jackyalcine

Useful feedback (sans the soft insulting, lol) and I can update my resume accordingly

> According to their own resume, their first stint as a software engineer was in 2019.

I've been told to drop my earlier roles at Shutterstock because it was "too old" and "too short".

> It's giving main character syndrome vibes.

Eh, it's a monologue.

> It's a lot of assumptive takes that the reader would know every aspect of their lives.

Again, a monologue and a lot of it is phrased as a question. If you've read my blog before, it might not be news. Link's at the top of site!

> Again, this isn't something new or manufactured in the last decade.

Of course not but I do think the initial trust dance has weakened dramatically over the course of the last decade.

> but there's a whole lot of "it's not me, it's everyone else" in here.

I explicitly do not do this in the article, wtf? lol

I can assure you it is not. Are you a licensed professional in the mental health space to be saying something like this?

This is part of the reason why I stopped heavily engaging with ActivityPub. It's not everyone because I know the team of folks who make apps for the space but it's engagement like this who convinced me to write https://www.jacky.wtf/essays/2024/one-over-other/ and had me just step away from ActivityPub (at least until I can see https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-api drop and I'll reengage).

Location: Sarasota, FL

Remote: Ideally

Willing to relocate: Yeah.

Technologies: Rust, CSS, HTML, Postgres + SQLite, React + Svelte, TypeScript/JavaScript, Python + Rust, and the AWS Cloud.

Resume/CV: https://www.jacky.wtf/work/

Email: yo@jacky.wtf

I'm currently doing a lot of open social Web stuff at https://www.olamaelcu.net/ but it's all free stuff and not (currently) paying. Would like to still keep lights on!

Tech:

1. Releasing a solo product. 2. Writing more about code and the intersections of the field in history and world events. 3. Trying to do more talks.

Not-tech:

1. PR like there's no tomorrow. 2. Run two half marathons. 3. Move out of Florida.

Those are the words of Meredith Whittaker from https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/origin-stories-plantatio..., not mine!

That said, I do recommend reading that piece because it does make that connection a lot more clear.

I'll link something I wrote on LinkedIn and quote part of it here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jacky-alcine_private-governme...

> Much of the time, the entire economy operates in periods of substantial hashtag#unemployment or hashtag#underemployment, affecting workers generally: even if they have a job, the cost of job loss is so high they have to put up with nearly any abuse just to hang on to an income. Meanwhile, employers use their power to design workplaces to create a fine-grained division of labor in which workers are deskilled and thus easily replaceable.

I try not to lean on economic theory as a means of driving society (as much as capitalistic governance wants us to - we don't have to accept it). Both of the layoffs I experienced were examples of that perceived health (both at Glitch and Code for America). Coupling that with the need for us to feel "grateful" for something that can be effectively guaranteed to make us a bit messed up in the head when talking about this.

Nixed that, thanks! I've been open to anything and the golden handcuffs have been released, so it's been fun. Right now, I'm focusing on helping other tech folks get organized (and folks outside of industry). I've spent not too much time helping folks with tech, but I'm eager to get "closer to the metal" of that process.

People tend to be selective in order to make their point. It makes it easier to not have to defend their stance (not saying that's the case here, but it's something I've routinely seen).

> i think this is expecting to much from corporate america.

I'll push back on this by adding something from the book, Private Government by Elizabeth Anderson: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176512/pr.... She makes the case, with evidence and history, how no one in America can get by without using corporations to survive. Until we have free housing and healthcare (instead of bombs falling on the rest of the world), we have no choice but to demand better from corporate America.

> As far as separating your self from tech and being technologist. I think its like music, the pop stuff sucks and is mass produced. tech that used to be cool is mass produced, im sure there is cool stuff out there if you put the work into finding it. like underground music. i think trying to label your self is a mistake in general.

I'll quote what I mentioned at the end: "And to play on an idea of separation of the "art from the artwork" while actively defending their organizations (failing that, their outputs and indirectly their contributions) works to be a free agent of marketing for them. It's similar to a private company opening up a non-profit to launder the notion of doing good to build a moat of social capital. How does one comfortably reconcile that?" In the case of Haiti, a musician decided to run for president. Similar to what happened in America when an actor did, both invoked violent wars on the citizens (one was selling blood and killing people, another dropped bombs around the world and blamed a set of people for a viral disease that they refused to do any research on).

It's nigh impossible to separate something that _can't_ exist without the other. We can try to believe that (hence the use of money to create a bubble).

> I remember early 2000s and if you asked anyone who was a good hacker if they want to join IBM they would laugh in your face. That culture needs to return. Where is the Napster of this era? That would give people the fulfillment they want and make them feel useful. A simple way of doing this is to take any popular piece of software and think what the "out there" version will look like and start building it. Maybe punk rock and the hacker culture both need to make a comeback into the mainstream, otherwise FAANG and Leetcode will eat the soul of tech.

I'm glad you mentioned this. I was reading https://diversionbooks.com/books/the-spotify-play/ and the way that hacker culture has become effectively commercial (from anarchist ideals in finance being perverted into cryptocurrency, file sharing into cloud hosting, etc), we have to keep fighting to make control of it hard _while also_ protecting people's safety (bad actors - government or people - will always exist).

I appreciate that (and def let me know if there's any part that's confusing and needs expansion)

You should click through some of the links I've included, like https://dyingforaniphone.com/ and see how much money Apple pushes to hide how each of its innovations leads to corruption and straight-up sweat shop behavior (among other companies like Samsung, LG, Microsoft, HP and the like).

Or read more about how the necessary components for our devices like cobalt maintains the slave labor in Africa backed by Western hegemonic forces: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/books/review/cobalt-red-s... or the case of oil being pushed for more energy production and the lobbying against green solutions from companies like Exxon and Shell via https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo185167...

It's not even really about you or how you feel but what this industry is doing. And with the recent Supreme Court rulings, we're going to be lucky if we know if _more_ things go down.

Yeah. I only hesitate when we see people more eager to use things to exacerbate the harms of the world using technology. It sucks because we, as an industry, seem to only focus on the history of business gains and not on the sociological impact of said gains (the introduction of the smartphone and how that played into how people connect - or even what _was_ the first smartphone).

That's how I responded when Lyft gave me stock options. You saw how that went down.

It's funny you mention this. I did door-to-door sales for a bit and that's what provoked this post. I worked tech to get a check but the _mentality_ of folks outside of tech and in (which I imagine is the same gap that folks in finance, insurance, etc have) gave me a bit of pause when I was thinking about my tenure here.

This seems like a good article for folks who don't know (which is still a lot - people think that getting into tech is a sure way to get rich and not be routinely abused by a neocolonial industry)!