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An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

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Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#291

Post by leshow »

etothepii wrote: post #21

The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company. This very website, sneered at in the article, is littered with examples of people who have built something at the side. I'm not sure knowledge workers can make the same complaints about class struggle that mechanical labourers can. We tend to get more valuable with age and experience.

That's just not true. Costs may be lower (in some cases) if the thing produced is digital, but you absolutely need capital.

Knowledge workers are still workers at the end of the day. You have nothing to live off of but your own labor, it is along these lines that your interests align with other workers.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#292

Post by Animats »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #123
Animats wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Companies used to send people to "IBM School", to learn COBOL or Job Control Language. If you have to pay to train people, the technology tends to be kept simple and understandable.

If I parsed that correctly, you're using JCL as an example of a technology that was kept simple and understandable. That, um, is not the way I think about JCL...

Good point.

I used UNIVAC mainframes, not IBM. They had a different control language which wasn't too bad.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#293

Post by MarkMarine »

pdonis wrote: post #268
MarkMarine wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're standing up a bunch of straw men to argue with here. I didn't say half of what you're asserting, just trying to clear up the definitions of some terms you were getting wrong in the context that you were using them in. If you want to talk about this, which is essentially Marxist theory, and then argue against it... some familiarity with the source material would be good to acquire.

> You're standing up a bunch of straw men to argue with here. I'm not sure what you're basing that on since I'm responding to things you explicitly said. > If you want to talk about this, which is essentially Marxist theory I have no idea what you are basing that on. The only thing I said that was at all related to Marxist theory was my reference to "class warfare"; yes, Marxist theory was one of the culprits in usin…

You’re inventing things I said out of whole cloth. Did I talk about tech CEO’s? Nope. Did I say wealthy people work or don’t? Nope. Just tried to give your misguided definitions some basis in reality.

Second: I know you have no idea what I’m basing that on. That is my point. You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re just going off half cocked about whatever you THINK I’m talking about. I just gave you a subject you could choose to educate yourself about if you wanted to sound sensible about the windmills you’re currently tilting at. But from your response I see that isn’t going to happen.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#294

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

RajT88 wrote: post #273
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think about your retirement prospects as amassing wealth by optimizing the "Area under the graph", it's really important to build a professional network so if one job opportunity ends, you can quickly work your network to find another similarly paying job. Do you believe the supermarket shelf stockers think this way? Yes, you've come to understand yourself to be in a different socio-economic class than super…

> But what you fail to see I don't fail to see the point of the article, I just think it's wrong. > your employer has no incentive for maintaining your status in a different socio-economic class, and lots of incentives for changes that drive you, the exalted, mutually loved, always cooperative SWE into the same life+work situation as a supermarket shelf stocker. Worker protections are good. So is being good at your j…

> Even shelf stockers have basic human dignity

Sure, but no thanks to their employers. Are you telling me that you don't know anyone who doesn't actually like their job, and gets nothing from it except a paycheck? Because it certainly sounds that way.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#295

Post by MarkMarine »

Natsu wrote: post #275
MarkMarine wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the capitalist class colludes to push down wages, make working conditions worse, and do mass layoffs when the company is so profitable that they have so much money they don't even know what to do with it and are therefore buying back stock, are there any laws that protect workers? (those are the conditions that the article describes, not me) Should there be? Are the laws you're citing currently good, do you agre…

> When the capitalist class colludes to push down wages, make working conditions worse, and do mass layoffs when the company is so profitable that they have so much money they don't even know what to do with it and are therefore buying back stock, are there any laws that protect workers? Yes, the laws don't magically vanish. Also, you seem to be neglecting inflation in those numbers, which is the main reason things h…

I was a marine. I got paid 1000$ a month to be shot at, by people who know how to hit a target. I know what a bad job for low pay is. I also know what solidarity is.

You gave a bunch of examples for why people don’t need unions, because laws will protect them, then undercut your examples with your personal anecdotes about making yourself valuable. You don’t need laws to protect if you’re “valuable.”

… but you’re only valuable until you aren’t. That was the whole point of the original article. Some of the most valuable workers in the world are currently getting kicked out on their asses by the bosses who’d been getting them massages and laundry services, free food and free transportation.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#296

Post by MarkMarine »

WalterBright wrote: post #289
MarkMarine wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about this stuff really makes people drop their masks. How many children should we use to grease the wheels of capital accumulation? How good is this system if that’s what it requires.

I recommend you take a tour of a reconstruction of an 1800-era dwelling and have a good hard look at how people lived. I toured Mt Vernon recently (George Washington's estate). He was probably the richest man in America at the time. You and I live better than he did. You seem to think there was all this wealth sloshing around at the time. Nope.

I think you’re fine with letting 8 year olds die in a mill, letting normal people have their meaningless lives of working 80 hours a week for little to no money, just to survive, while robber barons live in gilded mansions and build a new solid house out of marble every year to impress their rich friends.

The inequality you’re pitching only ends in one place.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#297

Post by MarkMarine »

WalterBright wrote: post #282
throwaway675309 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absurdly farcical take. They went away because government regulations were slowly built up to guard against this kind of thing from occurring in the future. See Fair Labor Standards Act in the 1930s.

If we unwound technology back to 1900 level or so, child labor would come back, laws or no laws.

Ah yes, proven by current sweat shops today, with current technology

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#298

Post by somsak2 »

Gigachad wrote: post #235
nbk_2000 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please note the topic is "Class _Warfare_ for the Software Engineer" and NOT "Fulfilling Your Expected Role as a Software Engineer" This is the author's opinion of how Software's Labor can "fight back" If you're not in an adversarial relationship with your employer then this advice will not be particularly useful/advantageous.

Seems these people are in an adversarial relationship with doing actual work. They advocate for doing noting beyond the absolute minimum you are directly instructed to do. So essentially taking out all independence from work and making it a dull box checking job.

Sounds eerily similar to how companies generally operate, by paying the absolute minimum to get the job they want done. Interesting how people don't seem to like when labor takes the same aproach.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#299

Post by somsak2 »

jojobas wrote: post #159
ravenstine wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway from what you said is that the employee-company relationship is inherently adversarial to a degree and to not forget that. In general, I wholeheartedly agree. However, > don’t pay any mind to burning bridges not all bridges should be burned. If you mean the bridge between you and a company, yes, said bridges should not be treated as anything more than a rope bridge over a canyon. I would limit burning bri…

>is inherently adversarial Until they invented stock options and started handing them out left right and centre.

who's handing out equity "left right and centre?" Any place that I've worked or heard of has given comparative peanuts to workers while the people at the top / founders are paid 100-1000x.
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