I will never understand how so many intelligent people in the software industry, programmers, my colleagues, were/are so short sighted, and... perhaps selfish.

Every time I have brought up unions for the past 25 years, you get this prevalent attitude that "we" programmers have it great. Do not rock the boat.

I do not mean to pick on any one individual, but look at this comment thread from just 1 year ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44485959

"Yeah, look at union successes like dockworkers holding economy hostage via a legalized monopoly, while having more striking non-working members long useless due to automation than actual workers! I sure aspire to work in an industry like that." -- some hackernews user

What?

"There is not a single problem competent developers have that unions would solve" -- some hackernews user

What?

Well. Now we will all suffer. I am bitter. I will suffer because of years of shortsightedness and stubbornness and some kind of "we are ubermensch" and above all the little people who need silly little crutches like unions.