[isityettime]

It's in the opening chapter, when the narrator talks about her experience working on a software system for AIDS patients and their medical care providers. The critique is not just of bureaucracy per se— the same bureaucracy, institutionally, exists before and after the implementation of the software system. The difference is that the informal judgment of caseworkers is converted from something fuzzy and flexible into fixed fields, permissions, enumerable and particular relationships, etc., and ultimately results in fewer people being able to access those resources they need.

I remember the novel relating similar themes more generally, which has shaped how I even think of the title after reading the book. Being "closer to the machine" isn't just about working at a lower level; it's about the way working with computer systems reshapes the people developing for them and the people using them. It's about how even "cushy" software companies lean into, hire for, and draw out obsessive, dissociative traits: the included lunches, the laptop you can bring home and continue to work on, the places to nap or crash on-campus.

Maybe a very dark reading, and certainly colored by some of my own experiences in tech and where I was at in my career when I read it. But for me there's absolutely this sense that the need and desire to be "close to the machine" is also something that lures us away from ourselves and from each other.

[randysalami]

To your penultimate part, I remember when I was younger, I always wanted to be a software engineer. Those obsessive, dissociative traits I cultivated because they seemed so welcome at the places which young me wanted to work (Google, Facebook mainly). And those places seemed so right (and paid so well). As I got older, I realized there was way more nuance. What I once thought were strictly virtues to be lauded… had more gray than I imagined. I don’t think a lot of people in our field have or will have that wake-up.

And I think this is a big part of the problem. Being a shell of a human does not lend yourself well to empathy and solidifies your ego and that you are “worth” more than others, reinforced with a lucrative salary, praise, and those perks you mention.