What's especially insane about it is that most of the folks commenting and voting are members of the working class.
Sure, they might have ill-gotten capital in the form of a deed (ignoring the likelihood that there's a lien on that deed) on a tiny parcel of stolen/colonized land or vested stock in the monopolist they work for, but that's a pittance in the scheme of things. They still need to sell their labor in order to meet their needs for food, shelter, community participation, etc.
We need to find a way to reach these folks. Because this thread is evidence that they think they're significantly different from the people without housing they see on the street here every day.
In the USSR, not working while being able was a crime that, although rarely enforced, carried huge social stigma; and, if you were an "undesirable" on the level of the subset of the drug addicted homeless in Seattle, neither the police nor the class-conscious workers would treat you like a human being. You'd be in forced treatment or jail (after being beat up, possibly) in a blink. An attempted clear delineation of the working class and the underclass (based on the class consciousness where the "parasites" group isn't only composed of the rich), is one of the few good things about "real leftism"... I wish the American leftists picked it up. In the USSR you could have observed a lot of different people in the same exact circumstances (or as close as the government could get them to be - standard apartments, jobs, education, ...) making completely different life choices, to really appreciate that. There were much fewer oppression/inequality/... excuses, but the result was much the same.
There's no need to have empathy towards the underclass silenced by tech money, or whatever. I never had it to start with and never will; and I feel like lots of the people you are trying to "reach" are like that to a large degree, it's just not a fashionable thing to articulate clearly these days. I personally feel completely fine voting for Sanders and other economic progressives, supporting free healthcare, public education, low-income housing, etc. while simultaneously having negative empathy towards habitual criminals and underclass in general. These are not mutually exclusive, as far as I'm concerned they are mutually reinforcing.
> Sure, they might have ill-gotten capital in the form of a deed (ignoring the likelihood that there's a lien on that deed) on a tiny parcel of stolen/colonized land or vested stock in the monopolist they work for, but that's a pittance in the scheme of things. They still need to sell their labor in order to meet their needs for food, shelter, community participation, etc.
I agree with you in spirit, that most people in SV and the tech industry in general are truly workers. However, I think the monopolists have been quite clever in offering just enough capital to those workers that they feel like an integral part of the system. Especially as they gain additional seniority, or work long enough to pay off their house, that mindset engrains itself. Add to this the democrats willingness to go after the middle/upper-middle class rather than the true elites to fund social programs, and you end up with an individualistic and anti-democratic mindset.
In a way, 'startup culture' and YC contribute to that perception, giving the workers the idea they can make it big as an entrepreneur, no matter how unlikely that really is. It's manufacturing the consent of the average wage-worker in SV for a system only truly benefits elite VC firms and a very very small number of very very lucky or very very well connected entrepreneurs.
> We need to find a way to reach these folks. Because this thread is evidence that they think they're significantly different from the people without housing they see on the street here every day.
There are a ton of tech workers ripe for class consciousness in the gaming industry, so I think that's a good place to start. I've also had a lot of luck encouraging collective action on individual teams that suffer under incompetent management. Combining a discussion of bad management with the trap of mortgage payments and immigration law has netted me a lot of progress with encouraging a more leftist worldview.
ndarwincorn|6 years ago
What's especially insane about it is that most of the folks commenting and voting are members of the working class.
Sure, they might have ill-gotten capital in the form of a deed (ignoring the likelihood that there's a lien on that deed) on a tiny parcel of stolen/colonized land or vested stock in the monopolist they work for, but that's a pittance in the scheme of things. They still need to sell their labor in order to meet their needs for food, shelter, community participation, etc.
We need to find a way to reach these folks. Because this thread is evidence that they think they're significantly different from the people without housing they see on the street here every day.
sershe|6 years ago
There's no need to have empathy towards the underclass silenced by tech money, or whatever. I never had it to start with and never will; and I feel like lots of the people you are trying to "reach" are like that to a large degree, it's just not a fashionable thing to articulate clearly these days. I personally feel completely fine voting for Sanders and other economic progressives, supporting free healthcare, public education, low-income housing, etc. while simultaneously having negative empathy towards habitual criminals and underclass in general. These are not mutually exclusive, as far as I'm concerned they are mutually reinforcing.
asdfgasd|6 years ago
I agree with you in spirit, that most people in SV and the tech industry in general are truly workers. However, I think the monopolists have been quite clever in offering just enough capital to those workers that they feel like an integral part of the system. Especially as they gain additional seniority, or work long enough to pay off their house, that mindset engrains itself. Add to this the democrats willingness to go after the middle/upper-middle class rather than the true elites to fund social programs, and you end up with an individualistic and anti-democratic mindset.
In a way, 'startup culture' and YC contribute to that perception, giving the workers the idea they can make it big as an entrepreneur, no matter how unlikely that really is. It's manufacturing the consent of the average wage-worker in SV for a system only truly benefits elite VC firms and a very very small number of very very lucky or very very well connected entrepreneurs.
> We need to find a way to reach these folks. Because this thread is evidence that they think they're significantly different from the people without housing they see on the street here every day.
There are a ton of tech workers ripe for class consciousness in the gaming industry, so I think that's a good place to start. I've also had a lot of luck encouraging collective action on individual teams that suffer under incompetent management. Combining a discussion of bad management with the trap of mortgage payments and immigration law has netted me a lot of progress with encouraging a more leftist worldview.