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[Virex]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?

I get that, but why is that bad?

[Vector]

Mostly because none of us is perfect, and we all need other people to help us out with things we aren't good at.  Intimidation only goes so far.

[Africa]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?

I get that, but why is that bad?

...

If it has to be explained, you probably wouldn't understand even if I explained it...

[Virex]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?

I get that, but why is that bad?

...

If it has to be explained, you probably wouldn't understand even if I explained it...

I'm just trying to figure out why. People always cling to equality and all that jazz as the highest goal, but nobody ever explains why. Call me insane, but I'm just asking questions here.

[Vector]

I want to live an enjoyable life.

My empathy for other people understands that I happened to be born into a specific circumstance, but that fate, as much as we can control it, should not favor me while shafting other people who did not receive my advantages and privileges (such that they are).

I want other people to live enjoyable lives.

[Africa]

I seriously don't know where to start. I mean, it's like trying to explain love to a sociopath.

Screwing people over to achieve your own goals is bad, ultimately, because it causes suffering, but more proximately, because societies function better when everyone is able to cooperate to some degree - not in the sense of working together to some goal, but in the sense of doing things that improve other people's lot. The more you screw people over, the more it erodes the fabric of society, not to mention creating lots of problems that somebody then has to deal with.

That's off the top of my head. I'm sure people can come up with other reasons.

Oh yeah, and empathy for other people is kinda big. But if you don't have that to begin with, you can't acquire it by someone telling you how it works.

[SalmonGod]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?

I get that, but why is that bad?

You could argue that it's good on the cold grounds of natural selection strengthening the human race, but I personally have three problems with this.

First, I don't think it's good for those who willingly harm their own kind to be favored by natural selection. 

Second, "ruthless" also tends to mean short-sighted.  For instance, some elderly CEO may not care that his profitable environmental destruction will make life more difficult for future generations, but this is completely counter-productive for the human race as a whole and thus cannot be supported by the survival of the strongest argument. 

Third, I personally don't think it's necessary for society to sustain and advance itself on the suffering of the majority of its population.  Even if you could argue on pure logical grounds that it's necessary, there is no reason to hold to this ideology if it can be proven unnecessary.

Is that good enough for you?

[Fenrir]

I think someone needs to define what precisely “screw someone over” means before there can be much productive conversation about why it must not be done. I think people may well disagree about what qualifies.

[alway]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?

I get that, but why is that bad?

I think this applies here:
http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=294

Aside from that? Because trust within society is what allows it to exist. Trust is what makes society any different from chaotic anarchy in which roving bandits run around extorting one another and generally making everyone's quality of living piss-poor.

[SalmonGod]

I think this applies here:
http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=294

I knew I was missing a point... the most important one...

It's much better for everyone to look out for each other and be at odds with the rare person who is only looking out for themselves, than for everyone to be looking out for themselves and be at odds with everyone else who is also looking out for themselves.

This is sometimes referred to as 'Enlightened Self-Interest'

Edit: 

Also got distracted from contributing to Truean's earlier point on professions vs incorporations.

Another problem I see is that corporate (and often government?) structures seem to be arranged so that the low level employees don't get to see the broader impact of their actions.  Their minor roles might scratch at their conscience occassionally, but not enough that they feel the need to abandon them at personal sacrifice.  Things might be different if they were always aware of the full implications of the entire process they're contributing to.

[Truean]

Furthermore, you know we can't all be software engineers and even if we could you're wrong.... That is being outsourced to India and has been for years.... I can show you with relative ease numerous software engineers who got outsourced.

Can you show me aside from anecdotes? I'm getting my info from here, stating a 34% increase over 10 years (or about 3% growth per year): http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As with other information technology jobs, offshore outsourcing may temper employment growth of computer software engineers. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to foreign countries with lower prevailing wages and highly educated workers. Jobs in software engineering are less prone to being offshored than are jobs in computer programming, however, because software engineering requires innovation and intense research and development.

Aside from that, software engineering was simply an example of an in-demand and growing field; in general, most technical fields are growing rapidly, as are opportunities in the healthcare field. For example, the demand for nurses, a field whose salary has a median of $62k, is expected to rise by 600k positions over the next 10 years (in addition to the already-existing positions); a 20% increase in a position which requires only an associate's degree.

I'm not defending high education costs or the silliness of some student loan related law, I'm merely pointing out that a blanket statement of everyone being unable to find well paying jobs after graduation is false.

Wow, where do I even begin here? I never said "everyone." Quite the contrary. The reason the system doesn't totally collapse is that there are enough people saying, "Screw it, it works for me so it can't be that bad Herp Derp!" It is a problem for ENOUGH of the populous that it is an issue.... While I understand your skepticism, just because there hasn't been a study about it doesn't mean it isn't a problem or real.
Anecdotes? This is called reasoning, and people love to hide behind numbers you don't have the time, energy or ability to check for accuracy to avoid it.

There are tons of companies like this and your boss is looking to use them: http://www.bleum.com/services/overview.shtml?gclid=CJWZ-tzQu6kCFcW5KgodH3ePhA. But hey, there hasn't been a study done about it, so clearly it doesn't exist right. These companies are just making millions not notably contributing to a decline in software jobs?

I also love how most people have blind faith in any numbers presented without understanding the methodology?

Statistical Inapplicability and Entirely Missing the Point

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You mean like the people who compiled the statistics saying the recession is over? Why? Because Wall St. is making money? Foreclosures, unemployment, the difficulty many businesses have attracting customers, none of that matters? We have a technical, small increase in GDP and thus we are clearly out of the woods? They miss the forest for the trees. I can cobble together statistical numbers, but it matters how you apply it. I know stats; I did them for years, won numerous competitive awards etc. I won't bore the crap out of you going into methodological flaws and formulaic problems. Suffice it to say most of our current statistical models suck and are woefully inadequate.

Let's look the stats you quoted and see why they are inapplicable (No no, this is a really good illustration of why people sing their words but stutter what they mean):

Look specifically at the: "Projections data from the National Employment Matrix" Table you quoted http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm#outlook

There are two glaring problems I can see right off the bat:

I.) It doesn't feature the relevant comparables:
A.) Number of current software jobs (yeah, they got this one woo hoo).
B.) Factors reducing future jobs in the area including but not limited to:
a.)The number of current software job holders who are approaching retirement age.
b.) The number of software jobs that have been outsourced in recent years.
c.) The number of "software engineer" qualified people who are seeking but not finding field relevant employment (i.e. latent competition).
d.) Technical factors streamlining coding and requiring less coders
e.) The number of relatively young (not approaching retirement age software job holders).
f.) The number of financially healthy firms employing software developers
C.) Factors increasing future jobs in the area including but not limited to:
a.) Theoretical applications for coding currently in development that would require more coding.
b.) The public's consumption of coded goods both in individual products and price of those products
c.) The relative increase or decrease in the price of coded products as a trend. Increasing price indicates growth. Reduction indicates decay.
d.) The number of current software job holders approaching retirement age.
e.) the number of financially unhealthy firms employing software developers

All of the above are statistically significant contributors to job availability but they are expensive to track so screw it. Also they make us look bad and we're the government cheerleaders so meh....

This is long enough already. The point is that their methods aren't addressing the relevant factors. That's why they keep projecting that the economy will grow so much more than it has. All the numbers add up, that's not the difficult part, its knowing what numbers to weigh how much and in comparison to what.

II.) Check in deeper: http://www.bls.gov/emp/nioem/empioan.htm
Final Demand for their projection methodology is GDP? Wow that's really lazy. Gah, I could literally go on for another 12 pages ripping them and their numbers apart, but I'm guessing no one is reading this far. I really wish they'd let the statisticians model more accurately, but that requires more resources no one wants to spend. 

Bottom line: No one has accurately modeled employment trends in this economy and I don't have the time or resources to do so currently.

Neither You nor BLS give outsourcing anywhere near the credit it deserves as a destructive force.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 I'm amazed at how people don't get this, especially white collar workers. You are replacable and fungible.

"Jobs in software engineering are less prone to being offshored than are jobs in computer programming, however, because software engineering requires innovation and intense research and development."

Purely and simply not true. Why? because clearly we have the market cornered on "innovation, and intense research and development? No, dude are you kidding me. They are outsourcing law research positions in the legal field. Yeah, think about that. The reason outsourcing can't happen in software engineering is because we're just so damn good at innovation, intense research and development? Wow, you're pinning your hopes on that?

This is a fairy tale white collar workers tell themselves to feel safe from outsourcing.
 

Even if I take all of the above BLS stuff as godsent, so what?
There's a 34% increase in current software jobs currently. Yay? It still doesn't tell you how that fairs with the number of students currently training to be software engineers, which will tell you where your real security lies, in the amount of competition you have to face. This number isn't even tracked.... Thus it certainly can't fit into their projections for future growth. We have no way of knowing the real supply and demand of software engineers in the future because we don't track very relevant factors in determining these crucial concepts. (I say again, my god, they use GDP as their final demand measure.... How lazy can you get?)

As you yourself said, "software engineering was simply an example of an in-demand and growing field." We can't have an economy where a massive part of the population isn't educated and trained to preform those few, highly technical job areas that are growing. We not only need "ditch diggers," but we need ditch diggers who can afford to feed their families.

Point: Even if you're right so what? We can't all be software engineers and software engineers need ordinary people to be able to buy their software.

Moreover, even the video game industry is taking a hit right now, because screw it, the biggest company in that arena isn't Blizzard but Zynga. That's right, those cheap to make, easy to produce, crappy facebook games are making money hand over fist. Farmville doesn't require "intense research" or anything much really. People are more willing to plop down $1 for an Iphone app game that they can play anywhere than $60 for Starcraft II. Take a look at all those high end console games. Guess which one is selling more of the ones out now? That's right "Nintendo DS is beating all the others in sales." The games are far less awesome than PS3 and all the "innovation" required for it, because we're not buying that. The cheap games are more fun and require fewer developers to produce. They also break less often (I'm looking at you X-box). I also don't have to worry about my personal data being stolen (Screw you PS3 online network).

None of this translates well into stats but you can't look me in the eye and tell me it doesn't massively effect a major multi-billion dollar portion of the software industry, which employs software engineers: video games.

[alway]

Just so you know, the main reason why growth is so rampant in the software industry is because it is an industry which encourages bottom-up control. By the numbers, only 50% of game developers work for those major corporations you hear so much about. The other 50% are indie developers and those who started a small business selling their software, who then may or may not have expanded into larger organizations. Outsourcing doesn't do sh*t when half the industry is essentially self-employed. Those small indie games you are talking about are exactly that: self-employed app developers doing it for a hobby, or just for a few extra bucks. You see, game development isn't just Starcraft 2; it's all of them. As a Game Design & Development major, my curriculum consists of courses to enable us to not only develop games of any budget on any system, but also to do web design and development, app development, database work, ect. You mentioned Zynga? Their company representatives come to our program to recruit developers. As do Microsoft, Blizzard, and other big names.

You are misinterpreting what is meant in this case by 'innovation.' Innovation does not mean new tech or shiny pretties on screen. Innovation means figuring out how to take the essence of what people consider 'fun' and turn it into numbers, while also keeping in mind that doing the same thing someone else did is not considered 'fun.' Take Minecraft for example. It sold over 2.5 million copies at about 10 euros each. It wasn't the first game to use that style of destructible voxel terrain, nor was it the first to do much of anything; except of course make its creator a multimillionaire. And here's why: the game was fun enough for 2.5 million people to buy it. Game developers' most important duty is not to know the latest and greatest tech; it is to know how to make their game fun. THAT is the innovation. It isn't an equation which can be taught in school, nor an article or two which can be found on tech sites, but more of an art form which requires an intimate knowledge of as diverse an array of topics as possible.

Another thing: sales figure changes in the game industry are questionable at best. They take into account things like retail sales and some other prominent sources, but much of it is heading towards venues which are untracked by these sales figures. Many of these sales figures for the industry, do not take into account digital download revenue from most sources; Steam doesn't even release its sales figures to the public, and it along with other digital distributors make up over 50% of the market. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/21/valve-keeping-steam-sales-data-private-out-of-aggregated-charts/

Your core argument seems to be 'not everyone can be well off and still do what they want.' Of course that is true; it always has been, and always will be so long as we live in a capitalist society. What you have yet to do is even show so much as an example of a career field in which the prospects went from boom to bust in under the time it takes to train for such a job in which college education is required, the bust could not have been easily predicted in the years prior, and in which the trained workers would not have any sort of fallback positions available based on their training. A career in which those entering did not have the ability to foresee the problems which would arise later on.

[Angle]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?

I get that, but why is that bad?

Bleh. This is why I think that capitalism is unsustainable - eventually theres no one left to screw over, and everything collapses.

Now if only I knew what to do about it...

or, to go into more detail, we can't all be thieves. someone has to actually grow food or we're all gonna starve. if enough people are parasites, things go bad.

RAEG.

[Criptfeind]

We can't all be thieves. someone has to actually grow food or we're all gonna starve. if enough people are parasites, things go bad.

RAEG.

Course, the theory is that when everyone becomes 'parasites' it becomes very lucrative to be a farmer.

And of course if everyone was a farmer then the only thing we would have is food. Which wont help you much when the wolves come a knocking.

[SalmonGod]

And of course if everyone was a farmer then the only thing we would have is food. Which wont help you much when the wolves come a knocking.

Assuming wolves are a metaphor for predatory people, if everyone is a farmer, then there are no wolves.