Become Aware of How Tech-churn Harms You
I'm 52 and have experienced the harsh reality of technological obsolescence. To future-proof my tech career, I have decided to focus on developing skills that can't be taken away, such as muscle memory and habits. I have also chosen to focus on tech that changes the least over time, and created the term LPvg (Linux, Python, vim and git) to highlight four essential tools. I'm journaling almost every day to help others learn these tools, so they can stay ahead.
Navigating Obsolescence: My Journey to Master Tech Tools and Stay Ahead of the Curve
By Michael Levin
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
There’s not enough time in life to keep re-learning and re-practicing new stuff just to stand still. The trick is to move forward in life, in economic value and in self satisfaction. Die the real thing. Die with an abundance of internal skills that just might go with you into the afterlife or eternity.
You want how you invest “internally” to have compounding returns over time, and in this way you will not feel imposter syndrome because you can feel your skills accumulating and compounding on each other on the inside. This is greatly tied to muscle memory and habits, hard-won spontaneous coordination and expertise. Juggling, knitting and driving come to mind. It takes awhile to learn but then fades into the background, freeing up your executive function to consider other factors while the mechanical details of juggling, knitting and driving are automatic.
But vim expertise converts into greater economic value in the current Information Age perhaps better than knitting or juggling. The ability to drive is unique in that you can always be an Uber driver. Actual money in your accounts will come to lose meaning as a measure of merit when fusion, solar or one of the many paths to free energy comes to fruition. We’re on the path towards a post-scarcity civilisation if we can keep our internal evil in-check. We are getting on the age of miracles, and it is your spell-casting ability and not your financial acumen that will be (already are?) wealth and power.
So stop coveting numbers on a screen, and start moving bits around. Don’t sacrifice today on the altar of tomorrow. Don’t let fear rule you. Use an actual valuable physical and mental skill that can’t be taken away from you as better fortification than financial value.
This is not on the best interest of the profit-incentivized corporations who control most technology on this planet today. A certain amount of new stuff has to be sold every year, or else revenue and profits decline. Incandescent lightbulbs were designed to burn out, and so is your usefulness.
Spot reset buttons. In the evolutionary competition of tech, how can you not go obsolete every 2 to 5 years without running to stand still?
Focus on the highest-value, most broadly relevant tech whose interfaces change least over time. Look for what’s battle-worn, FOSS (free and open source) and often successful against all odds. Ask what made it successful in the first place and want keeps it alive today. There’s gems out there, especially when it aligns to your vibe.
There’s false paths that feel like truth. Macromedia Flash people are in good company with Ruby people. Though there’s gems out there, Ruby ain’t one of them. I thought it was but didn’t realize how much I hated enforced object oriented-ness PLUS off the beaten track. Did I mention I’m an Amiga Freak? Sheesh, where’s the love in tech if not in things like Flash, Ruby and the Amiga?
I made a study of it in fact, and found a tech that was born the same year as me and less than 50-miles away—pretty amazing when you think about the size of Earth. I thought Commodore being a 40-minute drive away was the big geographic tech coincidence of my birth, but little did I know there was so much more, and more important, nearby.
Graphics are sexy. The Amiga’s graphics were impossibly sexy for their day. Add the DeluxePaint for delicious painterly control over 2D pixels and you’ve got soulmates. Take Amiga away and you’ve got phantom limb syndrome. Let situation age while you find nothing else love-worthy as the Amiga while still viewing yourself as a tech heavy-hitter. Take up desktop publishing. Print goes away. Take up Active Server Pages. ASP goes away.
Lather, rinse, repeat? No thank you. But it took me until 40 with my first kid on the way to realize that. With a baby months away, I named my preferred platform. I chose 4 things that were worth sticking with and making a study of in the long-term, and I named it Linux, Python, vim and git (LPvg), not the only 4 awesome tools to exist for there are many even more important such as LISP and C, but these are the 4 that work together to cover most bases (per the 80/20-rule) and last a lifetime.
I give honorary admittance to JuputerLab for one does not just transition to Linux, Python, vim & git without a plan and positive feedback loop along the way.
Yes, I’m odd. It took me awhile to realize.
Loosing tools once or twice drove me crazy and was a blaring problem. I couldn’t believe how future-proofing tech careers wasn’t a more discussed topic.
I’m 52 years old and struggle every day. I’ve been caught in obsolescence-waves more than one time, but perhaps not as bad as Macromedia Flash masters. I even tried my hand at Flash (the HitTail demo https://youtu.be/GKgeuWVefv4 ). Most tech goes obsolete fast. I hunger for mastering tech tools, so this has been a great source of frustration.
I have not settled into a rhythm or pattern, but I think I’d like that a bit more, but conditionally.
Craftsmanship in tech is difficult. Falling in love with particular instances of hardware is too easy. Because all experiences are actually internal (inside our bodies), the physical matter around us (external to our bodies) are the keys to unlocking internal experiences.
So I’m going to try to keep myself journaling almost every day here for you, bottling the environment so you can use it as your way onto vim.