It's a big number, but it's often tied up in housing in VHCOL/HCOL areas. It also doesn't mean much re: not needing to work in these areas.

Also given retirement in US is self-funded via saving/investment instead of pension, someone who wants a comfortable retirement in many areas of this country needs $1M NW by 65 to generate a $40k/year income (above the social security payments which don't go so far) at safe withdrawal rates.

No question about that and that’s the whole point

people think that they’re gonna become an independently wealthy millionaire by boot licking their way into some kind of financial windfall

Having your body worn out before you can retire assumes retirement as a concept exists, which it doesn’t in the US. “Retirement” aka living without working, as a blue collar worker, was a middle class fantasy that only existed for an extremely small minority of people from 1949-1985. Even the ones who had their bodies worn out dealt with years of asbestos poisoning black lung all these other externalities that corporations did not care about and so arguing about this concept of retirement is moot because it’s never really a real thing.

For the majority of working people in the world they never had any type of retirement like this and for anybody who did it was a very temporary period in western society.

So while it might’ve been true in the past that the body was the first thing to break, now it’s just “can you maintain your own financial status in the future given your previous work history.”

Everybody at this point understands that there is no possible job you could as an 18-year-old in 2026 that you will be able to retire from and live comfortably in your twilight years from 65-80 with the earnings and “investments” made in the preceding 50 years of work.

Beyond that if I look around at least the “western” world there are very few of those jobs left that totally destroy your body - military, mining, construction etc… still have a lot of that (My body is ruined from 17 years of military) but it’s a shrinking group

For example most of agriculture is being done mechanically compared to 100 years ago, similarly for manufacturing lines humans are a minority in a manufacturing line at this point

I remember back in the 1990s it would take a work party of three families to cut and bail hay in Texas. I was on one of those crews for at least a couple years as a kid. Literally nobody does that anymore it’s all mechanical bailers and silege wrapping machines

That’s correct and the percentage of those people seems to be going down

but hey maybe I’m totally wrong

and the number of synchophants and boot lickers who work in tech is going up

i'm saying test it, let's get scientific. why would you have a problem with that?

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> If highly skilled individuals like blue-collar technologists and programmers collectively withdraw our human resources

Individuals cannot convince the Subway app, Raycast or LastPass to defect from Apple or Google's platforms. Using those platforms is an executive decision, and Senior iOS/Android engineers will not voice this minority concern or risk their job to advocate for it. Similarly, Apple and Google's platform monopolies are not designed by individual engineers, but executives that will happily pay to replace you if you feel morally unjust.

The only place where this could work is indie development, since that's the scale where developers have authority to sabotage themselves. And sabotage themselves they would - it would be like Fortnite's removal from the App Store except with ~100,000 times less public outcry. You'd go bankrupt before ever inspiring change on the platform.

Nothing about the technology changed, indie developers have long warned users to not give their OEM control over what they can install. But users don't really care, businesses told them the App Store is "safer" before they ever got to see the alternative.

Well said!

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Your belief that "power structures can't be fixed" perfectly illustrates what educator Paulo Freire described as the oppressed having a "diffuse, magical belief in the invulnerability and power of the oppressor". Anthropologist David Graeber noted that modern capitalism has constructed a vast bureaucratic apparatus "designed, first and foremost, to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures" and to ensure that challenging existing power arrangements seems like an "idle fantasy". The idea that the platform holder holds all the cards is an ideological tool used to encourage passivity and convince you that your only option is to submit.

As James C. Scott demonstrates in his analysis of authoritarian systems, any formally organized, rigidly planned system is ultimately parasitic on the informal, unscripted practices (which he calls mētis) of the people within it. A closed system cannot survive on its own rigid rules; it requires the constant, active cooperation and practical know-how of its subjects to function.

Gene Sharp's foundational theory of power echoes this: no regime, corporation, or totalitarian system possesses inherent power. Their power derives entirely from the cooperation, obedience, and skills of the people they govern or employ. If blue-collar technologists, developers, and users collectively withdraw their skills, labor, and cooperation, even the most monolithic tech empire can be paralyzed. The power of the OEM is not absolute; it is entirely contingent on your continued participation.

You point to the GNU/FOSS movements as successful because they ignore corporate nemesis-building and instead focus their volunteer hours on creating "something wonderful."

In the study of nonviolent struggle, building alternative social institutions and alternative communication systems are indeed recognized and highly effective methods of intervention. Furthermore, creating "commons" (like open-source software) is crucial because it provides a practical model for a non-commercial way of life.

However, building alternative commons is not a substitute for directly challenging power. As Silvia Federici argues, creating commons must be seen as a complement to the struggle against capital, not an alternative to it. If you only build wonderful alternatives without contesting the power of private capital, your creations remain vulnerable to being enclosed, commodified, or crushed by the very monopolies you are trying to ignore.

Ignoring the oppressor does not make them disappear. If technologists want to reclaim power, the first step is to reject the neoliberal fatalism that views the current corporate dominance as an unchangeable law of nature. Power concedes nothing without a demand, and the limits of tech monopolies are prescribed entirely by the endurance of the people who build and use them.