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The author of this would have his answer if he understood the IQ floor necessary to be a good engineer, access to computers at a young age and willingness to tr

The author of this would have his answer if he understood the IQ floor necessary to be a good engineer, access to computers at a young age and willingness to troubleshoot obscure problems is relatively rare in the population. There are far less high IQ individuals in the world than the world needs right now. We can teach coding to young people, but as of now we can't reliably increase IQ. We have studies that prove agents such as piracetam administered to pregnant rats increase the intelligence of their offspring. If the Tech titans that want cheaper labor really want to solve the problem of lack of quality engineers they could think long term and throw massive amounts of funding at neuroscience and nootropic research. In the information age we all live and die by our wits. Policy and R&D money should be directed at raising the mean intelligence of the population through novel scientific breakthroughs. Far easier though to just lobby for government policies that make it easier to import the rare kind of people Google, Microsoft and Facebook need. So we have a situation where no one is focused on solving the root of the problem (a need to increase the cognitive abilities of humans) and no one is lobbying to protect the financial interests of working coders in the United States.

jh73 13y ago
As a scientist, even mentioning IQ is a good way to lose your career in the US. It's frustrating because the general population are turning to off-label drugs and supplements. 30% of college students are taking some sort of ADHD drugs for performance enhancement and even more when including nootropics.
- willholloway 13y ago
  The gigantic demand for stimulants and nootropics is a good indicator that people are feeling the strain of the information age and reaching for answers. We need far better answers. The situation is only going to intensify as more low end jobs are automated.
- danielweber 13y ago
  Do we know that those drugs actually help? I can easily see 30% of college students doing something because they think it helps.
koko775 13y ago
I'm going to directly contradict you here and say that IQ increases reliably: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect - IQ is a relative measure that is adjusted periodically. I also don't think that IQ is a direct mapping to programming skill. I also find the suggestion that there aren't enough smart people to be able to do programming highly questionable. There are far more people who are capable but not able to pursue programming than there are people are who are not "fit" mentally.
- willholloway 13y ago
  Yes, the Flynn effect shows that this is possible and occurring. I feel very strongly that humanity needs to radically accelerate this process, with drugs in the short term, and genetic therapies in the long term.
solistice 13y ago
Isn't Silicon Valled allready hooked on a constant supply of aderall and modafil? Now add Hydergine, Piracetam and Deprenyl into school lunches, and you've got your super children. Or hack whatever is broken with the educational systems around the world. I'm still in school (technical highschool, programming focus), and none of my friends that is worth his salt in programming is good in school, and that puzzles me because they keep telling us that they're desperate for good coders. D is one of the best js coders I personally know, and he raves about it all the time. He dropped out of the part of the school that I go to (which would lead up to college), and likely won't stay in cs due to that. B is one of the best php coders I know. He's also a D student. A's good too, but had a 2.0 GPA as well. There's a fair share of good potential programmers around (even though my observation might be somewhat biased), but many of them won't ever get into college. And how do you face HR without a degree? Go to hell kid, we want credentials. I'm pretty sure you don't need more leads, you need better conversion, or else we're all going into marketing.
- ahlatimer 13y ago
  Speaking as the only person in my office who was a degree in CS (one has a geology degree, the other dropped out half-way through his graphic design degree, both make more than I do), no, you don't need a degree to get a job as a software engineer. The job I had previously wasn't altogether different, either. I think less than half of us had degrees in CS.
  - solistice 13y ago
    At least that leaves me with a spark of hope, but it's still quite discouraging that you could be the best programmer in your entire school, and still not be admitted for a CS degree. It kinda defeats the whole point of school, degree, job.
    - ahlatimer 13y ago
      If schools judged CS applicants by their ability to program, I'd agree, but they don't. They judge them based upon their likelihood to succeed in the program (amongst other things, like building a diverse student body or whatever). That is, they judge them by their ability to be a good student. If all of the evidence goes to show that a prospect is a terrible student, why would a University accept them knowing that they are likely to fail? Now, your friends may be more than capable at succeeding in university, and if a school only took the time to get to know them, they might see that, but, on paper, they look the same as someone who likely couldn't succeed in school (because they haven't, really, up to that point). That all sounds all horrible about universities, disregarding these capable students because of an inability to really get to know prospects, but that's not on them. If you want to get into a good school, try harder. As far as it defeating the point of getting an education, I'd wholly agree that college is not a worthwhile pursuit for a future-SE if your only reason for going is to get a job. You'll spend a lot of time in college learning skills that are not directly applicable to your future employment. You could arguably get to a point where you're good enough to hire more efficiently by skipping school. Whether or not it's worth passing on the things you really won't experience outside of school in exchange for a more efficient route to money is really up to you.
xSwag 13y ago
>We can teach coding to young people, but as of now we can't reliably increase IQ. IQ is relative. If everybody's intelligence went up 10 points, they would all still have the same IQ
- willholloway 13y ago
  Yes, I am using IQ as stand in for an unchanging benchmark of cognitive ability, which it is not. Perhaps it would be better to say the world needs an increase in human crystallized and fluid intelligence.
espeed 13y ago
> The author of this would have his answer if he understood the IQ floor necessary to be a good engineer, access to computers at a young age and willingness to troubleshoot obscure problems is relatively rare in the population. The author is Phil Greenspun (http://philip.greenspun.com/ http://philip.greenspun.com/) -- I'm pretty sure he gets what's required.

jh73 13y ago

As a scientist, even mentioning IQ is a good way to lose your career in the US. It's frustrating because the general population are turning to off-label drugs and supplements. 30% of college students are taking some sort of ADHD drugs for performance enhancement and even more when including nootropics.

willholloway 13y ago
The gigantic demand for stimulants and nootropics is a good indicator that people are feeling the strain of the information age and reaching for answers. We need far better answers. The situation is only going to intensify as more low end jobs are automated.
danielweber 13y ago
Do we know that those drugs actually help? I can easily see 30% of college students doing something because they think it helps.

koko775 13y ago

I'm going to directly contradict you here and say that IQ increases reliably: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect - IQ is a relative measure that is adjusted periodically. I also don't think that IQ is a direct mapping to programming skill. I also find the suggestion that there aren't enough smart people to be able to do programming highly questionable. There are far more people who are capable but not able to pursue programming than there are people are who are not "fit" mentally.

willholloway 13y ago
Yes, the Flynn effect shows that this is possible and occurring. I feel very strongly that humanity needs to radically accelerate this process, with drugs in the short term, and genetic therapies in the long term.

solistice 13y ago

Isn't Silicon Valled allready hooked on a constant supply of aderall and modafil? Now add Hydergine, Piracetam and Deprenyl into school lunches, and you've got your super children. Or hack whatever is broken with the educational systems around the world. I'm still in school (technical highschool, programming focus), and none of my friends that is worth his salt in programming is good in school, and that puzzles me because they keep telling us that they're desperate for good coders. D is one of the best js coders I personally know, and he raves about it all the time. He dropped out of the part of the school that I go to (which would lead up to college), and likely won't stay in cs due to that. B is one of the best php coders I know. He's also a D student. A's good too, but had a 2.0 GPA as well. There's a fair share of good potential programmers around (even though my observation might be somewhat biased), but many of them won't ever get into college. And how do you face HR without a degree? Go to hell kid, we want credentials. I'm pretty sure you don't need more leads, you need better conversion, or else we're all going into marketing.

ahlatimer 13y ago
Speaking as the only person in my office who was a degree in CS (one has a geology degree, the other dropped out half-way through his graphic design degree, both make more than I do), no, you don't need a degree to get a job as a software engineer. The job I had previously wasn't altogether different, either. I think less than half of us had degrees in CS.
- solistice 13y ago
  At least that leaves me with a spark of hope, but it's still quite discouraging that you could be the best programmer in your entire school, and still not be admitted for a CS degree. It kinda defeats the whole point of school, degree, job.
  - ahlatimer 13y ago
    If schools judged CS applicants by their ability to program, I'd agree, but they don't. They judge them based upon their likelihood to succeed in the program (amongst other things, like building a diverse student body or whatever). That is, they judge them by their ability to be a good student. If all of the evidence goes to show that a prospect is a terrible student, why would a University accept them knowing that they are likely to fail? Now, your friends may be more than capable at succeeding in university, and if a school only took the time to get to know them, they might see that, but, on paper, they look the same as someone who likely couldn't succeed in school (because they haven't, really, up to that point). That all sounds all horrible about universities, disregarding these capable students because of an inability to really get to know prospects, but that's not on them. If you want to get into a good school, try harder. As far as it defeating the point of getting an education, I'd wholly agree that college is not a worthwhile pursuit for a future-SE if your only reason for going is to get a job. You'll spend a lot of time in college learning skills that are not directly applicable to your future employment. You could arguably get to a point where you're good enough to hire more efficiently by skipping school. Whether or not it's worth passing on the things you really won't experience outside of school in exchange for a more efficient route to money is really up to you.

xSwag 13y ago

>We can teach coding to young people, but as of now we can't reliably increase IQ. IQ is relative. If everybody's intelligence went up 10 points, they would all still have the same IQ

willholloway 13y ago
Yes, I am using IQ as stand in for an unchanging benchmark of cognitive ability, which it is not. Perhaps it would be better to say the world needs an increase in human crystallized and fluid intelligence.

espeed 13y ago

> The author of this would have his answer if he understood the IQ floor necessary to be a good engineer, access to computers at a young age and willingness to troubleshoot obscure problems is relatively rare in the population. The author is Phil Greenspun (http://philip.greenspun.com/ http://philip.greenspun.com/) -- I'm pretty sure he gets what's required.