Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

People will say you're burned out, and they're not wrong... but this doesn't address the substance of the issue. To be an engineer or a scientist today means tolerating a lot of the things you've mentioned. I would amend your list to engineers that had a passion for EE and value human life (who doesn't?) but took a job at Raytheon. The things you identify are valid issues. If you're worn so thin you can't ignore them, it has the effect of ruining your entire relationship with the art. The thing to remember is that this is not the fundamental nature of science or engineering, but the nature of practicing these things today under the framework in which we live. From there, maybe you can find places where you can practice your art which are less prone to these issues. You may have to compromise on career stability or pay. People are rarely paid well to do fun, low stress things. Maybe the best thing to do is stay out of tech professionally, and slowly ease back into programming as a hobby by working on small projects. I'm not sure. All I know is that with burnout it's somewhat challenging to untoast toast, but you will recover eventually. It's just always a bit slower than one would hope, but it does happen.

Another angle perhaps is working on clarifying to yourself the ways in which you got hurt, so programming may feel less painful. I found that learning about politics and history-- specifically the history of engineering-- really helped me sort out my feelings. It also gives a sense of clarity of where the rotten parts come from and maybe how to avoid them.

I've been there. Burned out so hard I thought I had brain damage. You can't unsee what you have seen, you have to integrate and accept it. Depressing as it is to know how sick the industry is and how many sociopaths there are lurking you have to let go. You have to accept it, trying to unsee it will just make it worse.

It takes time because you will start to see it in other places too. I used to get triggered by TV programs or reading the news but these days Its just one of many thoughts. I've come to accept all the implications and let them unfold over time as my mind kept returning, ruminating. Eventually you will come to terms with it.

It's important to allow time to process as well as not spending all your time ruminating. Balance is the key. Keep living the best life you can but go easy on yourself.

The upside of this whole thing is you are wiser now. As time goes on and you process everything more you will become wiser still. It's tempting to become cynical and it's ok if you are for a while but the world is still full of wonder and hope and beauty, seek it out. There are still good people even in the darkest of times.

Accept the world for what is vs. what you want it to be.

As child you revolted against reality by escaping into sci-fi. No judgement here.

I find that sci-fi, especially good sci-fi is more digestible form of philosophy.

As you aged and achieved comfort and "success" the world has revealed to be unfair. You always knew it to be the case but now you see it. The lies. The callous nature. The straight up self surviving people that seem to be self-satisfied without even a hint of guilt you get for accidentally swapping a fly.

You have guilt for not being as happy as you should be given how lucky you are despite all the things that didn't quite work out the way you wanted them to. And yet, wake up every day you must. Do something. You have companionship, yet another privilege you can feel guilty for not appreciating it enough.

So how to fix this? Stop expecting the world to be something it is not. Stop hoping for humanity. This is not a sad thought, but once you accept reality. Then and only then can you figure "okay, now what". What problems do I want to solve, which people do I want to help.

You realize you can't help everyone. So focus. Appreciate the gratitude you get by serving others. Could be family or your community, but big nameless though important causes won't feed your soul.

Check out some stuff on The Myth of Sisyphus. This may help you in your journey. What we fear to enslave us is the thing that may actual free us. The obligations of life provides the purpose that freedom never give.

I think what you're disillusioned with is capitalism.

Try building something you could never make money off of. Something useless, but fun. Try divorcing technology from the vultures and the dilberts.

Here are some technologists doing useless, joyful things:

https://twitter.com/MatthewRayfield

https://twitter.com/Foone

https://twitter.com/_naam

Best of luck.

Leaving aside the organizational bullshit issues, a big frustration with IC work is that to be productive at it I have to essentially shut-off my brain during the rest of my life, as I simply don't have the mental energy to do deeply technical things outside of work while being productive at coding for work.