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I don't think "the means of production" hits the mark. Most of us programmers have the means of production: a 20-year-old laptop with a new battery is sufficient for most serious webdev and appdev work. What we lack is permission to labour. If I do what I think needs to be done, instead of what my employer tells me to do, then I don't get paid by my now-former employer (which is fair), and then I don't eat (less fair) or keep my house (truly baffling). This despite the fact that the work I would choose to do is much more valuable to society at large than most of the work I can get paid for.

I've seen this idea discussed by others, but I don't know any pithy slogans for it. (Unfortunately, it's the ideologies with the catchiest sound-bites which tend to dominate in the "marketplace of ideas".)

Gamedev is different, since even games from 20 years ago (e.g. Half-Life 2) require a higher-spec computer to develop than to target. The games you can make on a 20-year-old potato are limited: for those, I can see how the "means of production" idea might be more applicable.

by yifanl1 days ago|

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This is one of the oldest ideas of civilization, wanting society to be ruled by philosopher kings (who happen to be people just like me!).

by wizzwizz41 days ago|

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Hey, I don't want to rule all of society! I'd just like to be able to contribute to it meaningfully. Rewriting some corporate app from React to Flutter, replacing one set of bugs with another, is not a good use of resources. I can do so much more! … but the people most in need of my skills do not have the money to pay for my food, housing and electricity, even if I were to forego all other luxuries.

I don't think myself wise enough to know how to fix this, and given that fact I certainly don't want to rule; but I can at least point out the problem.

by yifanl1 days ago|

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Rule's maybe too strong a word, but knowing that you have all the good ideas and wanting to structure everything to support those good ideas... it's not a bad word for it.

Like, it's certainly easy to point out that there are things that aren't being done efficiently, but finding the balance on how to prioritize the right efficiencies is the why society exists.

by wizzwizz41 days ago|

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I don't have all the good ideas. I have probably three good ideas, and I'm not sure which those are. Working on my own good ideas is for my personal time. For my actual job, I am perfectly content with working on other people's good ideas, of which there are too many to count – but I can't do that, because the people who'd most be helped by me working on other people's good ideas do not control the flow of money, and cannot redirect any money to me in exchange for my labour.

I don't want to structure everything to support my good ideas: I want to structure everything to support everybody else's good ideas. We can surely do better than the status quo, which is to structure everything to support a few billionaires' bad ideas. (Why are the only business models for the web "gatekeep" and "surveillance advertising"? Why are we burning valuable hydrocarbons when we orbit a star? Why is the pornography industry so abusive? Why are our social lives mediated by the anorexia rectangle – what happened to local third spaces? Why do we even have the anorexia rectangle – what happened to personal computing? When everyone knows what's wrong with the municipal plumbing, including the people whose job it is to work on it, why is nobody permitted to fix it? Why are so many resources being poured into generative AI to solve problems that we already have cheaper solutions to, if only they were permitted to be be implemented? Why war?)

I do not labour under the delusion that I can fix any of these issues, or would be able to fix them if I were "in charge" (whatever that means). But I know that these problems are not intrinsic features of the universe: they can be fixed in principle.

by rightbyte1 days ago|

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> a 20-year-old laptop with a new battery is sufficient for most serious webdev and appdev work.

Why do you need a new battery? I usually unplug old batteries in old laptops and just use them with a cord.

by mghackerlady1 days ago|

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but that's communism, which is bad because the Department of Education said so while making us read fiction

by bitwize1 days ago|

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WHAT Department of Education?