Notices by Cameron Watters (watters@hachyderm.io)

@thomasfuchs I get it, and my career isn't in that mold.

But, I think it is the answer to the question.

A disappointing number of people live according to a variation "if it's not a crime and/or i can pay the fine, it's just fine" with little or no disruption from the cognitive dissonance.

@thomasfuchs 30 years of RSUs, above median wages, max 401(k) contributions to pay for student loans, $1m+ mortgage, maybe partnered to someone else in the in the industry, 2-3 kids who will need childcare, private school K-12, elite extra curriculars, and then uni, helping kids buy first homes, etc.

Being upper middle class is very expensive, and big tech covers those costs.

That's the archetype I see in the Seattle/Bellevue area, anyway.

@thomasfuchs The Nixon administration?

@thomasfuchs in my defense, my changes *improve* the software.

And, also, Lucas is more like a Product Manager than an engineer.

@thomasfuchs I suspect it includes their boards, too, whose members likely have part of their firms' portfolios invested in AI-related concerns.

@thomasfuchs I blame Tim Ferriss's 4-hr Workweek, and the pseudo-philisophy that grew up around it, for rapidly normalizing the view that the cheap labor of structurally disadvantaged people was an arbitrage opportunity that could be readily exploited by anyone, not just large manufacturers.

It arrived in 2007 and was re-released in 2009, post 2008 crisis.

A lot of the chnical, scammy shit we see from big tech today grows out of the broad-spectrum rationalization of dehumanization of labor that book (among others) helped to fuel, post-2008.

@thomasfuchs There is a long history of many (mediocre) middle managers prefering deferential sycophants over more effective practitioners who might challenge or undermine their power.

The ranks of engineering management are filled mostly with people who are comfortable being unreasonably demanding and taking credit for others' labor.

A lot of people who entered the sofrware engineering profession in the last 10-15 years did so for reasons other than a love of programming.

@thomasfuchs I was born during the Carter administration, and my sense is that my age peers are trying to squeeze as much juice as they can for themselves out of one last bubble before it pops, in hopes of achieving economic escape velocity.

@thomasfuchs Have they not seen Christmas Vacation?

@thomasfuchs the US Naval Observatory refused to allow it on the grounds.

@inthehands A problem exacerbated by the fact that many software systems use "was implemented" as their de facto criteria for success, with only the thinnest and most tenuous connection to any meaningful outcome.

@thomasfuchs Wait, is this real?

@thomasfuchs Siri: "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."

@thomasfuchs Something like 5% of my incoming email these days is misdirected (intended for others) because one of my Gmail addresses is just my last name.

I have a hard time believing that obfuscation is a useful strategy unless it has been perfectly implemented forever and no service provider with that email has ever been breached.

@thomasfuchs As a former employee of a subsidiary, I am zero amount surprised.

@sysadmin1138 @inthehands It's worth noting that this varies from team to team and manager to manager and company to company.

There are frequently hidden penalties for asking for help in the wrong way, in the wrong forum, about the wrong topic that are not even widely known by most established engineers.

And, sometimes, they're enforced by a very small but influential group.

So, it's true that not asking for help will often lead to failure, asking in the wrong way may also limit advancement.

@thomasfuchs I experienced it as an overly simplistic compression metaphor, so didn't initially experience it as "replace things people love with a soulless slab of magical sand" in the same way others did.

But it is very weird that people are challenging the validity of the perspective of folks who hated it.

@thomasfuchs Ironically, in some of *those* cases, the putative victims of anti-conservative bias were actually anti-Semitic.

@thomasfuchs The high school dance scene would have a very different vibe in 1994…

@thomasfuchs Or even just preventing the proliferation of UI atrocities in Apple apps these days.