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The word "barbarism" is quite an exaggeration. Teaching salaries are low relative to education level because lots of people are socially pushed toward teaching
by comicjk 9y ago
The word "barbarism" is quite an exaggeration.
Teaching salaries are low relative to education level because lots of people are socially pushed toward teaching (obvious example: many people's mentors are teachers). Programming doesn't have this dynamic.
I'm not opposed to unionization - I joined the new grad student union when I was getting my PhD. But I think you should focus on programmers' specific problems, like long hours and low vacation time, not on problems from other jobs which have low relevance.
- wfo 9y agoWe aren't there yet, things are still much better for us than teachers, yes. But I'm proposing we do something about it now, while we are in demand and have power instead of waiting until it gets that bad. Programming and teaching are similar; they are prestige positions (for now) that mark you as one of the professional class, people who do them are by and large hugely passionate and would be unhappy if forced to do something else (many programmers I know started before school because they loved it, do it in their spare time, etc). Passion in capitalism gets taken advantage of and exploited, since dispassionate economic assessment is how a 'rational' actor works in economic models; passion is a weakness from the perspective of wealth accumulation and economic success. The thing that links the fields in my view is passion.