The most prized degree in India became the most worthless

That's also the case to a large extent in the UK, which makes me wonder whether it's a hold-over from the Empire rather than the caste system? I thought castes were more about who you're born as than what you end up doing?

I expected this kind of lazy analysis to appear on Reddit but not on Hacker News.

> If you are a median person (which most likely, we all are), then your expected value will be about the same, at most a bit lower cash wise than in the US.

In my experience wage offers were significantly lower in Europe when I was potentially looking about a year ago. levels.fyi seems to be pretty in line with my pay experience in the US and that’s not anywhere close to the pay I was offered or researched in the EU.

> Europe we don't treat active shooters as a matter of normal life

People in the US certainly do not treat active shooters as a matter of normal life. Have you ever considered that it makes the new explicitly because it’s a rare thing that people do not expect?

> the cities are made for humans not cars and employee rights are a thing.

I think you would find that most technology companies are in cities with walkability/public transit in the US. I think you would also find that software engineers are not treated poorly as well.

> And looking at the worst case, Europe wins: a medical emergency will not bankrupt you

Medical insurance at tech companies I’ve worked for in the US are very good. For example, I pay $20/mo and the theoretical maximum I would pay for insurance in any given year is $3000.

> if you call the cops they won't shoot you

Again, I think you’re treating news as proof that this is a common occurrence. It gets reported explicitly because it is not

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I’m not saying the US is perfect because it certainly isn’t. No place is perfect. But, I think that you would find that the US is a very nice place to live for the upper half of the middle class and above and software engineering would definitely put you in that category in the US.

I know clickbait, hyperbolic titles allow for more, hmm, clicks, but they rarely help make the case for your article.

Since he uses the word "worthless", how does that compare it to folks who graduated in History or anthropology or (running joke in the US) graduated in English?

Think of this: People in poor country, need to do what it takes to better their prospects. So they go for the one industry that pays relatively better. Nothing illogical about it and seems perfectly rational to me. And I can see similar trends in the US too. A lot of lamenting on "how I wished I learned to code, major in CS, etc.", given how drastically better the tech industry pays. https://levels.fyi ICYMI. Oh, the poor worthless English majors.

Also the lack of empathy was quite striking given the author himself is a recent "worthless" graduate of a technical degree - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilesh-christopher-20831784/ Maybe he comes from an upper-middle class background and was able to pivot into journalism, but the fact that he didn't mention his own background meant that I couldn't take this article seriously.

On a more meta topic, does education always have to "worthful"?

More precisely: a shortage of software engineers willing to work for low wages. Its far more interesting to move into management roles overhere. Tons of devs leave for the US if they wanna stay in software. Germany and the UK have most chance of solid pay. It is a public secret that Indians are recruited simply because they are not as insistent on making 60k+.

Wow, just wow! Unfortunately I did expect your response from the HN crowd. You and I have very different ways of looking at the world.

The entitlement and privilege among software engineers in the US to have crazy high salaries and "perks" such as health insurance is exactly the reason why I will never move there. I think your last statement sums up the situation very well, but it baffles me how any decent human being would consider that to be a positive.

You may think I am crazy, but did you know that insanely high salaries of a select few is one of the reasons that directly or indirectly leads to income and wealth inequalities in the world, one of the biggest problems of our generation? While you may have excellent health care for $20/month, what about the barista at your local coffee shop? What about your disabled neighbor who got laid off for no fault of hers? How can you live with yourself while they die of cancer as they cannot afford to go to the hospital? And don't get me started on education. How that is viewed as a commodity rather than a basic human right astounds me.

I am very happy with my $60k/year job. I have more than sufficient for myself, and a decent amount to spare. I have excellent healthcare for free and independent of my job situation, and so do all my neighbors. I live in a city with no homeless, and no one desperately poor. I do engaging work for 7 hrs a day and religiously shut my computer at 4 pm, and pursue my many passions afterwards. I have 6 weeks a year of paid vacations, and travel to a handful of countries every year. I paid $50/semester to get educated at a top university, and so will my children. And I received a stipend to cover part of my living expenses. I love the fact that I do not have to worry about getting shot (as rare as that might be). I love living in a country with highly educated people all around with most having the skills of critical thinking. I love living in one of the most gender equal countries of the world (I am male). No offense to anyone, but I wouldn't trade this for a $250k/year job in the U.S. (as levels.fyi seems to suggest for my case).