The part that really gets to me is that the neighbor was so "concerned" about the child's safety that they called the police, but for some reason, in their urgent concern, they didn't take the simple step of approaching and talking to the child to see where they were going or if a parent knew where they were.

Others are correct to point out that formal verification is too difficult to apply to many types of application code. But there are domains where it is applicable today, and the main reason it is not used there is that developers lack the time and know-how. For example, many file format parsers are exploitable, but they are simple enough that they could be formally verified.

I live in an historic district. I had to attend a public meeting a couple years ago to get approval to change a lamp post. It is perfectly reasonable to ask tech companies to show up and defend massive projects to the public.

People are right to point out that hiring is nothing like the post-pandemic years, but it's not clear that it's any tougher out there than, say, 2018. This is from the perspective of someone with a lot of industry experience, though. I can't speak directly to the experience of junior engineers.

When I was younger, it was unusual for people to think they couldn't have friends with different politics, but now it's almost taken for granted in some circles. The current political environment is absolutely corrosive.

What's less clear to me is why the actual fall in happiness happened so rapidly with the pandemic. People were living spiritually vacant lives well before that!