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I'd take issue with your claim that the response by GP was the first emotional or attacking blow - that response was to GGP's "easy hipster life" claim, and the

I'd take issue with your claim that the response by GP was the first emotional or attacking blow - that response was to GGP's "easy hipster life" claim, and the implicit claim therein that GP's call for labor solidarity was spoiled whining rather than, perhaps, a call for skilled workers in an industry to support each other's negotiation positions rather than undercut each other. > It's not reasonable to expect other software developers to refuse to raise rational points of inquiry that you've based your argument on because it may result in weakening your argument on the merits. What argument are you claiming is weakened? GP is saying that our overall, industry-wide labor bargaining position is weakened when a subset of us willingly take suboptimal work-hour or payment arrangements - really they're giving the companies and hiring side of the discussions all of the leverage over us while dropping our price floor out from under us. If that sort of thing continues, it signals to the market that we are not skilled labor, just labor. And then all the software jobs run overseas where they are cheaper, just like manufacturing has done over the last 50 years (and software has already begun to). Maybe the original comment GP's response to wasn't the right one - but it's the right sentiment in this discussion of whether work-life balance is a good thing. How is that even a question?

ThrustVectoring 10y ago
My biggest beef is that it's undermining a set of strategies for playing office politics. It's in my best interest to enforce boundaries on work-life balance. It's also in my best interest to talk about enforcing those boundaries in terms of what the company wants, rather than what I want.
- gingerrr 10y ago
  That last point is a great one I hadn't considered. Framing work-life balance as a business need is the only tenable bargaining position we will continue to have. Thanks for the clarification.
ryanwaggoner 10y ago
What argument are you claiming is weakened? I'm not saying any argument is weakened. This is analogous to what I saw: 1. Article claims X, which is good for software devs as a whole. 2. Software dev #1 says "Hmm...is X even true? Doesn't make sense for reasons A, B, and C." 3. Software dev #2 says "Hey, we're trying to negotiate here and it doesn't matter if X is true or not. You shouldn't even be pointing out that it might not be true and that we should have more evidence. You're a traitor!" Sorry, but I have a lot more respect for software dev #1's position than software dev #2's position. I want to be associated with a community of people who are looking for the truth, even if it leads them somewhere difficult, not protecting themselves at the expense of others, truth be damned. And I certainly don't want to be associated with a group that not only doesn't want the truth, but yells at anyone within that group who dares to challenge the consensus. Ugh.
- gingerrr 10y ago
  > It's not reasonable to expect other software developers to refuse to raise rational points of inquiry that you've based your argument on because it may result in weakening your argument on the merits. > I'm not saying any argument is weakened. Let's be consistent. > I want to be associated with a community of people who are looking for the truth, even if it leads them somewhere difficult, not protecting themselves at the expense of others A few things: 1. Nobody here has said "don't talk about it, period". Even Software dev #2 from your example has further commented that the criticism is aimed at the forum rather than the topic, due to its high visibility among people who often create labor policies 2. What exactly is "difficult" about a truth backed by scientific data? Also, what in aetherson's original, entirely-opinion comment resembles truth? They themselves are admitting a dearth of data on the issue, then proceed to classify the 40-hour workweek as "wishful thinking" and "probably mostly untrue" - again, without any data to support. How is that a quest for truth again? 3. Who are these "others" you say we are protecting themselves at the expense of? I'm really having difficulty understanding how a plea for labor solidarity alienates anyone except those who profit from undervaluing labor - i.e. management and moneygrubbers. >And I certainly don't want to be associated with a group that not only doesn't want the truth, but yells at anyone within that group who dares to challenge the consensus. A few more things: 1. Please tell me what part of saying "I'm sad" and "please don't" in ThrustVectoring's original response is yelling, again? 2. I'm not sure where you live, but where I live class consciousness and work-life balance is decidedly not the consensus. The consensus is actually very clearly aligned with aetherson's claims - that "working lots of hours is totally fine probably don't worry about it", and that as long as you're getting yours everything is fine. It doesn't even seem to be the consensus in this very thread - so it might be prudent to examine why you feel attacked as a minority when you very clearly aren't holding a minority opinion. 3. You haven't actually engaged with any of the arguments here about labor solidarity, but have instead managed to make the conversation about how mean the big scary class-conscious consensus is to the little folk who dare to question whether working more hours in a week might be a good thing. I have a hard time taking this as a serious discussion if you won't grapple with the issues on a substantive level. Associate with whatever group you like, but it is not the responsibility of people to make you comfortable with ideas you don't like. It's your job to figure out why they make you uncomfortable and investigate that anxiety - or not, you could just do what you did here and dismiss all discussion because people were being mean and "yelling". Thanks for the chat.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

My biggest beef is that it's undermining a set of strategies for playing office politics. It's in my best interest to enforce boundaries on work-life balance. It's also in my best interest to talk about enforcing those boundaries in terms of what the company wants, rather than what I want.

gingerrr 10y ago
That last point is a great one I hadn't considered. Framing work-life balance as a business need is the only tenable bargaining position we will continue to have. Thanks for the clarification.

ryanwaggoner 10y ago

What argument are you claiming is weakened? I'm not saying any argument is weakened. This is analogous to what I saw: 1. Article claims X, which is good for software devs as a whole. 2. Software dev #1 says "Hmm...is X even true? Doesn't make sense for reasons A, B, and C." 3. Software dev #2 says "Hey, we're trying to negotiate here and it doesn't matter if X is true or not. You shouldn't even be pointing out that it might not be true and that we should have more evidence. You're a traitor!" Sorry, but I have a lot more respect for software dev #1's position than software dev #2's position. I want to be associated with a community of people who are looking for the truth, even if it leads them somewhere difficult, not protecting themselves at the expense of others, truth be damned. And I certainly don't want to be associated with a group that not only doesn't want the truth, but yells at anyone within that group who dares to challenge the consensus. Ugh.

gingerrr 10y ago
> It's not reasonable to expect other software developers to refuse to raise rational points of inquiry that you've based your argument on because it may result in weakening your argument on the merits. > I'm not saying any argument is weakened. Let's be consistent. > I want to be associated with a community of people who are looking for the truth, even if it leads them somewhere difficult, not protecting themselves at the expense of others A few things: 1. Nobody here has said "don't talk about it, period". Even Software dev #2 from your example has further commented that the criticism is aimed at the forum rather than the topic, due to its high visibility among people who often create labor policies 2. What exactly is "difficult" about a truth backed by scientific data? Also, what in aetherson's original, entirely-opinion comment resembles truth? They themselves are admitting a dearth of data on the issue, then proceed to classify the 40-hour workweek as "wishful thinking" and "probably mostly untrue" - again, without any data to support. How is that a quest for truth again? 3. Who are these "others" you say we are protecting themselves at the expense of? I'm really having difficulty understanding how a plea for labor solidarity alienates anyone except those who profit from undervaluing labor - i.e. management and moneygrubbers. >And I certainly don't want to be associated with a group that not only doesn't want the truth, but yells at anyone within that group who dares to challenge the consensus. A few more things: 1. Please tell me what part of saying "I'm sad" and "please don't" in ThrustVectoring's original response is yelling, again? 2. I'm not sure where you live, but where I live class consciousness and work-life balance is decidedly not the consensus. The consensus is actually very clearly aligned with aetherson's claims - that "working lots of hours is totally fine probably don't worry about it", and that as long as you're getting yours everything is fine. It doesn't even seem to be the consensus in this very thread - so it might be prudent to examine why you feel attacked as a minority when you very clearly aren't holding a minority opinion. 3. You haven't actually engaged with any of the arguments here about labor solidarity, but have instead managed to make the conversation about how mean the big scary class-conscious consensus is to the little folk who dare to question whether working more hours in a week might be a good thing. I have a hard time taking this as a serious discussion if you won't grapple with the issues on a substantive level. Associate with whatever group you like, but it is not the responsibility of people to make you comfortable with ideas you don't like. It's your job to figure out why they make you uncomfortable and investigate that anxiety - or not, you could just do what you did here and dismiss all discussion because people were being mean and "yelling". Thanks for the chat.