Whataboutism like this is a rhetorical tactic to deflect uncomfortable or difficult conversations. I'm not sure I agree with OP about software engineers and business executives being the "worst thing for the planet," but it does feel like there is a growing distrust of both groups. It's something to pay attention to, especially if AI begins to really take away people's jobs or cause social upheaval. There is already a lot of anger directed at some business executives right now.
Yeah, it’s weird. Software engineers are mostly just doing whatever gets them paid.
End of the day, they’re laborers and they have no choice on what is being built. It’s not like most people in software are making enough to own a home in SV on their own anyway. It’s still a dual (tech) income (or big windfall) market.
We live in a world (especially in the US) that requires a job to afford basic necessities of life. If you'd like to starve to death, by all means - do it.
You see God, I simply had no choice but to make 500k a year coding an AI weapons system to blow up brown people at incredible efficiency. Was I expected to STARVE?
I’m not in SV so can’t really speak to the housing market. Owned my own home for over 20 years as a software engineer. But right, engineers are just code laborers.
There's a growing, multi-faceted distrust in the tech industry as a whole, not just SWEs. This includes the tech billionaires, coastal elites, big tech companies, AI/automation, wealth disparities, crypto bros, VCs, the DOGE boys, and anyone who may have STEM-lord vibes.
It's not whataboutism. GGP said software engineers were worse than career politicians - without using the words "career politicians". GGP also said software engineers were worse than underwater basket weavers. And orb spiders. GP disagrees with one of these things GGP said.
2025 has shown that there are things much worse than people whose entire career is decided to public service. I'll take 1000 career politician over one "business guy" any day.
The combination of being sure they know how the world works (like a business of course), surrounding themselves with sycophants, and being smart enough to convince themselves of anything which makes them get high off the smell of their own farts, leads to terrible garbage like our current administration.
I’d argue the career politicians’ thoughtless rhetoric reinforces the shortage of critical thinking across the country, which was taken advantage of in 2016 and again in 2024. This lack of critical thinking is nationwide: two-thirds of eligible voters either did not vote or voted for Trump in 2024. The business guy could leave office in 2029 and I’d still have low hopes for the future of the country.
The damage has been caused by media and career politicians’ use of such. You’re right that they’re not overtly dangerous in office (doing crazy things means you don’t get re-elected) but that just makes the negative effects of their actions less obvious, not less severe.
> people whose entire career is [dedicated] to public service
I accept this framing for the career administrators who have (or had) a job to do. A person who makes a career out of repeatedly being elected to public leadership positions might fall under that umbrella but seems to have a higher propensity for dishonest behavior. Put another way: a career politician is not necessarily a career civil servant, there just happens to be some overlap.
