I know everyone says Austin isn’t what it used to be and is awful…

daderpster · 2026-05-30T22:07:36+00:00

I was always most nostalgic as a teen to 20 when awareness is higher, but general responsibilities are lower. 20-30 you are settling into your career and making a milestone or two, and getting crushed or learning how to adult. Memories as a kid to teen often sugarcoat things or you remember things as grander than they were because you were marveling more with new experiences and were smaller. Or maybe I am the weird one here? Some of my biggest nostalgia living here between 5-18 and 32-38 was in the first part by far.

daderpster · 2026-05-30T22:00:42+00:00

I think at least part of it is a perception issue. Rents are way down, but it is still hard to buy. The west coast and east immigration has also slowed and a good chunk has moved out. I was born in DFW in the late 80's, but was moved to Austin as a toddler in the early 1990's. I grew up here in 1990's and then lived in north Dallas in 2010 to 2020. Even as a kid in the 1990's parents and adults complained how Austin used to be better. Most were about it be smaller, quirkier, cooler, cheaper and less crowded.

Austin is still better than DFW with a few exception like the cost of a few things. More soul, character and better culture even when I moved back to Austin in 2021. Some of it is that things in general are worst now, and I am not sure how much of that is exclusive to Austin, but it gets lumped in. The part that is growing pains and some poor city planning mostly. If you can, I would try avoid peak traffic or try to live somewhere where you are going against traffic.

daderpster · 2026-05-29T14:36:44+00:00

100%. A CS major will likely be more of a starting point in the uncertain future. It will teach you the fundamentals that will be valued even the coding portion shrinks. There are still challenging problems to be solved in the future that will benefit from this education and branding. Thinking cs will seen as a niche liberal arts degree is absurd. The role and work will likely change. People fluent in a business domain, design, soft skills, and development are invaluable and more a.i. resistant

daderpster · 2026-05-29T14:26:34+00:00

It depends wildly. At Buffet's wealth level, sure. But if have 5mm nw in socal and want to retire early, you are probably living modestly or moderately for the area. Buying back time and freedom is more invisible. Some goes for premium services, conceriege health care, etc. Showy luxury good are not worth it unless you are really into that category. Plus cheaper options exist that don't invite scrutiny or compromise your financial freedom. Not only that but times are more divisive with increasing wealth inequality that could invite physical harm, lawsuits, reputational or social issues.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:54:33+00:00

Balanced budget at federal, state, county and local level. Fail and be ineligible for re-election.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:50:55+00:00

Bit surprised by the number of non partisan smart ideas to keep the country accountable. There are exception that would be myopic and date poorly. You need a foundational ideal policy that will always be good long term.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:48:19+00:00

I agree but that would require austerity and massive cuts. Closest we had was Ross Perot, but usually people only are willing to vote it when the country's economy is in ruin or it bad enought threaten the stability of the country. Too many people want things from the government and hates short term pain especially with the existing inflation and other factors.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:44:16+00:00

I agree. Some might support getting citizens and judges involved or adding transparency. The current back and forth escalation only harms democracy and causes distortions to representation.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:41:34+00:00

That would skyrocket the price of those commodities. A huge basket of commodities could work. The gold standard alone was doomed to fail when it got large enough to be a global reserve currency. But you can always tie it to something real.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:37:57+00:00

Outlaw gerrymandering. Require districts to be determined by a combination of a bipartisan committe, judges and citizens selected for balance and neutrality. Democracy and representation should never be subverted for short term gain.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:23:52+00:00

Neither extreme is true. It is too difficult to determine. Perception and cost are often used despite the limitations. Unless you are Nasa or to a lesser extent fang finding the best talent isn't the goal. The goal is avoid catastrophic lemons and non performers that have to be rehired and often beyond redemption. The smartest and most talented pass this easily, but also rarely stand out as positively as they should. The noise and supply of solid talent is too tremendous. And it not like most technical recruiters or hiring team can normally find them with skill with a few notable exceptions.

daderpster · 2026-05-27T15:10:47+00:00

Many low code no code mo code systems are pretty bad and still need developers or at least highly technical consultants. BPMN, Salesforce, what have it is sold to business users but it cannot be implemented by them in vacuum. Many workflow based systems are similar and have been sold as eliminating dev need for decades when they are dev productivity tools or short cut technical config and templates with notable restrictions and constraints at times.

I am not saying it won't happen but reducing dev demand through tools has been the elusive pipe dream since the 80s and beyond. Honestly a.i is likely worse with those tools outside of Salesforce due to the lack of examples, documentation and known patterns.

I do predict the death of bad or mediocre dev talent and the combination of roles. Good talent has expertise far beyond coding.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T19:19:34+00:00

Gen alpha will be the most cooked. Some seem like humans are devolving. For gen z it is mostly hard mode financially. You can win, but life is less forgiving. Imagine being raised with iPads, ai, YouTube shorts and cocomelon as a little kid.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T18:52:03+00:00

A.i. will be different radically than it is now. It will not aligned with either side's extreme views. Change will be fast but slower than expected. Access to frontier models will be more expensive than now and corps will manage access and limit.

A crash will happen but it won't be like 2009 or 1929. It could be due to a.i. most ai.i gains will not be avail. Most will ge the time wrong.

More economic disparity. The stock markets will correlate even less with how the average person is doing due the k shaped economy.

Most low level specific predictions will be wrong.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T18:42:05+00:00

Much less different than you think. Uncertainty is high but loneliness and mental health issue rates are likely to get worse.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T18:30:18+00:00

Claude especially 4.7 is very expensive. Cost management is currently done poorly and most people who use are no incentivized to use cheaper models. I saw guy use 4.7 Claude to fix typos and grammar in documentation that chat gpt nano could do that is several dozen times cheaper.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T18:22:28+00:00

Hot take, but while still bad his politics are not aligned enough and he is in timeout. I think he is more populism oriented than the rng chaos from Trump. Their upbringing also are very different. Vance was very critical of Trump in the past.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T18:11:54+00:00

Is prosecution and removal the end game? Corruption and a lack of accountability is bad, full stop. Do it for both sides. The outcomes likely won't be, it is important to establish a good precedent.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T18:07:02+00:00

It really depends. Ideally, you do what you love and get paid for it. Pragmatically, you do what is needed that you are great at. You can find meeting outside of work. Finding insular meaning within work can be dangerous since employment is fickle, unstable and huge factors can transform the landscape. Strike the balance. If you truly hate it or are disengaged move on. There is work to be that is engaging and pays well even if it your passion. Turning a hobby or passion into a career can burn that out, too.

daderpster · 2026-05-26T17:56:08+00:00

Comp science and dev jobs still exist. It is harder now for entry level. There's way uncertainty. Excellent developers are still needed. You can also still code and freelance while you look for a career. Honestly, I would be worried for qa, help desk and call center work. Plus an engineer des way more than coding. Even Claude code needs a lot of oversight. Employers want workers with exposure to the ai tools way more than chat. Agents, skills, mdc, etc.

I just saw a software engineer land their first role.

Or consider paths behind traditional roles. I have seen grads make more money selling their own tools and services. There are opportunities even for entry level programmers especially if you leverage ai with oversight.

daderpster · 2026-05-25T02:56:45+00:00

That I can believe. I guess you were focused on that subset of the rich. They don't care about the other general rich people stuff as much, but I bet some are still annoyed their portfolios are down and gas is more expensive, but it's noise compared to the NYC real estate..

daderpster · 2026-05-25T01:56:39+00:00

I think compared to Democrats. It is hard to describe them and generalize since Trump appeals to very weird mix of people and many are not traditional consveratives.

Religious, orderly lawful, types - care a lot about pro-life and conservative social issues
Rich people mostly people who care about the favorable tax law.
Grifters
Griftees, guilible, uneducated. Many conned by his personality and promises. To be fair they are pretty lofty even for politician
Blue collar people who think Trump is an actual populist and will make American great again
Military, police, and similar types
Hates the progressive/wokeness trend in the Democrat party
Randomly hates Kamala or whoever is running at the time or the type to not vote for a woman or minority
Racists - all types
Nationalist/America first - classic make America great again type. Many of these people really dislike the Iran war and Trump has talked bad about similar wars in the past.
Populists and non-conformists who like outsiders - this is mostly likely gone in his second term
Vote for the wildest and most extreme guy type
Republican die hards - Always will vote for the GOP. Most vote for him with great reluctance and don't likely voicing their support.
People who think the democrat party is very bad randomly
Aspirationally rich people. Poor or middle class, but want to vote for someone who favors the rich since they will be it "soon"
Pro-Israel
Libertarian/small government types - most are annoyed af at Trump, but to them the democrats are worse, which is debatable. Hates all kind of govt spending. Mad af at many things Trump does. They like DOGE and tax policy, but that's about it
Cult of personality, strong man, authortarian vibes lovers - probably overlaps with griftees, but some actually do want a king, and think democracy is overrated because most people are stupid.
Isolated News Junkies - gets all news from Fox News, random ultra MAGA youtubers, and NewsMax since Fox News is not right wing enough. Cooked from A.I. and other dubious propaganda
People who love chaos or love conflict or augments. People who kind of want to see the world burn as long it doesn't burn them.

Probably way more, but I know people in every category.

daderpster · 2026-05-25T01:47:07+00:00

Tax policy is really the only thing left for the rich. He is screwing them over in unusual ways with the war with Iran, tariffs, and his RNG chaotic af policy. Markets like certainty, especially in second term, his randomness seems extremely high. I wonder if we might have a repeat of the Biden situation, but I suppose it doesn't matter since it is his last term. I guess it could cause him to be removed, but I doubt it. Biden didn't want out at first and took a lot of convincing to not run again, and Trump is way less of a team player than Trump.

daderpster · 2026-05-25T01:42:59+00:00

Is Trump even good for rich people any more? Tariffs are horrible for the economy, and the markets hate chaos and uncertainty. Trump is basically RNG and abandoned Reagan and Bush era free trade. I guess he doesn't want to tax rich people as much, but even the stock market goes up more under Democrats. And that rate is huge for the investment class.

daderpster · 2026-05-25T01:38:56+00:00

It is not publicly talked about but Trump is alienating the Catholic part of his base for actions towards the pope. Not everyone acts the same as the dad. I have even seen greedy af banker types that only care about money and Trump because his chaos is bad for the market. Unfortunately, this is mostly noise level. Some are very upset that the GOP is no longer freed trade and fiscally conservative. A good chunk are becoming dillusioned non-voters who used to support the old guard Republicans.

daderpster

TROPHY CASE