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Scott Alexander just released another "Much More than You Wanted to Know" article, this time on the Vibecession.
He goes through all of the traditional arguments in his standard exhaustive way: is it housing? no. is it wealth inequality? no. is it wages down? no. is it overall GDP down? maybe, but no.
Ultimately he makes the case that the economy is doing well, and the younger cohort is doing great. Many economic indicators do seem to show that in real terms, they are doing better than ever! Reading this article I was excited to see that he might get to what I consider the real problem, but alas, he concludes in a very lukewarm way with:
I hope that eventually Scott comes around to the idea that economic indicators are a proxy for community, emotional and spiritual health! Ultimately the average person doesn't really care much about the economy or their wealth, instead they care about how easy their life is. How pleasant their interactions are. What the emotional tone is of the people they interact with the most.
Scott does briefly get into this talking about the 'negative media vibes,' but for some reason he doesn't dig in there more?
My take is that our culture and religious framework have been breaking down at an increasing speed for the last couple centuries, and the last few decades we have accelerated into freefall. It's complete chaos out there, the Meaning Crisis meaning that young people have zero clue what to do with their lives, no consistent role models to follow, and as we discussed in a post below, they basically are told that they're doing great even if by objective standards they are fucking things up terribly.
The younger cohort has lost connection to any greater framework of values that teaches them how to actually live in a positive and healthy way. Instead, they are awash in technological substitutes for intimacy, cheap hedonistic advertising, and an increasing propensity to fall back to vicious, tribal infighting based on characteristics like race, gender (or lack thereof), or economic status.
Overall the vibes are bleak not because of any material wealth issues, but because the spirit of the West is deeply, deeply sick.
So he isn't taking into account the Indians (here, but more obviously in Call Centers overseas), the Latin Americans (and their growing remitance money to their countries of origin) and the Chinese (trained in american schools and and employed in chinese companies).
Your grandfather had to be the best of his city, your father the best of the state and you, you have to be the best in the world.
Not actually as hard as it sounds, given patio11's "narrowing your professional Venn-diagram" thing -- it's hard to be the best software dev in the world, but "best available English speaking dev with deep domain expertise in X and track record of Y" is eminently acheivable.
what is the niche in which you are the best in the world?
That would be pretty obvious doxxing, now wouldn't it?
I would say that there's actually multiple in which I could be plausibly the best available person in the world, if I were available.
The Venn diagram starts with things like "located in North America", "speaks and writes excellent native English", "formal degree", "competent but not great programmer in languages X,Y,Z" -- this is still a pretty big set, but much smaller than "literally everyone in the world".
Now add "deep knowledge of areas X,Y,Z that are not typically things that programmers are into" plus maybe "experience solving problems in these domains with code" and the set shrinks dramatically -- for patio11 as I recall X,Y,Z were "finance blogging", "corporate Japan" and "bingo card generators"; last I looked he's some kind of emeritus with Stripe, so it seemed to work with him.
Niche areas are niche, of course -- so the intersection of "people who want to hire somebody with these skills" and "people who don't already have such a person on payroll" may be unhelpfully small -- that's where the networking comes in I guess.
the first one is a non-factor in a global economy. Second one is less and less important as time moves forward, most everyone with an ounce of ambition studies english at one point or another and as American culture permeates your own, english becomes more common, and lets be honest here, the "excellent" qualifier is only important/needed/required if your career involves your language skills.
That just leaves "formal degree" "competent but not great programmer in languages X,Y,Z" in your diagram. With something like programming, formal degrees are less important than in other disciplines, for sure is a requirement for the code monkeys in the IT room, but for the rock stars? I would think projects done and repositories would be the deciding factor which leaves only "competent but not great programmer in languages X,Y,Z" on your upper level as relevant.
Now, you can add an arbitrary qualifiers and make yourself the best in the world in a artificial niche of "Northamerican with excellent english with a degree who is compentent in X,Y,Z language; with deep knowledge of areas X,Y,Z that are not typically things that programmers are into and experience solving problems in these domains with code etc, etc." but at the end of the day the only important thing (at least for a programmer in this example) would be the proficiency in the language and ability to parse tasks in it. Everything else isn't needed to be considered the best in the world programmer.
If we went with your logic "Best in the world" would be a useless category. Usain Bolt? nah I'm the fastest 15 year old chinese-canadian yiddish knowing conservative bald person in the world. Of course it's not as hard as it sounds that way; the normal way, the way most people associate with the term and most companies appreciate and would pay big bucks for is another story.
You would think wrong -- indeed you would be missing the entire point. None of the first few circles in the Venn diagram are all that important at all (as you point out, although you are quite mistaken about location/fluency not mattering) -- the important things are the "not typical programmer things". (ie. the opposite of what you will find in the code monkey room) Degrees are helpful here, or hands-on experience, depending on the specific nature of the thing -- but these are concrete skills, not identity groups.
Companies will not pay big bucks for being a bald chinese canadian -- they will however pay big bucks for somebody who writes acceptable code and already knows everything about their particular business niche. Because there are a lot of niches, and not many programmers who even realize that there's more to their job than "proficiency in the language and ability to parse tasks."
for best in the world, yeah I don't think those matter, there are Indians barely understandable in english employed in language critical roles right now.
While this may be true in some circumstances, that doesn't mean that programmer is the best in the world in the metrics normally asociated with the moniker of "best in the world" regardless of how much he earns. They would be seen more as adequately skilled with some aditional skills, not "best in the world".
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