I know I'm focusing on one small part of your post - but don't forget that guaranteed income could enable folks to live in places with very low cost of living, but little to no economy where that wasn't previously possible for them without guaranteed income
I am sad to agree with you. We in tech love to believe - with our inflated egos due to recent successes improving the world - that every problem is solved through more tech. I think we need to watch tech fail to solve some problems and experience that failure first hand to really believe that some problems are rooted in culture and social norms, not in a lack of guidance or convenience from some app.
I feel like we've lost connection and patience for each other from lack of practicing empathy. More technology is not the answer to that. I hope we find an equilibrium where we move past such an infatuation with tech that we let it be the right amount of a participant in our lives and place more of an emphasis on the human experience and condition and value our humanity first.
People are lonely because corporate culture - including, but not limited to, work culture - is outrageously demanding and often insane, not because they need an app to remind them to phone grandma.
Everyone - who isn't financially independent - could benefit from shorter hours and more creative freedom and financial security. Apps that try to parent us are not a solution.
"We in tech love to believe ... that every problem is solved through more tech."
As a recovering technophile [1], I remind you that Arabic numerals, alphabets, double entry accounting, and a zillion other things are also technologies.
Technology is more than modern hardware and software and algorithms.
Sometimes it's just a new take on old problems.
Sometimes it's starting with a new set of assumptions.
Sometimes it's revisiting problems after the economics have changed, identifying new opportunities.
An exception I could see to this is if somehow technology could be employed to affect those cultural/social norms? Maybe the problem is where we're aiming the technology, and not technology itself.
Though, I could be wrong about that. I agree that there are some problems not solved through more technology and the "there should be an app for that" mentality can be a problem.
I can totally relate to the future me being a cocky asshole part. I just had this experience coding the other day. I got about 15 minutes in thinking "this will be way better", git mv'ing files and committing etc until I ran into the exact same roadblock and it all came back to me. Now there is a sheepish trail of commits with messages explaining why I was wrong and it wasn't way better. I could have force pushed the commit before I started the changes but I wanted to shame myself so maybe I'll remember next time...
