On Tue 6th May 2025 GC wrote:
Cory Doctorow on the enshittification of tech jobs.
He mentions something called “Vocational awe” which sounds similar to the characteristic shown by people working for the UN. I hadn’t considered tech industry workers in this way before but it kind of makes sense, “I’m passionate about js” 🙂 Although, unlike teachers, healthcare workers etc they were paid well, but Cory’s saying those days are gone.
This paragraph about Meta describes many of the issues the workers from WFP faced like job insecurity, short-term contracts etc. Maybe we should be making wellness platforms for the fragmented, disillusioned tech worker?
‘Then there’s a Meta recruiter who got fired and then immediately re-hired, but as a “short term employee” with no merit pay, stock grants, or promotions. She has to continuously reapply for her job, and has picked up the workload of several fired colleagues who weren’t re-hired. Meta managers (the ones whose bonuses were just doubled) call this initiative “agility.“’
N
many of the issues the workers from WFP faced like job insecurity, short-term contracts etc.
I was never really sure how real a lot of the WFP staff issues were. The difference between national and international staff was stark. UN international staff generally had either a beatific glow or righteous ire while flying UN business class to a war zone and certainly the mental health staff were all bonny, bio yoghurt yogis making sure they look after themselves so they can look after others blah blah blah. The ‘national’ staff? Not so much – exactly mirroring the imperialism which largely brought those countries to where they are. I suppose this is generally Doctorow’s point – there are two tiers, Keir. (Though not in the way Yaxley-Lenin claims.)
It’s hard to think about the future of work. I’m a Cassandra, but even I sometimes think it might all turn out nice again.
We could even outsource spinning in our graves to machines…
Fully automated luxury communism (now with automated ghosts)
SA wrote:
Is this real?!
N
Real in the sense of fake?
SA
“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” Why is AI so bloody polite? No wonder its so hard in Convo to get the AI to be an arsehole. Even shooting it won’t do the trick.
GC
Speaking of ‘spinning in your grave’
The Pope should have gone out like this.
MM
I find the recreation of dead people with AI really unsettling. It happened to Kate’s family recently, her 14 year old cousin died of cancer and as part of the “grieving” process, the grandmother fed his image into an AI to make a video of him throwing up a 
gang sign not 12 hours after the funeral. I struggle to see how that’s grieving when you don’t need to accept someone’s gone. Everyones different but it worries me, seen plenty of Doctor Who episodes with a similar topic and they don’t end well
I don’t know how the mum/dad felt but Kate’s immediate family were less upset and more shocked, the kid they just said goodbye to was all of a sudden reanimated and “alive” through AI on Facebook
GC
(I don’t know where I’m going with this but) there’s something about the ease of which anyone can belch this type of stuff out that diminishes the intent. If the Grandmother had spent some time creating a montage of video and photos it would have landed very differently.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just old?
MM
No no, I agree and I am like half your age
GC
alright, show off
Overwrought 