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I agree - but one reason that it's nauseating to see so much celebration of software engineers ("pampered folks") is the freedom-destroying force that FAANG is. It doesn't have to be like it is with walled garden after walled garden. https://ghuntley.com/fracture/

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Oh my sweet summer child, you think civil, electrical and mechanical engineering are clean, ethical businesses? You don't get started in any serious EE work without signing manufacturer NDAs. Half the reason why our devices are so locked down is because of the hardware manufacturers. Behind beautiful skyscrapers are legions of corruption, middlemen, and organized crime. The cloud may hold your data hostage but the pricing is at least somewhat transparent. Mechanical engineering have their own ways of enforcing lock-in. You can't easily swap out a supplier just because you can see what a part looks like. Be glad that software isn't as regulated, you would not like to work in a industry where trade groups decide everything, and where licensing and accreditation unions are used to keep engineers in line like cattle.

This made me think of the joke "mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets" in the context of ethics - of course it's a lot more than that in practice

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