So we’re all just working as normal while the world burns? Sure doesn’t feel right. (TikTok screencap)
In the last job I had, I was a software developer. I worked for a company that contracted to utilities in order to improve their GIS systems for asset and workflow management - and yes, that is as boring as it sounds.
I didn’t like the job. I sat in a gray cubical, interacting with boring people, working on projects that didn’t mean anything to me. The morning standups were onerous, the proprietary software stacks we used were infuriating, and the coffee from the keurig machine was bad.
But I can’t, in any honest way, condemn the company. Pretty much everyone there, from the owner (it was a startup that never had any intention of going public) to the managers, to the data entry clerks, were good, decent people doing honest work. The projects we worked on helped our clients have a better idea of where all their equipment and people were at any time, which meant they saved time and money, which meant delaying price increases to their customers as inflation pushed prices up and quicker responses to outagest to ensure everyone had consistent access to water and electricity in their homes.
I think most peoples’ jobs are probably something like this. It can be difficult to see the forest for the trees sometimes, but most jobs, most of the time, are about seeing to the wants and needs of large numbers of other normal people. Sure, maybe you work at Killing Babies Inc in the Emmitting Maximal Carbon division. But most jobs are things like cooking food, caring for children or the elderly, building infrastructure or keeping it working, helping other people do all those other jobs better, or trying to make sense of the chaos by managing people and doing your best to make sure things get done on a reasonable timeframe.
Suppose the apocalypse happens. The nukes fly, climate change accelerates, governments collapse, most people on the planet die, etc. Give it 100, 200, 300 years. What does life look like? It probably looks like people living in improvized shelters, hunting some of the few remaining animals for protein, scavenging for the last bits of working technology, trying to pass on knowledge as best they can so it doesn’t get lost forever, while defending themselves from violent raiding parties and trying to survive plagues and famines.
Here’s the thing - this is a reasonable description of the vast majority of human existance. Premodern life was, for most people, nasty, brutish, and short. Yes, they had close relationships and lots of sunshine and at whole foods - great! You can do that today if you want! But they didn’t have modern medicine, electricity, transportation, food production, or material supply chains. If you broke your leg, there was a decent chance you would be handicapped for life. If you hated your family, it didn’t matter - you were stuck with them. In the same house. Possibly with no/few private bedrooms. Possibly for your whole life. Wanna have sex? Well guess what - your partner might not have washed their asshole for several months, depending on the time and place of your existance.
The fact is, people showing up every morning, bleary-eyed, sucking down coffee, and annoyed that their boss is taking too long with the morning meeting, are the only thing stopping the apocalypse from happening every day
Nit picking, but I don’t think we’d sit on our asses for 300 years. The difference would be that we wouldn’t need to reimagine what’s possible, we’d know. So, simply that would drive us to improve our lives. But more than that, the knowledge would still exist in books, and we’d still know how to read. So, the idea that it would take us hundreds of years to get back on our feet seems silly to me.
That’s a very fair argument. My example was something of a thought experiment about what life would be like without modern supply chains, and I wanted to push it forward in time so that the apocalypse-conflict would no longer be relevant.
My only problem with your comment, and this is what has been eating at me for some time, is that you say this
Here’s the thing - this is a reasonable description of the vast majority of human existance.
Which is only from the human perspective. I honestly could zero fucks about what happens to the human race after all this is over. But the destruction of earth as a whole will be horrendous. You mentioned “remaining few animals” and that’s really where the problem is. We are destroying Earth, not humanity. And Earth doesn’t deserve that.
I had to look up “jira ticket”.
I’m glad I never worked for a company large enough to use such a system.
Come.
Let me show you the 9th level of hell called “Help Desk”.
They will still make us watch adds during the end of the world lol
When was the last time the world wasn’t burning? Because I don’t remember.
Well it was always burning… But we did just add more fuel (you may have noticed)
I remember when Trump threatened tariffs on Canada of 25%, I went to work that day and was freaking out. Most people didnt know, didnt care, and just went on like normal; as if 80% of our exports didnt flow to the US.
It makes sense. I live near the border, and I’ve worked at quite a few places that used Canadian imports to make finished American products. I’m glad I found a new job since them; God knows it my ex-boss found a new supplier of steel tubing. Every car part we manufactured was a product of Canada.
Welp.
Lemmy open on one monitor. Jira open on the other.
So this tracks.
I pray for the apocalypse so I never have to look at a fucking ticket queue again. It’s a neverending list of other people’s problems I have to rapid fire solve.
At my job, we have dependencies on teams that are in the warzones. I would say they have it worse. From our side we are like, how do we know if we need to escalate things to get them prioritized over other teams requests vs that person is hiding in a bunker right now, no amountnof escalation is going to help.
Status: in progress while everything is literally on fire 💀 corporate survival instincts are undefeated.
The only apocalypse we got to look forward to is the Repuglican genocide
Jacob Geller made a video about something that’s quite analogous, how we deal with the knowledge, that the world is going to end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9N7Awpk9lE
I highly recommend it, Jacob Geller is an excellent storyteller.
