[Avshalom]

the appearance of disconnect thatfrenchguy is talking about is the idea that designing the mold is the actual output of society despite the fact that designing the mold no matter how few people can do it is completely useless without a massive web of interconnected labor that, yes anyone can do but, must done in order for society to actually output anything.

It's not a swipe at engineers, it's a swipe at engineers who think they few highly skilled individuals are the engine of the world.

[thatfrenchguy]

That was the idea I was trying to convey, albeit said in a much better way thank you :-).

[qrian]

Not trying to critique anything, but it seems like engine itself is also useless without the rest of the parts.

[Avshalom]

That is point. The wheels, the engine, the frame, hundreds of other things... You can't point to one part a car and say "that's the bit that actually gets us from point a to point b"

(It's also a jab at the intellectual bankruptcy of Atlas Shrugged)

[qrian]

I am still confused. So are you implying the engineers who think they are the engine of the world incorrect or not?

[Avshalom]

Oh, Sorry. It's a really shaky rhetorical flourish if you don't instinctively associate "the engine of the world" with Atlas Shrugged, Galts Gulch and the criticisms thereof.

In plainer English: it's not a swipe at engineers, it's a swipe at engineers who think they few highly skilled individuals produce the majority of the economic output of the world.

[jp555]

So if you get a degree, it’s really the book publishers, librarians, and coal burning electricity plant that kept the lights on who deserve most of the credit?

[Avshalom]

Their contribution was necessary, I mean it's utterly facile but: you weren't gonna get a degree from a university if the university doesn't exist. There's a billion or so people in addition to them and a few billion more that got us to this point.

It's not that there is no such thing as individual achievement it's that there is no "small minority" skilled or unskilled that the modern economy can be reduced to.

[jp555]

Sure as a whole, on average.

But there absolutely is a small minority of extreme producers in most domains.

[unionpivo]

If you take out truck drivers and train operators, most modern cities die in a few weeks.

If every star programmer/engineer died, a lot of things would stop working, but people would at least live long enough to maybe deal with it.

[kjsbfkjbf]

Especially considering many start programmers and engineers seemingly exist to increase revenue of complete luxury services like Netflix.

[someguydave]

That fails to respond to the point that there exists skilled necessary work that armies of unskilled workers can not replace.

[Avshalom]

And there exists unskilled necessary work that armies of skilled workers can not replace.

But even beyond that there's armies of skilled necessary work that skilled workers can not replace either but seem to forget exist.

Apple doesn't exist without massive sophisticated logistical support but no one ever points out that the naval architects at Maersk or the welders at their shipyards are one piece of the process that allows any one to actually buy anything from Apple.

[kjsbfkjbf]

It would also be nice to frame "necessary" and "unnecessary".

I would think developments like saving the environment, healthcare research, improving public transportation, energy consumption, etc. are all "necessary" work. Building Uber or Twitter or Facebook? I'd lean more towards "unnecessary".

HackerNews is so close to arriving at the conclusion that most jobs (including their own prized "skilled" engineering) are worthless outside of capital accumulation. :)

[dahfizz]

> And there exists unskilled necessary work that armies of skilled workers can not replace.

I think this is false. Unskilled work is easy to teach and learn, by definition. All you need is an "army" and the unskilled work can be easily fulfilled.

[ionised]

I'm thinking you haven't done much 'unskilled labour'.

[Avshalom]

Well then it'd be an army of unskilled labor wouldn't it.

[DuskStar]

Yes, but the point was that one side could learn to do the other side's job, but not the other way around.

[Avshalom]

Only if you take as given that people doing unskilled labor are to a one doing it because they are incapable of anything else.

[Frondo]

Much, if not most, of "unskilled" work also has a lot of hidden complexity that means your productivity starts off slow and improves over time.

There's a reason capitalists have gotten us to think of some work as "unskilled," and that's so they can pay those people far less than they should be, and no one raises a stink about it.

The farm worker is an obvious example of "unskilled" labor, but if you watch a video of what these people do minute by minute, hour after hour, for the entire harvest, they are absolutely being underpaid by criminal amounts.

Yet, because we've been convinced it's "unskilled" labor, hardly anyone cares.

[Bakary]

Unless you hold some capital, you are paid according to how much your work is valued and how much of it can be supplied, not how hard your work is. They are unskilled in the sense that many other people can perform their job after some training. In aggregate the work of farming is highly valuable, but many individuals who partake in such work aren't specifically so and can be replaced easily even if their work is in fact difficult in itself.

An established rapper could be paid millions for a single mumbled line on a single song but that happens because he can export his value to millions of people who have in interest in it, whereas the ditch-digger can only rely on his labor and what it can provide in his current location.

You say hardly anyone cares, but are you willing to pay extra for the items and services that are produced by farmers and other workers? Perhaps you are, but in reality that is the stopping block that makes people stop caring, and it does have a certain cold logic to it.

[someguydave]

I'm impressed you are willing to address a serious point deeply embedded in my downvoted comment.

You are correct - the market will match labor supply with demand. Note that this also cuts both ways - sometimes the market at the "top end" of labor is also constrained. Just because someone is highly skilled does not guarantee a high salary.

[gnarlee]

Haha, you've nicely described how things work but didnt provide any sane justification for it. But ok, ill play along. How much extra are we talking about? I've just cleaned trains for about 50 000 travelers with 4 people. In my previous job we bake half a million boxes of cookies with 8 people. Farmers however, they feed truly insane numbers. If we charge you 1 cent extra for things you wouldnt complaint about it. Lets see, that would be 50000 cent extra, 500 euro split 4 was. Shit, that would double my salary!

But dont worry about it. I get that you are just that cheap. (Joking)

[pm90]

This is a very good comment.

Some people like to do more repeatable tasks while others like to do more creative tasks and others don't want to do any tasks at all. We are told that one is better or more required than the other. If we can make a society where people can do what they want to while continuing to have a decent life (whatever "decent" means), its all good.

[petra]

Value, for people, isn't necessarily dependent on scarcity.

A good hamburger is valueable, to me. And this doesn't change depending on how hard or how easy it was to make that meal.

[ionised]

If you're talking about software development, it's not hard to learn.

You can teach someone unskilled to be a developer in around 6-12 months. Within a year or two they will be working unsupervised to a professional level.

You don't need university for it. You don't need a degree. Anyone can learn it. It's not magic, it just takes time.