3 ms·

If their concerns are economic, then it makes even less sense to attack the tech industry. That's the one place where you can still achieve a middle to upper mi

If their concerns are economic, then it makes even less sense to attack the tech industry. That's the one place where you can still achieve a middle to upper middle class lifestyle based on hard work. Going back to my comment about baby boomers, it seems to me that the 20th century idealized lifestyle was very much backed by the technology available at the time. Mainly mass media. Bandwidth was great enough to broadcast media to a massive amount of people, but not so great as to individualize content delivery. This limited "shelf space" for content lead to a market for high end content creators. The internet exponentially increased bandwidth and democratized (and devalued) content creation. It also created channels for publishing new types of content that require tech skills (apps, web...). You would think that millennials would embrace the 21st century technology driven reality, but instead it seems way too many people ended up chasing high value content roles via expensive liberal arts degrees. Or at least that anti-technology combative mindset that was foreshadowed in this piece.

aalleavitch 9y ago
The notion that millennials' woes are the result of getting a liberal arts degree in women's studies or something is a baseless claim that has been perpetuated specifically because it's an emotionally resonant myth. The millennials that are suffering the hardest right now are the ones who couldn't even afford to go to college (because college tuition is priced ridiculously). The vast majority of millennials that did go to college got a degree in a traditionally "useful" field. The only place where you see a preponderance of liberal arts degrees that aren't specifically career-focused are rich kids who got to go to Ivy Leagues; these people are nothing like your average millennial. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleges-dont-pick-useless-majors/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleg... https://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-stereotypes-some-facts-about-millennials https://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-stereotype... And the notion that they should've all just got a job in tech is equally ridiculous. The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. And I'm someone who specifically approached my degree with the anticipation of future technology!
- malvosenior 9y ago
  > The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. Yes they did. Being a self taught programmer has been a thing since the dawn of personal computing. The Homebrew Computer Club was way before millennials after all.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    Yes, it was so easy to be a self-taught programmer living in Silicon Valley in the 1980s... You see how this doesn't scale as an assumption about people and their situations, right? Just because it was possible for some people does not mean it was possible for a meaningfully large number of people. We take for granted how easy it is to train oneself as a programmer these days, but then most of us in this space have been doing this since elementary school. Who would I be today if my dad hadn't made enough money to buy me my own PC when I was in the 3rd grade?
    - malvosenior 9y ago
      You can’t expect society to instantly leap into the future immediately for everyone. That’s not how it works. In the 80s computing was starting to be accessible to a few. If you could access it, you could teach yourself. In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. This trend will continue and that’s a good thing.
      - aalleavitch 9y ago
        But the trend is not that some people are taking the lead and others are following more slowly up behind them. The trend is one of continually growing wealth inequality. And the truth is that even if we can educate the rest of the labor market to a point where they can meaningfully contribute to the tech industry, it would just serve to devalue tech labor. It's already happening, and as a result hiring practices are getting significantly more selective towards requiring degrees and other expensive credentials.
junkscience2017 9y ago
firefighters, cops and nurses in many Bay Area communities make more than typical programmers and have more deterministic career/salary upgrades...and in many cases, pensions. and they don't have to worry about market forces the other day there was a story of a nurse in San Jose (no one special) making $260k...more than most people here I bet Programming is declining in attractiveness and may become a McJob for most

aalleavitch 9y ago

The notion that millennials' woes are the result of getting a liberal arts degree in women's studies or something is a baseless claim that has been perpetuated specifically because it's an emotionally resonant myth. The millennials that are suffering the hardest right now are the ones who couldn't even afford to go to college (because college tuition is priced ridiculously). The vast majority of millennials that did go to college got a degree in a traditionally "useful" field. The only place where you see a preponderance of liberal arts degrees that aren't specifically career-focused are rich kids who got to go to Ivy Leagues; these people are nothing like your average millennial. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleges-dont-pick-useless-majors/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleg... https://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-stereotypes-some-facts-about-millennials https://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-stereotype... And the notion that they should've all just got a job in tech is equally ridiculous. The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. And I'm someone who specifically approached my degree with the anticipation of future technology!

malvosenior 9y ago
> The frameworks and techniques I'm using right now didn't even exist when I went to college. Yes they did. Being a self taught programmer has been a thing since the dawn of personal computing. The Homebrew Computer Club was way before millennials after all.
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  Yes, it was so easy to be a self-taught programmer living in Silicon Valley in the 1980s... You see how this doesn't scale as an assumption about people and their situations, right? Just because it was possible for some people does not mean it was possible for a meaningfully large number of people. We take for granted how easy it is to train oneself as a programmer these days, but then most of us in this space have been doing this since elementary school. Who would I be today if my dad hadn't made enough money to buy me my own PC when I was in the 3rd grade?
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    You can’t expect society to instantly leap into the future immediately for everyone. That’s not how it works. In the 80s computing was starting to be accessible to a few. If you could access it, you could teach yourself. In the 90s-00s (millennial time) it was even more accessible. You also had the internet to learn from and a vastly larger market for all things tech. This trend will continue and that’s a good thing.
    - aalleavitch 9y ago
      But the trend is not that some people are taking the lead and others are following more slowly up behind them. The trend is one of continually growing wealth inequality. And the truth is that even if we can educate the rest of the labor market to a point where they can meaningfully contribute to the tech industry, it would just serve to devalue tech labor. It's already happening, and as a result hiring practices are getting significantly more selective towards requiring degrees and other expensive credentials.

junkscience2017 9y ago

firefighters, cops and nurses in many Bay Area communities make more than typical programmers and have more deterministic career/salary upgrades...and in many cases, pensions. and they don't have to worry about market forces the other day there was a story of a nurse in San Jose (no one special) making $260k...more than most people here I bet Programming is declining in attractiveness and may become a McJob for most