Hacker News Reader

Comment by nick_urban | Hacker News Reader

I started programming because I was fascinated by computers. It wasn't until years later that I found out it was a lucrative job. It sounds like your recommendation would be for everyone to chase money regardless of their passions. You have to admit that people who are passionate about things that pay well get a better deal in that situation. There are a lot of things that are worthwhile that are not well rewarded economically. If all of the artists and idealists disappeared and we were only left with money-chasers, the world would be that much poorer.

Also, regarding success: hard work and intelligence matter a lot, but so does opportunity. Have a look at Gladwell's Outliers for an interesting analysis of this.

View on HN

Plus, there's the negative effect of having our market flooded with people who go into programming "because that's where the money is".

I'm as critical as anyone when people decide to get liberal arts degrees without at least working on other skills on the side, but let's not be so naive to think that if a CS degree was the new liberal arts degree, that we wouldn't be having the same exact problem in society.

Only we (people on HN) would probably be making much less money.

I sometimes wonder what a bizarro-world hacker culture would be like. What if tech didn't pay well at all, and there was a lot of social pressure to get a "real job" and a "real degree", like Political Science or English Literature, instead of wasting your time getting a worthless CS degree?

It'd probably be less pleasant in a lot of ways, but the people still in tech would probably be an interesting group.

I sometimes wonder what a bizarro-world hacker culture would be like. What if tech didn't pay well at all

It would be like the early 1990s, or living in North Dakota.

I agree with that as well. One subset of this is "The MBA Effect" where managers who are also engineers are replaced by profesional managers. This is what leads to things like trying to compete on lowest costs rather than building the best product. Steve Jobs was a great leader in the technology area, precisely because his vision wasn't about money. It was about excellence.

As for causes of economic distribution: liberals tends to emphasize the role of circumstances and conservatives tend to emphasize the role of individual effort. The error, however, is to become blinded to half the equation because it flatters the ego or is politically expedient. For instance, the successful who only see their own virtue at work (Wallstreet?), or the unsuccessful who only see the context and not their own failures (the "victim mentality").

"It sounds like your recommendation would be for everyone to chase money regardless of their passions."

If you don't think about the money at some point, then don't complain when you can't find a job. It's not your job to chase money and it's not society's job to pay you for something that's worthless.

"You have to admit that people who are passionate about things that pay well get a better deal in that situation."

You can make money with almost any passion, you just need to be smart enough to find the market. Most people want to be handed it...which just isn't going to happen.

"Also, regarding success: hard work and intelligence matter a lot, but so does opportunity. Have a look at Gladwell's Outliers for an interesting analysis of this."

I don't need to. I see opportunities every day that people in my exact same position at the exact time (at work for instance) miss. Why? Because I have the skills and experience and I know what I'm looking for. Without the skills, knowledge, and experience, the opportunity is worthless.

The more knowledge and skills you have, the more opportunities you will see and the better chance you have at becoming successful.

It's really sad to see so many people equating success with pure luck.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com