The lie in America is that everyone is good at everything and those who don't succeed aren't trying hard enough. This lie is used to make people who aren't talented believe it's due to a moral failing or character flaw and thus talented people are morally superior.

I'm a high paid software engineer. I also had amazing computer teachers and remember writing BASIC programs to play MIDI in elementary. I also have the advantage of living in the city, being a white male, and being young and social.

Being a software engineer requires a particular mindset, a lot of time and exposure, and people willing to support that. I was lucky enough to have all of the above, but most folks do not.

I'm in the midst of helping a friend who is currently a welder move into software engineering. He's extremely intelligent and has the brain for it, but it's also taken literal years, finding him a capable dev machine (a used macbook air, donated from another engineer), tutoring him (me and another engineer, going on for two years now), and now he's going to a bootcamp (which cost thousands of dollars he didn't have in his pocket).

He is still going to have to find an actual job and make the move from bootcamp to real life. That's another involved process that will require multiple people helping him.

And again, this is a young white male who has a very high aptitude for this.

It's a bit more work than "just invest in yourself!". The average computer user has difficulty searching their own email or resetting a password. Even those with natural aptitude require help - and not a trivial amount either.

And what you are proposing for your friend, after all these years of struggle for a better tomorrow - is to make the same amount of money as he did as a welder?

There are 2 sides to this. And the positive side of having something to work towards is usually not mentioned.

I can give you an example from Europe, in a country which is homogeneous ethnically. We all went to the same public schools and we had the same opportunities. At 30 - some of us make more than 10 times than others. There is no system of oppression which caused this. It was simply the market which has imposed this difference. And the market is at an equilibrium - because the people who earn higher wages, pay a LOT of money for healthcare, the social pension system and other social security things. If the gov would increase this further in order to close the "gap" between high earners and the have-nots/less, the high earners would just leave the country (they already do this to a degree).

Why not let the market decide? This is not about privilege and oppression and I am surprised that over the pond people have not learned from Europe's history.

There is also the side that by having a system in place that rewards effort - people strive for more everyday and this leads to prosperity. This country has been under communism and during those times no one was struggling for anything, because they were paid just the same.

> And what you are proposing for your friend, after all these years of struggle for a better tomorrow - is to make the same amount of money as he did as a welder?

He doesn't have to breathe toxic fumes that screw up his health. That's kind of a big plus.

He can likely continue programming to a far older age. That might be a big plus.

I can continue.

Sure, but you're omitting a crucial step - a relative minority of the population were actively enabled and were able to pursue their interests/self-invest/etc. when they were much younger (read: teenaged), which gave them a snowballing competitive advantage as they got older.

I didn't pursue programming as a hobby- and then a career- until later in life than what you are assuming here. In fact, I have worked with a number of people at multiple companies- their first programming jobs- who are older than me. They have all come from lower paying jobs. The key is that they put in effort to change.

One was raising two children- an infant and a toddler- and if he wasn't actively coding, he was reading or listening to something programming related.

For now, at least, programming is a highly sought-after skill, and with determination and effort, you can get into it. There really aren't any other barriers than (1) saving up for a cheap computer, and (2) having reliable internet access.

100%

I'm going to guess that the majority of people working in Amazon warehouses are well into adulthood, probably have kids, don't have above a high school education, and likely lack general computer literacy in the first place.

How should they move into software engineering?

Does it mean these people should “survive” on such a salary? Is that what you are saying?

In short, yes. If a person does not like that amount of money, which is well below a skilled profession, then they should feel sufficiently motivated to devote time to developing a skill. I know that may sound cold, but it is just a reflection of basic economics.

And that is your problem, your basic economics doesn't necessarily need to be the only way that the world works.

Marketable skills should be better paid? Of course. Should it pay 10~15x more to be writing scripts at Google than to be frying burgers at some place? I don't think so.

If you care about people you should care that everyone has a minimum liveable wage, not that some should suffer because they can't/won't learn a high paying skill. What if instead of 10 to 15x a job at Google paid 5x what a burger flipper earns? It's still a quite good salary, incentive enough to not stop people from trying to learn better paying skills and would make the lives of people who aren't at that level a bit more comfortable.

Remember the human.

Some perspective please. At 14 dollars an hour, these workers are in the top 1 percentof all human beings on earth. Privileged, even, one could say

What if minimum wage causes less people to be hired.

Why that doesn't happen in a bunch of other developed economies then? What makes the US so special and different?

For the purpose of discussion do you mind giving me an example of such a country

> Should it pay 10~15x more to be writing scripts at Google than to be frying burgers at some place?

What is this "should" you speak of?

Should as in "is it ethical and responsible for a society to have this kind of imbalance?".

I sincerely don't understand if this was a jab towards me on some kind of "invisible hand of the market" argument or the complete opposite.

> I sincerely don't understand if this was a jab towards me on some kind of "invisible hand of the market" argument or the complete opposite.

Between those two, it was the former. What I mean is that I don't see that people are obliged (_i.e._ should) trade with each other at all. If they nevertheless choose to do so, I don't see that every good or service should cost the same, or have a maximum difference in price.

I think this is just a reflection of the mentality in the US.