More people being able to express themselves creatively? New programming languages, companies, new ideas, more decentralization? Science and technology are far from being completely explored, many problems far from automated.

so what are you going to tell these kids? that they are guaranteed a well paying job if they learn all this shit?

as long as they know it is just for creative expression and they WANT to do it that’s cool. but i am afraid the motives are different.

Don't think "person who has a job doing programming". Think "person who has random menial tasks in their job or life, and wants to automate them".

Not everyone needs to be able to implement an arbitrary program. Everyone ought to be able to write a five-line script to make their life easier and save themselves some time.

Knowing how to use power tools doesn’t mean you’re going to start building barns and start a workshop doing SFX for movies. There’s tons of people who code who don’t consider themselves a programmer because they work in an adjacent field (think of R or matlab).

you could also argue that everybody should know the law. but people don’t. same with personal finance.

I mean, yes. We should teach personal finance & how to learn the law.

Do you think their chances of landing a programming job is enhanced or degraded by learning about programming? You’re arguing for ignorance. Not a great position to take.

You don’t need to know how to program to be succesful in life. In my career as an engineer most of the people I encountered who are wildly succesful are not engineers and cannot program.

Software touches so many aspects of our lives now, you don't have to enter into a career as a software engineer to make it worth your while.

An anecdotal example: my home is "smart", with connected light switches, fans and such. I could have spent a ton of money doing that buying premium components that are all part of one cohesive system. But I didn't, I saved money by buying from different systems and using Home Assistant to tie them all together. As user friendly as HA tries to be, "buy a Raspberry Pi and install this custom Linux distro" is a pretty intimidating pitch to a non-programmer. But someone who knew their way around would be happy doing so.

God forbid people will know the language of the software eating the world?

More than anything, interact better with AI. LLMs make the basic interaction better, but the computers still need to be spoonfed conditionals and command order.

More automation and a higher quality of life.

Pfft, yeah, software devs. What good have they ever produced for society or those who depend on them. Better teach them how to dig ditches and truly unleash their human potential.

there was a time when most people couldn't write, and so you could have a well-paid job just if you're able to write. there was literally a job called a "scribe" where the only requirement was being able to write.

it just never stops. you learn some economically valuable skill, like writing, coding, and then some asshole teaches it to everyone and the skill becomes worthless.