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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

The thing your post made me think about is that it seems like all of the professions that are actually critical for society (e.g. farming, teaching, construction, fishing, etc. - all of the "essential worker" type jobs) are actually the most punishingly difficult with the worst pay.

Meanwhile I'm changing some text for an A/B test and posting on HN and making bank.

Not sure what my point is here, other than this just feels wrong in some respect.

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The obvious counterpoint / explanation is that <<insert a few paragraphs about markets and the role of feedback loops in dynamics systems>>, therefore what you're being paid is, by definition, how much people in aggregate value your contribution.

(<<insert a text that counters the usual objections by pointing out that you're taking an integral over society, so lots of people paying little individually still adds up to a huge number>>)

This explanation is elegant. There's nothing obviously wrong with it, and I challenge you to find an alternative that's at least as fair, and that can actually work with real humans in real life.

And yet, decade by decade, it's becoming blindingly clear that this system is totally bonkers, and allocates rewards pretty much exactly backwards. It's like, holy shit, how much worse does it have to get before some philosophers or economists or mathematicians figure out a viable alternative that ranks occupations correctly?

Of course it's wrong. We are able to do easy work with flexible hours for high pay, while more important professions can barely scrape by.

That injustice stems from a system that we cannot meaningfully change, though. Our cages are larger and more comfortable, but people making 6-7 figures are not policymakers or influential voices.

Having realized that, are you ready to walk away from Omelas today?

I have a theory most people have very low opinion of coding as a profession. To them, it must look like the most dry and boring kind of work, even worse than accounting. That's why they don't flood our field by the millions, even after hearing hear how much we make and how cushy our jobs are.

I'm not a dumb person - I like to think at least - and am able to work complex software, run linux (arch) and use powershell quite often.

I have no idea how to work in programming, and the environnement that is shown (non stop meetings, pointless hours of work wasted, weeks of crunch) is very very unattractive to me.

I think it's just too weird still - unless you had an oportunity fall onto your lap to learn it, or went into CS in school, I doubt most see a way in or are not interested in the work environnement.

Some of those are, "do it because you love it" jobs - teachers, counselors, nurses.

Others are, "do it because you have no other options" jobs. Low-level construction and farming falls into that. Keep in mind that, historically speaking, large-scale farming has been done by the lowest rung of society. Kids fleeing the farms to the city in search of wealth and opportunity is a tale as old as civilization.

It feels wrong because it is wrong on some level - but the flip side, good wages for these workers makes food less affordable for people, causing another kind of suffering. However, the solution to the human suffering component of these jobs (automation) also destroys all competition except the top rungs of the industry.

If this were an easy problem to solve, humans wouldn't have so many different philosophies on dealing with this.

It definitely often feels like the value capitalism places on certain skillsets is out of sync with the true intrinsic societal value. It ultimately boils down to the law of supply and demand, a brutally unemotional, uncaring concept.

At least in part it's not just supply and demand, but what capital owners have deemed your value is worth, and how much value you can produce for them given your role. A programmer at a big co can take that 300-500K/year you pay them and multiply it 10x, creating a lot of "value" due to far reaching impact at scale.

That is still supply and demand. The "demand" part comes from what you wrote about - how profitable the capital holders believe their tech ventures will be - this sets the ceiling for tech salaries. Currently, the capital holders are still very optimistic, which makes us in this profession still in very high demand.

Upon revisiting this, you make a fair point, I suppose that would drive demand.

It's not just supply and demand. Many farmers effectively price their own labor below the market rate. They are essentially subsidizing their customers by continuing to farm out of habit or tradition or love even when when it doesn't make sense from a purely financial standpoint. The rest of us get artificially cheap food so we don't look too hard at the situation, but it probably isn't sustainable.

Tale as old as time, frankly. Someone creates a surplus, another wants that surplus for himself. First we have warring tribes. Then we have warring cities. Then we have warring kings. Then we have warring nations. Then we have warring empires.

Throughout we have various forms of serfdom/slavery/etc. when there's not enough war.

Then we have colonialism, or in Joseph Conrad's words "civilized pillaging and raping."

Today we have capitalism, or just colonialism without the raping.

Monkey see, monkey want, monkey kill and brutalize to get.

If animals could make full use of their environments, I'm sure they would be greedy too. It's just an innate part of living things.

I would not be sure about lack of raping part... At the top it seems somewhat common and mostly hidden... Occasionally it comes to light, but even then people involved go away...

Good point. I was unsure whether to include a note about that.

Things really haven't changed at all.

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