This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Im curious what peoples predictions for the coming demographic decline is for the US and other countries? Here is mine: An increase in healthcare related work, and a stagnation of other job sectors. Apparently, excluding healthcare, the amount of jobs in the US is on the decline or stagnating. Not such a fun job market, especially for someone like myself you falls in the "information" category. This will probably continue as the population declines and ages.
Its fascinating, because many people in the gen-z bracket were told to got to college, get a degree, and you'd have a nice cushy office job lined up. While this wasnt all the way bullshit, as i do actually have one of these jobs - as someone who is competing in the current job market, it is BRUTAL. I've had applied to a around ~ 50 jobs (All of these jobs that are at least close to my skill level & credentials, i live in florida for reference and its not the best market for tech to begin with, even though the tech sector is growing here according to the data). In total ive gotten about 3-4 call backs 2 - 3 interview. One were i made it to the final round after 3, and was rejected. Ghosted in another, and have one up and coming.
For more perspective here is my resume (& yes, im aware of the slight formatting error in the projects section). Multiple internships, degrees, & certificates, im trying my best to be competitive. More than one person in my friend group is happy to hear about this population decline; the job search is just so tough for them cant say id blame them, but what many dont understand about declining populations is that population both creates and takes jobs simultaneously. Sure if the population declines, you might have less competition, but you'd also have fewer openings as well. Hard to get hired when a lot of people are not around to create the job you'd be working to start with. The whole demographic decline is good because there will be less people to compete with strikes me as a shortsighted perspective - Humans make the wheels turn all the way down and less people being around isnt gonna create more opportunities for us as a whole.
Still, i can't help but empathize with the sentiment. Constantly apply to every job listing, going through multiple round interview, just to get rejected is so incredibly brutal. Many countries outside the US like china and italy have it even worse with high youth unemployment. It certainly doesnt feel like having more people would be a good from that perspective, even if it likely would. Aging populations mean that a lot of our future jobs and productivity is gonna be directed toward the health sector of our economies, inevitably taking away from or slowing growth from other sectors. I envy people who already have a strong career with high pay and benefits, its insanely difficult for the rest of us.
It's always weird to me when the IT field gets conflated with "Tech" which to me (not that I am an authority) is a shorthand for Software Engineers/Machine Learning Engineers/Computer Scientists. The two fields have radically different variables, IT is almost always a cost center to someone. You are either doing it in house, or working for a consulting company selling your cost center-ness to other companies. The Tech folks are money generator in that they create products/services/work that is then sold (in some fashion). On a balance sheet these are two radically different outcomes, and when the economy slows, companies don't want to expand the cost center.
I lost my job in late 2024 as part of a lay-off. I sent out probably a 100 resumes via websites, linkedin, recruiters, et al. It took me about 6 weeks to find another job that ostensibly required me to relocate, but in practice I was able to prove my value staying at the local office near me. My boss no longer talks about me relocating. One of the interesting things I noticed, is that remote work jobs are insanely over-valued. If you are applying to work remote, 10,000 other people with your skills or better are too, and unless you are the creme de la creme, you aren't standing out. In person jobs are much better competition wise, and you can even turn them into quasi-remote jobs once you have proven yourself.
Only if you picked the right field, got internships and work experience, and either networked, did projects, research or went to the right school. The extra parts were just implied. No one smart ever thought getting an English bachelors or HR degree entitled you to a nice cushy job. The part about going to college, is that it requires you to also demonstrate you can think without being told to. Figuring out which jobs are flush with applicants or are low pay is fairly straightforward with some independent thought. The only lie that gen-z was sold was that it required no extra effort, no extra thought, just color inside the lines like you were told to, you good little lemming. And that's probably because that extra effort/thought is a costly signal. And why pollute the costly signal, the smart ones will figure it out, which is the point of a costly signal.
You have too much white space, it definitely shouldn't be 2 pages. Everything reads super bland. You don't need to always do the "show me don't tell me" it just needs to read better than something 10k other entry level IT folks also all do.
Yes, let's fuck over everyone who can't read between the lines. Then don't be too surprised when, ten years later, those same people are voting en masse for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
When the system is out to fuck you, it's time to burn down the system.
Considering I am autistic as fuck, and I still got the message. I'd advise that just thinking about it is pretty straightforward, blaming others for not telling you to think is literally the point. If you can't think for yourself you are not intelligent, period.
Lmao I'd don't think I've ever been an advocate for the system, so go ahead. I'm sure IT jobs are going to be more needed in the apocalyptic subsistence economy that follows.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why wouldnt IT be tech? Infrastructure is still technology (Network devices like routers and switches, configuration of servers, cloud computing, ect). Software still runs on hardware at the end of the day. For an analogy here: An OBGYN & a Dermatologists are both under the medical field, even though feminine genitals & skin are both different organs, they play a roll in the body and in human general health, so grouping them together under medicine still makes sense.
Thats an interesting critique. I havent heard of the too much white space critique before. How do i compress everything, while still sounding significant? Run it through GPT-5?
I mean. Per my resume, I did do most of this. As did many of my peers. We aren't jobless at all. Its just difficult to take the next step after help-desk.
Its a bit of a category error. IT IS technically "Tech", but it's not in the context people actually talk about it. People like to ride up on coat tails of adjacent things that give them prestige by believing they are apart of the "great transformational wave" The tech boom has been driven by an explosion of SWE and SWE-specialty jobs not IT jobs. When people call this the "Tech Boom" they expect everyone to understand the imprecise terminology. IT jobs are costs, more of them doesn't drive a surplus of value because more cost is just more cost. As far as I know IT folks don't really develop products unless they are selling them to other IT folks as costs for their IT stuff. Cloud Engineers are probably a border area, idk who claims them. Idk if the modal Cloud Engineer starts as a help-desk IT intern either. The ones I know are SWE -> Cloud.
Your analogy is actually good, but you misunderstand it. If we said there was a Medicine Boom: lots of high paying medical jobs, shortages of skilled laborers, go get the job from college ASAP! And then a bunch of people went out and got Chiropractor, Acupuncturist, CNA jobs and then complained about low pay and large competition. Well those are technically "medical" jobs but the "medical jobs" we were really talking about was doctors, nurses, and PAs. Another would be women in STEM, which is Science Technology, Education, Medicine. Well women actually already dominate Education and Medicine, about 50% of Science, and 50% in things like Biomechanical Engineering, or Environmental Engineering. They have low numbers in hard sciences, and hard engineering disciplines like ECE, CS or Aero. IT is the same for CS, its "Tech" but its not the "Tech" that's being talked about as driving the Tech boom.
Your resume is literally 2 pages, I didn't even realize it at first. You just get rid of all the extra white space. idk if you need a llm to do that. Think about it this way, If you have a lot to say because you've done so much stuff, then your resume would like bursting, you want it to look like you almost struggled to include all of your stuff in 1 page. Instead it looks like you have lots of white space and two pages which means you wanted to fill the page so you added empty lines (not actually, but could be framed as such).
This might just be the difference in our two "Tech" fields. But my career path looked like: Electrical Engineer Intern -> Robotics Intern -> ML Intern -> ML Engineer. My last two internships I was just doing normal Junior ML work with a bit more hand-holding. It wasn't difficult to transition because the transition was just more independence on the same experience. I'm not sure what the transition from Help-Desk IT to Cloud Engineer is, but it feels like Cloud Engineers, or Network Engineers don't start at help-desk or the transition is a lot.
P.S. I could also just be full of shit, I'm not in your field and don't pay much attention to it. Just giving my experience.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link