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> Smart software... is ushering in an era of "hyper-meritocracy." > ...the cognitive requirements of working with smart software... > Online education... will only deepen inequality... Because of the premium it places on conscientiousness. some people are pure self-starters... But at the same time, I think it’s a pretty small percentage of the population. These are all excellent points. It's funny -- centuries ago, w…
And it won't be the people we put out of work, it will be the people who paid us, who will have long since had enough of it.
Also - inequality is a red herring. As long as the poorest people are doing better, it's irrelevant that Bill Gates is a Billionaire.
It's a set of notions extracted from a book - if the book is better written and more clearly organized than the article, it will be a thought provoking read. But if it parallels the article, it will be a tiring slog through disjointed assertions.
A key idea is that people with the right blend of conscientiousness and cognitive capacity and style will be able to use technology to enhance their lives in ways that most people will not. And that we cannot predict what these will be, but there there are analogs, and they show the power of the idea.
Intriguing speculation, worthy of consideration, poorly presented in the article. Hopefully better presented in the book, but I ain't readin' it just yet.
> Smart software... is ushering in an era of "hyper-meritocracy." > ...the cognitive requirements of working with smart software... > Online education... will only deepen inequality... Because of the premium it places on conscientiousness. some people are pure self-starters... But at the same time, I think it’s a pretty small percentage of the population. These are all excellent points. It's funny -- centuries ago, w…
I see it more as a matter of alignment: my strengths currently align with market demands. This is not something I predicted when I developed those strengths. As a kid I, perhaps naively, didn't think playing around with computers was even a real thing you could do as a job. Partly that might've been because the people I looked up to and read stuff by didn't seem to be doing it as a job (e.g. the author of a typical 1990s Phrack article). I assumed when I grew up I would have to get a real job, doing proper engineering, or carpentry, or accounting, or something.
It's funny how the "equality" thing can depend on various notions - including assumptions. Unless we are talking about unconditional equality (i.e. same for everyone including slackers), what about an equality based on how productive people are? It's called marginal productivity ethics, and following that theory our current society is very unequal, and the society envisioned by the articled (the so called "hyper meri…
For example it's a common meme on HN to talk about "10X" or "100X" programmers. If such things are true then it probably makes sense for 100X programmers to be paid 100X more. The difference between a 1X and 10X programmer however may only be marginal in terms of actual intelligence etc.
Therefor if we assume a 10X programmer gets $100,000 , a 100X programmer get $1M and a 1X programmer gets $10,000 which is not going to be a living wage if one has a family.
So one needs to be at least say a 3X programmer to earn a living wage. But maybe there is no such thing as a 3X programmer, only 1X , 10X and 100X.
Good example of Betteridge's Law. Also - inequality is a red herring. As long as the poorest people are doing better, it's irrelevant that Bill Gates is a Billionaire.
But the human psyche doesn't seem to work that way. There's a fair amount of research suggesting that we tend to measure our well-being not in absolute terms, but relative to those around us or who are otherwise on our mental radar. [ADDED:] No matter how well someone is doing, if he perceives that others "around" him are doing better, he's likely to feel bad about himself.
[ADDED:] Feeling bad about doing worse than those around us probably has an evolutionary advantage as a motivator. There may even be a dollop of sexual-preference selection at work, too: We probably recognize, perhaps unconsciously, that potential mates judge us in part in comparison to other available candidates.
(Tl;dr: Envy is a powerful force, which may have been built into us in part by natural selection.)
> Smart software... is ushering in an era of "hyper-meritocracy." > ...the cognitive requirements of working with smart software... > Online education... will only deepen inequality... Because of the premium it places on conscientiousness. some people are pure self-starters... But at the same time, I think it’s a pretty small percentage of the population. These are all excellent points. It's funny -- centuries ago, w…
Some day, when the AI systems take over, and the world no longer needs so many people that enjoy reading programming manuals and studying Fourier transformations, the great bulk of programmers will be lined up and shot, in retribution for their years of pampered arrogance. And it won't be the people we put out of work, it will be the people who paid us, who will have long since had enough of it.
Companies don't pay programmers big bucks and give nice benefits unless they make a lot more off the software programmers build.
Nobody is getting ripped off here.
> Smart software... is ushering in an era of "hyper-meritocracy." > ...the cognitive requirements of working with smart software... > Online education... will only deepen inequality... Because of the premium it places on conscientiousness. some people are pure self-starters... But at the same time, I think it’s a pretty small percentage of the population. These are all excellent points. It's funny -- centuries ago, w…
This made me chortle a bit.
True, there are some nerds in ghettos across the world, but I doubt they have safe shelter, food, water, and a half decent education. If you can't fucking read, it doesn't matter if you're the "type of person that enjoys reading".
I think poverty is a HUGE reason why African American's aren't highly represented in tech. Or hell, West Virginians.