I had a long and intresting conversation with my therapist just now. I’m not comfortable sharing exactly what we were talking about but I can rephrase it: basically I was complaining that tech companies don’t want to innovate.

I’ve been trying to bring new technologies to my boss because I thought it would give him a better opportunity to realize value from the products I’m creating/maintaining for him. That’s what I understand is my purpose in the workforce. I’m a programmer not a salesman I can’t go out to the market and get him the money so he can pay me with something, I can only make things put things in his hands for him (or hire someone to) to go out and collect the money we deserve (deserve within the limits of market demands and the nature of the product, not the labor invested). But he doesn’t want them… well he does when he needs them but I miss way more times than I hit which is making my professional feelings feel less valuable. And if I’m not valuable enough then I can’t work doing what I love.

When I started working I went in with a plan to upgrade and modernize everything I touch. I still believe that to be the case, or like… my “purpose”(as an employee not a person). But every company I’ve worked for so far has been running old ass shit. Springboot apps, create-react-apps, codebases in c and c++, no kubernetes, little to no cloud. And it feels like everything that tech companies want me to do is maintain and expand old existing codebases. And I understand why, I know that its expensive to rewrite entire code bases just for a 20% efficiency boost and to make it easier to add upgrades every once in awhile. But noone is taking advantage of innovative technology anymore and that’s what’s concerning me.

In my therapist’s opinion he thinks we as a soceity are not taking 100% advantage of technology we have. I can’t go into too many details bc our conversations are private but at the end I agreed with him. I’m seeing it now in my working day but he convinced me that it’s everywhere. Are people actually benefitting from technology enough such that nobody actually needs to work to maintain a long and healthy life?

Lets say that no, technology is underutilized in our soceity. Does that mean that if we use technology more we’d have enough value in the economy to pay everyone a UBI? Could we phase out the human workforce to some extent? Or do we actually need more workers to do work to make the value, in which case we can’t realistically do UBI because people need to get paid competitivily to do the work.

Lets say that yes, we are taking all advantages of technology. If so than there should be enough value to pay a UBI. But we don’t have a UBI, so why? If the value exists than where is it? I don’t believe its being funnelled into the pockets of some shadowy deep-state private 4th branch of government. If it was than there’d be something to take, is there? Are we sure that its enough?

Basically I don’t know if technology generates value.

Think about it like this

If its cheaper to use technology to grow an acre of corn than to use people, is that subsequent output of corn more valuable or less valuable because of the technology. And if you believe that scaling up corn production to make the corn just as valuable as if we didn’t have technology then you agree that the corn is now less valuable. If self-checkout machines are replacing cashiers, does that mean that the cashiering work being done by the machine is more valuable to soceity or less?

This is basically end stage capitalism. We need to recognize if the work we do for soceity (whether you derive personal fulfillment or not) is actually adding to soceity or not. I’d rather not give up my job as a programmer just so I can do something more valuable, but I might have to if that’s the case. And I feel like most people in the world are thinking like that too. Is soceity trying to hang on to the past, or do we just not understand the future?

Sorry for the wall of text. I feel like this might be to philosophical for this community but I couldn’t find a better place to post this. If you know of a better community for this discussion to take place then I’ll consider moving this post based on the comments already posted. Thank you for reading this and I’d love to answer any question you’d have about my opinions/feelings.

  • HarkMahlberg
    20•6 months ago

    When I started working I went in with a plan to upgrade and modernize everything I touch. I still believe that to be the case, or like… my “purpose”(as an employee not a person).

    I mean this with as much respect to you OP as I can possibly put into words, and if your therapist has already touched on this, absolutely ignore everything I say and listen to them.

    I have been both been this person and dealt with this person. Believe me when I say that this behavior engenders little love from management and coworkers alike. You can quickly gain a bad reputation by trying to modernize everything you see. That reputation can be (meanly) described many different ways, from try-hard to kiss-ass.

    • Developers like all human beings are subject to emotions and projection. They see you running around trying to replace the things they built, and they may conflate that with trying to replace them. They feel insecure, then they project that insecurity onto you - it makes you look insecure trying to prove yourself to the company. (Maybe you have fine relationships with your coworkers, maybe they admire this trait, take me with a grain of salt.)
    • Managers begin to think that if they let you replace all their developers’ tools, they will have to rely on you and you alone to support all those tools. They may worry you try to gatekeep your tools, or become a bottleneck for new development. So you slowly lose their trust.

    Don’t let your career suffer for this. There are few reasons to risk your reputation, your chance at promotion, the goodwill of your peers, and more: “using the latest and greatest” is not one of those reasons. Sometimes, following the crowd is fine.

    Springboot apps, create-react-apps, codebases in c and c++, no kubernetes, little to no cloud.

    Now, speaking as a developer instead of an armchair psychoanalyst, I don’t see why these traits or lack thereof make for bad software. Nor does it make you a lesser developer for working with them. It entirely depends on your industry, the applications, the users, security interests, available recruitable talent, and many more factors.

      • HarkMahlberg
        4•6 months ago

        You are making it sound like it’s a fault of managers and coworkers

        Sorry, that’s not what I intended to imply. OP would definitely be the antagonist in that situation, I was trying to give them useful advice so they could avoid being that, and leave my own opinions at the door. “Cowboy Coder” is definitely what I’m going to call that behavior from now on though lol.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•6 months ago

          shrug I’m not the guy you’re responding to, but it was clear to me what you meant, and that you were taking a fairly balanced tack.

    • @[email protected]English
      5•6 months ago

      I like to leave a campsite better than I found it, but that can’t become rearranging the camping village.

      I’ll say this though, give me a UBI and I’ll still work to add value. I’d probably still work my current job - just more confidently if there was a safety net. I think most well-adjusted people want a purpose.

      If I didn’t work my job, then I’d be doing things with more obvious and direct social value. But if UBIs were a thing, some of that may not be necessary.