of whatever this is out, uh, into the universe, you should consider supporting us on Patreon.
[00:47:26] Adam: Our Patrons cover our recording, editing, and transcription costs, and we couldn't do this every week without them.
[00:47:31] Adam: Special thanks, of course, to our top patrons.
[00:47:33] Adam: And we have a new top patron.
[00:47:35] Adam: Uh, yeah.
[00:47:35] Tim: What.
[00:47:36] Adam: So, uh, of course.
[00:47:37] Adam: As always, special thanks to our top patrons, Monte, Giancarlo, and Peter.
[00:47:41] Adam: Welcome aboard, Peter.
[00:47:41] Ben: What?
[00:47:42] Ben: What.
[00:47:42] Tim: Ah, Peter Thank.
[00:47:43] Thanks For Listening!
[00:47:43] Tim: Welcome, Peter
[00:47:44] Adam: And, like I always say, we're gonna go do the after show.
[00:47:48] Adam: I got a couple things to tease here.
[00:47:49] Adam: So I bought a, uh, Ninja Creami and I want to talk about it a little bit.
[00:47:54] Adam: Um, and I thought it would be fun.
[00:47:55] Adam: Let's.
[00:47:55] Adam: Let's do a little riff session on things to say in a crowded elevator.
[00:47:59] Adam: Just,
[00:48:01] Adam: uh, and then uh, wants to talk about some
[00:48:04] Carol: job.
[00:48:04] Adam: Vine Experience stuff.
[00:48:04] Ben: Sa.
[00:48:04] Carol: Mhm.
[00:48:06] Adam: So I don't know.
[00:48:07] Tim: Mhm.
[00:48:07] Adam: That's.
[00:48:08] Adam: That's just my best attempt at summarizing it.
[00:48:10] Adam: So if you would like to get the after show, get content like that, uh, it's real easy.
[00:48:11] Ben: Mhm.
[00:48:16] Adam: You go to patreon.com/workingcodepod throw us a few dollars, hook you up with a special RSS feed that has the main show and the after show all rolled into one.
[00:48:25] Adam: and that's how that works.
[00:48:27] Adam: The quid pro quo, I believe, is what they call it.
[00:48:30] Adam: Uh, anyway, that's gonna do it for us this week.
[00:48:32] Adam: We'll catch you next week.
[00:48:33] Adam: And until then.
[00:48:34] Tim: It is no struggle at all for us to recognize that your heart matters.
[00:48:38] Tim: But next week we'll just call it Friction.
[00:48:39] Ben: Nice.