[agentofoblivion]

Barf!!!! To compare a 2023 Google employee to any population that’s had “boot stomping on their faces” is so out of touch with historical reality that it’s disturbing, disgusting and laughable all at the same time. We’re not talking about kids cleaning chimney sweeps here, or even modern slaves digging in cobalt mines. But Google employees, where 6% were allowed to go find another lucrative position and are sacrificing their massage services? Tone down the hyperbole sir.

[thedorkknight]

This is just the "stop complaining, there's starving kids in Africa so shut up" argument. Most employers don't care whether or not you hate yourself going into a soul-sucking job as a worker drone and will absolutely regress to that in the few industries that don't have it currently the moment market forces allow them to. There's a reason that sociopathy rates are higher amount CEOs than the general population. Call me out of touch all you want, but "stop whining about being forced into a job where you're dead on the inside like your parents were, since chimney sweeps had it worse" does absolutely nothing to change my pessimism

[agentofoblivion]

No, that’s not the argument. I’m calling out your false comparison that positions it as if modern tech workers are in some sort of proletarian struggle against their oppressors. I’m sorry if being in one of the most lucrative and cushy jobs in history still leaves you feeling like there’s a big hole in your life. That’s an existential crisis. That’s not corporate oppression. You’re not in the same situation as oppressed workers of the past.

[thedorkknight]

I feel like we're miscommunicating here somehow. I don't think you read my comments correctly. I appreciate the blip I get to be in where my employer has to treat me like I have an actual soul. I'm complaining about the fact that those same employers are just waiting for the market forces to allow them to start treating us like drones again, and seeing news about the market moving in that direction and being reminded that in all likelihood I'll be forced into the "shit pay plus 2 hour commute per day, sit for nine hours in a tiny cubicle" life before I am allowed to retire.

"You’re not in the same situation as oppressed workers of the past." I don't have to be to recognize that a soul-sucking job sucks... If we're just comparing levels of oppression, then yes, you are making the "just shut up and be glad you only have one boot on your face instead of two" argument.

If you can, without comparing levels of oppression, make an actual argument for why I should be gung-ho happy about about the future of work reverting back to being shitty, then I'm all ears. "Someone else had it shittier" does nothing for me.

[smsm42]

Soul sucking job sucks, but if it also makes you a millionaire, then I think feeling oppressed is not entirely earned by your reality. You can always take you million and go on a spiritual quest in Himalayas for next 10 years. Somebody who earns the median wage in the US - which is a lot of people - may not have this option. So I don't think framing it in these terms makes much sense.

> I'll be forced into the "shit pay plus 2 hour commute per day, sit for nine hours in a tiny cubicle"

That's not exactly how jobs in Bay Area at least look. I mean 2 hrs commute can happen, if you live in a cheap place and not in walk distance from Google campus, but the pay likely would be not "shit" at all, especially for somebody who worked at good salary in Google.

> make an actual argument for why I should be gung-ho happy about about the future of work reverting back to being shitty,

That's it, from the point of view of about 99.9999% of Earth population, it will still be dream come true. From the point of somebody who has been living in the paradise, they will be living in a bit less luxurious paradise, and that would, I agree, sting and be very distressing. I mean, it is natural for people to strive for perfection, and for improvement of their own conditions. If you are hungry, you want to be sated. If you are never hungry, you want tasty food. If you have tasty food, you want it prepared specially well, be of appropriate spiciness, be healthy, have variety, maybe get some exotic foods from foreign lands, or authentic food from specific region, or prepared in some special ways by uniquely creative cooks. There's always something that can be better. Or, as it happens, worse. But if somebody who had access to Michelin three-stars restaurants, now has to eat in star-less ones, he shouldn't complain he is dying of hunger. His soul may be distressed, but it's not distressed in the same way as would be if he was actually hungry. Yes, there are levels, and yes, understanding them is good.

> "Someone else had it shittier" does nothing for me.

Maybe that's why somebody else has to tell it. As they say, you can't tickle yourself. So maybe you realize this point, and maybe realize that the suffering that you are feeling may be caused by framing, and also cured by framing too.

[smsm42]

You can whine all you like, at least until Zuckerberg buys HN and starts to ban wrongthinkers. It's just that using "struggle of the downtrodden workers under the boot of the capital" doesn't sound as impressive when the downtrodden makes 10x more in a year than his average compatriot. I don't want to diminish anybody feelings, but I feel there should be a sense of proportion of things being not exactly hellscape yet for tech workers.

[thedorkknight]

There's a miscommunication here. I'm not complaining about people being "over"-paid (though they'd save way more by cutting executive pay). I'm complaining about the signs that our overlords who have been briefly forced to treat people decently are eagerly awaiting any chance to reduce that and get back to treating everyone like shit. And I'm cynical that I absolutely find this stuff to be potential early signs of the end of the blip.

Side note, but it also strikes me as a sign of how normalized corporate treatment of people is that people is when we're on a thread about an article that talks about an exec making over 5 times a googlers salary per day and instead of people going "what the fuck? If that's true, 500k should be the norm for more people!", I get pushback on my comment about how this is a bad omen for the rest of us and called whiny.