Comment by lucideer
4 hours ago
Ooof. This is a big topic - I understand where you're coming from, but it's a common sentiment & one I've recently come to disagree more & more with.
Firstly: class solidarity. The apparent death of (or at least notable decline in) class solidarity is popularly lumped upon software engineers because they're relatively highly paid, but it's equally as absent in newly created positions (mainly within the IT sector) at all salary levels. There's been a concerted effort to erode class awareness in the private sector for the past 40+ years & it's been effective across all sectors, mostly in newly created job categories without pre-existing union culture. It's in no way specific to software engineering as a role nor to high salary positions.
Secondly: ai & llms. Currently these technologies are monopolised by corporate entities, with models generally being far too inefficient to democratise, so it's obviously tempting to conflate their very existence with their owners, but if you're singling out ai usage as some kind of affordance to the capitalist class you're missing the woods for the trees. You need to separate ownership from existence/usage.
> It's in no way specific to software engineering as a role nor to high salary positions.
Yes, I agree. We are, however, on a site and in a thread that is dedicated to the role of software engineering, so I don't really care about the wider discussion at the moment.
My sole input here is that software engineering has not protected itself as a field, and it will now pay the price for that.
> My sole input here is that software engineering has not protected itself as a field, and it will now pay the price for that.
& my point in raising that this is not an issue that's unique to software engineering is to argue that the demons you're proposing software engineers protect themselves from are distractions from the root cause. You're proposing software engineers need to protect themselves from something that's specific to their field when the problem is holistic.
> You're proposing software engineers need to protect themselves from something that's specific to their field when the problem is holistic.
I have not said it's specific to their field. I've just been specifically commenting on that field.
(The lack of solidarity is perhaps specific to the field)