Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

The interesting thing about technology is that it has proven to be so powerful that when people do mundane things with it, it is viewed as a failure (maybe rightly so, to some degree).

But, and this is a big but, the vast majority of people go to work every day and do very little of importance. 99% of people are not changing the world, for the better or otherwise. All the people making coffee, serving food, pushing paper at the DMV, driving trucks, driving cabs, trimming trees and mowing lawns, writing articles for the NYTimes, etc. they aren't changing the world and they aren't making a significant difference in the lives of the least privileged (except maybe themselves and their own families, if they're in that category).

No one writes articles lamenting the fact that a barista isn't changing the world. So, why do techies get blamed for lack of world-changing work?

I'm not saying I disagree, per se. I just wonder what makes us (in the broad use of "us" here, to mean anyone who builds technology for a living) that we get tasked with fixing the world? Maybe it's the way tech entrepreneurs often hype the products of their labor as being world-changing...even while probably knowing it's merely a historical footnote, if even that, in the grand scheme of things.

I want to make a positive impact on the world with my work, sure, but I also find I have to make economic decisions not unlike people who go to a regular job every day. I have to work on problems that I don't consider important, sometimes, just because I know it will keep my rent paid and food on my table this month. I'm not gonna feel guilty for that, but I also would love to know what the author proposes be done to make it so I don't have to worry about stuff like that and can go back to important but not profitable problems.

To pick an example, baristas do make a difference in the world. They help in many small ways to build communities. The wave of services that the author rails against do exactly the opposite. They replace people you could have called and talked to with mechanisms controlled by faraway companies that view human labor as a stepping stone to the totally automated future. Is this good? I guess we will have to wait and see.

Rant:

Often those who seem to be making a difference are just those we notice because they are making the biggest mess. Some companies operate like speedboats tearing through no wake zone. Isn't it grand how fast they go? Behind them is a trail of senseless destruction that they care not to see. Just because you make money doesn't mean its good. If we don't relearn to regulate ourselves this way we risk social order. Inequality will rise. Human interaction will be mediated by corporate lords. Then everything will start to smell. People are going to revolt, and nobody is going to have a nice time.

Ahem ahem...

So, why do techies get blamed for lack of world-changing work?

Because there's a visceral, emotional response people get when they see the amount that we're being paid to work and the capital that's being poured into what looks like frivolous trivialities. Artless commerce. If we weren't here the focus would remain on Wall Street, except CDOs and complex financial instruments are trickier to reduce to absurdity in the NYT op-eds.

Or because "we" keep insisting that our work "makes the world a better place" and "changes the world". I'm sure there's at least one barista in soho who claims that (and frankly I've had more than one barista or bartender greatly improve my little corner of the world) but it's not constantly used to justify mind boggling financial returns or to write off the negative externalities of their work.

None of this is to say that tech can't change the world for the better but that the tech community gets a lot of monetary and prestige benefits that derive from these arguments so we shouldn't be surprised when people want to see results.

Edited to add: Wall Street never tried to get the mileage we get out of "no really, we might get rich but the whole world is a better place for it".

> I just wonder what makes us (in the broad use of "us" here, to mean anyone who builds technology for a living) that we get tasked with fixing the world?

Because:

-- we are the ones who have the intellectual abilities to do it,

-- we are the ones who received an education allowing us to do it,

-- our companies and a fair number of us pretend to do it and yell it everywhere,

-- an insane amount of money is poured in companies and projects we work for, and most of these companies and projects are either useless or harmful.

This set makes a big difference with people who are just in charge of making the world go round day after day, and who just do it well. Those do not disappoint. Those do not deceive.

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