5 ms·

Sorry dude, but the new elite are me, you and the rest of the people on this board: receiving six figure salaries for staring at a screen and writing programs f

by airza 5y ago

Sorry dude, but the new elite are me, you and the rest of the people on this board: receiving six figure salaries for staring at a screen and writing programs for a couple hours every day. It's not the writer getting work for feature sets in the collapsing media landscape.

jaywalk 5y ago
Who do I speak to to get my blue checkmark on Twitter?
- RugnirViking 5y ago
  A blue sign does not an elite maketh.
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    Yeah, maybe an upper-middler, but not an elite.
- camgunz 5y ago
  I mean, sure on the one hand we're not super famous. But on the other, we get to make stuff like Twitter so, I guess what I'm saying is roll your character carefully.
reedjosh 5y ago
I'll admit we're nearer to elite than most, but billionaires and politicians would privately mock this statement. I think we should all acknowledged there's well to do peasants (us), and then there's true elites. There are more levels of wealth than are typically acknowledged in conversations like this, and it leads to very muddy arguments.
programmarchy 5y ago
You're seeing a local maxima. The elite are earning your full salary in one day simply by the interest gained on their capital, and they have actual power to exert their will upon society and shape the future of mankind. They have the resources and ability to survive the next great filter and form a breakaway civilization, but at this stage of the game, you and I do not.
krnsll 5y ago
I don't think software developers/professionals have acquired the cultural capital to be viewed as elites quite yet. I think much of the antagonistic Silicon Valley coverage in publications like NYT, which one could say are more traditionally elite, is driven by a difficulty with reckoning with their material decline and the emergence of these new candidate elites.
booleandilemma 5y ago
We (software engineers) are not the elite just because our salaries are high. Don't be fooled by this. We are highly trained workers. We're closer to the workers in construction or the other trades more than anything else. We just happen to get paid more, due to market circumstances. The actual elite are trying to drive our salaries down every day. Edit: And even if after reading my comment you still think we're the elite, check out any "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27355390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27355390
- airza 5y ago
  True. My only point was that we are closer to that than this guy writing for the atlantic.
- Jasper_ 5y ago
  You can argue over who's at the top, but we absolutely (currently) do have cushier jobs than writers. You might not believe this, but journalists can also be highly trained workers too. Their world got rocked by a race to the bottom, and a push towards lower-quality, rushed journalism, and yes, fake news and clickbait. Something that some of the people on this very board have absolutely helped enable. The same thing will happen to us too. Computer programming won't be looked on seen as a highly-trained or lucrative skill, and we'll be pushed out and left to wither by some new profession who have been tricked into believing they're smarter than all the others. This cycle has played out before, and it will play out again. Try and have some compassion for those under you, the same way you'd appreciate it when it's your turn.

by airza 5y ago

jaywalk 5y ago

Who do I speak to to get my blue checkmark on Twitter?

RugnirViking 5y ago
A blue sign does not an elite maketh.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  Yeah, maybe an upper-middler, but not an elite.
camgunz 5y ago
I mean, sure on the one hand we're not super famous. But on the other, we get to make stuff like Twitter so, I guess what I'm saying is roll your character carefully.

reedjosh 5y ago

I'll admit we're nearer to elite than most, but billionaires and politicians would privately mock this statement. I think we should all acknowledged there's well to do peasants (us), and then there's true elites. There are more levels of wealth than are typically acknowledged in conversations like this, and it leads to very muddy arguments.

programmarchy 5y ago

You're seeing a local maxima. The elite are earning your full salary in one day simply by the interest gained on their capital, and they have actual power to exert their will upon society and shape the future of mankind. They have the resources and ability to survive the next great filter and form a breakaway civilization, but at this stage of the game, you and I do not.

krnsll 5y ago

I don't think software developers/professionals have acquired the cultural capital to be viewed as elites quite yet. I think much of the antagonistic Silicon Valley coverage in publications like NYT, which one could say are more traditionally elite, is driven by a difficulty with reckoning with their material decline and the emergence of these new candidate elites.

booleandilemma 5y ago

We (software engineers) are not the elite just because our salaries are high. Don't be fooled by this. We are highly trained workers. We're closer to the workers in construction or the other trades more than anything else. We just happen to get paid more, due to market circumstances. The actual elite are trying to drive our salaries down every day. Edit: And even if after reading my comment you still think we're the elite, check out any "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?" thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27355390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27355390

airza 5y ago
True. My only point was that we are closer to that than this guy writing for the atlantic.
Jasper_ 5y ago
You can argue over who's at the top, but we absolutely (currently) do have cushier jobs than writers. You might not believe this, but journalists can also be highly trained workers too. Their world got rocked by a race to the bottom, and a push towards lower-quality, rushed journalism, and yes, fake news and clickbait. Something that some of the people on this very board have absolutely helped enable. The same thing will happen to us too. Computer programming won't be looked on seen as a highly-trained or lucrative skill, and we'll be pushed out and left to wither by some new profession who have been tricked into believing they're smarter than all the others. This cycle has played out before, and it will play out again. Try and have some compassion for those under you, the same way you'd appreciate it when it's your turn.