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"As one poster has already pointed out this story only works if you look at tax in cash rather than percentage terms. It also ignores the fact that government spending is not on a night out at the pub, it's on essential public services and social protections like the old age pension. It's also worth noting that benefits paid to people on low wages are in effect subsidising the profits of employers and landlords." The reason why the rich person has higher disposable income is because he contributed something to the society that was more in demand. This is usually because of a combination of intelligence, hard work and willingness to take risk. By increasing taxes on that, you are slowly taking away the incentive for that person to make that contribution. This is how you kill productivity in a society. | |||
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"As one poster has already pointed out this story only works if you look at tax in cash rather than percentage terms. It also ignores the fact that government spending is not on a night out at the pub, it's on essential public services and social protections like the old age pension. It's also worth noting that benefits paid to people on low wages are in effect subsidising the profits of employers and landlords." To be fair to the OP, the message of the analogy isn't about the ins and outs of taxation, it's about people's reactions to taxation and fluctuations from a human perspective. | |||
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"The reason why the rich person has higher disposable income is because he contributed something to the society that was more in demand. This is usually because of a combination of intelligence, hard work and willingness to take risk. By increasing taxes on that, you are slowly taking away the incentive for that person to make that contribution. This is how you kill productivity in a society." That reminds me of the old saying that to make poor people more productive one should pay them less and to make rich people more productive one should pay them more. | |||
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"The reason why the rich person has higher disposable income is because he contributed something to the society that was more in demand. This is usually because of a combination of intelligence, hard work and willingness to take risk. By increasing taxes on that, you are slowly taking away the incentive for that person to make that contribution. This is how you kill productivity in a society. That reminds me of the old saying that to make poor people more productive one should pay them less and to make rich people more productive one should pay them more. " My post applies for everyone. You want to divide people in terms of rich and poor acting like they are stable and isolated groups. That's not true. The transition from poor-middle class-rich AND in the reverse direction happens all the time and in huge numbers. | |||
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"That’s not really true — most wealthy people didn’t *earn* their wealth through risk or contribution. In the UK and US alike, the majority of the ultra-rich inherited their money. Economic data shows upward mobility between classes is minimal, while downward movement is far more common, especially outside the top 1%. " Even in US, where there hasn't been much of a welfare net, 61% of the population has been part of top 20% earners for 2 consecutive years. 39% in the top 10% for 2 consecutive years. 5% in the top 1% for atleast 2 years. Only 20% will ever fall into poverty for 2 consecutive years. Source: NPR - Most Americans Make It To The Top 20 Percent (At Least For A While) " It’s also worth remembering that when someone inherits millions, that’s not “reward for contribution” — it’s unearned advantage. Taxing inherited or excess wealth doesn’t punish productivity; it helps stop wealth from permanently concentrating at the top." The parents earned that money. They have the right to give it to their children. If they can't give it to their children, we are back to the same problem. You are taking away their incentive to earn more. Wealth hardly stays in one family the way left wingers portray. The three generation curse is real. Look up the 10 richest people in the world in 2000 and compare it with today. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the only ones still in the top 10 and both have fallen down in their ranks. | |||
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"My post applies for everyone. You want to divide people in terms of rich and poor acting like they are stable and isolated groups. That's not true. The transition from poor-middle class-rich AND in the reverse direction happens all the time and in huge numbers." I'm not trying to divide the population into stable and isolated groups other than in reference to the saying and differential tax rates. I'm also not claiming that you agree with the saying, it's just that what you posted reminded me of it. I'm not sure on the origins of that saying but it illustrates the reasoning of many on the right who argue against pay rises for the poor, while simultaneously saying that decreasing the net income of the rich lowers productivity. The reasoning for the poor is that higher wages per unit of production (whether in manufacturing or services) decreases productivity - it costs more to get the same done. Plus the poorer people are, the more likely they are to work long hours or even take multiple jobs - so per capita output increases. The reasoning for the rich is that higher net income (as a result of lower taxation) increases productivity as inferred from your claim that higher taxation kills productivity in a society. | |||
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" People get more done when they’re rested, motivated, and not constantly stressed about money. " Nobody disputes that. " Turns out valuing workers properly isn’t just good ethics — it’s good business." Absolutely; nobody disputes that, either. | |||
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"That NPR stat is often misread — it measures *temporary* income spikes, not lasting wealth. " 2 years at the in top 20 income rates is reasonable amount of money. Most people can live a standard life with that money for two years plus a decent wage. " A person might enter the “top 20%” for a couple of years due to bonuses, property sales, or dual incomes, then drop right back down. Sustained wealth — assets, property, investments — is overwhelmingly concentrated in the top 1%, and intergenerationally so. " That's the criticism people originally gave when the numbers were published for 1 year which had higher percentages than this. In response to it, they did the same research for 2 years and the percentages went down only by 3-4 points. " As for inheritance: parents can still give to their children, but taxing extreme inherited wealth isn’t about punishing success — it’s about preventing dynasties. Even Adam Smith warned against hereditary concentration of wealth because it undermines merit and competition. " What is extreme in your opinion? " Gates and Buffett are exceptions because they chose to give back. Dolly Parton too — she’s proof that generosity, not hoarding, builds lasting legacy." Not sure what you are trying to say. Gates and Buffet are the only ones who are still in the top 10 list. They have gone down in the ranks. But they are still within top 10. The rest of the rich people from top 10 are already out of the list. | |||
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" I'm not sure on the origins of that saying but it illustrates the reasoning of many on the right who argue against pay rises for the poor, while simultaneously saying that decreasing the net income of the rich lowers productivity. " This is a strawman argument. Right wing economics isn't about paying high or taxing high depending on whether someone is poor or rich. Pay should be dependent on supply/demand for what someone offers. High taxes, irrespective of whether it's for poor or rich, affects productivity in the long term. | |||
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"What is extreme in your opinion" Even setting aside direct inheritance, the vast majority of the current top 10 richest people benefitted from major early advantages — family money, elite education, or the freedom to take huge risks without worrying about basic survival. Elon Musk came from a wealthy South African family and attended private schools before launching ventures funded partly by early-family capital. Jeff Bezos had family help funding Amazon’s start-up stage and graduated from Princeton debt-free. Bernard Arnault took over and expanded his family’s existing construction and luxury interests. Larry Ellison and Bill Gates both came from privileged educational backgrounds and had access to capital and contacts that most people never get. Even so-called “self-made” billionaires usually had safety nets, connections, or inheritances to cushion failure. Only a tiny fraction of the world’s ultra-rich genuinely started from nothing, and even fewer stayed there without institutional support. That’s why proposals like those from the Patriotic Millionaires — which call for higher taxes only on extreme wealth above about £10 million — aren’t about “punishing success.” They’re about balancing an economy where advantage compounds indefinitely at the top while opportunity shrinks below. | |||
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" By keeping people poor or by using immigrant labour the supply is maintained. " This argument was used for Brexit: "Those bloody Eastern Europeans come here, live on white bread and Tesco lager and share houses - we cannot compete with their rates, they'll work for practically nothing!" | |||
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"This argument was used for Brexit: "Those bloody Eastern Europeans come here, live on white bread and Tesco lager and share houses - we cannot compete with their rates, they'll work for practically nothing!"" Indeed and what happened after Brexit was that net migration increased which shows that those who voted for Brexit hoping to reduce immigration were conned. | |||
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" By keeping people poor or by using immigrant labour the supply is maintained. This argument was used for Brexit: "Those bloody Eastern Europeans come here, live on white bread and Tesco lager and share houses - we cannot compete with their rates, they'll work for practically nothing!"" Now people can't afford to go out for a meal as it's too expensive with the highly paid teenage staff, age and experience count for nothing anymore | |||
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"Now people can't afford to go out for a meal as it's too expensive with the highly paid teenage staff, age and experience count for nothing anymore" That's not because teenagers are highly paid. It's because the minimum wage for those under the age of 18 is £7.55 an hour, for those aged 18 to 20 it's £10 and for those 21 and over it's £12.21. So businesses like to employ teenagers because it costs less even when they are doing the exact same job as someone older. | |||
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" Elon Musk came from a wealthy South African family and attended private schools before launching ventures funded partly by early-family capital. " How much money did he have before he started earning and how much money does he have now? How many people with a similar background have achieved what he has achieved? " Jeff Bezos had family help funding Amazon’s start-up stage and graduated from Princeton debt-free. " How much money did he get from his family? 250,000$ What is his value today? How many graduates from Princeton has achieved even close to what he has achieved? In case you don't know, the funding he received from his family were their life savings. Jeff Bezos has talked about how he was worried he might never be able to face them again if his business failed. He was also born out of a teen pregnancy. His mom had to take him to night school. The kind of childhood that is usually used to justify criminals committing crime. " Bernard Arnault took over and expanded his family’s existing construction and luxury interests. " He is the only person in this list who actually an already working business that he carried over. " Larry Ellison and Bill Gates both came from privileged educational backgrounds and had access to capital and contacts that most people never get. " How many people from those same "privileged educational backgrounds" made as much money as these two made? " Only a tiny fraction of the world’s ultra-rich genuinely started from nothing, and even fewer stayed there without institutional support. " Most of them came from middle class backgrounds. If you look at their parents, most of them started from poorer backgrounds and reached middle class backgrounds. Sergey Brin came to US as a refugee. From my friend circles, 4 people tried to start their own businesses. 3 of them failed miserably and lost a lot of money. One person succeeded and made a lot of money, has multiple times the money I have. I will never envy him the way you do with rich people because he took a risk I would never have taken in my life. He made sacrifices in work life balance I would never make. He deserves all the money he has and if he wants to give his money to his kids, he should have all the right to do so. The way you try to trivialise their achievements is downright laughable and it's either down to your complete ignorance about how hard it is to build businesses in such a competitive environment or it's down to your envy. " That’s why proposals like those from the Patriotic Millionaires — which call for higher taxes only on extreme wealth above about £10 million — aren’t about “punishing success.” They’re about balancing an economy where advantage compounds indefinitely at the top while opportunity shrinks below." The "patriotic millionaires" are a bunch of clowns. They had a vote, in which 80% of them said wealth over 10 million should pay wealth tax. Here are a couple of questions: 1) Why 10 million instead of 1 million? Maybe most of the 80% people who voted in favour of wealth tax actually have less than 10 million wealth? 2) If someone who has wealth over 10 million wants to pay more tax, they can already pay voluntary tax payments to the treasury out of goodwill. They don't have to wait till the government taxes them. But it's clear that none of them do so now. The whole thing was just posturing. | |||
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" The "patriotic millionaires" are a bunch of clowns. They had a vote, in which 80% of them said wealth over 10 million should pay wealth tax... " The question isn’t how many people with the same advantages didn’t reach the top — it’s how many people without those advantages ever got close. That’s where social mobility breaks down. Calling people ignorant or envious isn’t an argument, it’s just ad hominem — a way to avoid engaging with the point. And on the Patriotic Millionaires: most of those supporting a higher wealth tax actually have more than £10 million. They’re arguing to tax themselves more because they recognise that unchecked accumulation damages the wider economy. As for “they could just donate more,” that misses the point entirely — taxes aren’t charity. They’re a structural safeguard to keep opportunity from being permanently locked at the top. And let’s be honest — nobody becomes a billionaire through pure hard work. You only reach that level by extracting massive value from other people’s labour. | |||
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" ...taxes aren’t charity. They’re a structural safeguard to keep opportunity from being permanently locked at the top." That's why we pay tax?! 
And here we thought it was to pay for government spending for the country to function - healthcare, roads, police, army, etc. | |||
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" The question isn’t how many people with the same advantages didn’t reach the top — it’s how many people without those advantages ever got close. That’s where social mobility breaks down. " I shared statistics on what % of people reach the top 20% income band. Most of the top 10 richest people come from middle class backgrounds with most of their own parents coming from poorer backgrounds. What more do you need? " Calling people ignorant or envious isn’t an argument, it’s just ad hominem — a way to avoid engaging with the point. " The way you trivialise other people's hardwork, achievements and sacrifices implied ignorance/envy. Is there any other explanation for that? " They’re arguing to tax themselves more because they recognise that unchecked accumulation damages the wider economy. " Still doesn't explain why they chose £10M instead of £1M. Considering the fact that only 80% voted in favour of it, it's hard to say if anyone who actually has £10M in wealth voted in favour of the tax. " As for “they could just donate more,” that misses the point entirely — taxes aren’t charity. They’re a structural safeguard to keep opportunity from being permanently locked at the top. " You are saying that these lovely millionaires really want to pay more taxes. There is actually nothing that stops them from paying taxes if they really want to. There are channels available to pay voluntary taxes. So why don't these lovely "patriotic" millionaires just pay it instead of waiting till the government passes a tax reform? " And let’s be honest — nobody becomes a billionaire through pure hard work. You only reach that level by extracting massive value from other people’s labour. " Don't let envy take over your life like this. Nothing good ever comes out of it. | |||
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" "Don't let envy take over your life like this. Nothing good ever comes out of it." " That’s exactly the kind of lazy personal swipe people fall back on when they run out of facts. I’m not envious — I’m critical of a system that rewards extraction over contribution. There’s a difference. You still haven’t addressed the core point: your statistics only show temporary income movement, not social mobility. They say nothing about class background, generational wealth, or access to privilege. Moving into a higher income bracket for a year or two doesn’t equal structural opportunity. And “middle class” in this context isn’t the same as working class — most of the top 10 billionaires started life with huge advantages: private schooling, financial safety nets, and family or social connections. Those conditions aren’t replicable for most people. As for the Patriotic Millionaires — you’d have to ask them why they set the £10M threshold. But your assumption that “none of them donate” is baseless; several already fund public programmes and charities. The point is that voluntary generosity isn’t a substitute for systemic fairness. And for the record, if I woke up with a billion pounds tomorrow, 99% of it would be gone by the end of the year helping my community. I don’t want that kind of money — I just want a world where it’s not hoarded by a few while everyone else fights over scraps. Critiquing inequality isn’t envy — it’s ethics. | |||
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""..taxes aren’t charity. They’re a structural safeguard to keep opportunity from being permanently locked at the top." That's why we pay tax?! And here we thought it was to pay for government spending for the country to function - healthcare, roads, police, army, etc." I assumed the other poster was referring in this case to progressive income taxes and inheritence taxes that try to modestly limit the accumulation of wealth over generations. We need to pay for government spending, but some on the right would prefer flat rate income tax or even just to rely on consumption taxes such as VAT and duties as these aren't progressive and don't affect inherited wealth in any way. | |||
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" And let’s be honest — nobody becomes a billionaire through pure hard work. You only reach that level by extracting massive value from other people’s labour." I know several people who are worth in excess of a billion pounds. Every single one of them is self made. They became rich because they own the equity in companies they set up. Of course people work for them in those companies but those jobs wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t been set up. The _only_ way to get into the ultra high net worth bracket is to make it yourself. Inherited wealth gets dissipated very quickly when it gets split amongst multiples inheritees who do nothing with it. One of the reasons that wealth was typically handed down to the eldest son (ie primogeniture) was that splitting it up among all the siblings destroys it rapidly. | |||
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" That’s exactly the kind of lazy personal swipe people fall back on when they run out of facts. I’m not envious — I’m critical of a system that rewards extraction over contribution. There’s a difference. " Your idea that billionaires become billionaires out through exploitation/extraction has no ground in truth. The fact that you keep telling this lie shows that's it's down to ignorance/envy. Are you telling me that Amazon, Google and Microsoft didn't contribute to the society and the owners became billionaires out of extraction? They got all that money because they contributed. No one gets paid just for extraction. " You still haven’t addressed the core point: your statistics only show temporary income movement, not social mobility. " 2 years is a long time. I addressed this point already about how this statistic was originally for 1 year and expanding it to 2 years didn't make a huge difference. " They say nothing about class background, generational wealth, or access to privilege. Moving into a higher income bracket for a year or two doesn’t equal structural opportunity. " Moving to top 20% bracket for 2 years means they most definitely have become middle class. " And “middle class” in this context isn’t the same as working class — most of the top 10 billionaires started life with huge advantages: private schooling, financial safety nets, and family or social connections. Those conditions aren’t replicable for most people. " Is it an advantage? Yes. Is that enough to succeed in life. Not at all. It gives them about 10% edge over others. There are numerous people who are born in privileged families and lose their way because they were born in privileged families and were over-adored. The three generation curse is real. " As for the Patriotic Millionaires — you’d have to ask them why they set the £10M threshold. But your assumption that “none of them donate” is baseless; several already fund public programmes and charities. The point is that voluntary generosity isn’t a substitute for systemic fairness. " Still doesn't answer my question. You say that they actually WANT to pay more taxes. There is no reason why they expect the government them to pay more tax. If they WANT and DESIRE to pay more tax, why don't they do it already? What are they waiting for? Do you really believe that these clowns want to pay more taxes? " And for the record, if I woke up with a billion pounds tomorrow, 99% of it would be gone by the end of the year helping my community. I don’t want that kind of money — I just want a world where it’s not hoarded by a few while everyone else fights over scraps. " Easy to say that when you don't have that money. | |||
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"I know several people who are worth in excess of a billion pounds." Everyone will be wondering, when you all go out for a drink at your local pub, whether they disappear to the toilets when it's their round. | |||
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"I know several people who are worth in excess of a billion pounds. Everyone will be wondering, when you all go out for a drink at your local pub, whether they disappear to the toilets when it's their round. " You wouldn’t know they were rich. They look like you and I. They carry their own bags, fly EasyJet and use the tube and bus. They buy their rounds at the pub. | |||
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"I don't use buses but it's good to hear that billionaires do." To be fair the only time I have used them since covid was when they paid  | |||
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" And let’s be honest — nobody becomes a billionaire through pure hard work. You only reach that level by extracting massive value from other people’s labour. I know several people who are worth in excess of a billion pounds. Every single one of them is self made. They became rich because they own the equity in companies they set up. Of course people work for them in those companies but those jobs wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t been set up. The _only_ way to get into the ultra high net worth bracket is to make it yourself. Inherited wealth gets dissipated very quickly when it gets split amongst multiples inheritees who do nothing with it. One of the reasons that wealth was typically handed down to the eldest son (ie primogeniture) was that splitting it up among all the siblings destroys it rapidly. "  | |||
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"And let’s be honest — nobody becomes a billionaire through pure hard work. You only reach that level by extracting massive value from other people’s labour." The alternative of course is that we don't let them become rich, and they don't set up those huge businesses, and the workers don't have any jobs. The billionaires can't extract value from someone that isn't working. | |||
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"Isn't one of the big problems with the UK tax system is that it is incredibly complicated and therefore has many loopholes for clever accountants to exploit. That said, the standard PAYE system seems reasonably fair and means the more you earn the more you pay " Agreed. I think national insurance as a separate tax is pointless and should be just merged with income tax. VAT also needs serious reform. | |||
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" The alternative of course is that we don't let them become rich, and they don't set up those huge businesses, and the workers don't have any jobs. The billionaires can't extract value from someone that isn't working." The other alternative is that "billionaires", with no one to exploit, survive just like everyone else. . I don't see amongst the herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Serengeti Plains, over-arching wildebeest entrepreneurs directing other wildebeest to bring them food and sustenance, but only on their terms. . All the wildebeest just get on with things and every beast manages until old age or predation catches up with them. . I'm fairly sure there are older cows and bulls that know the best food spots, but I'm pretty sure they don't exact a toll for that knowledge. | |||
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" The alternative of course is that we don't let them become rich, and they don't set up those huge businesses, and the workers don't have any jobs. The billionaires can't extract value from someone that isn't working. The other alternative is that "billionaires", with no one to exploit, survive just like everyone else. . I don't see amongst the herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Serengeti Plains, over-arching wildebeest entrepreneurs directing other wildebeest to bring them food and sustenance, but only on their terms. . All the wildebeest just get on with things and every beast manages until old age or predation catches up with them. . I'm fairly sure there are older cows and bulls that know the best food spots, but I'm pretty sure they don't exact a toll for that knowledge." That's such a terrible comparison. Are you seriously saying that living like those wild beasts is a better alternative? Are you happy to give up everything in the world that successful business owners have built? Give up Google search, give up Amazon home delivery, give up Samsung phones, give up internet banking, give up the ecosystem that has made it very easy for small businesses to publish their websites, give up air travel. I can go on and on with the list. | |||
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"I don't see amongst the herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Serengeti Plains, over-arching wildebeest entrepreneurs directing other wildebeest to bring them food and sustenance, but only on their terms." That might have something to do with their lack of language ability. What you will see is the alpha male killing all of his rivals and then keeping all the females for himself. Human behaviour is considerably less unpleasant. | |||
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" That's such a terrible comparison. Are you seriously saying that living like those wild beasts is a better alternative? Are you happy to give up everything in the world that successful business owners have built? Give up Google search, give up Amazon home delivery, give up Samsung phones, give up internet banking, give up the ecosystem that has made it very easy for small businesses to publish their websites, give up air travel. I can go on and on with the list. " It was an illustrative example. The nuance being that other animals don't tend to appoint tech bros, directors, politicians, and all the other apparatus of government in order to function successfully. Yes, there are outliers, but no other animal inflicts as much pain, misery, trauma, death and exploitation upon its own kind, as homo sapiens. Us "intelligent apes". . I think if a wildebeest could talk our tongue, and you offered it our lifestyle and society, warts and all, I imagine it would say "thanks, but no thanks". After all, wouldn't you ? | |||
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" That's such a terrible comparison. Are you seriously saying that living like those wild beasts is a better alternative? Are you happy to give up everything in the world that successful business owners have built? Give up Google search, give up Amazon home delivery, give up Samsung phones, give up internet banking, give up the ecosystem that has made it very easy for small businesses to publish their websites, give up air travel. I can go on and on with the list. It was an illustrative example. The nuance being that other animals don't tend to appoint tech bros, directors, politicians, and all the other apparatus of government in order to function successfully. Yes, there are outliers, but no other animal inflicts as much pain, misery, trauma, death and exploitation upon its own kind, as homo sapiens. " These tech bros, government apparatus, etc are the reason why we have all the things we have above. You can't have one thing without the other. That's why I asked you if you are willing to sacrifice everything. " I think if a wildebeest could talk our tongue, and you offered it our lifestyle and society, warts and all, I imagine it would say "thanks, but no thanks". After all, wouldn't you ? " I wouldn't. Why would I want to struggle for food, put myself in danger in search of it, be open to all types of infection resulting in a reduced lifespan and expose myself to all kinds of bad weather? | |||
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" "These tech bros, government apparatus, etc are the reason why we have all the things we have above. You can't have one thing without the other." " That’s a false dichotomy — it’s not “the current system or nothing.” The history of humanity has been shaped by survival-based, required greed, but we’ve reached a stage of progress where we no longer need to operate that way to flourish. What once helped us survive now holds us back. We can move toward a community-first model without sacrificing innovation or comfort. The real measure of a society isn’t the wealth of its most powerful members, but how it treats its most vulnerable ones. That’s as true for humanity as it is for the animal kingdom. | |||
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" The real measure of a society isn’t the wealth of its most powerful members, but how it treats its most vulnerable ones. " That's a subjective statement (and platitude) - neither of those measures is true, however. And measure of WHAT (or in what units), exactly? | |||
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" "That's a subjective statement (and platitude) - neither of those measures is true, however. And measure of WHAT (or in what units), exactly?" " You can measure it in outcomes — rates of poverty, homelessness, access to healthcare, education, and justice. A society that allows its most vulnerable to fall through the cracks while wealth concentrates at the top might be “successful” on paper, but it’s failing in human terms. Economic health without social wellbeing isn’t real progress. | |||
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" "These tech bros, government apparatus, etc are the reason why we have all the things we have above. You can't have one thing without the other." That’s a false dichotomy — it’s not “the current system or nothing.” The history of humanity has been shaped by survival-based, required greed, but we’ve reached a stage of progress where we no longer need to operate that way to flourish. What once helped us survive now holds us back. We can move toward a community-first model without sacrificing innovation or comfort. The real measure of a society isn’t the wealth of its most powerful members, but how it treats its most vulnerable ones. That’s as true for humanity as it is for the animal kingdom." Egalitarian systems have been tried and they all failed. They remove incentives that drive innovation and progress. All for one and one for all sounds beautiful, but without the opportunity to motivate and reward individuals for their above average contributions, society falls into a lazy, unmotivated group that are destined to fall behind in all areas of life. | |||
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" "Egalitarian systems have been tried and they all failed. They remove incentives that drive innovation and progress." " Most of the failures of so-called egalitarian systems weren’t because the goal was wrong — it was because human greed and power-hoarding took advantage of them. The same mindset that drives modern capitalism — profit over people — is what corrupted those systems from within. The problem isn’t equality; it’s exploitation. We already know from mixed models like the Nordic economies that fairness and innovation can coexist. The issue isn’t rewarding effort — it’s pretending that limitless accumulation by a few somehow benefits everyone. | |||
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" "Egalitarian systems have been tried and they all failed. They remove incentives that drive innovation and progress." Most of the failures of so-called egalitarian systems weren’t because the goal was wrong — it was because human greed and power-hoarding took advantage of them. The same mindset that drives modern capitalism — profit over people — is what corrupted those systems from within. The problem isn’t equality; it’s exploitation. We already know from mixed models like the Nordic economies that fairness and innovation can coexist. The issue isn’t rewarding effort — it’s pretending that limitless accumulation by a few somehow benefits everyone." Give me one example of an egalitarian system that collapsed because of greed from the wealthy rather than the inefficiency and stagnation that comes from suppressing a persons ambition and reward. | |||
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" "Give me one example of an egalitarian system that collapsed because of greed from the wealthy rather than the inefficiency and stagnation that comes from suppressing a person’s ambition and reward." " Greed and concentration of power have undermined equality repeatedly — not some imagined loss of ambition. Post-war social democracies across Europe, for instance, built thriving economies and reduced poverty through progressive taxation, workers’ rights, and strong public services. Those systems only began to erode during the Thatcher and Reagan eras, when deregulation, privatisation, and corporate lobbying shifted wealth back to the top. The Nordic countries have kept much of that balance, proving ambition and fairness can coexist. What collapses systems isn’t equality — it’s when greed starts rewriting the rules to protect itself. | |||
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" "That's a subjective statement (and platitude) - neither of those measures is true, however. And measure of WHAT (or in what units), exactly?" You can measure it in outcomes — rates of poverty, homelessness, access to healthcare, education, and justice. A society that allows its most vulnerable to fall through the cracks while wealth concentrates at the top might be “successful” on paper, but it’s failing in human terms. Economic health without social wellbeing isn’t real progress. " There are a lot of woolly terms there: Successful (undefined) Outcomes (partially defined) Failing in human terms (undefined) You still haven't defined what "measure" means in "the real measure of a society" - you've said WHAT you would measure, but not the fundamental units of the measure of a society. If you're looking to measure justice, for example, then looking at wealth isn't really very helpful. You first need to define what you're measuring (e.g. success of society in happiness levels), then figure out what those units are (e.g. high % surveyed being happy and low % bring unhappy). And even then, it's very subjective. Without defining and agreeing these criteria, statements like "the true measure of a society is..." is a fluffy platitude that could be used to springboard into any position or argument. | |||
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"...the main tax faced by the rich is capital gains tax. Let's look at what being a billionaire means. By billionaire I mean a person who has a billion pounds in liquid assets. To keep things simple I'll ignore all the ways that rich people can reduce their tax bills. " The biggest problem by far are the loopholes that allow the mega wealthy to avoid almost all taxes, including CGT. Especially in the US. The most common being loans against unrealised gains. Meanwhile, the middle classes shoulder most of the burden. | |||
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"The biggest problem by far are the loopholes that allow the mega wealthy to avoid almost all taxes, including CGT. Especially in the US. The most common being loans against unrealised gains. Meanwhile, the middle classes shoulder most of the burden." I agree. Low-interest rate loans against unrealised assets are perhaps the easiest way to avoid taxation but I wanted to simplify things, at least initially. You make a good point about the middle class as they pay 45% tax on earned income above £125,140. Yet billionaires only pay 24% on much larger investment returns. There seems to be a good argument that CGT and income tax rates should be the same or at least similar. I believe they were in the past. I think it was Gordon Brown who lowered CGT to 18% from it being about 30% in the Thatcher years. I've not thought enough about this though so would be interested to hear views on why CGT should be lower than income tax. | |||
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"I've not thought enough about this though so would be interested to hear views on why CGT should be lower than income tax." To encourage investment. The US has a policy of taxing long-held shares at a lower rate. This is a good idea. The more valuable an investment is to a country, the lower it should be taxed. This could be implemented, but it's rather complex to define and complex rules make for loopholes and exploitation. | |||
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" "Give me one example of an egalitarian system that collapsed because of greed from the wealthy rather than the inefficiency and stagnation that comes from suppressing a person’s ambition and reward." Greed and concentration of power have undermined equality repeatedly — not some imagined loss of ambition. Post-war social democracies across Europe, for instance, built thriving economies and reduced poverty through progressive taxation, workers’ rights, and strong public services. Those systems only began to erode during the Thatcher and Reagan eras, when deregulation, privatisation, and corporate lobbying shifted wealth back to the top. The Nordic countries have kept much of that balance, proving ambition and fairness can coexist. What collapses systems isn’t equality — it’s when greed starts rewriting the rules to protect itself." You could have saved an awful amount of time by writing, no I can't provide an example, rather than change the subject matter. | |||
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" You could have saved an awful amount of time by writing, no I can't provide an example, rather than change the subject matter." Clearly Thatcher and Reagan collapsed the post-war social democracies. What more do you need?! | |||
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" You could have saved an awful amount of time by writing, no I can't provide an example, rather than change the subject matter. Clearly Thatcher and Reagan collapsed the post-war social democracies. What more do you need?!" Oh yes, those wildly popular egalitarian social democracies everyone raved about back in the day. | |||
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"To encourage investment." Quite, but it leads to the middle class paying a much higher tax rate that the very wealthy (ignoring the fact that the very wealthy have additional mechanisms for reducing their tax). The basic question is should earned income be taxed at a higher rate than unearned income? And I think many feel it shouldn't be because we want to encourage earnings from people actually doing stuff as much as encourage investment. And if for instance CGT went up to match higher-rate income tax then a billionaire would still be making £22 million a year after tax in the scenario outlined. I'm not sure this would have much impact on the number of bus rides they take. "The US has a policy of taxing long-held shares at a lower rate. This is a good idea. The more valuable an investment is to a country, the lower it should be taxed. This could be implemented, but it's rather complex to define and complex rules make for loopholes and exploitation." In principle yes, but in practice it's difficult as you say. Our tax system does include incentives for "good investment" but this leads to more complexity and constant political tinkering. Government investment is an alternative way of making valuable investments in a country but this has problems too. I think a mix of private and public investment works best but the push to lower taxation places public investment under increasing risk of reduction. | |||
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"The biggest problem by far are the loopholes that allow the mega wealthy to avoid almost all taxes, including CGT. Especially in the US. The most common being loans against unrealised gains. Meanwhile, the middle classes shoulder most of the burden. I agree. Low-interest rate loans against unrealised assets are perhaps the easiest way to avoid taxation but I wanted to simplify things, at least initially. You make a good point about the middle class as they pay 45% tax on earned income above £125,140. Yet billionaires only pay 24% on much larger investment returns. There seems to be a good argument that CGT and income tax rates should be the same or at least similar. I believe they were in the past. I think it was Gordon Brown who lowered CGT to 18% from it being about 30% in the Thatcher years. I've not thought enough about this though so would be interested to hear views on why CGT should be lower than income tax." In your example of £125,104, the PAYE would be paying a lower amount of tax than the billionaire who earned the money through profit. The PAYE would pay approx 47% of the amount earned in tax whilst the billionaire would pay 50 - 55%. The billionaire business activities are likely to have paid a PAYE wages that generate all those 47% payments to HMRC in the first place. Caveat, the billionaire is paying taxes as requested by HMRC policies  | |||
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"Although I'm on the left, I am a captitalist. My philosophical position is that differences in income/wealth are not only completely acceptable , but to be encouraged, IF that difference leads to an improvement in general well-being (we can discuss what this means shortly perhaps). But this is a bit idealistic so I accept that differences can be based on a degree of exploitation. Anyone who thinks the "tech bros" are good at tech is falling for corporate bullshit. People like Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos etc aren't high-level technicians. " I have worked in big tech and I have friends who still do. You have no clue about the scale of decisions they make. Within every company, there are numerous people who keep coming up with ideas which they think are going to change the face of earth. The decision to prioritise the ones who would work and who wouldn't work isn't easily made. If the jobs of CEOs were that easy as you say, the board wouldn't pay shitload of money to retain them. | |||
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"In your example of £125,104, the PAYE would be paying a lower amount of tax than the billionaire who earned the money through profit. The PAYE would pay approx 47% of the amount earned in tax whilst the billionaire would pay 50 - 55%. The billionaire business activities are likely to have paid a PAYE wages that generate all those 47% payments to HMRC in the first place. Caveat, the billionaire is paying taxes as requested by HMRC policies " Could you elaborate on how you think a billionaire paying 24% CGT on an investment portfolio return ends up paying 50 to 55% tax instead. | |||
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" "You could have saved an awful amount of time by writing, no I can't provide an example, rather than change the subject matter." " Post-war social democracies were functioning egalitarian models until deregulation and corporate lobbying stripped them down. The point isn’t nostalgia — it’s that when profit starts outweighing public good, those systems degrade. Insisting on a single metric for social success is both futile and redundant. Societies are complex — their health can’t be captured by GDP alone or any one number. You can measure it in outcomes, though: poverty, education, healthcare access, housing security, life expectancy, equality of opportunity. Those are quantifiable, and when they worsen while wealth concentrates at the top, that’s failure — however you try to spin it. If you want a real-world counterexample, look at the Nordic economies: they combine strong social safety nets, high equality, and world-leading innovation. Fairness and ambition aren’t opposites — they reinforce one another when the system works properly. That’s not philosophy; that’s just data. | |||
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"I have worked in big tech and I have friends who still do. You have no clue about the scale of decisions they make. Within every company, there are numerous people who keep coming up with ideas which they think are going to change the face of earth. The decision to prioritise the ones who would work and who wouldn't work isn't easily made. If the jobs of CEOs were that easy as you say, the board wouldn't pay shitload of money to retain them." If you think Elon Musk is some kind of technical genius then fair enough, we all have our opinions. He's proved to be an extremely successful entrepreneur but I wouldn't hire him as even a junior engineer. | |||
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"In your example of £125,104, the PAYE would be paying a lower amount of tax than the billionaire who earned the money through profit. The PAYE would pay approx 47% of the amount earned in tax whilst the billionaire would pay 50 - 55%. The billionaire business activities are likely to have paid a PAYE wages that generate all those 47% payments to HMRC in the first place. Caveat, the billionaire is paying taxes as requested by HMRC policies Could you elaborate on how you think a billionaire paying 24% CGT on an investment portfolio return ends up paying 50 to 55% tax instead. " Billionaires pay 24% on they sell their assets, but on "business income" they pay a higher combined rate than a PAYE earner. It is also worth taking into account assets are never free. They had to be purchased or built, which generated a lot of tax along the way, corporation tax, stamp duty, VAT, PAYE, NI, and so on. By the time an asset is sold and CGT is applied, it’s already been taxed multiple times throughout its lifecycle. The headline “24% CGT” figure doesn’t represent the total tax burden, it is the final tax payment on top of a long chain of taxation. One last thing... Billionaire has become the buzz word for the rich recently, mainly through social media influencers such as Gary Stevenson. It is deliberately intended to make people angry that we have billionaires who are portrayed as evil money grabbing entities, but as it simply given a free ride to anyone not a millionaire? | |||
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"Billionaires pay 24% on they sell their assets, but on "business income" they pay a higher combined rate than a PAYE earner. It is also worth taking into account assets are never free. They had to be purchased or built, which generated a lot of tax along the way, corporation tax, stamp duty, VAT, PAYE, NI, and so on. By the time an asset is sold and CGT is applied, it’s already been taxed multiple times throughout its lifecycle. The headline “24% CGT” figure doesn’t represent the total tax burden, it is the final tax payment on top of a long chain of taxation. One last thing... Billionaire has become the buzz word for the rich recently, mainly through social media influencers such as Gary Stevenson. It is deliberately intended to make people angry that we have billionaires who are portrayed as evil money grabbing entities, but as it simply given a free ride to anyone not a millionaire?" All you are doing is moving the goalposts. My argument was based on someone who has £1 billion in liquid assets. I didn't say anything about how they got that money. They may have inherited or it may have been profit from a company they ran, in either case various taxes would have been paid on its journey. The notion that "double taxation" is some kind of unusual or evil thing is rubbish. For instance we routinely pay income tax then that money is taxed again with VAT and duties when we spend it. According to the Sunday Times there are only 156 billionaires in the UK so they are just kind of symbolic of the very wealthy. As I said earlier I have no real objection to people being fabulously wealthy, I don't envy them. I used to be slightly wealthy myself but changed my lifestyle because I realised other things were far more important. I just think that the rich (or more usually quite poor right-wingers) shouldn't be arguing for cuts in taxation unless they have sensible proposals for how things like essential public services and old age pensions are going to be paid for. On top of that I think there should be enough public funds left over to help pay for things like international aid, pure scientific research and public art. | |||
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" ... Billionaire has become the buzz word for the rich recently... " Thats because millionaires are now two-a-penny, so to speak. Anyone who has two wodges of 500K in terms of property plus cash, in various ratios, is a present day millionaire. Nothing too unusual, except in the eyes of those who haven't noticed times changing. | |||
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"I have worked in big tech and I have friends who still do. You have no clue about the scale of decisions they make. Within every company, there are numerous people who keep coming up with ideas which they think are going to change the face of earth. The decision to prioritise the ones who would work and who wouldn't work isn't easily made. If the jobs of CEOs were that easy as you say, the board wouldn't pay shitload of money to retain them. If you think Elon Musk is some kind of technical genius then fair enough, we all have our opinions. He's proved to be an extremely successful entrepreneur but I wouldn't hire him as even a junior engineer. " When you grow up in your tech career, you slowly start abstracting away a lot of things. It's a difficult thing in itself. You need to know exactly when you have to dive deep. You need to be able to notice early when things aren't going in the right direction just with your abstract knowledge. Anyone who has reached the top did so because they are good at these skills. If you ask Elon to do a junior engineer's work today, will he be able do it? Not at all. Is it possible for him to learn and do it in a few days? Definitely. But his time is better spent doing the kind of work he is doing today. That's why he has been paid the big bucks. If you do not want to hire him, fair enough. But I have friends who have worked in Tesla, one guy directly with Musk himself. Based on what I have heard about him from these people I trust, I would happily hire him if I own a company and he is willing to work. | |||
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" ... Billionaire has become the buzz word for the rich recently... Thats because millionaires are now two-a-penny, so to speak. Anyone who has two wodges of 500K in terms of property plus cash, in various ratios, is a present day millionaire. Nothing too unusual, except in the eyes of those who haven't noticed times changing. " On paper millionaires agreed there are many, but the jump from multi millionaire to billionaire is too extreme. | |||
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"When you grow up in your tech career, you slowly start abstracting away a lot of things. It's a difficult thing in itself. You need to know exactly when you have to dive deep. You need to be able to notice early when things aren't going in the right direction just with your abstract knowledge. Anyone who has reached the top did so because they are good at these skills. If you ask Elon to do a junior engineer's work today, will he be able do it? Not at all. Is it possible for him to learn and do it in a few days? Definitely. But his time is better spent doing the kind of work he is doing today. That's why he has been paid the big bucks. If you do not want to hire him, fair enough. But I have friends who have worked in Tesla, one guy directly with Musk himself. Based on what I have heard about him from these people I trust, I would happily hire him if I own a company and he is willing to work." As I said we all have our opinions. Do I think if I took Musk on as a junior engineer he'd learn how to do the job in a few days? No, the guy has no serious background in engineering and exhibits multiple signs of being mentally unstable. I genuinely wouldn't take him on as an intern working for nothing because I don't think he has any real technical skills and doesn't have the discipline to develop them. I've seen no evidence at all that he has any real understanding of mathematics or professional level software engineering skills. Or mechanical engineering. Do you think this guy could strip and rebuild a car engine? I wouldn't even get into a car if he was driving it. That's not to say he isn't really good at entrepreneurship. I totally agree that he is brilliant at what he does. But what he does isn't engineering. | |||
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" As I said we all have our opinions. Do I think if I took Musk on as a junior engineer he'd learn how to do the job in a few days? No, the guy has no serious background in engineering and exhibits multiple signs of being mentally unstable. " Are you saying that you would discriminate people while hiring based on mental health issues? " I genuinely wouldn't take him on as an intern working for nothing because I don't think he has any real technical skills and doesn't have the discipline to develop them. I've seen no evidence at all that he has any real understanding of mathematics or professional level software engineering skills. Or mechanical engineering. Do you think this guy could strip and rebuild a car engine? " Even most junior engineers today don't know how to do this, considering that they are automated. The question you are asking is itself lame. It's like asking if Jeff Bezos is capable of doing the company's expense accounts himself. Not every CEO knows how to do every junior employee's work. " I wouldn't even get into a car if he was driving it. That's not to say he isn't really good at entrepreneurship. I totally agree that he is brilliant at what he does. But what he does isn't engineering. " Do you even know what he does? The decisions he has made to push for superchargers, factory expansion, robotaxis, etc. Are you saying that he made all these decisions without any understanding of the engineering difficulties involved? If you hate him for his political views, that's fair. But you don't have to shit on everything someone does just because they don't agree with your political views. | |||
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" Do you even know what he does?" He's a flawed individual. But he's a visionary who has the tenacity to make things happen. | |||
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" As I said we all have our opinions. Do I think if I took Musk on as a junior engineer he'd learn how to do the job in a few days? No, the guy has no serious background in engineering and exhibits multiple signs of being mentally unstable. Are you saying that you would discriminate people while hiring based on mental health issues? I genuinely wouldn't take him on as an intern working for nothing because I don't think he has any real technical skills and doesn't have the discipline to develop them. I've seen no evidence at all that he has any real understanding of mathematics or professional level software engineering skills. Or mechanical engineering. Do you think this guy could strip and rebuild a car engine? Even most junior engineers today don't know how to do this, considering that they are automated. The question you are asking is itself lame. It's like asking if Jeff Bezos is capable of doing the company's expense accounts himself. Not every CEO knows how to do every junior employee's work. I wouldn't even get into a car if he was driving it. That's not to say he isn't really good at entrepreneurship. I totally agree that he is brilliant at what he does. But what he does isn't engineering. Do you even know what he does? The decisions he has made to push for superchargers, factory expansion, robotaxis, etc. Are you saying that he made all these decisions without any understanding of the engineering difficulties involved? If you hate him for his political views, that's fair. But you don't have to shit on everything someone does just because they don't agree with your political views." Agreed, Musk’s strategic thinking is one of the best. I honestly can’t think of anyone else who has managed to operate as effectively and at scale on a global platform. | |||
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" Do you even know what he does? He's a flawed individual. But he's a visionary who has the tenacity to make things happen." And for anyone who doesn't like his politics... Outside of Toyota (Prius/hybrid technology), he has done more to push vehicles away from CO2 emissions than any other individual on the planet. | |||
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"Are you saying that you would discriminate people while hiring based on mental health issues?" Are you saying Musk should be hired on DEI grounds? "Even most junior engineers today don't know how to do this, considering that they are automated. The question you are asking is itself lame. It's like asking if Jeff Bezos is capable of doing the company's expense accounts himself. Not every CEO knows how to do every junior employee's work." An engineer knows how to methodically study something all the way down to the basics. I was actually being slightly unkind to mechanical engineers with that analogy as taking an engine apart and rebuilding it is pretty trivial compared with designing an engine. If Bezos couldn't even do his own companiy's accounts then he's not exactly a financial genius is he? "Do you even know what he does? The decisions he has made to push for superchargers, factory expansion, robotaxis, etc. Are you saying that he made all these decisions without any understanding of the engineering difficulties involved?" Pretty much yes. He has a "vision" and pays engineers to do the actual work. Hence my earlier point about exploitation. "If you hate him for his political views, that's fair. But you don't have to shit on everything someone does just because they don't agree with your political views." Musk's politics are all over the shop and seem to change every few months. I agree with him on some things but when he presents as a neo-nazi I disagree. I get that he's a kind of genius but he's not an engineer, which is all I've been trying to get across. | |||
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" Do you even know what he does? He's a flawed individual. But he's a visionary who has the tenacity to make things happen. And for anyone who doesn't like his politics... Outside of Toyota (Prius/hybrid technology), he has done more to push vehicles away from CO2 emissions than any other individual on the planet." Exactly! The people who claim to be environmentalists owe him a lot considering how much impact he has had in making electric cars available for the masses. | |||
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" Do you even know what he does? He's a flawed individual. But he's a visionary who has the tenacity to make things happen. And for anyone who doesn't like his politics... Outside of Toyota (Prius/hybrid technology), he has done more to push vehicles away from CO2 emissions than any other individual on the planet. Exactly! The people who claim to be environmentalists owe him a lot considering how much impact he has had in making electric cars available for the masses." Shame it's so stupid looking and not much use for anything other than feeling smug in. Imagine trying to bonk in the back of one of those. Recipe for a slipped disc! | |||
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" Imagine trying to bonk in the back of one of those. Recipe for a slipped disc!" Have you ever been inside one? They can be exceptionally roomy, for their class - especially the Y. | |||
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" Are you saying Musk should be hired on DEI grounds? " No I didn't. I don't believe he is mentally unstable. You are the one who claimed that he is mentally unstable and hence you wouldn't hire him. As for DEI, that's a whole different topic. It sets race/sex based hiring quotas. Never heard of DEI set hiring quotas for mentally unstable individuals. " An engineer knows how to methodically study something all the way down to the basics. I was actually being slightly unkind to mechanical engineers with that analogy as taking an engine apart and rebuilding it is pretty trivial compared with designing an engine. " It looks like you are completely out of touch with modern reality. Most mechanical engineers today do not know how to do all today, just like how most software engineers don't know how virtual memory and paging works which are a basic operating systems concepts. " If Bezos couldn't even do his own companiy's accounts then he's not exactly a financial genius is he? " Bezos doesn't know taxes in each country. If he wants to learn, he can learn. Similarly, if Musk wants to learn mechanics, he can. But these people won't do that because they are busy doing something much more valuable. " Pretty much yes. He has a "vision" and pays engineers to do the actual work. Hence my earlier point about exploitation. " This shows your level of ignorance about how corporate decisions are made. It's not like Musk says "I want superchargers" and people build it. It's not like he says "I want robotaxis" and people build it. For superchargers, his own employees and even researchers come up with NUMEROUS proposals, each involving different pros and cons. It's his job to decide the one that he wants to invest billions in. And that decision is not easy to make unless he understands the problem well. Same with robotaxis. And his job doesn't end with choosing to invest. He keeps in touch all the time with the people who are doing the work to ensure that it works well. He should be ready to fail early and change direction if necessary. It's not enough that he only knows the engineering stuff either. He needs to keep in mind the cost for raw materials, regulations, user experience and lots of other factors. This is what he is paid the big bucks for. Not for just having a vision. Any random tosser in the street can have a vision. Making a business successful is a whole different ball game. | |||
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" This shows your level of ignorance about how corporate decisions are made" *about the role of a Chief Engineer. He is arguably NOT a good CEO. | |||
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" This shows your level of ignorance about how corporate decisions are made *about the role of a Chief Engineer. He is arguably NOT a good CEO." That’s actually fair — Musk has a track record of being a poor CEO but a strong visionary, though even that’s debatable. He’s been pushed out of leadership roles before (Zip2, PayPal), nearly ran Tesla into the ground during “production hell,” and his time at Twitter/X was a financial disaster — $44 billion down to about $15 billion before he brought in a real CEO. As for the “chief engineer” claim, there’s no real evidence he does engineering himself. Former staff at both SpaceX and Tesla describe him as a volatile but highly effective project manager — someone who sets broad goals, demands impossible timelines, and pushes teams to deliver, but doesn’t actually design or build. He’s the “why” and “what” guy, not the “how.” The myth of Musk as a hands-on engineering genius is mostly branding — and, at times, even his biggest liability. | |||
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" As for the “chief engineer” claim, there’s no real evidence he does engineering himself. " Chief Engineers don't do (all of the) engineering themselves. They manage senior engineers who have teams of other engineers... They are necessarily high-level, who deep dive when needed, but also perform a slew of other tasks to keep things focused and on track. " Former staff at both SpaceX and Tesla describe him as a volatile but highly effective project manager — someone who sets broad goals, demands impossible timelines, and pushes teams to deliver, but doesn’t actually design or build. " ...like a Chief Engineer should. And he's he's known for getting very much into some of the details when he feels it's important with certain things (e.g. his ridiculous and dogged insistence on optical over LiDAR). " He’s the “why” and “what” guy, not the “how.” " You know this how? | |||
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" his time at Twitter/X was a financial disaster — $44 billion down to about $15 billion before he brought in a real CEO. " Twitter was running at a loss even before he bought it. Either way, it's a problem only if he bought it to make money out of it. | |||
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" You know this how?" That’s kind of my point though — he doesn’t really function as a Chief Engineer in practice. A true Chief Engineer balances technical depth with leadership; Musk tends to override experts rather than coordinate them. That’s not the same thing. When I say he’s the “why and what” guy rather than the “how,” I’m not guessing — I’m summarising what people who’ve actually worked with him have said. His “technical input” usually means pushing his own ideas (like Tesla’s failed factory automation or the full rejection of LiDAR) against the advice of his engineers. Sometimes those gambles work; other times they nearly sink the company. That’s not the mark of an engineering leader — it’s the mark of a volatile project driver who occasionally gets lucky. | |||
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"Twitter was running at a loss even before he bought it. Either way, it's a problem only if he bought it to make money out of it. " True, Twitter was struggling — but Musk’s management made it dramatically worse. He overpaid by tens of billions, gutted moderation and ad safety, drove off major advertisers, and tanked brand value. Even if profit wasn’t his goal, competence should’ve been. A CEO who wipes out two-thirds of a platform’s valuation in six months isn’t making a bold play — they’re proving they don’t understand the product or its market. | |||
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"Twitter was running at a loss even before he bought it. Either way, it's a problem only if he bought it to make money out of it. True, Twitter was struggling — but Musk’s management made it dramatically worse. He overpaid by tens of billions, gutted moderation and ad safety, drove off major advertisers, and tanked brand value. Even if profit wasn’t his goal, competence should’ve been. A CEO who wipes out two-thirds of a platform’s valuation in six months isn’t making a bold play — they’re proving they don’t understand the product or its market." You're looking at it from a certain viewpoint, which is fair enough. But look at how he's made an impact on global society with the changes. You may not agree with them, but perhaps that was his vision. He certainly made corporate missteps, but that's only one aspect. | |||
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"You're looking at it from a certain viewpoint, which is fair enough. But look at how he's made an impact on global society with the changes. You may not agree with them, but perhaps that was his vision. He certainly made corporate missteps, but that's only one aspect." That’s fair — but being disruptive isn’t the same as being visionary. I’ve never said he’s been ineffective; I said he operates like a volatile project manager — someone who pushes hard, breaks things fast, and occasionally hits gold, but just as often causes chaos in the process. That approach can work for product development, but it’s disastrous in roles like CEO or Chief Engineer, where stability, long-term planning, and stakeholder confidence actually matter. You can’t call every fire he starts “part of the vision.” | |||
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" That’s fair — but being disruptive isn’t the same as being visionary." No, it isn't. He's still a visionary - just look at his Mars vision. That doesn't mean he'll ever get there, but he sees a big picture and pursues it through an engineering lens. Most crucially, he has the persistence and tenacity to see things through. He's a very flawed individual with some messed up ideas - he should stay out of politics (although DOGE was a great idea in theory, and partly in practice) and his comments on the cave diver were disgusting, as was his doubling down on them. He's a net asset for the USA financially, and for the world if you care about vehicle emissions (his insistence on EVs being viable forced the hands of other manufacturers years before they otherwise would have shifted). Had he been operating in another country, and had that other country had similar scope for his activities, he would have enriched that country. (Getting back to topic) | |||
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"Twitter was running at a loss even before he bought it. Either way, it's a problem only if he bought it to make money out of it. True, Twitter was struggling — but Musk’s management made it dramatically worse. He overpaid by tens of billions, gutted moderation and ad safety, drove off major advertisers, and tanked brand value. Even if profit wasn’t his goal, competence should’ve been. A CEO who wipes out two-thirds of a platform’s valuation in six months isn’t making a bold play — they’re proving they don’t understand the product or its market." All the things you mentioned were temporary reactions to what he did. As of now, Twitter still runs well. The new CEO he hired did not have to reverse any of the things he did. Plus, he achieved what he wanted by using Twitter. So overall, it's a win for him. | |||
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" That’s fair — but being disruptive isn’t the same as being visionary. I’ve never said he’s been ineffective; I said he operates like a volatile project manager — someone who pushes hard, breaks things fast, and occasionally hits gold, but just as often causes chaos in the process. That approach can work for product development, but it’s disastrous in roles like CEO or Chief Engineer, where stability, long-term planning, and stakeholder confidence actually matter. You can’t call every fire he starts “part of the vision.”" It's a fact that Tesla made a lot of progress in EVs before the terribly bureaucratic European car companies could catch up. The main competition that Tesla receives still comes from China. The EU had to impose taxes on Chinese cars to protect the European car companies from going under. So from a business perspective, his methods work. "Stability and long term planning" are just words used to spin corporate rigidity and bureaucracy in a positive sense. Markets change much faster. The businesses which survive are the ones which can change direction faster to adapt to the market. He does it well and hence he is one of the highest paid CEOs in the world. | |||
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" That’s fair — but being disruptive isn’t the same as being visionary. I’ve never said he’s been ineffective; I said he operates like a volatile project manager — someone who pushes hard, breaks things fast, and occasionally hits gold, but just as often causes chaos in the process. That approach can work for product development, but it’s disastrous in roles like CEO or Chief Engineer, where stability, long-term planning, and stakeholder confidence actually matter. You can’t call every fire he starts “part of the vision.” It's a fact that Tesla made a lot of progress in EVs before the terribly bureaucratic European car companies could catch up. The main competition that Tesla receives still comes from China. The EU had to impose taxes on Chinese cars to protect the European car companies from going under. So from a business perspective, his methods work. "Stability and long term planning" are just words used to spin corporate rigidity and bureaucracy in a positive sense. Markets change much faster. The businesses which survive are the ones which can change direction faster to adapt to the market. He does it well and hence he is one of the highest paid CEOs in the world." We need a Musk or two here, to move things along. The government has identified red tape is a blocker which is a good start, but they are not casting the net wide enough.. They lean into governance and regulatory boards for ideas, when entrepreneurs with a track record of innovation and disruption would provide a much more direct route to reducing unnecessary overheads. We have the potential to become a platform for growth and innovation, reducing time to market and poaching business by becoming the enabler rather than blocker. If the government concentrated on promoting business development rather than taxing it, we could stimulate productivity literally overnight, at the expense of our more stubborn EU counterparts. | |||
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"No I didn't. I don't believe he is mentally unstable. You are the one who claimed that he is mentally unstable and hence you wouldn't hire him. As for DEI, that's a whole different topic. It sets race/sex based hiring quotas. Never heard of DEI set hiring quotas for mentally unstable individuals." The DEI thing was a joke, but as you don't seem to have any sense of humour it obviously went over your head. I didn't say I wouldn't hire him because he was mentally unstable I said I wouldn't hire him (even if he worked for free) because I see no evidence that he has mathematical or professional level software engineering skills. In addition the evidence of him being potentially mentally unstable (or on bad drugs) means I don't think he has the discipline required to acquire such skills. "It looks like you are completely out of touch with modern reality. Most mechanical engineers today do not know how to do all today, just like how most software engineers don't know how virtual memory and paging works which are a basic operating systems concepts." Don't be daft. Of course software engineers know how virtual memory works. It's not possible to do the job without a thorough understanding of how computers work. Although programming is only one aspect of software engineering you can't be a software engineer without expert level programming skills. And part of that skillset is having good knowledge of system level programming in UNIX (because virtually everything in the modern OS world is derived from UNIX). Part of the UNIX system exposes virtual memory to programmers so that it can be accessed not just by the OS but by applications. I first used mmap() in the mid 1990's because I was dealing with data structures that were too large to fit in the RAM of contemporary machines. I still use the Java encapsulation for creating shared memory spaces to do IPC. To be a software engineer you have to understand computers all the way down to operations and register level which is why if you can't program in assembly language then you aren't really a software engineer. And most software engineers understand a lot about digital electronics too, so understand how things work all the way down to gate and individual transistor level. I suspect you've been involved with one or two companies that give programmers with limited experience the title software engineer because it sounds impressive. | |||
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" The DEI thing was a joke, but as you don't seem to have any sense of humour it obviously went over your head. " Nice cop out. " I didn't say I wouldn't hire him because he was mentally unstable I said I wouldn't hire him (even if he worked for free) because I see no evidence that he has mathematical or professional level software engineering skills. In addition the evidence of him being potentially mentally unstable (or on bad drugs) means I don't think he has the discipline required to acquire such skills. " You are implying the same thing, only indirectly. Musk is mentally unstable, so he wouldn't have discipline to learn, so you wouldn't hire him. " Don't be daft. Of course software engineers know how virtual memory works. It's not possible to do the job without a thorough understanding of how computers work. " You are the one who is being daft here. I am a software engineer and I graduated over 15 years back. I understand virtual memory and paging because I had to use C++ and even assembly language for my first job. Many software engineers today don't even have computer science background and modern programming languages abstract everything away. With AI being used to do coding, most most software engineers in the future wouldn't even learn basic language constructs, let alone operating system constructs. " And part of that skillset is having good knowledge of system level programming in UNIX (because virtually everything in the modern OS world is derived from UNIX). Part of the UNIX system exposes virtual memory to programmers so that it can be accessed not just by the OS but by applications. I first used mmap() in the mid 1990's because I was dealing with data structures that were too large to fit in the RAM of contemporary machines. I still use the Java encapsulation for creating shared memory spaces to do IPC. To be a software engineer you have to understand computers all the way down to operations and register level which is why if you can't program in assembly language then you aren't really a software engineer. And most software engineers understand a lot about digital electronics too, so understand how things work all the way down to gate and individual transistor level. " This post looks like an attempt to brag about your skills, but unfortunately it shows that your knowledge about how software engineers work today is completely outdated. A friend mentors a university student. That student asked him "How did it feel to write code by yourself?" That's how fast things are progressing. Yes, specific teams in some specific companies still have to learn low level stuff. But over 90% of jobs require you to write code over well oiled frameworks like Node, react, PHP, Ruby on rails, or use android/iOS development frameworks where the inner workings are abstracted away. Even Java is considered a legacy programming language by many in the industry. I used to ask interview questions about virtual memory and paging until about a decade back and even then most professional software engineers struggled to answer them. After that, I moved to different companies and the interview guidance focussed on other problems solving skills and not on systems internals because you don't need to understand system internals to do your work in these companies. " I suspect you've been involved with one or two companies that give programmers with limited experience the title software engineer because it sounds impressive. " I have worked with 4 companies so far. I keep interviewing with numerous companies just to keep myself in touch with my interview skills and over 90% of companies do not care about your knowledge of system internals. The software development ecosystem and expectations from software engineers has moved on from your times. You should probably catch up. | |||
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"I wouldn't hire him (even if he worked for free) because I see no evidence that he has mathematical or professional level software engineering skills. " And nobody in their right mind would get Steve Jobs to fix an iPhone... Or even an Apple 2C. (You'd get Steve Wosniack for that). " Don't be daft. Of course software engineers know how virtual memory works. " Hahaha... Have you met most IT graduates today? Even your average full-stack developer rarely knows or thinks about this kind of thing nowadays... " It's not possible to do the job without a thorough understanding of how computers work. " Rubbish! It's more important to know how AWS works than virtual memory - developers barely touch "computers" in this day and age. You allocate resources, which are infinitely available (well, within reason and cost). " Although programming is only one aspect of software engineering you can't be a software engineer without expert level programming skills. And part of that skillset is having good knowledge of system level programming in UNIX (because virtually everything in the modern OS world is derived from UNIX). Part of the UNIX system exposes virtual memory to programmers so that it can be accessed not just by the OS but by applications. I first used mmap() in the mid 1990's because I was dealing with data structures that were too large to fit in the RAM of contemporary machines. I still use the Java encapsulation for creating shared memory spaces to do IPC. To be a software engineer you have to understand computers all the way down to operations and register level which is why if you can't program in assembly language then you aren't really a software engineer. " Wow.
Even up to twenty years ago, you had a point. This explains much of your above posting, actually. Things have changed a LOT since those days.
" And most software engineers understand a lot about digital electronics too, so understand how things work all the way down to gate and individual transistor level. " Nah. Some did it in theory in university. " I suspect you've been involved one or two companies that give programmers with limited experience the title software engineer because it sounds impressive. " Look - you actually make good points, but things aren't the same as they used to be. Here's an AI-produced software engineer job spec: Tool: Gemini Prompt: Write a job spec for a software engineer in 300 words or less (it failed). ----------------------------- We are seeking a talented and motivated Software Engineer to join our growing engineering team. In this role, you will be instrumental in designing, developing, testing, and deploying high-quality software solutions. You'll collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers and designers, to translate ideas into robust and scalable applications that meet user needs and business goals. ?Key Responsibilities ?Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code across the full technology stack. ?Design and implement scalable software architectures and systems. ?Participate in code reviews, testing, and debugging to ensure code quality and system reliability. ?Collaborate with product and design teams to understand requirements and deliver compelling features. ?Contribute to technical discussions and help drive continuous improvement in our engineering practices. ?Troubleshoot and resolve production issues in a timely manner. ?Requirements ?Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. ?[X]+ years of professional software development experience. ?Strong proficiency in one or more general-purpose programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, Go, JavaScript, C#). ?Experience with [e.g., cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure), databases (SQL, NoSQL), and modern web frameworks (React, Angular, Spring)]. ?Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, and software design principles. ?Excellent problem-solving and communication skills. ?A passion for technology and a commitment to continuous learning. | |||
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"10 PRINT "HELLO, 2025!" 20 GOTO 10" Meh. Basic stuff. | |||
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"10 PRINT "HELLO, 2025!" 20 GOTO 10 Meh. Basic stuff." It's back to the future | |||
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"10 PRINT "HELLO, 2025!" 20 GOTO 10 Meh. Basic stuff. It's back to the future" Oh... Another one from years ago.. Google "evolution of a programmer humour" | |||
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"Okay... Seems to be the right audience and discussion thread: https://youtu.be/m4BdAu1e7TQ?si=0xWpj3paipOHlFrN" Genuine  | |||
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"Okay... Seems to be the right audience and discussion thread: https://youtu.be/m4BdAu1e7TQ?si=0xWpj3paipOHlFrN Genuine "Yeah, he's brilliant. He's got a lot of content. A hero to us geeks! | |||
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"10 PRINT "HELLO, 2025!" 20 GOTO 10 Meh. Basic stuff." | |||
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"All this talk about things moving at a high pace in software engineering seems a bit out of touch. I just looked up the latest TIOBE stats and Python is the most popular language but it's not used in production by anyone I know. The next most popular language is C closely followed by C++ and Java. C is 53 years old. Fortran is in 11th place FFS! Fortran is 68 years old. " Define production. When it comes to training ML models or doing statistical programming, Python is a leader — and it likely always will be. But Python, like any other programming language, is just a tool. The real question is: what problem am I trying to solve, and how quickly and efficiently can I solve it? Your area of expertise involves low-level programming, which is great — but not every problem requires that approach. If I want to spin up a web application, writing it in Assembly, C, or C++ would be massive overkill and poor software engineering. The key is to use the tools that make the most sense, instead of reinventing the wheel every time. Fortran is 68 years old, and C came after it — for a reason. Neither Fortran nor C are perfect; both have shortcomings, and newer tools emerged to fill those gaps. If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. But not everything is a nail — some things are screws, and they need a different tool. | |||
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" If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. But not everything is a nail — some things are screws, and they need a different tool." You know where you can shove your new-fangled twisty nails? And all you need for it is a twisty hammer, anyway. Nails were good enough for the Romans, they should be good enough for us! | |||
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"Define production. When it comes to training ML models or doing statistical programming, Python is a leader — and it likely always will be. But Python, like any other programming language, is just a tool. The real question is: what problem am I trying to solve, and how quickly and efficiently can I solve it? Your area of expertise involves low-level programming, which is great — but not every problem requires that approach. If I want to spin up a web application, writing it in Assembly, C, or C++ would be massive overkill and poor software engineering. The key is to use the tools that make the most sense, instead of reinventing the wheel every time. Fortran is 68 years old, and C came after it — for a reason. Neither Fortran nor C are perfect; both have shortcomings, and newer tools emerged to fill those gaps. If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. But not everything is a nail — some things are screws, and they need a different tool." Production code is that used in a final release of a product. It's been optimized for high-performance. I totally agree that there isn't a single language suitable for all purposes. For instance weakly-typed prototyping languages are fantastic for quickly testing an idea. There's a lot to be said for duck typing OO in small projects. A lot depends on scale and whether multi-threading is involved. I like languages like Java (and Eiffel in the past) because I've generally worked on large scale performance critical projects that take around nine months to complete and strong typing, object-orientation, contracts and AGC become more and more useful as you get beyond a certain level of complexity. I also use immutable objects a lot because much of my stuff involves multiple interacting threads and immutability is a better solution than things like locks and without AGC immutability is difficult. My main point was that well established software engineering tools aren't being thrown away and that having some knowledge of system level and assembly programming gives useful insights. If performance isn't an issue then obviously it would be insane to use assembly. But to me you aren't really a software engineer if assembly is a totally alien thing because without doing at least a little educational assembly coding you don't really know how computers work. But this again is from my perspective of always struggling to get the bloody things to do what I want in realtime. Also Python is 34 years old, so not exactly a new kid on the block. | |||
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"All this talk about things moving at a high pace in software engineering seems a bit out of touch. I just looked up the latest TIOBE stats and Python is the most popular language but it's not used in production by anyone I know. The next most popular language is C closely followed by C++ and Java. C is 53 years old. Fortran is in 11th place FFS! Fortran is 68 years old. " Did you read how the Tiobe index is calculated? It's based on the number of search engine results when you make a query with the language name. It's a terrible way to measure popularity of a language. | |||
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"Did you read how the Tiobe index is calculated? It's based on the number of search engine results when you make a query with the language name. It's a terrible way to measure popularity of a language." I agree it's a poor index, but it does seem to match the reality which I personally see which is that Python is extremely popular outside of production and C, C++ and Java are the mainstream production languages. If you have a better source then please share. | |||
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"Did you read how the Tiobe index is calculated? It's based on the number of search engine results when you make a query with the language name. It's a terrible way to measure popularity of a language. I agree it's a poor index, but it does seem to match the reality which I personally see which is that Python is extremely popular outside of production and C, C++ and Java are the mainstream production languages. If you have a better source then please share." Referring to one of your earlier posts about production code — you mentioned concepts like high performance. But what exactly defines “high performance”? It’s a subjective measure. For instance, 20 microseconds might be considered high performance in audio sampling — but why not 20 nanoseconds? The threshold depends entirely on context and purpose. The same goes for production code. You suggested that no one uses Python in production, but that’s simply not true. Many highly successful companies — Instagram and Spotify, to name two — run major parts of their systems on Python. Would you classify their code as experimental rather than production-grade? And circling back to the Musk topic (which was a diversion in itself from the topic of tax) — is he “high performing” in your view? Maybe not. But according to his company boards and results, he clearly is. Context defines performance — whether it’s in code or people. | |||
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"Referring to one of your earlier posts about production code — you mentioned concepts like high performance. But what exactly defines “high performance”? It’s a subjective measure. For instance, 20 microseconds might be considered high performance in audio sampling — but why not 20 nanoseconds? The threshold depends entirely on context and purpose. The same goes for production code. You suggested that no one uses Python in production, but that’s simply not true. Many highly successful companies — Instagram and Spotify, to name two — run major parts of their systems on Python. Would you classify their code as experimental rather than production-grade? And circling back to the Musk topic (which was a diversion in itself from the topic of tax) — is he “high performing” in your view? Maybe not. But according to his company boards and results, he clearly is. Context defines performance — whether it’s in code or people." The thing about 20 microseconds in applications like audio synthesis and processing running at 48 kHz is that it's a hard limit. Everything, your DAW and all your plugins have to cooperate to fill the buffer at an average rate of 20 microseconds per sample. If this doesn't happen then buffer underrun occurs and the result is very unpleasant crackling and distortion. It's a real world problem. Increasing the buffer size helps with peak load but you end up with more latency and it'll still make a terrible noise if the average throughput isn't maintained. So using something other than a production language isn't feasible in the work I do. Games programming can be more forgiving because you can drop the frame rate a little without most people noticing, but as far as I know virtually all commercial games are written in C++. Also dynamically typed languages like Python can just fall over and raise an exception at any point because variables are untyped references. It works great at a small scale but if your program is 20,000+ lines of complex multi-threaded code it's simply not a practical language. It's too slow and too unregulated. I don't have anything against Python (other than a few design choices that seemed to be willfully bending convention for no good reason) and I think it's an interesting and very useful language but it's not a production language. If companies like Instagram and Spotify are using it then good for them. But I doubt they are deploying Python in anything complex or time critical. My point about Musk is simply that I wouldn't hire him as a software engineer, even if he would work for free. | |||
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"Did you read how the Tiobe index is calculated? It's based on the number of search engine results when you make a query with the language name. It's a terrible way to measure popularity of a language. I agree it's a poor index, but it does seem to match the reality which I personally see which is that Python is extremely popular outside of production and C, C++ and Java are the mainstream production languages. If you have a better source then please share." I don't know what kind of reality you see. I have worked at many companies in different countries and have friends who have worked all over. C and C++ are used in some places, yes. And some are even moving to Rust for these use-cases. But Fortran? The index is heavily biased in favour of older languages because there would be more websites which were published over the years. | |||
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"I don't know what kind of reality you see. I have worked at many companies in different countries and have friends who have worked all over. C and C++ are used in some places, yes. And some are even moving to Rust for these use-cases. But Fortran? The index is heavily biased in favour of older languages because there would be more websites which were published over the years." Yeah, I was surprised by Fortran but apparently it's had a bit of a resurgence. Possibly because a lot of old scientific work used it and some academics are combing through stuff done in the past looking for hidden gems. I'm also surprised by how popular C++ is. I was an early adopter in the 1980's and used it for a long time but it's an horrific bloated mess that I'm glad I no longer have to use. To any lay people out there if you look at C, C++ and Java they would all look indentical but they aren't. As I said, if you have a better source for language use please post it as I agree that the TIOBE index is flawed. | |||
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"I don't know what kind of reality you see. I have worked at many companies in different countries and have friends who have worked all over. C and C++ are used in some places, yes. And some are even moving to Rust for these use-cases. But Fortran? The index is heavily biased in favour of older languages because there would be more websites which were published over the years. Yeah, I was surprised by Fortran but apparently it's had a bit of a resurgence. Possibly because a lot of old scientific work used it and some academics are combing through stuff done in the past looking for hidden gems. I'm also surprised by how popular C++ is. I was an early adopter in the 1980's and used it for a long time but it's an horrific bloated mess that I'm glad I no longer have to use. To any lay people out there if you look at C, C++ and Java they would all look indentical but they aren't. As I said, if you have a better source for language use please post it as I agree that the TIOBE index is flawed. " Redmonk | |||
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"Redmonk" Thanks, I did a search on there and found their ranking from 2021 which was... JavaScript, Python, Java, PHP, C#. C++. Is that the one you meant? | |||
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"Redmonk Thanks, I did a search on there and found their ranking from 2021 which was... JavaScript, Python, Java, PHP, C#. C++. Is that the one you meant? " There is one for January 2025 | |||
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"There is one for January 2025" What did it say? | |||
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"The stack overflow list of most popular technologies look right to me." Me too, and if you strip out the scripting and markup stuff we end up with something quite similar to the TIOBE index. With the ranking being Python, Java, C#, C++ and C. | |||
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"The stack overflow list of most popular technologies look right to me. Me too, and if you strip out the scripting and markup stuff we end up with something quite similar to the TIOBE index. With the ranking being Python, Java, C#, C++ and C. " Not really. JavaScript and Typescript aren't just a scripting languages anymore. They are heavily used for server side development with the increase in popularity of NodeJS. | |||
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"Not really. JavaScript and Typescript aren't just a scripting languages anymore. They are heavily used for server side development with the increase in popularity of NodeJS." Fair enough although I believe all JavaScript engines are written in C++, C, Java or Go (which itself is written in C++). So for instance when you are using Node.js, JavaScript or TypeScript on V8 you are ultimately executing C++ code. And when someone is using their Android phone they are running Java, C++, C, Kotlin (which uses the Java VM) and a bit of Rust. Anyone using an Apple phone is running C++, C, Objective-C, Swift (which is mostly written in C++) and assembly language. All of the core technology derives from UNIX which is written in C. This thread about tax has turned into an old fashioned religious war about programming languages. Great fun for us nerds, but sorry to everyone else for my part in derailing the thread. | |||
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" Fair enough although I believe all JavaScript engines are written in C++, C, Java or Go (which itself is written in C++). So for instance when you are using Node.js, JavaScript or TypeScript on V8 you are ultimately executing C++ code. And when someone is using their Android phone they are running Java, C++, C, Kotlin (which uses the Java VM) and a bit of Rust. Anyone using an Apple phone is running C++, C, Objective-C, Swift (which is mostly written in C++) and assembly language. All of the core technology derives from UNIX which is written in C. This thread about tax has turned into an old fashioned religious war about programming languages. Great fun for us nerds, but sorry to everyone else for my part in derailing the thread. " The point being a vast majority of the software engineers today don't have to understand internals like paging or virtual memory to be successful at their jobs. OS being written in C++ and C doesn't matter for someone who is using NodeJS to write a web app or Kotlin to write an android app. Most of them don't care to learn these concepts. Similarly, most junior mechanical engineers today aren't spending their time assembling car engines manually. Only a few niche brands still have hand built engines. Machines take care of most of the work. So Musk doesn't have to learn how to assemble an engine to work as a junior engineer. | |||
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"The point being a vast majority of the software engineers today don't have to understand internals like paging or virtual memory to be successful at their jobs. OS being written in C++ and C doesn't matter for someone who is using NodeJS to write a web app or Kotlin to write an android app. Most of them don't care to learn these concepts." It's down to opinions about what a software engineer is. What you are describing as a software engineer is what I would call a programmer. That programmer could be extremely skilled at what they do of course. I'm not trying to denigrate the profession of programmer. I'm an old git so my notion is that a software engineer is someone who understands how computers work all the way down to assembly language level and maybe beyond into hardware if they want to be able to work in firmware or be able to write device drivers. And beyond programming they need strong design skills and sufficient mathematical and scientific knowledge to solve difficult problems that arent really about coding. Software engineering and programming overlap a lot but the engineer has a broader horizon. In practice this often means that a programmer is far more expert than an engineer in a particular field so both roles are needed - the specialist programmer and the generalist engineer. "Similarly, most junior mechanical engineers today aren't spending their time assembling car engines manually. Only a few niche brands still have hand built engines. Machines take care of most of the work. So Musk doesn't have to learn how to assemble an engine to work as a junior engineer." I'm not saying that a mechanical engineer is a mechanic. My point about being able to take an engine apart and rebuild it was about an engineer being able to perform such a task. They'd have the patience and knowledge required to separate all the parts in a methodical way so that on rebuilding the engine it would have the identical state that it had before the operation. There wouldn't be one or two washers or seals left over. This isn't about whether there is a practical need for a mechanical engineer to strip and rebuild an engine but about whether they would have the mental skills to do such a thing. If they couldn't do such a relatively trivial task then the likelihood that they could actually design an engine is remote. | |||
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" It's down to opinions about what a software engineer is. What you are describing as a software engineer is what I would call a programmer. That programmer could be extremely skilled at what they do of course. I'm not trying to denigrate the profession of programmer. I'm an old git so my notion is that a software engineer is someone who understands how computers work all the way down to assembly language level and maybe beyond into hardware if they want to be able to work in firmware or be able to write device drivers. And beyond programming they need strong design skills and sufficient mathematical and scientific knowledge to solve difficult problems that arent really about coding. Software engineering and programming overlap a lot but the engineer has a broader horizon. In practice this often means that a programmer is far more expert than an engineer in a particular field so both roles are needed - the specialist programmer and the generalist engineer. " In what way is this essay about the differences between software engineering and programming related to anything we are talking about? " I'm not saying that a mechanical engineer is a mechanic. My point about being able to take an engine apart and rebuild it was about an engineer being able to perform such a task. They'd have the patience and knowledge required to separate all the parts in a methodical way so that on rebuilding the engine it would have the identical state that it had before the operation. There wouldn't be one or two washers or seals left over. This isn't about whether there is a practical need for a mechanical engineer to strip and rebuild an engine but about whether they would have the mental skills to do such a thing. If they couldn't do such a relatively trivial task then the likelihood that they could actually design an engine is remote. " To remind you again,this is what you said about Musk: "I genuinely wouldn't take him on as an intern working for nothing because I don't think he has any real technical skills and doesn't have the discipline to develop them. I've seen no evidence at all that he has any real understanding of mathematics or professional level software engineering skills." Considering how outdated your ideas about software and mechanical engineering are, you not wanting to hire him based on your outdated ideas doesn't imply that he is less qualified. He is just overqualified. | |||
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"In what way is this essay about the differences between software engineering and programming related to anything we are talking about?" Because you are calling programmers software engineers. "To remind you again,this is what you said about Musk: "I genuinely wouldn't take him on as an intern working for nothing because I don't think he has any real technical skills and doesn't have the discipline to develop them. I've seen no evidence at all that he has any real understanding of mathematics or professional level software engineering skills." Considering how outdated your ideas about software and mechanical engineering are, you not wanting to hire him based on your outdated ideas doesn't imply that he is less qualified. He is just overqualified." I know what I wrote and I stand by it. I see no evidence that he's capable of working as a junior software engineer. | |||
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"In what way is this essay about the differences between software engineering and programming related to anything we are talking about? Because you are calling programmers software engineers. " I didn't. I said that you can be a good software engineers of the modern day don't have to understand any of the system internals. I know of system internals because it was necessary in my first job. I didn't have to use those skills for about 5 years now because technology has marched forwards. " I know what I wrote and I stand by it. I see no evidence that he's capable of working as a junior software engineer." When Steve jobs was the CEO, you wouldn't have seen any evidence of him being capable of working as a junior software engineer either. It doesn't mean that if the situation forces him to, he wouldn't train and do a junior software engineer's job well. People in such higher positions have moved on to much bigger challenges. They have abstract knowledge both technical and non-technical, just deep enough to make highly impactful decisions. Them being capable of working as a junior engineer is a moot point when discussing their talent/genius. | |||
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"I didn't. I said that you can be a good software engineers of the modern day don't have to understand any of the system internals. I know of system internals because it was necessary in my first job. I didn't have to use those skills for about 5 years now because technology has marched forwards." While from my perspective you are a programmer using state-of-the-art technology provided to you by hard working software engineers using languages like Java and C++ that you think are old fashioned and largely irrelevant. "When Steve jobs was the CEO, you wouldn't have seen any evidence of him being capable of working as a junior software engineer either. It doesn't mean that if the situation forces him to, he wouldn't train and do a junior software engineer's job well. People in such higher positions have moved on to much bigger challenges. They have abstract knowledge both technical and non-technical, just deep enough to make highly impactful decisions. Them being capable of working as a junior engineer is a moot point when discussing their talent/genius." Indeed it is moot, because I've not been arguing that Musk isn't very talented. | |||
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"I didn't. I said that you can be a good software engineers of the modern day don't have to understand any of the system internals. I know of system internals because it was necessary in my first job. I didn't have to use those skills for about 5 years now because technology has marched forwards. While from my perspective you are a programmer using state-of-the-art technology provided to you by hard working software engineers using languages like Java and C++ that you think are old fashioned and largely irrelevant. " You are just bending the definition of software engineering in your own terms here. Systems engineering can be software engineering but it's not the only thing that's software engineers. People who build software using the existing frameworks are also software engineers because coding is not the only part. " Indeed it is moot, because I've not been arguing that Musk isn't very talented." You said "If you think Elon Musk is some kind of technical genius then fair enough, we all have our opinions" Then you went on a tangent about disassembling and assembling an engine. If this has nothing to do with him being talented, why did you even have to bring it up? | |||
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"You are just bending the definition of software engineering in your own terms here. Systems engineering can be software engineering but it's not the only thing that's software engineers. People who build software using the existing frameworks are also software engineers because coding is not the only part." Let's look at another type of engineer. A structural engineer isn't someone who looks at just one aspect of a building such as a roof, it's a broad discipline where they have to understand the entire subject. Someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs isn't a structural engineer. It's the same with any type of engineering. It's about being a generalist rather than a specialist. "You said "If you think Elon Musk is some kind of technical genius then fair enough, we all have our opinions" Then you went on a tangent about disassembling and assembling an engine. If this has nothing to do with him being talented, why did you even have to bring it up?" Yeah, that's because I don't think he is a technical genius. He's a brilliant entrepreneur not an engineer. This is all down to differences of opinion and I think we are approaching the end of any meaningful discussion. | |||
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" Let's look at another type of engineer. A structural engineer isn't someone who looks at just one aspect of a building such as a roof, it's a broad discipline where they have to understand the entire subject. Someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs isn't a structural engineer. It's the same with any type of engineering. It's about being a generalist rather than a specialist. " By that argument, system engineers aren't software engineers either because they only understand things at system level but not the websites and frameworks which are built over them. Basically, no one is a software engineer because the ones who have the widest context are the full stack engineers and even they don't understand the OS internals. Your definition of what counts as an engineer is outright ridiculous. By that definition, you aren't an engineer either. " Yeah, that's because I don't think he is a technical genius. He's a brilliant entrepreneur not an engineer. This is all down to differences of opinion and I think we are approaching the end of any meaningful discussion." A technical genius doesn't have to understand how to assemble and disassemble an engine. You are the one who brought up that meaningless topic. | |||
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"By that argument, system engineers aren't software engineers either because they only understand things at system level but not the websites and frameworks which are built over them. Basically, no one is a software engineer because the ones who have the widest context are the full stack engineers and even they don't understand the OS internals. Your definition of what counts as an engineer is outright ridiculous. By that definition, you aren't an engineer either." I don't think there is an agreed highly specific definition of what an engineer is. I'm simply stating my opinon. And I'm an old git with very thick skin so you kids are allowed to disagree and call me names. Someone who only knows about systems programming isn't a software engineer. The term full stack engineer refers to someone who does both client and server side programming. I'd probably call them full stack programmers rather than engineers although if they are heavily involved in design and can also do a range of other things like graphics programming, write device drivers and have a reasonable knowledge of mathematics then I would call them engineers. There isn't a well defined boundary. But to me personally, software engineers know how computers work down to operation and register level, so if someone doesn't understand things like instructions and memory or doesn't know what a stack overflow is then they aren't a software engineer. A software engineer might not know about every specific bit of high-level technology but that doesn't prevent them from understanding how computers work. Your world view seems to be based entirely on web programming. I've only done a little work in client-server stuff (way back in the 1990's when I created a hyperlink multi-media system used by academics) so I'm not expert in that field. But I'm not claiming to be an expert at anything, I'm a generalist so I know a bit about a lot. Even in the fields where some would consider me an expert given my commercial track record I consider myself to be a bit of a beginner because the more I learn the more I realise that there is a lot more to learn. "A technical genius doesn't have to understand how to assemble and disassemble an engine. You are the one who brought up that meaningless topic." It was just an illustration of what a mechanical engineer's intellectual skills should allow them to do. There's no point in repeating myself. | |||
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"Perhaps we should just use the term software developer? This would avoid arguments about who is a programmer and who is a software engineer." I don't think so. Pretty much most companies use the term software engineer for their jobs that involve full stack development or web development or android development. Engineering here just means being able to build big systems or web apps and not just writing code. Most of these jobs can be done without knowing the system internals. You are the one who is misusing the word "engineering" for your convenience. Others don't have to adjust their languages for that. | |||
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"If other people want to call someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs a structural engineer then fine. I'll continue to use terms in a manner that I think is correct rather than bend to the trend to call everyone an engineer. " No one calls everyone an engineer. But knowing system internals isn't an absolute necessity to be one. I even had a course in my university called "software engineering" to explain what the "engineering" qualifier entails. A coder can write code/algorithm. An engineer builds systems or applications which are used in real world. It involves everything right from collecting requirements from stakeholders, designing the system/application(architectural and object oriented design if necessary), implementing it, building test strategies, deploying it and scaling it. Depending on the type of system you are building, some engineers need to know system internals but many don't. Building an antivirus or firewall product will need system internals skills. But building a website for a library doesn't. So understanding system internals isn't a requirement to be a software engineer. Tech companies call them software engineers because they aren't just hiring people to write code but to do everything I mentioned above. This is a course I took 18 years back. So this is nothing new. You are the one who has misunderstood the term for so many years from the looks of it. But considering how stubborn you are about your mistaken beliefs so far, I am not keeping my hopes up about you correcting yourself. | |||
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"I think software developer is an accurate term for such roles. Do you think someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs is a structural engineer? Or that someone who is expert at designing circuitry using op amps but doesn't know anything about transistors is an electronics engineer?" I am tired of this. As I mentioned in my previous post, you are too stubborn with your mistaken beliefs. No amount of explanation is going to change that. If you want to continue believing that all the tech companies, people working in the industry who know a lot more about it than you don't understand what software engineering means but you know better, keep believing it | |||
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"Your unwillingness to answer very simple questions speaks volumes." Of course the legendary programmer _enninetop knows more about what software engineering means than Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg and Satya Nadella. Search for books with "Software engineering" title and let me know how many of them talk about system internals. Or maybe those authors are stupid too. How can they know more than a guy who did IPC using Java? | |||
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"I think software developer is an accurate term for such roles. " A software developer could easily know about python and nothing else and get by in many roles. A software engineer definitely requires more than a single scripting language... But certainly not down to the electronic component level on a PC (or even server). It's hard to nail down a definition of "software engineer" - Google searches like "software engineer Vs full stack developer" bring up many (slightly subjective) discussions around what it actually means. Consensus online (and AI) indicates that whereas a full stack developer has broad practical knowledge and is more versatile, the software engineer is more deeply specialised in a specific domain/technological area. This was actually surprising. In practical terms, the GenAI job spec posted above remains the best indication of what "software engineer" actually means today. " Do you think someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs is a structural engineer?" No. But how about we put it a different way. Let's say we all move to space and the structures that we all build will be in zero gravity. In such a case, knowing absolutely nothing about roofs will not preclude someone from being a structural engineer. The world (or our reality) will have changed and moved on. People working at the architectural, design and implementation level at the world's biggest companies no longer consider hardware especially much. Most enterprise systems are running visualised. A client (end user) machine is a browser or phone platform. Except in very specialised areas, deep knowledge is not needed in all areas - and it's impossible. Fifty years ago, there were a dozen possible software platforms, most hardware worked in a similar way and a handful of viable languages (in *practical* use, for 90% of IT jobs). Bring a software engineer as this evolved was a narrower field and hardware constraints influenced functions and capabilities. Those constraints have disappeared and there are hundreds of platforms and languages to consider... As well as database types, networks, GDPR, security, vulnerability, interconnected systems, IoT, etc. Being a software engineer TODAY means balancing all of those more pressing factors rather than knowing how to optimise for slightly less memory usage and an increase in performance through hardware utilisation. At least, that holds true for most of the world's largest enterprises (banks, engineering firms, consultancies, mega corporations). | |||
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" Do you think someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs is a structural engineer? No. But how about we put it a different way. Let's say we all move to space and the structures that we all build will be in zero gravity. In such a case, knowing absolutely nothing about roofs will not preclude someone from being a structural engineer. The world (or our reality) will have changed and moved on. " Another way to put it is that a structural engineer is a type of civil engineer. There are other types of civil engineers like geotechnical engineers and infrastructure engineers. A geotechnical engineer might not know the structural properties of roof and would still be a civil engineer. Similarly, a systems engineer is just a type of software engineer. There are other types of software engineers like full stack engineers, android engineers, frontend engineers, etc. A front-end engineer doesn't have to know system internals like a systems engineer but is still a software engineer. | |||
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"To me an engineer needs to understand the fundamental principles of a field. So someone who only knows about the structural properties of roofs isn't a structural engineer because there are other things like floors, airplane wings, bridges. spacecraft etc. that have quite different stuctural properties than roofs (although there will obviously be some overlap). While doing structural design or analysis on roofs, this person may be "doing structural engineering" but that's not the same as being a structural engineer. Someone who doesn't know about transistors isn't an electronic engineer because transistors are a fundamentel part of modern electronics. They may never need to do discrete component level design in their current job but without knowing about transistors this person doesn't understand the fundamentals of electronic engineering. Someone who doesn't know about nuts and bolts isn't a mechanical engineer. Even if they never deal with nuts and bolts in their current job, if they don't understand nuts and bolts then they are missing knowledge about something fundamental. If someone doesn't know what an instruction is, how memory works or what a stack overflow or a file is then they aren't software engineers because these are fundamental to understanding how computers work. They may be able to develop applications in their own area but they aren't a software engineer because they don't understand how software works at a fundamental level. Now a person developing an application many be "doing software engineering", but like the person who only knows about roofs, or doesn't now about transistors or nuts and bolts are they aren't an engineer. I have have no problem with more specialist titles like front-end engineer or database engineer because it's specific and someone working on databases who understands databases at a fundamental level is an engineer in that field. But software engineer is open ended and to be a software engineer one needs to understand how software works at a fundamental level not just how databases work." So, a geotechnical engineer isn't a civil engineer because he doesn't understand structural engineering? Dictionary definition of "engineer" says it's about building stuff. There is no requirement that one most knows the fundamental details. As always, you are just too stubborn to give up your mistaken beliefs. The whole world, including the ones who run huge tech companies and have achieved multiple times what you have achieved in this field are somehow wrong and you are correct. | |||
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"Being a software engineer TODAY means balancing all of those more pressing factors rather than knowing how to optimise for slightly less memory usage and an increase in performance through hardware utilisation. At least, that holds true for most of the world's largest enterprises (banks, engineering firms, consultancies, mega corporations)." There's more to the world than large enterprise. And performance critical design is still a thing. Not so much memory use but speed is essential in things like games programming and DSP. Also as I said earlier the software that people working in languages like JavaScript rely on are high-performance tools built by software engineers using production languages. The reason people using things like JavaScript don't need to worry too much about performance is that the tools they are using are very well engineered. | |||
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"As always, you are just too stubborn to give up your mistaken beliefs. The whole world, including the ones who run huge tech companies and have achieved multiple times what you have achieved in this field are somehow wrong and you are correct." Validity doesn't depend on popularity. There are two billion Muslims, are you going to convert to Islam or do you think you know better than all those people? | |||
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"As always, you are just too stubborn to give up your mistaken beliefs. The whole world, including the ones who run huge tech companies and have achieved multiple times what you have achieved in this field are somehow wrong and you are correct. Validity doesn't depend on popularity. There are two billion Muslims, are you going to convert to Islam or do you think you know better than all those people?" How are the two related? People have given numerous explanations for why an engineer doesn't always have to understand fundamental details. The only reasoning you have been repeatedly parroting is "To me an engineer needs to understand the fundamental principles of a field" To you, it could be whatever. But the definition of the word is accepted in the society. According to you, a geotechnical engineer wouldn't be a civil engineer because he doesn't know structural engineering which is fundamental. But for the rest of the world, he is a civil engineer. Similarly, full stack engineers, frontend engineers are all types of software engineers. An engineer is someone who builds things. A civil engineer builds civil structures. A software engineer builds softwares. It could be any type of software. It's really not that hard to understand. | |||
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" A software engineer builds softwares" So anyone who can knock out a simple two line program in BASIC is a software engineer. | |||
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" A software engineer builds softwares So anyone who can knock out a simple two line program in BASIC is a software engineer. " A software typically has real world usages. I don't think you usually solve a real world use-case using a two line basic code. This is where the difference between a programmer and an engineer comes in. That's why the software engineering process involves requirements gathering, design, implementation, testing and rollout. You need to do all this to successfully build software for a real world use case. A software engineer understands the end to end process. | |||
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"A software typically has real world usages. I don't think you usually solve a real world use-case using a two line basic code. This is where the difference between a programmer and an engineer comes in. That's why the software engineering process involves requirements gathering, design, implementation, testing and rollout. You need to do all this to successfully build software for a real world use case. A software engineer understands the end to end process." Earlier you said it could be any kind of software. My requirements are for "HELLO, WORLD!" to appear endlessly. I live in the real world and consider this would be useful to me. I design the program, implement it, test it and roll it out. Therefore I am a software engineer. | |||
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" Validity doesn't depend on popularity. There are two billion Muslims, are you going to convert to Islam or do you think you know better than all those people?" Egregious means really bad. Sick means really good. Popular and common usage dictate definitions. | |||
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"A software typically has real world usages. I don't think you usually solve a real world use-case using a two line basic code. This is where the difference between a programmer and an engineer comes in. That's why the software engineering process involves requirements gathering, design, implementation, testing and rollout. You need to do all this to successfully build software for a real world use case. A software engineer understands the end to end process. Earlier you said it could be any kind of software. My requirements are for "HELLO, WORLD!" to appear endlessly. I live in the real world and consider this would be useful to me. I design the program, implement it, test it and roll it out. Therefore I am a software engineer. " If you want hello world to appear "endlessly", you need more than just two lines of basic code. A software engineer would ask you if by "endlessly" you mean that you should see it only if you are around or should the message be shown even when you aren't around. If it's the former, would it make sense to not run the program by automatically detect when you are gone? If it's the latter, what happens when there is a power shortage. Are backups necessary? Maybe the answer to that depends on why you want to display the message when you aren't around. This is the requirements gathering phase of software engineering. And then there is design, implementation and testing, each of it could be more complex. How do you test that this will just run "endlessly"? Do we need some kind of alerting to inform the engineer if it suddenly stops showing "Hello world"? If it's a real world use case, a software engineer would do more than just write two lines of code. | |||
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"Egregious means really bad. Sick means really good. Popular and common usage dictate definitions." I think egregious means something that stands out and when you are sick it ain't good. But I get your drfit. Words like fantastic and decimate have mutated in meaning too and I'm OK with language being fluid up to a point. But I wonder about the direction of travel with words like engineer. Maybe we'll soon all be calling someone making sure there are enough onions and carrots on the shelf at the supermarket a fresh produce logistical engineer. I personally refer to myself as a software developer although when I was employed by a hardware manufacturer to develop a BIOS my title was software engineer. --------------------------- "f you want hello world to appear "endlessly", you need more than just two lines of basic code. A software engineer would ask you if by "endlessly" you mean that you should see it only if you are around or should the message be shown even when you aren't around. If it's the former, would it make sense to not run the program by automatically detect when you are gone? If it's the latter, what happens when there is a power shortage. Are backups necessary? Maybe the answer to that depends on why you want to display the message when you aren't around. This is the requirements gathering phase of software engineering. And then there is design, implementation and testing, each of it could be more complex. How do you test that this will just run "endlessly"? Do we need some kind of alerting to inform the engineer if it suddenly stops showing "Hello world"? If it's a real world use case, a software engineer would do more than just write two lines of code." Endlessly was just the simplest way of saying an infinite loop. But of course an infinite loop isn't really infinite. If I'd said repeatedly you could come up with other objections. My point is that your definition of a software engineer could apply to someone who had only spent 30 minutes playing with a computer. | |||
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" Endlessly was just the simplest way of saying an infinite loop. But of course an infinite loop isn't really infinite. If I'd said repeatedly you could come up with other objections. My point is that your definition of a software engineer could apply to someone who had only spent 30 minutes playing with a computer." I have explained why even the simple use-case you mentioned could actually be more than just writing a few lines of code from a software engineering perspective. That's why many software engineering interviews have more than just coding round. But my point is that a typical software engineer can take up easy projects like you mentioned and also take on difficult real world project that could take years to complete. And that engineer doesn't always have to know system fundamentals. Some of them do. Many don't. | |||
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" Endlessly was just the simplest way of saying an infinite loop. But of course an infinite loop isn't really infinite. If I'd said repeatedly you could come up with other objections. My point is that your definition of a software engineer could apply to someone who had only spent 30 minutes playing with a computer. I have explained why even the simple use-case you mentioned could actually be more than just writing a few lines of code from a software engineering perspective. That's why many software engineering interviews have more than just coding round. But my point is that a typical software engineer can take up easy projects like you mentioned and also take on difficult real world project that could take years to complete. And that engineer doesn't always have to know system fundamentals. Some of them do. Many don't." Interesting, Mrs x | |||
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