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> I'm not sure I understand. > The whole article is just describing literally anyone in any industry. Teachers. Surgeons. Physiotherapists. Soldiers. Artists.

by neilk 9y ago

> I'm not sure I understand. > The whole article is just describing literally anyone in any industry. Teachers. Surgeons. Physiotherapists. Soldiers. Artists. Grocers. Cleaners. Miners. Forestry. Farmers. Elder care. The people who drive your shuttle bus. Most industries require contact with other humans, and implicate you in their happiness. In techland, we are already a step removed from our customers (because we create autonomous artifacts.) But beyond that, now we’re powered by overwhelming amounts of capital. And the whole point of that capital is to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. In a previous decade, computer programmers could have counted themselves as citizens. Connecting and empowering people. Maybe a lot us still are. But lately, a lot of what we’re doing is finding new ways to yank Jenga pieces out of society, in hopes that all the pieces will fall into our bosses’ laps.

Bartweiss 9y ago
> Most industries require contact with other humans, and don’t rely on overwhelming amounts of capital to try to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. I agree with the statement, but I'm not sure it squares with your list? Tech and banking aren't unique in offering the chance to sit alone in an office and turn early advantages into ludicrous excess. Broadly, we're talking about jobs that have power-law payouts among their practitioners, require highly skilled (and hard to interchange) labor, and don't intrinsically punish jerks (meaning limited interaction with coworkers or customers). Not all of them make billions, but they get something exponential that encourages them to compete - fame or professional power or job security. That's a lot of careers. Orchestral musicians fit, lawyers fit, surgeons fit in spades, artists and mathematicians and philosophers all fit. Obviously tech and banking are not equivalent to those things - heart surgeons have never destroyed the economy. But I think it's a catastrophic mistake to try and understand why tech and banking cause these problems by acting like the professional demeanor is unique. That is at best a starting point, a way of acknowledging that if yanking pieces out of society is easy and rewarding it will happen. The question from there is "how do we stop that from happening?" (I'm not sure how much we honestly disagree, I just think the distinction is important. That Jenga metaphor is fantastic.)
- neilk 9y ago
  I think your analysis is great too. The power law advantages are what’s both wonderful and terrifying about this field. Although surgeons aren’t really in the power-law game; at best they can do a handful of surgeries a week. But yes I chose that example specifically because many of them are tempermentally detached from people, get paid a lot, and are often workaholics. But we don’t see people revolting against surgeons.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Sorry, I was a bit unclear on power law - I was thinking about the career side, not just the outcomes. So power-law for surgeons would be doing the hardest surgeries in the highest-stakes fields, heading up a clinic, ending up rich and famous. A great brain surgeon doesn't save vastly more lives than an average one, but people like Ben Carson and Sanjay Gupta get exponentially more fame and status. I think we agree though - it's a great example of a field with similar social dynamics to programming, and a very different societal role.
- moomin 9y ago
  Even in banking people go out onto the street at lunchtime. The whole campus thing is pretty unique to SF tech culture.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Bankers also ride the subway not private shuttle busses. It’s a stupid thing to focus on but optics matter.
    - moomin 9y ago
      I think the truly toxic thing is people not spending money in their communities. One of the things I pick up from anti-gentrification stories is that when new people move in, the existing shops lose customers. No-one goes to the corner store, they get food via an app or wait for a Whole Foods to open. The (completely unintended) effect of this is that the existing community gets poorer, not richer, when rich people move in.
BeetleB 9y ago
>Most industries require contact with other humans, and implicate you in their happiness. Most do, but many don't. Including some that were considered prestigious jobs (Wall Street, law firms, etc). A number of these jobs involved really boring grunt work with minimal contact with others.

by neilk 9y ago

Bartweiss 9y ago

> Most industries require contact with other humans, and don’t rely on overwhelming amounts of capital to try to create vast power imbalances between you and the people you’re allegedly serving. I agree with the statement, but I'm not sure it squares with your list? Tech and banking aren't unique in offering the chance to sit alone in an office and turn early advantages into ludicrous excess. Broadly, we're talking about jobs that have power-law payouts among their practitioners, require highly skilled (and hard to interchange) labor, and don't intrinsically punish jerks (meaning limited interaction with coworkers or customers). Not all of them make billions, but they get something exponential that encourages them to compete - fame or professional power or job security. That's a lot of careers. Orchestral musicians fit, lawyers fit, surgeons fit in spades, artists and mathematicians and philosophers all fit. Obviously tech and banking are not equivalent to those things - heart surgeons have never destroyed the economy. But I think it's a catastrophic mistake to try and understand why tech and banking cause these problems by acting like the professional demeanor is unique. That is at best a starting point, a way of acknowledging that if yanking pieces out of society is easy and rewarding it will happen. The question from there is "how do we stop that from happening?" (I'm not sure how much we honestly disagree, I just think the distinction is important. That Jenga metaphor is fantastic.)

neilk 9y ago
I think your analysis is great too. The power law advantages are what’s both wonderful and terrifying about this field. Although surgeons aren’t really in the power-law game; at best they can do a handful of surgeries a week. But yes I chose that example specifically because many of them are tempermentally detached from people, get paid a lot, and are often workaholics. But we don’t see people revolting against surgeons.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  Sorry, I was a bit unclear on power law - I was thinking about the career side, not just the outcomes. So power-law for surgeons would be doing the hardest surgeries in the highest-stakes fields, heading up a clinic, ending up rich and famous. A great brain surgeon doesn't save vastly more lives than an average one, but people like Ben Carson and Sanjay Gupta get exponentially more fame and status. I think we agree though - it's a great example of a field with similar social dynamics to programming, and a very different societal role.
moomin 9y ago
Even in banking people go out onto the street at lunchtime. The whole campus thing is pretty unique to SF tech culture.
- rayiner 9y ago
  Bankers also ride the subway not private shuttle busses. It’s a stupid thing to focus on but optics matter.
  - moomin 9y ago
    I think the truly toxic thing is people not spending money in their communities. One of the things I pick up from anti-gentrification stories is that when new people move in, the existing shops lose customers. No-one goes to the corner store, they get food via an app or wait for a Whole Foods to open. The (completely unintended) effect of this is that the existing community gets poorer, not richer, when rich people move in.

BeetleB 9y ago

>Most industries require contact with other humans, and implicate you in their happiness. Most do, but many don't. Including some that were considered prestigious jobs (Wall Street, law firms, etc). A number of these jobs involved really boring grunt work with minimal contact with others.