Lean into it. Work on that side-project you never had the time to complete!
The more broad your skillset, the more you will be able to transform your role in your company.
I have been having lots of fun with Claude Code but recently got in to Cursor too. Vibe coding with frameworks and languages I am already familiar with is wild. However, I want to vibe code with languages I don't know next!
Anyone who works with technology knows that it is inherently transformative. It's true that we need tech-worker Unions, UBI and AI regulations.. and without those the future is potentially very dark.
I like my scifi dark but I don't want to live in a dystopian Cyberpunk future. I think it is possible to both be an AI-optimist AND an AI-doomer at the same time. In fact, it is important to see both these sides.
In person RPGs, tabletop wargames and boardgames are amazing for geek culture. Thanks to local Discord groups, I have an active nerd community that I play games with at least once a week. This has revolutionized by social life!
There is a introverted crafty side of painting and 3D printing miniatures that works great for me too.
These games all work as essentially offline alternatives to videogames and are way more fun!
Also, my local game store serves beer; so its essentially a nerd bar even though most people don't drink.
Wargaming related references:
Tabletop Minions on YouTube,
The HiveScum podcast,
Companies such as Black Site Studios and
Conferences such as Adepticon.
Look up how much hospital administrators make and then calculate the massive grifting from every contractor/subcontractor and pharmaceutical company and you will get an idea of the scope of the problem.
It will require nothing short of a full revolution and violence is never ideal.
I think the solution is to create a new parallel medical system, that can slowly replace the old system. Start with medical schools that train Doctors and Nurses that are affordable/free but also require working at this new parallel medical system. They would earn less but would avoid massive loans and have less bureaucracy.
When for-profit hospitals go under, which happens all the time, they can be folded into this new system.
Before I was a programmer, I was a marine biologist and also worked as a fish farmer.
By virtually all metrics, intensive land-based animal farming is much harder on the environment. Also, in terms of animal welfare, its super sketchy even with animals labeled organic.
The misinformation around fish farming is absurd. I think people want to believe in the myth that commercial fishing is a couple guys in a wooden boat; when its actually a floating factory discarding up to half or more of what it kills.
There are many aquatic things I won't eat but mostly it is of the "wild fish" variety (overfishing, pollution, mercury, bycatch). I worked a single season as a fisheries observer in Alaska. The destruction was maddening.
I put wild fish in quotes because many times they are raised in a hatcheries then released into the wild. Which has ruined the gene pool of salmon in places that do this.
After a few years raising chickens at my home farm, I became pescatarian. I drew an arbitrary line at intelligence where I wouldn't eat anything as smart or smarter than a chicken.
Anyhow, avoiding farmed fish while eating land meat is really misinformed. I think the meat industry and commercial fishing industries have managed to completely misinform the American public (and a few well-meaning but misleading documentaries on the subject).
America doesn't not farm very many aquatic things besides oysters, trout and catfish. Which are all very very green industries. I like to bring these ones up in conversations about this topic.
I think compassion is better than empathy because it gives you the space to not care about someone's angle while understanding where they might be coming from. Usually, fear and confusion.