301–310 of 370 posts
It's never been easier to get training in all sorts of things, for free. For example, I'm currently taking MIT's 6.002 electronics course because I never learned circuit analysis properly. It's on youtube, it's free, I watch it anytime. There's the Khan Academy, too.
Everyone hates a cynic so bring on the downvotes: I'm going to warn everyone of what's coming. Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030. The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time. Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business…
>software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030. There have always been 'blue collar' engineering jobs. When I started in the tech industry I was making $13 an hour writing HTML and a bit of SQL here and there. There are probably tens of thousands of "Software Engineers" putting together PHP sites, doing front end JS work at an entry level, hacking together some minor software customization…
I think the industry is overdue for consolidating on some language around the various kinds of software jobs. Nurses, doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, PAs, medical technicians, orderlies, general practitioners, obstetricians, pediatricians, pharmacists, etc. could all be "medical engineers". But broadly understood names for the different roles clarify expectations for each.
It's never been easier to get training in all sorts of things, for free. For example, I'm currently taking MIT's 6.002 electronics course because I never learned circuit analysis properly. It's on youtube, it's free, I watch it anytime. There's the Khan Academy, too.
Yeah, but there's no certificate. And, despite what everyone wants to believe, most employers still want that certificate or degree. They're not gonna accept "I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube" as an alternative.
Soon they will.
If the internet people come at cheaper prices.
There isn't much difference between people who watch a lecture on the internet vs those who watch it live.
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You'd need a scanning electron microscope to detect the tiny violin playing for people complaining about labor oversupply while making integer multiples of the median US household income building up an industry premised on automating away everyone else's jobs. Stop worrying about your wages! Your job will eventually be automated away. A basic income is sure to protect you.
>"A basic income is sure to protect you." An unplanned, unsustainable, and uncommitted allowance provided to you by a group of people that seek power and do not share your interests will meet all of your future needs.
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They aren't doing this for charity - they are doing it to ensure a steady supply of technical hires. Technical jobs are profit centers; non-technical contracted services are cost centers.
They are getting tons of apps from top schools like harvard, stanford, etc. I don't think they will have any problem hiring people. Maybe this would help some small company a lot more that can't afford pay google salaries. Also If you believe the Pareto principle most of people at google probably aren't that important to their successes.
You're outright dismissing the idea that hiring is difficult for Google? You know they have over a thousand recruiters working for them, right?
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If you're not willing to invest because it's risky, that's fair, but if you're also going to complain that those who do are getting something for nothing, then it isn't so fair.
I wasn't the original commenter, but I don't think when they said "owner class" they meant passive minority shareholders with $200K portfolios or people with some money in their 401Ks. While some of the richest are certainly entrepreneurs, the largest percentage of Forbes 400 are people who got there with OPM, other people's money, like hedge fund managers. Another chunk are heirs like Waltons or Kochs. Did Waltons g…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton
More accurately he made something from nothing.
You and anyone else could have made a little something, too, if you'd bought Walmart stock. Lots of people did.
Also, you could be a millionaire by retirement if you adhered to a regular investment program rather than only one investment of $1,000.
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Yeah, but there's no certificate. And, despite what everyone wants to believe, most employers still want that certificate or degree. They're not gonna accept "I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube" as an alternative.
>>They're not gonna accept "I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube" as an alternative. Soon they will. If the internet people come at cheaper prices. There isn't much difference between people who watch a lecture on the internet vs those who watch it live.
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Training often requires other resources besides one-way communication. A professor who only lectured and didn't otherwise interact with students would be a bad, ineffective teacher.
The internet is full of people who can help you, like stackexchange.com for programmers.
If someone said they were shutting down local schools and just telling the kids to watch YouTube and ask question online, I'd be horrified, the kids would get far less attention and teaching, and the kids would be far less educated. Also, few would have the self-motivation to pull it off.
Not to knock Khan Academy, etc. completely. One idea I've heard is having students watch the lecture at home - everyone can see the best lecturers in the world - and do their 'homework', with personal attention from the teacher, in class.
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Counterpoint: The amount of programmers needed is rising across the globe. Every country is going to try to retain its IT talent. In a cut-throat globally competitive world you can't afford to be the country that lets its best minds leave to greener pastures. Also, programming isn't the sort of job where you can fake your way through. If new people are trained up to enter the field they'll need to skills to match. As…
> Also, programming isn't the sort of job where you can fake your way through. Not sure why you think programming would be special in that regard. In a lot of companies, you will be able to keep your badly done job for a really long time as long as you have a good bond with your higher-ups. This goes for programming the same as sales or any other profession.
I wonder how long it would take for Google to spend an extra $1 Billion by bringing janitorial, food service, and other non-technical jobs in-house instead of contracting it out to the lowest bidder. To put it in perspective, $1 Billion is 10,000 times $100,000. Or 1000 $100,000/year jobs for ten years before discounting for the time value of money. Instead, big chunks of the money will get siphoned off to administra…