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I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace.

I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. I have heard the words peasant class come up quite often in the tech circles. Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? At the risk of getting downvoted let me posit a different narrative. What if the past governments were just propping up growth by increasing government spending. The facts that are coming out now point in this direction. Unemployment numbers that were fudged and recalled by nearly 1M on two occasions. 35% government hiring in the last 3 years. What if this is the unwinding that was needed long ago but is happening now. Yes tariffs are a net negative for the US economy, but there is no guarantee that tariffs will stay as we saw with the Canada and Mexico tariffs. So may be, the government is not completely incompetent. This data from Apollo management points to a not so bleak picture. https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DC_Proposals.pdf https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DC_...

intended 2y ago
I have the actual experience and knowledge to talk about this, having done my grunt work as the idiot analyst. The American military is a massive source of employment for Americans, and has been the case for decades. It is the source of multiple careers, education opportunities and investment into core sectors for the economy. Without looking at the numbers, I am going to bet the 35% increased hiring is not military forces. Given the spread I saw of government employment, I suspect its going to largely be nurses, doctors and grunts to do work in many of the understaffed government agencies. Tariffs are a net negative for the Global Economy, and in this case tariffs are political in nature. This means there is no economic cut off or action target countries can take to remedy the situation - only ‘vibe’ and ‘appearance’ related actions. Counter tariffs are going to target Trump and Republican dominated regions. The cut offs here are extreme - they are a form of communication through mutually inflicted pain. Since it’s America vs the world; Canada, Mexico, the UK, China, India - will coordinate to make trade between each other more efficient, so as to offset the costs imposed on their goods. Since America has jettisoned its soft power, they have no tools to bring to the negotiating table, meaning that the only options for America are - endure / capitulate / escalate. This is the emperor’s new clothes territory. The New Emperor is naked, but people believe that they must simply be unable to see the greater plan.
Bhilai 2y ago
> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. I have heard the words peasant class come up quite often in the tech circles. Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? I think the HN crowd (and technologists) are generally better informed on the economy and the nuances on economic growth, inflation, stock market etc. and that's probably the point OP is making. Dont get me wrong, a lot of technologists did vote for Trump.
rayiner 2y ago
> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. It’s a recent shift. Historically, “technologists” were skeptical of the supposed knowledge of “experts.” When Linus built Linux, the “experts”—the guys with PhDs—said the future was microkernels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb.... Linus was right. But I feel like today techies would’ve mocked him for being just a student arguing with a tenured professor on a subject in the professor’s field. Opposition to free trade has been building for 25 years: https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-1999 https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-199.... We used to make routers in California and sell them to China. Now we make them in China and Americans drive Uber. Economists tell us that this is efficient, but the public isn’t required to believe them. And it’s fine to try a different approach to see what happens.
- gadders 2y ago
  I mean in theory you could maybe argue that free trade economically makes the the country as a whole better off, but it could still be worse off strategically (EG by not being able to produce weapons or the necessary components to defend itself). It's also pretty clear that any economic benefits that there were, didn't benefit all of society equally,
  - rayiner 2y ago
    I strongly suspect that free trade is good for the economy as a whole in the short to medium term, though has a negative effect on distribution (disproportionately benefitting those whose jobs can’t be easily outsourced). But in the long term it may destroy a country’s competitiveness by vitiating any comparative advantage.
    - deepGem 2y ago
      I've thought long and hard about free trade. Ultimately, people want cheap products and free trade optimizes for price that's it. It's like this single objective function that disregards all other functions. So the competitive advantage for any country now boils down to the entire nation optimizing for cost. A country like China can do this, because the cost optimization for USA = lifting someone out of poverty in China. They are at the rock bottom of cost already. Now that China has learned to optimize for cost, they will continue down that path - AI, robotics whatever tool they can amass to drive down cost, they will. Meanwhile, other nations arbitrage about quality of life, politics, hatred of the rich so on and so forth and let the cost optimization slide. Ideally if every country optimized for cost, free trade would work like magic. Sadly, China is the only country doing that and rest of the world is now beholden to them, losing their once cherished competitive advantage. Now China which once was derided for cheap quality has learned to build quality at scale and for cheap. Literally no one can compete with them on price:quality ratio. 3-4 decades of cost optimizations have paid off immensely for them.
chasd00 2y ago
> 35% government hiring in the last 3 years. I've been wondering how a labor market miracle seems to happen every quarter in the face of steep interest rate increases. The Fed has been trying to engineer a recession for years now.
watwut 2y ago
> What if the past governments were just propping up growth by increasing government spending. The facts that are coming out now point in this direction. Nothing like that is seen now. You primary see markets reacting to tariffs and to boycotts. You see them reacting to large contracts that should be to Musk companies. The government spending did not went down yet.
betaby 2y ago
> Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? In the country where I live/lived programmers are usually 1) top 25% earners 2) dis-proportionally vote liberal leaning candidates Of course that 25% is a part 100%, however that absolutely not a random selection and very different from the "median" citizen and their problems. Being top earner definitely skews ones views - not a novel phenomenon.
gadders 2y ago
>>35% government hiring in the last 3 years. Keynsian economics 101. “The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up." except in this case it's government non jobs rather than asking people to do manual labour.

intended 2y ago

I have the actual experience and knowledge to talk about this, having done my grunt work as the idiot analyst. The American military is a massive source of employment for Americans, and has been the case for decades. It is the source of multiple careers, education opportunities and investment into core sectors for the economy. Without looking at the numbers, I am going to bet the 35% increased hiring is not military forces. Given the spread I saw of government employment, I suspect its going to largely be nurses, doctors and grunts to do work in many of the understaffed government agencies. Tariffs are a net negative for the Global Economy, and in this case tariffs are political in nature. This means there is no economic cut off or action target countries can take to remedy the situation - only ‘vibe’ and ‘appearance’ related actions. Counter tariffs are going to target Trump and Republican dominated regions. The cut offs here are extreme - they are a form of communication through mutually inflicted pain. Since it’s America vs the world; Canada, Mexico, the UK, China, India - will coordinate to make trade between each other more efficient, so as to offset the costs imposed on their goods. Since America has jettisoned its soft power, they have no tools to bring to the negotiating table, meaning that the only options for America are - endure / capitulate / escalate. This is the emperor’s new clothes territory. The New Emperor is naked, but people believe that they must simply be unable to see the greater plan.

Bhilai 2y ago

> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. I have heard the words peasant class come up quite often in the tech circles. Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? I think the HN crowd (and technologists) are generally better informed on the economy and the nuances on economic growth, inflation, stock market etc. and that's probably the point OP is making. Dont get me wrong, a lot of technologists did vote for Trump.

rayiner 2y ago

> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. It’s a recent shift. Historically, “technologists” were skeptical of the supposed knowledge of “experts.” When Linus built Linux, the “experts”—the guys with PhDs—said the future was microkernels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb.... Linus was right. But I feel like today techies would’ve mocked him for being just a student arguing with a tenured professor on a subject in the professor’s field. Opposition to free trade has been building for 25 years: https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-1999 https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-199.... We used to make routers in California and sell them to China. Now we make them in China and Americans drive Uber. Economists tell us that this is efficient, but the public isn’t required to believe them. And it’s fine to try a different approach to see what happens.

gadders 2y ago
I mean in theory you could maybe argue that free trade economically makes the the country as a whole better off, but it could still be worse off strategically (EG by not being able to produce weapons or the necessary components to defend itself). It's also pretty clear that any economic benefits that there were, didn't benefit all of society equally,
- rayiner 2y ago
  I strongly suspect that free trade is good for the economy as a whole in the short to medium term, though has a negative effect on distribution (disproportionately benefitting those whose jobs can’t be easily outsourced). But in the long term it may destroy a country’s competitiveness by vitiating any comparative advantage.
  - deepGem 2y ago
    I've thought long and hard about free trade. Ultimately, people want cheap products and free trade optimizes for price that's it. It's like this single objective function that disregards all other functions. So the competitive advantage for any country now boils down to the entire nation optimizing for cost. A country like China can do this, because the cost optimization for USA = lifting someone out of poverty in China. They are at the rock bottom of cost already. Now that China has learned to optimize for cost, they will continue down that path - AI, robotics whatever tool they can amass to drive down cost, they will. Meanwhile, other nations arbitrage about quality of life, politics, hatred of the rich so on and so forth and let the cost optimization slide. Ideally if every country optimized for cost, free trade would work like magic. Sadly, China is the only country doing that and rest of the world is now beholden to them, losing their once cherished competitive advantage. Now China which once was derided for cheap quality has learned to build quality at scale and for cheap. Literally no one can compete with them on price:quality ratio. 3-4 decades of cost optimizations have paid off immensely for them.

chasd00 2y ago

> 35% government hiring in the last 3 years. I've been wondering how a labor market miracle seems to happen every quarter in the face of steep interest rate increases. The Fed has been trying to engineer a recession for years now.

watwut 2y ago

> What if the past governments were just propping up growth by increasing government spending. The facts that are coming out now point in this direction. Nothing like that is seen now. You primary see markets reacting to tariffs and to boycotts. You see them reacting to large contracts that should be to Musk companies. The government spending did not went down yet.

betaby 2y ago

> Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? In the country where I live/lived programmers are usually 1) top 25% earners 2) dis-proportionally vote liberal leaning candidates Of course that 25% is a part 100%, however that absolutely not a random selection and very different from the "median" citizen and their problems. Being top earner definitely skews ones views - not a novel phenomenon.

gadders 2y ago

>>35% government hiring in the last 3 years. Keynsian economics 101. “The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up." except in this case it's government non jobs rather than asking people to do manual labour.