Fits with my experience. I think it’s from thinking they’re smarter than everyone else and being completely oblivious to Mises’ Socialist Calculation Problem.

I try to stay away from public politics discussions, but I would say that software engineers are socialist because they solve problems.

Socialism advocates for a better world by solving social issues, so it checks out.

Everyone’s different, I met more right-leaning engineers than left-leaning ones.

edit: also really important to remember that software engineers are more likely to be narcissists, so this fits more the question

Big data, AI, wearables, these are the wet dreams of central planners. A percentage of software engineers leans into this for social status within a branch of tech leadership that is in favour in social engineering. It also helps them to disarm women in the field, like the cuttlefish that they are.

well... FOSS is pretty socialist if you ask old lawyers

In my experience, yes. They think they can design the world.

I doubt that it could be true. Software engineers are most of time isolated in coding and learning and luck part of being socialist.

I think there is some truth to this. Software engineers as I know them are rather well paid, but also very aware of the privileges that come with it, so the challenge of designing a system that elevates everyone to the same level of wellbeing is definitely there (even if sometimes only as a mind game). Being an engineering discipline we also rarely deal in absolutes, rather we are aware that tradeoffs are necessary to make progress in the real world. And finally, as several people have pointed out there is also some hubris involved, since rule setting and world building is much of a software engineers daily work (but with the realism that every set of rules can be exploited, hence we don't tend to strive for perfection, rather a good enough).

Tech is somehow riddled with commie cunts. I used to be involved in the hacking community and that also turned completely woke&commie, which is funny and sad at the same time.

I think that it's more a generic live and let live (liberal) attitude. It's easy to not care if you don't really feel much pain because you're on the high end of the salary range. I expect that we will witness a shift in the coming years, now that the profession is potentially coming a bit under pressure. VC bros flipped too and they have an outsized influence.

I'm not sure if it matters though. It's not been special to be a software developer in general since like 15 years or so and the really talented young people that will make the difference don't have time for nor care about politics.

In my experience no. But because of the type of minds that do well in engineering you get many people that think about base questions. This means you get anarchists, communists, and contrarian thinkers. You also get people that think they are contrarian but aren't. In my years in the industry I've run across all stripes. But, the vast majority are rather normie in their political thoughts.

*Richard Stallman has entered the chat

Isn't that what Open Source Software is?