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>We don't pay people based on how hard they work. This. Something being difficult to achieve does not make it valuable. In practice, this is often the opposi

>We don't pay people based on how hard they work. This. Something being difficult to achieve does not make it valuable. In practice, this is often the opposite. The most difficult jobs are also the less productive/less well paid. The ability to write code is the closest thing we ever had to magic. There are many levels of mastery, but it is undeniably powerful. The strange thing is that not everyone seems to enjoy acquiring the skills needed to do that.

godelski 4y ago
> Something being difficult to achieve does not make it valuable. And value to what? As an ex-physicist I can confidently say that doing that was substantially harder than the ML I do now. But I also think that what I did provided more value to society as a whole. Just my opinion though. But it doesn't pay well (<$100k/yr) and I'm not surprised I saw a mass exodus of people trying to get more money with their math skills (mostly in DS and CS). If pay was correlated strongly to difficulty mathematicians and physicists would be paid much more than Hollywood actors. But for some reason these conversations always revolve around the (barely a) millionaire class and never include the billionaire class. It feels surreal in that it looks like we're fighting for crumbs and arguing who deserves it more.
- threatofrain 4y ago
  There’s a difference between valuable to the market and valuable for society. For all we know ecological research will become an existential issue but that doesn’t mean consumers or businesses give a damn. Meanwhile advertising is worth trillions.
  - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
    Be careful. You’re approaching communist thought crime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value
    - Viliam1234 4y ago
      Both concepts have their problems; it does not have to be an either-or choice. The problem with market value is that it downplays the needs of the poor, and is sensitive to all kinds of regulation (intuitively, if regulation makes the same thing more expensive, it doesn't make it more valuable). The problem with use value, as defined by Marx, is that it ignores the differences between individuals, and technically the needs of individuals at all. It simply means "what the one who controls the society considers valuable". (If you think this is a strawman, just read the Wikipedia article carefully.) Of course, it is assumed that the one who controls the society is omniscient and can determine the value correctly, but that's just answering the question by passing the buck to a hypothetical omniscient entity. (And if you look at actual communist societies, it turns out, perhaps surprisingly to many, that the ones who control them are neither omniscient nor benevolent.) What seems to work best, so far, is a hybrid system where: * the value of million little things (often not useful per se, but as a raw material for something else) is determined by the market; * some form of social security ensures that anyone's needs have a non-zero weight; * the "socially useful but not market profitable" projects are paid for by taxes and charities. In other words, the "use value" can be implemented on top of "market value" by financing things by taxes and charities. In the opposite direction, the "market value" can also be implemented on top of "use value" by trading the government-assigned things on black market; the only problem is that this is typically considered illegal. The fact that both things occur naturally in different kinds of societies suggests that both are necessary. (And the proposal of "free market with unconditional basic income" is how they could exist side by side without having to implement one of them as a hack on top of the other. The last component you need is some kind of Kickstarter.)
    - boppo1 4y ago
      Nah, the difference between value to the market and society is because we broke price discovery by holding rates low for decades. The current paradigm is literally central planning, which, last I checked, is closer to communism than capitalism. If the central feature of capitalism is the invisible hand we shattered the wrist.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  In this context I was talking about something being valuable from an economic standpoint. That is the only way I know to put a price on something, and this is clearly not a reliable process (see all the scams) but is there anything better?
jrm4 4y ago
There's no shortage of people who enjoy the acquiring the skills to write code? I'd say it's more the tension of "finding ways to get paid for it in this ever churning environment."
- bspammer 4y ago
  > There's no shortage of people who enjoy the acquiring the skills to write code? There certainly is a shortage, or salaries would be lower. Anecdotally, at least 90% of the people I talk to say something along the lines of “ooh I could never do that” when they learn what I do for a living. Most people seem scared of coding, and I’m not entirely sure why.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    > There certainly is a shortage, or salaries would be lower. Sounds backwards. A shortage is a situation where price is unable to rise. If there is a shortage, salaries should be higher than they are. Price gouging laws are a good example of where shortages can occur. We experienced a shortage of toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic because the law (in many jurisdictions) prevented vendors from charging the fair market value. If vendors were legally able to sell them for $1,000 a roll, the market would have been easily satisfied as the average person unable to pay $1,000 a roll would have bowed out of the market, leaving just the right amount for those who still were willing to pay up. Instead, because of the law toilet paper remained as affordable as it ever was, so it became a race to see who could get it first instead of letting a higher price scare some people away. Within the scope of labor, healthcare can be prone to shortages as governments have been known to impose price ceilings on practitioners to try and make healthcare more accessible to all, so that the rich don't buy up all the doctors' time with a better offer, leaving no service available to the poor. This is quite uncommon generally, though, and not something I've ever seen within the software industry. We're quite happy to let Google outbid Mom and Pop's Used Book Emporium for developers.
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    From what I have seen, most people simply do not like coding. It's a very difficult mode of work for most people and I'm not surprised. It's very time consuming, requires you to think in logic and the work is relatively solitary. It's a nightmare job for a lot of people.
JamesianP 4y ago
But if you look at it with all else being equal, difficulty certainly helps increase pay far more often than not. Difficulty level constrains the supply side of the equation. though there are additional factors on both sides.

godelski 4y ago

> Something being difficult to achieve does not make it valuable. And value to what? As an ex-physicist I can confidently say that doing that was substantially harder than the ML I do now. But I also think that what I did provided more value to society as a whole. Just my opinion though. But it doesn't pay well (<$100k/yr) and I'm not surprised I saw a mass exodus of people trying to get more money with their math skills (mostly in DS and CS). If pay was correlated strongly to difficulty mathematicians and physicists would be paid much more than Hollywood actors. But for some reason these conversations always revolve around the (barely a) millionaire class and never include the billionaire class. It feels surreal in that it looks like we're fighting for crumbs and arguing who deserves it more.

threatofrain 4y ago
There’s a difference between valuable to the market and valuable for society. For all we know ecological research will become an existential issue but that doesn’t mean consumers or businesses give a damn. Meanwhile advertising is worth trillions.
- nopenopenopeno 4y ago
  Be careful. You’re approaching communist thought crime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_value
  - Viliam1234 4y ago
    Both concepts have their problems; it does not have to be an either-or choice. The problem with market value is that it downplays the needs of the poor, and is sensitive to all kinds of regulation (intuitively, if regulation makes the same thing more expensive, it doesn't make it more valuable). The problem with use value, as defined by Marx, is that it ignores the differences between individuals, and technically the needs of individuals at all. It simply means "what the one who controls the society considers valuable". (If you think this is a strawman, just read the Wikipedia article carefully.) Of course, it is assumed that the one who controls the society is omniscient and can determine the value correctly, but that's just answering the question by passing the buck to a hypothetical omniscient entity. (And if you look at actual communist societies, it turns out, perhaps surprisingly to many, that the ones who control them are neither omniscient nor benevolent.) What seems to work best, so far, is a hybrid system where: * the value of million little things (often not useful per se, but as a raw material for something else) is determined by the market; * some form of social security ensures that anyone's needs have a non-zero weight; * the "socially useful but not market profitable" projects are paid for by taxes and charities. In other words, the "use value" can be implemented on top of "market value" by financing things by taxes and charities. In the opposite direction, the "market value" can also be implemented on top of "use value" by trading the government-assigned things on black market; the only problem is that this is typically considered illegal. The fact that both things occur naturally in different kinds of societies suggests that both are necessary. (And the proposal of "free market with unconditional basic income" is how they could exist side by side without having to implement one of them as a hack on top of the other. The last component you need is some kind of Kickstarter.)
  - boppo1 4y ago
    Nah, the difference between value to the market and society is because we broke price discovery by holding rates low for decades. The current paradigm is literally central planning, which, last I checked, is closer to communism than capitalism. If the central feature of capitalism is the invisible hand we shattered the wrist.
stephc_int13 4y ago
In this context I was talking about something being valuable from an economic standpoint. That is the only way I know to put a price on something, and this is clearly not a reliable process (see all the scams) but is there anything better?

jrm4 4y ago

There's no shortage of people who enjoy the acquiring the skills to write code? I'd say it's more the tension of "finding ways to get paid for it in this ever churning environment."

bspammer 4y ago
> There's no shortage of people who enjoy the acquiring the skills to write code? There certainly is a shortage, or salaries would be lower. Anecdotally, at least 90% of the people I talk to say something along the lines of “ooh I could never do that” when they learn what I do for a living. Most people seem scared of coding, and I’m not entirely sure why.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > There certainly is a shortage, or salaries would be lower. Sounds backwards. A shortage is a situation where price is unable to rise. If there is a shortage, salaries should be higher than they are. Price gouging laws are a good example of where shortages can occur. We experienced a shortage of toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic because the law (in many jurisdictions) prevented vendors from charging the fair market value. If vendors were legally able to sell them for $1,000 a roll, the market would have been easily satisfied as the average person unable to pay $1,000 a roll would have bowed out of the market, leaving just the right amount for those who still were willing to pay up. Instead, because of the law toilet paper remained as affordable as it ever was, so it became a race to see who could get it first instead of letting a higher price scare some people away. Within the scope of labor, healthcare can be prone to shortages as governments have been known to impose price ceilings on practitioners to try and make healthcare more accessible to all, so that the rich don't buy up all the doctors' time with a better offer, leaving no service available to the poor. This is quite uncommon generally, though, and not something I've ever seen within the software industry. We're quite happy to let Google outbid Mom and Pop's Used Book Emporium for developers.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  From what I have seen, most people simply do not like coding. It's a very difficult mode of work for most people and I'm not surprised. It's very time consuming, requires you to think in logic and the work is relatively solitary. It's a nightmare job for a lot of people.

JamesianP 4y ago

But if you look at it with all else being equal, difficulty certainly helps increase pay far more often than not. Difficulty level constrains the supply side of the equation. though there are additional factors on both sides.