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Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we

Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? I mean, we really don't, though! I'm in the tech industry, he's in the being a billionaire industry. I see no reason to believe that people wanting to take away his dragon's hoard should make me fear for my salary. And if it does - well, what the hell? Those people you cite are correct. I do make too much, and so do you. Even an ex-tech-industry billionaire will tell you that, or did you think it was by accident that people feel the need to worry their jobs will get exported to India or somewhere? I know I'm not going to make any friends talking about a salary bubble in tech, but we all know - or we better know - there is one, and sooner or later something is going to pop it.

scarface74 6y ago
Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? Just like becoming a billionaire seems unattainable to you, someone living in the MiddleOfNowhere Omaha probably doesn’t see a way to make $200K in a year that a CS grad working on the west coast can obtain within two years. When they are talking about “taxing the rich”, it’s going to come as a surprise to a lot of the techie liberals that “they” are talking about them and not just the billionaires.
- throwanem 6y ago
  What a shame for those who haven't been paying attention, then. It seems like there's an implicit claim here, with which you expect me to implicitly agree, that such taxation would be unjust. The thing is that I don't agree. If you'd like me to, you need to convince me. As long as you don't, I'm going to keep calling out that assumption for what it is, and asking how you justify it.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    I’m not making a value judgement either way. Yes I now work for $BigTech and make somewhere around the salary of an SDE2. But I work remotely in the burbs of a relatively low cost of living area. I can take a hit. But how will people feel making the same salary and living on the west coast? A lot of them think they are “barely middle class” because they can’t afford to send Timmy to a private school, have the house, max out their 401K and save for their son to go to a top ten college?
    - throwanem 6y ago
      I mean, what do you want me to say? We should keep inflating the bubble forever because not everyone in the blast radius has the wit to get out of it? Even leaving aside the moral repugnance of making it structurally impossible for almost all young people to build lives in this country, so that a few who already have much more than they need can go on accumulating more still - from a purely utilitarian perspective, in what way does this lend itself to building a strong, stable country, one that isn't both constantly riven with internal strife driven by the results of generational wealth extraction, and ultimately unable to sustain itself because it can't develop enough talent to compete at global scale?
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos being a billionaire doesn’t stop anyone else from buying the house in the burbs with 2.1 kids. Is the tech bubble distorting the real estate market on the west coast - yes. But there is an entire country outside of the west coast where two middle class jobs like a teacher and firefighter can live well. The pie is not static. How many jobs have the five biggest tech companies created either directly or indirectly? The average starting salary of a college grad is $51K (https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/average-starting-salary-for-recent-college-grads.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensatio...). Knowing that, the emphasis should be on teaching students not to get tens of thousands in debt to get a degree in Ancient Chinese Art History.
        throwanem 6y ago

scarface74 6y ago

Is this the part where I'm supposed to feel some ethereal kinship with Jeff Bezos and his literal dragon's hoard, because of some theoretical sense in which we work in the same industry? Just like becoming a billionaire seems unattainable to you, someone living in the MiddleOfNowhere Omaha probably doesn’t see a way to make $200K in a year that a CS grad working on the west coast can obtain within two years. When they are talking about “taxing the rich”, it’s going to come as a surprise to a lot of the techie liberals that “they” are talking about them and not just the billionaires.

throwanem 6y ago
What a shame for those who haven't been paying attention, then. It seems like there's an implicit claim here, with which you expect me to implicitly agree, that such taxation would be unjust. The thing is that I don't agree. If you'd like me to, you need to convince me. As long as you don't, I'm going to keep calling out that assumption for what it is, and asking how you justify it.
- scarface74 6y ago
  I’m not making a value judgement either way. Yes I now work for $BigTech and make somewhere around the salary of an SDE2. But I work remotely in the burbs of a relatively low cost of living area. I can take a hit. But how will people feel making the same salary and living on the west coast? A lot of them think they are “barely middle class” because they can’t afford to send Timmy to a private school, have the house, max out their 401K and save for their son to go to a top ten college?
  - throwanem 6y ago
    I mean, what do you want me to say? We should keep inflating the bubble forever because not everyone in the blast radius has the wit to get out of it? Even leaving aside the moral repugnance of making it structurally impossible for almost all young people to build lives in this country, so that a few who already have much more than they need can go on accumulating more still - from a purely utilitarian perspective, in what way does this lend itself to building a strong, stable country, one that isn't both constantly riven with internal strife driven by the results of generational wealth extraction, and ultimately unable to sustain itself because it can't develop enough talent to compete at global scale?
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Jeff Bezos being a billionaire doesn’t stop anyone else from buying the house in the burbs with 2.1 kids. Is the tech bubble distorting the real estate market on the west coast - yes. But there is an entire country outside of the west coast where two middle class jobs like a teacher and firefighter can live well. The pie is not static. How many jobs have the five biggest tech companies created either directly or indirectly? The average starting salary of a college grad is $51K (https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/average-starting-salary-for-recent-college-grads.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensatio...). Knowing that, the emphasis should be on teaching students not to get tens of thousands in debt to get a degree in Ancient Chinese Art History.
      - throwanem 6y ago