If cells operate in a similar fashion, where adaptation to externalities encodes itself into a durable surface of arbitrary pockets, then we have a recipe for inert systems exhibiting variable degrees of behavior, which is capable of evolving over time.
This doesn't solve for sentience, but it does solve for expressive adaptation to fit into complex, hostile environments.
Have low aspirations, and set up camp in a boring job akin to a jail cell, in a place no one wants to be, doing something no one wants to do, and work alongside washed up people who are not inspiring to talk to, and perhaps have never had the chance to even try to become an inspiring role model for others.
Liferism looks like a DMV employee. Postal workers are often lifers, so not all lifer jobs are inherently disappointing, but certainly none are glamourous.
In the 1990's the internet introduced some existential threats to lifers working for the USPS, and since then, the USPS has weathered some rough seas. Putting yourself in the position of a lifer is not precisely enviable, since forces from beyond the protective shelter of the lifer job can still augment economic realities enough to affect such a station in life.
If you find your way into a lifer job, and you grow old while working it, should the day ever arrive that your lifer job disappears in a puff of magic smoke, you might never find comparable employment again.
I always felt that agile processes were a means to give non-answers to performance measurement in order to allay the consequences of that measurement and allow developers to get on with the business of making software.
How big is the task; 10 story points
How long will that take; depends on our velocity
Can it be done by this date; we're not allowed to plan that far ahead. You can put it in the 'icebox'. We might get to it eventually.
If (1) everyone is highly effective in getting tasks done, and (2) working on tasks that are reasonably well prioritized by both technical risks and business value, why exactly do you need to know more?
There are legitimate reasons that a business may need a date. But making sure people are working harder than hard by beating them over the head with a date coughed out by a gantt chart is not one of the legitimate reasons.
Kind of we started optimizing for points and started to be smart about it. Because that what people above wanted. What happened we started communicating to PO more often, like: you want more points burned take this story out, close this and create an improvement.
Of course that was not childish silly sneaking and turned out we have as a team a lot better partnership with business. We deliver what is needed and can be finished.
I understand not everyone has luck to end up in such environment but it confirms there is no silver bullet. Only having right people is real silver bullet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9c-_neaxeU
If cells operate in a similar fashion, where adaptation to externalities encodes itself into a durable surface of arbitrary pockets, then we have a recipe for inert systems exhibiting variable degrees of behavior, which is capable of evolving over time.
This doesn't solve for sentience, but it does solve for expressive adaptation to fit into complex, hostile environments.