8 ms·

The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. While people are a lot slower to buy into collective action and changing their way of life than I thought, societ

by madrox 4y ago

The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. While people are a lot slower to buy into collective action and changing their way of life than I thought, society is far more robust than I expected. Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. With that in mind, I have some ideas on what programming will look like in 30 years: 1. New frameworks and abstractions for making apps even more disposable while maintaining privacy will come along. New languages will happen. Corporations that just finished moving to the cloud will now be moving to even greater abstractions like Airtable or whatever comes next. 2. Programmer pay will decrease compared to other industries. This is a hunch and I’m only 60% confident of it happening. 3. Satellite internet will be more of a norm for no better reason than it’s the most efficient way to manage infrastructure. More rural communities will need it, and remote trends will continue. The cost of launches are going down and there’s a lot of land. 4. Everything will get more energy efficient, and most intense activity will be pushed to compute farms. 5. VR will once again come around as the next big revolution in computing, but will be ultimately disappointing and won’t see mass adoption. Beyond these ideas, I think too much plays into our personal optimism or pessimism. I think things will change, but we’re a scrappy species that will fight to preserve its way of life. It will look a lot like our global pandemic response…warts and all. There’s a lot there to be disappointed about, but it’s actually incredible it wasn’t worse. When these predictions hit I’ll be 70. I hope I’ll live to see it.

tasuki 4y ago
> The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. I don't think it has taught you much. All things considered, despite all the suffering by unlucky individuals, when you consider humanity as a whole, covid is an insignificant blip. If it's significant at all, it's only because of our response to it. > Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. Covid was not 1% as bad as any pandemic featured in a film. Humanity has seen way worse, and we could still see way worse in the future.
- boringg 4y ago
  Our response was actually what made it a much more insignificant blip (thanks public health + vaccines), and technically we aren't through it yet.
  - pc86 4y ago
    I'd argue that we are through it in the public health, government mandate, change how you live day-to-day sense of things. Everyone who is willing to get vaccinated is probably vaccinated at this point. There is very little support for more government intervention even as cases rise in various areas, regardless of political persuasion (at least in the US, maybe it's different in the UK and EU?) The fact that COVID is still out there, infecting and mutating, is irrelevant to most people.
  - tasuki 4y ago
    Wikipedia says 0.1-0.3% global population lost [0]. It would have been perhaps 0.5% without any response whatsoever. That's still insignificant compared to all the other pandemics, which seem to often kill 20-50% of the regional population. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
    - boringg 4y ago
      Well I think that's using an assumption that if we had greater exposure (ie less public health measures/vaccines) for the virus it wouldn't mutate and cause more damage than it did in its current form and causing a step change in in impact. Also wikipedia in and of itself is not a high quality source.
- titzer 4y ago
  What COVID taught me is that the human ability to not give a fuck is apparently infinite. I have trouble processing the fact that a million people died (in the USA) and there is no mourning, no shared sense of tragedy or loss, no looking more kindly on other people, just a madder, faster dash on cash and even more finger-pointing. > Covid was not 1% as bad as any pandemic featured in a film. I'll be generous and not dwell on this stunning example of this age's inability to get bothered by anything unless it hits harder than film. Look on the bright side I guess, despite how soulless, empty, and glib we have to be do so!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - coryrc 4y ago
    Something like 5 million people die every year, should we be in permanent mourning?
    - titzer 4y ago
      I know you're trolling, but I'll respond. Part of growing up and moving from just a mere legally-licensed adult is being able to hold heavy things. They never stop getting heavier. They just keep unfolding, and if you are willing to grow just a little deeper--not bigger, but deeper, like the roots of you being able to feel things, then maybe all that learning to deal with loss, tragedies, loved ones dying, aging, your parents and uncles and cousins and friends dying--and yet not letting it destroy you, might be worth something. Though, for a moment, you can be devastated on the inside and hold yourself up without breaking. You don't need to cry your eyes out every day, but man, what the hell if we can't reflect on such a grievous time that has befallen us--all of us--over the past two years, without clawing someone else's face off or storming off in a huff. But if you need to feel not bothered at all, go ahead, you aren't the subject of this one.
      - madrox 4y ago
        Lately, I've been thinking about the role of nihilism as a natural force in society and its use as a tool of renewal. At its best, it's a power to take only that which strengthens so that we don't take on the collective emotional debt of past generations. It's why we're finding new ways to do old things all the time and why we aren't living in guilt over the deeds of past generations. At its worst, nihilism throws the baby out with the bath water and you get holocaust deniers. This has been the hardest part of aging for me, because seeing this evolve in real time has left me in despair for our world at times. I have to remind myself that this force has been at work for centuries, and when I was young I didn't think it was all that bad. We'll probably be ok.
- madrox 4y ago
  I'd argue the opposite. If it's insignificant at all, it's only because of our response to it. Lots of people worked very, very hard for us to sit here typing "it wasn't that bad" unless you believe that our global covid response did very little to change the outcome. If you do believe that, though, there's probably little point in continuing this thread.
  - tasuki 4y ago
    Yes, lots of people worked very hard to make the outcome better. I'm grateful to them for helping protect my aged relations. They did make a difference. With that out, the Covid-19 pandemic, even without any measures at all, was still incredibly mild. Wikipedia says 0.1-0.3% global population lost [0]. It would have been I don't know, perhaps 0.5% without measures? Compare to the other pandemics on that list, you routinely see ones that wipe out 20-50% of the regional population - now that is significantly bad. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
    - astrange 4y ago
      Those other pandemics are before we had any ability to defend ourselves or even know what was going on. SARS-1 and MERS are quite fatal too but we stopped them from spreading.
      - tasuki 4y ago
        > Those other pandemics are before we had any ability to defend ourselves or even know what was going on. Yes, of course. And I'm simply adding that Covid-19 would be nowhere as bad as those even if we had no ability to defend ourselves.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  https://also.kottke.org/22/04/the-mass-delusion-of-the-pandemic-being-over https://also.kottke.org/22/04/the-mass-delusion-of-the-pande...
  - dijit 4y ago
    We have a widely deployed vaccine. COVID will live with us forever now, a pandemic has a few characteristics which make it so, one of which is capacity to overwhelm healthcare. As soon as covid couldn’t overwhelm our healthcare systems it was over. Now people will die every year with it, just like the flu. Sad reality, but reality nonetheless, the fact we couldn’t handle a lock-down cemented that we would be living with it for the rest of human existence.
    - whatshisface 4y ago
      The vaccine only lasts six months. I am not sure how "widely deployed" it is anymore.
      - krona 4y ago
        Children today, and their children, will gain immunity over an entire lifetime through repeated exposure. So it is with all other coronaviruses, which have been around for millions of years and don't routinely kill older/vulnerable people.
      - astrange 4y ago
        T cell immunity lasts longer than that. The antibody counts are kind of like a “watched pot never boils” thing - we’ve just never bothered to look before so now everyone is stressing about it.
    - syntheweave 4y ago
      We still haven't really grappled with the aftereffects of long COVID. What we've done instead is say it's over because the acute phase is done with, and buried the reports of longer term issues. In other words, the health care system now simply returns wrong answers to triage its own capacity. But that doesn't make it no longer a pandemic. We know quite well that we can normalize our way into wrong answers as a society. It'll only become clear where we stand after another year or two - either more and more people become disabled after their "mild" case, or it gradually trails off.
coldtea 4y ago
>Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. That's probably because it was not that great impact wise. If it was more like the Spanish Flu, with a huge death toll across all ages (as opposed to 1/10th the death toll, and mostly focused on older people and co-morbidities) it would have absolutely have looked like "a pandemic film".
- madrox 4y ago
  I think there's a fallacy here in that "because covid's impact wasn't great, covid wasn't that bad." Any time we have to mobilize a lot of effort to head off the worst outcome, there's a tendency to say "well nothing really bad happened, so why did we go through all that effort?" Let's not trivialize the global effort necessary to bring us to 1/10th the death toll. It absolutely could've been worse. It's our response to covid, not covid itself, that taught me a lot of what we're capable of in global crisis. We've come a long way since Spanish Flu.
  - belter 4y ago
    Let's also not take too much of a Western perspective, as only 16.2% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
  - kinleyd 4y ago
    Well said. I think if the vaccines hadn't come out at all, it could well have been as bad as the Spanish Flu.
    - tasuki 4y ago
      > I think if the vaccines hadn't come out at all, it could well have been as bad as the Spanish Flu. I'm very much for vaccines, but this is just not true at all. Covid was never going to be near as bad as the Spanish flu, even if no measures were taken at all.
  - dijit 4y ago
cassepipe 4y ago
I feel the same about 5. Do 3d movies still exist by the way ? Or IMax movies ?
- madrox 4y ago
  Probably in the same way that VR does...it comes in waves. 3D has been around for a while, and every now and then it resurges. It has more to do with marketing forces to excite people about going to the theater than anything. And yes, I suspect theaters will still be a thing unless teenagers find a new excuse to be unsupervised in the dark for a few hours.
- Toutouxc 4y ago
  IMAX is much bigger (brand + technologies) than what you probably think it is. As far as I know, IMAX and Dolby and maybe a few others are today's cutting edge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX
jotm 4y ago
1. Well, d'uh. Also, everything will require a network connection (which is where ubiquitous Internet via cable or satellite comes in). No Internet? Pfft, what, do you live without electricity, too? 2. Pay for these kinds of professions (ever increasing complexity, whether necessary or self-made + decently mentally taxing) will only go up. Not everyone can be a programmer, or a lawyer, doctor, video/audio editor, electrician, etc. Barring some catastrophic event or the creation of good enough AI/robots. 4+5. in 30 years, if current development rates continue, VR will be the next revolution. Super compact and efficient devices + a world where you can do almost anything you want will be very popular with the masses facing ever increasing costs, climate problems, joblessness, lack of housing, etc. Why even put up with all the bs when you can do the bare minimum and use technological opium the rest of your time? I wonder if VR could be banned in the same manner as drugs, actually.
- madrox 4y ago
  The reason I'm low confidence on pay is because I think there will be even more disparity among programmer salaries and the median will be far lower. Will it be possible to make a million a year as an engineer in 30 years (forget inflation for a moment)? Sure. However, I think there will be a lot more engineers making five figures. We're lowering the bar to do simple work all the time. Much like the other professions you mentioned, some make millions...others are far more middle-class. As for the rest...they were in direct response to this article's predictions. My VR prediction is tongue-in-cheek because it's been "just around the corner" for the last thirty years. It's not far-fetched to think it'll still be "just around the corner" in another 30.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    I would agree though for a different reason. If society has to rebuild/replace infrastructure destroyed by more hurricanes, raise ports above new sea levels or build new ports, upgrade the power grid, food takes more resources to grow, etc, all using materials that are being desperately sought by every other nation on earth that's going to take every penny we can find anywhere and that means most salaries will be squeezed. I'm torn about the high end, but my guess is even they will suffer because money is going to basic needs and even if you can help produce them for efficiently there isn't the kind of surplus we see today to reward you.
coolspot 4y ago
> Programmer pay will decrease compared to other industries. It is supply and demand for smart people. So far, demand for smart people increased throughout times. If earth will make more smart people or if they will be replaced/augmented with A(G)I, then pay will subside.
- donthellbanme 4y ago
- worik 4y ago
  Are programmers really smarter? Smarter than animal trainers? Smarter than massage therapists? Smarter than lawyers, artists, plumbers??? If we took a vote here, well we might be biased!
  - Clubber 4y ago
    The individuals may or may not be smarter, meaning they are a lot of smart people in professions that don't require it, but the computer related professions have a higher floor for intelligence to be successful, mainly abstract thinking.
  - coryfklein 4y ago
    Agreed, a vote would hardly bring much extra information here. I'd love to see data behind this question, but yes I believe that there is significant variation in the required intelligence to perform the highly various professions that the human race engages in. And I would claim – in all the humility I can muster speaking as a programmer myself – that the average programming job does inherently have a higher bar for intelligence than the average other profession. It would be very wrong indeed to extrapolate from this information that one should TREAT individuals differently based on their choice of profession! Even if we knew for certain that the Brick Laying profession only consisted of the 1% most intelligent individuals and Data Entry Specialists the lowest 1%, treating individuals with these professions differently from a policy or cultural perspective would, in my opinion, be a great injustice.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
leke 4y ago
2. I can't see it getting any lower in Finland. Our job already pays (through the collective agreement) a woman's salary.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  What is a woman's salary in Finland? At any rate looking at it http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&loctype=1 http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&locty... http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&loctype=1&job=783&jobtype=3 http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&locty... it looks like you're right, the median salary for programmers in Finland (4,830 EUR) is just a bit more than the median salary for everyone (4,320 EUR)
  - erddfre3423 4y ago
    Calling it a "woman's salary" is a bit of an exaggeration, when mainly-women fields such as nursing requiring higher education pay about 2900-3500 EUR including extras from night shifts and sundays (or about 2500 without any extras). But yes, programmers definitely are not overpaid in Finland. It's not unheard for fresh CS grads to be paid just 2500 EUR a month, though at least they have career progression unlike nurses forever stuck with such bad salaries...
  - leke 4y ago
    Most salaries are based on collective agreements. https://www.tyosuojelu.fi/web/en/employment-relationship/posted-worker/pay-in-finland/collective-agreements https://www.tyosuojelu.fi/web/en/employment-relationship/pos... Tech sector: https://teknologiateollisuus.fi/sites/default/files/inline-files/www_Collective%20agreement%20-%20employees%202020-2021.pdf https://teknologiateollisuus.fi/sites/default/files/inline-f... I make around 2300e before tax, and around 1900e after. > What is a woman's salary in Finland? Much less than a man's salary.

by madrox 4y ago

tasuki 4y ago

> The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. I don't think it has taught you much. All things considered, despite all the suffering by unlucky individuals, when you consider humanity as a whole, covid is an insignificant blip. If it's significant at all, it's only because of our response to it. > Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. Covid was not 1% as bad as any pandemic featured in a film. Humanity has seen way worse, and we could still see way worse in the future.

boringg 4y ago
Our response was actually what made it a much more insignificant blip (thanks public health + vaccines), and technically we aren't through it yet.
- pc86 4y ago
  I'd argue that we are through it in the public health, government mandate, change how you live day-to-day sense of things. Everyone who is willing to get vaccinated is probably vaccinated at this point. There is very little support for more government intervention even as cases rise in various areas, regardless of political persuasion (at least in the US, maybe it's different in the UK and EU?) The fact that COVID is still out there, infecting and mutating, is irrelevant to most people.
- tasuki 4y ago
  Wikipedia says 0.1-0.3% global population lost [0]. It would have been perhaps 0.5% without any response whatsoever. That's still insignificant compared to all the other pandemics, which seem to often kill 20-50% of the regional population. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
  - boringg 4y ago
    Well I think that's using an assumption that if we had greater exposure (ie less public health measures/vaccines) for the virus it wouldn't mutate and cause more damage than it did in its current form and causing a step change in in impact. Also wikipedia in and of itself is not a high quality source.
titzer 4y ago
What COVID taught me is that the human ability to not give a fuck is apparently infinite. I have trouble processing the fact that a million people died (in the USA) and there is no mourning, no shared sense of tragedy or loss, no looking more kindly on other people, just a madder, faster dash on cash and even more finger-pointing. > Covid was not 1% as bad as any pandemic featured in a film. I'll be generous and not dwell on this stunning example of this age's inability to get bothered by anything unless it hits harder than film. Look on the bright side I guess, despite how soulless, empty, and glib we have to be do so!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- coryrc 4y ago
  Something like 5 million people die every year, should we be in permanent mourning?
  - titzer 4y ago
    I know you're trolling, but I'll respond. Part of growing up and moving from just a mere legally-licensed adult is being able to hold heavy things. They never stop getting heavier. They just keep unfolding, and if you are willing to grow just a little deeper--not bigger, but deeper, like the roots of you being able to feel things, then maybe all that learning to deal with loss, tragedies, loved ones dying, aging, your parents and uncles and cousins and friends dying--and yet not letting it destroy you, might be worth something. Though, for a moment, you can be devastated on the inside and hold yourself up without breaking. You don't need to cry your eyes out every day, but man, what the hell if we can't reflect on such a grievous time that has befallen us--all of us--over the past two years, without clawing someone else's face off or storming off in a huff. But if you need to feel not bothered at all, go ahead, you aren't the subject of this one.
    - madrox 4y ago
      Lately, I've been thinking about the role of nihilism as a natural force in society and its use as a tool of renewal. At its best, it's a power to take only that which strengthens so that we don't take on the collective emotional debt of past generations. It's why we're finding new ways to do old things all the time and why we aren't living in guilt over the deeds of past generations. At its worst, nihilism throws the baby out with the bath water and you get holocaust deniers. This has been the hardest part of aging for me, because seeing this evolve in real time has left me in despair for our world at times. I have to remind myself that this force has been at work for centuries, and when I was young I didn't think it was all that bad. We'll probably be ok.
madrox 4y ago
I'd argue the opposite. If it's insignificant at all, it's only because of our response to it. Lots of people worked very, very hard for us to sit here typing "it wasn't that bad" unless you believe that our global covid response did very little to change the outcome. If you do believe that, though, there's probably little point in continuing this thread.
- tasuki 4y ago
  Yes, lots of people worked very hard to make the outcome better. I'm grateful to them for helping protect my aged relations. They did make a difference. With that out, the Covid-19 pandemic, even without any measures at all, was still incredibly mild. Wikipedia says 0.1-0.3% global population lost [0]. It would have been I don't know, perhaps 0.5% without measures? Compare to the other pandemics on that list, you routinely see ones that wipe out 20-50% of the regional population - now that is significantly bad. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
  - astrange 4y ago
    Those other pandemics are before we had any ability to defend ourselves or even know what was going on. SARS-1 and MERS are quite fatal too but we stopped them from spreading.
    - tasuki 4y ago
      > Those other pandemics are before we had any ability to defend ourselves or even know what was going on. Yes, of course. And I'm simply adding that Covid-19 would be nowhere as bad as those even if we had no ability to defend ourselves.
KerrAvon 4y ago
https://also.kottke.org/22/04/the-mass-delusion-of-the-pandemic-being-over https://also.kottke.org/22/04/the-mass-delusion-of-the-pande...
- dijit 4y ago
  We have a widely deployed vaccine. COVID will live with us forever now, a pandemic has a few characteristics which make it so, one of which is capacity to overwhelm healthcare. As soon as covid couldn’t overwhelm our healthcare systems it was over. Now people will die every year with it, just like the flu. Sad reality, but reality nonetheless, the fact we couldn’t handle a lock-down cemented that we would be living with it for the rest of human existence.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    The vaccine only lasts six months. I am not sure how "widely deployed" it is anymore.
    - krona 4y ago
      Children today, and their children, will gain immunity over an entire lifetime through repeated exposure. So it is with all other coronaviruses, which have been around for millions of years and don't routinely kill older/vulnerable people.
    - astrange 4y ago
      T cell immunity lasts longer than that. The antibody counts are kind of like a “watched pot never boils” thing - we’ve just never bothered to look before so now everyone is stressing about it.
  - syntheweave 4y ago
    We still haven't really grappled with the aftereffects of long COVID. What we've done instead is say it's over because the acute phase is done with, and buried the reports of longer term issues. In other words, the health care system now simply returns wrong answers to triage its own capacity. But that doesn't make it no longer a pandemic. We know quite well that we can normalize our way into wrong answers as a society. It'll only become clear where we stand after another year or two - either more and more people become disabled after their "mild" case, or it gradually trails off.

coldtea 4y ago

>Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. That's probably because it was not that great impact wise. If it was more like the Spanish Flu, with a huge death toll across all ages (as opposed to 1/10th the death toll, and mostly focused on older people and co-morbidities) it would have absolutely have looked like "a pandemic film".

madrox 4y ago
I think there's a fallacy here in that "because covid's impact wasn't great, covid wasn't that bad." Any time we have to mobilize a lot of effort to head off the worst outcome, there's a tendency to say "well nothing really bad happened, so why did we go through all that effort?" Let's not trivialize the global effort necessary to bring us to 1/10th the death toll. It absolutely could've been worse. It's our response to covid, not covid itself, that taught me a lot of what we're capable of in global crisis. We've come a long way since Spanish Flu.
- belter 4y ago
  Let's also not take too much of a Western perspective, as only 16.2% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
- kinleyd 4y ago
  Well said. I think if the vaccines hadn't come out at all, it could well have been as bad as the Spanish Flu.
  - tasuki 4y ago
    > I think if the vaccines hadn't come out at all, it could well have been as bad as the Spanish Flu. I'm very much for vaccines, but this is just not true at all. Covid was never going to be near as bad as the Spanish flu, even if no measures were taken at all.
- dijit 4y ago

cassepipe 4y ago

I feel the same about 5. Do 3d movies still exist by the way ? Or IMax movies ?

madrox 4y ago
Probably in the same way that VR does...it comes in waves. 3D has been around for a while, and every now and then it resurges. It has more to do with marketing forces to excite people about going to the theater than anything. And yes, I suspect theaters will still be a thing unless teenagers find a new excuse to be unsupervised in the dark for a few hours.
Toutouxc 4y ago
IMAX is much bigger (brand + technologies) than what you probably think it is. As far as I know, IMAX and Dolby and maybe a few others are today's cutting edge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX

jotm 4y ago

1. Well, d'uh. Also, everything will require a network connection (which is where ubiquitous Internet via cable or satellite comes in). No Internet? Pfft, what, do you live without electricity, too? 2. Pay for these kinds of professions (ever increasing complexity, whether necessary or self-made + decently mentally taxing) will only go up. Not everyone can be a programmer, or a lawyer, doctor, video/audio editor, electrician, etc. Barring some catastrophic event or the creation of good enough AI/robots. 4+5. in 30 years, if current development rates continue, VR will be the next revolution. Super compact and efficient devices + a world where you can do almost anything you want will be very popular with the masses facing ever increasing costs, climate problems, joblessness, lack of housing, etc. Why even put up with all the bs when you can do the bare minimum and use technological opium the rest of your time? I wonder if VR could be banned in the same manner as drugs, actually.

madrox 4y ago
The reason I'm low confidence on pay is because I think there will be even more disparity among programmer salaries and the median will be far lower. Will it be possible to make a million a year as an engineer in 30 years (forget inflation for a moment)? Sure. However, I think there will be a lot more engineers making five figures. We're lowering the bar to do simple work all the time. Much like the other professions you mentioned, some make millions...others are far more middle-class. As for the rest...they were in direct response to this article's predictions. My VR prediction is tongue-in-cheek because it's been "just around the corner" for the last thirty years. It's not far-fetched to think it'll still be "just around the corner" in another 30.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  I would agree though for a different reason. If society has to rebuild/replace infrastructure destroyed by more hurricanes, raise ports above new sea levels or build new ports, upgrade the power grid, food takes more resources to grow, etc, all using materials that are being desperately sought by every other nation on earth that's going to take every penny we can find anywhere and that means most salaries will be squeezed. I'm torn about the high end, but my guess is even they will suffer because money is going to basic needs and even if you can help produce them for efficiently there isn't the kind of surplus we see today to reward you.

coolspot 4y ago

> Programmer pay will decrease compared to other industries. It is supply and demand for smart people. So far, demand for smart people increased throughout times. If earth will make more smart people or if they will be replaced/augmented with A(G)I, then pay will subside.

donthellbanme 4y ago
worik 4y ago
Are programmers really smarter? Smarter than animal trainers? Smarter than massage therapists? Smarter than lawyers, artists, plumbers??? If we took a vote here, well we might be biased!
- Clubber 4y ago
  The individuals may or may not be smarter, meaning they are a lot of smart people in professions that don't require it, but the computer related professions have a higher floor for intelligence to be successful, mainly abstract thinking.
- coryfklein 4y ago
  Agreed, a vote would hardly bring much extra information here. I'd love to see data behind this question, but yes I believe that there is significant variation in the required intelligence to perform the highly various professions that the human race engages in. And I would claim – in all the humility I can muster speaking as a programmer myself – that the average programming job does inherently have a higher bar for intelligence than the average other profession. It would be very wrong indeed to extrapolate from this information that one should TREAT individuals differently based on their choice of profession! Even if we knew for certain that the Brick Laying profession only consisted of the 1% most intelligent individuals and Data Entry Specialists the lowest 1%, treating individuals with these professions differently from a policy or cultural perspective would, in my opinion, be a great injustice.
therealdrag0 4y ago

leke 4y ago

2. I can't see it getting any lower in Finland. Our job already pays (through the collective agreement) a woman's salary.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago
What is a woman's salary in Finland? At any rate looking at it http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&loctype=1 http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&locty... http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&loctype=1&job=783&jobtype=3 http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=73&locty... it looks like you're right, the median salary for programmers in Finland (4,830 EUR) is just a bit more than the median salary for everyone (4,320 EUR)
- erddfre3423 4y ago
  Calling it a "woman's salary" is a bit of an exaggeration, when mainly-women fields such as nursing requiring higher education pay about 2900-3500 EUR including extras from night shifts and sundays (or about 2500 without any extras). But yes, programmers definitely are not overpaid in Finland. It's not unheard for fresh CS grads to be paid just 2500 EUR a month, though at least they have career progression unlike nurses forever stuck with such bad salaries...
- leke 4y ago
  Most salaries are based on collective agreements. https://www.tyosuojelu.fi/web/en/employment-relationship/posted-worker/pay-in-finland/collective-agreements https://www.tyosuojelu.fi/web/en/employment-relationship/pos... Tech sector: https://teknologiateollisuus.fi/sites/default/files/inline-files/www_Collective%20agreement%20-%20employees%202020-2021.pdf https://teknologiateollisuus.fi/sites/default/files/inline-f... I make around 2300e before tax, and around 1900e after. > What is a woman's salary in Finland? Much less than a man's salary.