• pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    “I fight for the user” has been lurking in the hindbrains of so many tech workers since the Tron years, somehow nestling comfortably alongside of the idea that “I don’t need a union, I’m a temporarily embarrassed founder.”

    Oof. I don’t like this sentence, because I’m in it.

      • kazerniel@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        It’s a reference to this quote:

        “John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” ― Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress (source)

        Edit: apparently the original John Steinbeck quote was:

        “I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”

      • yamper@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        “i would totally be a founder right now if it weren’t for [excuse xyz]”