"I think it's a bit obscene to compare this situation to software engineering."

I've got a very cush job, and I can totally identify with what you're saying here.

One feature of that comparison you're critiquing, however, is very important.

A lot of us working in IT who have cushy jobs imagine that our interests are more aligned with the owning classes instead of with the working folks who are doing really painful jobs.

I don't agree with that view, and I feel that a lot of the callous and dismissive "no one is forcing them to work" comes from the fact that many people don't understand that at their core, the ideas that lead working people to have power of how they work affect everyone who is employed by the people who own businesses.

So while I agree that my working conditions are much, much better than any warehouse workers, fundamentally if I am going to stand in solidarity with them I need to understand that my interests are served by the same things that serve their interests, because we both labor for a business instead of owning a business.

To return the comment your criticizing, you have a reasonable point that working conditions for people who "engineer" are much better than those that move boxes.

At the same time, I feel like understanding that those folks moving boxes have the same underlying interests as those of use moving bits is completely necessary to understanding how we can move towards a world where your laudable premise that "technology should free the people, not enslave it to machines" can be treated descriptively instead of just normatively.

Any job that pays you enough to live, but not enough to get to a better place in the long run, is a dead end. When technology takes these jobs, lives will be ruined. Many people would be better off finding something new now rather than later.

I suppose that you're right but to me your comment reads like a modern version of "let them eat cake". This vicious circle of having a shit job that pays enough to live but not enough to get a better place is specifically the problem. There used to be a time when factory workers could get a decent wage, buy a good house, buy a good car etc... And maybe eventually progress through the social layers. It's getting harder and harder. Unskilled worker's wages stagnate while rich people's incomes soar.

I definitely have sympathy and empathy for people in this condition. No employee is immune. Think about whether your job will exist and afford you a comfortable lifestyle in 20 or 30 years.

There doesn't appear to be an easy answer. My comment was only meant to convey that soldiering on to worry another day comes at an opportunity cost.

> then take the wealth generated and redistribute it to the population

i assume you mean the shareholder population?

I don't think he meant, but it's unclear whether you think that's what should happen.

I'll go in and say it should be redistributed to the population at large -- anything that gets us, as a species, closer to that Star Trek utopia is a good thing. World's got the resources for it already.

> but it's unclear whether you think that's what should happen.

i just think that's what would happen. trickle-down economics and the idea that any savings will be passed down to the consumer is a marketing crock of shit.