That's true but it cuts both ways. I think social respect is entirely relative. It doesn't make sense to talk about status as if there's a universal ranking.
Your examples are all from the perspective of someone inside the British political system. Are these jobs high status? Not from my viewpoint - there's no way I'd want to be e.g. a civil servant, a Sir or even a politician in the existing parties. A whole lot of people hold this class in contempt, really. If a senior British civil servant turned up at a social gathering that happened to be mostly software engineers and successful company founders, do you think they'd get much respect? People would be polite, certainly, but I don't think they'd have a circle around them hanging on to their every word.
I've visited the elite London social clubs. I've also had dinners in the back rooms of fancy London restaurants with investors, journalists and other members of the British 'elites', invited there specifically to talk to them. So I guess I find that world a bit less impressive than normal. Actually I've repeatedly visited two private clubs, both closed to programmers normally: one is for people in the arts and one is for people in finance. I've close relationships with someone in the arts and someone in finance, both of whom make lots of money and thus purchased these memberships. They can take guests, so, that's how I got in.
There are some perks. They have nice facilities in good locations. The receptionists, waitresses and many of the guests are very good looking, they must find them in modelling agencies or something. Would I pay to join one if I could? No way. They're ripoffs: you can get nice bars and hotels anywhere, and there are far easier ways to make business contacts in our world than going to those and hoping you bump into someone.
For example, if you want to meet investors in the UK I can hook you up in ten minutes. It's way easier for people like us to get meetings with investors than basically any other group. People know computer scientists can multiply money like nobody else. I'm actually surprised a lawyer would get the time of day from serious investors, it's certainly not an advantage of his social status.
Great points. I think your points are especially salient given GP's points earlier above:
> There's a whole real-life social network out there, and they definitely aren't inviting the programmers.
Is that really the case? Or is it just the case that they're not inviting the kind of "programmers" that GP knows/is (and for what it's worth, I consider myself an engineer, not a programmer)? For what it's worth, as a 30 year old "just an IC" in tech, I know a lot more HNI individuals and "high status" people (supermodels, executives, musicians, scions) /and/ find it way easier to get meetings with folks in /their/ network if I want to than my peers from university who were just as ambitious as I was and who went into law, management consulting, banking, or academia.
While I wouldn't say my experience is necessarily indicative of the average IC in my field or world, it is certainly not unique; indeed, my managers at previous firms took very similar trajectories. But then again, this is based on my experience in NYC. As the world is changing, I do think there is an increasingly accelerating understanding that the wheels of power are increasingly being seized by technology, and that those who utilize it to do so have the world as their oyster.
Your examples are all from the perspective of someone inside the British political system. Are these jobs high status? Not from my viewpoint - there's no way I'd want to be e.g. a civil servant, a Sir or even a politician in the existing parties. A whole lot of people hold this class in contempt, really. If a senior British civil servant turned up at a social gathering that happened to be mostly software engineers and successful company founders, do you think they'd get much respect? People would be polite, certainly, but I don't think they'd have a circle around them hanging on to their every word.
I've visited the elite London social clubs. I've also had dinners in the back rooms of fancy London restaurants with investors, journalists and other members of the British 'elites', invited there specifically to talk to them. So I guess I find that world a bit less impressive than normal. Actually I've repeatedly visited two private clubs, both closed to programmers normally: one is for people in the arts and one is for people in finance. I've close relationships with someone in the arts and someone in finance, both of whom make lots of money and thus purchased these memberships. They can take guests, so, that's how I got in.
There are some perks. They have nice facilities in good locations. The receptionists, waitresses and many of the guests are very good looking, they must find them in modelling agencies or something. Would I pay to join one if I could? No way. They're ripoffs: you can get nice bars and hotels anywhere, and there are far easier ways to make business contacts in our world than going to those and hoping you bump into someone.
For example, if you want to meet investors in the UK I can hook you up in ten minutes. It's way easier for people like us to get meetings with investors than basically any other group. People know computer scientists can multiply money like nobody else. I'm actually surprised a lawyer would get the time of day from serious investors, it's certainly not an advantage of his social status.
In the end it's all relative.