Ask HN: Feeling disillusioned. Am I overly moralizing Tech? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Feeling disillusioned. Am I overly moralizing Tech?

6 pointsconfoundcofound5 comments

Tech Twitter is ablaze with hype around a new crypto app that lets you monetize relationships. Much of the excitement by builders & VCs explicitly hand-waves away the obvious and self-admitted ponzinomics for the sake of social experimentation.

Watching this play out has peaked my long emerging disillusionment with Tech. When billions are poured into subsidizing the engineering of addiction under the guise of growth, when VR is being pushed as a way to unironically help us connect more immersively, when the crypto intelligentsia continues to wantonly deploy financial mechanisms that almost universally enrich insiders under the guise of economic liberation, and everyone seems obsessed with joining the club at all costs… how are you meant to remain hopeful for tech’s societal impact?

Or am I just overly moralizing this?

Don't participate in it. Who is forcing you to become a crypto bro? Tech is a double edged sword. It can be wielded either for good or bad. You have the choice to make a positive impact and not treat tech like a grift at every opportunity. Tech is not only about money. In-fact money corrupts tech, like it corrupts everything. It becomes about quantity of output instead of quality.

Crypto is, largely, scammer flimflammery in a tech costume. While I think it’s reasonable to be sceptical of tech’s social affects, blaming it for crypto is a bit like blaming the existence of postal services for pyramid scheme chain letters.

This is just how everyone with expertise about their industry (and a heart) feel when they see how it operates in this economic system. There's nothing inherently wrong with tech itself.

You're describing commercial tech companies in a capitalist economy. If you were familiar with other industries I'm sure you'd see similar themes, it's just you're exposed to techs evils by your proximity to the field (my assumption ofc!).

To add some hope, work backwards and think of a field that needs technology. Do those companies seem so bad as well?

You are confusing Tech with CryptoBros.

Stick with Tech and help build a better future.

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