• hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Ecosystem when used in the context of software development (and production as a whole) is at most a buzzword for capitalists to greenwash their unsustainable and exploitative supply chains and management practices to outsiders.

    There is no ecosystem (not in any definition that is analagous to its actual scientific definition), only purposeful human decisions and human made structures of power. To use the word ecosystem in this context could run the risk of erasing people’s (both capitalists and the proletariat) agency as well as deter the conversation away from capitalism and into idealism about human communities

    Just like you mentioned, the capitalist class has no interest in slowing down and in a capitalist society, their word is law. The field of computer science and IT is dominated by multinational corporations whose interest is to keep the inherently harmful system going.

    “The fast food ecosystem” “the fossil fuel ecosystem” “the boeing whistleblower assassination ecosystem” sound horrible, so why is it different for discourse surrounding computer technology? Just because it is a term in the zeitgeist doesn’t mean it should be used.