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Perhaps, but as I said I also see it around me. Many of their problems also arise from computers. There are two way I see people dealing with this: - It's norm

Perhaps, but as I said I also see it around me. Many of their problems also arise from computers. There are two way I see people dealing with this: - It's normal, I don't need to do anything. These people are the ones who were born 90s or later. They see computers as a simple fact of life. - It's not a problem, at least we have something. These people will generally be older and I think fail to see the incredible potential benefits of tricking a rock into thinking for you. These are all generalizations of course, not social facts but simply representations of how I experience reality. The thing that really ticks me in the wrong is that people in other industries don't always see the things they do as a net negative for humanity. For instance, most types of engineering such as civil, eletrical, chemical, etc. have real net positive benefits in the way I and everyone around me experiences life. I've never seen a civil engineer say they hate how we built bridges. I've met very few computers scientists who were confident about the way we deal with computers. Anyways, this is just a long way of saying I agree, but that I don't think it invalidates what I talked about tech companies not being a net positive.

andyferris 4y ago
> most types of engineering such as civil, eletrical, chemical, etc. have real net positive benefits in the way I and everyone around me experiences life They do _now_. During their exponential-growth phase I think there were lots of negative externalities? (Pollution, etc). And we still have to regulate them heavily to avoid societal problems. Another post in this thread mentioned it's all the closed-platform/walled-garden/attention-grabbing/rent-seeking behavior which is the worst aspect of "tech"... honestly I have the feeling we just haven't gotten around to learning how to regulate these well yet, just like it took a while to figure out how to control (local) pollution (I mean, even this is still a huge problem with global carbon pollution).
quanticle 4y ago
>I've never seen a civil engineer say they hate how we built bridges. You must not have spoken with any of the civil engineers I've spoken with. They all describe an absolute wasteland of arbitrary and capricious regulations, competing stakeholders, and last minute requirement changes that require extensive redesign and often very expensive rework. Software engineering really isn't all that different from all engineering, for better and for worse.

andyferris 4y ago

> most types of engineering such as civil, eletrical, chemical, etc. have real net positive benefits in the way I and everyone around me experiences life They do _now_. During their exponential-growth phase I think there were lots of negative externalities? (Pollution, etc). And we still have to regulate them heavily to avoid societal problems. Another post in this thread mentioned it's all the closed-platform/walled-garden/attention-grabbing/rent-seeking behavior which is the worst aspect of "tech"... honestly I have the feeling we just haven't gotten around to learning how to regulate these well yet, just like it took a while to figure out how to control (local) pollution (I mean, even this is still a huge problem with global carbon pollution).

quanticle 4y ago

>I've never seen a civil engineer say they hate how we built bridges. You must not have spoken with any of the civil engineers I've spoken with. They all describe an absolute wasteland of arbitrary and capricious regulations, competing stakeholders, and last minute requirement changes that require extensive redesign and often very expensive rework. Software engineering really isn't all that different from all engineering, for better and for worse.