In my career I've worked with people with PHDs in Physics. People with advanced degrees in fluid dynamics and turbine engineering, people with chemistry and ChemE degrees, postdocs in Geology.
All were working alongside me, a self-taught programmer making websites.
I've long thought that there's an oversupply of smart people in the world but for the field of software development, which was hiding that fact by soaking all of them up.
If SDE is collapsing as a field, a whole bunch of people who thought their intelligence and credentials guaranteed them a comfortable life are in for a shock.
This is really looking at the problem from the wrong angle. It’s not that we don’t need all those degrees. The problem is that tech companies are making so much money that it makes other industries practically irrelevant when it comes to return on investment. It has thrown the economy completely off balance.
How would you propose an economy not be organized around money? Any examples you could think of that have worked well? I would also ask that in doing so if you can consider how these changes would work with today's nation states and the scale of 8 billion people or so too.
Regardless of what answers there are to an alternative (there are many, with both flaws and benefits that could work better or could be worse in practice), the question “how would it work at scale” is probably impossible to answer thinking in the framework of what currently exists. The people who benefit from the existing systems would make it impossible for anything else without disrupting power, which, if you view an economy built around profit as something that could not be sustainable into the far future, could be necessary.
This comment isn’t trying to be biased any specific way, just trying to be realistic while also saying alternatives exist but would likely be disruptive for better or for worse.
silverFork · · focus · HN ↗
jordanb · · focus · HN ↗
All were working alongside me, a self-taught programmer making websites.
I've long thought that there's an oversupply of smart people in the world but for the field of software development, which was hiding that fact by soaking all of them up.
If SDE is collapsing as a field, a whole bunch of people who thought their intelligence and credentials guaranteed them a comfortable life are in for a shock.
mrdependable · · focus · HN ↗
deepfriedchokes · · focus · HN ↗
ericmay · · focus · HN ↗
bradishungry · · focus · HN ↗
This comment isn’t trying to be biased any specific way, just trying to be realistic while also saying alternatives exist but would likely be disruptive for better or for worse.