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The problem is that workers get Manna in place of the human management - automated surveillance systems that track every moment of their working life and slice
by abraxas 6y ago
The problem is that workers get Manna in place of the human management - automated surveillance systems that track every moment of their working life and slice and dice this data to figure out who can be fired or harassed and where to tighten the screws on them.
Manna by Marshall Brain is a great short book about this that's available free online.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna https://marshallbrain.com/manna
- aynyc 6y agoI think those firms will likely lose their competitiveness overtime. Unless they are defacto monopoly. Boeing is a prime example.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoNot if those firms sell a commodity product, such as delivery or retail.
- abraxas 6y agoWhat are you talking about? Every large company is jumping aboard the automatic worker surveillance, tracking and scoring. Where are you gonna go work? To a competitor who uses the exact same surveillance system?
- aynyc 6y agoName them please. I work for a largish company, this subject was openly addressed in a townhall and stated it's not gonna work by CEO and the board. As for where you gonna go, like everything else, it just creates opportunities for companies that might not paid as much but offer better environment, that's where I'm gonna go.
- Loughla 6y agoI have often complained about my employer on here, for their lack of foresight, their lack of empathy from the top, and (right now) their lack of really giving a shit about us as humans during a pandemic. But. At the end of the day, I stay here for less money than I could make somewhere else for two reasons: A) I don't like moving; and B) They leave me the fuck alone. They don't really know what my office does. They don't really know how we do it. But they do know that we provide massive value for the expense. And they let us do it with as little oversight as they can stomach. That's worth something.
- abraxas 6y agoI can't name my employer (too small - less than a thousand egineers) but I can tell you they are tracking using a plugin for Atlassian. We are an Atlassian shop through and through including our source code control. They deployed this plugin last year. What is really sinister is that it's open to all employees so they can see in real time how they rank against their peers ącross the various metrics. I'm pretty sure Atlassian peddles this product to everyone who uses their suite.
- ku-man 6y agoA thousand software developers is definitely not a small company by any stretch.
- vbezhenar 6y agoDo you think this rating correlates with reality?
- texasbigdata 6y agoOf course. The best engineer should have the best workaround to inflate the highest artificial metric.
- throwaway201103 6y agoExactly. We already know that such metrics do not identify the best performers, they identify those who are willing and able to game the system the most.
- pydry 6y agoThis dystopian nightmare is coming for programmers too, soon.
- thelastwave 6y agoIt's ravenous.
- abraxas 6y agoIt's already here in place at my company and many others. PRs, commits, comments and even slack and email activity are being tracked and compared between employees.
- Frost1x 6y agoWay past that. "Agile" (i.e. micromanagement) methodologies and tooling are already firmly seated which is basically this same special hell. I guess we have a generation of technologists that didn't realize when to stop foaming at the mouth at efficiency over humanity or perhaps they were lead here with bags of money and deceit. I love efficiency and optimisation too (with certain processes), but not at the cost of human happiness. Our current optimizations are ever growingly sacrificing basic happiness for efficiency which is not a tradeoff we should want or agree to.
- TuringNYC 6y agoI think you underestimate the line of future workers willing to work under almost any condition. People said this about consulting companies when they retracted offers in 2001. People said this about wall street firms when they reigned in party culture in the early 2000s. Yet, the show goes on because fresh graduates and immigrants at all levels need jobs and are willing to bear with it all.
- marcosdumay 6y agoWell, I'm not the GP so I can't tell for sure. But "lose competitiveness" without any further said normally refers to a company as a seller, on its products markets. When referring to the company as a buyer, like in the labor market, people usually qualify it.
- wintermutestwin 6y agoIt's not about workers being "willing" - it is about handicapping worker "ability." You surveil me and it will reduce my performance, creativity, etc. It isn't necessarily conscious on the workers part - it's like a virus that infects all that worker does.
- ardy42 6y ago> I think those firms will likely lose their competitiveness overtime. Unless they are defacto monopoly. I suspect that's wishful thinking that assumes a greater alignment than actually exists between what we want for society and what the market will lead us to.
- wpietri 6y agoI think a more useful term for that might be "management automation". And it's not something I worry about is because a primary function of American-style management is to adapt too-rigid top-down systems to the complex, ever-changing nature of the work. Companies trying to automate management are even more vulnerable to competition and disruption than the ones automating labor.
- candiddevmike 6y agoAre you a manager? When has american style management made companies more agile? American style management is all about kingdom and silo building.
- ponker 6y agoAs a category, American companies are the most profitable in the world, so they’re doing something right.
- kwk1 6y agoSurely some portion of that can be attributed to agency ("doing") but I'd contend a non-trivial amount is due to being recipients of American hegemony ("being")
- _carbyau_ 6y agoBut is that something actually right? IE in the sense we would want more of it in our lives. Or is the profitability less about agility as per the GP comment and more to do with employee manipulation(for lower wages) and political sway (for lower taxes). Hell, given where FAANG pay taxes, are they even American?
- dternyak 6y agoI'm pretty sure FAANG pays quite a lot in payroll tax, property tax, and they also ensure that FAANG employees pay quite substantial income tax, property tax, and sales tax.
- nickelcitymario 6y agoBeat me to it. My mind went immediately to Manna. Can't think of a book (or anything else for that matter) that sparked more of my imagination in terms of what can be possible (good and bad) in the near future with our existing tech. But the biggest short-term takeaway was how middle-management is the most vulnerable to automation. Leadership may be hard to replace with a robot, but a lot of management is pretty straight-forward.
- jan_Inkepa 6y agoI've been looking for that story again for years. I read it ages ago and could never find it again however hard I tried. Thanks!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- flubert 6y agoIs there a word for waiting-for-a-twist-that-never-comes? I keep thinking that the Australia Project was really a front for Manna "leveling up" and secretly turning the Terraform dwellers into Vites to further keep them easier to control and out of sight.
- klipt 6y agoYeah the plot isn't that sophisticated, it's just an exploration of hypothetical bad and good outcomes.
- sizzle 6y agoI started reading this, got sucked in the first few chapters and lost the link a few years ago and could not find it since. Thank you so much for sharing it!! Now I can finish it.