> The reason why coding pays so well is because it's IQ-gated in a way that plumbing isn't.
Uh, what? I was with you until that part. Coding pays so well because the operating costs are low and the returns/profits are enormous for companies. Tech companies are "cheap" in a way other companies can't be. IQ doesn't really have much to do with it. I know plumbers who are technically brilliant and I know very well paid coders who regularly say things that make me question their intelligence.
> Coding pays so well because the operating costs are low and the returns/profits are enormous for companies.
Unrelated. Coding pays well because of the tight labor supply compared to the demand. Companies NEVER direct excess value to labor. Extracting surplus value from labor is sorta the whole deal with capitalism.
> I know plumbers who are technically brilliant
Also not relevant. The argument is that it isn't necessary to be brilliant in order to be a competent plumber, not that it would actually preclude you.
> I know very well paid coders who regularly say things that make me question their intelligence.
Do you think that's actually a good measure of intelligence? How are you normalizing it against the population, people you don't work with, and/or plumbers generally?
The question to ask is, "taking a random sample of persons having 80 IQ, half of whom intend to pursue a career in software and half who intend to pursue a career in plumbing, what is the relative success rate (for some reasonable measure of 'success')?"
Uh, what? I was with you until that part. Coding pays so well because the operating costs are low and the returns/profits are enormous for companies. Tech companies are "cheap" in a way other companies can't be. IQ doesn't really have much to do with it. I know plumbers who are technically brilliant and I know very well paid coders who regularly say things that make me question their intelligence.