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> As someone approaching 40, who was a techno-optimist back then and still generally techno-optimistic today, I'm feeling increasingly out of place in the tech
by johnfn 2y ago
> As someone approaching 40, who was a techno-optimist back then and still generally techno-optimistic today, I'm feeling increasingly out of place in the tech world. As evidenced by this blog post and the vast majority of comments here, I'd say the HN-adjacent space is majority negative on technology.
I think this is because 10 or 20 years ago, when tech wasn't a particularly prestigious or high-paying career, you got into tech because you really believed in it, and so other people who were in tech also really believed in it - hence the optimism.
Today, most people in tech are in it because it pays well. Not only do they not believe in it - I suspect they begin to dislike it because they feel "forced" into it, as you might when doing anything you don't particularly enjoy for an extremely long amount of time.
- abhiyerra 2y agoI am one of those people who got into tech as a teen in the late 90s when Microsoft was the capitalist bad guy, Google was the underdog, and Linux was socialism. Things were largely contained to the tech ecosystem. What I find interesting is as tech has grown and people enter it who are not that interested in tech is you see tech’s influence seems to have gone further and further away from our industry niche. Do I think VCs should be making decisions for millions of Americans so they can get more rich? No. Do I think tech workers should push a progressive narrative that the rest of the country should ascribe to? No. Tech has an undue influence on the world on both the left and right. All of us mistakenly ascribe our unique situation as how the world should work. Maybe we should just focus on what we are good at?