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Technology gets better, alright. And there so many things, I can do today, I could not do just a decade ago. Hardware is fantastic, it's fast, almost never fai
by throwaway8291 7y ago
Technology gets better, alright. And there so many things, I can do today, I could not do just a decade ago.
Hardware is fantastic, it's fast, almost never fails, it's lightweight and just works.
The software side has been a great disappointment, on the other hand. Software spies on you, makes you a marionette of a corporation, it's getting more brittle in many parts. Many people in business do not care about security or some basic ethics and it's mirrored in the apps and tools we use.
Imagine a world, where software respects every users privacy, most connections are safe by default and people feel ok about updating things, because things most of the times get better. It sounds like a utopia today.
I really wanted to like software as a thing, but the current and the next decade do not look bright to me. On the contrary.
We'll have many more abandoned devices, abandoned software, that some poor guy will depend on, more chaos, more junior developers who do not understand basic things, let alone caring about ethics or the consequences of what they are building. It's sad.
- ARandomerDude 7y agoTo be clear, the article isn't denying that technology advances and has advanced. The author is correcting the subtle, prevalent mindset that views technological improvement as essentially a Darwinian process of blind progress. But technology isn't like that. It's inherently teleological. Somebody (or a group of somebodies) expends enormous effort to create technology on purpose for a purpose. TL;DR – just because I can build this doesn't mean I should.