5 ms·

Tech isn't special, the population is absolutely fungible. There are tons of people who could work in tech but don't, I know many of them.

by kfprt 5y ago

mmarq 5y ago
If anybody could work in tech or law or medicine, programmers and lawyers and doctors would be paid no more than cleaners, which can be replaced by a rando in a matter of days if not hours (read: the population is absolutely fungible). What makes tech special, compared to other high-paying sectors, is that there is almost no barrier to entry. You don't need to spend 10 years in medical school or to pass a bar exam: many tech professionals are self-taught and getting an entry level job takes 2 months of training to a person with the right aptitudes. If somebody is not in tech, it's not because I'm sponsoring a dude from Moldova, which is a pain and I'd really really prefer to hire a local, but more likely because either they don't like to work in tech or they don't have the cognitive ability to pursue a career in tech. Then there's the occasional guy with the right aptitudes and interests who couldn't start a career in tech because they were somehow unlucky, but we are talking about a miniscule fraction of the population that wouldn't be enough to make any difference, we don't have hundreds of thousands of very smart people on the dole because Moldovans stole their tech jobs. This is why we have been making fun of those saying coal miners should learn to code.
- closeparen 5y ago
  To be fair, learning to program is something you do on your own time, and possibly with a lot of your own money (whether to a CS degree program or a bootcamp). In a job training regime, learning to program would be not just free, but itself a solidly compensated full time job.
  - mmarq 5y ago
    All you need to learn to program is a computer, an internet connection (a 56kbps dialup is good enough) and certain intellectual aptitudes (such as motivation, an average intelligence, etc...). Almost everybody who has these characteristics is already a software developer or a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or you name what, or they are too young to get a job. Mind, I haven't written "everybody", I'm sure there are some people who, for whatever reason, have been unlucky and ended up in low paid jobs, but the notion that we have a treasure trove of potential scientists and software developers and doctors in Job Centers' queues is patently absurd. On job training regimes, universities and bootcamps don't do a great job at training developers, and almost everybody spends their first 2-3 years effectively in an informal on-the-job training regime.

Tech isn't special, the population is absolutely fungible. There are tons of people who could work in tech but don't, I know many of them.

by kfprt 5y ago

Tech isn't special, the population is absolutely fungible. There are tons of people who could work in tech but don't, I know many of them.

mmarq 5y ago

If anybody could work in tech or law or medicine, programmers and lawyers and doctors would be paid no more than cleaners, which can be replaced by a rando in a matter of days if not hours (read: the population is absolutely fungible). What makes tech special, compared to other high-paying sectors, is that there is almost no barrier to entry. You don't need to spend 10 years in medical school or to pass a bar exam: many tech professionals are self-taught and getting an entry level job takes 2 months of training to a person with the right aptitudes. If somebody is not in tech, it's not because I'm sponsoring a dude from Moldova, which is a pain and I'd really really prefer to hire a local, but more likely because either they don't like to work in tech or they don't have the cognitive ability to pursue a career in tech. Then there's the occasional guy with the right aptitudes and interests who couldn't start a career in tech because they were somehow unlucky, but we are talking about a miniscule fraction of the population that wouldn't be enough to make any difference, we don't have hundreds of thousands of very smart people on the dole because Moldovans stole their tech jobs. This is why we have been making fun of those saying coal miners should learn to code.

closeparen 5y ago
To be fair, learning to program is something you do on your own time, and possibly with a lot of your own money (whether to a CS degree program or a bootcamp). In a job training regime, learning to program would be not just free, but itself a solidly compensated full time job.
- mmarq 5y ago
  All you need to learn to program is a computer, an internet connection (a 56kbps dialup is good enough) and certain intellectual aptitudes (such as motivation, an average intelligence, etc...). Almost everybody who has these characteristics is already a software developer or a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant or you name what, or they are too young to get a job. Mind, I haven't written "everybody", I'm sure there are some people who, for whatever reason, have been unlucky and ended up in low paid jobs, but the notion that we have a treasure trove of potential scientists and software developers and doctors in Job Centers' queues is patently absurd. On job training regimes, universities and bootcamps don't do a great job at training developers, and almost everybody spends their first 2-3 years effectively in an informal on-the-job training regime.