helieloMar 18
JP
a theory on the total demobilization of programmers (in aggregate, not you specifically) as a class:
- comfortable life (salary, benefits, retirement plan)
- never protested or resisted anything / did but it didn't seem to do much
- never organized their workplace / community
- computers are a solace from messy real world stuff
- suddenly computers are subject to this new political economy
- feel totally helpless and concede to what's happening right now as inevitable
Mar 18 at 3:03pmTusky
Show threadJPMar 18
one of the first steps here is realizing all the ways in which you are, dramatically, an outlier from the rest of society, yet your essential class position is the same: you will never be closer to musk zuck bezos altman etc than the people who stock your groceries, deliver your mail, teach your children, etc. who would you rather make your stand with? do you want to be part of humanity or whatever disgustingly evil mirage the tech guys are trying to make? what are your actual fucking values?
Show threadDavid Mitchell Mar 18

@jplebreton

“what are your actual fucking values?”

A question that a surprising number of people really can’t give an honest answer to…

Show threadBlueWindsMar 18

@DavidM_yeg @jplebreton I have learned that, push come to shove, the support I thought I had always evaporates.

"You are the moral center of the company" sounds like praise, but what it actually means is "none of us support you in your ideals if they become mildly inconvenient."

Show threadBlueWindsMar 18
@DavidM_yeg @jplebreton Which is to say that they can answer the question, but the answer sounds really bad said out loud.
Show threadJPMar 18
@bluewinds @DavidM_yeg oof, yeah. one individual can only do so much. but hopefully the individuals within an org who share those values can find one another, work together, and spread that consciousness. and if they don't meet with success at first, things will only continue to get worse until enough people realize that they're on the losing side of the power dynamic.
some orgs are beyond saving, of course. that's the real bummer. and sometimes that proof comes only after a long struggle.
Show threadhextheplanetMar 18

@jplebreton yeah agree with all of this. I think there's a bit of self-trickery which accepts as given that any lower salary would be an insurmountable hardship. have heard a lot of rationalization around "just trying to feed my family" to justify working for big tech companies that they themselves thought were immoral.

probably the same for finance etc. I know it touches on cost of living Discourse, but in these cases the output was often like, "so I can buy a second house next year" or "do this for 5 years then retire". hard to get someone to sacrifice for others when they've compartmentalized that much

Show threadJPMar 18
@hex and everyone around them in that environment is either doing same (modeling how to get ever better at it) or they're fully bought in to the evil mission and every interaction with them drags the overton window rightward. these environments really can become deeply morally numb/sick places where the worst shit in the world gradually becomes reasonable to someone for no better reason than cushy salary + fancy cafeteria food + the feeling of doing something "important" / "smart".
Show threadhextheplanetMar 18
@jplebreton yep. it's absolutely the opposite incentive-wise, but always, infinite respect for anyone who lost their job taking a stand and staff engineers have to earn it in my book
Show threadbrennenMar 18
@jplebreton this model pretty well matches mine, but i also think there's something about the way that automation is fundamentally bound up in the interests of ownership that blinds programmers to their actual place in the scheme of things. binds them to a perspective that automatically pits them against labor and deludes them about their own vulnerability.
Show threaddataramaMar 18

@jplebreton I'm a union member, and many programmers in my general vicinity are, but this seems to track nonetheless.

(The last three hit hard, in particular, for me.)

Show threadTorbjörn NorinderMar 18
@jplebreton CS as a discipline eschewing the normative and focusing on 'problem solving' as independent of ideology is central to programmer attitudes of attending to ends rather than means. Lawyers are taught in a similarly technical style, but understand the process of interpretation is the end rather than means to serve masters.
Show threadLisPiMar 18

@jplebreton

  • computers are a solace from messy real world stuff

To be fair, they remain largely incapable of giving one COVID from sheer neglect so that's a plus.

Show threadVoidZeroOne   Mar 18

@jplebreton definitly get those vibes from many Gen Z corporate coders...

Especially the "Unions are for Workers" types who thought they are somehow better than workers.