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This is only true in a world where being an electrician, plumber, heating and cooling technician, etc. -- all jobs that are in-demand and pay $100K+/year -- have a negative stigma attached to them. Mike Rowe gave a great Ted talk about this: https://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs

Mike Rowe is the bomb. He also has an a classic TED talk .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

⬐ conjecTech

Thank you for posting that. He was able to put into words many of the things I had felt for years, but never spent the time to fully quantify.

I got the link since I follow him on twitter.

However, I disagree this was game theory. It seems more like entrepreneurship and competition. He sees value where others don't see it. Then does something about it. Like the guy who turned cow manure into organic flower pots and sells them to big chains. (Briefly mentioned on: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm... )

Disclosure: I dropped out of college just before my senior year in order to accept a position in my chosen field.

I don't think that college is unnecessary. In fact, I'd say that as more and more people go to college, it becomes more necessary to hold a degree in order to compete--even at entry-level positions. I have friends that are getting beaten out for restaurant work because they don't have a degree (really).

This, to me, is where the problem lies. We are simultaneously overvaluing (for basic, entry-level work) and undervaluing (for higher-level jobs) college degrees.

There is no doubt that to get, say, an entry-level engineering job in today's market, you need a degree (and from what I've seen, preferably a Master's). But if you have your bachelors and are still struggling to get work that traditionally doesn't require one (administrative assistants, call center employees, service industry staff, etc. come to mind), is it worth spending $40-$200k on a degree?

Furthermore, skilled trades in the United States are plummeting. Mike Rowe addressed this very well in his TED talk[1]: electricians, plumbers and mechanics are getting more and more rare (and are still highly in demand) because of the stigma of not attending college.

I believe that in the next several years, as unemployment for college graduates becomes more visible, that skilled trades will once again become respectable, admired careers. It's crazy to me that people like Master Electricians ever became stigmatized at all--we are in serious need of their services, and it requires immense skill and intelligence to perform their jobs.

1: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

⬐ anxx

The stigma might be associated with jealousy. I know I would be annoyed if the median income of a HS-degree profession were higher than my college-degree income. If not watched carefully, that would lead to thinking that while they are better off financially, they lack in other areas, like small world view, no critical thinking, etc - in other words, stigma.

⬐ None

None

⬐ frozenport

Its about communities.

In some communities people can get away without doing any work. I know dozens who have perused degrees in liberal arts only be barristers or get an MS in a field like journalism and get paid 35,000 to write music reviews (the quality of which could be found on mechanical turk). I take it as fact that enjoying your life and living off your parents is more socially expectable than skilled trades: I think we have a long way to go before plumber becomes respected.

Mike Rowe learns that the humane method of castrating lambs isn't what he expects. Farming is the [second] oldest profession and they do things that might seem weird or cruel, but are based on generations of experience.

.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

⬐ cllns

Just because it's based on generations of experience, that does not mean it is not cruel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

⬐ parfe

Absolutely correct, except for confusing expert knowledge with tradition.

Science has been and can be cruel. But a layman watching a youtube clip about farm practices is hardly the person I trust to make a judgement on preferred practices, anymore than a I trust a layman to comment on engineering or medicine.

⬐ cllns

An expert in farming has a conflict of interest in determining whether using animals for humans is ethical.

Sure, I'd trust a farmer on the most "effective" way to artificially inseminate a cow, but I don't need to study farming to say the instrument known as the "rape rack" is immoral.

I argue they're standing too close to see the big picture.

I'm talking about what are commonly called the skilled trades [0]. Some of the most analytical thinkers I know were trained in a trade. Masons and cabinet makers that have an intuitive understanding of geometry and trigonometry that most people just don't grasp. I learned most of my problem solving skills from my father who was trained as an industrial electrician. Spend a day on a job site and you'll hear the same things you hear programmers bitching about. Most people complain about the engineers and architects not understanding how the real world works just like programmers always bitch about software architects.

It's a real shame that most people seem to look down on the trades as somehow being inferior to white collar work. This is what Mike Rowe has been preaching about for the past 4 or 5 years. Just listen to his TED talk [1].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradesmen

[1] .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

This reminds me of one of my favorite TED talks by Mike Rowe (.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...) where he talks about 'following your passion' and work in general.

Like most things, following your passion is about priorities. For a lot of people, treating their passion as the most important thing in the world is not sustainable for them. This idea that all of us need to tell ourselves what makes us happy and then do it is also the wrong way to go about figuring out what makes you happy. I cannot even count how many mistakes I have made and then accidentally discovered what made me happy. There is no way I could have known what it was ahead of time.

Suggesting that everyone needs to know how to program is indicative of tunnel vision. What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming? (By no means a complete list)

  Artists
  Bakers
  Brewers
  Chefs
  Electricians
  Fashion designers
  Firefighters
  Fishermen (commercial boat captains in general as well)
  Mechanics
  Musicians
  Pilots (including maritime pilots)
  Plumbers
  Psychiatrists
  Stylists
  Winemakers
  Zookeepers

Even if we were to somehow automate all these jobs (which frankly I'm not sure is actually possible), someone will need to maintain the equipment. It can't be automation all the way down.

I think this attitude is dangerous, and considering these jobs "dehumanizing" is, frankly, disrespectful and betrays a lack of understanding of what non-office-workers do.

I highly recommend watching Mike Rowe's TED talk for a counterpoint: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

⬐ Jach

One common thing about all those jobs is that they've all been automated in parts and continue to be more and more automated. So you may be right that for some reason not every job can be automated 100%, but that doesn't save those jobs from automation. See how happy 9/10 laid off zookeepers are when you tell them "Hey, at least we kept one of you to run the machines!"

Even if you can only get to a mere 50% from some baseline, that's half the previous work force blown away that was previously required. Those laid off will have to find another field quick. It's not easy to change careers and it's not easy to go from a mostly-labor job to a mostly-thinking job. (I'm being fairly broad with labor and thinking here--e.g. I consider someone whose job is to input handwritten form data all day to be a labor job even though they sit at a computer for 8 hours, and a professional artist to be a thinking job even though it's probably better categorized as a creative job.)

Since mostly-labor jobs are the easiest so far to automate large portions of, those jobs are at the highest risk. Programming is the last bastion of a large supply of available jobs until we have AI smart enough to write most of the programs people want, it seems sensible to have a sizable subset of the population at least somewhat knowledgeable on the matter that they have a chance at switching to a programming job if their current one goes sour for any reason (like outsourcing), not just automation.

⬐ simonbrown

I have a hard time imagining there ever being demand for anywhere near 5bn+ programmers, even if the majority of jobs are automated.

⬐ ChuckMcM

I think you may have missed the point completely.

The reasoning Markham is using is that 'programming' (and he tries to be clear that he's using a concept not the vocation) is rapidly becoming as essential a skill as reading and basic arithmetic ability. The support for that argument is an observation that everyday appliances are being implemented in 'software' (like the phone) and that this opens them up to customization, and the customization takes the form of programming them.

A very simple and concrete example, how many people who have never been exposed to 'programming' have the additional functions of their 'universal' remote that came with their TV configured? Record shows to be watched later?

Even if the tool is as simple as going through a series of menus answering questions, the underlying mechanism is that your creating a 'program' to achieve some objective. So if your Artist never needs to use a computer to create art, they will have to figure out how to tell the microwave to convert their frozen entre' into something edible. They will be exposed to stored program sequencing and understanding the basics of that will make their life easier today, and Markham asserts will be required in the future.

Markham riffs on the jobs aspect I suspect because it has a large number of ways to see how people are displaced, but the bigger point is that the world is becoming programmable.

⬐ dkersten

Why did I, as a programmer, have to learn history, geograghy, foreign languages, music, chemistry, biology, etc etc.

Not all mandatory subjects in schools are useful to all professions, but that does not mean that they shouldn't be taught. A large enough percentage of people are office workers that I think teaching programming would be a net win, even if there are a lot of professions that do not require it. Also, as with the subjects I listed above, programming teaches people how a large part of modern industry and business (and just plain every day life with the ubiquity of software on our lives) works and that is, IMHO, useful. I mean, we learn about the world around us in subjects such as geography or biology, why not learn something about how the technologies we use every day (the internet, word processors, music players, whatever) work and are created? At the very least, it expands our minds just like learning a foreign language does.

Saying that everyone needs to know to program is obviously too strong, but enough people would certainly benefit from it that I think saying that, eg, "schools need to teach programming" is valid.

⬐ Animus7

> Why did I, as a programmer, have to learn history, geograghy, foreign languages, music, chemistry, biology, etc etc.

Because the education system is broken.

Many subjects we teach in schools today are there only because they classically established your social status as a proper lady or gentleman -- not necessarily because they are of any practical use to the modern public.

For example, see Harvard's entrance exam from back in the day:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde...

That's not to say that (for example) music theory doesn't have a place in today's society, but is it so absolutely critical to the functioning of productive citizens that we should require everyone to learn it, and subsequently forget it?

This isn't why the education system is broken, but it's a symptom.

⬐ dkersten

Here's the thing though: I do feel that it is beneficial for everyone to get a taught the fundamentals of all of these subjects because:

- It helps you better understand the world around you.

- A lot of knowledge can (and often should) be applied outside of their obvious areas

- It helps us appreciate and/or understand other people in jobs very different from our own

- It helps young people decide what they enjoy or are good at

- It provides a base that can be expanded on in the future if the person ever needs or wants to

- It helps us communicate between disciplines as

- Probably more that I can't think of offhand

"and subsequently forget it"

Sure. This happens a lot, but you forget a different subset of what you learned than what I forget. I also find I can relearn things that I learned in school a lot easier than I learn completely new things. I also wouldn't have known what to forget and what to spend time remembering and improving if I hadn't learnt it in the first place. Finally, I found out that I either enjoyed some of these things that I otherwise never would have been exposed to, nevermind how much of these things seemed useless at the time (and so I would have opted not to learn them, given a choice) but have since turned out to be extremely useful or even critical.

Note that I am not arguing that the education system isn't broken (I think it is), but that learning a large variety of subjects isn't necessarily bad or even a symptom of the broken education system. I think that any reasonably education system would expose students to a large variety of subjects before focusing on specifics.

⬐ Mc_Big_G

FWIW, my brother its an industrial electrician and programs regularly for his job.

⬐ DanielStraight

I think it would actually be quite fascinating to hear the details if you could get him to write a few paragraphs on what he does.

⬐ mjwalshe

PLC's i would imagine

⬐ Mc_Big_G

I think PLCs are about 70% of the programming that he does. The rest involves optical sensors and other production equipment I know nothing about.

⬐ Swizec

Well, let's see.

Artists - new forms of art, html5, cool particle effects, webgl, 3D model scripts (for videos and such) and so on. A lot of use.

Bakers - baking is a science, machine learning to figure out just the perfect ingredients for the best bread? Pastry? Etc? I'm fairly certain there's a reason why Oreos taste just the way they do.

Brewers - same as the above. Why does Guinness taste just so? There's a lot of science behind that, science and stats.

Chefs - the same argument applies. I also suggest you watch The Best Hamburger Ever -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U...

Electricians - this one is a bit tougher, but some lighting systems in some houses are pretty damn complex - to the point I'm almost certain there are some microcontrollers involved. Or what about stage lighting? Sure it's physical, but it's still programming.

Fashion designers - a tough one, but someone has to program all those looms (although that's fabrics). They could also decide to turn it into a science, or what about those Samsung (or was it Philips?) LED fabrics that can be programmed to make lightshows. That could make it into fashion too.

Firefighters - ok you got me here, this is a very physical job that probably wouldn't benefit from programming .... oooh, how about fire prediction? Calculating how it will spread in a building? That sort of stuff?

Fishermen - have you seen the amount of high tech on a modern fishing boat (on telly for instance)? Puts the average reddit battle station to shame. Those things are complex and look very programmable.

Mechanics - don't modern cars depend a lot on their electronics? Aren't there people who almost do nothing other than tune engines? Isn't that quite a bit like programming?

Musicians - a guy at my faculty made a software that does some intricate things with music, I forget what it was, but basically machine learning on sounds and stuff like that. All very interesting and programming-heavy. Also the effects some peopel use these days are pretty damn awesome ... programmable?

Pilots - don't they already pretty much program the auto pilot? What I've seen on television (discovery channel for instance) that thing is very complex and it doesn't look too far from programming when they input their commands.

Plumbers - microcontrollers that control the amount of water flow based on time of day and season for the best water economy. That is all.

Psychiatrists - they already program people's minds. They don't need anything more than that or they'd be too scary.

Stylists - depends on the kind of stylist. Machine learning from tweets about a celebrity to figure out their best look? To figure out trends in style in advance so the celebrity client always looks like they're ahead of the curve? Hell, apply this to fashion designers as well.

Winemakers - it's a science. A lot more goes into a bottle of wine than most of us think (I've seen how advanced the field of tea tasting is). I'm sure there's a lot of chances for programming therein.

Zookeepers - when do you put a mommy bear and a daddy bear together in the pen so they don't eat each other and produce baby bears instead? ok that's statistics, but a little R programming wouldn't hurt.

Guess what I'm saying is, almost all of these professions could benefit from at least programming in R.

edit: The point is that, if all those people at least knew about programming, who knows what they'd be able to create or at least think of (and then get someone to do it)?

⬐ nsxwolf

Most of your examples are how computers and software are used in these professions. They don't justify most of these people needing to know how to program computers.

A pilot is only "programming" an autopilot in the most rudimentary sense, by supplying parameters. He's not implementing the operating system for one.

The plumber will need to know little else about your flow microcontroller than how to install it and possibly some settings to input. He needs about as much programming ability for this as he needs for his soldering iron.

⬐ Swizec

Why isn't that programming?

Is a plumber designing your house's plumbing not a plumber just because some plumbers are designing plumbing for whole cities?

Am I not a programmer just because I make websites instead of design and implement Apache, the linux kernel, the processor's microinstructions nor the processor's wiring?

⬐ nsxwolf

It's not programming in a sense that justifies a plumber learning C, Java, or Ruby.

I think we're talking about something beyond the old concept of "computer literacy" here. Any future plumbers are going to have grown up using iPhones, and will have the basic skills needed for the limited interactions they'll have with computers in their jobs.

Until they're replaced by robot plumbers, anyway.

⬐ ybot

You were really stretching on some of these. Sure, there will be software to assist any of these professions but that doesn't mean all the people in the profession should become programmers. You're conflating the need of an individual professional to learn to program with the ability of software to impact the industry that individual works in.

Firefighters, for example. Modeling & predicting fire sounds great, but should that be the job of a firefighter or a programmer/statistician who works for the fire department?

That said, I think you're right to call out the parent – many of these jobs should require programming or already do. Many artists & musicians rely heavily on an ability to write software. The group of professions producing food & drink will benefit from automation, but only so much as the professionals using those automation tools understand and can control them.

Programming ability is rapidly moving into all kinds of areas, but to assume that it must end up in every area seems almost as narrow minded as ignoring the impact it's currently having.

⬐ DanielStraight

It wasn't my intention to deny the impact of programming. I was just trying to, as you said, point out that "[not] all the people in the profession should be programmers."

Thank you for providing both sides in one post though. It's helpful to see the balance made so clear.

⬐ dkersten

that doesn't mean all the people in the profession should become programmers

No, they shouldn't become programmers, but knowing how to program (and I wouldn't expect them to know much more than the basics required to write real programs and learn more later if they so chose) will not only help them better understand the modern world around them, but they will be able to apply these skills if and when they make sense or at the very least they would have a better idea of how to best communicate their needs to a real programmer.

I'm not a historian because I was thought history in school, so why would everyone be a programmer if everyone learned how to program?

⬐ localhost3000

Machine learning for bakers and chefs? Wow, you've managed to take everything that is fun, interesting, and compelling out of making great food. I'll pass on your future world of Oreos and Heinz Ketchup.

In fact, the food and bev industry is going in the exact opposite direction of this form of commoditization with small, craft shops popping up all over the place.

⬐ MJR

The original comment said: What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming?

You said: ... almost all of these professions could benefit from at least programming in R.

"Need" != "Benefit From". There are innate benefits from learning anything, including programming. That does not equate to a profession having a need for programming.

⬐ thy

ppl may have multiple works, besides they may find it fun.

⬐ Swizec

I may have took "have need for" a bit liberally I guess. But if a field can be improved by applying science, I take that is there being a need for that. Even if nobody is yet doing it like that (although the fact I could think of those off the cuff like that probably means that there is somebody somewhere in the world more knowledgable of that field who is already doing it)

⬐ Turing_Machine

"Why does Guinness taste just so? There's a lot of science behind that, science and stats."

Guinness was a pioneer in this area, actually. William Sealy Gosset, the discoverer of the Student's t distribution, worked for Guinness (he published his work under the name "Student" because Guinness had a rule against employee publications).

⬐ brendoncrawford

And I suppose Lifeguards should spend their time writing predictive drowning software?

⬐ h0h0

How to improve ANYTHING: 'apply machine learning and stuff like that'

⬐ joe_the_user

Yes, Human are tool-using animals.

Our entire tool-using history has been remarkably short and has vastly transformed the world, resulting in more powerful tools, especially resulting in the universal-tool known as the computer. It can be comforting to imagine there's some normal-people-land that just puts-along untouched by the advance of our tools but really there isn't. Every human activity combines relating with the world and relating to other humans - the changing tools for doing this change the activity, often radical.

⬐ dkersten

Using your example of bakers, I think more value would be in being able to set up scripts and such to set up ways of monitoring things (temperatures, moisture, whatever). With a little programming and a simple DIY electronics kit (an arduino perhaps), a lot of these professions could easily rig up some hardware and software to monitor their work and notify them of specific circumstances. The more advanced people could rig up ways to automate part of their work.

At the very least, they will have some idea of what they need when some actual software people try to create something for these peoples industries (ie, they will be able to communicate their needs better because they will have some idea of what the programmers actually do).

EDIT: as much as I hate when people ask about why they are being downvoted, I would like to understand why so I can improve my future posting. Unless of course someone simply didn't like or disagreed with the post, though I would at least like to know why you disagree with me as I don't see anything obviously wrong with my post as an expansion to the parent post. I am merely pointing out how knowing some programming would be useful to a very wide variety of professions[1] beyond what parent said (which was a lot of machine learning) and that at the very least, it would help people communicate with "real" programmers, the same way that I learn about business to help me better communicate with the various different business people.

[1] A large enough variety of professions and people that I think everyone should be taught at least basic programming the same way as I think everyone should learn some basic algebra, history, geography, chemistry, biology, etc

⬐ tikhonj

This is actually a very good point: people in a lot of professions could get a significant competitive advantage by automating large parts of their job. A random programmer does not know enough about baking to do much here; a baker who knows even a little bit about programming would find it much easier not only to do things him/herself but also to explain his needs to programmers who are not bakers.

In fact, the biggest win would be even simpler--just understanding where automation could help and where it couldn't is enough to progress. This sort of understanding more or less requires at least a base understanding of programming.

⬐ radagaisus

Most of the new projects we see on HN will help other programmers. This sucks. The first advice to writers is write what you know about, and it applies to innovation - fire fighters that know a little about programming will be able to innovate in their field much better than I can. They will be able to detect and solve their hard problems faster then I could because they have actual experience in their field.

⬐ InclinedPlane

Calling any of these things programming is a huge stretch. Most highly paid, highly skilled workers do not need to know programming.

⬐ humblepie

We can say that any of these professions will gradually evolve to accomodate programming of some sort. I was thinking about this and I realized that putting programming in front of someone like a winemaker will also have to deal with problems faced by programmers--debugging, refactoring code, upgrading, optimizing, putting together frameworks, and etc.

⬐ csomar

oooh, how about fire prediction? Calculating how it will spread in a building? That sort of stuff?

That's the not the job of the fireman, I think. I hope the fireman in my city doesn't spend his time doing such stuff instead of extinguishing the fire.

⬐ DanielStraight

I appreciate what you're doing here. As a programmer, I can also see areas that programming (or at least skilled computer usage, as some of these things can probably be done in Excel or existing tools) could add to most professions.

But even in your replies, you're often dealing with only small subsets. I don't want to live in a society which feels painters and sculptors are obsolete because we have webgl. I certainly don't want to live in a society in which the Oreo is an example of good baking. And the existence of webgl and Oreos doesn't indicate to me that painters, sculptors, and traditional bakers need to know about the programmatic options.

When not subsets, it's not clear to me why the professional ought to know programming rather than enlisting the help of a programmer. Programming tools for fire prediction would probably be quite involved. I've been programming professionally for 3 years, and I'm not sure I'd be up to the challenge. I'm not sure someone could be a skilled firefighter, learn programming well enough to write fire prediction tools, and still have a social life. And even if someone can, there's no reason every firefighter needs to. Once it's written, it's written, and others just need to learn to use it.

(As for the burger, I wouldn't eat it. I like my food traditional, minimally processed, and made of things I would recognize on a shelf [a category into which his emulsifiers do not fall].)

⬐ Swizec

I'm not saying webgl or oreos will replace artists/baking. I'm saying they can (should?) view programming and computers in general as new tools to expand their art.

⬐ silverbax88

Your arguments are based on the fact that you know as a programmer how much it helps you. But you are trivializing the years of experience and knowledge it takes for someone to master a craft or profession.

Just because some chefs with decades of experience figured out how to mass produce relatively poor quality cookies does not mean that it will be a snap for those chefs to spend years learning how to program well enough that they can create Star Trek replicators.

⬐ ori_b

> I don't want to live in a society which feels painters and sculptors are obsolete because we have webgl.

They're not. However, their work is greatly enhanced by using programming to, for example, generate procedural patterns, to mock up new shapes, and to test out new ideas.

Being able to program reduces the constraints that our mental abilities put on us by offloading parts of it to a computer.

⬐ DanielBMarkham

That's certainly your prerogative, and good for you.

In the year 2040 you need to go to the dentist. The dentist you visit has a big shop, with lots of employees. There's Linda, who works the telephone and knows you and your family. There's the hygienist. There's the nurse's aide. The dentist even makes his own amalgams for fillings. It's a very personal and homey atmosphere. People like it.

The other place has robots. There is no dentist. You click on your iPad (or whatever you have then) that you want to see a dentist, and within ten minutes you're in the office. A robot does the exam, consults with you, and completes the work.

The first dentist costs four times as much as the second one. It also takes twice the time, and you have to wait two weeks for an appointment. (If you're lucky)

Now that's not some strange imaginings -- that's going to happen, whether we like it or not. The main question becomes: do we evolve a mixed-mode shop full of artisans working (programming) computers and technology? Or do we just commoditize the lot of it, take the humanity and ingenuity completely out of the picture? If you set aside programming, make the programming shop some special place where people go to commoditize business practices, you end up with no people around. After all, you've replaced them. If, however, each person knows their job and also programming, you create something new that wasn't there before. This is the startup question, "should all the founders know how to program?" applied to the world at large.

The essay makes the case not for programmers to rule the world, but for people of all jobs to learn to manipulate complex programmable technology in the same way they might today use Microsoft Publisher to make a banner. It's actually arguing your case for you: for our own benefit, the creative and unique aspect of people must be preserved.

⬐ joe_the_user

Hmm,

I might indeed prefer Dentist #1. But if competition in my field of interest has significant reduced my salary or rendered me unemployed, I may have no choice but to dial-up Dentist #2.

This effect then results in Dentist #1 joining me in having his/her livelihood under pressure.

I can't see this ending well...

⬐ loup-vaillant

Automating (nearly) everything doesn't mean everyone have to starve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee There. Lots of free time, and the money to live through it. I agree however that our current economic model cannot stand widespread automation (heck, it already struggles with abundance, fighting it with artificial scarcity).

⬐ mbeswetherick

It is my hope that humanity finds a healthy balance between technology and tasks that humans do. Yes, it would be great if Apple didn't have to exploit Chinese workers to make their products. But no, it would not be great if my Doctor was put out of work by a robot. I honestly feel that the government will have to issue some sort of standard that limits technology to some sense.

Yes, I would save money by going to the robot dentist, but my dentist would be out of work in no time. It partially rests on humans to keep the exploits of technology at bay. We can't turn personable human tasks into machine work.

Our world can be set up to be completely self-sufficient. Yes, a few people would make a lot of money, but I personally believe the impacts would be horrendous.

⬐ onemoreact

What separates the Dentist from the bank teller? Clearly ATM's have drastically reduced the need for Bank tellers, yet nobody seems that concerned about it. More generally, I suspect there is always going to be gap’s when as a field gets automated. As the more complex the task the harder it is to automate and less cost effective it is to do. So, it feels like the steady erosion of low end jobs everywhere vs. a sudden loss of a single profession.

We can see this as an increased demand for education / training. But, not everyone is able to keep up and over time ever fewer people are going to be capable of the remaining niches. It's possible that the service industry's are going to continue to absorb the less capable, but that does not help the economy in the long term.

⬐ spacemanaki

"What separates the Dentist from the bank teller?"

One of them has his or her hand in your mouth and might need to drill, remove, fill or otherwise mess around with your teeth. I think a lot of people would be more comfortable with a human element in all medical interactions, even if robots are eventually as effective.

⬐ TheEzEzz

> even if robots are eventually as effective.

What about when robots become more effective? Drastically more effective?

I would not let a modern day robot work on my teeth, they are too stupid, but I can imagine a day (fairly soon) when this will not be the case, and my gut reaction will start to be the exact opposite: I would not let a human being work on my teeth.

⬐ shriphani

We will hit a raw-material crisis which will force us to cap the production of these machines.

If that doesn't happen, Wall-E future or massive human revolt.

⬐ spacemanaki

I wouldn't bet against that, but what I was saying was that right now there is a big difference between a human bank teller and a human dentist, and an even bigger difference between an ATM and some future dentist robot. It's just a bad analogy because they are not similar interactions at all.

⬐ onemoreact

We already have robotic dentists doing dental work better than a human can. Back in the dark ages of say 1995 if you wanted to get your teeth into better alignment you went to this guy who attached this complex apparatus that would forcefully move the teeth in your mouth and every so often you would go back to this same person to do adjustments and such. Sure, it often hurt, look a long time, looked bad, interfered with proper dental care, and only allowed for fairly simple work, but at least it was expensive.

Now, with automation and 3D imaging technology we can have a specialist specify what to change and let a computer design a series of discrete non-invasive attachments that allow a home users to quickly attach and remove their implant. It's far less painful, takes less time,can far more precisely preform complex work like rotating a tooth, and the only downside is it costs about the same amount as braces. Note: This is an actual company not just BS (http://www.invisalign.com/Pages/default.aspx).

PS: I still occasionally see a teller for complex interactions, but I trust an ATM to be far more accurate for my day to day needs. And there is still plenty of work for orthodontists, but a lot of the simple stuff is simply better handled by a machine.

⬐ spacemanaki

That's fascinating, thanks. But has this technology reduced the need for orthodontists? Does it mean that orthodontists now need to learn how to program? I think this is just another example of humans using more software.

⬐ None

None

⬐ onemoreact

It's reduced the time an orthodontist spends per patent and allowed non orthodontists to do simple things that used to involve an orthodontist. But, it has also convinced a lot of adults to get dental work. So, in the short term it's fairly neutral, but in the long term we are going to need fewer orthodontists.

As to programming; I don't know a lot about how the software works, but advanced users in front of really complex software like Excel and Photoshop tend to blur the line between a Specialist and Programmer.

⬐ jdietrich

> Fishermen

The fishing industry is in dire straits because too many boats are chasing too few fish. Boats have been getting bigger hauls for decades, partly because the power block allows small crews to shoot more gear, but mainly because of better data.

The bridge of a modern trawler looks like that of the starship enterprise. A captain spends most of his trip looking at computer displays, reading sonar data. A skipper lives or dies on his ability to find fish, by combining his knowledge of fish behaviour, tides and currents with his sonar data.

It's for this reason that the fishing industry is consolidating into fewer, more sophisticated boats. The Annelies Ilena is currently the biggest trawler in the world at 144m LOA and 11500 tons displacement. It is capable of processing 350 tons of fish a day. Boats of this size are only economically viable because better data methods allow them to reliably find fish.

> Maritime pilots

Largely replaced by computers. In most modern ports, pilotage is only necessary for the biggest boats and the most difficult conditions. Higher-resolution charts and differential GPS obviate much of the need for the local knowledge of pilots. Computerisation has hugely reduced the crews of merchant ships. Some of the biggest vessels in the world operate on a crew of less than twenty.

>Airline pilots

The US armed forces now have more drone operators than pilots. Those are being replaced by software as fast as ethics will allow. I'd be astonished if there's a single fixed-wing pilot left in the military in 20 years time.

Civilian aviation should have abandoned human crew years ago. For every Miracle on the Hudson, there are a dozen accidents that no computer would have allowed to happen. Computers are just better at flying than people.

Ultimately, this isn't about "software" as we see it today, it's about artificial intelligence. We need to get our heads around the idea that within a few decades, computers will be more intelligent than us. Unless we understand the implications of that fact, we're doomed.

⬐ unabridged

Many of these businesses will have a web presence, so basic programming knowledge should be important even if you are hiring someone to else to make your website/shopping cart just so you have an idea of what is possible and so you don't get screwed on pricing.

Similar to how if your business depended on a large fleet of vehicles you may not need to be a mechanic, but some basic knowledge about maintenance and the capabilities of different vehicles will allow you to make better decisions and hire better people at more reasonable rates.

⬐ ori_b

All of them can reduce administrative overhead, improve throughput, and streamline their workflow by effectively using and being able to extend software based tools and scripts.

In my mind at least, this isn't about automating skilled jobs out of existence. This is about giving these professionals the ability to streamline their work. Without the ability to understand software, they often wouldn't have the knowledge of what pain points a hiring a programmer could help them with, let alone the ability to do the work themselves.

⬐ DanielBMarkham

"...What do any of these educated and skilled people need with programming?..."

Have you looked at want ads lately? Chef: must be able to work the mixomatic programmable mixer. Electrician: must have knowledge of microcontrollers. Fashion designer: must be able to create digital mock-ups of new designs and work out how to automatically share them with our manufacturers. Pilots: must be able to work and program so many systems it would make your head spin. Musicians: must have knowledge of MIDI and be able to use a sequencer. Firefighters: must be able to program the engine and help with the local 911 modernization. Psychiatrist: must participate in the machine learning diagnostic project the hospital is undergoing. Must be able to work with data mining to determine non-current patients in need of intervention. And so on.

These criteria are just made-up examples, but I could go on. We could easily pull down real ads. Let's try the most fuzzy one you have up there: artist. Know a writer who doesn't use a word-processor? They exist, sure, but not as many as before. In fact, most of them are now learning html and mixed media formats in order to eliminate publishers and broaden their base. It used to be the "traditional" writers didn't use software. Now they use software but don't configure and program it. The "new generation" of writers do that. What was optional is now becoming a necessity. What was "computer literate" is now looking more and more like programming. This trend will continue.

Perhaps there is some exception. If so, I haven't thought of it. And you haven't listed it here. Yes, in some abstract, perfect way plumbing has nothing to do with computers. But that's the hell of the thing: the plumber in our imagination isn't the one in the real world. In the real world being a plumber means managing your scheduling system, your A/R, working with CAD drawings for a new construction site, buying mechanical devices that require configuration and programming, looking more into robotics for some types of work, and so it goes. The mental picture we have of these jobs and the actual way they are evolving are two different things entirely. You might be able to argue that one or the other jobs has more or less computers and programming in it, but that's a moot point. You're fighting a losing battle. They had zero ten years ago, they have some now, and they'll be mostly automated in just a decade or two. In some very real sense we are all becoming painters, just with a lot of technology to use instead of paints and brushes.

⬐ spacemanaki

"We could easily pull down real ads."

Please do. I agree with other commenters that a lot of your examples are people using more software, not actually programming.

⬐ rue

Creating “digital mock-ups of new designs” isn't programming. Programmers make programs, which the designers can then use to create their mock-ups.

Unless I misunderstand what programmable mixers are, it's not really programming so much as defining preset profiles or sequences. I don't mean to imply it's easy, but it's not what programmers consider programming. (Again, some programmer created the software that the sound engineer uses).

Writers use word processors. Yes. I'm sorry, but are you just trolling?

If your argument is that everybody needs software, that's true. There's no need for everybody to write their own, though. Diluting the term programming is downright dangerous.

⬐ mjwalshe

Audio engineering Abeltron live can get down and dirty and I rember a high end reverb in sound on sound where you efectivly implimented custom reverbs in asembly language.

⬐ jakejake

The difference to me is that you have to be a skilled operator of these devices, not a programmer. Absolutely, they can be very complex to operate but the main difference is that you are using these tools to do your task, rather than creating the tools.

It is true that they sometimes have plugin APIs, but so do most applications. A writer would not typically write plugins for MS Word. But he might buy one for his needs. The API is not necessarily intended for the end user to become a developer.

⬐ mjwalshe

Well that was the point SOS is a very high end mag they run articles by industry experts that start out "when I where a lad working for Georg Martin on Sargent Pepper"

I was boggled that they reviewd audio equipment which you had to write your own algorithms in Assembly though - now thats hard core

⬐ gbhn

To an extent, yes, but surely there's no clear line between a small excel macros and monstrously complex excel macro systems that are dreadfully abusing the Turing-completeness of excel macros and should use a better tool. But the latter comes from people playing with the former. I think that as information tools become more sophisticated, they necessarily develop programming-esque characteristics.

Figuring out a way for that to happen naturally, intuitively, and broadly is a hard problem that seems like it would probably have huge rewards.

⬐ rue

I think there exists the possibility that the complexity may force more people to learn ‘proper’ programming. However;

Given the current UI/UX research and trends, I'd hold it more likely – and certainly preferrable – that the hard work happens behind the scenes, and users can perform more and more complex tasks reasonably intuitively.

⬐ TimGebhardt

Maybe I can respond with an anecdote relayed by my wife: She was a Biology undergrad who got into food science. Her first job was for a food co-manufacturer who made many of the frozen pizzas you probably eat (but purchase under the major labels brands). She invented the formulas and ran test batches before they'd run the actual production runs in the factory. They co-manufactured a lot of food and if you've eaten any frozen pizza or cheap take-out/delivery pizza within the last 5 years you've probably eaten bread my wife "optimized" :). I just want to make sure I set this scene up before I get into the incredibly crazy part:

When she first started she did two things that previously nobody else did: she wrote her formulas down as she made them so she could reproduce them later, and she applied the scientific method to her formula making. Now anybody else reading this HN comment will probably think "WTF that's very obvious". Like I said, she was the first person to do it at her gigantic company (along with her other new co-worker hired at the same time).

And she was made fun of and teased! "You crazy college kids" was what she heard at first. Then after she proved that she was far and away more productive than any of her co-workers they'd scoff at her that "Pizza making is an art". Nevermind that in between those scoffs her boss said she was the most creative thinker...

The old guards wouldn't even write down what ingredients or the quantity when they were making new formulations. They'd have to try to remember later what they did. And guess and checking formulas was how they'd develop new stuff that was tightly specified. Guess and checking pizza is almost always a lot slower than guess and checking the positioning of a label on a web app, so this was a very expensive process.

And when you work with food at that scale it's all marketing driven: Marketing comes down with an idea that "Sodium is scary so let's develop a pizza that's really low sodium. Oh and let's see if we pitch it to blah for their kids meal". They'd specify a level of sodium that was acceptable, and then the kids meal specifications had their own acceptable levels of X, Y, and Z. So with that in mind she would work backwards, make 12 different formulations in spec at once and let the marketers try them to see which tasted best (sidenote: low-sodium pizza tastes awful. Just eat real pizza and have an extra glass of water).

All of these scientific techniques were totally foreign to her co-workers and even her customers, and we're talking math and science that most learn in 4th grade. She worked for a huge successful company that's successful in spite of itself! Could you imagine the software that could have helped her do an even better job: - Software to manage the dozen or so different variations of the project she was working on - Even better, software to help her collaborate with an assistant so she could get these 12 variations in front of customers faster - Software to help her plot some sort of optimization curve to figure out the 12 different variations she should try based on the input parameters - Some sort of version control for her formulations - Automatically come up with the nutrition label before she started working on the pizza - Even more if I could remember some of our other ideas

So to keep on topic: There are a lot of things, at least for baking, that were disrupted by just using 4th grade math and science. Software was the next step, and we were going to start making software (she'd be the domain expert for my coding work), but then we had twin boys so right now we're just trying to tread water. Maybe soon...

⬐ Shorel

> and we're talking math and science that most learn in 4th grade

Precisely what I was thinking. Basic programming will be just something for 4th grade that almost everyone will have forgotten when 20.

⬐ bh42222

Pilots (including maritime pilots)

If you are under 50, I would bet most planes (at least in the military) will be piloted entirely by AI before you die. The same should be true for most large ships. Most planes are already piloted by AI most of the time today.

⬐ run4yourlives

Exactly.

Saying "Skill X is the new norm" based on the fact that your life revolves around skill X is a clear case of needing to get out more.

Programming is to computer use what engine overhaul is to driving a car. You can argue that driving a car is an essential skill for modern day life, but being a mechanic is most certainly not.

Being a mechanic might make you a better driver, and will certainly make you less reliant on mechanics, but it is by no means a requirement.

⬐ _delirium

It does seem fairly common for people to think that their profession is something everyone needs to know, and sometimes the arguments are even pretty good. I've met several lawyers who believe that everyone should be legally trained, at least to a basic level, because the impact of law is so pervasive in modern society (even here on HN, a good portion of our discussions are about law).

⬐ tikhonj

And that, actually, is a very good point as well: after all, ignorance is not a valid defense! Just because something is common does not mean it is wrong.

⬐ mechanical_fish

Being a mechanic might make you a better driver, and will certainly make you less reliant on mechanics...

Neither of these things are always true. This is something that tinkerers often struggle to grok.

Consider that the safest way to travel from one place to another is probably on a plane: The vehicle which you are least likely to understand. Moreover, even if you do understand modern jet aircraft and the airlines that fly them, that knowledge won't do you much good, because you have very few knobs which you're empowered to turn. But they constitute a very highly-designed system involving reliable avionics backed-up by redundant highly trained and well-rehearsed pilots with their lives on the line. And the statistics show that you're not going to improve on that. So sit back and have a ginger ale and wait for the plane to land.

As with travel, so with many things in our modern world. Does knowing something about cryptography (a) make you significantly less reliant on professional cryptographers, or (b) make your software more secure? According to security experts I've read, the answers are (a) no, unless you want your software to be less secure and (b) perhaps, but only if you fully appreciate the answer to (a). If knowing a few things about crypto tempts you to deploy crypto that you implemented yourself, it's actually counterproductive if the goal is to produce secure production software.

(As a hobby or an educational toy, of course, I'm obviously a big fan of tinkering. But not everyone needs to have the same hobby.)

Building managers typically get free or cheap housing and make pretty good income, one way or another. Architects, plumbers, contractors, and others involved in building and maintaining offices don't do bad, either. These jobs are in high demand; watch Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe's TED talk: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Electricians and others who run wiring for new installations (I know several people who do this) all make pretty good money. The guys who work for utility companies fixing stuff after storms are unionized and make a comfortable living. Power companies themselves make money not only in the delivery of services but also in state-of-the-art energy trading.

I have direct experience supervising road crews. Most states have a mandated minimum pay for road workers; even the guys holding the stop signs are making $16-22 an hour, and that was in Ohio, where the cost of living is about half of the Bay area. Public transit workers are also almost always unionized. Government workers (I interned at the County Engineer office) make salaries on-par with other knowledge workers and have generous retirement.

The hardware is the major outlier here, but for the most part, the workers making your hardware are doing relatively well for themselves compared to their fellow citizens. And they are largely irrelevant when discussing income inequality in the US.

The reality is that useful skills bring in good money. The people providing for your quality of life are doing pretty well for themselves and will always be in work. Being unskilled and being unable to provide real value is a problem without an easy solution. I feel that people should be ensured a base quality of life, but that's not free. If people didn't aspire to more, no one would have anything at all.

Then you need to see his ted talk: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Mike has some really deep insights into American culture and work, every time he's interviewed or speaks it's a treat.

⬐ goldins

Wow. Thanks for the link.

An interesting TED presentation, giving perspective on animal suffering: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty...

.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

I have a few trade's friends, and a few programmer friends (well, one hacker, one QA / side project hacker). The plumber friend makes $50k in this down market, typically $80k at 1-3 years of experience. The hacker / QA make ~50-55k at 2-4 years. Its all relative to your skills and contributions, but, I am only agreeing that you can make "good" money at a trades skill.

Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) is trying to dispel the myth that hard work is bad and desk jobs are good. He gave a great talk at TED, available here: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Mike Rowe spoke on this during his TED talk. .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Mike Rowe's TED talk from 2008 hits on some of the same points, as well as how much he thinks we under-value hard work. Agree with him or not, it's definitely worth taking a look at.

.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Is Patrick McKenzie (patio11) an avid bingo player that lives and breathes bingo?

No. It sounds like[1] he sort of enjoyed it, and a friend needed help making bingo cards. But he saw it as a good market opportunity, so he went with it.

In Mike Rowe's TED talk[2], he referenced a similar idea. He talked about a pig farmer who grew his small farm to being worth >$60M (he turned down a $60M offer) by getting scraps from restaurants and feeding them to the pigs, which I guess helped them grow faster and/or cut down on their food costs. He said that he asked the guy if he was passionate about his work, and the guy laughed.

Passion's great and all, and it does make things easier, but if you're reasonably disciplined and just out to make money, there's a lot of very boring markets (like bingo cards) that are ripe for disruption.

[1]: http://www.kalzumeus.com/start-here-if-youre-new/

[2]: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

⬐ patio11

Is Patrick McKenzie (patio11) an avid bingo player that lives and breathes bingo?

I have not run a bingo game in, hmm, 6 years or played one in 15. I'm passionate about many things, but bingo is not one of them, except insofar as it lets me experiment with things or lets me help teachers to teach better and more efficiently. You can probably tell, right?

Of course I sound totally focused on bingo when a customer needs to talk to me about it, but that's just acting for the job -- in another context I was the biggest geek around about edge cases in Japanese college entrance exams. If you asked me "How does the exam treat a deaf person with regards to English listening and why?" I would give an informed and enthusiastic answer to that, too, but I don't read commentary on the college exams for fun.

⬐ AmberShah

But it appears to me that he is passionate about online marketing/market testing and Bingo cards is just the vehicle he uses to get there. Conversely, my business idea is my passion and doing things like online marketing/market testing is the vehicle I will use to get there.

⬐ HeyLaughingBoy

Yes, but this really depends on the person.

I used to rent out a single family house, with thoughts to expand to multifamily. Along the way I realized that I couldn't find any good software to manage small rental properties and that there was a good sized market for it (bounced the idea off other people I knew doing the same thing).

It's not a technically difficult application and there was definitely money in it, but as much as I tried to focus, my heart simply wasn't in something so boring and I eventually gave up.

Some of us do need to feel passion, or at least strong interest, to build a business around a concept.

⬐ None

None

⬐ rubeng

I agree up to a point. There's more to think about here than just finding the right market -- though that's a must.

The problem is that doing this while working full time is freaking hard. Doing an entire year of development after hours is just brutal. The longer the time to launch the more likely you are to not see it through to the end. So if you're taking on a project that's going to be in development for several months before you can even charge a dime -- finding something to get excited about is huge.

If it's just something you're going to build in a couple of weeks then that passion can totally be lacking there because marketing is going to be much larger part of the effort (it typically is but typically not to this extent).

In any case, I highly recommend sticking with something you can launch very soon. Probably no more than 3 months. I went 6 months and it was tough. It's an exhausting effort so take advantage of that motivational boost that launching gives you.

⬐ chokma

>"The problem is that doing this while working full time is freaking hard. Doing an entire year of development after hours is just brutal. The longer the time to launch the more likely you are to not see it through to the end."

I agree. Working that hard is difficult to keep up. 6 hours a weekday and 8 hours a weekend is 38 hours additional work a week...

I am currently working on an open source browser game as a hobby project, and am discovering that it is much more work to get it right than I thought. But I decided in the beginning that it should be live after the first week or so and now I publish the current alpha every other week. Sometimes, this requires more refactoring, but I think this is balanced by the fact that the game is already in a state where it is not a closet project.

If you make a commercial product, be sure to have potential customers and a marketing plan before you sink a whole year of work into it. A customer of ours spent half a million for a _good_ piece of software and now its been waiting for other a year to gain traction. Business customers are interested, but it seems like the marketing department is utterly fubared. They even cannot get around to set it up internally to solve their own needs...

Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

A surprisingly powerful ode to people who just do the work. Our jobs may not be dirty but the lessons are still interesting and applicable; connecting to startups isn't that hard.

I like many of the other linked talks too, but as of my writing this one was not posted.

⬐ ajtaylor

That was a fabulous talk! Today there are far too many people (myself sometimes included) who think that some jobs are "beneath" them. Maybe the are, but someone still has to do them.

Hats off to all the folks out there who do dirty jobs!

⬐ malbiniak

This talk can't be watched enough. I introduced it to a number of my past professors who are still using it in their undergrad and grad classes.

⬐ masterj

That was fantastic, and I don't think I would have ever come across it otherwise.

Thank you.

⬐ ju2tin

I didn't like it. Rowe has a disingenuously self-deprecating speaking style, where he says again and again how much he "got wrong", but the subtext is how smart he is for realizing certain things that the rest of us supposedly haven't. And his big insight is that for every Steve Jobs, we need a bunch of workers to actually build the iPods? Wow, golly.

I also hate the verbal tic he demonstrates, which is becoming depressingly common, of saying "right" after every few sentences in a story. For example: "I was working on a crab boat, right? And this big wave comes over the side, right?" Etc. It's a lazy way of trying to psychologically condition the audience into agreeing with you without actually doing the hard rhetorical work of convincing them. Drives me nuts.

⬐ targz

While I find Rowe perfectly charming and don't agree that he's disingenuous about anything in the talk I do agree in general about people being indulgent with the "right" question appended at the end of every statement. I've noticed this in many forms ("right", "yeah", "eh", "okay", etc...) for years and have basically the same analysis of it, that it conditions for agreement and is a cheap tactic, even if the speaker is relatively unconscious of it. There must be a term for it in linguistics. Going to look it up.

⬐ jamesbritt

Wow. I'm almost done watching iti right now, and didn't catch him saying 'right?' at all; maybe it happens in the earlier part, but in the last few minutes, none at all. If he's saying it, I hardly think it's meant as some subtle pysch trick.

Nor did I get the feeling that his claims of being wrong was in any way disingenuous. At worst it's a ploy to structure his talk.

Every TED talk works off the assumption that the speaker has some insight worth sharing with the audience, presumably non-obvious or non-trivial realizations, so of course he's going to try say something worth thinking about. There's nothing subtext about it; it's the whole point of being on stage.

My takeaway was not simply "for every Steve Jobs, we need a bunch of workers to actually build the iPods", but that there are a lot of seemingly oddball jobs done by happy people who did not bother to "follow their bliss", that conventional wisdom on what work might make you happy or how work should be approached might very well be wrong, and that plain old labor should not be looked down on.

⬐ ju2tin

I thought the notion that plain old labor can be a more fulfilling path than following your dreams was a tacked-on message designed to help him wrap up his talk. But in fact, it's a naive, perhaps even willfully misleading suggestion.

The examples Rowe used to back up this idea were unlikely mavericks who managed to turn undesirable or unremarkable jobs into fantastically successful businesses. Those people are just as rare, if not more so, as those who find success by "following their dreams".

Ordinary workers aren't millionaire entrepreneurs; they're janitors, or sewer workers, or Foxconn assembly line drones. Yet that's what "real work" looks like. And I notice Rowe isn't quitting his job as a TV show personality in favor of joining the road crews who "whistle while they work."

The best thing I can say about Rowe is that he ranks up there with Malcolm Gladwell in his ability to throw around a bunch of unrelated contentions and anecdotes and pretend to tie them all together with a facile and unsubstantiated thesis.

⬐ decode

In his video interview for Reddit, I thought Rowe came across as exceedingly genuine and self-aware of his position as actor and television personality, rather than worker. He also expounds on the things he has to say in the TED talk in a way that made me think the "lesson" was not just tacked on, but rather something he has spent a lot of time thinking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxudGb4VYL0

⬐ symptic

What Rowe is saying is that without those people, you wouldn't have the freedom to "follow your passion." I don't see why you're so critical of what he's saying.

Manual labor is rewarding. It may not scale, but my guess is you'll feel a lot better internally when you finish building that shed than when you create a feature for your web app. He is celebrating our capacity to more or less 'suck it up' in order to get a task accomplished, and the sort of character that builds in oneself.

How does this translate to something you may be working on? There are tasks with running a business that you may not particularly enjoy, but it's your job to just get it done.

Respect hose who do the work that you don't want to. Embrace then, because they have a bigger impact in your life than you seen to acknowledge.

⬐ alex_c

>The best thing I can say about Rowe is that he ranks up there with Malcolm Gladwell in his ability to throw around a bunch of unrelated contentions and anecdotes and pretend to tie them all together with a facile and unsubstantiated thesis.

I think that's unfair to Rowe. He seems quite genuinely to believe two things:

1) The manual and/or menial labor required to keep society working is unfairly maligned, and this can become a problem if no one is willing to do it because it's not respected,

and

2) During his show he has met people who are perfectly happy doing these jobs, so it IS entirely possible to be happy doing them.

I agree that the message felt a bit tacked on in that talk, but it is genuine. He seems to be dedicating himself to spreading that message (see http://www.mikeroweworks.com/) - I think he tried to pick the most interesting examples he could find for this talk, which turned out to be atypical, but most of the people he meets on his show are far from millionaire entrepreneurs.

I say it's unfair to Rowe because Malcolm Gladwell's theses are more pop science for entertainment. I don't think Rowe ever claims any kind of scientific method or results - he is more campaigning for his beliefs and trying to cause what he sees as necessary change in society.

.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

Stick with it...(especially in the middle and towards the end)

I'm still very much trying to digest the contents of this article rather than regurgitating the usual flippant answers.

Not everyone can get a job in at their local Google datacenter, even if they train for 2 years. (There was an amazing NPR story recently to this effect.) And while I have moved multiple times, and across two hemispheres to get to Silicon Valley (and yet still can't call myself local to anywhere) I feel some obligation to satiate something I which appears as burgeoning task vacuum in rural America.

That is, there is a tremendous amount of idle "Turking" power going to waste in the heartlands - lifetimes of mechanical acuity being thrown away on television rather than say another Wikipedia/Github for rapid-prototyped goods .

⬐ protomyth

Mr Rowe was pretty much right on. There is a certain class-ism that seems go along with manual labor. I have heard people call plumbers and carpenters "unskilled labor". That is so much crud, it is unbelievable.

Mike Rowe (yes, the Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe) has been talking about this for a while - he has a pretty interesting TED talk: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

⬐ quizbiz

Another great TED talk on the subject titled life lessons through tinkering

http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_s_tinkering_school_in_...

I don't think pure academic advancement is the answer as a means to invent and thereby dig ourselves out of the recession. More kids graduating high school really doesn't imply that they'll find better jobs or rather even be better off because of it. I would argue it's even the same metaphor for college. Most people go to get better jobs, but in reality, the risk is just as high to not find one, especially in this economy. Honestly I think we're still at the point where people are too prideful to get work just for work. I know plenty of college grads who are "above" working at Starbucks or restaurants of the like. The problem is that there's a definite devaluing of infrastructure type jobs that keep the country running. I think Mike Rowe (my hero) summed it up best: .html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm... Maybe it's just another crapshoot, but I think it's another way to rethink our education system.

⬐ mlinsey

Thanks for the link; that talk was brilliant and excellent food for thought to make us think about the "follow your passions" common wisdom around here.

complimentary video to add to this article:

.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...

(video is more than about "working with hands", but reminiscence of repeated manual work that many people enjoy)

⬐ vdm

Nice! Thanks.

⬐ quizbiz

I am not a fan of the show, Dirt Jobs, but this talk makes me want to give it a second look. An incredible talk from a very unlikely source, powerful intellectual lessons from very dirty "blue-collar" work.

⬐ yan

You should definitely give Dirty Jobs a second look. It's very very well done and Rowe carries it exceptionally.