Are coders worth it?

What the OP here is describing, is exactly the mentality that leads to this nonsense: http://programmingisterrible.com/post/50421878989/come-here-...

A lot of people would agree that empathy is one of the large components of what makes us "human", and that's rather vague, but it does make evolutionary sense for why empathy is useful for societal progress. And guess what, perspective is crucial for empathy. If we assume for a minute that almost nobody really lacks empathy, then what could be the only possible factor that produces an outcome like the one described in that link above? I'm sure most of us tech people aren't narcissists/sociopaths, so the only thing that could explain it is a skewed perspective that makes it permissible to rationalize a lot of the nonsense around us as being 'okay', or 'not relevant' to us. Empathy is a function that takes perspective as an argument, and if we assume that our empathy functions are correct (no reason to think they aren't usually), shouldn't it be good when we realize it's giving us the 'wrong outputs', and then do something actionable about it like try changing our perspective (or input)? I've battled with a lot of self-criticism and depression myself, but I see nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, it seems like the healthiest thing we could do as we approach a possible 'bubble' scenario.

I think the problem is that the OP is labeling what he's arguing with as "web development" when it's really more of a subset of startup culture that he's referring to, not all web developers (he lauded the 'adults' that created Rails remember? I'd say they're 'web developers').

Also, it isn't that things are trivial to us, it's that they can be trivial, period. It just doesn't look that way from the outside, so we benefit (and are congratulated) for "daring" to look into the black art that is computer programming and actually producing something, anything... imagine if it were socially deemed adventurous to look into plumbing, it would have a similar outcome (albeit without all the VC nonsense probably).

Also:

> Jet packs and flying cars were always a terrible benchmark to measure human technological progress against.

Not really, because we do have jetpacks (albeit not exactly efficient/affordable ones), and lets not forget that Google is developing self-driving cars! I'd say the notaion that any vehicle could drive itself is an even crazier idea than having something that's redundant with a small glider/aircraft at this point, and I'm sure people from the 1930's would probably agree.

So then why wouldn't it be good to use existing ground-breaking projects as benchmarks for human progress and value? A lot of web startups sure do fall short of that benchmark too.

I think you misunderstood. The product a software engineer makes is not a CD that lands in a person's hand. It's the arrangement of bits that eventually ends up on that CD. The OP is saying there is no way for a machine to arrange those bits.

Unless, of course, Google Now gets there first.

If that results in a gradual erosion of quality as less and less effort is put in to researching and writing articles, and more and more of the content is churnalism or opinion pieces, then it's a net loss for everyone - eventually the adverts will be more interesting than the real content which lives in the interstices of advertising - I think that would be a shame. I've seen that happening in major newspapers in the UK like the Independent or the Guardian. We've seen the same in television with the rise of Reality TV etc - cheap to produce, controversial, and the perfect filler to squeeze between advertising segments.