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215 points LaSombra | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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spaced-out ◴[] No.23080465[source]
We technologists like to pretend we're powerful, that we could bring these giant megacorps to their knees because those fancy suits need us, right?

No. They need an engineer, not any one specific engineer. Companies like Amazon reject many candidates that could probably do the job they applied for, but were rejected because they can afford to be picky. If anything changes at Amazon it not be because of the loss of that guy's engineering skills.

What would actually make the world a better place is if we recognized that we're really just well paid technicians, and that the true power in society is held by a relatively small number of people who hold a massive amount of capital. We need to give up the fantasy that we can change things with individual action, and start looking towards collective, society-level solutions to the problems today.

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lidHanteyk ◴[] No.23081145[source]
What is an ocean, but a sea of drops? It starts with employees speaking up individually. Raise your voice and be heard. Upper management won't learn moral lessons on their own; they need to hear employees nagging them to be better people.
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stjohnswarts ◴[] No.23083510[source]
I always hear people saying this but the person saying is 99% unlikely to have done so themselves.
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1. lidHanteyk ◴[] No.23084249[source]
At my last job, I called out the CEO for having a PAC and pushing politics in the office. At my position before that, I called out the head of HR for illegally trying to instruct employees to not discuss salaries.

What have you done?