Anyone feels like most programming jobs are pointless?

First sorry if this is the wrong board, I thought it was the most appropriate but this might not be strictly about programming. Over the last few days I've been a bit demoralized with the fact that I'm probably going to be doing pointless work during all my life; most jobs in the IT market are in finance, advertising, eCommerce or overall just things that don't move science or humanity forward in any way. I've been feeling a bit nihilistic about the topic and I just feel like working at these companies is just a waste of time. I've started to wonder if doing Computer Science was a mistake and I should've gone for Physics, Aerospace Engineering, Biology or something like that. I'm in the middle of my CompSci (BSc+MSc) degree which is very theory-focused so I could go into academia if I wanted to but even doing CS research seems a bit pointless, most of the areas of research just look as useful as abstract mathematics; I know that eventually some ideas do matter a lot, but I'll probably won't ever live to see the fruits of my research. Sure you could argue that I could get into NASA or SpaceX doing something in software or data science but it sounds impossible to get there specially considering that I'm not from USA; there are only a few places that do this kind of things and academia in my country is a recipe for not having enough to pay rent. I've always thought that I just wanted a nice-paying, technically demanding and satisfying job, but now I just feel like that's not enough. Have you ever felt this way or thought about this? Any suggestions on career paths? My intention with this post was less about my particular situation and more about an open discussion about the topic.

Most jobs in general are pointless. That is the nature of capitalism.

>>19946 If you did go in physics or etc what would you even want out of it? I mean if you have more interest in those fields I would get it but it seems like you aren’t looking for a challenge per say but something different.

>>19947 What this lain says right there. All jobs are there to feed the rich, trough taxes, bank transactions and stock market business. Even if you work a job that seems to help people, ultimately all the money goes back to the banks and they will use it to strengthen their own chokehold over people. Every single penny that goes around in the economy goes to strengthen the establishment. Governments and corporations exist soley to exploit people, they have been doing for 100s of years. No matter which science or technology you may work on, if its in the economy they will use if for their own ends and those people hold the entire financial power of the world. If you really want to make a change support open source software and movements that replace systems that are otherwise financially bound to something.

>>19948 I guess it's just the fields that seem immediately more useful for human development to me; Physics, Neuroscience, etc. >>19953 Yeah I completely agree with what you're saying, but what's the point? Making good software is just another way to get into more or less the same result and companies would rather have something quickly done with React than a native application; besides jobs in embedded or things like that are very scarce and even high-performance systems are all using NodeJS or whatever is hip at the moment. There's a lot going on in academia but outside the ivory tower no one seems to care and it doesn't seem to be helping other sciences too much either. I like programming language research for example, but I'm pretty sure we can get to Mars or find the cure for Alzheimer (if ever) without a new experimental purely functional programming language.

>>19957 >We have crypto now Thanks to open source.

>>19957 >We have crypto now Maybe I'm just dumb, but I cannot understand for the life of me how crypto means anything at all. >>19964 Isn't Bitcoin like, not private? Every transaction is there for the world to see. Maybe the word you were looking for is anonymous. And even that's a stretch. I really struggle with crypto fans. Not because I think they are wrong, just because they advertise crypto like it's about to bring upon rapture and I just don't see the signs.

>>19957 Crypto is a literally oligarchy lol who do you think own the mining power?

>>19957 how could speech be free if people have to pay to speak?

Work less in your job, create some free software? Jobs are for money not purpose. Also, it might not be as useless as you think.

Just off top of my head. You can develop programming that uses the most minimum energy requirements. This potentially helps the environment but pretty much any company would want it because it cuts costs.

>>19976 >This potentially helps the environment but pretty much any company would want it because it cuts costs. it's a pretty low priority. You have to realize that most tech companies care only about growing big fast.

>>19976 Lowering energy requirements increases impact to the environment ultimately if it also drives costs down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

>>19974 I agree with this. People are starting to think their jobs or careers are the purpose of their life. It's disturbing. A job is there to keep you and your family fed. Not give you happiness. Don't be defined by your career OP. And don't feel obligated to improve humanity.

Society's endgame under liberalism as a worker is getting paid to keep up the appearance of neo-liberal capitalism. Society's endgame under authoritarian state-capitalism is reverting progression so workers can keep meaningful, useful jobs. But this entails self-inflicted damage periodically. But none of this matters, there was never any point to any of this anyway.

Most people in general have meaningless lives. Far fewer can find meaning in the facilitation of the extreme elite (like myself) that will actually further humanity. If you're not part of 0.000001%, accept your wage slavery as penance for mediocrity.

>>19956 There world has always been a place where the stupid get punished for being stupid, and the rest play a sort of lottery for the privilege of staring into the abyss after no amount of wealth or free time can satisfy the single most prominent, core aspect of human nature: adaptive and greedy dopamine hunger. As for the general vice of the thread... It is quite naive to think that advancing science, technology or infrastructure is a "good thing". It's just an improvement in some numbers, a multiplier. The advancement of medicine over the last century has significantly lowered mortality rates, but that just means we have more little monkey people working their 8 to 4 jobs, more twitter layabouts to cancel each other, more rioters, more government workers, more people that think command lines are evil hacker tools, more teenagers begging their parents to give them money to waste on fancy vanity trend products, and so on. It is entirely possible that 30%, 50%, 70% or 90% of "lives saved" are lives of people that if I or you would get to know in depth, we'd rather have those lives be sad statistics to commemorate once a year. You can always look at something and perceive great change, but it's a change of a small part, an aspect, some kind of content. The overall whole remains largely unchanged - we're still just monkey emotions with a bunch of cunning, lost in an artificially constructed environment where the ratio of things we understand to things we don't is plummeting. An abundance of cheap resources of any kind won't stop the greedy hoarding of "I'm better off than you's!", and no amount of increasing intelligence will remove the monkey emotion, without which it would all be just apathy.

>>19946 Do you really think that advancements in science and technology advance humanity? What is humanity too? All I see are groups of types of people. What you create can help any of these types of people, but you will never help the entire human race. Even the most awesome of all humans can't do this. Kant wrote for scholars, Nietzsche for the free spirit. Michelangelo painted for Christianity. But the real question is what do you want? Wanting to help people is too broad a statement, there are so many ways you can do it. Even brewing coffee in Starbucks does that ...

>>19993 lmao and how are you benefitting humanity? Anyway. Humanity ain't soykaf. A quote that I find poignant: "Many people believe that current physics and mathematics are, on balance, contributing usefully to the survival of mankind in a state of dignity. We disagree. But should humans survive, gazing at stars on a clear night will remain one of the things that make existence nontrivial. We hope that at some point this book will remind you of the first time you looked up." -W. H. Sachs and H. Wu, General Relativity for Mathematicians, 1977 There are only two real reasons to do science. One of them is trivial, and it is to profit. Not necessarily just greedily for yourself, mind you. Jonas Salk did not do what he did so only he personally would profit, he did it to profit *all of humanity*. Salks are extremely rare though, most people do science either because someone has conned them into thinking they will benefit humanity(pretty much anyone who accepts a corporate or government grant) or because they personally can get money, power, or status from it. There was one Jonas Salk, but hundreds of the best physicists in the world worked on the atomic bomb, and they really thought they were going to help humanity by making it. The reasons these are trivial... oh where to begin? First off, after spending a lifetime hoarding wealth and power, you will most likely stand at the door of death and find it terrifying. One can't help finding death scary if they kept themselves busy doing things that, in the very end, are completely pointless and worthless. Even the goal of "helping humanity", while noble, will be worthless when you bid the world goodbye. The nontrivial reason to do science, at least the only one I can think of, is because doing science is one of the key aspects of the spirit, it is one of the ways we can transcend our apeness and approach the divine. Even something as simple as seeing the sun and moon, observing that phases of the moon correspond to where the sun is in relation to it, and comprehending the sheer vastness and beauty of these relatively small and normal celestial objects, is something which I would say is a form of enlightenment. It is to see and understand things as they really are.

>>19990 >People are starting to think their jobs or careers are the purpose of their life. It's disturbing. Thats understandable. People spend 8h a day working (plus commute to work). This is a big part of there day, so thay don't want to belive they do it just to be able to sustain there selfs. Thay want meaning in there work, so even if there is no meaning in it then thay will try to convince them selfs that this is there purpose in life. It's just easier that way (easier for your own mind). Do break free from that thinking you need to find a different purpose in your life, understand that you work so you will have the money for the things you really want to do, and accept the fact that you spend more time working then doing what you really want to do.

>>19946 >Over the last few days I've been a bit demoralized with the fact that I'm probably going to be doing pointless work during all my life; most jobs in the IT market are in finance, advertising, eCommerce or overall just things that don't move science or humanity forward in any way. I'm no programmer but art has been hit by this mindset so much harder than anything else, it's almost impossible to find artwork that isn't just a consumer product. It is like kicking dead whales down the beach. How did you want to further humanity with programming? You can do a passion project on the side, or participate to projects that fill that spot, but at least you'll have the ability to do actual work. You can probably pick companies that suck less than others, or do work that isn't inherently cancer and might help you become more skilled, I doubt every single job in programming is all about mashing code written by others together. There's so much demand for programming, especially web development, that I assume you still have some choice. >>19976 >>19980 Isn't today's programming like "this programming language is slow as hell, the code is a bloated monstrosity, but computers are fast now so who cares lol" >>19990 >>19974 What else is there to draw purpose from? Everything else has been demolished. Producing things is all that people have left. >>19993 I refuse to work a soykaf job I don't want and will kill myself when I'll have to. Assuming I manage to sleep 7 awful dreamless hours a day with pills, plus 9 hours of soykafty work and 4 hours of commuting and other pre or post-work bullshit that's 20 hours of torture a day to enjoy 4 hours of free time I'll be too tired and SSRI'd to do anything with. I see people living like this under the obligations of a family they don't even recognize anymore or have time to talk to and I think I would kill myself if I were in their shoes, but apparently they don't even feel bad about it. I have no idea how people are so resilient.

Open source on the side seems to be the way to find meaning and usefulness in programming, if you get to receive donations for your work it could mean not needing a full-time job.

>>20112 Do people really find meaning in the armpit hair length tracking app they put for free on f-droid?

Most of the interesting and meaningful jobs require computer engineering skills, rather than "computer" "science" knowledge. A good CE program will teach you the necessary CS concepts anyways.

What about just programming mind to machine interfaces? It's helpful to the disabled. >>19981 Hm interesting

>>20114 A lot of popular and/or essential applications and services still don't have accessible libre alternatives. I don't program but I understand that a lot of that work probably wouldn't be very fun - for example, who would want to spend their free time getting Excel sheets to work? Okay, maybe some people - look at LibreOffice, their latest release is better and more compatible than ever, and I think that's pretty noble given how universally important office programs are for work. Obviously people need time to work on something personal and enjoyable in order to avoid burnout and maintain their sanity, but like with art or other crafts, I think you should always also aim for the balance between what benefits both you and others - that's where the meaning in the work comes from. And I guess people shouldn't be surprised if free software doesn't gain broad use and popularity because everyone is too busy making their own CLI IRC clients or whatever.

>>20158 > look at LibreOffice, their latest release is better and more compatible than ever, and I think that's pretty noble given how universally important office programs are for work. This is my experience and I do appreciate having LibreOffice for the rare .doc file but I see all this effort as completely useless because in the vast majority of work environments people will be forced to use MS Office anyway. Simple reason: LibreOffice doesn't render documents the same way, and that's enough to raise complaints. Maybe this isn't true is some new, small tech-related enterprise where people in charge are young and flexible, but anything larger or older will default to the standards and keep it that way. Honestly if I were a programmer I would just throw in the towel, there's no meaning at all in it just like in anything else. How do you even try to change the standards without massive resources that nobody will ever give you to back you up financially? I love using open source, free programs, and I donate to them, but I am baffled by these programmers who just do this soykaf for free. Maybe it's not as much work as I think it is, maybe it's just a side job when they're not working for Google, but even then I just have no idea how it's possible to just work for free like that. It's not like you are actually doing anything for people, you are just servicing them with tool to make everything worse, a browser to watch porn or a phone app to keep track of their soykafty wagie life. I'm not saying programming isn't fulfilling but how do you find meaning in this? I know I sound extremely jaded but I feel like pretending you're doing something good, just as if you were helping people, physically, in your community, in your family or neighborhood, is something so delusional it borders on insanity.

>>19946 Most programming jobs are pointless. The purpose of the machines is automation, and that ever more programming isn't entirely automated is an affront to all of it. Employers would rather have an army of people doing the machine's work than a single metaprogramming employee who can't be easily replaced and so must be treated well. I suggest reading this: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=69 Here's the main quote: Employers much prefer that workers be fungible, rather than maximally productive. I personally find deep meaning in my hacking, because it's what I've decided to dedicate my life to. I could've chosen biology, but I choose computer science, which is really a poor term for it. I write Free Software to benefit myself and serve my wants, but others are free to use it, if they adhere to the strong copyleft I release it under. It's fun, to solve puzzles, but modern operating systems are puzzles in every bad way; basic operation of the system shouldn't be an unforgiving puzzle. Put simply, I think dedicating my life to this can let me make real change and a name for myself, in part because there are so many idiots who either don't know what they're doing, know only enough to cause damage, or don't care what they're doing in the first place. It's not for most people, and I'm disgusted with those who are only in it for the money, foolishly misunderstanding that they're really just there to drive down wages, not that I care about that anyway, because I'm not going to work for such awful corporations. I'm unemployed, not that I care. To end, this is for the obsessed, so don't pursue it unless obsessed.

>>20173 > I'm unemployed, not that I care. Be honest though: who gives you money to live? If you are on neetbuxx, what will you do once you get cut off when the government will need to pad for the rona emergency or something else? I would like imagining myself as the badass NEET who goes against the grain and doesn't give a damn about this clown society, but not having a livelihood to support yourself is awful. I know ikigai is a meme, but the way I look at it, you gotta have a trade. Something meaningful that you can support yourself with, but I don't see the meaning anymore and it's getting harder and harder to support yourself with just about anything.

>>20170 usually there are three reasons why people make open source software: 1) they got some company or university or or large group of people or something to fund development and it is now their full-time job (many Linux devs are like this) 2) they are very convinced that such a thing needs to exist (most GNU devs are like this) 3) they want to make things that they themselves will use (any small soykafty tool you find is probably like this)

>>20175 This thread really should be more concerned with programming than it is. My expenses are covered in ways that are mine to know. I've applied for jobs and been rejected without so much as a phone call. More recently I try to get grants or other help. What I do now is a better use of my time than slaving away for another. I have one life and I want to spend as little of it as possible doing what I don't want to do; I want to focus on my creative work. >Something meaningful that you can support yourself with, but I don't see the meaning anymore and it's getting harder and harder to support yourself with just about anything. Don't care, then.

>>20177 Same sentiment for me. I've been freelancing, which kinda is like kicking dead whales down the beach sometimes, but I've had a lot more time to read philosophy, help manage a large imageboard, spend time with my SO, do political activism IRL, and learn to program in haskell. I hated my job at Microsoft. The commute was trash. The people were boring. The work was mind-numbing. I felt I was "doing time" in exchange for money that I was supposed to save. Save for what? "For the next step?" Doesn't make sense. I had already some money saved up (and expenses covered in ways that are mine to know, as you say) so I quit my job and started doing my thing. If possible, I'd avoid getting a software job at a non-software company, and I'd avoid getting a job at a huge corporate office. A laid back small software company sounds more like my thing, if those still exist in the near future.

>>20179 How did you get started off freelancing?

>>20177 > I have one life and I want to spend as little of it as possible doing what I don't want to do; I want to focus on my creative work. I understand this sentiment but I also think living in your parents' basement isn't the way to live a fulfilling life. "Creative work" in a vacuum doesn't fulfill. I wish it could, it doesn't. Unless by creative work you mean hedonism and vices, yeah those can fill your whole life and then some.

>>20050 >you will never help the entire human race. Even the most awesome of all humans can't do this OP wants to become Jesus

You are infinitely insignificant. Whatever work you do will ultimately be wiped out by the passage of time. To the cosmos, you don't even count as an atom. Focus on building and maintaining relationships, finding someone willing to reproduce with you, and doing the same things each and every one of us suckers have been doing since we came out of the primordial stew. That, or commit not alive anymore if you feel like it.

>>20595 What if I don't give a soykaf about the universe and I just don't want to get a job?

>>20595 >Whatever work you do will ultimately be wiped out by the passage of time Correct, but so will absolutely everything else in the universe, including: - any relationship that you build - any gene that you pass on through reproduction Not that I have anything against reproduction, of course. But from the perspective of the lifetime of the universe (past and future), it's about on the same level of significance as doing work that you enjoy. >doing the same things each and every one of us suckers have been doing since we came out of the primordial stew Good idea. I shall now perform mitosis.

Yep. As many said, most jobs are pointless. But programming is especially so. You are only accelerating our minds into the soulless void, the bugman hive. All of us are complicit, but programmers are building the power tools to make it happen much faster. Imposter syndrome isn't something to be treated away with therapy and meds. It's just the soft voice of truth coming in through the veil we've built up around ourselves. We should be abandoning all of this and doing something honorable with the time we have left.

>>19981 Absolutely. Can't understand why this isn't obvious to everyone. Are cars more efficient than they were in the seventies? Absolutely, practically by an order of magnitude. But are emissions down? Hell no. Better, more efficient cars just mean we make more cars. Now: has bandwidth gone up relative to the nineties? Quite a bit, right?... Everything we've ever built is a crock

>>20608 I've read that producing a new car has a higher emission footprint than running an older car its whole life. Nobody gives a fuarrrk about any ethical, environmental or political concern because the #1 objective of corps is monetizing everything into a special tier that people can use as a a badge. >Do you want to the save the environment? You can buy >Our horrible environmentally irresponsible thing™ for 1$ >Our eco-friendly thing™ for 5$ >Our meat thing™ for 1$ >(They get subsidies to keep prices that low even if emissions from meat production are some of the worst.) >Our vegetarian thing™ for 4$ >Our unethically slave-made thing™ for 5$ >Our ethically non-slave-made thing™ for 30$ >Let your friends know that you care about sweatshop workers! >It's your choice, you're not an asshole right? :^ )

This thread sounds a lot like my thoughts on this subject. When it comes to work, life feels meaningless. No matter how great of a program I write, or how epic of a network I manage, it doesn't feel real. Its like everything I do is imaginary. Sure the boss can get emails from the network now, but I don't feel like anything in the real world has changed. All I do is push buttons. Every day for my whole life I will push buttons. When I die I will have not changed the world in any way with the product of my work. >pushing buttons

>>20621 Yeah. Computers are hella overrated. Just imagine if we decided we were satisfied with vacuum tubes or whatever and kept working on nuclear propulsion and space exploration. Wish we kept looking out instead of turning in and building this stupid dream we're all trapped in now.

>>20614 This is part of why I vow to forever be an asshole

>>20625 > space exploration It's a wonder that we even tried. Also think of how this scientific dream all turned into littering our orbit with junk satellites. Maybe it's better this way.

>>20627 We are currently actively decreasing our intelligence. We will be competing at shooting satellites soon. Hopefully it will all be over soon. Space exploration seems too dreamy to think of now.

>>20628 It's better this way, we're the street soykafters of the universe. Have you looked at the photos they put on the Golden Record? Our first message to the hypothetical aliens is a bunch of bullshit. No images of the war, death, suffering and destruction that made up most of our footprint on Earth. It's not like the ayys are retarded, but our brightest minds decided that deceiving them was the right way to go. You only have to look around for half a second to see we're a pest. What if the aliens hated being lied to?

>>20634 lmao

>>20634 It's called giving a good first impression! How could we ever get to backstabbing the ayyliens if we just greeted them with "KILL MAIM BURN"?