> One important thing I and you gained from our education was the learned ability to apply ourselves to tasks set by another, that had little relevance to our lives and dreams, for abstract reward.
Really? That is what you got out of schooling? If so, I am sorry for you.
Let me tell you what I got out of schooling.
- An appreciation for the English language and the many ways in which it can be used.
- An understanding of the beauty of mathematics.
- A cynical realization that history was written and controlled by Old Dead White Men.
- Basic knowledge of the arts. (Not enough, budget cuts are quite unfortunate!)
- The ability to think critically about a problem and apply any of a multitude of problem solving or analysis techniques to its resolution.
- An appreciation for the beauty of nature.
- Knowledge of the human body.
- Knowledge of biology and genetics.
And that was just my public school education! I went on to college and learned far more!
I will readily confess that roughly 50% of schooling is a waste of time, but that is because students are not being pushed hard enough, rather teachers will assign one book to read over the course of 2 months! Of course this all changes once one goes off to college, where all of a sudden 150+ pages of reading per class per week can easily be expected!
> I use that skill every day - I am an employee, and I create what my employer tells me to, the benefit to me being a salary. If I disagree with my employer about the value of making that thing, I still do it.
Quite unfortunate. I am in the privileged position of only having to work on things that I love, I have a manager certainly, but he respects that he has hired me as a professional and he trusts in my judgement as to how I go about solving problems.
> It is very hard for me, maybe for you too, to imagine a world where life was not geared (8 hours a day) towards working for an abstract salary, paid in abstract money, that will become food, and rent on a small flat in digital bytes without ever becoming cash that you can hold (after all, the bank doesn't actually hold the amount of money it lends).
I can imagine it. I'd be bored shitless. I happen to love what I do for a living. Is it work? Sure technically, in regards that I get up, get in my car, drive a few miles away, park my car, and step into an office.
But honestly? I count everyone I work with as a friend. There is a smile on my face from when I step into the office to when I leave. There is a grand sum total of 0 things in this world that I enjoy more than what I do for work each and every day.
> I hear about a man quitting a good job (one with lots of abstract reward), to spend a couple of years doing the things he wants (Concrete things. Travelling, creating according to his own will, actually seeing his family). I feel he is irresponsible, even though his savings mean his family will never go on foodstamps. I feel a pang of anger driven by... envy?
I feel angry that he is selfish and is thinking only of himself! There is so much that can be done to improve the world. If you told me he left his job that was of little to no societal value, and went off to help others around the world, then I would applaud. But to go off and do nothing but laze around? What good is that, to have the sum of one's life measure up to not but self indulgence.
> The reward is abstract, future, retirement, and always tomorrow.
The reward is impact! Change! The reward is having millions of people use what one has created! Programmers are artists, and our audience is the world! Every day a million symphonies are played out, and a thousand more sonatas written to be performed in the morrow.