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Because a bunch of obscenely rich people decided they want to use 'macroeconomic factors' as an excuse to rank in even more profits and bump up their stock pric

by ath3nd 3y ago

Because a bunch of obscenely rich people decided they want to use 'macroeconomic factors' as an excuse to rank in even more profits and bump up their stock prices, while throwing workers under the bus, tanking the industry and destroying our individual bargaining positions. Oh, they also can't take a blame for overhiring during the pandemic, they were simply following the same 'macroeconomic factors' that are the reason for the mass layoffs now. You'd think that the economy is some kind of terrorist with demands holding the gun to the CEOs' head. They just have to follow these demands and the economy simply happens upon them, absolving them of any moral and ethical responsibility for their lack of foresight and accountability. Basically they are all mere automata that bows down to and is animated only by the overpowerful economy. It's the same old in capitalist world, just this time software engineers are the ones affected. The system is beyond fixing now, as you have always been treated as an expensive but totally expendable cog in their money making machines. We should have organized into unions and elected government that cares about humans (and nature), and not for the GDP and their own bottom lines. Thank Elon and the FAANGs for starting the wave that flooded the market thousands of qualified good engineers as soon as they realized they need actual sustained revenue rather than the nebulous promise of never ending cancerous growth. When the market is that flooded with good people, of course our wages stagnate and our employability is in question. It's called 'end-stage capitalism' for a reason, because the diagnosis is simple: there is nothing coming after it.

cooper_ganglia 3y ago
I agree with many of your points, but the comical levels of unadulterated doomerism make it hard to take very seriously. The world isn’t over because a company decided some unnecessary backend employees didn’t need to work there anymore. Standards of living have never been higher, worldwide poverty has never been lower, all hand-delivered to each of us via capitalism.
- sam8401 3y ago
  Agree
- ath3nd 3y ago
  Capitalism is like a sleight of hand trick, a cheap con designed to distract with stupid toys and distractions while it robs you blind. It pretending that it's creating value, while never showing where the value comes from. Often it comes from extraction from other places. What the OP is experiencing is merely one of the many ugly heads of the very much real process of extracting value in pursuit of profit. There are many other sides: - Your cheap t-shirts are often created with child labor, and at tremendous cost to the environment. - Their cigarettes and pain relievers are your addiction and your death. - Your meat-for-everybody-everyday comes at the expenses of destruction of native habitat, immense animal suffering, toxic runoff and deforestation. - Your consumer electronics come at the cost of toxic levels of PFAs in your and your children's blood. - Your convenient transport comes at expense of choking cities, rising sea levels, and dying habitats. - Your ChatGPT/Dall-E convenience robs hundreds if not thousands of people from their livelihood, and has been trained of others' work without their permission or consent, and the electricity and pollution bill will astound you. - Coca cola and their plastic producing friends and its convenient packaging created an obesity epidemic and an island of garbage in the pacific. - Teflon and 3M and their amazing, revolutionary non-stick surfaces created our future cancers. What's happening with the layoffs in the industry is just another facet of extracting $$$ without looking where the "extraction" comes from, yet another logical level of "optimizing", disguising the fact that it's all a race to the bottom. Yet another group is going to be replaced by automation or less workers doing more work for less pay, simply in pursuit of "value". > Standards of living have never been higher, worldwide poverty has never been lower, all hand-delivered to each of us via capitalism. Yes, it's the excess before the imminent end, it's the idea you can infinitely grow in a finite world with finite resources. This idea is mirrored by the corps and their gambles on the stock market, pretending to create a value in the millions more than they actually do create. It's unhinged, unstoppable, unsupported by reality, grotesque growth, very much like cancer. You can disagree, protest and twist and shake your logic like an eel trying to deny the undeniable: the only thing capitalism is hand-delivering is the collapse of society, the mass extinction of nature, and the end of a livable Earth. The fact that the OP, a more than talanted dev, can't find a job easily atm is very much connected to the extraction of value, and the insidious exploitative character of capitalism. Take your growth and keep it to yourself.
  - 3y ago

by ath3nd 3y ago

cooper_ganglia 3y ago

I agree with many of your points, but the comical levels of unadulterated doomerism make it hard to take very seriously. The world isn’t over because a company decided some unnecessary backend employees didn’t need to work there anymore. Standards of living have never been higher, worldwide poverty has never been lower, all hand-delivered to each of us via capitalism.

sam8401 3y ago
Agree
ath3nd 3y ago
Capitalism is like a sleight of hand trick, a cheap con designed to distract with stupid toys and distractions while it robs you blind. It pretending that it's creating value, while never showing where the value comes from. Often it comes from extraction from other places. What the OP is experiencing is merely one of the many ugly heads of the very much real process of extracting value in pursuit of profit. There are many other sides: - Your cheap t-shirts are often created with child labor, and at tremendous cost to the environment. - Their cigarettes and pain relievers are your addiction and your death. - Your meat-for-everybody-everyday comes at the expenses of destruction of native habitat, immense animal suffering, toxic runoff and deforestation. - Your consumer electronics come at the cost of toxic levels of PFAs in your and your children's blood. - Your convenient transport comes at expense of choking cities, rising sea levels, and dying habitats. - Your ChatGPT/Dall-E convenience robs hundreds if not thousands of people from their livelihood, and has been trained of others' work without their permission or consent, and the electricity and pollution bill will astound you. - Coca cola and their plastic producing friends and its convenient packaging created an obesity epidemic and an island of garbage in the pacific. - Teflon and 3M and their amazing, revolutionary non-stick surfaces created our future cancers. What's happening with the layoffs in the industry is just another facet of extracting $$$ without looking where the "extraction" comes from, yet another logical level of "optimizing", disguising the fact that it's all a race to the bottom. Yet another group is going to be replaced by automation or less workers doing more work for less pay, simply in pursuit of "value". > Standards of living have never been higher, worldwide poverty has never been lower, all hand-delivered to each of us via capitalism. Yes, it's the excess before the imminent end, it's the idea you can infinitely grow in a finite world with finite resources. This idea is mirrored by the corps and their gambles on the stock market, pretending to create a value in the millions more than they actually do create. It's unhinged, unstoppable, unsupported by reality, grotesque growth, very much like cancer. You can disagree, protest and twist and shake your logic like an eel trying to deny the undeniable: the only thing capitalism is hand-delivering is the collapse of society, the mass extinction of nature, and the end of a livable Earth. The fact that the OP, a more than talanted dev, can't find a job easily atm is very much connected to the extraction of value, and the insidious exploitative character of capitalism. Take your growth and keep it to yourself.
- 3y ago