Comment by Klonoar
7 hours ago
Alright, I guess I'll take the bait. Not much else going on today anyway.
> I’m pointing out what I believe to be ridiculous gatekeeping.
I am not gatekeeping. I am stating that we collectively exist in a professional caste and that will go away or lose influence if you let it do so. Other professional castes do this exact same brain exercise and that is why they have protections in place.
> Some people try to cling to their specializations and cry “class warfare” when threatened.
I'll be blunt and just state that I am post money and not remotely threatened by this stuff anymore. I am observing that software engineering as a profession is blindly giving away a ridiculous amount of leverage in the world - in the form of dollars and influence, the value of their labor - and more crucially doing it to themselves.
I will be fine whichever way this shakes out, and I don't really have a dog in this fight short of having spent decent time in the OSS space and finding it sad what it is turning in to.
Your initial post on class solidarity was extremely reasonable (even if I disagreed with it - see my comment above) but to follow it up with a post describing castes in a non-negative light is wild.
In hindsight, the word "caste" is too heavily loaded and I should have chosen a different term. Sorry for the shit choice.
It's not meant to be taken negatively, and is purely a term that I was choosing to represent "hey, you all need to consider better coordinating/representing/holding the line as a group".
> I am stating that we collectively exist in a professional caste and that will go away or lose influence if you let it do so. Other professional castes do this exact same brain exercise and that is why they have protections in place.
I consider this mode of thinking selfish and anti-progress. It’s pretty much exactly what Americans decry about unions.
> It’s pretty much exactly what Americans decry about unions.
If you consider a union to be a "bad thing" then we are likely going to talk past each other for eternity.
I support workers being compensated for their value; what I dislike are protectionism and ossification.
I am fortunate that software has paid me well to work on problems I am enthusiastic about solving. I understand that a lot of people on e.g. the Ford assembly line are not there because they want to make excellent cars, they’re there because they need a job. I acknowledge that I have no idea what it’s like to structure one’s life and priorities this way; it is just completely alien to me to align oneself with the task rather than the mission. And I believe that task-identification mindset is why we hear about resistance to electrification because EVs require fewer assembly steps, or Teamsters cutting power cables at trade shows if the vendor dares to plug in a TV themselves.
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I’ll be blunt and say you certainly sounds like someone “post money” talking if castes and such. Glad you got your nut and do not care how it shakes out.
What is sad about oss? What is it turning into? I will say far before ai came in oss was a few arms deep in the techfluqncer culture where motivations were driven by gh stars and follow counts rather than a genuine interest. Or maybe what was a genuine interest became twisted as the culture changed.
> Glad you got your nut and do not care how it shakes out.
I do care, it's why I commented what I commented. ;P
I already acknowledged that "caste" is an incorrect word choice and I could've done better there, but my core point remains unchanged.