It's sad to see that fewer and fewer jobs provide enough to have a good life.
If I have to point my finger to something it would be housing/land. Housing throghout the west is the instrument that extracts the most from poor and modal income brackets.
Software development is above this misery line for now.
If we want to live in places where all the employees that support your lifestyle can find meaning and means to a decent life, we have to take care about this.
I remember when I was in my small northern Spain faculty, learning about the beginnings of industrialization and urban planning, it was pretty clear to me that there was a sentiment in the ruling class that, for them to have a decent place to live and not being forced to live inside their palaces and houses, social stability was needed. And such goal could only be achieved providing amenities for the common man.
It was for the best interest of the ruling class.
Nowadays it seems to me that one can move up the payscale and forget about it. But I don't want crime in my neighborhood, nor homeless. I don't want to hear that someone I know lost his job and it's on the verge of hitting the street.
A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a decent life.
> A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a decent life.
Unfortunately there's a huge group of people who will vehemently oppose this as they don't see that job as deserving of basic human dignity (rent, transport, utilities, medical). Not just the ruling class, but normal every day folks poop on these people...?!
The older I get the more I'm disgusted at how many people can selectively turn off their empathy for stuff like this. In an equitable society we should take care of each other... I don't understand why a Wally World cashier making a base living wage offends so many people.
Housing in the West due to insufficient development is effectively a zero-sum game. So once people have their share, they do everything they can to maintain it's value.
Sounds good, doesn’t work. Never will. Life is cruel, brutal competition. Ideal utopia like that is a fragile, forced state. Violence, hardships, is like energy and complexity. Can’t be eliminated. It can be suppressed only to find it pops out somewhere else.
If a cashier finds out they can make a decent living more will want to be cashier and the cashiers will have less leverage, less salary because they are dime a dozen. This is the reality of this treacherous world.
First worlders offload their less desirable work to poorer 2nd class immigrants, poorer countries. Like it or not, all well intentioned Tesla owning, apartment owning, software engineers are there because someone else in society do the dirty work for them with low pay, indirectly.
I so heavily agree. 'above this misery line for now' is the key. I came from a poor background like OP. I have friends that can't afford homes, constantly getting laid off, and not many members of my family have any retirement plans. And this is in 'the worlds richest country'
We can all pretend we will earn enough money for our families to survive, but the reality is those richer than us will try and find away to extract it somewhere down the line. Whether it's inflation, medical bills, or a financial crash that brings your life savings down to zero.
Without large-scale changes to society the hyper-concentration of wealth will continue and millions will continue to live butchered lives.
> a sentiment in the ruling class that, for them to have a decent place to live and not being forced to live inside their palaces and houses, social stability was needed.
Unfortunately, that sentiment was created with a large and long lasting usage of violence by the people.
It would be much better if we get some different way to create it.
Unsolicited book recommendation but I saw someone mention "Rethinking the economics of land and housing" recently which serves as a good general primer of the history of and problems with housing. Mainly UK focused but I think it's increasingly the cause of immiseration globally.
I don't foresee software developers being useless, but I can tell you what I have seen... The big, smart companies are able to leverage highly paid developers better than ever. For example, about 10 years ago, I was working at a company that had 100 devs. They now have 10 highly paid (FAANG+) full time devs + subcontractors and make more money than ever.
Thank you for that comment! As a grad student trying to find my groove in life, I find myself always worried about the job market and the tradeoff I've to pay for imparting meaning to my future job. We definitely need to take care of ensuring a decent life for all professions instead of only software engineers.
The biggest perk of software engineering is that you can literally create something from nothing, and that something can have enough value for someone to pay you. The barrier to entry is basically zero, assuming you already own a computer (and if you don't, you'll need that computer for other things anyway, so it won't be a waste even if you do not end up pursuing software engineering as a career).
Beyond software engineering jobs, having those skills means you can easily build all kinds of services and put them out there for prospective customers to buy. You can also automate your own repetitive, annoying and boring shit instead of spending time doing it manually or paying someone else (or a service) to do so.
Besides making software products, software engineering expertise will also help you make other jobs more efficient, sometimes automating them away. If shit hits the fan and developers are no longer in demand and selling software products/services doesn’t work out, you can just look for any kind of computer-based, repetitive job such as data entry and automate it away.
The idea of creating something from nothing is what got me into programming. Somewhat related to the idea that I can make a computer do what I want, presupposing I know what kind of limitless potential “telling a computer what to do” opens up
Strongly agree with something from nothing.
As a former carpenter I spent quite a bit of effort lugging tools around and on moves, today I just grab a laptop.
Got into software engineering for the money, figuring it wouldn't be intolerable.
Benefits I didn't expect:
* Forced me to confront lifelong imposter syndrome.
* Forced me to slow down and pay attention to details, step through a process sequentially during debugging, etc.
* Forced me to take ownership of finding the answer when I didn't know the answer.
* Forced me to convert theoretical "I solved it in my head" into practical application.
* Forced me to overcome "math anxiety," the fear of not finding the "right" answer.
I'm really happy to see this and that this field has a positive effect on people's life. That's really the top line takeaway for me: But as someone who's been through more than one of these "market cycles" in tech, I have a fear (based in reality/experience) that when people start viewing Software Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are about to get a lot worse.
We're already seeing this with FAANG layoffs. I'd like to believe "it's different this time" but I don't have anything I can point to as a logical basis for that belief. And it really scares me.
There might be a downcycle but I don't see how it couldn't be very different than any previous cycle. The depth to which software has penetrated business processes seems much more deep than even 20 years ago.
What are you talking about most companies just experienced record-making profits!!! Are we not getting raises?!?! /sarcasm
I've see things getting worse for a lot of people for a while. I think we just like to pretend it's all good in white-collar land because of the heavy stigma of being poor. We need to unionize. Many 'poorer' and 'less-skilled' workers have already realized this(e.g. nurses strike, teachers strike and recent vote by railroad union to strike).
"The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation's wealth as of the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.Apr 1, 2022"
> when people start viewing Software Engineering as a gateway to a "good life" it usually means we're at an inflection point where things (at least in the U.S.) are about to get a lot worse.
This has already happened in India, and competition to get into top tier tech companies is insane.
Remote work means that now you are competing with people from all around the world, some of them living in places with very permissive labor laws, which means that wages around where you live will go down.
Aww, this is great! I'm all for career-switchers joining in. As this describes, software is a very human pursuit. Outside experiences help bring different skills and perspectives to the work. And as he describes, that goes the other way too.
Yeah, wait till you've spent a year on a major project, turning predigested niblets of a requirement ("stories") into snippets of code ("implementations"), and your boss is breathing down your neck because your niblet->snippet conversion rate per sprint (as reported by JIRA because everything at work fucking spies on you) is not where the OKRs say it should be. Your life will feel changed all right.
[+] [-] spaniard89277|3 years ago|reply
If I have to point my finger to something it would be housing/land. Housing throghout the west is the instrument that extracts the most from poor and modal income brackets.
Software development is above this misery line for now.
If we want to live in places where all the employees that support your lifestyle can find meaning and means to a decent life, we have to take care about this.
I remember when I was in my small northern Spain faculty, learning about the beginnings of industrialization and urban planning, it was pretty clear to me that there was a sentiment in the ruling class that, for them to have a decent place to live and not being forced to live inside their palaces and houses, social stability was needed. And such goal could only be achieved providing amenities for the common man.
It was for the best interest of the ruling class.
Nowadays it seems to me that one can move up the payscale and forget about it. But I don't want crime in my neighborhood, nor homeless. I don't want to hear that someone I know lost his job and it's on the verge of hitting the street.
A cashier should be able to pay rent, transport, utilities and a decent life.
[+] [-] folkhack|3 years ago|reply
Unfortunately there's a huge group of people who will vehemently oppose this as they don't see that job as deserving of basic human dignity (rent, transport, utilities, medical). Not just the ruling class, but normal every day folks poop on these people...?!
The older I get the more I'm disgusted at how many people can selectively turn off their empathy for stuff like this. In an equitable society we should take care of each other... I don't understand why a Wally World cashier making a base living wage offends so many people.
[+] [-] kqr2|3 years ago|reply
Housing in the West due to insufficient development is effectively a zero-sum game. So once people have their share, they do everything they can to maintain it's value.
Great HN comment on a recent thread with regards to land and rent-seeking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32961554
[+] [-] immigrantheart|3 years ago|reply
If a cashier finds out they can make a decent living more will want to be cashier and the cashiers will have less leverage, less salary because they are dime a dozen. This is the reality of this treacherous world.
First worlders offload their less desirable work to poorer 2nd class immigrants, poorer countries. Like it or not, all well intentioned Tesla owning, apartment owning, software engineers are there because someone else in society do the dirty work for them with low pay, indirectly.
[+] [-] zapataband1|3 years ago|reply
We can all pretend we will earn enough money for our families to survive, but the reality is those richer than us will try and find away to extract it somewhere down the line. Whether it's inflation, medical bills, or a financial crash that brings your life savings down to zero.
Without large-scale changes to society the hyper-concentration of wealth will continue and millions will continue to live butchered lives.
[+] [-] marcosdumay|3 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, that sentiment was created with a large and long lasting usage of violence by the people.
It would be much better if we get some different way to create it.
[+] [-] UglyToad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isthisthingon99|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] abhayhegde|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulryanrogers|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|3 years ago|reply
Yeah, the dream may be over when Asia gets a high quality development machine in every home.
[+] [-] jimbokun|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nextgrid|3 years ago|reply
Beyond software engineering jobs, having those skills means you can easily build all kinds of services and put them out there for prospective customers to buy. You can also automate your own repetitive, annoying and boring shit instead of spending time doing it manually or paying someone else (or a service) to do so.
Besides making software products, software engineering expertise will also help you make other jobs more efficient, sometimes automating them away. If shit hits the fan and developers are no longer in demand and selling software products/services doesn’t work out, you can just look for any kind of computer-based, repetitive job such as data entry and automate it away.
[+] [-] koinedad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j-bos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electrondood|3 years ago|reply
Benefits I didn't expect:
[+] [-] koinedad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dccoolgai|3 years ago|reply
We're already seeing this with FAANG layoffs. I'd like to believe "it's different this time" but I don't have anything I can point to as a logical basis for that belief. And it really scares me.
[+] [-] tracerbulletx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zapataband1|3 years ago|reply
I've see things getting worse for a lot of people for a while. I think we just like to pretend it's all good in white-collar land because of the heavy stigma of being poor. We need to unionize. Many 'poorer' and 'less-skilled' workers have already realized this(e.g. nurses strike, teachers strike and recent vote by railroad union to strike).
"The top 1% owned a record 32.3% of the nation's wealth as of the end of 2021, data show. The share of wealth held by the bottom 90% of Americans, likewise, has declined slightly since before the pandemic, from 30.5% to 30.2%.Apr 1, 2022"
[+] [-] jimbokun|3 years ago|reply
There may have been occasional downturns, but less than most other professions. And compensation has grown much faster than most other fields.
[+] [-] never_inline|3 years ago|reply
This has already happened in India, and competition to get into top tier tech companies is insane.
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koinedad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwize|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] melony|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway81348|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koinedad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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