tl;wr: 1 bad sensor on the B key of 17 month old laptop, costs $795 to repair - 1/3rd the cost of my barely older than 1 year laptop.

On my 2016 15" TouchBar MBP, 17 months after purchase, the "B" key suddenly started sporadically inputting 2 B's for every press. It would even input the B's interleaved with other letters if I was typing quick enough (this is a babd problem).

Took it to the GeniusBar where they ran some diagnostics, then informed me (since I was 5 months out of warranty) I needed to pay $795 to fix the one bad sensor. To do so they have to replace: the entire top deck, the touch bar, the keyboard, touchpad and battery. The tech said he had seen the issue a number of times, but that those other laptops were in the warranty period, and that I should have bought AppleCare.

You can do a functional style of programming in just about any language, but using a true functional language brings you some added benefits.

Immutable data and pure functions make reasoning about your application so much simpler because there is no external state. With the same input, your functions always produce the same output. Testing is easier, debugging is easier, designing is easier, refactoring is much easier.

Another way to think of functional languages vs procedural, is describing to a computer how data moves through your program vs telling a computer what to do step-by-step.

in the Senate for passing bills the public doesn't like. All you can do is vote the politicians who let you down out of office. Sadly, even that has become extremely difficult to do because the power of our vote has been severely eroded.

Lawrence Lessig wanted to do something about it (the power of our vote) but he was excluded from the election process by the entrenched Democratic Party and Mass Media, who are quite happy with the status quo. He most likely still would not have gotten very far (stepping down as President after achieving his one goal was sort of a downer), but at least the conversation would have happened and Americans would begin to understand just how unrepresentative the government has become.

This sort of thing happens all of the time, usually out of public notice, and will continue.

The assumption that this would offset the costs of those programs (welfare, section 8, etc) is false. The programs themselves may go away, but what happens when the person getting their "free (fungible) money" decides to blow it on booze/candy/lottery tickets/medical costs and is still homeless, starved or sick? We can't/won't all of the sudden ignore them and say, "well, we tried, you are on your own now and free to die."

We'd likely end up with the "free money" and those programs would still need to exist, because of bad decisions or the way life has a way of screwing you in ways you never expected.

You have tons of experience. What you seem to lack is the confidence to match it. I have a similar background to yours and also am self-taught. Your lack of a degree, or being able to speak eloquently about software- these don't affect the quality of your code or diminish your hard-earned wisdom & knowledge.

I started my own (software) business after 15 years of working in IT and couldn't be happier. There are three very simple things you should do:

1) Stop focusing on your lack of a degree or fancy words. Neither of those things = good software.
2) Don't be afraid when you don't know something, just ask your peer(s) or research for yourself. No one knows it all.
3) Start recognizing your strengths and vast knowledge acquired over the years and realize that has tremendous value.