Things are pretty good now, and seem to have gotten even better since Dan’s 2015 post, but something could change. Given how poorly we understand this, and the wide range of ways the future might be different, I think we should treat collapse as a real possibility:
Poor understanding is in the map, not the territory. I started to write a comment arguing that this is incorrect, that the factors which cause programmers to be well paid are straightforward and aren’t going to go away. But instead of that, how about a bet.
Here’s the US Bureau of Labor Statistics series for 2nd quartile nominal weekly earnings of software developers (applications and systems software): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254530600A. They didn’t seem to have mean, median, or other quartiles. There are other series for different subsets of programmers, like web developers; I chose this one arbitrarily. The series is not inflation adjusted.
I will bet up to $1k at 4:1 odds that the 2030 value in this series will be greater than or equal to the 2018 value, which was 1864. So $1k of my dollars against $250 of other peoples’ dollars.
(I’ll accept bets in order of their comment timestamps, up to a maximum of $1k of my dollars. Bet is only confirmed if I reply to accept it. Winner must remember to email to claim bet winnings. Bet is cancelled if the US Bureau of Labor Statistics discontinues the series or doesn’t publish a 2030 number for any reason. Non-anonymous counterparties only.)
I’m not sure we disagree. I was thinking more like a 15% chance. This is high enough that it’s definitely worth being prepared for, but I wouldn’t take 4:1.
I don’t specifically remember, but I think I was mostly going for “only have to check the number in one place” (not expecting that the series would stop in 2019), and secondarily I expected we both thought inflation would be predictable, and so this provided some margin in the case where wages stagnated but didn’t fall by much.
Poor understanding is in the map, not the territory. I started to write a comment arguing that this is incorrect, that the factors which cause programmers to be well paid are straightforward and aren’t going to go away. But instead of that, how about a bet.
Here’s the US Bureau of Labor Statistics series for 2nd quartile nominal weekly earnings of software developers (applications and systems software): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254530600A. They didn’t seem to have mean, median, or other quartiles. There are other series for different subsets of programmers, like web developers; I chose this one arbitrarily. The series is not inflation adjusted.
I will bet up to $1k at 4:1 odds that the 2030 value in this series will be greater than or equal to the 2018 value, which was 1864. So $1k of my dollars against $250 of other peoples’ dollars.
(I’ll accept bets in order of their comment timestamps, up to a maximum of $1k of my dollars. Bet is only confirmed if I reply to accept it. Winner must remember to email to claim bet winnings. Bet is cancelled if the US Bureau of Labor Statistics discontinues the series or doesn’t publish a 2030 number for any reason. Non-anonymous counterparties only.)
I’m not sure we disagree. I was thinking more like a 15% chance. This is high enough that it’s definitely worth being prepared for, but I wouldn’t take 4:1.
Came across this again randomly. Why were you offering the bet on nominal income instead of adjusting for inflation?
(That particular series hasn’t updated since 2019)
I don’t specifically remember, but I think I was mostly going for “only have to check the number in one place” (not expecting that the series would stop in 2019), and secondarily I expected we both thought inflation would be predictable, and so this provided some margin in the case where wages stagnated but didn’t fall by much.