Not yet.

The slate of policy choices in the US is removing it from that list of countries, and will strengthen those countries' labor forces.

Right now SV salaries command a huge premium, because all of SV is predicated on increasing productivity, increasing the economic pie, and rewarding those who do so with a fraction of that gain in GDP.

Treating SV labor like plumbing or construction labor fundamentally misunderstands the dynamics and the creation of wealth.

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ahmeneeroe-v2 4 days ago | parent [-]

Removing demand doesn’t create more competition, the opposite in fact.

SV labor is largely not different than a skilled trade, except at the higher levels.

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epistasis 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The whole system of SV is exceptionally different, it's all about expanding productivity and GDP.

That's where the massive salaries come from, that massive wealth creation. It's not just taking larger chunks of a fixed size pie.

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ahmeneeroe-v2 3 days ago | parent [-]

What do you think an electrician is doing?

Sure some electrical capacity goes to non-productive uses, but much of it is also spent doing things like enabling widespread computer usage.

SV labor is downstream of skilled trades.

	▲	epistasis 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Keeping the lights on is an absolutely essential societal function, and for keeping an economy running. But expanding the technological capacity of the US is what made us so much wealthier than any other country in the world. And expanding that technological capacity faster than the rest of the world comes from attracting the best technological innovators from the rest of the world. However, with China's and India's size, it's likely that they will now be able to overtake us without relying on much immigration.

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0xWTF 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I was about to ridicule this, but then I thought about it. My wife is in a skilled trade in SV, and that actually sounds about right. She has nothing to do with software, but probably earns, dollar/hour, about the same as a mid-tier L6 SWE at Google. I do R&D program management, government though, so the conversion to quality of life is kinda weird. Most people would see our house and assume I'm a director.