I'd love to read the piece on Douglas Hofstadter.
Are coders worth it?
61–70 of 324 posts
Re: Are coders worth it?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. I do think that without virtue there can be no value, if these are properly defined. (Virtue corresponding to filling human needs, value being economic value.) Is entertaining people virtuous at least potentially? if so, then there is nothing wrong with selling video games, movies, music, or whatever. If not, however then you have a problem because while the world make seem nice on paper (no money to Ho…
> I do think that without virtue there can be no value, if these are properly defined. This is an unproductive line of argument because either of us can just keep moving the goalposts until we're exhausted. Economic value clearly doesn't follow any "gut" virtue. Here's how an early moral theorist put it in a notoriously influential book: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the ba…
Hmmm this is a very difficult topic to really do justice to. I don't think that Hayek is necessarily contrary to anything I am saying. The problem though is a definition of virtue.
> You line up the list of virtuous things (curing AIDS, feeding poor people) and the list of valuable things (Ruby on Rails programmers, inanimate chunks of metal) and discover that they just don't line up. At all.
But the problem here is that without a framework for deciding what is virtuous, all you are doing is assigning your own measure of value. In that regard your argument boils down to "what you think is valuable is not necessarily a solution that lots of people will pay money for." But I do think that virtuous solutions are valuable to the extent they are virtuous. A cure for cancer would be worth, I would expect, thousands or millions of times what a hollywood blockbuster would be.
However there are limits to this analysis. While I think valuable = virtuous with regard to solutions it doesn't necessarily follow that the coal miner is less virtuous than the Ruby programmer. Wages are determined in ways that both do and don't resemble market economics as even Adam Smith noted (he saw wage levels as being indicative of negotiating power differences between various professions).
So my caution is to avoid looking at wages (ruby programmers vs coal miners) in the same way you look at solutions (cure for cancer vs the next big MTV hit).
Re: Are coders worth it?
#63He either lives in NY or Silicon Valley. In middle America there is no such frenzy.
There does seem to be the same sort of frenzy in Canada. You can hear it in normal conversations all the time: 'Wow I can't believe you do that, it's so confusing to me. I could never write code.' It seems this mystique is what is paying us so well.
Re: Are coders worth it?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't feel like the author was trying to prove anything, or was trying to get people to pursue more "virtuous" pursuits. It is simply a personal reflection on the state of the startup ecosystem and what it means to be a computer programmer.
I'm trying to save him some angst. Trying to reconcile the virtues of what he does with his economic value is pointless. They're just not connected. Demand for Ruby on Rails plumbing is ultimately connected with the current wishes and desires of most of the planet's population and has nothing whatsoever to do with how he, or anyone else, feels about it. In literary terms: he's tilting at windmills.
most of the planet's population != most of the planet's purchasing power
Demand for Ruby on Rails plumbing is connected with where that money is going, and it's alright to think that where that money is going may not equivalent to the wishes, desires (and needs) of most of the population, and to be pensive about that.
In moral terms: he's wondering if the concentration of spending on matters that he's a subject expert in is a negative thing in terms of the world he wants to see.
He's not fighting hallucinations.
Re: Are coders worth it?
#65I think the real issue is that there's people with lots of money that are willing to fund a lot of different companies in the hope of stumbling across the next facebook. Result? A whole host of well funded but ultimately useless apps and websites. Meanwhile, the people who can make these websites are making lots of money. It's probably a bubble to some extent. Eventually, if the return from all these web apps is less…
Bang on. Does this not remind you of Levis jeans during the gold rush. Few miners really did well, but the companies that supplied the miners all did well. http://davidrbradley.hubpages.com/hub/Levi-Strauss-American-...
Re: Are coders worth it?
#66‘What about somebody in a coal mine — wouldn’t you say he works as hard as you? Why should you get paid so much more than that guy?’ If this is a question to yourself, then my response is: start sending part of your paycheck to the guy in the coal mine. Don't blame someone else for society's ills and not be willing to fix such problems yourself. Find a miner, adopt him, send him half your paycheck, keep tabs on him:…
>start sending part of your paycheck to the guy in the coal mine
...that sounds incredibly insulting. It's not like he's homeless.
>Why do I get paid more than the coal miner? Because he has settled for that life.
bullshit. This is exactly the kind of attitude that the article is criticizing.
>maybe, our coal mining friend is doing what he loves
Maybe, and that's great. But for most people, "doing what you love" is simply not viable, at least career-wise. Don't forget how incredibly fortunate you are to love doing a job that also happens to pay extremely well.
Re: Are coders worth it?
#67TL;DR Rap Genius pays $150,000 + $10K signing bonus, dude feels kinda weird about it.
One more reason why moving to NYC or SV is in my future. I wouldn't feel weird at all.
Taxes and cost of living are very high. It doesn't go as far as you think. But there are a lot of beautiful people and culture.
Re: Are coders worth it?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I do think that without virtue there can be no value, if these are properly defined. This is an unproductive line of argument because either of us can just keep moving the goalposts until we're exhausted. Economic value clearly doesn't follow any "gut" virtue. Here's how an early moral theorist put it in a notoriously influential book: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the ba…
Hmmm this is a very difficult topic to really do justice to. I don't think that Hayek is necessarily contrary to anything I am saying. The problem though is a definition of virtue. > You line up the list of virtuous things (curing AIDS, feeding poor people) and the list of valuable things (Ruby on Rails programmers, inanimate chunks of metal) and discover that they just don't line up. At all. But the problem here is…
From memory, Hayek also mentions the problem of coming up with the ranking function for virtue. Basically "virtue" here is standing in as an alliterative reference to systems of ethics, morality, justice and justness etc etc. Huge fields of human thought in their own right. That sometimes value and virtue align is inevitable, simply because there's so many combinations available to test.
His general point is that trying to make complex, emergent systems fit into neat theories tends to break the systems.
That book I mentioned -- Essence of Hayek -- is worth getting. I began to review it on my blog and never finished writing my follow up ditties.
Re: Are coders worth it?
#69He either lives in NY or Silicon Valley. In middle America there is no such frenzy.
There does seem to be the same sort of frenzy in Canada. You can hear it in normal conversations all the time: 'Wow I can't believe you do that, it's so confusing to me. I could never write code.' It seems this mystique is what is paying us so well.
Depends on where you are. Toronto? Definitely. I get recruiters every day asking if I want a job (always onsite though, never contracts). Anywhere else I've found salary and perks drop quickly. Case in point, my last location (PEI) the salary was barely above minimum wage (35-50k/year), even though they keep complaining about shortages in skilled IT folks
Re: Are coders worth it?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
One more reason why moving to NYC or SV is in my future. I wouldn't feel weird at all.
Taxes and cost of living are very high. It doesn't go as far as you think. But there are a lot of beautiful people and culture.
Yeah, I'm already on a fairly sweet local maxima. I mostly want to move to do more interesting work in more interesting places.