Does that mean that if we use technology more we’d have enough value in the economy to pay everyone a UBI?

There’s already enough value in the economy to pay everyone 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.

It’s being funneled into monopolies and doled out as stock dividends into the pockets of investors and billionaires such as Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.

dont blame the tech. blame the humans. humans suck, but not all, not even in aggregate. were nicer than we know, and were actually getting better!

that said, there is a small subset of outwardly powerful humans who deeply suck. these are the set who think that billionaires should exist. that the next quarters profits should come no matter what. i dont know what can be done about that other than humans regulating humans, which is difficult when you need to regulate the powerfully sucky.

its not a technology problem we have, its a human one.

There’s a lot here. Some I can comment on and some I can’t. Some bits are simply how you are viewing the world, and differ to how others view it. There is no possibility for objectivity there, and are better suited to discussions with mental health professionals.

For my sins, I’m a Product Manager. While I have a background in engineering (having done a CS degree and taught myself to code in my teens), I have never held a job as a developer.

As such, I have conversations pretty much every day with developers, dev leads, people with “architect” in their title, CTOs, etc, all of whom are considerably more technically literate than I am, about what new technologies we can take advantage of. Some times it’s me asking them, sometimes it’s them asking me, but one thing is always constant. Time, risk, and cost of implementation is what matters most.

The majority of the time, when I am approached by Devs, the conversation goes along the lines of:

• Dev: “there is this awesome new thing we absolutely need to use now”
• Me: “OK, what are the benefits?”
• Dev: “it makes X, Y, and Z so much easier and save us time doing them”
• Me: “OK, how long do we spend doing those things currently?”
• Dev: “eh, well, I don’t know exactly, but it’s, er, it’s loads and doing this will save us that time and it’s great and we need to do it now”
• Me: “yeah, I get that, but how much time do we actually spend on it?”
• repeat forever

In short, the benefits have not been quantified, and the costs ignored.

Other times, the change that is being suggested doesn’t align with the current business need. I’ve had to reject suggestions to refactor systems because we’ve literally been down to the last few pay cheques, and we need to focus on revenue generation. This massively undermines the person making the suggestion, because it shows they are not understanding the actual priority of the business.

And other times still, it can be simply a pipedream. I once had a dev lead stand up and scream at me across a desk because I didn’t agree with him that we immediately rewrite our entire app in Swift, on literally the day Apple released the beta back in 2014, and I had had the gaul to suggest that he needs to come up with a plan to iteratively develop some new, low risk, functionality in the language first, before saying he wants to spend “at least a year” doing a complete overhaul, and nothing else.

This is not to say that developers are idiots or anything. The vast majority of the discussions I have had with all my collegues across my career have been good, thought provoking, and helpful. But that doesn’t mean they always get what they want, and nor does it mean I get what I want. I have definitely rejected work where that was the wrong decision, and I’ve suffered the consequences of it. I’ve also definitely accepted work that ended up being a complete waste of time.

None of us are perfect.

If you are finding that your boss is always rejecting your suggestions, I would suggest you need to consider these things:

• have you quantified the benefits and costs?
• are there competitors who are already doing this thing? If so, who?
• does the suggestion align with the strategy / focus of the business?
• have you identified a small increment / proof of concept / mvp, that takes a few hours, or days, or a sprint, to demonstrate potential value?

If you can explain the potential value, how it helps the business get to where it wants to be faster, and how you can identify unknown unknowns through low cost and quick to develop POCs, then you may be able to get buy in.

If you can’t, or don’t know how, then there are plenty of resources available. A good starting point would be to read The Lean Startup.

It is considerably more likely that the problem is with your skills of persuasion, and writing business cases, rather than all of technology being worthless.

Lastly, regarding discussions with professionals, one bit that did concern me is this

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.

My experience with therapists, and in discussions with friends who are qualified pshrinks, is that a therapist should never try and convince you of anything. Their job is to structure conversations you are in essence having with yourself. They may repeat your previous statements back to you, in a way that requires you to reconcile potentially conflicting views or opinions. They may even challenge your assertions and get you to explain more thoroughly your views. These processes may well cause you to change your views on things.

But if your therapist is actually trying to convince you of their world view, you need to get a new therapist.

This is going to be fun.

Prudence generates value. Technology speeds a task, but without prudence and principle, you will simply fill the space freed by technology with other things that are meaningless.

Regarding programming, specifically, if you’re looking at creating real value for society, you need to create frameworks that give leverage to effective and ethical thinking.

Right now, the world is fucked because social networking has simply brought to light how incapable people are at managing their own lives and perspectives, particularly while being seen. Social networking has given people power, but all that does is let people make bigger mistakes. Plus, with the monetary incentives on the back-end squeezing every bit of emotion for cash, people are getting burnt out.

Structured power is better. Connections need to have consequences, and those consequences need to have real effect. To be effective, individual power (not over others, but over one’s own life) must be central to the collective structure - and the collective should be granted that same right, over it’s own existence.

The ideal social network would ensnare fools, catch the greedy, and reward the prudent, the wise, and the loving, through empowering them to be whoever it is they truly are.

You probably don’t remember, but once, long ago, in the age of legends, Google emerged as a force within humanity. They wielded the power of “don’t be evil,” and they meant it. They empowered people to find what they wanted, and to communicate. The ads were tasteful, clearly marked, and unobtrusive - useful, even.

But all things that are born must die, and death does not come because things are going well for the dying thing. The Google was no exception. Did the leadership fail, or did time simply run it’s course? We may never know for certain, but when The Originators left, all that remained was a vile and empty core. Where once there was abundance, there came indolence. And as the remaing scraps of mind fought over the space where they thought the power was, they thought the power of “don’t be evil” was outdated. Bothersome. In the way. But in truth, it was simply arcane - their minds, profane as they were, could not comprehend the true nature that brought them power. So they ejected the power of their own foundation, and struck the rule from their books.

And so to this day, they ride the shockwave the true power made as it left. They think the shockwave is the power, but it is just a side effect. They see their hands closing to grasp it, but they do not see how weak they make themselves. They have ridden the shockwave up, and they will ride it down, and just as they are not prepared for the heights of it, they are not prepared for the depths they enter, either.

And that, my boy, is the story of how The Google came to be, and how it began to fall. It is the end of some things, to be sure, but also the beginning of another. Sovereign individual collectives are juust around the corner, waiting for their builders to come.

taps cane on the floor regularly to keep the rocking chair going, tamps pipe

Someday, I’ll tell the tale of how a little bird was born, became known by all, and died, partly of it’s own foolishness, and partly because of one who wanted to keep it for himself. …Or how Unity tried to seize those who contributed to it, but lost everything in the process. It’s all the same tale, though. Everything that lives, must die. But forgetting to stand on a principle can hurry any entity along that path.

blows smoke ring

Tech companies only want new if it generates/saves short term money. Long term money only with a understanding, far-sighted upper level, which is rare. Reallistic risk mitigation (i.e. not the magic black box á la Fortinet) only with a boss who’s in tech himself.

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.

I think the answer to that question would completely depend on what you value.