[roosterdawn]

I'm not sure I agree. Either you are conflating vocation, field of academic study, political power, socioeconomic class and status, or things are just different in the UK.

Here in the US, you rarely study computer science to become a computer scientist but rather to be a highly paid engineer or eventually obscenely wealthy founder. The same is true for philosophers, authors, politicians and composers; increasingly, the same is true for biology, physics and even law. You study these (or any of these fields) to show some ability for abstract thought to get you into the career of your choosing.

In the US, notably, the field you actually study increasingly seems to have little to do with what you do later on in life; that all seems to do with your socioeconomic class, who you make buddies with in early schooling, who your parents know. It doesn't matter if you study law at Harvard if you don't come from wealth; and likewise, it doesn't matter if you study CS if you come from wealth. And inside the middle class to upper middle class, studying either field isn't very likely to break you into the upper class; only starting/scaling a business will.

Looking at members of the senate is also not very useful. Sure, "computer scientists" may not be represented in the Senate. But wealthy "applied computer scientists" who started companies (Bezos, Gates, etc) hire lobbying firms that essentially purchase the behavior of these senators wholesale. They have more clout than entire nation states.

Still, with that said, there's a difference between clout and high social status. But I observe that high social status is something that pertains to caste and heredity, not necessarily field of study.

[chrisseaton]

Anyone with money can have clout.

Are computer scientists invited into the club before they have money? No. Do they get offered the opportunities that money doesn't buy? No. That's the difference.

[roosterdawn]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply! I think that clarifies your viewpoint considerably. If you don't mind me asking, could you elaborate on the kinds of opportunities that money doesn't buy? And furthermore, to what extent have you seen vocation give access to that which is not given by heredity or caste? I think that would help elucidate the subtle distinction between high clout and high social status.

[chrisseaton]

For example... I have a friend who is a barrister in London. He makes a lot less money than I do, and works a lot longer hours, so sounds like he has the lower status job, right?

No, because he's getting invited to join elite private social clubs and organisations. He's going to dinner parties with politicians and could use that network to start a political career if he wanted. He's meeting people with capital to invest. He's on the sports team with influential people. Etc.

There's a whole real-life social network out there, and they definitely aren't inviting the programmers.

[thu2111]

That's true but it cuts both ways. I think social respect is entirely relative. It doesn't make sense to talk about status as if there's a universal ranking.

Your examples are all from the perspective of someone inside the British political system. Are these jobs high status? Not from my viewpoint - there's no way I'd want to be e.g. a civil servant, a Sir or even a politician in the existing parties. A whole lot of people hold this class in contempt, really. If a senior British civil servant turned up at a social gathering that happened to be mostly software engineers and successful company founders, do you think they'd get much respect? People would be polite, certainly, but I don't think they'd have a circle around them hanging on to their every word.

I've visited the elite London social clubs. I've also had dinners in the back rooms of fancy London restaurants with investors, journalists and other members of the British 'elites', invited there specifically to talk to them. So I guess I find that world a bit less impressive than normal. Actually I've repeatedly visited two private clubs, both closed to programmers normally: one is for people in the arts and one is for people in finance. I've close relationships with someone in the arts and someone in finance, both of whom make lots of money and thus purchased these memberships. They can take guests, so, that's how I got in.

There are some perks. They have nice facilities in good locations. The receptionists, waitresses and many of the guests are very good looking, they must find them in modelling agencies or something. Would I pay to join one if I could? No way. They're ripoffs: you can get nice bars and hotels anywhere, and there are far easier ways to make business contacts in our world than going to those and hoping you bump into someone.

For example, if you want to meet investors in the UK I can hook you up in ten minutes. It's way easier for people like us to get meetings with investors than basically any other group. People know computer scientists can multiply money like nobody else. I'm actually surprised a lawyer would get the time of day from serious investors, it's certainly not an advantage of his social status.

In the end it's all relative.

[roosterdawn]

Great points. I think your points are especially salient given GP's points earlier above:

> There's a whole real-life social network out there, and they definitely aren't inviting the programmers.

Is that really the case? Or is it just the case that they're not inviting the kind of "programmers" that GP knows/is (and for what it's worth, I consider myself an engineer, not a programmer)? For what it's worth, as a 30 year old "just an IC" in tech, I know a lot more HNI individuals and "high status" people (supermodels, executives, musicians, scions) /and/ find it way easier to get meetings with folks in /their/ network if I want to than my peers from university who were just as ambitious as I was and who went into law, management consulting, banking, or academia.

While I wouldn't say my experience is necessarily indicative of the average IC in my field or world, it is certainly not unique; indeed, my managers at previous firms took very similar trajectories. But then again, this is based on my experience in NYC. As the world is changing, I do think there is an increasingly accelerating understanding that the wheels of power are increasingly being seized by technology, and that those who utilize it to do so have the world as their oyster.

[yowlingcat]

> There's a whole real-life social network out there, and they definitely aren't inviting the programmers.

I'm not sure if someone in your position is in the right position to be making this conclusion, if only because your lack of experience of social status (or those of people who you know who share your vocation) doesn't prove the vocation has any causality on social status. If there is a real-life "social network" out there, and "the programmers" (of which you are one, presumably) aren't getting invited, what is the inference to draw there? That programming is inherently low status, or that many low status people are in the vocation?

To give a counterexample, much of my career has been "just a programmer", but I have never had issues building close friendships with investors, executives, musicians, actors, and other well connected people. But elite private social clubs and organizations? Dinner parties with politicians? That's all passé. That's what people who _want_ to signal high status but actually can't do. And all of the politicians and investors follow the trailblazers who are scaling creative collectives and entrepreneurship federations who are in...you guessed it, my friend group.

As I have gotten older, I have become increasingly annoyed with the "programming is a low status" vocation trope. It's incredibly naive and simplistic. You think other vocations are higher status? Your friend who is a barrister isn't high status. He looks high status to you because you've never seen what truly high status is. That isn't a dig at you; rather, it's an invitation. Reserve your judgment of the world and how it works until you actually meet and party with these billionaires, politicians, and inheritors of nobility/trust fund wealth.

Having gone to college with these folks and having made friends with them, I'll tell you that the way they work is a lot different than what you think. They are almost allergic to these vocations that you would think of as "high-status" because they think these people are upper-middle class try-hards who are simply lame. They want cool artists, musicians, photographers, club promoters, entrepreneurs and other exploration minded folks as friends. Money and vocation can't buy cool. And programmers can be very cool. But you'd have to try and figure out what that means. It usually means you have to follow more of the hacker ethos than the academia ethos. You have to have a little bit of a piratical penchant for creative destruction.

[chrisseaton]

> I'm not sure if someone in your position is in the right position to be making this conclusion

I disagree I think I have a unique ability to make it. I have two simultaneous careers - I'm a programmer and an Army officer. I can see what parties, clubs, dinners, social events, social connections the two versions of myself are invited to, and how both are treated socially.

I can directly compare the two experiences with all other variables controlled - background, education, accent, cultural awareness, where I live - just by changing the hat I'm wearing.

How can you make a better experiment than that?

[yowlingcat]

> How can you make a better experiment than that?

You would need to make real, deep friendships with high status individuals over a long period of time and observe how they behave, what motivates them, what they have access to and what constrains them. And you'd need to do it while you're both still young and formative life experiences are still being made. It might be too late for you to do this because the best time to do this is as early in life as possible, through formative social experiences: high school, then college (not as ideal), then early career (under 25 -- even less ideal). At each of these points, people and their social groups are progressively more crystallized, and your likelihood of making friends with someone outside of your class decreases precipitously.

Your "experiment" (I would hesitate to call it that) is really just two separate experiences held by one person. In all likelihood, the things that are held invariant there (you, the person) including strengths, weaknesses, formative social bonds, socioeconomic class that you were born into -- all those have much more of an effect on your outcomes than anything else, and even if you do see slightly higher social status as an army officer, it's not truly high status, the way examples I gave (billionaires, investors, children of nobility, famous artists and musicians) indicate. They live differently. They inherited their already high status, and continue moving savvily to increase it further. They are the results of many generations of this. If you're not friends with them, you won't get invited to their parties and you won't see their world. You won't understand. Their world is /completely/ different than yours. Theirs is ruled by tradition. They have obscene amounts of resources. They can do whatever they want. They maintain their position. You cannot experiment in any way possible that would imply anything about the way they live their lives; to think otherwise would be very naive and simply at odds at reality.

If it seems like that's unfair and that makes it tough or impossible for you to experimentally verify: I'd say I agree with you, but that it was designed that way on purpose over thousands of years.

And don't take my word for it. Make friends with these people, if you can. See how they see their world and move inside of it. Your priors might change. I know mine did.

[mraza007]

I totally agree with you. They would have high profile influential people in there circle such as Investment Banker lawyers bureaucrats and etc

[kevin_thibedeau]

Why would I want to hang out with vapid, shallow people?

[chrisseaton]

I don't know I can't answer for you why you'd want to do something or not, or how you've managed to get a beef with people you've never met.

[PeterisP]

Legal profession - a senior judge or attorney will have social status and influence far beyond one simply granted by their wealth. University professors likewise. Doctors, especially the kind that work on diseases typical for wealthy old men; they will have status, social connections and influence beyond their profession. Politicians - town mayors generally aren't rich, but have influence and social status.

In essence, it's about the professions that work closely with other people. If you're high-ranking in a profession that provides an personal service that matters to socially important people, you'll have influence. Does your profession bring you into personal contacts with important people, where they are motivated (or forced) to rely on your specific personal competence? That will buy you their respect.

[usrusr]

I don't see how you two disagree. Yes, computer science people (degree or not) can become influential through economic success. That's the same way construction company tycoons occasionally become influential. But there's a family of careers were wealth is more a consequence of status and influence than the reverse and those are almost as devoid of computer scientists as they are devoid of excavator operators.

[roosterdawn]

> there's a family of careers were wealth is more a consequence of status and influence than the reverse

That's I think where I disagree. I would say that wealth is almost always a consequence of status and influence than the reverse, with maybe the express exception of CS/tech because of US entrepreneur/startup culture -- even that is debatable, but we can at least come up with examples, in large part because tech is so young as a field. If tech is, say, 50 years old compared to common law which is 2000+ years old, to what extent should we really be drawing comparisons and to what extent should we be saying "well, the /field/ is up in the air even if human socioeconomic relations are not"?

[jjcon]

> In the US, notably, the field you actually study increasingly seems to have little to do with what you do later on in life

Not sure that this is US specific, I think this has more to do with people studying things the economy doesn’t really have a need for (which while inefficient is fine by me)