Stage Yellow Software Developer/Company

[Antonius]

I'm wondering how would that look like. I'm on the path of becoming a programmer and I'm aware the world of software is +90% stage orange capitalism and technological advancement wankery. There is some green in renewable energy stuff and what not but that's a minority for sure. 

I'm not a spiral wizard myself, but I assume yellow software would systematically create solutions that would benefit everyone, not just trees or wallets. Crypto currency seems yellow to me but it's used for orange purposes mostly. 

I don't know I'm babbling here, what do you guys think? Any yellow programmers here? 

[LastThursday]

I'd say it was a complex question.

If you're a one wo/man band with yellow ideas, it's unlikely (though not impossible) that you'll change the world for the better with software. You have to go back to basics and ask yourself "what is software for?".

In my opinion software is an amplifier just like any another tool or machine. It makes certain activities easier or it allows you to do more in the same time period or it allows you to do things that were previously impossible.

Using software working with big data to do forecasting is one activity which springs to mind. You would model many interactions of many different systems at a high level, and forecast what would happen if you tweak those systems here and there.

For example you could model the whole economy of a country and its interaction with its environment and the welfare of its people. You would then ask questions such as, "How does building new homes on this particular piece of land affect people's prosperity, the diversity of wildlife, how much extra CO2 is produced?" and so on. These are kind of green questions, but couched within a yellow mentality. You could for example, see how building a new airport affects the world climate or how it increases jobs in another country or whatever.

Most big software in the forecasting arena is too narrow, i.e. just weather or just economy or just wildlife. There's plenty of room for synergising all of these data and models.

Another area dear to my heart is using software to actually change the character of capitalism itself. Why do people work long hours for others in an office? To survive and lead a comfortable life. But software is so tremendously flexible that it can be nearly applied to every part of human life. If software can free us from needing to actually work and sucking our spirits dry, then we would be free to become more connected, less fatigued, in touch with nature, and in touch with ourselves.

Essay over.

Edited August 13, 2019 by LastThursday

[Leo Gura]

It would be highly systemic in its thinking and it would be working to solve serious world problems, not building iPhone apps.

Think of software that could help move other people up the Spiral somehow.

And also your company would need to have stage Yellow leadership style and organizational style.

You'd have to do some serious research to build that. Don't expect such a job to fall in your lap. You have to invent it and lead it.

[Antonius]

@LastThursday The forecasting idea actually sounds amazing. Although executing that is way above me right now it's useful to have grander visions like this. I can't be motivated by animating hamburger menus and centering buttons forever. Not even video games excite me anymore because all I can see in them is wasted time.

@Leo Gura I can't think of anything that would move people up the spiral other than a meditation app. People who are using a meditation app are already open enough they would probably find their way up on their own, what about closed people? Is the solution always to lure people in with promises of some lower stage results and then cook them like frogs in the pot until they find themselves in higher stages?

Maybe software that measures stages of development would be useful somehow, but then again why would anyone listen to it. The importance of marketing is starting to dawn on me. And you have to bullshit people even if it's for their own good lol.

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Antonius said:

I can't think of anything that would move people up the spiral other than a meditation app.

You're not thinking hard enough. Yellow is supposed to have vision. Every fool and his Mom has an app. Come up with something totally new.

[Antonius]

https://www.theworldcounts.com/

This website looks interesting. It's presenting global issues and offering some ideas of how individuals can create change by changing themselves. I think this is the right direction but it needs more work.

[Antonius]

I would rather propose materialist worldview as a major issue, educate people about it and show the statistics of things caused by materialism like mass consumerism, broken relationships, drug abuse, suicides etc.

Then I would offer spirituality as a solution. Not just my way of spirituality but list all the possible ways to evolve as a human. Maybe make some tests, take into account types of personality and spiral stages and offer personalized solutions. Create whole paths from one stage to the next even. I would create a book list. Be affiliated with some green companies and promote their products. Maybe a blog where I would heavily promote meditation, psychedelics and visioning/imagination.

Statistics and forecasts would be the most powerful software part. When you see global statistics it really hits you. For example my country has a big migration issue and I saw that by 2050 there could be 1 million people less in the country than today if we don't fix this (1 million is a big deal in a small country like mine).

How's that @Leo Gura ?

Edited August 14, 2019 by Antonius

[molosku]

1 hour ago, Antonius said:

@LastThursday

@Leo Gura I can't think of anything that would move people up the spiral other than a meditation app. 

Webdev here. I actually have an idea for an app/service that would push people from blue onwards. I want to learn a bit more about database solutions before I start building it. 

But yeah, coming up with a solid idea can be hard. Remember, there is a whole lotta spiral before the good old sittin-down-on-a-pillow gets relevant. 

[Antonius]

@molosku Hit me up if you need help with developing it, I would love to work on projects like that. Also look at my post above.

It would be so cool to have a team of devs that value stuff like this.

19 minutes ago, molosku said:

there is a whole lotta spiral before the good old sittin-down-on-a-pillow gets relevant. 

Yes, but people like Leo talked me into meditating when I was way down in the dumps. Takes a real wizard to do that. Now I want to be that for other people.

[tenta]

I doubt any exist currently

[LastThursday]

@Antonius of all the types of jobs most amenable to yellow thinking, programming/development must be up there. Don't we constantly work with systems? It's just a matter of expanding your thinking right out to include the entire world, not just a phone app interacting with a database.

A first step is to invert your thinking. Top down rather than bottom up. Then funnel down to something manageable in software.

Some global systemic issues could be:

Plastics in the food chain and their effects on animal/human health.

Mitigating the effects of automated trading systems on the boom/bust cycle of world markets.

Logistics for environmental disaster relief.

Stopping food waste world-wide.

Supplying high quality affordable education for third world countries.

Improving access to the internet for third world countries.

 

By tackling the large systemic issues, you allow large numbers of people to improve the quality of their lives. This is turn frees them up to raise their consciousness. 

The way I see it, is that maybe by 'freeing' up thousands if not millions of people, you have a snowball effect. You end up freeing up that one person that will themselves change the world, another Ghandi or Mandela or Newton or Da Vinci. 

You don't have to change the world yourself, just enable someone else to change it.

 

To run a yellow company, as well as large scale systemic thinking, requires that your workers are also catered for in a system type way. That means some of the following things are catered for: their needs for rest and relaxation, child care, earning potential, flexibility of working hours,  flat hierarchies, strategic involvement in planning, fluid job roles, health and fitness, easy access to counselling, regular learning and development. Perhaps even a company without any management as such.

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by LastThursday
typos

[Leo Gura]

Here's something to jog your mind:

 

[Laurens]

I try to do that.

I think at the beginning it's not just about bringing a solution for world peace, green energy etc.

It's about the mechanics: Technology, which empowers people and solve real problems on a small scale. You can later scale it up if it really works.

 

Please contact me.

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Shiva Is this not what scrum is preventing ? Since, they keep asking the client each iteration for feedback and adjust the product accordingly, I don't know how it plays out in practice or in the real world. 

[LastThursday]

Scrum is just a methodology for optimisation and as such is an Orange activity - the aim being to save money, by reducing time spent on non-productive development - since there is a tendency for customers to constantly change the goalposts, and also to get round the problem of lack of immediate feedback (from customers) from changes made in software.

Scrum fails, because it doesn't take into account the individual characteristics of the workers in the team.  It's a one size fits all methodology. In other words it fails to see each worker as an individual system in her/his own right; it also fails to model the interactions between those workers.

Scrum also fails, because of a tendency to 'game' the system by the individuals involved for various reasons; such as reducing stress, moving deadlines, staff churn, supporting junior developers, pleasing the boss and so on.

[dharm4]

I work as a software engineer in big data / AI /autonomous driving. It's an interesting area for me, with many possible ways to improve the lives of many people. Less car accidents, traffic,..

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Shiva Okay, I did not think it would play out in that manner. I've read a book about gamification and it mentioned one point you mentioned as a core principle in their "white hat" gamification concept, which focuses on the quality of eudamonia as well as the book on products, services as well as the enviroment and ergonomics overall mostly software. The first principle was for example to hire Gen Y people, was meaning and vision and to cultivate that inside the company, since they lack this a lot. The book was big, so I can't recall everything. One thing for instance google did was they gave their employess 20% of their time during the day to work on one project that they enjoy, but it had to be a project related to google and through a small portion of their time, this collaboration created gmail on of their top services. Yet, they stopped this approach. 

Scrum somehow seemed to me yellow since it was a full-fledged model with iterative steps and multiple stakeholders, I don't know if it is the model or the people. I pressume clients don't always know what they want, this is what they at least taught us, and also partially why HCI is there. 

I know there are people who are above scrum masters for instance and they manage them, yet I don't know what function they fulfill. A friend of mine just started this role, or received a job as one of them. So, I don't know if that helps as an improvement or if it even is systemic somehow. 

[ajasatya]

@Antonius Ecosia. It's a well established Green company moving towards Yellow 

[Antonius]

@see_on_see True, but I didn't force myself into software. I'm just flowing with my natural strengths and here I'm exploring the possibilities. 

I'm mostly asking this question because I can never see myself as doing this purely for money while most of this industry revolves around it. I might end up using software purely for artistic expression, which is probably the most enlightened thing to do with it. If my vision is ultimately to expand consciousness I'll probably do it through art and philosophy, but I there is probably some untapped potential in technology to use it as a tool for spirituality.

[Muninn]

Maybe a stage yellow program is a program that requires tier 2 thinking from the developer? That's different from a tier 2 program that tries to expose tier 2 thinking to the user, or that tries to help move the user up the spiral.

I'm trying to move into green myself so I'm not there (at tier 2) yet.