Chris Carter

There no more useful innovation to be done in the field of computing. If there is, almost nobody is working on it.

Computers are useful for processing data and communicating with others. Anything beyond that is useless at best, and harmful at worst. Our current computer infrastructure already solves the basic problems we want it to. We already have programs and protocols like email, and HTTP, and SMS, etc. which allow us to communicate with each others just fine. We already have programs that allow us to share documents and photos and videos and other files. We already have programs that allow us to do financial accounting, and banking, and currency transaction. We have programs to keep things cryptographically secure. Name any human function that we need computers for, and I claim it is already built. Useful computing needs only to be maintained at this point.

I claim that almost all of the so-called “innovations” beyond these basic functions are consumptive and parasitic. You don’t need them. Your life would probably be better without them. You don’t need social media, or Netflix, or YouTube, or that new videogame. You don’t need a smartphone with a bunch of apps. You don’t need fantasy football.

The thing is, these products correspond to the most “in demand” fields in software engineering currently. “Data science” is about farming human information to sell to data brokers, or designing algorithms to keep you endlessly watching YouTube videos and buying cheap Chinese goods on Amazon. “Computer vision” is about making computers that can drive cars, read license plates, recognize faces, and otherwise contribute to the Surveillance State. “Virtual Reality” and the “Metaverse” are just attempts to build a parallel reality to God’s world. Even if you’re not working on the cutting edge, you’re working on a solution no one really needs, like maintaining the infrastructure at Netflix, or building ETL pipelines for data analytics that no one is going to use anyway.

The market agrees with me. Data Scientists always get laid off first, because when budgets are tight, businesses need to keep production lines going, not data analytics dashboards. Big Tech lays off programmers whenever the going gets tough, and eliminated hundreds of thousands of people’s jobs in 2023 when it did. Big Tech is also raising prices. Streaming services are reaching record high prices for subscriptions. Spotify is raising their Premium rates, as is Amazon Prime. This is partly due to inflation, and partly because tech is a fragile, low-margin industry.

I’m a programmer. I want to work on stuff that helps people. It used to be you could make money setting up hardware and websites and mail servers for people who needed them. Nowadays, those are solved problems. Anyone can set up a website using SquareSpace or Wix or WordPress in a few minutes, as long as it looks “good enough” and they’re willing to overpay for a monthly subscription fee. No one wants a freelance web developer who can do the same thing for you. It’s a solved problem; you’re not needed anymore. You can say the same thing for email or other business systems. No one cares anymore that Gmail is spying on them; it’s free, why would I hire you to set up my own mail server? Why would I pay you to write me some accounting software when I can just use QuickBooks online? Why do I need my own on-prem server for my documents, when I can just use Google Drive? It’s a solved problem, you get it? We don’t need you.

The only opportunities for a new software engineer are at the big firms with an established market share. Even the goal of most startups is to run a deficit for as long as they need to until they get bought out by Google or Microsoft. That’s why all the dream software jobs are at Meta (Facebook), X (Twitter), Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, etc.; there’s not a lot of new money to be made in tech.

When you do get hired by them, you’re likely going to be doing something that people don’t need, like data science on their user data, or figuring out how people can consoom more content on their platform, or on some stupid AI proof of concept where you make silly pictures that combine a cat with a walrus, or something.

Think of it this way. Look at the apps page in your phone. Do you really need another app? Do you think that nagging feeling in your chest that says “something isn’t right here” is going to go away because some blue-haired software engineer in SoCal working on one of Elon’s new hairbrained ideas for X.com pushes some new code to the App Store? Do you really think more screen time is going to make your life better?

Now, a certain kind of bugman might retort that “it’s not just about what people need, luddite, what people want matters too, omg just let people enjoy things! *sips mocha latte*”. My concern is not with what people like; people enjoy all sorts of vices. My aim is to understand what is the complete good of man, and my claim is that all this superfluous tech is at best a distraction from that good, and at worst opposed to that good. No one feels good after a several hour YouTube binge. No one walks away from Twitter feeling edified and joyful and convicted. Everyone always feels a little guilty about their smartphone addiction after they check their screen time report.

When the most prestigous roles in your society are physicians and attorneys, then your people are sick and litigious. What does it mean when working at Big Tech is also highly esteemed?

Seriously, man. I’m not the smartest bat in the belfry, but I’m pretty good with computers. I just don’t want to work on stupid garbage that’s ultimately not good for people. The problem is that makes me useless nowadays.