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Comment by mback00 | Hacker News Reader

In the comment section was “learn to code.” Totally Insensitive... and not that I agree, but nonetheless close to the point. The consolidation and automation of news is here to stay, and not just journalists/writers — all of us, in fact — need to be very careful to learn the new skills it takes to compete in an increasingly automated world.

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The reason why that person said "learn to code" to the journalist was because when coal miners were losing their jobs, many articles were written condescendly implying that miners should "learn to code" and abandon the profession they've spent their entire lives in. Some examples [1]. It's less of an insensitive position and more of a reminder that what goes around comes around, that writing articles isn't any more secure of a profession than mining coal, and to not expect sympathy when you didn't show it to others who were previously in the same situation. I'm not saying that this writer was insensitive towards coal miners, but this is the sentiment behind the phrase.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyC-qmDWkAAKJvU?format=jpg&name=...

As someone who does code, I think most people would be worse off by learning to code.

It can be a rewarding job for someone who enjoys constantly solving crazy puzzles but, even for those who love to code, it can still be a miserable experience. Most people aren't particularly grabbed by the ability to control what a computer does the way that we "geeks" are. They would be bored out of their minds the second they have to do Fizz Buzz, which is why a lot of people never get off the ground with coding in the first place. The starting salary is barely livable; the national average is ~65k, and though I now make six figures, I started in the low 40ks. You won't get rich quick, perhaps at all, and unless you're talented or pick the right technologies, you might be stuck making mediocre pay while suffering the bad code of other learn-to-coders who are in it to strike it rich. After about 4 years, you begin to realize that your job is just like every other job, and that is to clean up the mess made by someone else. Unless you're part of the <10% that actually builds brand new stuff, your purpose is to be frequently astonished and make sense of the chaos. How fun.

Some people enjoy all of that, but it's a fallacy to believe that anyone could do it if they _just learned_. More people aren't coding(or choosing unemployment over coding) for the same reason that I and many of us didn't learn to become aerospace engineers, or CEOs, or HVAC technicians. Most of us probably wouldn't be that good at those things because we don't all have the drive for them, and I don't think that having more people who are mediocre at their jobs is a good thing for anyone.

65k is barely liveable now? What percent of the US do you think makes over that amount?

You're right. You can live on that amount, perhaps well depending on how and where you situate yourself. It's basically middle-income. How far that income will get you in a place like San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York is another thing.

And sitting at a desk in a heated/air conditioned office is not just like every other job - especially those that involve cleaning.

But I agree that if you don't enjoy programming, you're probably not going to be especially good at it.

A dozen years from now, I'll be reading on HN(Health insurers' New - or a message board for professionals of some other parasitic tumour which still has a few years of decent living in our economy) a comment about how the consolidation, commodification, and semi-automation of programming is here to stay, and that not just software engineers - but all of us, in fact - need to be very careful to learn the new skills it takes to compete in an increasingly automated world.

Why one of those new skills is never 'march your politicians out, and make them mandate a 25-hour work week, to guarantee that anyone capable of working is able to find moderately dignified and remunerative work', is a question that will continue to haunt me.

If a job is guaranteed by the government under all circumstances, I think you’ll find the worst of the worst in many cases for co-“workers”.

Many people would prefer to work 50+ hours/week for 15-20 years rather than 25 hours/week for 40-50 years.

How many people working 50 hours a week are being compensated such that they can retire in 15-20 years? I’d guess vanishingly few.

Very few for sure. Even if it were only 1 person, I would still object to a government mandate to bar that.

1. Mandate 1.5x overtime pay for any hour worked over 25, and companies will very quickly be incentivised to hire more people, instead of overworking the ones they have.

2. You'd rather take all the social ills of 30-40% of the population being out of work, or doing shitty gig economy jobs?

I’d happily pay a good SWE 40 hours for 35 hours of work. Less coordination and a smaller comms network is a win. Good SWEs would happily take that deal as they’d be making 4x the median instead of 2.5x the median and could live better and save more.

I don’t believe in restricting freedom of employees to work. If that means the hardest working and most skilled live meaningfully better than the median or 10th percentile, then yes I’m totally ok with that.

Just...I mean, really?

You have to feed the troll ("orange man") from a different website? It's so irritating that this shit still needs explained to people.

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