>grew up thinking technology would be a force for good and empowering individuals, communities
>spend years studying and working for tech companies, have pretty successful career
>walled gardens, inefficiency, consumerism and surveillance everywhere
I feel like I've wasted my youth on technology. Anyone else feel the same?
Meh, just try to break free of the commercialization and strive to make it work for you. In the limited scope of my own life I can say that technology has been good and empowering. Don't dwell so much on its harmful implementations.
there r good things n bad things get over it
im just jaded in general
>Being such a brainlet to believe in good or evil
You are either too young to post here or, god forbid, too dumb.
Anyway, go watch your next marvel/avanger superfaggot movie where even the most retarded kid from special ed class knows who he should support
Being such a conscending faggot you can't answer a question without being autistic. Good job, user, now stop talking while us neurotypicals discuss.
it is all bad and used primarily to distract, misinform, and make you live a passive life
Fight back.
>wallet gardens
Contribute to open protocols. You're contributing even by just using them. No one is going to leave wallet gardens if they can't reach their friends after that.
>inefficiency
Refuse to use electron-based software. I really don't see how that can be a problem. Most resource-intensive software have lightweight alternatives if you're talking about desktop programs.
> consumerism
If you're fightning consumerism as a whole, that's a whole discussion by itself. A good step is to stop purchasing just because you want shiny new stuff. I think you mean consumerist discussion on Jow Forums, however.
Then just be the change you want to. Start and contribute to threads that bring technical discussion. Report political threads that got nothing to do with this board.
> surveillance everywhere
As much as NSA wants to tell you otherwise, anti-surveillance tech is much better than 5 years ago, when Snowden revelations came out. HTTPS became widespread, you have multiple options of end-to-end encrypted communication programs to use, federated or not. Intel's ME can now be disabled in most modern computers (as in up to Skylake). Free software got more popular. LineageOS became a very good mobile OS, even without being fully free.
Stay strong, user. We can fight back. Also, pic related. Don't feel depressed.
Create a business answering privacy needs
>shoving politics into tech
You got what you deserved. Tech in general is just a bunch of tools you use to achieve something, it has no value and no ideology. Think of either machines with a purpose or toys.
The fact that you see the problem for what it is means your youth was not wasted.
yep, completely abandoned the industry a little over 3 years ago now. Still follow tech stuff and learn new languages and shit in my spare time, but I'm not wasting my limited time on this planet slaving away for the bullshit that passes for 'modern software' any longer. Much happier and laid back now.
I was considering ending it but after seeing that picture I decided against it, instead I'm going to make it my life goal to find where you live and end your sorry existence.
>le edgy "being evil is the real good" phase
whos really underage here
I've been feeling the same as OP lately. Thanks for reminding me of the good stuff that's happened in tech lately.
Aaand you're the unibomber.
based frogposter
unibomber was right
not yet anyway
Absolutely. Everything is either design-by-committee, or designed by minimalist neophytes. Then there's the "elite architect with the blog, but no experience" and "I'm right and you're wrong, because I'm paid so". It all boils down to money-makes-it-right.
Public opinion is being shaped by bots, what makes this worse is that the average person can't tell if something is posted by a bot.
Nothing mentioned about morality. We'll all most assuredly be reduced to consumerist drones in time.
Projecting much?
I bought 10 acres in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and built myself a cabin on it and shitpost from my t420p. It's my only piece of technology.
What kind of internet speeds do you get?
5mbps down and 2mbps up... It's enough for a single user with basic shitposting. All worth it to escape into the wilderness where i can walk around butt naked and escape the madness
I'm not sure I'm jaded yet, but I understand what you mean. I got really into techno-tribalism in my teens (late 90s) and I thought the internet was going to set us free to 'find your own tribe' through the beauty of the baud.... but that is clearly not the way things are going. I think it was easy to believe in the power of the internet early on because it was so different back then. Back then you had to be able to deal with the technology in order to participate - and that acted as a filter. You'd meet all these weird awesome people on IRC or forums and they'd have genuinely interesting things to talk about. Then all the normies started flooding in, the dream died, and what we're left with is this septic wound. Instead of positive discourse we've got infinite navel-gazing. We get morons radicalizing themselves into SJWs and their stereoisomer alt-right edgelords.
But at the same time... the average person has more power than ever before. My own life has been enriched, and it's made me pretty well off, all things considered. Those are things are I should be grateful for.
Today's world is 'disappointing cyberpunk'
"disappointing cyberpunk" is a perfect way of putting it
>grew up thinking technology would be a force for good and empowering individuals, communities
So you were a retard then and a retard now?
Fact is I have wasted my kid years/teens on tech and Vidya that is all kinda worthless to me now.
If I could go back and make my self more of a normalfag than a shut in autistic I would.
There are still people fighting back.
Look at Snowden and Aaron Swartz. Some people still believe that freedom of information and right to privacy are attainable.
The corporations and politicians can't be allowed to take over the net. Do you want every site to just be filled with adverts and pushing political agendas with anyone who speaks out against it being crushed?. That's the way it's going, but THERE IS STILL TIME to stop it
fagget weeb
Yeah I'm jaded because engineers are wasting time on developing memes like Internet of Things instead of working on something useful.
The problem is capitalism
Which sector did you transition to?
Thinking about switching myself, perhaps to teaching or healthcare?
> (OP)
>>shoving politics into tech
>Tech in general is just a bunch of tools you use to achieve something.
> it has no value and no ideology.
That's contradictory, "useful tools" are inherently valuable. And really often, ideology helps you de ide what's worthy achieving.
I don't use most modern tech. I would probably start killing people if I was forced to use invasive devices like cell phones. Call the FBI, I don't give a fuck.
If you spend 15 to 20 years doing anything you're bound to get tired of it.
I can't imagine a person over 21 typing a response like this.
editions-hache.com/essais/pdf/kaczynski2.pdf
I bet the device you're using to post this falls in the category if "Modern technology"
Nothing personnel, kid
>edgyanimecharacter.tiff
I actually tried to start my own food business briefly, then funding became an issue and I got into finance so I could get some more capital to work with. So I'm basically using my development skills to do automated trading now, in hopes of funding other less boring businesses. It's definitely lucrative, but I wouldn't do it for it's own sake, and it's surprisingly a lot less soul sucking than a normal development job.
Though I will say that teaching definitely appeals to me too. One of my first gigs in college was teaching an after-school programming class for high schoolers, and I have considered doing something like that again eventually. Hopefully doing my part to prevent future generations of developers from falling into the traps that riddle the current generation of pajeets.
Thanks man, I appreciate the insight
Values in the politico-social side of things, not commercial value. And the ones pushing their ideas, their idelogies are the people, not the tech, since they are just tools that assist you. Just a fool would think of computers as a "being"
That's pretty good if you have high data bandwidth/unlimited
I think you can watch 720p60fps YouTube without lag.
Honestly you're living the good life senpai.
>No one is going to leave wallet gardens if they can't reach their friends after that.
What the fuck is a wallet garden?
Came here to say this. Agreed entirely.
>Agreed entirely.
Except LineageOS, I guess. You don't understand smartphones if you think the OS that you see is in any way involved in cellphone surveillance; it's the RTOS underneath it which speaks with the cell network which does that, and no current phone allows you to replace or even see that.