4 ms·

What's your definition of proletariat? The Wikipedia one (which I am not saying is correct, but is the first one I can find) mentions "..oppressed by capitalis

What's your definition of proletariat? The Wikipedia one (which I am not saying is correct, but is the first one I can find) mentions "..oppressed by capitalism, forced to accept meager wages" and "..who owned little or no property". 250k/year for L4 (out of college + 2 years average) isn't "meager wages" anywhere in the world, objectively. My criticism is that this doesn't seem to be about showing solidarity and getting a better deal and working conditions, rather it's primarily about enforcing their environmental and state political ideology over the rest of the company. I would never object to a group of people who want me to work more efficiently and get a better financial deal. Call me whatever you like, but I don't want to suddenly find beef off the cafeteria menu, be forced to pay extra for parking because I am not driving an electrical car (or because I am driving at all instead of biking) or be told my project is cancelled because it helps the democratically elected US government and that I have to donate from paycheck to entities I disagree with to help them in goals that hurt me at a personal level because the media that they follow managed to portray them in a positive way. I really don't know who "the rest of us" you mean are, that they want to show their solidarity to, so I can't comment on that part. Did you mean they like to show solidarity to software engineers in other companies? Because I don't know how would they do that given their current direction. Whatever little freedom we have left should be cherished at all cost because once we lose it, it won't ever come back.

lucian1900 6y ago
Wikipedia is generalising, but does strike on the important part: even most Google engineers don't own private property, like means of production. They may have high wages and even some personal property (like a home), but they don't have significant ownership of any company. Google engineers could show solidarity with the rest of us workers (that don't work at Google, aren't paid as well and aren't in the US) by changing Google's policies on surveillance, collaboration with US state agencies, abusing their monopoly, perpetuating the acceptance of sexual harassment in the workplace, etc. I don't know why you're so obsessed with food and electric cars, the article says nothing about that. And if you really do feel so strongly about beef, you can join the union and express your views democratically. You have no democratic control over Google's behaviour right now. If you work there and join the union, you can gain a small measure of it.
- sn_master 6y ago
  100k in appreciating stocks and 50k cars qualify as private property, or it can be converted into one fairly easily. For example, many Googlers from other countries like India buy land and houses there. There are very long threads on eng-misc about those and other "environmental" topics, there aren't ones I randomly came by. Arguments using logic and majority of population preferences all get thrown off the window whenever someone mentions the E word (ethics). We're not living in a Utopia. If you think something is so wrong, pass a law to ban it or make it illegal, but don't enforce on me something that the vast majority of the US and world population is okay with. I don't want to pay money to them in order to have a vote. If they want to enforce a police on the entire company, they should allow the entire company to vote on it, rather than only the ones who give them $$$. Otherwise, they'll keep coming up with all sorts of very controversial policies just to get everyone to give them money to have a chance vote against it! Monopoly abuse goes both ways. They're okay with it when it allows them to silence the person who two months ago was chosen by seventy five million people in a democratic election, but it becomes an evil monopoly when it goes into helping same said democratically elected government. There is so much double standard in tech. I agree with you on one point, sex-based discrimination needs to end in Google (and Microsoft too): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google-gender-pay-gap.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google-gender-...
  - lucian1900 6y ago
    It’s true that many well-meaning people are idealists, when they would be well served by dialectical materialism. Thankfully, a union is a materialist endeavour of people that understand no amount of asking nicely will bring about as much change as the threat of a strike. Members tend to be quite realistic and class consciousness in my experience. Why would union members assume the risk of being fired just to give everyone in the company control over the fruits of that risk? If you want democratic control over your workplace, you can collectively act together with your coworkers. That’s all a union is. The funds are collected to further that goal, often to protect workers from retaliation.

lucian1900 6y ago

Wikipedia is generalising, but does strike on the important part: even most Google engineers don't own private property, like means of production. They may have high wages and even some personal property (like a home), but they don't have significant ownership of any company. Google engineers could show solidarity with the rest of us workers (that don't work at Google, aren't paid as well and aren't in the US) by changing Google's policies on surveillance, collaboration with US state agencies, abusing their monopoly, perpetuating the acceptance of sexual harassment in the workplace, etc. I don't know why you're so obsessed with food and electric cars, the article says nothing about that. And if you really do feel so strongly about beef, you can join the union and express your views democratically. You have no democratic control over Google's behaviour right now. If you work there and join the union, you can gain a small measure of it.

sn_master 6y ago
100k in appreciating stocks and 50k cars qualify as private property, or it can be converted into one fairly easily. For example, many Googlers from other countries like India buy land and houses there. There are very long threads on eng-misc about those and other "environmental" topics, there aren't ones I randomly came by. Arguments using logic and majority of population preferences all get thrown off the window whenever someone mentions the E word (ethics). We're not living in a Utopia. If you think something is so wrong, pass a law to ban it or make it illegal, but don't enforce on me something that the vast majority of the US and world population is okay with. I don't want to pay money to them in order to have a vote. If they want to enforce a police on the entire company, they should allow the entire company to vote on it, rather than only the ones who give them $$$. Otherwise, they'll keep coming up with all sorts of very controversial policies just to get everyone to give them money to have a chance vote against it! Monopoly abuse goes both ways. They're okay with it when it allows them to silence the person who two months ago was chosen by seventy five million people in a democratic election, but it becomes an evil monopoly when it goes into helping same said democratically elected government. There is so much double standard in tech. I agree with you on one point, sex-based discrimination needs to end in Google (and Microsoft too): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google-gender-pay-gap.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/technology/google-gender-...
- lucian1900 6y ago
  It’s true that many well-meaning people are idealists, when they would be well served by dialectical materialism. Thankfully, a union is a materialist endeavour of people that understand no amount of asking nicely will bring about as much change as the threat of a strike. Members tend to be quite realistic and class consciousness in my experience. Why would union members assume the risk of being fired just to give everyone in the company control over the fruits of that risk? If you want democratic control over your workplace, you can collectively act together with your coworkers. That’s all a union is. The funds are collected to further that goal, often to protect workers from retaliation.