I build infrastructure (raised beds, drainage, chicken runs, composting areas) for our garden and even with that minor engineering get a good look at the level of manufacturing sophistication required to do basic things well, down to the accuracy of our mitre saw (which doesn't reset to 90 degrees very well) or staples that flatten instead of penetrating wood, or the timber I buy that isn't extremely straight.
Maybe it was because I was 18 at the time, but man, there was so much more optimism. Kind of hope we return to 2008 with Occupy Wall St and more environmental consciousness personally. I also refer to it as “zeitgeist tech” because I think we’re currently in a phase where said tech has captured the public imagination, but I think we’re also seeing it’s end, the decline of all major social networking players being the most visible side-effect (I don’t consider TikTok to be a social network). Hence why when people say they want to “work in STEM” they implicitly are referring only to programming most of the time, and also implicitly referring to being a web dev or phone dev, and not some guy that writes software for power plants or whatever. What captures people’s interests is internet-adjacent stuff, and that’s especially true if said thing can be compared to as “a new internet”. As incredible as it is that solar panels keep getting cheaper and more efficient, the real miracle is that no one gives a shit about them. There’s plenty of technological improvements within the past 20 years, we just tend to ignore them the further they fall outside of internet-adjacent technology. I think op is referring to what I call “capital T tech”, or alternatively, “big internet tech”.
0 kommentar(er)
