And because we get more done by specializing, everyone has to be as disconnected as we can afford. And although there was always a hidden price on it, now the price is obvious: Friendship is expensive, and your friends also have to pay, for it to work.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like in a village where everyone did the same agriculture tasks and I was working together with everyone of the same gender.

Even though that's only half of all the people I know, it would be far more programmers than I currently know.

Programming isn't traumatic, it's not like war and miscarriage, but it seems like _everyone_ in the working class is isolated, and it sure isn't fun.

I imagine farming is more lonely too, now that one person and a tractor can manage so many acres.

That's interesting; I never felt that programming was an isolated job. The offices I worked at always had plenty of socialization, both in interaction for work purposes (with not just other programmers, but also other people on the company and even quite a few clients) and during breaks, lunches, post-work outings, etc.

I guess this might be different in a large org with impermeable "silos", where you just talk to your direct teammates and work comes in the form of tickets. I mostly worked in small companies (under 50 people), with little bureaucracy, and specialization is a little less strict.

Pop psychology.