So I was talking to a Boomer about my job and why it's not "so easy, all you need is a laptop". And we were talking about specifically how the company makes a ton of money from my work, I've seen the contract, I get like less than 5% of what I make for the company.

After explaining a couple of things like this. They go back to then "why don't just buy a laptop then?"

Like, mother fucker! Did you just ignore my entire explanation just because don't understand it?

Yes, they ignored everything cause it invalidates their low knowledge of anything computer related

Yeah, cooking is easy, you just need a knife.

Maybe your arguments were just not convincing enough.

I mean... All I have is a laptop..

And years of experience in tens of platforms and languages ofc...

It's pretty easy to do my job given you have just those two things!

What? So anyone who has a laptop can program then! Get a laptop and BOOM like magic your brain gains the ability to program

Does the laptop come with Stack Overflow though?

@Hazarth
Yeah, but I'm sure you would be annoyed if some Boomer called it easy and not a real job. And argue that you should be paid less.

@ODXT ok, who did this, I'll send my mechanic

@Lyym
No one I have to deal with again. But was surprised by the ignorance enough to post this.

@ODXT oh no, I didn't mean that as a downplay on your comment. I was being sarcastic, saying, that having a laptop or any other device is the smallest part of having a job. The biggest is our experience and expertise...

We don't get paid for just writting code or specs, but for *engineering them*...

That boomer can buy as many laptops as he wants, but if he doesn't know what he's doing It's all worthless

Not sure it would piss me off or amuse me, but I certainly wouldn't be happy :D

@Hazarth
Ah my bad. Just got annoyed by this person. But I'm over it by now.

@JustThat
LOL this made my day I think. I shouldn't have found it as funny as I did.

Unpopular opinion: IT isn't a real job, that's somewhat correct. Oh, you are "stressed out" and shit, yeah?

Look at other jobs such as construction workers who are physically unable to even do their job longer than mid-50 at most, and then their body is done. Or for women, check out nurses.

Hard jobs, super much stress, physical attrition en masse, and not even well paid.

And then there are devs. Well paid, sitting at the desk with coffee, and complaining about stress.

Folks - our jobs would be half like holiday for many other professions. Face it.

@Fast-Nop im not gonna sit here and disagree, ofc you are correct... HOWEVER, specifically for any physical work, it applies that physical work is less mentally stressful.

Sitting all day on your butt, staring at a screen and 4 walls, being asked to constantly turn your brain at 80+% capacity has It's own downsides. It's not as simple as "It's objectively easier"... I feel much more refreshed after physical work. It takes physical toll to do it daily, but being an engineer of any sort, be it computers, metal constructions or bodies(doctors, surgeons, possibly nurses), that takes a toll on It's own....
Hard to blame people for having worn out minds as programmers the same way It's hard to blame people for worn out bodies as builders..

That's at least what I think

@Hazarth I would say medical emergency field is both physical and mental stress. Doctors and nurses need to diagnose quickly to determine need. They think wrong and someone dies.

@Demolishun
Yes, respect for our medical professionals. Fucking bastards deserve a fucking medal. Or hazard pay...

@Demolishun I can actually agree with this, yeah. Medical pros are treated like shit comparred to pretty much any job... Awfully underpaid -_-

@Fast-Nop I don't disagree but it's a little more complicated than that. I worked third shift pouring concrete for a while, while I was in school. Yeah it was hard but it was waaaay less draining mentally. I could come home and have a several hour long conversation with my wife/friends. Whereas now if I have a particularly challenging day I can't hold a conversation for very long without repeating myself or trailing off for long periods of time. And I don't remember ever thinking about my job outside of business hours. Yeah I obviously prefer building software over pouring concrete, but I also need that sort of mental challenge to stay happy/content, whereas I know a few people that aren't like me who burnt out real quick and went to more manual labor-type jobs.

I very recently had a very heated debate with a boomer where he claimed it was fair to pay engineers (all types, not just software) 20 times less than business workers because our jobs are "20 times easier". Funny thing is I have a degree in Economics/Marketing and briefly worked in both advertising and economic development. And from actual experience, our jobs are definitely not 20 times easier lol.

Unpopular opinion: some business jobs are actually hard and "useful". I.E ACTUAL finance/accounting jobs.

A lot of them aren't for sure, and working in advertising is really just a question of how much you value your dignity. And even with the more technical business jobs they're still not all that hard. Like most things it requires focus and experience.

Eventually he said "if our sales people made even 5% commission they'd all be millionaires. So I asked him how much 5% of zero is? Because without us you have nothing to sell dumbass.

@ChaoticGoods
I'm not too fond of economist or econ professors. I remember when I tried to apply what they thought us about self employment how to set your price thing. And the professor did not like that, called me a Marxist basically.

I didn't know much of Marx at the time and asked if they meant "The factory guy?". Boy did that not go well xD

@ODXT

;tldr economist != Capitalist && economist != Socialist

would need more details but every industry has idiots. In fact, usually it's MOSTLY idiots lol.

Also a real economist wouldn't down play Marxism. In fact, most are pretty pro socialism, at least to some degree. Most real world economist will acknowledge the need for a mixed economic at the very least. Would need more details as to what he was complaining about to relate it to your pay rate.

@ChaoticGoods
Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't use general statements like that. Same in philosophy. I've met cool people, and arrogant assholes.

Later on I learned more out of curiosity. It seems to me that Marxist economics and modern economic are not answering the same question. IDK that's what I got when reading about Marginalism and Labor Theory of Value, for example.

@ChaoticGoods
Also the professor was years ago. The Boomer was the other day, and was mostly arguing that my job is easy because it's a desk job.

@ODXT

;tldr
So yeah, different questions really. The majority of economic studies are centered around "how do we make the existing system work" instead of what is a theoretically better approach

Not to push the thread in that direction but generally most real world economist are of the opinion that socialism might work if we were starting from the ground up and didn't have to deal with people who think money itself creates happiness (it definitely helps but having money just for the hell of it doesn't). But even if there was political support to go to a economy that's owned by the people/participants, it would be very hard to do because a lot of people would have to change what they think is "value".

And it is an opinion, though again there is a certain amount of technical understanding behind it, kind of like picking the "best programming language". Depends on what your using it for, your limitations, and personal preference, but there is usually a WRONG answer.

@ChaoticGoods Socialism has never worked and will never work. When reality doesn't conform to a theory, the theory is flat out wrong.

Now, I mean "socialism" as in "marxist socialism", not what goes under that label in the US which would be more like "social democracy" in European terms.

@Fast-Nop The idiots want to go full marxists here. If they try it will be Civil War 2. Things are so heated with the election fraud and abusing citizens in the name of covid. I truly expect it to explode in a matter of days. You cannot see what is going on in mainstream. You have to use other news sources like News Max and One America News. There is massive suppression of information. It will not end well at all.

@ChaoticGoods
I think the other issue is that the economy doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's political, military, and other factors. Which is why we see colonial countries (where industry is own by the colonizer country's business men) fight for their independence and to use their resources to help their own people.

We see this in countries like Ireland, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Different results, from similar starting positions.

@Fast-Nop yeah I don't necessarily disagree, except you're saying it "never worked" as though it's ever been tried. It hasn't. Every example of Marxism in the real world are examples of Marxism being glued on top of an existing economy and an existing culture where money is pretty much the most important thing (whether the people in said culture admit it or not). By start over I mean you'd literally have to wipe everyone's memory and all evidence of money. So it's never been tried. And to reiterate, I'm not saying it would be any better than a mixed economy.

@Demolishun @Fast-Nop
No one is advocating for anything. We're simply talking about economics. If you can't handle a big boy conversation I suggest leaving while you can.

@ChaoticGoods Wiping everyone's memory has been tried through propaganda, and wiping out some 100 millions whose memory was deemed as not erasable. Since socialism doesn't work, but the rulers won't want to admit that, the next step has always been scapegoating and mass murder.

On the other hand, unregulated capitalism doesn't work either because in terms of his analysis, Marx did have a point (just his cure was bad). The problem is the capitalist concentration process where you'll end up with a few actors having everything and 99% having nothing.

That's why social democracy is, in a way, a mixture of both.

@Fast-Nop yeah again maybe we're misunderstanding one another a tad. You can't ACTUALLY wipe everyone's memory and evidence of capitalism. If it never existed in the first place socialism MIGHT work, but it doesn't have a chance now and would still have issues. And what you're alluding to is what I'm referring to when I refer to a mixed economic. Personally I'm a big fan of a mixed economic for the reasons we've pointed out, mostly. And as several have pointed out including you, there's a fundamental difference between Marxism and socialism. Pure capitalism will absolutely always end with 1% owning the vast overwhelming majority of wealth no matter what.

@ODXT in @Fast-Nop s defense he is presenting a good debate. The other guy frankly I'm not 100% he's being serious anyways.

@ChaoticGoods Btw., the well-known game "Monopoly" wasn't designed primarily for entertainment, but to illustrate that point.

Only that in the real world, the game wouldn't stop there. If 99% have nothing to lose and everything to gain, this just isn't a stable end state.

@Fast-Nop yep. In fact if I remember correctly, the person who created it (wasn't named monopoly to start), actually didn't sell it to Hasbro. I don't remember exactly but didn't they basically steal it from her?

@ChaoticGoods Nah, actually Parker licenced it, and Hasbro bought Parker decades lates.

I think when Marx considered revolution as inevitable, he was extrapolating 19th century Manchester capitalism like in the Monopoly game and foresaw the end state.

What he didn't anticipate was the option of introducing regulation which would still leave the rich very rich, but also leave enough for the majority so that they wouldn't want to go full out on risk.

Since then, the whole thing has been an unstable equilibrium. Regulate too little, and concentration sets in. Regulate too much, and economy dies down.

The big problem is that whenever the current state is outside the equilibrium and regulating it towards that point helps, the proponents of that direction think that more of their measures would be even better until they overshoot.

That's because people in general don't understand even basic closed loop control theory from systems engineering.

@ChaoticGoods
To what you were saying earlier about mixed economy. I am hesitant. Mostly because what happened in the US. During FDR's days we got social security, minimum wage, strong unions, and high taxes for the super rich.

But these people (the 1%, the super rich) still have a lot of power, and over time these have been basically reversed. We're starting to see signs of this in Europe as well.

@Fast-Nop yeah I didn't mean Parker. I meant Lizzie Magie the actual designer. Seems they didn't exactly steal it though.

@ODXT we've been a mix economy since before FDR. I'm also not sure if you're for/against social welfare.

@ChaoticGoods
I mean that when things got bad for working people, they started to demand better. So socialist parties began to rise in popularity. FDR basically gave them some of the things they were fighting for. But a few decades later it's basically reverted back.

So I'm wondering that if we resolve some of the things that people are starting to fight for now, if we won't repeat history a 3rd time.

Because the super rich still buy and own our politicians.

@ODXT like you said, economics don't exist in a vacuum. But not regulating definitely leads to a worst outcome. With Social safety nets it depends on the context.

@ChaoticGoods
Oh I'm not trying to argue against that. I'm just saying that we've had this fight before so we should learn from the last one.

Tell him those are the secret steps to glory millenials kept in the dark web:
1 - buy laptop
2 - hack FBI
3 - ???
4 - Profits and $$$
5 - Repeat until rich

@PepeTheFrog failed at 1: insufficient funds

@Tonnoman0909 Buy laptop from someone on craigslist. Sell your plasma after attending a covid party. College students are clearing 1200 per month doing this.