Wednesday 6 November 2013

The software conspiracy: Maintaining a software-developer biased imbalance in human-machine labour arbitrage.

Have you ever wondered why software engineering tools are so terrible?

Perhaps there is an implicit/unspoken conspiracy across our profession?

After all, we software developers are working away at our jobs to automate various economic activities; the inevitable result of which is to force workers in other industries out of their jobs and their livelihoods.

A claim can be made that technological developments create new, less rote and routine roles, with more intellectual challenge and greater responsibility -- but there is no real evidence that this outcome will necessarily always hold; indeed, there is some empirical evidence to suggest that this pattern is even now beginning to fail.

We are not stupid. Indeed, we are well aware of the effects of our actions on their individual welfare and security, so why should we bring the same calamity upon ourselves? Perhaps we should keep our software tools in their present primitive state; to ensure job security for ourselves just as we undermine it for others?

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