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Comment by Jensson | Hacker News Reader

You wouldn't have this opinion if you ever tried to build something.

These people solve problems all the time. Maybe not math problems, but hard problems nonetheless. Reality has a surprising amount of detail - http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-...

I build stuff. There's always problems that need to get solved that you haven't anticipated.

Believe it or not, there are entire research labs dedicated to just construction optimization. There’s a lot of PhDs actively working on these problems, but I guess they aren’t very smart or they’d be in software :-)

/s, obviously. And directed at the OP, not yours

John needs to watch YouTube to learn how to use a framing square to layout his stair stringers and how to pack wood shavings into a screw hole to reset it.

I have been in the military, I know very well how different skills correlate with intelligence since the military relies heavily on that. Removing the top 50% would have a huge effect, and that is exactly what we did in manual labour.

I am not claiming that it does not have an effect, I am contending that this assertion:

> But today we have ensured that basically no smart people are left

is wrong.

Think you might be overestimating the average intelligence of engineers and doctors and underestimating the average intelligence of people in the trades if you think there is a (new, novel, exceptional) brain drain going on.

That's assuming that your society does a good job of funnelling smart people into higher education. Most societies I've visited don't do that good, the USA does a worse job than most.

There are plenty of smart people on construction sites. I've met many, on site. Many just didn't get to complete high school because of the school system of their country, because family issues etc. Many of the skilled workers actually enjoy what they do and regard sitting in front of a screen all day as a waste of a life.

Anyone managing a crew or subcontracting _can't_ be dumb - it's a very challenging role

If there are people standing around on a building site it is mostly not because of blockers or scheduling issues - there is generally a subcontractor who is financially very incentiveized to make sure stuff happens when it should with no blockers for his crew

Overall your comment is really out of touch with reality, and a bit... dumb.

HN Comment Archetype #4: "Maybe people who aren't SWEs are just stupid"

A digression, but is this type of attitude just as prevalent in other domains? Do chemists/pilots/aerospace engineers have the same weird status flex sentiment?

Not at the same level, because in a lot of those fields you have to study quite a bit and the more you study the more you realize how much more there is to learn.

It’s a humbling experience in the natural sciences. You can study chemistry for 4 years as an undergrad, then 4-6 years as a PhD. Then you go to a conference and even in the small room dedicated to your little sub-sub-discipline, someone can get up and talk about something you have never heard of.

The incorrect lesson to take from getting a PhD is that you are really smart and can solve everyone’s problems. The correct lesson is that there are many fields this deep, and you can’t just read a bit and think you are knowledgeable about the whole field.

As has been said, "An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing."

I assume brain surgeons and rocket scientists look down on everyone:

"It's not rocket science." "It's not brain surgery."

I’ve worked with rocket engineers and never got that impression.

And I've made jokes that have fallen flat before. Go figure.

Medical doctors do, for sure.

Our educational system is not perfect, and is geared towards sitting still on a bench and cram in theory. I'm sure most people here had no problem with that.

But there are also kids who get bored easily, who hate sitting still on a bench. They are therefore not that much less intelligent than the rest of us. They might also hate getting told what to do.

I worked with blue collar people, and yes, a lot of them have their limits intellectually. But I also saw blue collar workers that had to correct lesser bright mechanical designers in their designs. For them it was "obvious" how something couldn't work.

In Belgium, I see a lot of bright people that did not fit in our educational system, to become contractors (electricians, floorers, plumbers, ...)

Technical schools play a role here where those kids can practically work with their hands and learn that way.

If that was true, wouldn't it mean at least some of those intelligent people were in management of software? Meaning it should always be 1. On time, 2. With all features and 3. Without defects?

Or maybe the people in software aren't very intelligent... Or they are all hard problems.

Just like the article states, there might be something to the slacking construction being so visible leading to the common perception of waste. If SWE “non-productive” time was visibly broadcast to the same degree, there might be more customer outrage regarding the cost of development.

How do you know that the average construction worker isn't better qualified and more intelligent now than say, 70 years ago?

While doctors, lawyers and software engineers make pretty good money, I've never met anyone with their name on a construction company who was poor. I think there are plenty of smart people are in the field. Feeling that doctor/lawyer/software engineer as the default path to wealth just shows a failure of imagination.

If smart people was a resource one could run out of then things would look a lot different.

Maybe the truth is that we are all smart.

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