They say that software is eating the world. They also say, or rather they say that Jean-Jacques Rousseau said:

Quand le peuple n’aura plus rien à manger, il mangera le riche.

A lot of software and other technological development is done in a kind of technocratic homeostasis: technologists believe that they are amoral actors simply advancing the boundaries of human knowledge, and that it is up to others to decide how their inventions and developments are applied. They channel Tom Lehrer’s fictionalised version of a prominent Nazi party member and SS officer:

“Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun.

Of course, this is a complete nonsense. These supposedly consequence-free technologists and rational actors are taking money from those who profit from the very applications of their work that they claim to be indifferent to. Reality is exposed: it is not that they are contributing to humanitarian progress; they are contributing to their own access to foosball tables and at-desk massage perks.

We have previously covered why it is important that technology workers understand and participate in the trade union movement. Now let us learn from those whose work is impacted by technology.

Discounting audiobook editions of printed books, this is the first audiophonic entry into the De Programmatica Ipsum library: the podcast Peak Salvation. Former Facebook engineering director Philip Su takes a job at an Amazon fulfilment centre during the busy “peak” season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you have never worked a manual job—or eve