[lbo-talk] Erasure and/or devaluation of Labor in FOSS rhetoric (Re:Purer Than Thou)

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Wed Jan 24 09:55:55 PST 2007


On 1/24/07, bitch at pulpculture.org <bitch at pulpculture.org> wrote:
> She is oblivious to the labor involved and fancies that it all just
> magically landed in her lap. She devalues her own labor and turns around
> and devalues that of others -- in fact, has no idea that they exist!

Ever notice how people are devalued in general? Whenever I've played the working-class restaurant help or fastfood worker, I'm treated as interchangeable, like commodity hardware. When I play the mystical AI programmer, bosses ask forgiveness if a task is beneath me.

Of course, this is the opposite of a sane society. People should be flabbergasted that a human is reduced to "burger flipper"; and maybe curl their lips at the aristocratic boy playing with computers, who sometimes automates people away.

(Maybe this is why some feel a bit of schadenfreude in techies being offshored, something which I hear devalues techies far more than Free Software. We don't erect cartels like some other professions.)

But I agree with some people here: everyone should know a little bit about how the sausage is made.

For example, do people know that when you use Google, you're really executing instructions on a Linux computer? Most of us here are Linux users, maybe all of us.

That horrible Unix command line is just a program (a poorly conceived one). Google is a program too.

It's true that there are many (to be polite) misleading evangelists who paint a false front. So when the poor misinformed newbie gets angry and shouts at a forum that "This shit doesn't work!" a bunch of equally furious techies flames the fellow into oblivion for being a jerk.

Honesty is vital, I find. When I recommend software, I first ask what their situation is. If a piece of Free Software happens to be hard to use (as is fairly often the case), I mention that as a cost. But I also mention corporate lock-in under costs. It only takes a couple sentences. Eventually, they may be curious about this Free Software dealie, just as someone might be curious about what you had for breakfast, and I can offer them an interesting couple minutes.

Tayssir



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