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> it doesn't mean a damn if you didn't back the "right" industry horse

Was your friend bamboozled into thinking that he could earn $250k/yr as a dancer? Teaching is one thing - I think most people would like to pay (good) teachers more. Nurses are capable of making quite a bit of money between base salary and overtime, especially at higher levels of education and specialization. Despite what the folks writing VC-funded CRUD apps here would like to think, programming probably has one of the lowest effort-to-payroll ratios around. Most people work harder than us for less money. Part of that's luck but part of it is the market. And part of it is hard work, effort, and hustle.

I've worked sanitation jobs before. They suck. They pay next to nothing. But they also require next to nothing aside from the willingness to do the work. They may pay "1/4 of the money" but they require much less than 1/4 of the skill, education, or experience.

> Was your friend bamboozled into thinking that he could earn $250k/yr as a dancer?

Its more the old meritocracy adage. "Work hard and you'll be comfortable". Its more than that. Sure he could have made it dancing but not JUST dancing, if he'd gone for more a PR and choreography route, if he'd considered effectively wasting his training on doing something easy like being a backing dancer to a pop star. However all of this is very much "create a successful startup" level than "be a code monkey level". To succeed as a dancer as much as a programmer you really have to go above and beyond.

I have worked sanitation before too. Honest work though.

He was probably told to follow his passion. Probably not good advice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o

> I think most people would like to pay (good) teachers more

In that case you're entirely unfamiliar with American conservative rhetoric and policy.

As an American conservative I would think I'm somewhat familiar with it. I'd love to pay good teachers more. I'd love to fire the bad ones. I'd love for good teachers to be able to earn more than bad ones, even if the good teachers have been there for less time! Imagine the horror of suggesting to a state teacher's union that someone there 10 years should make more money than someone there for 15.

> Part of that's luck but part of it is the market.

I think a lot of that is the market.

Dancing does pay... if you're good enough. Basketball doesn't pay either unless your good enough and personally I don't think Lebron James or MJ should feel guilty about it. Lucky? Sure.

And back to your dancer friend, is he unhappy? If he looked at his risks, potential salaries, and happiness and chose to be a chef and amateur dancer, isn't that ok too?

I know many people who chose jobs that aren't their passion (hell, my passion is fishing and we know that doesn't pay). Instead I work a job that I enjoy while making enough money to provide for my family and my hobbies on the side. No, I don't feel guilty. If your passion coincides with a profession that makes $$ consider yourself fortunate.

> when people claim its about effort and hard work.

it's not just about effort and hard work. there are a lot of other factors, and one of those factors is his decision (for better or worse) to become a dancer vs. a doctor or lawyer or engineer. he's an adult and made his choice. we as a society cannot afford to subsidize everyone's "dream" of being an artist. someone has to actually do the work of moving us forward and keeping the lights on.

So while the ultra-rich corrupt democracy and amass ever more power, with increasing numbers of people vulnerable to their every whim, the people who work for a merely comfortable living should feel guilty?

Why this focus on guilt? Are we not allowed to be angry, as long as we still have some shred of comfort in out lives?

I think the point is that it's a bit of mental gymnastics to rail against "the rich" when you're a senior developer at Netflix making 10x the median household income.

cause I know the tech industry is "bubbly". Lot of people working in tech don't quite grok how tough it is for others to get by. Lets face it, while we're high enough to see the "real money" we're still a lot higher than everyone else salary and job security wise.

What if programmers were a dime a dozen and highly trained social care was where the lucra was at?

> Why this focus on guilt? Are we not allowed to be angry, as long as we still have some shred of comfort in out lives?

It's a manipulation tactic designed to force you to support the political aims of certain factions. While I do support the working class and poor, I, at least, decline to be manipulated.

It's a foolish tactic anyway; hammering the general public on guilt and privilege instead of focusing on sympathy and justice simply breeds resentment and will result in them silently sabotaging your agenda.

It's not about opposing guilt to anger. It's about pointing out that many of the public policies which most increase inequality are sops thrown by the very top to the broad class of well-off salaried workers immediately below them. Read the fine article: it's talking about things like restrictive zoning laws, 529 college-savings plans, and the mortgage-interest tax break. These are state subsidies for the well-off.

(Hell, my wife's parents saved up a 529 plan, and then she went to a state school on a full scholarship. Now we're apparently allowed to spend the 529 money to put a down payment on a house as a young couple, without any tax penalty. How is this allowed!?)

The question isn't, "Should people on HN feel guilty?". It's, "should people on HN receive a state subsidy for being fortunate?". Should we first make a nice living in tech, and then have the government write us extra little checks for all the ways we can pass our class down to our children?

> (Hell, my wife's parents saved up a 529 plan, and then she went to a state school on a full scholarship. Now we're apparently allowed to spend the 529 money to put a down payment on a house as a young couple, without any tax penalty. How is this allowed!?)

I'm not sure it is allowed. There must be some other transaction happening to make this without penalty. [1]

Also, why is everyone on this thread [not you] speaking of a 529 as if it's some elite 1% benefit? It's open to anyone. Most states have a $25 minimum, a lot of states have no minimum contribution at all [2].

[1]http://www.montereyherald.com/article/ZZ/20111006/NEWS/11100...

[2]http://www.savingforcollege.com/compare_529_plans/?plan_ques...

Edit: after some more research, it sounds like it may have been rolled over into an IRA for use with a first-time homebuyer exemption. See (http://finance.zacks.com/convert-529-ira-10479.html) under "Penalty Exceptions".

>The question isn't, "Should people on HN feel guilty?". It's, "should people on HN receive a state subsidy for being fortunate?"

The feelings of instilling guilt goes hand-in-hand with convincing the intended audience that they got to their position because of fortune instead of hard work. (The chain of thinking is then: your hard work didn't get you to the position of taking the mortgage deduction; instead it was your luck that did it.)

The writer wants workers with 100k salaries to vote for higher taxes on themselves by supporting politicians that promise to remove mortgage deductions and 529 education savings plans. In other words, he has to convince HN programmers making 100k that they are in fact, oppressing the low-income class. (E.g. Those tax deductions for home & college are subverting meritocracy and you should _feel bad_ for taking advantage of them.)

Do you think the writer's style of rhetoric was effective at persuasion? Or was he only effective at getting people who already agreed with him to nod in affirmation?

"The feelings of instilling guilt goes hand-in-hand with convincing the intended audience that they got to their position because of fortune instead of hard work."

People shouldn't feel guilty for the advantages their parents and ancestors worked hard to secure for them.

Sorry, my conjunction made that unclear.

The "guilt" is not about what their parents gave them; it's about making people feel guilt for taking the home & education tax deductions. (Although those are legal deductions, the writer wants to convince 100k earners that they are morally wrong for meritocracy.)

Nobody's talking about how you got into your position. We're talking about whether the government should send you free money for a position you've already got.

>Nobody's talking about how you got into your position.

Yes, the author did "talk about it" when he contends that people got that 100k jobs because of "luck" and "good fortune" instead of meritocracy. The author is throwing that premise-as-fact into the reader's face. The author has overlooked the fact that the reader must agree with that "luck" premise as a precondition of agreeing with the author's policy changes.

>We're talking about whether the government should send you free money for a position you've already got.

Ok, don't just write that sentence as some abstract credo. What does that mean in terms of concrete policy? Let's play that scenario out. That's what I tried to do with my last comment.

Are we wanting $100k job earners to vote for raising taxes on themselves via abolishment of mortgage and 529 tax deductions? Yes?

If so, you think his arguments persuasive to those who don't think those deductions were morally wrong? Did he successfully convince them that they are oppressing the low-income class?

>Are we wanting $100k job earners to vote for raising taxes on themselves via abolishment of mortgage and 529 tax deductions? Yes?

Yes, and I'd say we have pragmatic reasons to do so: the money for nice things has to come from somewhere. How is the subway system or Medicare supposed to run without tax money? If you make $100k and own a house, but have kids, where are your kids supposed to get affordable housing (and a rung onto the property ladder) of their own, without healthy pro-density zoning?