It's par for the course in tech, unfortunately. I think tech leadership in particular would benefit from a rigorous education in ethics.
I’m not aware of any evidence that education in ethics leads to more ethical behavior though it obviously leads to being able to discuss ethical problems better. The evidence suggests ethicists steal more books than other philosophers[1].
]1] Do ethicists steal more books? Eric Schwitzgebel
If explicit cognition about morality promotes moral behavior then one might expect ethics professors to behave particularly well. However, professional ethicists’ behavior has never been empirically studied. The present research examined the rates at which ethics books are missing from leading academic libraries, compared to other philosophy books similar in age and popularity. Study 1 found that relatively obscure, contemporary ethics books of the sort likely to be borrowed mainly by professors and advanced students of philosophy were actually about 50% more likely to be missing than non-ethics books. Study 2 found that classic (pre-1900) ethics books were about twice as likely to be missing.
In any case, this paper covers most of the objections you are raising and answers them quite well, IMO:
I supposed that if a vague criticism of Hardt and Negri is your justification for dismissing the school of thought they draw from (in, it should be mentioned, very controversial ways), you must not be able to say much about what most experts think of when they hear "Marxism": Capital, V.I. Lenin, Dobb/Meek/Sweezy, Postone, etc. Put it this way: every philosopher who has seriously engaged with Marx critically has not had the hubris to call Marxism "intellectually worthless" - flawed, logically inconsistent, immoral, convoluted, unnecessary, whatever, sure - but not worthless as a result of "sheer obscurity and bullshitting". The only part of Marx that has been called needlessly obscure (aside from misguided remarks by Pareto) is the Wertform - and Marxists themselves criticize that heavily. Some Marxists (Rational Choice Marxists) would even agree with you, and still hold Marx to be highly relevant and fruitful. Empire seems cherry-picked at best, and a dishonest representative of late 20th c. and 21st c. Marxian literature at worst. If it's all you've read from Marxists, then my apologies - but criticize Hardt and Negri, not the discipline as a whole, which has worked for the past century to create a great many introductory materials, lecture series, video series, companion guides and more.
You stated your experience, and the conclusion that experience led you to. The conclusion that Marxism is "really that intellectually worthless" on the basis of what you wrote on your site is unwarranted - and yet, considering how most Marxist literature isn't nearly as "bullshitty and obscure" as you paint Empire to be, as the opinions from experts and scholars demonstrate[0], it's a fairly reasonable conclusion for me to draw. All of this is still assuming that Empire really is as "bullshitty and obscure" as you say it is. I'm yet to see anyone else make that claim - despite your claim that "it's not just [you]".
>I don't feel the need to reiterate the many excellent objections, theoretical and practical, which refute Marxism
I suppose that is how the Internet works. You don't need to present or defend a specific claim; instead, you can pick out one example, infer that it is representative of the whole, and claim you're right - but right in what way isn't your job to show.
If Empire is "the most egregious", why is the most egregious example being used to attack the whole and being taken as representative? I'm sure you know about the concept of steelmanning - to take the most charitable interpretation of your opponent's claims.
On your page, you write "[...] concluding the problem was not me [...]", how could you possibly come to that conclusion when scholars in related fields and experts on the topic have no issue navigating the work[1]?
This isn't an issue of Marx[ism] being correct or not. I disagree with a few of Marx's conclusions. This is an issue of Marxist literature being "bulshitty and obscure". That is the claim you have failed to back up. By pointing to "excellent objections", you only strengthen my point that even the harshest critics can navigate Marxism.
When two Nobel prize winning economists consider 20th c. Marxism sufficiently readable and strong to argue against in a series of publications, maybe the problem is you. It appears you even failed to give proper appreciation to the place of Analytical or Mathematical Marxism - the stuff published in economics journals through the latter half of the 20th c. and to this day. You'll find that contrary to your opinion, they're plenty readable even by people who aren't experts of Marx[3].
[0] Pick up any comprehensive book on the history of economics and there'll be a chapter on Marx. It may not be a generous chapter, but the authors clearly were able to navigate through the work in order to write their chapter. Pick up any book on mainstream theories of philosophy, history or sociology and you'll find the same. In a PolEcon book you'll find more than one chapter. Are you sure the problem isn't just you?
[1] Not only that, but there are hundreds of short books, lecture series and pamphlets that explain the topic pretty well[2]. Marx himself wrote a short lecture series. Your post makes it out to be as if the discipline keeps things well hidden in an obscurantist conspiracy.
[2] If you don't care for a sympathetic overview of Marxism, Kolakowski, one of Marxism's harshest critics, wrote The Main Currents of Marxism.
[3] Example: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3468758 and https://econpapers.repec.org/article/fisjournl/19s0102.htm and https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030981681985277... and http://digamo.free.fr/jefferies15.pdf
You are referring to gwern's "dismissal of Marx's thought" in your reply to everybodyknows?
I'm confused.
If you're going to fault Sartre and talk about 20th c. academic philosophy, you may as well also fault Hegel or Nietzche or Marx for their 18th and 19th c. philosophy, and then Heraclitus for his 4th century BC obscurities. Maybe you only meant "continental" philosophy, but you'd probably need metaphilosophy to argue the point as to what is genuine and a "sophistical hustle".
Apparently the people who study Sartre come out with some pretty interesting ideas[0]. It's a little tiring to hear people reading 50 pages of a French philosopher known for his difficulty and concluding that 20th c. academic philosophy is sophistry(?!)[1] A non-mathematician might just say the same thing about Erdos. The fact that people feel comfortable making such sweeping judgements on a wide-ranging and deep discipline is frankly shocking. You're not alone, however; the gwern.net guy has done the same.
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/
[1] Sartre mostly wrote books on philosophy, rather than publishing in academic journals, alongside plays and novels. If you mean to talk about "academic philosophy", Sartre is certainly not your best example. Neither would Marx or Nietzche be good examples. Heidegger and Hegel maybe.