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Where I live, programmers tend to be book smart and very arrogant about it. Plenty of people from my college and department genuinely think they are smarter th
by sage76 4y ago
Where I live, programmers tend to be book smart and very arrogant about it.
Plenty of people from my college and department genuinely think they are smarter than everyone else.
This blinds them to the kind of street smarts required to understand even basic ideas of how to not get exploited, the utility of unions, power dynamics between employers and employees.
- yieldcrv 4y ago> the utility of unions I admit this was a blindspot for me, and it was mostly a representation problem. simply put, all the examples I had were blue collar jobs, paying a cut of their lesser (but union inflated) salary to a union organization they had issues with. I saw high profile futility. Union tried to negotiate something expensive, the company collapsed and laid off the entire town. People marching in a circle for 3 months in one city, against a multinational corporation that shouldn't really need to care. The people forming unions making demands that didn't seem ambitious enough. I felt I was optimizing my salary, based on the current reality. But I've come to a different view, mostly that others in the working class are pitted against each other. Like, other workers are dismissive to highly compensated employees because of the numbers involved. But this is only beneficial to the executives, board and owners. I'm dismayed at how this sounds like a marxist handbook, instead of looking at how other developed nations do it. I've been inspired by codetermination in Germany, where the unions has like half of the board seats by law. Its like that perspective is completely missing in the US, in favor of false dilemmas trying to avoid marxist leanings. I think more education on this topic is beneficial. People react to what they see.
- whitemary 4y ago> I'm dismayed at how this sounds like a marxist handbook, instead of looking at how other developed nations do it. I've been inspired by codetermination in Germany, where the unions has like half of the board seats by law. Guess who's to thank for that German policy...it begins with an 'M' and ends with 'ists.'
- yieldcrv 4y agoIts nice to see compromise actually work amongst coalition parties competing amongst like 7 other parties with representation. Even though that is not possible in the US, I think there is room for inspiration from a working system which can reach consensus. If there was more knowledge of that, plenty of people and representatives in the US would say "huh, that's actually a good idea". Worker board representation so to have influence on decisions that affect workers, not just the trendiest companies giving some shares out willy nilly.
- whitemary 4y agoI hate to break it to you, but the ruling class agreed to this compromise only after 2 world wars. The conflict to resolve was/is not between political parties, but rather between the working class and the ruling class. In this case, the ruling class upended the labor party during WW1, then were obliterated by the Soviet Union for doing a holocaust (WW2), which laid the conditions for the so-called compromise.
- yieldcrv 4y agoI don’t mind that it occurred that way, what do you think about the outcome?
- whitemary 4y agoI guess I mind that it occurred that way because it was preventable and millions of innocent workers died as a result, but nonetheless it's history now. The policy has been good for workers in Germany, and might be the best example of how universal material demands for (actual) worker power are extremely popular in practice. Not even the most conservative German politician would dare challenge the policy in public. It is, nonetheless, unsustainable. Without the threat of the Soviet Union, pro-worker legislation is losing its necessity in legitimating the Western ruling class. Once its founding generation is gone in a few decades, the policy will dissolve along with them, short of a newfound radical workers movement throughout the EU.
- Jensson 4y agoStreet smarts means you realize that the best payoff is to get a better job instead of trying to fix your current job. That level of street smarts is why many got into software to begin with. If you could choose between starting a union or becoming a manager, then becoming a manager will almost always be a better payoff for your own time.
- CapstanRoller 4y ago>If you could choose between starting a union or becoming a manager, then becoming a manager will almost always be a better payoff for your own time. Not everyone is seeking to optimize local maxima while making the world worse.
- adave 4y agoNot true, such managers work extra hard achieving nothing and making things worse.
- vitaflo 4y agoI’ve always said if you want to get a developer to do something, just question their intelligence. This works on way too may otherwise smart people. It somewhat makes sense, many devs grew up smart and were told they were smart from a young age. You need to be to do the job. It becomes part of their identity and is a glaring blind spot for many. I’ve worked with way too many devs that were so afraid of being wrong or had to prove they were right and were taken advantage of because of it.
- Jensson 4y agoNot sure how giving people motivation is exploitation. You still have to pay them to own what they built, otherwise you just motivated them to build something for themselves, either way it isn't exploitative.
- xboxnolifes 4y agoIf you replace the word motivation in this comment with manipulation, you should see why it's exploitative.
- Jensson 4y agoIf you say that a great teacher manipulates their students to do more overtime work is that exploitation just because we changed the words? Normally people would use the words "motivate" and "homework", but the meaning of the sentence is the same.