Don’t disagree with this. From what I understand, from a tech point of view and ignoring existing systems we use to distribute resources, we can technically provide a decent life for everyone on Earth but resources aren’t distributed in a such a way, for various reasons.

The upstart queen can replace the main queen if she dies, yeah. Queens produce a pheromone that triggers the killing of upstart queens. In the absence of a queen, an upstart queen can survive and take over.

This makes sense. From the hive’s point of view, there are at least two ways to ensure there is always a queen:

• always birth upstart-queen but kill them so long as the active queen is still alive. Once the active queen is sick or dead, an upstart queen will take over.
• Only birth an upstart-queen when the active queen is sick and about to die.

Since the latter is more risky e.g. active queen might die before birthing a new queen, the hive goes with the former strategy.

The idea with cancer being selfish comes from an idea of organisms functioning at different levels of organization. Single-celled organisms, colonial microorganisms, multicellular life, social animals, larger societies, civilizations, ecosystems, the whole planet.

I’ve had similar thoughts regarding the “scope” of an organism. How human individuals think of themselves as separate from other humans but the earth might think of humanity as a single organism.

Yes, the upstart-queen is from within the bee’s own hive. The hive permits only 1 queen and others are destroyed. The selfishness is not on the part of the worker who kills it, it’s on the upstart-queen who is trying to replace the main queen.

Ah, OK. I’m assuming at some point the upstart-queen does take over the existing hive, maybe once the existing queen dies from sickness or age or the upstart-queen escapes or moves somewhere else to start its own hive?

Yes, apoptosis is selfless. Cancer is the selfishness it fights against: a group of cells in selfish rebellion against the body.

I agree with this. Though, it’s a bit odd talking about ‘selfishness’ in the context of body cells, which I think most people don’t think are sentient. But I think we both understand the gist of what we’re talking about.

Worker bees detect and kill upstart queens.

Not sure what this has to do with selfishness. Is the worker bee killing an upstart-queen from its own hive? If so, what’s its motivation to kill the upstart-queen? How does this benefit the worker bee, causing the behavior to be selfish?

Human cells are being destroyed all the time (apoptosis)

In the case of body cells and apoptosis, I’d view the actual human being as equivalent to the entirety of the hive/the queen bee, in which case, the process of apoptosis is selfless from the point of view of the cells killing themselves or other cells - in theory it’s for the good of the human being as a whole.

Yes, both selfishness and cooperation are traits of human behavior but it seems natural that humans only cooperative if it benefits them i.e. Bob helps his village now because Bob is fairly confident the village will help him in the future if he needs help. In situations where there are not enough resources for all, don’t people usually fall back to every-person-for-themselves?

I’ve been watching past seasons of the US reality show “Survivor” and it’s a common strategy to stay in alliances throughout the competition but it’s not uncommon for these alliances to breakdown towards the end in the form of backstabbing, because there can only be a single winner. I’ve only seen a handful of seasons so far and it seems split at best that the winner of a season won with little/or no use of deceit and backstabbing.

My point is, when there’s lots to go around, sure, people will help each other. But when resources are scarce, it’s every person for themselves. And scarcity is a feature of life itself, therefore, human selfishness is natural and I’d guess is prioritized over cooperation when things get really tough.

Are there any evidence that human selfishness is not innate? I think almost all organisms are selfish, except in the case of parent-child relations sometimes and collective animals, like ants.

Man, I’ve had similar thoughts. I do feel good about my work helping the business run and bring in income, which in theory, helps them pay me an income. But I’ve also low-key fantasized about doing work that creates something physical and “useful” on a much more fundamental level. In a zombie-apocalypse scenario, no one is going to need software developers, lol.

Sorry it didn’t work out. It’s a challenge for sure, so many things need to work out: have enough runway to execute, skilled, driven partners you trust. Assuming you have a working app, I assume the biggest factor is marketing/sales/growth.

Doesn’t seem like a terrible idea, though, I’ve had similar ones, given the aging population. I’m sure there are apps in that space that exist or will exist soon.

Thanks for the story, appreciate it.

Sorry about what you went through job-wise, glad you found a new gig and enjoy it.

Are you able to talk about your try at launching a startup? After getting RIFed, I immediately thought about going into self employment, creating a micro-saas or such. Obviously something like that is much more challenging than working for a salary at a company but I’m still hopeful and open to learning more about that route.

I agree, the interviewing has gotten tougher because it’s an employer’s market. It’s more competitive, it just is, supply and demand.

I’m in a similar boat, got RIFed late last year, waited for the new year and started applying. I’ve gotten a couple of final rounds but no offer yet. Last I checked, a coworker who got RIFed along with me hasn’t found a full time gig yet, either. In the past, it didn’t take more than three months to find a gig.

I’m hearing people are searching for a year+ for a new gig, not necessarily for SWE but tech in general. It’s a bad market for sure. But to be fair, the SWE job market has been hot for over a decade. Not trying to scare you, more trying to say there are others in the same situation, too. Low interest rate is over, seems like offshoring is coming back, plus there’s AI to boot. I see a lot of AI/LLM hate but I think some people are delusional. No, AI isn’t perfect but it’s delusional to think targeted use doesn’t increase productivity, which for some employers, means they can do the same or even more work with less people. Companies can choose to increase productivity or stay at the same level for less money.

Network, talk to your friends and their friends. I’m hearing it’s nearly essential in this market to try to get a referral.

Advice I haven’t seen here, host an app you’ve built and/or public git repos so people can see your code, if you don’t already. I suggest this because you are a bit on the junior side based on pure years of experience and are competing against seniors. Send out applications first and work on an app when you need a break or get bored.

Connect with recruiters, even external ones.

There are more applicants per job opening now than in the past. But if we keep applying, by chance our application will be near the top of the pile for some job openings, so it’s a numbers game and it’s just taking longer than usual to get an offer.

Like you, I’m considering a career change. Have you considered adjacent roles like solutions engineer or sales engineer?

For the time being, I’m continuing the SWE job search. Mostly just wanted you to know you’re not alone.