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...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you become one of the top ten people in within your context Whatever happened to just get

...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you become one of the top ten people in within your context Whatever happened to just getting a normal job and putting in an honest day’s labor? Now we’re expected to become “one of the top ten”... what exactly? How is that supposed to work? What about those of us with families for goodness sake. We can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours a day.

renewiltord 6y ago
What happened is that it turned out that there are two billion people who can put in an honest day's labour and it no longer matters where they live.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  But shouldn't we account for that and adjust accordingly so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom? It's all choices, we don't HAVE to allow it to happen.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Should we? I don't see why one guy making $70k and two guys making nothing is superior to three guys making $20k.
    - dmitriy_ko 6y ago
      Economy is not a zero-sum game. There's no reason you can't have everyone making $70K.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        Sure. And that's a no-brainer. We'd all agree on that. The interesting part is when there are trade-offs. So that's my position on the trade-off.
        Communitivity 6y ago
        This is getting into a discussion of Universal Basic Income, which I am a big fan of. But I'd posit that salaries are not a zero-sum game, in the microcosm or the macrocosm. Within a company each department head likely gets a certain amount of raises to distribute within their department, maybe enough to give most people X%, but also enough to give 2 or three 1.5X%. The company itself has a limited amount it can spend on labor costs. Within a country there is the monetary supply. There is approximately $1.5 trillion physical currency in circulation. That equates to about $5k per person. Yes there is money that is not backed by physical currency, but the more of that you create (or the more physical currency you create) the higher inflation goes. If we want UBI then we need to back it with something. The Saudis backed it with their annual oil profits, Alaskans the same, and the Norwegians straight out created an investment fund from oil surplus profits. Getting to a workable UBI is not going to be a stopgap fix, and will likely take around 50 years to implement correctly. It's doable from a technical perspective, in a number of ways. I worry about the political perspective. Our parties are divisive and one party can tear down any of the works of a past administration. So what is to prevent the UBI investment fund being repurposed, similar to Social Security's outcome.
      - kofejnik 6y ago
        if everyone is making $70k, everything simply becomes more expensive (so it doesn't matter if they make $70k or $700k)
        Avicebron 6y ago
        But if the model is built to support this then it isn't an issue. If you see my earlier post about hypothetical improvements we can make to our global economy. If everyone is making more and industry is growing within the country then more classical economics applies (e.g. the pie is growing). In this scenario it's not an issue. It's only when there isn't positive growth that inflation is a huge issue.
  - subhobroto 6y ago
    > so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom Nope. What is going on here is the person from India gets to now enjoy a much higher quality of life (because 50% of a U.S. salary gets you a lot in India) while the person from California sees their effective take home pay decrease (because their costs continue to grow but not their salary) Definitely not a race to the bottom but it sucks to be the person from California.
    - oneplane 6y ago
      On the other hand, the person in India will relocate thousands of miles for practically any job, while the person in California will pretend that life is hard because of someone else's doing instead of moving to a place they can afford better.
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      So in short what you're saying is yay globalism? Bring everyone down to a lowest mean existance possible, we shouldn't protect our interests?
      - subhobroto 6y ago
        > So in short what you're saying is yay globalism globalization is happening whether we want it to or not. > we shouldn't protect our interests I made no comments either way. ... but, sure, let's think about this. If you were to pass rules and regulations to stop globalization from happening, what would the top 3 be?
        Avicebron 6y ago
        Well I won't claim to be the thought leader on this, however I'm happy to look at some hypothetical ideas. To be clear I'm not looking to reverse globalization completely or stop it. Rule 1: International trade deals forbid offshoring of manufacturing. Example, cars from Ford can't be made in Mexico for 1/10th the price. This is universal and enforceable by dissolution of companies that don't comply. Rule 2: Stringent regulations to prevent Tax and location based gaming of Rule 1. Ford doesn't get to pay taxes in Tahiti, incorporate a mailbox in Mexico so they can make their cars there, but take advantage of US infrastructure for the rest of their business. Rule 3: Companies reaching a monopoly size will be broken up into relatively equal sized companies, importantly those companies will be competing in similar regions. It's not like AWS and Amazon. It's like two Amazons. I'm sure figuring out the codebase and IP will make many jobs for lawyers and engineers. Maybe less for the MBA's. EDIT: For rule 3 I forgot to add that the break up forces innovation as similar companies are competing now in the same market. It's an engine of growth built into the system.
peterkelly 6y ago
> > ...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you become one of the top ten people in within your context > Whatever happened to just getting a normal job and putting in an honest day’s labor? That doesn't sound very interesting.
oneplane 6y ago
`an honest day’s labor` never really existed, you were never going to get paid the amount of profit a practically unskilled repetitive job delivers to the person of company you work for. At the same time, there are plenty of jobs (in the USA) you could do 16 hrs a day and still not make enough money to provide for your basic needs. I don't think people have to be top ten or something like that to be useful, but being a meat-based robot is hardly compelling for either side anymore. You need to have at least some skill and you need to make sure you keep developing as the world around you also develops. With human expansion the rate of change itself has changed, and not even a luddite would be unaffected by that.
esoterica 6y ago
You can put in a normal amount of effort if you want, but then you don't have the right to demand a more than a normal amount of compensation (~$50k/household in the US). I don't think it's unreasonable to demand extra effort for a FAANG salary.
ipnon 6y ago
An honest day's labor only existed in the middle of the 20th century. Before the New Deal you had to work hard on a farm or a factory to make ends meet. After the Great Stagnation in the 1970s, the economy cannot sustain widespread growth in prosperity for all classes of American society. The Post-World War II economic expansion was a 1 time miracle enabled by the picking of several low hanging fruits. "These figurative "low-hanging fruit" from the title include the cultivation of much free, previously unused land; the application and spread of technological breakthroughs, particularly during the period 1880–1940, including transport, refrigeration, electricity, mass communications, and sanitation; and the education of large numbers of smart people who previously received none."[0] The party is over. Americans are at the top but they aren't getting any higher, and everyone else in the world is catching up. That means Americans have to compete with the rest of global middle class. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation
- andrekandre 6y ago
  that may be true, but i think the parent posters point still stands regardless: > We can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours a day.
  - ipnon 6y ago
    Yes, Cowen's follow up to "The Great Stagnation" is "Average is Over" that follows the same line of thought.
gregmac 6y ago
I'd argue you don't need to truly be top ten, you need to be sufficiently good that finding someone better isn't worth the marginal cost (hiring is really expensive!) Another way of thinking of this: can you be considered top 10 within a pool of 100 applicants? Also, who is "top ten" is extremely subjective, based on the company, who is evaluating, and niche. I would guess that within a 100 developer cohort there's not a lot of overlap between the top ten embedded c++ developers and the top ten react developers, and even the top ten that can do both c++ AND react.
drawfloat 6y ago
You don't, it's the same psycho advice US tech people have been giving each other nervous breakdowns about for two decades now. Thousands of people have solid jobs that pay well where they can learn at a normal pace, do interesting work and put it down at 5/6pm. If it's true that America really is that way, my advice is look abroad because life is not about your job.

renewiltord 6y ago

What happened is that it turned out that there are two billion people who can put in an honest day's labour and it no longer matters where they live.

Avicebron 6y ago
But shouldn't we account for that and adjust accordingly so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom? It's all choices, we don't HAVE to allow it to happen.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Should we? I don't see why one guy making $70k and two guys making nothing is superior to three guys making $20k.
  - dmitriy_ko 6y ago
    Economy is not a zero-sum game. There's no reason you can't have everyone making $70K.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      Sure. And that's a no-brainer. We'd all agree on that. The interesting part is when there are trade-offs. So that's my position on the trade-off.
      - Communitivity 6y ago
        This is getting into a discussion of Universal Basic Income, which I am a big fan of. But I'd posit that salaries are not a zero-sum game, in the microcosm or the macrocosm. Within a company each department head likely gets a certain amount of raises to distribute within their department, maybe enough to give most people X%, but also enough to give 2 or three 1.5X%. The company itself has a limited amount it can spend on labor costs. Within a country there is the monetary supply. There is approximately $1.5 trillion physical currency in circulation. That equates to about $5k per person. Yes there is money that is not backed by physical currency, but the more of that you create (or the more physical currency you create) the higher inflation goes. If we want UBI then we need to back it with something. The Saudis backed it with their annual oil profits, Alaskans the same, and the Norwegians straight out created an investment fund from oil surplus profits. Getting to a workable UBI is not going to be a stopgap fix, and will likely take around 50 years to implement correctly. It's doable from a technical perspective, in a number of ways. I worry about the political perspective. Our parties are divisive and one party can tear down any of the works of a past administration. So what is to prevent the UBI investment fund being repurposed, similar to Social Security's outcome.
    - kofejnik 6y ago
      if everyone is making $70k, everything simply becomes more expensive (so it doesn't matter if they make $70k or $700k)
      - Avicebron 6y ago
        But if the model is built to support this then it isn't an issue. If you see my earlier post about hypothetical improvements we can make to our global economy. If everyone is making more and industry is growing within the country then more classical economics applies (e.g. the pie is growing). In this scenario it's not an issue. It's only when there isn't positive growth that inflation is a huge issue.
- subhobroto 6y ago
  > so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom Nope. What is going on here is the person from India gets to now enjoy a much higher quality of life (because 50% of a U.S. salary gets you a lot in India) while the person from California sees their effective take home pay decrease (because their costs continue to grow but not their salary) Definitely not a race to the bottom but it sucks to be the person from California.
  - oneplane 6y ago
    On the other hand, the person in India will relocate thousands of miles for practically any job, while the person in California will pretend that life is hard because of someone else's doing instead of moving to a place they can afford better.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    So in short what you're saying is yay globalism? Bring everyone down to a lowest mean existance possible, we shouldn't protect our interests?
    - subhobroto 6y ago
      > So in short what you're saying is yay globalism globalization is happening whether we want it to or not. > we shouldn't protect our interests I made no comments either way. ... but, sure, let's think about this. If you were to pass rules and regulations to stop globalization from happening, what would the top 3 be?
      - Avicebron 6y ago
        Well I won't claim to be the thought leader on this, however I'm happy to look at some hypothetical ideas. To be clear I'm not looking to reverse globalization completely or stop it. Rule 1: International trade deals forbid offshoring of manufacturing. Example, cars from Ford can't be made in Mexico for 1/10th the price. This is universal and enforceable by dissolution of companies that don't comply. Rule 2: Stringent regulations to prevent Tax and location based gaming of Rule 1. Ford doesn't get to pay taxes in Tahiti, incorporate a mailbox in Mexico so they can make their cars there, but take advantage of US infrastructure for the rest of their business. Rule 3: Companies reaching a monopoly size will be broken up into relatively equal sized companies, importantly those companies will be competing in similar regions. It's not like AWS and Amazon. It's like two Amazons. I'm sure figuring out the codebase and IP will make many jobs for lawyers and engineers. Maybe less for the MBA's. EDIT: For rule 3 I forgot to add that the break up forces innovation as similar companies are competing now in the same market. It's an engine of growth built into the system.

peterkelly 6y ago

> > ...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you become one of the top ten people in within your context > Whatever happened to just getting a normal job and putting in an honest day’s labor? That doesn't sound very interesting.

oneplane 6y ago

`an honest day’s labor` never really existed, you were never going to get paid the amount of profit a practically unskilled repetitive job delivers to the person of company you work for. At the same time, there are plenty of jobs (in the USA) you could do 16 hrs a day and still not make enough money to provide for your basic needs. I don't think people have to be top ten or something like that to be useful, but being a meat-based robot is hardly compelling for either side anymore. You need to have at least some skill and you need to make sure you keep developing as the world around you also develops. With human expansion the rate of change itself has changed, and not even a luddite would be unaffected by that.

esoterica 6y ago

You can put in a normal amount of effort if you want, but then you don't have the right to demand a more than a normal amount of compensation (~$50k/household in the US). I don't think it's unreasonable to demand extra effort for a FAANG salary.

ipnon 6y ago

An honest day's labor only existed in the middle of the 20th century. Before the New Deal you had to work hard on a farm or a factory to make ends meet. After the Great Stagnation in the 1970s, the economy cannot sustain widespread growth in prosperity for all classes of American society. The Post-World War II economic expansion was a 1 time miracle enabled by the picking of several low hanging fruits. "These figurative "low-hanging fruit" from the title include the cultivation of much free, previously unused land; the application and spread of technological breakthroughs, particularly during the period 1880–1940, including transport, refrigeration, electricity, mass communications, and sanitation; and the education of large numbers of smart people who previously received none."[0] The party is over. Americans are at the top but they aren't getting any higher, and everyone else in the world is catching up. That means Americans have to compete with the rest of global middle class. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation

andrekandre 6y ago
that may be true, but i think the parent posters point still stands regardless: > We can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours a day.
- ipnon 6y ago
  Yes, Cowen's follow up to "The Great Stagnation" is "Average is Over" that follows the same line of thought.

gregmac 6y ago

I'd argue you don't need to truly be top ten, you need to be sufficiently good that finding someone better isn't worth the marginal cost (hiring is really expensive!) Another way of thinking of this: can you be considered top 10 within a pool of 100 applicants? Also, who is "top ten" is extremely subjective, based on the company, who is evaluating, and niche. I would guess that within a 100 developer cohort there's not a lot of overlap between the top ten embedded c++ developers and the top ten react developers, and even the top ten that can do both c++ AND react.

drawfloat 6y ago

You don't, it's the same psycho advice US tech people have been giving each other nervous breakdowns about for two decades now. Thousands of people have solid jobs that pay well where they can learn at a normal pace, do interesting work and put it down at 5/6pm. If it's true that America really is that way, my advice is look abroad because life is not about your job.