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 -
lighthearted cs drama
The grace hopper conference is supposed to be for women and gender minorities. Since they have recruiters there, the job market is tight, and there's no explicit policy against men showing up, men have been showing up. It looks like a lot of people are unhappy about this. The csmajors sub banned discussion of it, but there are still plenty of juicy threads up; in addition to the gender wars, a lot of the guys being international students adds a 'they're taking our jobs' flair to the fire. Since it's basically impossible to gatekeep nonbinary-ness, the challenge for the organizers, if they choose to accept it, is to weed out the men without being accused of being TERFs.
What's going on in the U.S.? All these years I was hearing about how us IT europoors should just move to the promised land of the FAANGs, but I can't imagine being so desperate I'd attend a conference for recruitment purposes.
Interest rates, that's what's going on.
A lot of the IT markets (if definitely not all) was propped up by cheap money and the expectation that competitors would over hire so you should too. No longer. Now there's been huge layoffs and running a tight ship is back in fashion.
It's not really an issue for good graduates of good universities, but there is a sea of bootcamp people who want in, previously could and can no longer. And I'd grasp at any networking opportunity if I were in that situation.
The ECB is raising rates too. Maybe because we were so underpaid all the time, the European IT labor markets have been at a state of constant shortage, and we're just in a somewhat milder shortage now? All I know is the last few companies I worked for have been BEGGING me to recommend someone else they could hire.
This is another thing that sounds bizarre to me. Good universities teach you to program?! The whole reason I'm in the field is that it's not credentialist. Whatever is going on with you Yankees, can you keep it on your side of the Atlantic?
I'm French for the record. Credentialism is alive and well in Europe, and to a much more powerful degree it ever was in America in my experience.
I also happen to be hiring for my company, but you're missing that whilst this is still a field with a lot opportunity it's one with a lot less opportunity than recently in the past.
It used to be you could barely know some JavaScript and get a really good job if with a lot of competition. Now you have to actually have decent skill to be considered.
Besides, the Euro techie shortage is simply a function of paying miserable wages in comparison with a very small captive market. Most of my English speaking friends have switched to remote working for American companies.
Do they make American salaries? I'm an American developer but I don't like living here. I dream of moving somewhere like France or Spain. But the wage disparity is so high that it is hard to justify. If there is a way to make a US salary and live there, that would be perfect.
Some do, some do not. Depends on specifics like how rare your skills are worldwide and how flexible companies are with timezones. At the end of the day it's all about leverage and the real fair market price of your labor.
That said I know at least three Americans working remotely in my company who moved from the US to Europe for a bunch of reasons including better cost of living. So it is a thing people do.
It can be a really good deal working for international startups if you're flexible and can live in Georgia, Thailand or other low cost and low tax countries. There are tradeoffs though, living among friends and people who share your cultural values is a hard to quantify but heavily underrated good.
Sounds interesting. For me it's the Mediterranean lifestyle and walkability that I am after. I'm still very junior though so I'll probably need to put in more years before I can realistically start aiming for this.
When you do get there check out Malta. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and it's about as quintessentially Mediterranean as you can get, and people all speak English.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link