Guys, I'm starting to wonder if this whole capitalism thing is only benefitting the super rich.
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
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and the best part is that the software engineers think that they're winning simply because they have a few more pennies than the rest, never realizing that they're simply as lucky as the people who are born rich; the worst among us will see that luck as entitlement and support ghoulish causes like maga.
Being one of those high paid IT guys; I personally realize that the reason I'm paid so well comes down to luck, supply and demand, and the fact that the outcome of my work is I make the company a ton of money. The idea that income is anyway correlated to actual merit or that I must be a "good person" to make that kind of money since "poor people are only poor because they are bad people" is so ridiculous and ubiquitously embedded in the unconsciousness of most people. It's all bullshit.
same here and it goes well beyond bullshit. i've bounced back and forth between IT and software development and you'll hear the "good person" argument in IT; but it's MUCH MORE PREVALENT in software development.
so much so that i've started calling the conversation with my fellow software engineers the "let them eat cake" conversations and it's driving me to back to IT.
I wonder what the person you're responding to considers high paid. It might have been super easy to get a well paying developer role or IT role when tech companies were running on investments instead of profits but nowadays most top earners are there by merit and not by chance. Demonizing an entire industry of people for trying to earn a living wage seems like exactly what oligarchs would like to happen.
Regarding talent, I've interviewed hundreds of engineers for roles that typically require 10+ years of experience and growth and I'll say that talent is pretty rare. I wish I could say that for every coveted highly paid position there is American talent that's rising through the ranks but that's simply not true. We're forced to lean on global flex resources whether we like it or not. I used to have a poor opinion of middle eastern engineers' talent since a lot of their graduates clearly come from certification mills but India is becoming a powerhouse for IT talent.
I like the question "What's the difference between a million and a billion dollars?" A. About a billion dollars.
but I like capers. how am I supposed to get my capers if there is no capertalism anymore?
What? I love capers, but how is this related?
Always has been. And fascism is its natural endpoint.
This has been going on for a long time. The main difference is the "the suckers can't stop us anyway" attitude.
Genuine question: could this be because of the sudden lurch every company is making to AI?
I mean... sure but not to that percentage. Ai is a force multiplier not replacement. You still need developers because an average Joe couldn't work the Ai to get what a company would need out of it. But if you use that Ai with cheap coders you hire/exploit that are thrilled to get a job at 15k a year and a visa vs paying 80k then the company is all set.
Makes sense, thank you.
AI is far from a force multiplier for software development in it's current incarnation, could be eventually but not right now.
It's just magic looking enough to seem enticing to CEO's and project managers, it'll even out eventually unless something gets significantly better with the current gen.
AI + "cheap labour"* is absolutely a recipe for disaster in the mid to long term but if you are a CEO and the line is going up in the short term who tf cares about the mid to long term.
*By "cheap labour" i mean inexperienced and/or inappropriately skilled, there are inexpensive devs around who do excellent work, i'm not talking about them.