In all of human history, as soon as people get fed, they turn into a group dick measuring contest. Well meaning people who are totally nice starts waving the banners at the sidelines. Politicians dress up impeccably and speak beautiful language at the center stage - to conduct this dick measuring contest.
One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest than out of dick waving necessity.
> One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest than out of dick waving necessity.
Couple of observations:
1. Large amounts of open source projects which seem to ego-driven (i.e. done not to provide genuine improvement, but done for amusement and promotion of the author).
2. Same for conference appearances (speaking at a conference to be able to say one spoke at a conference).
3. Commercial software in sorry state in order to maximize company profits, i.e. increase dick size of the owners.
It's impossible to escape our nature, no matter what field.
> done not to provide genuine improvement, but done for amusement and promotion of the author
I'd argue that if done for amusement, it's rather self-fulfilment than dick waving. Spinning the metaphor, some of us are not open-sourcing their project to put their external organs in other's face, but rather publish "just in case" someone may be interested in bootstrapping another project from here.
> Large amounts of open source projects which seem to ego-driven (i.e. done not to provide genuine improvement, but done for amusement and promotion of the author).
While that kind of thing does happen, many of the participants in older active projects seem to be driven by a genuine desire to improve things for our fellow people.
I speak at conferences so that I can say I speak at conferences so that I can earn more so that I can afford to pay for my kids to go to university. Does that make me a dick?
Sadly, one of the things that is killing my interest in software is that a large part of the efforts I have spent have been on building things that already exist and that all that collective brain power would be better spent on other problems.
I guess I should start working for an open source company.
Finding an entirely new foundational problem and solving that by designing a generic, reusable solution is incredibly hard. Only very few people luck out and succeed in doing that.
The vast majority of modern technology are mainly improvements on past solutions. And the process is entirely darwinistic: only those improvements that come with the least amount of friction will be adopted by a large enough number of users.
The same is true for science. Few people get to crack truly foundational problems. Most people work on different ideas and approaches that refine existing solutions, until the scientific community converges around a new incumbent solution or idea. Then the cycle begins again when a new idea or solution enters the domain. Rallying our collective brain power towards a few or even a single idea or solution will slow that feedback cycle.
So, working on a variation of an existing thing isn't necessarily bad. Your execution may be better then the incumbent solution and uproot the status quo.
There are also other reasons why working on an existing problem may yield benefits:
You learn more about the process. For instance, a simple todo application isn't interesting in itself. But going through the process of building one and finding out how to do that efficiently: that's where you'll find value. Those experiences and lessons you take to the next project which may be your own or part of a bigger mission or vision.
If you work with other people, you are practicing your communication skills and your people skills. Both are hugely valuable as well. The most impact you can have isn't necessarily through writing code on your own, but by coaching and supporting others; clearing impediments and clarifying problems by reframing them.
If you cling on to the notion that building something entirely new is the only relevant measure of success, you set yourself up for failure.
I think that is what makes me most sad about Linux distros. So much time spent just to create a pleasant desktop experience or find yet another way to organize config files.
It's tough, because the variety and freedom is the whole point. But it feels wasteful.
Macroorganizational dick measuring isn't an automatic outcome of the needs pyramid at all. Far more wars have been fought to distract from domestic problems than because there were no other problems left unsolved.
> One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest
A genuine interest in artillery trajectories and cryptoanalysis? I don't think so.
What's wrong with that? Glory is a powerful motivator and encourages people to do genuinely impressive things. Instead of decrying the desire to excel, you should channel it in productive directions. There's no shame in doing something wonderful for the recognition. There's only a problem when society is dysfunctional enough that people can't get recognition by doing productive things.
The desire to excel and the desire for glory are two different things.
I'm not on board with those who say the desire for glory is automatically a bad thing, though (although I admit that it is something that I don't really understand).
I would say you’re right, but your implication (that this only has negative effects) is wrong. There are a lot of positive things that people trap themselves into first as platitudes they speak, but then identify with, and then feel that they must defend as part of their identities.
For example, it is a long-standing hypothesis of mine that countries become more democratic precisely because democracy is a nice thing for a government to claim to support—and then, two generations later, everyone running the government was brought up to think that their country was “democratic”—and so acts under the assumption that it is democratic, applying concepts like “rule of law” and “constitutional rights” and so forth, because they know that those are what democratic nations do.
One would prefer to have innovation without killing millions. Electronic calculators are a thing before that. It’s a natural progression, WWII just made it a little bit faster, at the cost of about a hundred million souls.
In all of human history, as soon as people get fed, they turn into a group dick measuring contest. Well meaning people who are totally nice starts waving the banners at the sidelines. Politicians dress up impeccably and speak beautiful language at the center stage - to conduct this dick measuring contest.
One of the big reason I like computers and software is that it seemed to be borne out of genuine interest than out of dick waving necessity.