Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#51

Post by andai » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #36

The idea of tech as a tool of oppression is something that increasingly bothers me. I got into tech because I just liked building stuff with computers, and at the time I naively thought it seemed democratizing. Looking back I think this was largely because of the general public’s cluelessness about computers and the internet, so technically minded people with a little bit of access had a huge amount of power in shapi…

>The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological sutfering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.

Theodore Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

https://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Anarchism/Unabom/manifest...

I think Kaczynski's take is overly pessimistic, but it does get the broad strokes right.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#52

Post by jackyalcine » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 4:57 PM UTC

burutthrow1234 wrote: post #43

Lots of respect to Jacky for writing this. The tech industry truly pays enough money that you can lose sight of solidarity with other workers. Even as shit gets worse and more human rights are privatized you can stay insulated. I once had a coworker brag about how he paid 10k a year for a special medical service to see the doctor faster. Public transit sucks? You just Uber from your condo everywhere. Housing crisis?…

Nixed that, thanks! I've been open to anything and the golden handcuffs have been released, so it's been fun. Right now, I'm focusing on helping other tech folks get organized (and folks outside of industry). I've spent not too much time helping folks with tech, but I'm eager to get "closer to the metal" of that process.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#53

Post by burutthrow1234 » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 5:26 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #51

dasil003 wrote: post #36

The idea of tech as a tool of oppression is something that increasingly bothers me. I got into tech because I just liked building stuff with computers, and at the time I naively thought it seemed democratizing. Looking back I think this was largely because of the general public’s cluelessness about computers and the internet, so technically minded people with a little bit of access had a huge amount of power in shapi…

>The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological sutfering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system s…

Kaczynski has a few good points about the dehumanizing effects of industrialization, but man is his extremely long screed about "leftists" tiresome. You could give that chunk to Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson and it wouldn't feel out of character.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#54

Post by jackyalcine » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 6:39 PM UTC

n_ary wrote: post #48

The tech enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and many became super rich between 2010-2020. Now economy is going through a downturn, things are expected to be bad. Economy rebalances. Things will get better eventually. But the shockwave will leave some remnants behind. Just need to hold on for a bit.

I'll link something I wrote on LinkedIn and quote part of it here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jacky-alcine_private-governme...

> Much of the time, the entire economy operates in periods of substantial hashtag#unemployment or hashtag#underemployment, affecting workers generally: even if they have a job, the cost of job loss is so high they have to put up with nearly any abuse just to hang on to an income. Meanwhile, employers use their power to design workplaces to create a fine-grained division of labor in which workers are deskilled and thus easily replaceable.

I try not to lean on economic theory as a means of driving society (as much as capitalistic governance wants us to - we don't have to accept it). Both of the layoffs I experienced were examples of that perceived health (both at Glitch and Code for America). Coupling that with the need for us to feel "grateful" for something that can be effectively guaranteed to make us a bit messed up in the head when talking about this.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#55

Post by drewcoo » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 6:40 PM UTC

advael wrote: post #33

I realize it's kind of a game of musical chairs when companies work so hard to shut down various forms of {labor,equality,ethics} activism in tech, but I found myself wondering at the end of this whether there are groups that are active now, and how to find them. Organizing anything is a coordination problem, but organizing in a context where one is opposed by companies who have positioned themselves as bottlenecks t…

I'm not sure I followed all that, but maybe check out the EFF:

https://www.eff.org

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#56

Post by kiviuq » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 7:02 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #36

The idea of tech as a tool of oppression is something that increasingly bothers me. I got into tech because I just liked building stuff with computers, and at the time I naively thought it seemed democratizing. Looking back I think this was largely because of the general public’s cluelessness about computers and the internet, so technically minded people with a little bit of access had a huge amount of power in shapi…

Better stop moralizing capitalism. AI is simply another tool, and like all the tools that came before, its #1 purpose is to generate profits for the owners.

There's no counterbalance or consolidation of power that wouldn't go in accordance with the rules of a capitalist society, which necessarily includes the social class divide. Between those owning everything and those who sell their labor to survive.

Ugly or not, that is exactly what capitalism is supposed to be doing.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#57

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 7:33 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #36

The idea of tech as a tool of oppression is something that increasingly bothers me. I got into tech because I just liked building stuff with computers, and at the time I naively thought it seemed democratizing. Looking back I think this was largely because of the general public’s cluelessness about computers and the internet, so technically minded people with a little bit of access had a huge amount of power in shapi…

I'm convinced things are going to get very ugly over the next decade or two. It won't be until things get tremendously bad before the government actually does something and tries to turn it around.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#58

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 7:40 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #15

jackyalcine wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I only hesitate when we see people more eager to use things to exacerbate the harms of the world using technology. It sucks because we, as an industry, seem to only focus on the history of business gains and not on the sociological impact of said gains (the introduction of the smartphone and how that played into how people connect - or even what _was_ the first smartphone).

Social media is incredibly destructive, yet look at all the money we've made from it. Probably one in 5 people believed in "connecting the world"...

The early days of Facebook still seem great. I could connect with friends and family and that was it. Now it's all business and politics. Perhaps this was inevitable and it should never have been developed in the first place I don't know. Is it moral to build something for the $$$ because if you don't someone else will? Probably not.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#59

Post by kevindamm » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 7:41 PM UTC

hnthrow289570 wrote: post #40

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #29

I think a big reason why a lot of people in tech feel like this is because tech has been reduced to getting a job and optimizing for total compensation. If you look at employees at Google, you can see that they are there to coast. Intelligent, sharp folks, reduced to mere optimizing for compensation while tweaking an algorithm here and there. Instead what devs need to do especially those who are new to the industry,…

Coasting is fine in a sane company. Coasting is a sign of competence IMO as long as your work is also getting done and things are fairly estimated. We should get to coast because we practiced enough to be good at our job. There's way too many jobs where the only reward for finishing your work is more work. However, I don't think hacker or punk rock culture can make a come back here because there's too large of a pool…

The hacker culture doesn't have to be larger than the corporate workforce to have a significant impact on the industry and the world. That was proven in an earlier era, too.

Re: Do I Regret Being 'Just' a Software Engineer?

#60

Post by tayo42 » Sat, Jun 29, 2024, 8:15 PM UTC

jackyalcine wrote: post #45

tayo42 wrote: post #21

i think this is expecting to much from corporate america. i dont think these problems are unique to tech companies. maybe i missed the point, the post kind of went all over the place at times Are we selling our selves and authenticity to companies? i guess in a way, but we try to get as much as we can out of companies too As far as separating your self from tech and being technologist. I think its like music, the pop…

> i think this is expecting to much from corporate america. I'll push back on this by adding something from the book, Private Government by Elizabeth Anderson: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176512/pr... . She makes the case, with evidence and history, how no one in America can get by without using corporations to survive. Until we have free housing and healthcare (instead of bombs falling on the…

I mean expecting to much by thinking tech is any different then the rest. Leaving the career won't really lead to anything different, if your goal is to work. Which we all need to do. If you're lucky enough to not have the play the game and can leave software and work in general, that's good, but not typical.

I think you missed my point. Tech is bigger then Google Facebook w/e. Is writing drivers for obscure hardware ruining the world? Or raspberry pi? Using computer vision to solve your problems at home. That's still tech imo and healthy to participate in.