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"In 2020, I brought home more in a month than I earned in my first year at the newspaper, adjusted for inflation. I didn’t work particularly harder in 2020 than I did in say, 1997, and in so many ways the work I did—making there be a local newspaper, full of local news, every day, no matter what—was so much more important than the work I did to, uh, increase the velocity and quality of frontend development at <insert company here>."

This is so important, as we seem to have become a society engineered by technology, rather than a society that engineers technology




> This is so important, as we seem to have become a society engineered by technology, rather than a society that engineers technology

I would rather say that we're a society that is engineered by the market, and that the market is engineered by lobbyists. And one particular consequence is that the price of our work is determined largely by its value to those whom the lobbyists serve.

The verbiage evokes a sense of conspiracy theory, but I think it's not only true but perhaps even eminently intuitive.


How we value things and our priorities as a nation are impacted.

Frankly, there is no need for conspiracy implications. Deliberate policy steps were taken down this road to where we are now.

The simple truth is the outcome does not match needs, many legitimate expectations.

We can also take a no blame, no shame path to a better overall scenario and should.


you could say the same of many industries.

mathematicians fall to wall street. Artists to Advertising. Engineers to silicon valley. and even in nice jobs, all of us succumb to the pace.


Was it really more important? A lot of local news, and news in general, really is clickbait aimed at attention-grabbing or paid pieces.

> This is so important, as we seem to have become a society engineered by technology, rather than a society that engineers technology

It's still people behind tech. It's just that they can reach much farther today than they ever did. But phrasing it like that sounds like yet another attempt of the humanities to demonize something they can't understand (or control). Like regimes pushing for internet censorship.


Now that GP is gone, you mean.




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