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by falcolas
3147 days ago
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Something of an aide from the main thrust of your argument: > Orchestral musicians fit My friend who was in the Boston Pops disagrees - the pay was crap (he had to provide music lessons on the side to maintain a reasonable income), the pressure was humongous, and their off-hours practice to keep at the top of their game puts our own hobby programming efforts to shame. Like video games, all musicians want to perform in the big orchestras, creating a highly competitive supply glut. I'm also fairly certain that most mathematicians and philosophers come nowhere near to our power distribution curve. That leaves us in the company of bankers, lawyers, and surgeons. Not the highest prestige group of people to exist alongside. Especially since, while well off, we're making nowhere near their "Fuck You" levels of money. |
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I don't just mean "the pay distribution is exponential". I mean any system where the rewards of the work (as judged by the people doing it) accrue primarily to a small fraction of the workers. This isn't about the size of the payout, it's about a system where competition and potentially ruthlessness within the labor force have substantial benefits. (Contrasted with careers like factory labor where getting 'ahead' of coworkers doesn't have much to offer.)
So for orchestras, "all musicians want to perform in the big orchestras, creating a highly competitive supply glut" aligns nicely with what I mean, even if that supply keeps salaries down. Most talented musicians don't make it into a career, most career musicians teach in schools or play weddings or otherwise don't make it to the Pops. Video game design is another power-law return - most people don't get to lead teams, most team leads don't make hit games. The same for mathematicians - the payouts are largely status, tenure, and prestigious institutions, but they're still exponentially distributed.
A decent definition would be any profession where the stereotypical example and the prototypical example are completely out of sync. The prototypical truck driver is basically what we imagine them to be. The prototypical software engineer works on an inventory system for a non-tech company someplace outside the Valley, and has nothing much in common with the 'techie' stereotype.