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Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

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Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#501

Post by ruang »

gozzoo wrote: post #451
johndoe42377 wrote: post #445

This is actually quite common situation and it seems that the major cause is that tech is now saturated with "normies" (liberal arts college dropouts, SJW schizoids, etc) instead of math or biology majors like it used to be at the times of Bell labs or Xerox PARC or early Google. Abstract bullshit, misapplication of statistical methods is another cause. We are drowning in the sea of screaming narcissistic virtue-sign…

> math or biology Biology?! I'm not even sure if math is in place here. I would put instead 'CS and engineering'. People who do things that never existed before are rarely these who are good at math. These people are called engineers. They have different skillset and background and very different attitude towards solving problems. Don't get me wrong, being computer engineer myself I have huge respect for both biology…

Lately it's been math majors. Zoom and Stripe founders were math majors.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#502

Post by m0ther »

Are you disillusioned with technology, or with the business of technology?

In my experience, the term "business" is short for "the business of exploitation". Exploitation is ugly, and I've had experiences that can be compared to yours.

Our occupation (if you're doing it right - and few are) is masochistic in nature. You suffer to grow, and you grow to suffer (sometimes quite a bit more) for greater pursuits next time. It's the definition of type 2+ fun (https://www.tetongravity.com/story/adventure/the-three-and-a...). If you did the type of things I do, it would be easy to see our primary job as the application of self-discipline to mitigate emotional and existential pain caused by consistently pushing your limits (past your fatigue plateau); and the creation of new solutions are side effects of the mental blender you are capable of holding yourself in for 8+ hours a day. If you've had family members beg you to quit jobs "for your health", you probably know what I'm talking about.

Knowing (as I do now) how the business works can change the context behind the work. Context can be the difference between being a hero, and being exploited. I like being a hero; I don't like being a victim. I will happily sacrifice of myself to make something that users will love, or something that will change the way things are done; I don't want to bleed to make some dickhead rich.

If you have the money to coast for a while, perhaps it's time to think about building a non-profit. A non-profit would be less likely to attract those looking to exploit. Boil what you want to do down to chunks that you can complete yourself, and make sure it's something you're willing to bleed for.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#503

Post by shp0ngle »

kabacha wrote: post #492

Because pop-technology is void of any sort of spirit, culture or enthusiasm. It's all buzzwords, sale pitches and wheel reinventing put in a new wrapper and walled gardens. What restored faith in technology for me personally is libre software hacker movement. It's just so fun to enjoy technology without all of that fake sillicon valley culture. It's fun to _own_ technology and understand it and be able to hack it and…

Interesting is that I got the opposite experience.

As all the libre stuff I have been working on started to be used and contributed to by the very forces it tried to destroy.

Why is it so great to work on free software when it ends up being used to sell more AWS subscriptions and by some Facebook library to sell more ads

I realized libre movement is a mirage.... you cannot change the capitalist forces by writing a bunch of software

Linux ended up powering Android, which is more closed than Windows ever was. Hurray I guess

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#504

Post by sradman »

gozzoo wrote: post #451
johndoe42377 wrote: post #445

This is actually quite common situation and it seems that the major cause is that tech is now saturated with "normies" (liberal arts college dropouts, SJW schizoids, etc) instead of math or biology majors like it used to be at the times of Bell labs or Xerox PARC or early Google. Abstract bullshit, misapplication of statistical methods is another cause. We are drowning in the sea of screaming narcissistic virtue-sign…

> math or biology Biology?! I'm not even sure if math is in place here. I would put instead 'CS and engineering'. People who do things that never existed before are rarely these who are good at math. These people are called engineers. They have different skillset and background and very different attitude towards solving problems. Don't get me wrong, being computer engineer myself I have huge respect for both biology…

Building things involves problem solving. The life sciences often involve problem solving without producing an artifact. I think it is the challenge of solving hard problems that unites both pursuits.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#505

Post by flohofwoe »

shp0ngle wrote: post #503
kabacha wrote: post #492

Because pop-technology is void of any sort of spirit, culture or enthusiasm. It's all buzzwords, sale pitches and wheel reinventing put in a new wrapper and walled gardens. What restored faith in technology for me personally is libre software hacker movement. It's just so fun to enjoy technology without all of that fake sillicon valley culture. It's fun to _own_ technology and understand it and be able to hack it and…

Interesting is that I got the opposite experience. As all the libre stuff I have been working on started to be used and contributed to by the very forces it tried to destroy. Why is it so great to work on free software when it ends up being used to sell more AWS subscriptions and by some Facebook library to sell more ads I realized libre movement is a mirage.... you cannot change the capitalist forces by writing a bu…

The path to happiness when writing open source software is to create stuff that's (almost) entirely useless to other people ;)

(I'm only half joking, just pick a niche topic that's fun for you without thinking of others, there's a huge terra incognita of fun-but-useless software to explore, and not many people venture there).

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#506

Post by tonyedgecombe »

deanCommie wrote: post #90

> Then I worked for a tech giant, and then for a high-growth unicorn. It shocked me how dilbertesque they both were. Full of politicians, and burnt out engineers in golden handcuffs who can't wait to get out, and meaningless business speak, and checked out employees who pretend they're "excited" about everything all the time. The young, wide-eyed engineers seem hopelessly naive to me now. I don't know this person. I…

I suspect decent companies are rarer than you think. I spent quite a few years doing short term contracts (usually 1-2 weeks) and out of all the places I visited there were only a couple that I'd consider working for.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#507

Post by gmtx725 »

throwaway839246 wrote: post #130
unclebucknasty wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point, laced with justified indignation. As a graybeard, I've seen multiple generations of "how to do software" and the most recent are the least fun. A lot of this is driven by the agile approach. It's tailor-made for dev burnout: from the endless tight cycles that force people into an infinite loop of productivity with scant satisfaction that comes with "completion", to all of the tools and philosop…

I'd add open office plans to this. It's awful. You never quite get to focus, you don't build the rapport with your team, you don't get to customize your physical environment. Development really became a white collar version of the assembly line.

This is something I see people railing against all the time here. I'm young and new to the industry so I've never experienced anything other than open-plan offices. So maybe I just don't know what I'm missing out on but the idea of private offices/cubicles is really unappealing to me. I really like collaboration spaces, being able to see people's faces, being social, bouncing ideas off each other, pair programming etc. If I really need to put my head down and do some quiet work I can put some headphones on or move my laptop to a booth or quiet space. So I really don't see what the problem with open-plan is but I'm open to being convinced I'm wrong.

I have similar views on wfh, fwiw. Like 1-2 days a week is fine for me but full time remote is far too isolating IMO.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#508

Post by valand »

kabacha wrote: post #492

Because pop-technology is void of any sort of spirit, culture or enthusiasm. It's all buzzwords, sale pitches and wheel reinventing put in a new wrapper and walled gardens. What restored faith in technology for me personally is libre software hacker movement. It's just so fun to enjoy technology without all of that fake sillicon valley culture. It's fun to _own_ technology and understand it and be able to hack it and…

> Because pop-technology is void of any sort of spirit, culture or enthusiasm. It's all buzzwords, sale pitches and wheel reinventing put in a new wrapper and walled gardens.

This is sad but true, though.

Those buzzwords are marketing techniques, and those riding the trains of trends and buzzwords are the one getting the spotlight because human naturally follow blings and other human attentions are indeed power.

It's sad that people who work with careful, thoughtful, artful, and fortified with engineering and scientific craftsmanship rarely have the means to prove themselves.

Btw, what is libre software hacker movement, though?

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#509

Post by mellow2020 »

mesaframe wrote: post #433
isakkeyten wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is good code? What is bad code? I know what is slow code and what is fast, but not always fast is good and slow bad. So basically, good/bad code is mainly around maintainability. And if you are the only person that maintains it and can maintain it then you only need the code to be 'as good' as your ability to retain the memory of it's structure.

I don't know how your comment is contributing to the conversation. No one asked about the definition of good code. The definition was assumed to be understood.

Asking "but what if?" without actually making the point you think is implied in that rhetorical question isn't much of a conversation to begin with.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#510

Post by gmtx725 »

tomhoward wrote: post #378

My startup experience isn't quite the same as this, but it shares some aspects, and I've had some similar feelings in my lowest moments in the aftermath. It's now almost six years since I walked away from my startup, and I left feeling some combination of exhaustion, shame, resentment, anger and sadness. As time passed, and the fog has gradually lifted on the state I sometimes think of as "startup drunkenness", I've…

out of interest, what are some of the unconventional approaches to personal growth you adopted?
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