alt Hacker NewsYou seem to be saying two things. For me, the answer is: I've been somewhere in the middle—working on real projects, sure. I've been employed as a software developer in the past, and I've worked with startups and corporations. I've also worked in academia.
Have I spent years, personally grinding directly in the belly of the beast? No. I managed a small dev team in small startup once. Yeah, it's not the same thing. I know I don't know everything.
Yes, I'm familiar with the critiques of capitalism. I went to art school. Art school is like studying philosophy, but only the social critique parts (for better or worse).
Yes, I'm aware that I'm being ingested by machinery that serves capital. I've read Nick Land.
We're all doing our best to navigate this, but don't forget that poets, mathematicians, artists, and musicians really exist. They contact the cold realities of real life too, and many of them still succeed, still live beautiful lives. And no matter how bad things are, they still write history in the long-run.
I envy you to be honest. My muse doesn't bring me visions of sublime beauty. No melodies, landscapes, scenes or plays in the mind's eye. Just blueprints, system diagrams, feedback loops, crystalized reasoning, probable futures, things going wrong, breaking. Never in a way that seems to be communicable to galvanize more than a couple people who probably already know what I'm seeing deep down in their hearts. But... I'm trying. I flubbed the middle. The point was, no one at the bottom can unseat the people at the top or their optimization function from inside the system, playing by it's rules. Unless we all align on something to force a change; the system's stable & will remain so. There's just one outcome, and it ain't pretty for most of us. I can't even bring myself to throw my weight in as much as I used to, because I just can't not see the patterns everywhere I look now. Didn't mean to be rude. Just. Tired. So, so, very tired. The kind sleep won't fix. Whatever your art form... May you get good inspiration, and may the work to realize lighten your soul in the doing, and everyone's around you. Mine... Certainly doesn't.