The simplest answer tends to be the right one, so in the face of the inexplicable, the answer is usually ignorance.
The tech track works great if one falls into line and doesn't rock the boat by questioning authority or trying to see the big picture. If one clings to original teenage fantasies like the idea that intellectual prowess and financial success eventually bring esteem and a social life. If one chooses to avoid becoming mired in dead end physical labor jobs like everyone else, even for a time, in worship of their own cleverness.
But should the unthinkable happen, say, the loss of a loved one due to a hyper focus on work, or witnessing one's work being used to take from others, or waking up one day to find oneself disillusioned with the direction tech is going, then suddenly tech loses its luster. One starts to recognize it for what it is - just another way to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few.
Tech has come to symbolize sheltering from reality, like a state sanctioned drug. It's a way to pat oneself on the back and downplay the wisdom of those outside it. Blindly worshipping it to the exclusion of the other wonders of life is the surest way I know to separate oneself from the soul, other than money perhaps.
In good conscience, I must add that the vast majority of tech today is phantom tech, not real tech. It serves to entertain and distract rather than be a labor-saving device. So in that sense, it's understandable that people invested in solving anything except any real problem have a disdain for the plight of labor.
>The tech track works great if one falls into line and doesn't rock the boat by questioning authority or trying to see the big picture
Is this true?
I thought senior engineers were expected to push back as a matter of course, and staff engineers were expected to think in broad, business needs and translate that down to the code.
An engineer who just shuts up and writes code, is so we are told, the first casualty in the age of AI.
Ya I mean I can't really comment on such a broad topic in a few sentences without generalizing and projecting from my own experience.
I agree with you, that the best engineers weigh the business needs when working towards a solution.
But I've also seen how the top problem solvers rarely get promoted beyond a certain level. A lot of us got into this to change the world, but ended up settling at middle management.
It's kind of a learned helplessness. It's strange to see the best and brightest commanded by people who aren't necessarily dumb, they just view the work as almost a sunk cost rather than something that pays dividends if done right. So there's this constant constraining of ideas that rubs off on us and gradually diminishes our light. Until eventually we're just another cog in the machine, showing up day after day only to keep things running and not rock the boat. And making up stories about how critical we are to the process without seeing our own expendability.
It's sad to say, but we're about to get tossed out and replaced by AI. I don't think that rising above being code monkeys is going to save us.
So on that note, we're also about to get radicalized. Imagine spending one's entire life in discipline learning the most esoteric knowledge, hoping to get ahead someday, only to find out that there wasn't enough time. Having to watch the most vacuous blowhards become millionaires at the highest levels of power and casually destroy everything we worked towards.
The tech track works great if one falls into line and doesn't rock the boat by questioning authority or trying to see the big picture. If one clings to original teenage fantasies like the idea that intellectual prowess and financial success eventually bring esteem and a social life. If one chooses to avoid becoming mired in dead end physical labor jobs like everyone else, even for a time, in worship of their own cleverness.
But should the unthinkable happen, say, the loss of a loved one due to a hyper focus on work, or witnessing one's work being used to take from others, or waking up one day to find oneself disillusioned with the direction tech is going, then suddenly tech loses its luster. One starts to recognize it for what it is - just another way to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few.
Tech has come to symbolize sheltering from reality, like a state sanctioned drug. It's a way to pat oneself on the back and downplay the wisdom of those outside it. Blindly worshipping it to the exclusion of the other wonders of life is the surest way I know to separate oneself from the soul, other than money perhaps.
In good conscience, I must add that the vast majority of tech today is phantom tech, not real tech. It serves to entertain and distract rather than be a labor-saving device. So in that sense, it's understandable that people invested in solving anything except any real problem have a disdain for the plight of labor.