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As a failed (not really, but academically) engineer who is only comfortable around non-humans I find this very relatable. But is it more the human contact or the human contact with engineers in specific or the technology that gives you soul damage?
I actually love tech, but I also think a lot of modern tech is overkill and shouldn't exist, and I can't get excited about modern gadgetry anymore.
Machine learning will continue until morale improves.
Honestly, the fact that engineering isn't public facing was a big plus! But it's the tech part. I'm a zoology/maths major that switched to engineering for a bit. I thought it'd be great! I love combat robotics, and I tinker with gameboys ffs.
This resonates. I have boundless wonder for the amazing things in the universe that we get to witness (using said tech) from the molecular level up. I don't know why this stops at human-created things, as I do like tech too - as a layman.
It just feels like human development and expansion is a zero-sum game with nature, and my heart is with the biodiversity we are destroying. I was so excited for circuits class too.
May I ask what you ended up doing? Did you become disillusioned with the field?
I think I got lured in when techbros had some credibility, and I hoped to learn enough to participate in creating technological solutions to remediate ecological destruction - renewable energy, e-mobility, ... I was an adult student who had half of her licenciatura in EE done (like bachelors I think?), then Covid hit and it was the perfect excuse to give up university and spend some time considering the doubts that had been building up.
All the hard science just didn't add up. Somewhere in my thermodynamics semester it just started to dawn on me that a lot of the so called technological solutions were just greenwashing bullshit while we were still celebrating endless growth, endless innovation and endless consumerist bliss. The big picture was still missing, and any ethical or philosophical training was entirely missing from the curriculum, so you have all these clever youngsters being trained to earn good money in tech and never spend a single thought about the larger implications of their activities.
I've simplified my life. I work as a technical translator - like I did before studying EE. My brain wouldn't do complicated stuff for a long while, and as this capacity grows back slowly I try to put it to good use in small scall permaculture - I tinker with ram pumps and electric fence. I've took my drone out the other day to see if it could be used for searching lost animals in the mountains (happens often where I live), it's too much of a fire risk this time of the year though. Solar cooking and heating is another field where I've done some stuff and want to do more.
I also try to figure out where using tech is useless, especially on the farm. Transporting stuff for example can be reduced to a minimum. Often the laziest method wins. We don't bring the food to the animals but the animals to the food. We compost things in place whenever we can. We use animals for land clearing, fertilizing, weeding, removing pests. A lot of this can also be applied to non-farm life. I plan to document as much as I can, so I guess I'm in research, popular research.