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Does technology actually add value to the world?

I had a long and intresting conversation with my therapist just now. I’m not comfortable sharing exactly what we were talking about but I can rephrase it: basically I was complaining that tech companies don’t want to innovate.

I’ve been trying to bring new technologies to my boss because I thought it would give him a better opportunity to realize value from the products I’m creating/maintaining for him. That’s what I understand is my purpose in the workforce. I’m a programmer not a salesman I can’t go out to the market and get him the money so he can pay me with something, I can only make things put things in his hands for him (or hire someone to) to go out and collect the money we deserve (deserve within the limits of market demands and the nature of the product, not the labor invested). But he doesn’t want them… well he does when he needs them but I miss way more times than I hit which is making my professional feelings feel less valuable. And if I’m not valuable enough then I can’t work doing what I love.

When I started working I went in with a plan to upgrade and modernize everything I touch. I still believe that to be the case, or like… my “purpose”(as an employee not a person). But every company I’ve worked for so far has been running old ass shit. Springboot apps, create-react-apps, codebases in c and c++, no kubernetes, little to no cloud. And it feels like everything that tech companies want me to do is maintain and expand old existing codebases. And I understand why, I know that its expensive to rewrite entire code bases just for a 20% efficiency boost and to make it easier to add upgrades every once in awhile. But noone is taking advantage of innovative technology anymore and that’s what’s concerning me.

In my therapist’s opinion he thinks we as a soceity are not taking 100% advantage of technology we have. I can’t go into too many details bc our conversations are private but at the end I agreed with him. I’m seeing it now in my working day but he convinced me that it’s everywhere. Are people actually benefitting from technology enough such that nobody actually needs to work to maintain a long and healthy life?

Lets say that no, technology is underutilized in our soceity. Does that mean that if we use technology more we’d have enough value in the economy to pay everyone a UBI? Could we phase out the human workforce to some extent? Or do we actually need more workers to do work to make the value, in which case we can’t realistically do UBI because people need to get paid competitivily to do the work.

Lets say that yes, we are taking all advantages of technology. If so than there should be enough value to pay a UBI. But we don’t have a UBI, so why? If the value exists than where is it? I don’t believe its being funnelled into the pockets of some shadowy deep-state private 4th branch of government. If it was than there’d be something to take, is there? Are we sure that its enough?

Basically I don’t know if technology generates value.

Think about it like this

If its cheaper to use technology to grow an acre of corn than to use people, is that subsequent output of corn more valuable or less valuable because of the technology. And if you believe that scaling up corn production to make the corn just as valuable as if we didn’t have technology then you agree that the corn is now less valuable. If self-checkout machines are replacing cashiers, does that mean that the cashiering work being done by the machine is more valuable to soceity or less?

This is basically end stage capitalism. We need to recognize if the work we do for soceity (whether you derive personal fulfillment or not) is actually adding to soceity or not. I’d rather not give up my job as a programmer just so I can do something more valuable, but I might have to if that’s the case. And I feel like most people in the world are thinking like that too. Is soceity trying to hang on to the past, or do we just not understand the future?

Sorry for the wall of text. I feel like this might be to philosophical for this community but I couldn’t find a better place to post this. If you know of a better community for this discussion to take place then I’ll consider moving this post based on the comments already posted. Thank you for reading this and I’d love to answer any question you’d have about my opinions/feelings.

MonkderZweite ,

Tech companies only want new if it generates/saves short term money. Long term money only with a understanding, far-sighted upper level, which is rare. Reallistic risk mitigation (i.e. not the magic black box á la Fortinet) only with a boss who’s in tech himself.

habanhero , (edited )

There is a lot to unpack from your post. First of all, there is no doubt that technology in general adds value for the human race - like the another commenter said, foundational things like fire, tools all the way to the zipper and buttons you have on clothings, umbrellas you bring into the rain, the video chats you have with loved ones during COVID - those are all the fruits of technology.

But if you get down to the particulars, value can be very subjective. Some people value fancy new tech sneakers, primate NFTs whereas others value new computer vision technology or a new programming language. So are certain technologies adding value? Depends on who you ask.

As for who is capturing value in a capitalistic society, I think you already have the answer. Simply put, if your company operates at a 50% efficiency and you bump it up to 70% with tech and automation, rest assured that you are going to see job cuts to “become lean” and to “do less with more”, followed by increased targets to produce more. You are not going to get more leisure time but instead be asked to push ahead until you hit the physical limit and break.

danhab99 OP ,
@danhab99@programming.dev avatar

Simply put, if your company operates at a 50% efficiency and you bump it up to 70% with tech and automation, be assurance you are going to see job cuts and increased targets to produce more

And there’s the point. I do not disagree that technology puts people out of a job. What I want to understand is whether or not that technology is creating more value. And if so than more technology means more value which means we can eventually get to a place of so much societal surplus that we can reorchestrate soceity to enjoy the benefits of it. That’s the end stage of capitalism, it will become outdated eventually. Capitalism is a growth phase, and growth hurts, I’m the last person in the world to deny that.

The reason it ends is because there are people who are poor and sick and starving and I AM NOT OK WITH THAT! If I was than capitalism can persist, but I don’t want it to because I don’t want my fellow Americans, my fellow people, to suffer. There’s no way to acknowledge my priviledge enough when I say that yeah, people have to suffer for all of us to grow, and it hurts that some of those people won’t be there with us in the end, and it’s terrifying to think that I could be one of those who don’t see the end.

So that’s where my question is. If a company experiences a +30% efficiency boost due to technology, does soceity benefit from it?

habanhero ,

What I want to understand is whether or not that technology is creating more value.

I think the question to ask is value created for whom. Based on my personal and probably biased opinion, value is not created for the greater good but for the capital owners and shareholders.

And if so than more technology means more value which means we can eventually get to a place of so much societal surplus that we can reorchestrate soceity to enjoy the benefits of it.

Again, my opinion, but it’s not in the DNA of a capitalistic society to have surpluses so someone will capture it and try to squeeze out more. So in the event of a seismic technology advancement, my dystopian view is that the poor will not reap much benefits, and instead of billionaires, we will have trillionaires.

So that’s where my question is. If a company experiences a +30% efficiency boost due to technology, does soceity benefit from it?

I think if there is a counterbalance to capitalism and corporate greed then yes, some of that value will come back to society. Perhaps an improved medication at cost, better transit, emergency response technology… But if we leave it in the hands of capitalists they will enrich themselves very quickly.

nayminlwin ,

Another aspect to consider is the term " invention is the mother of necessity" coined by Jared Diamon, in contrast to " neccessity is the mother of invension". A lot of technology either get discarded or used for something that the technology wasn’t originally intended. Hence the idea that inventions come first and the necessity for them follows later. Targetes technological innovation tenda to be very expensive and involves a lot of trial/error.

I believe this phenomenum doesn’t just apply to big innovations and inventions. It also applies to day to day problem solving and in your case, choosing the right technology for your work. Without prior experience and established norm, a technology that might completely makes sense to you for a certain kind of work, might not pan out in actual use.

NigelFrobisher , (edited )

I don’t feel like most of the work I’ve done in my career has generated value. A lot of the businesses I worked for were about inserting themselves between an actual business (e.g. hotels selling time in their rooms) and their users, and thereby generating economic rent.

Similarly, the obsession we have as developers and technologists with upgrading our stacks for, as you point out, marginal theoretical efficiency improvements - it’s just busywork. I swear a lot of what dev departments do is becoming more and more over-complicated wheel spinning purely to justify the size of the development team.

Not that I mind having a job that can be really rewarding and fits my skillset like little else.

MaryTzu ,

My observations:

Existing companies do tend to (but not always) stick with their legacy stack. It makes sense, it’s the safe option.

Start ups OTOH, have the freedom to choose a new and innovative stack and often do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The ones that survive and thrive will likely be dated in another decade and be seen as the old guard with legacy stacks.

It’s the circle of life.

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