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.
I think you’re right.
TBH I can’t even see the real value in companies I see listing jobs on the job sites. I’ve been trying to talk any path, anything just so I can work. But what good is my work if it’s not actually working for the rest of the world. How can I secure my next hit (writing code presses my happy button, idk why I just accept it) if I’m working for someone who noone actually needs? I want to make a change for the world because I need to make a change for myself. I need to work because working feels good, it wakes me up in the morning, it gives me focus, it gives me a sense of success and I actually cherish it. Every little line of code I write is mine, that’s why I cryptosign my commits, so they’ll always be mine.
Maybe its actually not me, it’s the people I can work for.
I agree, it can be discouraging, but the reality is we all gotta pay bills and eat. We gotta have a paycheck to put food in our stomachs and to give ourselves the opportunity to make our own goals outside of this framework we’re given.
It’s okay to take a job that isn’t benefiting the world if it means it’s a path towards you benefiting the world, you just can’t let yourself get caught up in the grind and remember its your personal goals of self-fulfillment and fulfillment of others that matter more.
It doesn’t mean you can’t work a job or not excel at your job. You can absolutely do both but also be willing to keep that thought at the back of your mind “Everything I do here is in pursuit of doing more and better, on my own.” Hell, if you are successful enough, that’s often option to use your largess to create your own non-profit aimed at helping others, or creating a new business for a market you know is under-served.
We can’t escape the reality of needing to eat and pay bills. We can accept that a lot of the jobs we work won’t give us some of the human values we all generally need to feel fulfilled (autonomy, mastery, purpose), but that doesn’t mean we can’t find those avenues for fulfillment elsewhere, outside of the business and working world.