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Comment by ASinclair | Hacker News Reader

> I have never received a satisfactory answer for why a lot of people from these fields are all about "Everyone should learn to code" initiatives, but not, say "Everyone should learn to be a citizen journalist", or "Everyone should learn to be a copy editor".

Software pays significantly more. Why push people into lower paying jobs?

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You don't see narratives about how everyone should get into finance. That is certainly a good ol boys club.

Getting into tech and getting a great-paying job is achievable and realistic for anyone from any background, right now. It's completely unregulated, there's no gatekeeping outside of factual knowledge, and people are actively encouraging diverse applicants with non-traditional educational backgrounds. Even if the experience for these people is not always as good as it could be, the community is trying.

Getting into finance is not even remotely like this. It's a brutal old-boys' club.

That's why they recommend the former. You'd have to be insane to recommend that most people try to break into finance.

The point being made is that finance is far more exclusionary and racist/sexist than tech, but tech gets all the articles written about it. The onus would be on those with power to change hiring in finance, much like the big tech companies are tasked with making tech more inclusive.

Tech gets all the articles written about trying to change it, because it's easier and more impactful to change so that's what people are trying right now.

I think the point is the articles are often extremely derisive and therefore hypocritical when finance or <insert any other high-paying industry> companies don't receive the same attention if at all

Finance has plenty of articles written about it but you don't see them because that's not a part of your media diet. Finance has made some pretty significant strides to diversify post 2008 due to public pressure.

Do you have any evidence from your media diet? I see recent articles over the past year that it isn't successful in diversifying.

I worked in finance, racial composition there is similar to tech these days. Hint: white is in the minority.

There's no desire to commodities finance work, but there is for tech

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