I don't know Rob, I could afford maintaining my wife and childrens life by working as a 'code monkey'.
As an outcome of the crisis in the 80ties, the Dutch government issued a program to train jobless academics (including me) by cooperating with the demands of the cooperative forces and a huge number of former philosophers, historicians, musiciens and other 'trained and skilled' people found jobs in the IT industry in late 90ties, early 2000nds When the financial crisis hits really hard the industry reacted by disposing these group first, aged between 45 and 60, what effective way is there left to (re)gain a living apart from being a 'outsider', guised under the name of activist/artist/pauper or being dependent on welfare as earning money (to pay for the financial demands modern life imposes on every single individual) by practising cultural/software/ creative activities not as part of the cultural/software/creative industry is by far too less to survive decently. It is one thing to discuss things from a comfortable position, backed by whatever institutions who pay the expenses and the rent, but a complete different thing when that is not the case, when there is nothing to hold on What remains then is something else, not expressable in 'jargon' or 'code', and I wonder where exactly the divide between 'leisure/fun' and 'work/labour' lies if not in the differences between having a job - whether as a 'code monkey' or as 'paid' artist or as a 'cultural/ creative/sex worker - and not having a job, or should I go into the streets and fellate white collar workers to maintain my family? Send with consent from Judith V. - artist by birth - mother and lover Sent from my eXtended BodY On 7 jan. 2012, at 16:54, Rob Myers <[email protected]> wrote: > On 07/01/12 15:18, Andreas Maria Jacobs wrote: >> >> Where and how are software skills degraded from a professional craft >> to a hobby 'free' time occupation? > > There are two reasons why I suggest people on Netbehaviour learn to > program using these resources. Neither is so they can get jobs as code > monkeys. > > The first is so that they can get a feel for how code works. So they > can > gain an insight into how the software they use every day, and that > affects their entire lives, works. This is important for thinking > critically and realistically about software. > > The second is so that they can use code as a tool to achieve their own > ends using software, less constrained by the fixed affordances of > applications and web sites. Data visualisation, digital humanities > techniques and web scripting are all useful ways of doing things with > software. > >> What are the benefits from it when being outsourced and jobless? > > Software should not be an economic end in itself. It is a tool for > achieving other ends. This is its benefit to artists and activists and > academics, not that they might be able to make a living by writing > code > for multinationals. > >> The naivity - also expressed in this list - surrounding software >> practices is astonishing > > We don't leave culture to the culture industry or sex to the sex > industry. We shouldn't leave software to the software industry. > > - Rob. > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
