I'm a bit hesitant to comment. I relate to some of what you're saying some of the time. Don't compare yourself to others. It's great your cousin is doing well but having more money ("doing well financially") shouldn't be a benchmark, that is a distraction. If you've been a software engineer for 15 years you're probably doing ok.
> the most unjust, asymmetric treatment of humans in the history of mankind.
Things are not perfect but I think we're very far from the worst in history. Things used to be way worse for most humans for most of the history of mankind. I would say unfortunately we aren't going straight "up and to the right" in terms of human happiness, well being, a better world, but that's the nature of things, there are ups and downs. I think things can and will still work out (climate, geo-politics, AI, economy etc.) if we do our little bits. Look for the good things and we'll work on the bad things.
Getting less screen time and more time with people and outdoors can help with perspective. It's easy to get sucked in doom and gloom on the Internet. Happens to me.
People do abuse words but I think we can still communicate just fine. We just need to do a better job of explaining in detail what we're talking about.
It's interesting that you talk of yourself as being the oppressor class while thinking of yourself of being oppressed. I think that shows the limits of this line of thinking. Most would probably consider you "elite" as well. We're all just people I think is the easy answer there. I'm not jealous for a second of any "elite", I'm sure they have the same human struggles (or even worse) as all of us.
Hope you can get over your pain, try and get some help if that makes sense to you.
I appreciate the comment. You're right, things have been worse for certain people.
I'm definitely not 'elite' even though I've been a software engineer for 15 years, I was very unfortunate. Just imagine doing everything right but everything that's outside of your control going terribly wrong. That's what happened to me. I know others in the industry who had it worse but there is no consistency in experience.
The fact that you assume that because I've been a software engineer for 15 years, that it means I wasn't struggling financially the whole time is telling. It's what I meant when I said that we speak the same words but they don't mean the same thing. You assume software engineer means someone who is well-off. You don't know what country I'm from. I tell you, if you're outside of the US, the experience of being a software engineer has been VERY different. I'm based in Australia but I lived in Europe for several years (which was a horrible idea career-wise).
I have a friend from India. I'm jealous of him. His salary relative to cost of living is incredible. He can live like a king in his own country. I had some colleagues from Poland; they can buy their own houses/apartments working remote and living in their own countries. Meanwhile, I don't have the legal right to own property in those cheap countries, not even mentioning language barriers. I can't afford a deposit on a house in my country. I could never afford. Impossible to find a house or even apartment under $1 million. I've been living paycheck to paycheck. I struggled hard and only just managed to save like $30k in assets over 15 years working nights and most weekends on side projects. I'm running like 5 full-featured, working side projects concurrently none of them making money currently. I did get passive income from one of them for about 3 years but then was basically cheated out of it by a whole group of powerful people in crypto sector. Literally a conspiracy to discredit and defame me within my community, without any apparent justification and no basis in fact; just before COVID happened; I became somewhat paranoid because of this... Then COVID and ensuing political environment just poured fuel on the fire.
> I'm running like 5 full-featured, working side projects concurrently none of them making money currently.
Just stop. Turn them off. Don’t renew the domains. People think that nothing should ever disappear from the internet, ever, but they can either pay you or shout into the void. You owe the tech world nothing.
I can't because one of those is a low-code/no-code platform which I've used to build and run my 6th startup with a co-founder who relies on me... And it works very well. I mentally cannot abandon a project that works better than alternatives. I cannot justify it to myself. If it sucked, I would easily abandon it. But it's very good, flexible and reliable so I cannot find the motivation to give up. It's a weird situation where it would require more effort from me to give up than to keep it running.
There needs be a reason to give up something. I cannot find any such reason. If I gave up on it, my entire worldview would collapse and I don't know what monster I would turn into.
>You're right, things have been worse for certain people.
I mean, in a historical context, things have been worse for almost everybody except a tiny percentage of the population and even they had issue that you treat easily today. For example if you're based in the AU, then you have affordable healthcare without the risk of bankruptcy. You don't have parasites. You don't have infections. Even though you feel broke, you live as well as or better than the historical merchant class.
>Meanwhile, I don't have the legal right to own property in those cheap countries
I mean, this is part of why housing is cheap in those countries. Treat housing like an asset, and don't be surprised why it's expensive.