Why Promote Tech

On the one hand government and political institutions seem to encourage students to persue technology and science careers. On the other hand the same or similar institutions seem to want BrainsAsaCheapCommodity and let low-wage countries take technology jobs and devalue tech careers.

If tech is a free-trade dinosour career, or at least heavily subject to the risk of such, why push people into risky careers? If the reality of economic rewards seems to want more sales executives than domestic programmers, then why not just let it happen?

On the one hand they seem to fear a nation of too many "soft shmoozy squishy" workers who don't do anything "real", but on the other they say let the marketplace determine what careers people select.

Can you possibly be so naive? Do you not understand the law of supply and demand? Or do you seriously believe the ludicrous notion that government is your caregiver? You say it yourself, the government wants brains as a cheap commodity therefore it pushes people into those careers.

You wonder why it is that government, controlled by the rich, doesn't want to make more people into sales execs? Come come, when has a guild or professional association ever sought the extinction of all its privileges? When have guild members in good standing ever sought the guild's death? What exactly do you think FreeSoftware is except a ploy by programmers to retain any and all control over software used and paid for by others, thereby securing their own power?

So you are saying that the powerful tend to be sales executives, and want to protect sales executives by flooding other non-executive careers with cheap overseas labor, keeping their status high in comparison?

The powerful tend to be employers of scientists and techies, and hence have a vested interest in generating more of them and hence pushing down wages for existing programmers. A larger supply of potential employees means they'll get better quality recruits at the top, and won't have to pay as much for the bottom.

I suspect they don't encourage salespeople because sales is a much harder profession to measure: it's difficult to judge the worth of a salesperson until he's closed several important deals. As a result, a larger supply of potential sales recruits just means corporations have a more difficult time deciding between candidates. Moreover, sales generally doesn't require the same store of formal knowledge as tech: anyone can potentially become a salesperson, you just have to try it and see if you're any good at it. -- JonathanTang

Sales is a convenient place to shunt young rich people who will grow up to become CEOs. Not everyone has a technical mind whereas the requirements for sales are much broader. As a result, sales exec positions tend to be segregated into high-profile positions and unimportant positions. The high-profile positions are reserved for Harvard grads, and the other positions are not protected. Of course, this theory breaks down in the case of real estate and other such sales agents who don't generally come from elite families but do get handsome incomes. -- RK

The vast majority of people in real estate do very poorly. The barrier to entry is very low, so there lots of new people, hence little training, hence a high failure rate.

The barrier to programming is also relatively low: buy some books and fiddle on your home PC and do some open-source projects as demos. Whether that is sufficient to get you a job is another matter and depends on many things, such as connections and persistence. Other professions, such as doctor, have legally-enforced high barriers. (See also: RealProfessionalsGetSued.)

This thread reeks of confusion.

Corporations are about making money, and if somebody on the other side of the world can do something that means the corporation makes more money than if they used local resource, then the choice is (naively) obvious.

What corporations are continually doing is trying to get something for less, and cutting resource costs is the easiest way to increase profitability.

Where you can off-shore sales activities, it is done already.

It has nothing to do with sales execs. It has nothing to do with the rich or the poor. It has nothing to do with the government. In fact, governments keep getting into trouble for interferring.

In the not too distant future, with remote surgery techniques, it will be the doctors who will suffer.

It is capitalism in action!