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 -
I don’t know anyone that thinks highly of lawyers or software developers, for one.
Second, this status-seeking fetish of the petit bourgeois is in direct opposition to the American mythology of the rugged individual. A Wal-Mart greeter isn’t acknowledging your superiority by saying hello to you. They’re doing a job that they may or may not enjoy (you forget that many Wal-Mart greeters are bored retirees, who have the luxury of not needing to work, which places them well above the lawyers and software developers who do).
Third, “merit” is not the reason your software developer or lawyer has a bloated salary. These are two jobs that currently pay very well because they have corporate backing. And judging by the recent high amount of FAANG layoffs, that backing isn’t unconditional.
Then why doesn't the software guy just get a Walmart job then and cut his expenses accordingly? Hmmm . Maybe making 7 figures by 30-40 is more fun than living hand to mouth your whole life.
You could’ve read the text you quoted and gotten your answer. Also, no software engineer makes 7 figures unless they’re in management or counting “total compensation” in a bid to make themselves sound higher status than they actually are.
7 figures in accumulated savings and by investing your income in the stock market and or real estate, which is doable.
And not at all what you claimed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's a comparison. The way in which a black person, whether by racism or merit, scores poorly on a test, gets into a less prestigious school, or a lower-income occupation, is exactly the same way in which a less-well-off white person does. The claim is this happens disproportionately to black people, not that anything specific happens to black people that isn't ålso common among poor whites.
There's never been an america, or anywhere, where people didn't seek status, wealth, power, social approval, etc
... you type into your laptop/phone's meticulously designed user interface, which is transmitted over dozens of layers of well-optimized abstraction to a dozen others on random parts of the globe, as a billion people do the same thing. Software engineering is hard, and as its products are integrated into every area of human activity, it remains valuable. It has "corporate backing" because corporations using it make billions. FAANG layoffs are returns to the status quo of 1.5 years ago - in part, they overestimated how much of COVID internet demand would be permanent, in part general overhiring. But genuinely talented developers are still hard to find, and expensive.
Yes, petit bourgeois status chasers have always existed. All the same, they are tumors whose existence is harshly ignored in the American mythology of the self made man. You can feel however you want about said tumors.
And software engineering isn’t harder than chemical, petroleum, electrical, or nuclear engineering, all fields that pay peanuts compared to software. As professed by my many acquaintances who jumped engineering ship to the laptop class. Your money comes from corporate marketing.
Oh, and this piece of shit in my hand that you’re fetishizing as the peak of human technology can barely copy and paste properly, hence the lack of quotations in my reply.
Is this actually true? I'd always heard that petroleum engineering is one of the top careers one can go into right out of school in terms of income, whereas software engineering has become saturated to the point that making 6 figures without extensive experience or working for a FAANG company is unusual. The industry in which I work employs a lot of electrical engineers, and I know that they're compensated very well as well, at least within my field.
More options
Context Copy link
All mythologies aren't particularly accurate! But social climbing or hwatever has been integral to the american experience since the revolution, just like every other human society everywhere
... yeah, because those fields aren't in the process of transforming all niches of economic activity. software pays a lot because it's difficult AND in demand.
"that car you're fetishizing as the peak of human technology? its sound system flickers sometimes. cars are irrelevant"
I genuinely don't think we disagree on anything material, you just seem mad at the elite laptop class or something
This is all a very fluffy way to say “yes, most revenue in software development comes from marketing.”
So I’m glad we agree. Though calling the laptop class “elite” is always funny wish fulfillment from rationalists whose greatest achievement in life is becoming middle managers for a tech company. The “elite” don’t work.
Okay, I disagree on that, but it has nothing to do with whatever the original topic was.
Like, if your employer makes billions in revenue from hundreds of millions of people browsing the web, buying subscriptions, or clicking ads, and you can save them recurring millions per year in compute costs in a few months of work - you might be worth a few hundred k per year. Or if you can be 1/100th of the team that develops new products that have a shot at making $XXXM/year, or if you can optimize ad targeting to increase ad revenue by $XM/year, or ... etc.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'coming from marketing'. If you mean ad revenue, then ... yeah, a lot of software revenue comes from that. (But the value that makes users willing to look at the ads is mostly tangential - if i'm on /r/cars, I see an ad for shoes, and the money the shoe company pays reddit pays for a software dev who improves the reliability of /r/cars, "marketing" kinda paid for that dev, but they're still doing, and being usefully compensated for, non-marketing work).
This doesn't need to be a moral defense of the laptop elite. They can still be doing bad things. But sometimes bad things rest on solid economic foundations. Even if you want to destroy or murder the laptop class or w/e, it's useful to understand how it actually works.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link