I'm an American software developer and the "broligarchs" don't speak for me - ratfactor
I'm an American software developer and the "broligarchs" don't speak for me - ratfactor
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I'm also a software engineer and I can't stand most other people in this field. I got into this field because I love computers and was tweaking garry's mod scripts when I was 12. I read scifi books and enjoy reading about the lore of the tech industry.
I would estimate that AT LEAST 75% of people in this industry are ladder climbing yuppies who got into it for the money. The gym rat, tesla-driving podcaster types who have invented their own language about syncing up, achieving alignment, creating action items and eating dog food. And for some reason they're all into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Lex Fridman/Joe Rogan
I do not socialize with my coworkers because they are the most obnoxious fucking money-obsessed pieces of shit I've ever met
I work at a soulless megacorp these days, but I have to say I'm lucky and the vast majority of developers I work with arr not like this.
Bit of an unhinged and unreasonable nerd rant but here it goes:
The second dot com boom in the 2010s ruined us. Like holy shit. As someone younger looking down the line, living in tech bro culture, but exposed to the likes of the jargon file, y combinator and their venture capitalists literally ruined hacker culture.
We used to have a thriving culture that cherished freedom, real freedom, not freedom for the rich. What happened to the culture that spawned Windows buyback day? What of the dream that networked freedom would one day break the chains of economic heirarchy?
Like holy fucking shit. If you're not here for the love of the machine stop touching a compiler or better yet go loose your fucking hands.
Minor note: Jargon file is much older than any of that (and most of us).
I know that was part of my point. Thing was mostly finalized by my birth year lmao.
Also, little off-topic but, as important as it is to computing culture, some of the gatekeepy shit put in there aged like milk. But I kind of expect that from nerd culture, especially 20th century nerd culture.
Preach.
Information wants to be free.
Can't stop the signal.
Techbros killed me, Mal.
They killed me with an IPO. How weird is that?
A total crash would scare the money away but leave all the hardware and software behind
Marching orders if I ever saw some. Drop a neutron bomb on the investors class. I think a good anti-AI FUD campaign might get off the hook. Something good enough to crash every silicon valley bank!
Bring back little websites ran by furries
I just wanna build cool shit and solve puzzles using the smallest amount of code possible that still makes sense to read. That’s fun to me. I’ve honestly gotten incredibly sick of renting by brain out to people for the majority of my waking hours mostly just to put a roof over my head.
This is me. We had a public holiday the other day and, since the weather wasn't great, I decided to start a new project to write code because I enjoy it. Also, Twitch's event/API documentation does not spark joy (weird grammar like "one of the following" what looks like a partially deleted line; response/requests that are in tables aligned by a number (only two, so good luck people like me) spaces to indicate level, and just plain wrong and missing info ("this API responds 202" -- LIAR!).
Where are you? My experience has been that most developers are obsessed with programming and politically liberal. I'm in the midwest, though, so maybe things are not so rosy on the west coast. It could also just be one person's experience, but I have worked at a lot of different places in the last 35 years.
As another east-coaster, I feel comfortable saying there's a huge cultural difference in the industry between here and the west coast (and Silicon Valley specifically). It's a gap that's been growing wider for over a decade now.
It used to be that everyone followed the Microsoft/Apple culture nationwide (and before them — IBM's). Then Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Silicon Valley startup culture took over the West.
FAANGlikes are the typical breeding ground. “Move fast and break stuff” industry disrupters whose plan is to corner a market and squeeze it. VC gooners. Crypto perverts. Technofeudalism pedos.
Yep. They basically never recovered from that 3rd bong hit they took in their freshman year of college and think because they've read the likes of Bastiat, Friedman, von Mises, Rand, and Rothbard they know everything.
Also from midwest. Same experience, with the exception of a few people who get really cranky when politics comes up and they realize they are working with a bunch of liberals.
South east here and yeah same. The overwhelming majority of my coworkers couldn't be farther from the techbro stereotypes and most of them tend towards the progressive side of the spectrum.
Seems like most “tech bros” aren’t really developers. They’re moving up the ladder or founding a startup and talking to VCs. Or possibly devs in the gaming industry. Most regular developers I know aren’t “tech bros”
Yeah, they trade on their family's money and connections, and don't really know how to do anything but what to kiss and when. Scum of the earth.
Count yourself lucky. I've been in the business a shockingly long time and I'd say most of my peers leen towards the right, though more are libertarians than are MAGAts.
Yes, there are things even worse than libertarianism.
And some of the most radical lefties I've met in the business are very senior, some C-level. I'm not sure what to make of that.
I have a similar experience, but even with people in southern Ohio and Kentucky (where a lot of my current co-workers are), there is the opposite of a conservative tech-bro trend.
It's the Kroger kids isn't it?
No but you got the city right. 🙂
It's not hard, Ohio is a diagonal line. Nobody says they're from Southern Ohio and means they day tripped to Huntington as a kid.
Who also have absolutely ZERO moral compass. Like literally don’t give two shits if they’re coding a piece of software going into a baby killing machines.
I'm with you. I used to build maps, models, and textures for Battlefront 2 and share the files for free on Filefront. I got into programming for the joy of creating things that make people happy, or solve some little problems they have. I still make mods, the communities are out there and I'm glad I found them.
But tech evangelists and bro culture ruined the idea of programming as a career for me. The greed of late stage capitalism infected our industry the moment Facebook hit the scene, crypto accelerated it, and AI may as well be the final nail in the coffin. It's no longer a worthy or noble profession.
I have a couple friends that are software devs, and they echo the exact same sentiment. We've bonded over computers over the years, and they all wish they'd chosen a different career path at times because there are so many morons, and typically the morons are the worst devs out there.
What career is better?
All well paid professions have this culture of striver bootlicker trying to get ahead by any means necesst expect doing the real work
Everyone knows being a work horse is a stupid proposition now... Working hard to get somebody else promoted haha
At this point I have no clue. I'm an electrician with my own shop, and we do well, but damn is it tough on the body. I've been beginning to think of what to do next, but nothing's really grabbing me, especially to keep my income where it's at. And yeah, that's a good reason to avoid those hyper corporate environments, no thanks haha.
If you're interested in educational advancement, electrical or civil engineering programs might be good for you. Yes you're going to deal with 22 year old TAs talking about ayn rand, but your experience could be really valuable. Especially if you want to get into electrical infrastructure work. It's vital and unglamorous and it's probably better if some of the people designing our infrastructure understand building and maintaining it.
I've actually been eyeing EE programs and probably will pursue one at some point as I'm fascinated with larger infrastructure and larger power systems. A few years ago I was actually chasing a position with our local POCO for an engineering spot but was shot down due to lack of degree (even though the person they hired came from water and has a civil degree, and apparently is a complete moron). The issue I have now is finding a reputable online program as I live in the mountains and the closest school that has such a program is two hours away, and the last thing I want to do is move into a denser populated area. So I dunno, I'm alright for now but definitely am keeping eyes open.
Yeah one of the things about an engineering degree is that the base knowledge of an engineering degree often means you're eligible as a low choice for any engineering field. I know mechanicals working in aerospace for example (and personally I regret going industrial instead of mechanical but it's just not worth getting a second bs in engineering for that reason).
And yeah, the location thing is hard. I've seen some people stack courses like crazy to get in and out fast, but it's generally understood that that's unwise with engineering courses. If you don't mind doing a few semesters in person you could reduce that time by finding a college thats credits transfer there with good online courses and doing all the non-engineering classes. At my university it was extremely common for engis to take math at the local community college because our university math department was notoriously bad for anyone that wasn't a math major.
And yeah large power systems are cool as hell.
It's really fun when you become senior enough to be able to weed out the no-talent greasy-pole climbers.
Also, it's not even their own language. It's a degraded pidgin derived from MBA buzzwords and shitty management books sold in airports. You can get most of it here: https://www.bullshitgenerator.com/
Studying software engineer, the amount of weird looks I got from windows users for having a terminal open on my linux pc is scary
I read scifi books and enjoy reading about the lore of the tech industry.
If it’s any consolation, we’re kinda heading into the futuristic dystopian tech hellscape portrayed by so much sci fi. So that’s fun.
One hell of a consolation prize
i wish there was a place where normies didn't want to work so we could all go there
who have invented their own language about syncing up, achieving alignment, creating action items
My soul contracted in upon itself a little as I read that.
Hey, I'm only money-obsessed because I'm trying to retire.
I saw my retirement fund .
I'll probably be in the ground and STILL working.
I'm the same way. I thought websites were cool and wanted to make one. So I did and taught myself. Then I took a class at my high school, then again at the local community college once I could do concurrent enrollment. In college, I worked on software projects to relax from my CS classes, and I still do that today.
Even if AI takes my job, I'll probably still hack on stuff. I'm in it because I love software dev. I probably could've climbed the ladder long ago, but that would've required sacrificing what I want to do.
So yeah, hopefully I can keep making money with my hobby, but I'm not interested in becoming a corporate hack just to make a buck.