Memes

It tends to be more “I want a thing that just works.” rather than no technology, but yes.

Self-hosting services that are reliable and don’t get in my way, not using cloud-connected smart devices, running Linux instead of Windows, etc.

Was working on a PhD in CS focused on industrial cybersecurity, though current events involving the three letter agency that funded my research lead to me crashing out and now I'm trying to get into law school and do immigration law. Far too frail and pasty to buy a farm though

Time for this classic

The issue isn't the tech itsefl but the corporate world and its effects throughout society.

There is a lot of cool tech, but used for the most asinine products. 2015-2016 was especially terrible with the accessibility of IoT. Everyone and their mother had a Kickstarter with a common everyday item with wireless capability tacked into it.

No, my bottle doesn't need Bluetooth.

Nah, I like PC gaming too much to want that. What I want is to be free of capitalism.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Soul of a New Machine, chronicling the development of Data General's Eagle computer in the 1970s, one of the characters is a microcode developer, responsible for hardwired logic that runs the CPU.

Part of his job is managing electrical impulses that last for microseconds or nanoseconds. One day, the team comes in to find his workstation abandoned, with a note on the monitor saying that he is going to join a commune in Vermont, and never dealing with a unit of time smaller than a season again.

The tech may be ancient for us, but it's a superb book.

As a long time tech user within about 5 years of retirement, I don't quite agree with this for a couple of reasons. Tech is fine if its tech that serves me. I'm certainly not going to be doing JIRA updates in retirement, but I'll absolutely use a web browser, word processor, and probably a coding environment for my own personal projects. Retrocomputing is much more appealing to me too.

Also, I think most folks in IT have no idea how hard farming actually is, both mental and physically. Farming is really hard work, and having to manage some of the same annoying things we deal with in IT such as following complicated regulations, dealing with asinine people in power over you, and delivery dates.

Well, it's driven me to Debian.

I prefer cabin in the woods, but my paycheck says small house in a shitty neighborhood.

30+ years experience with computing, and I hate them.

They only ever do what you tell them to, and they’re not even doing that anymore.

Honestly it's just the Internet. Tech is fucking awesome, as long as it's decoupled from anything and anyone else trying to control, monitor, impose, or otherwise fuck with the tech that's mine, bought or built fairly. And also the untold psychological torture the Internet is just constantly inflicting on us.

The tech worker pipeline:

help desk > sysadmin > CISO > goat farmer

I grew up on a farm, hell no. If you think farming is going to be any different you’re delusional. It’s also full of physical labor that takes a toll on you.

But give it a go if you want just don’t think farming or ranching is simpler it’s not. And now you alone take on the responsibility of managing many lives be they plants or animals.

Yes it’s rewarding keeping a baby calf alive in -30 weather but be prepared to wake up every couple hours to keep watch on the animals. Also say goodbye to vacations. Without a family member or 5 to help out it’s hard to take a vacation without worrying that coyotes got into the chicken coop or other shenanigans.

I love growing things and I also love tinkering, building, finding new gadgets.

Have been a techie all my life so far, will be a techie until I die.

People that get tired of tech jobs, might not be because of tech, rather the people they have worked with and the unrelenting pull of a capitalist society.

Can confirm. I’ve been working in tech for 16 years. I now own a house in the forest.

This is mostly true, but farming/ranching is constant work once you have even a modest amount of land and livestock.

I grew up in a low-net-worth family, working on a farm that has been in our hands since 1873. I worked 3 jobs while studying my butt off, and eventually got a degree in Electrical Engineering with a Computer Science minor. I was recruited into various government programs and defense contracting companies, made my way to consumer electronics and medical device companies, then finally free- and open-source hardware/software. I now gratefully hold a very prestigious position while living full-time in my RV while prepping a fully self-sustainable homestead back on my family's ranch.

There is no substitute for the beauty of nature in the small amount of time we're able to appreciate it. That said, there are many many many to enjoy nature without sacrificing vacations for the vocation of fixing fence, herding cattle, plowing fields, eradicating invasive species, calling the game warden on poachers, fixing fence....

Nah. I can understand why someone would think that way, but the more I work with tech the more I want to mod or jailbreak my own stuff so it doesn't suck

I have dreamed of this life since before I was in tech.

I was born in a passive-solar, earth-sheltered house that my dad designed and built himself. Instead of a stack of Playboys he had Mother Earth News in the back of the closet. My parents owned one of the first Priuseseses in the US.

For a wonderful few years I had this life. I raised pigs and chickens and managed my property. I got into the best shape of my life, physically and mentally, and just stepping out of my front door made me feel more alive than I've felt since I had to move back to the burbs. (I don't think people realize how little oxygen they get in urban and suburban environments.)

Though I am stuck in the suburbs for now I am determined to get back to that. I would rather wake up to a hungry pig tearing apart its enclosure than to another fucking meeting.

There's different types of people in tech.
Some of my colleagues have elaborate home labs built from hardware discarded at work, and when there's kitty litter on the floor, their cleaning robot sends an email to the fridge to buy a new pack.
I have one laptop running Slackware, a vegetable garden, and I've actually considered buying a goat.

Yes and no. Just like John Wick still had his hitman tools hidden in his house, tech workers who say they want to buy a farm and be a luddite will not be able to resist having a hidden server closet in their farmhouse.

Definitely not everyone :) I am bad at agriculture, even worse at raising animals, so computer it is for quite a long while from now. But I would really appreciate an opportunity to just sit by the sea and stare at it for days on end

I can confirm. I learned real quick in college working a part-time help desk job for the University that I attended that I under no circumstances want to work in IT at any level or program because they are both thankless and stressful career paths -- when tech works, then why do we need you and when it breaks, why do we have you is all the "leaders" ask in many companies because they do not have a basic understanding how any of the IT systems function, hardware lifecycles, etc.

My original plan when going to IT university was to make 1 money-milking website and move to a forest in middle of nowhere...

In IT for over 30 years… 💯 %

Confirmed, although I've been looking at a live-aboard yacht instead of a micro farm. (not rich, but the housing market is so crazy that these things are in the realm of being cheaper than my house)

Surprised no one pointed out that it is a screenshot from the movie oblivion. If you have not seen oblivion, go watch it. It has an excellent soundtrack by M83

The problem with tech is that you aren't usually doing the thing that made you want to go into tech. For me this was creating things and solving interesting problems. Most of my days are meetings, dealing with clueless people and having to deal with leadership and product team changes that ruin already completed work. Thankfully being at large tech companies has enabled me to hopefully retire in my early 40s. I can then continue with tech in a way that is meaningful to me while also spending a lot more time outside. The PNW is beautiful and I intend to see much more of it .

I plan to open a bar when I stop working in tech. The farm life is not for me, but I love the atmosphere of a good bar.

Can confirm, though it's mostly because tech workers are so de-politicized that they don't realize they would have the power to change things if they acted collectively -- so they do the "next best" thing, remove themselves from the equation.

Nope.

Grew up having a huge garden (~1 acre) to help feed us all. Last thing I want to do is farm later in life, fuck that.

I'll keep a small garden, but keeping any animals is right the fuck out. I know first hand how much effort it all is.

Tech is fine - in the end it's like any other work... You're a salesman for your field, regardless of what it is. Plumbers have to educate every customer, because most people know fuck all about plumbing.

I regret to inform you that salaries in tech are not as glorious as I thought they'd be. I'd be surprised to have enough to own a farm any time soon.

Would be nice to be able to afford a house, though.