

My job is to watch dreams die - SandB0x
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/k3zrz/by_request_from_the_jobs_thread_why_my_job_is_to/

======
sudonim
I've been following the housing bust.

In 2009, I remember reading a resignation later by a guy who made his "F __*
you money" betting for a housing collapse. He blasted the big banks, ivy
leaguers, and old boys network.

I bought complex derivatives (SRS, SKF) but lost betting against the market.

I read <http://calculatedriskblog.com> for a while and educated myself about
the macro factors in the markets.

Through "calculated risk", I learned of Jim the Realtor
<http://www.bubbleinfo.com/> who videos (vacant) casualties of the housing
collapse. Seeing it made it real for me.

Over time, I've realized that the further from reality that decisions are
being made, the more likely we are to make destructive decisions.

When soldiers kill people with drone aircraft in video game-like conditions,
it removes the reality from something that would be extremely traumatizing
when done with bare hands.

In our wonderfully complex world, we sow complexity, and reap disaster. Im not
sure what the answer is, but there is something terribly wrong when
destruction is more profitable than creation.

~~~
Splines
_... from something that would be extremely traumatizing when done with bare
hands._

The military acknowledges how traumatizing this could be.

From section 7.4 in this doc ([http://library.enlisted.info/field-
manuals/series-2/FM21_150...](http://library.enlisted.info/field-
manuals/series-2/FM21_150/CH7.PDF)):

 _Killing a sentry is completely different than killing an enemy soldier while
engaged in a firefight. It is a cold and calculated attack on a specific
target. After observing a sentry for hours, watching him eat or look at his
wife’s photo, an attachment is made between the stalker and the sentry.
Nonetheless, the stalker must accomplish his task efficiently and brutally. At
such close quarters, the soldier literally feels the sentry fight for his
life. The sights, sounds, and smells of this act are imprinted in the
soldier’s mind; it is an intensely personal experience. A soldier who has
removed a sentry should be observed for signs of unusual behavior for four to
seven days after the act._

~~~
erydo
I hope that's not a genuine field manual. It's poorly written and quite
superstitious:

    
    
      > However, it is important not to stare at the enemy
      > because he may sense the stalker's presence
      > through a sixth sense.

~~~
atsaloli
Really? You've never felt somebody looking at you?

You can try an experiment, look at somebody intently for a while -- see if
they don't look back at you.

~~~
karolist
This does happen, but I think it's more likely with our mind scanning our
vision feed 24/7 for eye contact, the whole of it, unfocused areas.
Determining if "someone is looking at me" was rather important for survival.

I'd love more information on that myself.

------
patrickk
There's a Hollywood blockbuster waiting to be made out of a story like this
(as noted in some of the Reddit comments). Something along the lines of Fight
Club (grimy house scenes, top-notch monologue) or Lord of War/Up in the Air
(someone doing a toxic job but good at it).

~~~
arethuza
If you want a fictional account, rather than a documentary like the excellent
_Inside Job_ , I think a black comedy in the style of _Dr. Strangelove_ might
be more appropriate.

~~~
jackpirate
_Thank you for Smoking_ might be a little closer?

------
pseudonym
Both interesting and depressing. No matter who you think should ultimately
take the blame for the housing crash, it's easy to forget how many people
other than just the homeowners are affected by this crap.

~~~
mirkules
The irony, of course, is that people's economic hardships are creating jobs.
Which means there's enough money in foreclosures alone to warrant having an
employee to evaluate the extent of foreclosures. It's sickening.

~~~
jerf
Broken window fallacy. Jobs aren't really being created. The people in
question are doing the economy a service by facilitating the correct
valuations of these assets, so their jobs are bringing value to the economy,
but it's value they shouldn't have had to bring in the first place. The net
impact on the amount of wealth in society is still hugely negative, as is the
"jobs" impact.

(These people are the cleanup crew, in the "broken window fallacy" story they
are the ones making the new windows and installing them. They _aren't_ the
ones who broke the window.)

~~~
mirkules
I don't quite understand the fallacy. If there is a spike in broken windows --
more than the cleanup crew can handle -- new people need to be hired. How is
this not creating new jobs?

------
molbioguy
Looking at a beautiful albeit narrow slice of something can hurt you (even
though it feels good) because you fail to see the larger picture (which may
not be so pretty). It introduces a bias that may lead you to incorrect
conclusions and bad decisions. Enjoy the craft, but be wary.

------
sgt
Nearly read "My dream is to watch Jobs die". I am far too tired to read HN
right now.

------
tonio09
this was very emotional article. very sad indeed. isnt it weird that all front
page articles on reddit are overtly emotional? it seems that plain
groundbreaking research papers will never make it to the frontpage...

~~~
count
You realize that reddit is one of the most visited sites on the Internet now,
right? It's not the little lisp-hackers, YC-funded, nerd-centric community
that it started as, and it will never be that again. 19M uniques tends to
alter things.

~~~
pavs
Your reddit experience is as good as the sub-reddits you follow.

Subscribe to sub-reddits of your interest and you will only see stories from
those sub-reddits on your front page. Stick with the default options and you
only see the top stories from default selected sub-reddits.

In a way its like twitter and facebook, the quality of tweets and wall posts
you will see are only as good as the people you decide to follow.

~~~
seppo0010
To be honest, most people subscribe and wants to be subscribed to
/r/reddit.com, where this was posted.

------
mike55
It thought it will be a post by a VC.

------
ristretto
Since i m not going to read it, can somebody please post a tl;dr here:
<http://tldrplz.com> ?

</shameless-plug>

~~~
ristretto
Bury it all you want, i have sympathy for the evicted, not this sleazy
redditor. Posts like these are the reason i removed 'reddit.com' from my
reddits.

~~~
pjriot
Your sympathy extends to plugging your website and you're calling him sleazy?

~~~
ristretto
i expected this thread would be dead soon

------
nazgulnarsil
First world problems....

------
forinti
Tom Waits should put a melody on that.

------
jamaicahest
And the influx of redditors on HN is complete.

------
davedx
Interesting, but hacker news? Come on... if I wanted general news, then I'd go
to Reddit.

~~~
simonw
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

~~~
davidw
This is way more of a 'tugs at the heartstrings' type of thing than gratifying
intellectual curiosity.

Did anyone not really understand that it's rough for people to lose their
houses?

~~~
MichaelApproved
No, its that, to a lot of us, this is a new part of the story that we've never
heard before.

~~~
davidw
May I suggest picking up a newspaper from time to time? The Economist (which
is actually a magazine that calls itself a newspaper) is pretty good too,
although they don't tend to do the human interest type of things as much as
real newspapers do.

If you haven't noticed foreclosure rates and done some thinking about what
that meant in human terms, you were simply not paying attention, to put it
very directly. (And maybe you have good reasons; you live in Singapore or
something and don't care much about the US housing market)

~~~
MichaelApproved
I'll pass on reading paper news and wasting time flipping through things that
don't interest me just to get a good story every once in a while.

Id rather consume news via sites like HN where I get interesting stories all
the time and get to chat about it with the community.

~~~
davidw
> Id rather consume news via sites like HN

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. ... If they'd cover it on TV
news, it's probably off-topic.

