4 ms·

There used to be fewer clear paths to excelling. Lawyer, doctor, professor.

parpfish 2y ago
Do you want to be: - Rich and respected -> doctor - Rich but not respected -> lawyer, software - Not rich but respected -> professor
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  > Rich and respected -> doctor A lot of people are going to be disappointed. Truth is medicine is a decadent profession, worldwide. In some countries, it's in free fall and accelerating to terminal velocity. In some parts of the world, doctors are hated to the point they routinely suffer physical violence. The US manages to keep it relevant by restricting supply and maintaining its elite status but I'm not sure doctors are still respected there. Plenty of hackers who think they can do it better than the doctors right here on HN. I'm a programmer myself and I know for a fact a computer could do significant parts of the job. Even psychiatry is in danger due to LLMs.
  - klabb3 2y ago
    > I'm a programmer myself and I know for a fact a computer could do significant parts of the job. A computer does a massive part of almost any job today, so I’m not sure what exactly this is trying to say about the profession. Wait until you hear that pilots can’t even fly without an airplane. Total conmen.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    HN nerds[1] talking about doctors reminds me a lot about bean-counters talking about IT and software. > Plenty of hackers who think they can do it better than the doctors right here on HN Of course they would, it's easy to come up with solutions that are simple and wrong, when one has no point of reference. Hackers understand balancing trade-offs in programming languages or architectures, but can't imagine other fields being nuanced or even more complex. If an LLM cant tell you when to use a monorepo, then it far from telling you when a specific drug dosage is right for a patients set of circumstances. 1. I can use that word, I am one too.

Do you want to be: - Rich and respected -> doctor - Rich but not respected -> lawyer, software - Not rich but respected -> professor

matheusmoreira 2y ago
> Rich and respected -> doctor A lot of people are going to be disappointed. Truth is medicine is a decadent profession, worldwide. In some countries, it's in free fall and accelerating to terminal velocity. In some parts of the world, doctors are hated to the point they routinely suffer physical violence. The US manages to keep it relevant by restricting supply and maintaining its elite status but I'm not sure doctors are still respected there. Plenty of hackers who think they can do it better than the doctors right here on HN. I'm a programmer myself and I know for a fact a computer could do significant parts of the job. Even psychiatry is in danger due to LLMs.
- klabb3 2y ago
  > I'm a programmer myself and I know for a fact a computer could do significant parts of the job. A computer does a massive part of almost any job today, so I’m not sure what exactly this is trying to say about the profession. Wait until you hear that pilots can’t even fly without an airplane. Total conmen.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  HN nerds[1] talking about doctors reminds me a lot about bean-counters talking about IT and software. > Plenty of hackers who think they can do it better than the doctors right here on HN Of course they would, it's easy to come up with solutions that are simple and wrong, when one has no point of reference. Hackers understand balancing trade-offs in programming languages or architectures, but can't imagine other fields being nuanced or even more complex. If an LLM cant tell you when to use a monorepo, then it far from telling you when a specific drug dosage is right for a patients set of circumstances. 1. I can use that word, I am one too.