The Damaging Myth That We Make the World a Better Place Through Coding
Photo by Justin Ziadeh on Unsplash
I’ve noticed a myth that is peddled by fellow software developers. It’s that we are changing the world through the software engineering work we do and ultimately making the world a better place.
I can’t help but offer a skeptical counterpoint to this. I’m going to tell you that you probably aren’t making the world a better place and by pushing this myth you are making the world worse. Let me explain.
The Digital Utopia Fallacy
I do appreciate that some software developers entered the industry with the hope of disrupting industries, armed with nothing but a laptop and a head full of algorithms.
If you are anything like me you were raised with stories of tech moguls using their garages to turn ideas into billion-dollar companies. The problem with this narrative is we miss the complexity of the world and what it takes to change the world.
It takes our energy away from what we should be doing, and what we should be doing is changing the world.
Our work Doesn’t Make the World a Better Place
Your Work Is Software Development
The work of a software developer is never finished. You might be load-balancing work across servers, fixing a UI issue, or hamming out some business requirement (that don’t make sense). More likely, you’re fixing a defect because of non-specific acceptance criteria or fixing some tech debt from your predecessor.
How do any of these activities relate to changing the world?
Some might claim that working on their application is democratizing information and their work contributes to the wider goal. Yet your efforts are a small part of a team’s work and if you didn’t complete those tickets someone else would. Is your idea of changing the world simply being a cog in a corporate machine?
It’s a Contractual Action
In almost all cases you wouldn’t be able to clear that tech debt (or whatever) without being paid. Your job is a paid contractual activity that has very little to do with changing the world. You’re doing it to be paid on a personal level. On a corporate level, the company is only doing work because they will gain monetarily from doing so.
McDonald’s mission isn’t to feed the world. McDonald’s employees don’t claim that they are changing the world as they’re paid for their labor and complete tasks accordingly — and don’t change the world doing so. Do you think you are different from that? Even McDonald’s doesn’t claim to be feeding the world for the betterment of humanity. Why do you think you walk on water?
The Barriers are High for Users
Even if you are making an app for free that does help the world in some way. You’re giving educational content for doctors in sub-Saharan Africa for free in native languages. You don’t take a salary and the modest running costs of the venture are paid for by donations from Western corporations.
You’re still not changing the world. Because who has the Internet connection, machine, and time to use your app? That’s right. The privileged who don’t need it desperately. You’re enabling the (relative) rich to gain an advantage over their peers. You’re not changing the world, but excluding those who need help the most. Go you.
You Don’t Know What Makes The World a Better Place (Neither Do I)
I’m a software developer. I go to work and effectively push tickets, argue about code reviews, and think we never really tackle tech debt.
Who am I to say what makes the world a better place? How do I know if making an app that helps cut power usage uses more power than it saves (in total with hosting usage, my personal power usage, and so on.)?
I’m qualified to use design patterns to solve software engineering problems. I’m not qualified to weigh up the positive externalities and negative externalities of the work I do. I don’t know if I’m destroying the world RIGHT NOW BY WRITING THIS BLOG POST (I almost certainly am).
The Real Issues with Making the World a Better Place
It’s not only that you probably aren't making the world a better place. It’s taking attention away from what we actually should be doing as software developers
The Diversity Opportunity
The problem when we focus on changing the world is that we miss the changes we can make. Diversity in Tech is an absolute joke and is something that needs to be changed.
Instead of thinking we are changing the world by making electric car charging points available, why don’t we change the nature of the way we work in tech?
We are missing a great opportunity by thinking we can change the world at the drop of a hat when we simply cannot.
Focus on small changes
In your own life, you can make small changes to the world that make a real difference.
I’ve mentioned McDonalds in this article: don’t eat McDonalds.
Don’t go on X and make other’s lives a misery (you know who you are).
Work to make your codebase better by tackling tech debt.
Do what you can instead of thinking of the big picture that you’re unlikely to be able to change
So, What’s the Point?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to say that all is doom and gloom. Far from it. The tech industry has the potential to be a force for good, to solve real problems that affect real people. But to do so, we need to actually make changes. This isn’t an article that is saying we can’t change the world, it’s a call to arms about how we actually can change the world and a plea for us to actually do it.
Conclusion
In the world of software development, we need diversity of thought. That’s the only way that we will make the world a better place.
We need diversity of thought, a willingness to question the status quo, and, perhaps most importantly, a focus on creating technology that serves, not just sells. It’s time to move beyond the myth of making the world a better place through code alone and start making it a reality.