4 ms·

Software development is pretty much testament to the opposite, you can very much make a living being average or even below average. The passion industries are

Software development is pretty much testament to the opposite, you can very much make a living being average or even below average. The passion industries are the ones requiring high amounts of dedication. For good reasons.

ghaff 4y ago
The bar for many professions to earn a living (whatever that means exactly) is probably minimal competence--which may be easier for some in some professions than others in other professions. Then, as you say, "passion industries" probably require some combination of talent/hard work/luck no matter who you are to do more than scrape by--if that.
- spoonjim 4y ago
  Minimum competence to earn a living as a basketball player is much higher than minimum competence required to earn a living as a software engineer.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Tournament jobs is the general term. [1] It's also the case that some professions have a rather limited number of slots that offer someone a decent living of which professional sports leagues are a good example. Basically being the 300th best software developer (or engineer or chemist etc.) probably means you can get a pretty good job. Being the 300th best basketball player may mean you're a car salesman or teaching high school gym classes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      There are 450 NBA players, so being the 300th best basketball player gives you a chance of playing the NBA or maybe in China.
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        Team sports go deep. Individual sports quite a lot less. 300th best swimmer or runner likely won't do that well. On other hand 300th best in sport with reasonably sized team means you are either on top level or level just below that. Which usually mean reasonable living.
        spoonjim 4y ago
        Yes but the 30,000th best software engineer is making $1 million working at Google.
swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
Seems to me the passion industries either pay less (education, game dev, social or environmental work) due to high supply of candidates, or demand way too much (medicine, lawyers, cutting edge sciences) I for one would like to see my doctors, nurses and police officers well rested and relaxed.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  It's just supply and demand putting its greasy fingers in everything combined with poor unionization from the employee side (of their own accord, often enough). Nurses could force better circumstances if they collectively accepted to work more sane shifts and make society deal with the problem of too few nurses instead. Animators could be better if they stopped accepting working 60+ hours to push animation which gets bingewatched for a few cents in a day. But we collectively accept the circumstances, and so a few years of intense practicing drawing is paid worse than taking a bootcamp on how to write API calls and play planning poker (poorly).
cbanek 4y ago
The work of a mediocre software developer is not only not done, it's self sustaining.
mr_toad 4y ago
Even a below average programmer is better at programming than 99.99% of the population.

ghaff 4y ago

The bar for many professions to earn a living (whatever that means exactly) is probably minimal competence--which may be easier for some in some professions than others in other professions. Then, as you say, "passion industries" probably require some combination of talent/hard work/luck no matter who you are to do more than scrape by--if that.

spoonjim 4y ago
Minimum competence to earn a living as a basketball player is much higher than minimum competence required to earn a living as a software engineer.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Tournament jobs is the general term. [1] It's also the case that some professions have a rather limited number of slots that offer someone a decent living of which professional sports leagues are a good example. Basically being the 300th best software developer (or engineer or chemist etc.) probably means you can get a pretty good job. Being the 300th best basketball player may mean you're a car salesman or teaching high school gym classes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_theory
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    There are 450 NBA players, so being the 300th best basketball player gives you a chance of playing the NBA or maybe in China.
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      Team sports go deep. Individual sports quite a lot less. 300th best swimmer or runner likely won't do that well. On other hand 300th best in sport with reasonably sized team means you are either on top level or level just below that. Which usually mean reasonable living.
      - spoonjim 4y ago
        Yes but the 30,000th best software engineer is making $1 million working at Google.

swagasaurus-rex 4y ago

Seems to me the passion industries either pay less (education, game dev, social or environmental work) due to high supply of candidates, or demand way too much (medicine, lawyers, cutting edge sciences) I for one would like to see my doctors, nurses and police officers well rested and relaxed.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
It's just supply and demand putting its greasy fingers in everything combined with poor unionization from the employee side (of their own accord, often enough). Nurses could force better circumstances if they collectively accepted to work more sane shifts and make society deal with the problem of too few nurses instead. Animators could be better if they stopped accepting working 60+ hours to push animation which gets bingewatched for a few cents in a day. But we collectively accept the circumstances, and so a few years of intense practicing drawing is paid worse than taking a bootcamp on how to write API calls and play planning poker (poorly).

cbanek 4y ago

The work of a mediocre software developer is not only not done, it's self sustaining.

mr_toad 4y ago

Even a below average programmer is better at programming than 99.99% of the population.