5 ms·

If only SW engineer "plebs" could band together and strike to demand recognition of their profession like doctors and lawyer

Fnoord 8y ago
Yeah, it is interesting how that didn't happen at Theranos or Google (with the "killer drones" recently). For the former case, I'd like to refer to the book Bad Blood. For the latter, 12 people from Google resigned over that issue. The massive privacy issues occurring, Uber debacle, NSA debacle, or how about Microsoft in the '90s? IBM before that? I guess the tech sector workers get divide & conqueror-ed.
- Semiapies 8y ago
  Which is exactly what happened to the plebians. They spent a couple centuries periodically having these revolts, and eventually they ended up "represented by" a few rich plebian families more tied to the patricians than to their supposed class, while pretty much nothing changed for the actual common people.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    Sounds remarkably like the transition the UK's Labour party went through to become "New Labour".
    - pjc50 8y ago
      The origin of Labour in the first place was "Fabian" (after Fabius the Delayer) socialism, in opposition to revolutionary socialism. Incremental change as opposed to kicking over the table.
      - arethuza 8y ago
        I was particularly thinking of the backgrounds and quality of people in Attlee's cabinet and compare that with the today's politicians.
- golergka 8y ago
  > or Google (with the "killer drones" recently) It's because you assume that every software engineer has the same political opinion as you on that matter. In reality, there are people who could consider working on "killer drones" their patriotic duty and are ready to accept low compensation just because they feel they make the world a better place doing it instead of just selling ads. I know such people personally both from US and other countries as well, eager to work for military and intelligence agencies of their respective countries, from NSA to 8200 to FIS. You may not agree with their political opinions and I respect that, but denying existence of such people is just plain stupid.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    I do sincerely hope, wish, and ultimately assume [1] that intelligent people (which is what I'd find fair to describe the people at Google who were supposed to work on "killer drones") do have high ethical standards. Of unintelligent people, its less surprising. I don't deny the existence of people who don't have the same ethical standard as me though. I never claimed or argued those people did or did not exist at Google; all I was saying is that "only" 12 resigned. Who knows how big that team was. [1] Else I get rather negative with my faith in humanity...
    - golergka 8y ago
      > high ethical standards Ethical standards are do not lie on a single dimension and words "high" and "low" don't sufficiently describe them. Ethics and morality is a complicated mess of game theory, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and logic. The same people that you implicitly describe as having "low" ethical standards are making that decision contrary to their immediate self-interest, out of very noble considerations, thinking about their friends and family, their children, their countrymen and the world. It's just their logic is very different from yours.
      - Fnoord 8y ago
        My ethical standard is closer that an American life (or Dutch, for that matter) is worth a human life than the general population, sure, but there's a bottom line, too. If you don't have high ethical standards you shouldn't be put in a position where you can exercise power. It is that simple. If your ethical standard is to shoot civilians from an Apache, and cover it up accordingly, you have no place in the military. In any military. Its not so much a trolley problem or equivalent, what we discuss is downright racism/discrimination.
oytis 8y ago
Why? I mean I understand it's always better to get more than less, but software developers are closer to the top than to the bottom.
freehunter 8y ago
The constant fear is that if you did that, you would then need to be licensed before you can create software, with a formal education structure and possibly limitations on how many software engineers could be educated in a year like with doctors. This would also likely bring down heavy regulatory structures onto the profession, where a programmer could be "disbarred" or have their license revoked if they wrote bad code, or would have to get malpractice insurance in case their code hurt someone or cost companies extra money. There are arguments in favor of a software engineering license, but there are arguments against it as well. I work in the information security industry and there are constant talks about making a "security license". Some places actually required security engineers be licensed as private detectives. In a career where there is a critical lack of good applicants to fill the immense number of jobs, this is devastating to any efforts to try to fill the open security positions.
- nightcracker 8y ago
  In my experience a formal education also has little to no correlation to programmer quality. All of the best programmers I know are self-taught.
dev_dull 8y ago
We get free food and some of the best pay in the world for such a small amount of necessary education. What is it that you really want? Or are you lashing out at the fact that in this world there are wealthier people than yourself making money off your labor?

Fnoord 8y ago

Yeah, it is interesting how that didn't happen at Theranos or Google (with the "killer drones" recently). For the former case, I'd like to refer to the book Bad Blood. For the latter, 12 people from Google resigned over that issue. The massive privacy issues occurring, Uber debacle, NSA debacle, or how about Microsoft in the '90s? IBM before that? I guess the tech sector workers get divide & conqueror-ed.

Semiapies 8y ago
Which is exactly what happened to the plebians. They spent a couple centuries periodically having these revolts, and eventually they ended up "represented by" a few rich plebian families more tied to the patricians than to their supposed class, while pretty much nothing changed for the actual common people.
- arethuza 8y ago
  Sounds remarkably like the transition the UK's Labour party went through to become "New Labour".
  - pjc50 8y ago
    The origin of Labour in the first place was "Fabian" (after Fabius the Delayer) socialism, in opposition to revolutionary socialism. Incremental change as opposed to kicking over the table.
    - arethuza 8y ago
      I was particularly thinking of the backgrounds and quality of people in Attlee's cabinet and compare that with the today's politicians.
golergka 8y ago
> or Google (with the "killer drones" recently) It's because you assume that every software engineer has the same political opinion as you on that matter. In reality, there are people who could consider working on "killer drones" their patriotic duty and are ready to accept low compensation just because they feel they make the world a better place doing it instead of just selling ads. I know such people personally both from US and other countries as well, eager to work for military and intelligence agencies of their respective countries, from NSA to 8200 to FIS. You may not agree with their political opinions and I respect that, but denying existence of such people is just plain stupid.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  I do sincerely hope, wish, and ultimately assume [1] that intelligent people (which is what I'd find fair to describe the people at Google who were supposed to work on "killer drones") do have high ethical standards. Of unintelligent people, its less surprising. I don't deny the existence of people who don't have the same ethical standard as me though. I never claimed or argued those people did or did not exist at Google; all I was saying is that "only" 12 resigned. Who knows how big that team was. [1] Else I get rather negative with my faith in humanity...
  - golergka 8y ago
    > high ethical standards Ethical standards are do not lie on a single dimension and words "high" and "low" don't sufficiently describe them. Ethics and morality is a complicated mess of game theory, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and logic. The same people that you implicitly describe as having "low" ethical standards are making that decision contrary to their immediate self-interest, out of very noble considerations, thinking about their friends and family, their children, their countrymen and the world. It's just their logic is very different from yours.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      My ethical standard is closer that an American life (or Dutch, for that matter) is worth a human life than the general population, sure, but there's a bottom line, too. If you don't have high ethical standards you shouldn't be put in a position where you can exercise power. It is that simple. If your ethical standard is to shoot civilians from an Apache, and cover it up accordingly, you have no place in the military. In any military. Its not so much a trolley problem or equivalent, what we discuss is downright racism/discrimination.

oytis 8y ago

Why? I mean I understand it's always better to get more than less, but software developers are closer to the top than to the bottom.

freehunter 8y ago

The constant fear is that if you did that, you would then need to be licensed before you can create software, with a formal education structure and possibly limitations on how many software engineers could be educated in a year like with doctors. This would also likely bring down heavy regulatory structures onto the profession, where a programmer could be "disbarred" or have their license revoked if they wrote bad code, or would have to get malpractice insurance in case their code hurt someone or cost companies extra money. There are arguments in favor of a software engineering license, but there are arguments against it as well. I work in the information security industry and there are constant talks about making a "security license". Some places actually required security engineers be licensed as private detectives. In a career where there is a critical lack of good applicants to fill the immense number of jobs, this is devastating to any efforts to try to fill the open security positions.

nightcracker 8y ago
In my experience a formal education also has little to no correlation to programmer quality. All of the best programmers I know are self-taught.

dev_dull 8y ago

We get free food and some of the best pay in the world for such a small amount of necessary education. What is it that you really want? Or are you lashing out at the fact that in this world there are wealthier people than yourself making money off your labor?