[marcosdumay]

The bad idea from Marx that lead him astray into pseudo-science territory wasn't worker alienation. It was the labor theory of value (and the other stuff he created to make it looks like it works).

Worker alienation is perfectly visible on the real world. I don't think anybody disagrees it's common.

But software development is different. There has been many decades where software developers suffered very little alienation. It only changed with the universal adoption of "corporate agile".

[kagakuninja]

At age 62, I'm wondering which mythical decade did not alienate software developers?

There was a brief ray of hope in the late 90s, with the startup gold-rush idea that we would all be millionaires soon. Then the I realized the founders had 4000x my equity those companies...

[marcosdumay]

Developers used to be freer to choose their tools, organize their routines, decide the result of their work, acquire transferable knowledge, and had access to their tools without any link to any organization (though that one has been steadily improving instead of post-peak).

There is more to alienation than equity.

[kagakuninja]

My 40 years of alienation was not about equity, I was pointing out that the optimistic "We are all going to be rich" vibe of the 90s was wishful thinking due to the massive inequality in the tech world.

Few teams other than green-field start-ups have flexibility regarding tools or technology. My first job was COBOL, 'nuff said about that. Even at start-ups the leads / architects choose most of the technology, and many of my ideas were shot down, such as using C++ in the late 90s, and using Scala in 2010.

People seem to think agile has increased alienation, when in fact the pre-agile world was also terrible. What matters is the quality of the team, not the methodology.

[markjenkinswpg]

One comedy that did a good job of depicting programmers with no sense of hope circa 1999 was Office Space.

[almostgotcaught]

> But software development is different. There has been many decades where software developers suffered very little alienation. It only changed with the universal adoption of "corporate agile"

Lol are you really gonna go with "I'm a software developer, fuck all the restaurant workers, teachers, plumbers, janitors!"

This is why Marx's ideas failed in the West - toxic individualism - and flourished in the East.

[taeric]

Flourished, you say?

[bpt3]

Great retort, I actually laughed out loud.

I don't know how delusional you have to be to look at the conditions behind the Iron Curtain, where nations had to build walls to keep their citizens from leaving and a meaningful number of people were willing to risk death to get out, and say they were flourishing, but I'm glad I don't have what it takes to get there.

[almostgotcaught]

> where nations had to build walls

Name the Eastern nations plural that built these walls please. As far as I am aware, the G in GDPR stands for Germany, a country/nation/state which is (and always has been) firmly Western. People on here have such an infantile recollection of actual history.

Anyway, leaving aside debates of where the prime meridian of West vs East falls, it should've been manifestly obvious that in 2025 I was talking about China...

Edit: DPRK counts I guess although I'm not sure how many people would call what they have over there "communism": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Juche_Idea

[bpt3]

You mentioned one, which is North Korea, and I'm sure you're going to concoct some story to deflect the fact that China only began moving towards any semblance of prosperity after ditching Mao's fundamentally flawed economic policies, so have at it.

[almostgotcaught]

> you're going to concoct some story to deflect

Yes surely I'm the one concocting things (rolls eyes)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party

As Sartre said - it's pointless debating people like you because you're just amusing yourself and it's only my responsibility to use words responsibly.

[LudwigNagasena]

Surely Marx would disagree with such assessment and call it idealistic and not grounded in material reality?