"I think it's a bit obscene to compare this situation to software engineering." I've got a very cush job, and I can totally identify with what you're saying he

"I think it's a bit obscene to compare this situation to software engineering." I've got a very cush job, and I can totally identify with what you're saying here. One feature of that comparison you're critiquing, however, is very important. A lot of us working in IT who have cushy jobs imagine that our interests are more aligned with the owning classes instead of with the working folks who are doing really painful jobs. I don't agree with that view, and I feel that a lot of the callous and dismissive "no one is forcing them to work" comes from the fact that many people don't understand that at their core, the ideas that lead working people to have power of how they work affect everyone who is employed by the people who own businesses. So while I agree that my working conditions are much, much better than any warehouse workers, fundamentally if I am going to stand in solidarity with them I need to understand that my interests are served by the same things that serve their interests, because we both labor for a business instead of owning a business. To return the comment your criticizing, you have a reasonable point that working conditions for people who "engineer" are much better than those that move boxes. At the same time, I feel like understanding that those folks moving boxes have the same underlying interests as those of use moving bits is completely necessary to understanding how we can move towards a world where your laudable premise that "technology should free the people, not enslave it to machines" can be treated descriptively instead of just normatively.