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Tech Workers' Values

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Tech Workers' Values

#91

Post by carlosdp »

bosie wrote: post #63
civilian wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main objection to unions is that, once they're in a company, employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of coworkers, and have us negotiate separately. This is not just a tech-unions-related complaint, this is a critique of…

> employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I have never heard of that. Why would that be?

Because they would need to join the union and the union negotiates compensation for everyone, that's one of the main purposes of a union.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#92

Post by xienze »

badloginagain wrote: post #64
xienze wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's going to do anything but be window dressing then it needs to have the teeth of union - so just call it what it is. This sounds like it's going to have exactly zero to do with what a labor union would normally be concerned with -- pay, working conditions, etc. Instead, I have a strong suspicion this is going to be some sort of enumeration of the progressive ideals that all tech workers "should" be concerned…

I don't see what that would really accomplish, though. All companies already publicly advertise the 'moral' beliefs you mentioned, yet continue hiring white male whiteboard challenge mavericks.

No, not all companies. Many still follow the age-old wisdom of staying out of the social commentary business. I think the goal of this endeavor is to change that by convincing the tech workers to create a culture of doing so where it didn't exist before.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#93

Post by cyphar »

intrasight wrote: post #76
sidlls wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this industry is far from being like the other engineering disciplines. It should be like them, but it is still far too immature to be put at that level.

For starters, we are not licensed. And I suspect that a non-citizen couldn't get an engineering license.

In Australia, non-citizens can get engineering licenses. The process is basically the same as a citizen (just more complicated because of visa requirements, as you would expect).

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#94

Post by throwaway71958 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #51
djsumdog wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the fictional future on Mars in the Kim Stanley Robinson novels where there are no companies, but co-ops. Your time goes into the co-op and everyone owns a portion of that for life. This is a greater dramatic shift and I'm not sure if we'll see it in our lifetimes, but it would be nice that, even that first high school job at a cinema would earn you shares in that company equal to the time you put in, for life…

It will happen. The limiting factor is we need to get the friction for forking an existing co-op down close to zero. Unfortunately most people who work for a co-op still think of it as proprietary ("this is my co-op, and we don't have any openings right now. If you want yours you have to start your own"). Intellectual resistance from co-opers isn't the main bottleneck though. Management infrastructure needs to be all…

>> It will happen.

As someone who was born and raised in the Soviet Union and spent the last 20 years in the US, I hope to dear god this doesn't ever happen. I don't know where else I'd have to emigrate if it does. To Mars maybe?

What you're describing is essentially "collective enterprise" or "kolkhoz", where nominally you own a share in a venture, but in practice you don't own shit, and as a result you don't consider it "your own", and as a direct consequence of not actually owning property, you just can't bring yourself to care. This gives rise to a lot of unsavory and damaging behaviors: from not actually working all that hard, to outright stealing. They had a saying in the USSR: "Everything belongs to the kolkhoz, so everything belongs to me." So who's to judge you if you e.g. steal a couple of tons of kerosene to heat your hothouse in winter?

Communists had to _shoot people_ who had even a modicum of entrepreneurial skill ("kulaks"), and take away their property in order to get the rest to join after the October Revolution of 1917. I suspect that's how things looked to the revolutionaries back in late 19th century. They've never experienced their proposed ideology on their own hide and therefore did not see its rough edges and downsides. All of this collectivism in the US can exist only as a part of a broader staunchly capitalist economy, and then only during the "good times" when people's needs are more or less met and they can spare some energy on pursuing ideological purity.

All of this discussion about communist ideals from people who have never experienced anything anywhere close to what it's like is like a bad nightmare to any Eastern European who actually has a first hand experience living under a communist regime. Truly, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

I, for one, will sacrifice everything I've got to prevent any even remotely communist development of events here in the US. Yes, that does include not considering Bernie "Money grows on trees" Sanders seriously. Communism does not work. It never did work. It never will work. I'm 100% certain of it.

Cue people explaining to me that the "USSR never actually had communism" and "you're holding it wrong". You're missing the point.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#95

Post by coldtea »

jerf wrote: post #86
coldtea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is the "we" he's speaking to here? "Sam Altman, Debra Cleaver, Matt Krisiloff". They sign the post. > I know that Twitter and HN, i.e. the generic internet, are the only places Sam and I typically might cross paths, so who is the community he's speaking for? The tech community.

The tech community, or the portion of the tech community that is Silicon Valley Liberal? (Bear in mind that even if you feel inclined to write off non-liberals, there is a such thing as a non-Silicon Valley liberal.) I can't help but feel this organization is going to have a built in equivocation fallacy where whenever it is suitable they'll claim to be a "tech worker union" but whenever it comes time to decide what…

>The tech community, or the portion of the tech community that is Silicon Valley Liberal?

When they write "For good and bad, technology has become a central force in all our lives. As members of the community, ..."

they obviously mean the tech community.

And they ARE members of the tech community (regardless of if they are also members of a subset, like SV-liberal tech community or anything similar).

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#96

Post by cyphar »

yanilkr wrote: post #38

Tech workers have something so much better than that. Freedom. If you do not like the values of the current company find a new one or start one. Mob rule knows no fairness. When your ideas are vague, people fill them up with their version of fairness. Employees who are just starting out do not know anything about making sacrifices to build something bigger than themselves. If they collectively form a gang and overrid…

You could make the same argument about most engineering disciplines. Yet other engineers have unions, because historically they've had unions and they've worked out well. The only reason that software engineering unions aren't common is because we didn't adopt them at the beginning.

Quick reminder that unions are the reason that many of the benefits you have in the workplace today are standardised across the workforce -- a union that has teeth can actually make a difference to your employer's actions.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#97

Post by geofft »

Shivetya wrote: post #68
civilian wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main objection to unions is that, once they're in a company, employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of coworkers, and have us negotiate separately. This is not just a tech-unions-related complaint, this is a critique of…

The worst aspect isn't just the right to negotiate your own compensation but doing better work has no reward. Get any decent size shop and your going to have that one person if not two that everyone just carries. then there is that asshole who becomes shop steward and well, you best hope you agree with them. Yeah i am a bit jaded but no thanks. Let alone like it will matter because outsourcing will just become the st…

> Get any decent size shop and your going to have that one person if not two that everyone just carries.

> then there is that asshole who becomes shop steward and well, you best hope you agree with them.

But that happens in tech already! And usually that one person is friends with the boss, or a long-term employee who did good work once and is now coasting, or is really good at this one skill that the company doesn't particularly need any more and not at the current stuff, or is a 10x engineer because they spend their time dragging down nine coworkers, or whatever.

If anything, a union gives workers more ability to push back against that: I'm not going to call out the one guy the boss likes for being a jerk dragging down the business, because I know they'll find some way to get back. But if my coworkers contractually have my back, I'll be much more inclined to.

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#98

Post by [deleted] »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #51
djsumdog wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the fictional future on Mars in the Kim Stanley Robinson novels where there are no companies, but co-ops. Your time goes into the co-op and everyone owns a portion of that for life. This is a greater dramatic shift and I'm not sure if we'll see it in our lifetimes, but it would be nice that, even that first high school job at a cinema would earn you shares in that company equal to the time you put in, for life…

It will happen. The limiting factor is we need to get the friction for forking an existing co-op down close to zero. Unfortunately most people who work for a co-op still think of it as proprietary ("this is my co-op, and we don't have any openings right now. If you want yours you have to start your own"). Intellectual resistance from co-opers isn't the main bottleneck though. Management infrastructure needs to be all…

[deleted]

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#99

Post by geofft »

ryanisnan wrote: post #16
zorpner wrote: post #6

This is a pretty bizarre and direct ripoff of pinboard's Tech Solidarity, except run by The Man and they'll "select" who's allowed to attend. Classless and tone-deaf would be charitable interpretation.

As someone who knows little about Tech Solidarity, other than what's shown on their site, it seems like they're a bit different. Sam's group is a little more pointed in the direction of promoting the broader tech community's values into a company, and Tech Solidarity seems to be more about connecting developers to their community and supporting that interaction. Perhaps you can expound?

I have gotten the sense that Tech Solidarity has shifted a bit from "what can we as tech workers do directly to support the political change we want to see" to "how do we build for ourselves the society we want to see reflected in the world at large", which is closer to what Sam seems to be proposing here.

(I think this makes sense in a lot of ways, because there are already good people doing the former work, and usually when tech-focused groups try to help out we just get in the way.)

Re: Tech Workers' Values

#100

Post by matt4077 »

bosie wrote: post #63
civilian wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main objection to unions is that, once they're in a company, employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I want to be able to skip my union dues and deal directly with the company. OR I want to be able to make a union of my own, especially for a functional or values-based subset of coworkers, and have us negotiate separately. This is not just a tech-unions-related complaint, this is a critique of…

> employees lose the right to negotiate their own compensation. I have never heard of that. Why would that be?

In some US states, unions are allowed to agree on so-called "union security" rules in their negotiations with employers. These require all employees covered by the union's agreements to be members.

Other, so-called "right-to-work" states have outlawed the practice.

The clauses make sense for the union and their members because you cannot restrict the benefits of union representation to only members. That creates "free-rider" problems. The opposite argument is about freedoms of contract and association.

I'm unsure if you are typically allowed to make your own agreements with the employer when there's union representation. That's probably defined in negotiation, and whatever has traditionally been agreed upon for steelworkers etc. may not be the best model for tech workers.

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