Cat HicksLearning and task solving strategies aren't the same as immutable abilities; the conflation of the two bothers me a lot because it creates a worldview in which any learning loss is irredeemable and people who face adversity are punished for inevitably suffering its effects.
Working on questions of learning loss and educational interventions during school closures was, in ways I never could have expected, a really interesting preparation for thinking about software developers' changing jobs
It's not that I'm a defender of AI products when I question whether studies of people's usage of them is good evidence for ability and skill change, it's that I'm a defender of being careful about how we talk about human ability, and I don't think problematic assertions about "weak minds" or "stupid people" should be the way we evaluate the impact of behavior changes.
loganThe reality is that most of the task skills we learn, we forget and then need to learn again. The reality is that all modern careers are strange historically situated ways of doing things, not inherently The Best Way for our minds. Hell screens aren't even good for our eyes and it's not like we've fixed that.
But I am not a fan of scaremongering about this, as if our minds are pristine museums rather than complex and adaptive systems we use in a continually changing and challenging world.
At any rate, people talked a lot about abstract learning loss because of virtual learning in 2020 but very little about how subsidized childcare would have meant the children I observed did not have to spend their days taking care of infant siblings.
It's that kind of structural understanding that our world desperately needs, imho, in the fight to care for human ability and human knowledge. Not this deficit mindset that is obsessed with "brains melting" or "cognitive decline" or other health misinformation talking points
What keeps me up at night when I think about the cognitive and psychological health of the people I study now (software developers), is much the same as what kept me up at night when I studied children's outcomes. It's the toll of inequity, the knowledge losses and cruel costs of discrimination
Jacob Something@grimalkina Do you think software developers are affected differently than other professions? Do you think different societal/economic/psychological mechanisms impact software developers, compared to other people in employee relationships?
@grimalkina
We learnt in school: It is the personal possession of tools/machines/devices that separates employers from employees, and enables employers to take advantage of the employees' personal time. However, as a software developer, I own my laptop, I take it to work, and in my spare time I create software too (contributing to OpenSource projects). So either there are other forces at play, or I'm missing something, or this distinction was never true in the first place. What's your opinion?
We learnt in school: It is the personal possession of tools/machines/devices that separates employers from employees, and enables employers to take advantage of the employees' personal time. However, as a software developer, I own my laptop, I take it to work, and in my spare time I create software too (contributing to OpenSource projects). So either there are other forces at play, or I'm missing something, or this distinction was never true in the first place. What's your opinion?
AnneH@jkanev @grimalkina Looking at it from the other direction - it's your labour you're selling. Back in the day bosses owned the means of production - factories - you sold your labour. With your laptop you were still selling your labour. Even if "self-employed", still selling into a market controlled by bosses, still maybe 1 paycheck from homelessness.
Bethan Tovey-Walsh has movedTo add to this, I think the idea that possession of tools separates employer from employee is too simple. It's the possession of a privileged place in a *system* that truly separates you from your employer. They have a particular position in regard to regulatory and financial systems, which permits them to employ others and then profit from their labour. Gaining this position usually means having starting capital, at minimum.
@linguacelta @annehargreaves
Interesting. I'm mainly curious because, from the idea that it is the possession of the means of production that separates the classes, follows that collective possession of the means of production would transform our system into something else.
You say that a privileged place in the system is just as much a "means of production" as a machine, correct? Do you think, with this in mind, the original idea still holds?
Interesting. I'm mainly curious because, from the idea that it is the possession of the means of production that separates the classes, follows that collective possession of the means of production would transform our system into something else.
You say that a privileged place in the system is just as much a "means of production" as a machine, correct? Do you think, with this in mind, the original idea still holds?
@jkanev @linguacelta Isn't it still the means of production in the modern world that the bosses have got? The fact that you use a laptop as a tool is similar to a carpenter using tools to work for them. Your work is sold at a profit that is derived by the capitalists from your labour.
Dennis Mansell@jkanev @linguacelta @annehargreaves the means of production is also the software you create that allows your employer to profit from your labour. The expectation is that if you seize this and collectively own the means of production, you get socialism. You get state socialism if the collective is the state or anarchism if the collective is a worker-owned coop.
@dennmans @jkanev @linguacelta LLM AI is almost a modern-day throwback to the factories of the industrial revolution. Individual workers or even groups can't finance & train AIs. So the employees are forced to use it & tied to the employer who extracts profit from their work.
@annehargreaves @dennmans @linguacelta
I see lots of OpenSource things written by enthusiasts in their spare time. For me, as a consumer, these things are like products, only I don't pay for them. And the people creating them must own the means of production, otherwise these products would not be there. No other profession does this, and this doesn't fit the means-of-production-free-labour-market concept. It is also not just one or two niche things; I'd argue that three quarters of the internet, which is today's economic backbone, runs on open source software created by people outside their jobs. So, what's going on here? Is this new, or just an old mechanism in a new coat? And, if this is something new, can we use it as a road out of capitalism?
I see lots of OpenSource things written by enthusiasts in their spare time. For me, as a consumer, these things are like products, only I don't pay for them. And the people creating them must own the means of production, otherwise these products would not be there. No other profession does this, and this doesn't fit the means-of-production-free-labour-market concept. It is also not just one or two niche things; I'd argue that three quarters of the internet, which is today's economic backbone, runs on open source software created by people outside their jobs. So, what's going on here? Is this new, or just an old mechanism in a new coat? And, if this is something new, can we use it as a road out of capitalism?
@jkanev @annehargreaves @linguacelta isn't that anarchism, or an informal cooperative? I'm one of those developers, we all 'own' the collective capital and are part of a cooperative. Its just that most open source projects are one-man efforts. I'm not sure it's very new though - farmers have had common pastures for centuries and coastal fish stock is managed by collectives in many places.
@annehargreaves @dennmans @linguacelta Yeah, I noticed that about AI too. Almost like a tool to get those pesky developers back to where they belong. Reminds me of the time when steel replaced iron, and the hard-to-please iron makers, who saw their work as an art, could be replaced with a process, a simple recipe that anyone off the street could follow.
@jkanev this question is so broad I'm not totally sure what you're asking. Developers are affected differently by what, by AI? I think as with any profession and identity, developers share generalizable psychological mechanisms with any large collection of people but also tend to have their experiences and appraisals shaped by specific cultures and group identities that come along with seeing oneself as a software developer. So situated ways that generalized mechanisms are used/show up
LastOfThem@grimalkina I've been missing this angle so much. Every thinking is so focused on the individual and treats the world around them as a given, systemic change almost seems like a taboo subject, or something quite literally 'unimaginable'.
@grimalkina I'm a practitioner and not an academic so this is anecdotal. The difference in adaptability between teams I have seen seems to me to be a product of how much agency they have in the change that is happening to them. People seem much better at coping with a change which they are able to influence - e.g. self selecting their tools; rather than change forced on them - e.g. having to use AI for programming.
@dennmans I certainly think that's true. Loss of agency for anyone in their meaningful work is really hard and bound to create difficulties especially when it makes things rigid rather than flexible and open to experimentation/refinement/evaluation
@dennmans of course on the other hand, "agency" without accountability (the ideal of some people!) or collective goals and decision making can be a recipe for different sorts of stress, struggle and failure in tyranny of the majority sort of situations.
@grimalkina I recognise that situation - many of the large organizations I've been at have people trying to minimize their accountability at the cost of personal influence - loafing or free-riding. Those organizations are never consensus driven or majority-rule though. Loafers thrive only in managed hierarchies as far as I can tell. It's a symbiosis, the managers have to seem to be struggling against the loafers to justify their higher position.
@dennmans yeah I think that's fair! I didn't really think zero hierarchy, but I do think it's also interesting to consider power imbalances that do seem to come from groups and group consensus sometimes (eg, many discriminatory cultures operate with these norms). I'm sure we are very aligned here that HEALTHY agency doesn't mean the popular folks get special treatment, or agency is used as a cover for social dominance. I do think small orgs can struggle here (picture a dysfunctional nonprofit)
GinevraCat@grimalkina OMG!!! So right!!!
Jimmy@grimalkina I help people learn to use software, and they often feel defeated by how their memory of how to use some app is incomplete each time they try. I tell them it is like birds on a wire, each time you use the app the birds line up then fly away, but the next time they line up, there are a few more and a few more stay.
@jhavok @grimalkina Yes! Or like a footpath through a wild area. If it's used a lot, it becomes well-worn and pretty constantly visible and usable. But if you walk through once and then wait a week before rewalking, you won't be able to see the path / remember the skills at all well.
@GinevraCat @grimalkina If you come back in a week, most of the birds will be gone, but there will be a few left, and the ones that flew will be quicker to return.