Union Pacific, one of the major freight railroads that successfully fought off union demands for paid sick days for workers during contentious labor negotiations in 2022, reported another year of record earnings Tuesday.
This is what happens when you put a guy that fixed bread prices in charge of transportation.
It's because most of them derive their entire self worth and identity from being smarter than others and thus joining a union with "low performers" or "lazier people" are completely beneath them
The top post on the Orange Site right now features a bunch of STEMlord commentators backslapping each other about how cool it is that some C-suite dude from coinbase is getting a $100 million golden parachute. They're getting their throats slit and bragging about how now they'll have a second smile.
I have two engineer friends who work in deep sea oil. Every time we hang out, after enough beers one or the other starts talking about whatever project or tool they're designing and they immediately start collaborating. I can even point out how they default to collaborative work, but somehow they never agree that the obvious conclusion is group negotiation.
And most of those open to the idea don't think of themselves as exploited. They want a union so that they can stand in solidarity with others, not to bargain better conditions for themselves.
I think it is as simple as that: they don't see themselves as exploited. They think they got a good situation economically and as a (sub)class. Hence why their sympathies, and often condescension, are directed at the lower (sub)classes, particularly manual laborers.
On the current trajectory, this will change. Wages will fall, hours will increase, people will get fired and fear for their jobs. This is actually a fairly interesting space to organize in, as you can get a visceral sense of the power of both material conditions vs. lefty organizing as a conscious project.
It is! At least to an extent. This is people already trying to form a union, and the downside is that they are not militant because it isn't actually organized around getting better pay and conditions, but about having an officially protected say in the work chosen by the company (for example).
This includes people demanding a disinvestment from war and war contracting, people demanding BDS (opposing Israeli apartheid), people demanding contracf employees (who are treated like full-time employees but poor compensation and protection) become full employees with benefits.
it would be kind of dope if we had some union coordination here, now that you mention it, I think we could get a good number of people to show up in big cities when needed for actions
The cynical part of me thinks that this will only even be imaginable once tech properly implodes. I firmly believe that day is coming as the free money dries up, but even then Silicon Valley ideology is so ingrained that I can’t really see it happening, in the Bay Area at least. The mixture of feeling invincible and “fuck you got mine” is a helluva drug.
AI is going to absolutely decimate tech, and quickly, too. This is just the beginning of the mass layoffs, in fact I'd wager that the whole looming recession has been contrived to give big tech companies cover to eliminate positions that will be replaced by AI.
AI won't disrupt programming anytime soon. Computer nerds are regtettably necessary and the big brain stuff they do is painfully fiddly and brittle: an AI that is 99% correct will build 100% broken software and won't be able to fix or adapt to problems as they arise. At least, for now.
Programmers will get fired because cheap credit is going away and you cannot employ half your workforce on ridiculous bazinga moonshots without risking profitability.
You'd think this would be a brilliant eye opener to techbros that even software devs need a union, but then you read the responses to the tweet.
engineers in america, of whatever type, seem completely inoculated against union agitation. STEMlords have such powerful brainworms.
It's because most of them derive their entire self worth and identity from being smarter than others and thus joining a union with "low performers" or "lazier people" are completely beneath them
The top post on the Orange Site right now features a bunch of STEMlord commentators backslapping each other about how cool it is that some C-suite dude from coinbase is getting a $100 million golden parachute. They're getting their throats slit and bragging about how now they'll have a second smile.
I have two engineer friends who work in deep sea oil. Every time we hang out, after enough beers one or the other starts talking about whatever project or tool they're designing and they immediately start collaborating. I can even point out how they default to collaborative work, but somehow they never agree that the obvious conclusion is group negotiation.
damn this rules did you come up with it?
Yep, just kinda typed it out. Now you can use it :D
Not all of them, but a lot.
And most of those open to the idea don't think of themselves as exploited. They want a union so that they can stand in solidarity with others, not to bargain better conditions for themselves.
I think it is as simple as that: they don't see themselves as exploited. They think they got a good situation economically and as a (sub)class. Hence why their sympathies, and often condescension, are directed at the lower (sub)classes, particularly manual laborers.
On the current trajectory, this will change. Wages will fall, hours will increase, people will get fired and fear for their jobs. This is actually a fairly interesting space to organize in, as you can get a visceral sense of the power of both material conditions vs. lefty organizing as a conscious project.
it would be nice if that were true
It is! At least to an extent. This is people already trying to form a union, and the downside is that they are not militant because it isn't actually organized around getting better pay and conditions, but about having an officially protected say in the work chosen by the company (for example).
This includes people demanding a disinvestment from war and war contracting, people demanding BDS (opposing Israeli apartheid), people demanding contracf employees (who are treated like full-time employees but poor compensation and protection) become full employees with benefits.
tell me where to stand in the houston metroplex and I will put my body in the way
:rat-salute:
it would be kind of dope if we had some union coordination here, now that you mention it, I think we could get a good number of people to show up in big cities when needed for actions
The cynical part of me thinks that this will only even be imaginable once tech properly implodes. I firmly believe that day is coming as the free money dries up, but even then Silicon Valley ideology is so ingrained that I can’t really see it happening, in the Bay Area at least. The mixture of feeling invincible and “fuck you got mine” is a helluva drug.
AI is going to absolutely decimate tech, and quickly, too. This is just the beginning of the mass layoffs, in fact I'd wager that the whole looming recession has been contrived to give big tech companies cover to eliminate positions that will be replaced by AI.
I think it's more the rising interest rates and QT destroying tech valuations
I don't really see AI destroying a lot of tech jobs that near in the future, what do you believe it can do?
AI won't disrupt programming anytime soon. Computer nerds are regtettably necessary and the big brain stuff they do is painfully fiddly and brittle: an AI that is 99% correct will build 100% broken software and won't be able to fix or adapt to problems as they arise. At least, for now.
Programmers will get fired because cheap credit is going away and you cannot employ half your workforce on ridiculous bazinga moonshots without risking profitability.
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