Furthermore, more and more companies are looking for "professional" devs using AI tools such as Claude Code. By "professional" I mean proficient in using those AI tools, not actual knowledge. And they don't even specify this in the job offer and you learn this during the interview.

Unlimited token-based usage of Claude Code is not in the budget for many students and employees.

At the same time, companies are demanding experience with these tools.

This is stratifying the industry. I have many talented classmates that can only use free GitHub Copilot. They're likely being screened out in favour of rich classmates with $200/month Claude subs.

As a result, they'll be more likely to get low-paying jobs that don't provide access to top-tier AI tools and the effect will compound.

I think this'll be even worse as Claude phases out subsidies.

If $2000/month subscription to Claude for 4 years of university is the minimum required for a Big Tech job, this field is going to become law/finance levels of cliquey.

Nobody is talking about that because it's bad for both AI booster and skeptic narratives but it's happening.

students generally get specific subsidized/free tiers for all kinds of tech

I don't believe there's a general student discount for Claude.

Of course that makes this person’s skill all the more impressive.

Half of what actually makes money in tech these days involves active spying on consumers or manipulation of base human desires at scale. Not exactly the paragon of morality.

This, had a friend whose clearance was held up because he knew a bunch of foreign people, people that he had met through a government job with a lower level of clearance.

What an absurd thing to say. As a Canuck, I may even spend some days wondering if I'll have to defend my country from the US, but I can clearly see that there are many governmental and military jobs that are incredibly valuable, ethical, beneficial.

Wikipedia says there are ~2M US governmental employees, and ~2M in the military. The military doesn't use such clearances. When it comes to securing data systems for the government, a clearance is required, even if it's about any number of domestic things, some of which, yes, are valuable and helpful, and needed.

It should be noted that there are all types of security clearances, including very simple ones. In Canada, we have (for example) 'enhanced reliability' and 'secret level II' for governmental work, the first being a simple background, criminal record check, with 10 year's history.

Selling services, even say... cloud based wordprocessing software as a service would require most employees to have such clearances. But of course, what is effectively selling paper and pens, eg wordpro software, is a morally bankrupt thing in your context?!

This is a governmental program: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42353#_Ref471832706

Description: Provides supplemental, nutrient-rich foods; nutrition education and counseling; and breastfeeding promotion and support to low-income women, infants, and children.

But I guess, because this requires handling money, and therefore a security clearance, you'd be ethically challenged to seek clearance? Or to write software for this?

To paint every job which requires a clearance as morally bankrupt, to paint working for the government to be morally bankrupt, is frankly disgusting. You should literally be ashamed of yourself.

Get your head on straight. Please.

Don't let whatever weirdo US team politics-of-the-day exists, leave you making overreaching statements. The US, as a nation, needs GOOD people in such programs, not ones feeling shame.

I personally feel the US is on a terrible course currently, but it won't be fixed by tearing it down further. And if a time does come to change that course, the framework you have, needs to be filled with good people.

Do you not realise that by acting this way, you're working to ensure that only morally bankrupt people will apply for such jobs? If you make working for the government a badge of shame, it will become true in time? That even the most noblest of jobs, such as helping to feed poor children will only be filled by those with no scruples?

How is this attitude helping?

How is it any better than whatever other team the US has?

Sometimes you don't know the exact nature of the task until after you've gone through the rigmarole of applying, getting clearance, etc. In that case if you consider some of the jobs to be morally bankrupt, you consider all of them to potentially be morally bankrupt. You could go through all the hassle then turn it down, or leave during a probationary period when you discover the details, but that is a significant wasted time risk to take.

> You should literally be ashamed of yourself.

Many people state-side are ashamed of their government, and don't want to feel their reputation is tarnished by working directly for it, and quite frankly I don't blame them right now nor would I have at all at numerous points over recent years. And that is before considering those who want “conscientious objector” status with regard to anything military related.

> If you make working for the government a badge of shame, it will become true in time?

For some, it has become true. That time is now or before.

As much as “join and fight the corruption from within” is a laudable goal, I entirely understand people not thinking that they've got the nerve for that. Especially given that the first thing a bad administration does to someone raising concerns is to sack and blacklist them in a way that will affect future employment opportunities.

> such as helping to feed poor children

The “but think of the children” argument cuts both ways: many governments have, directly or indirectly, done and continue to do, terrible things to children. It may not be possible in the short/medium term to do anything truly useful about that (you go try tell the current administration over there to refund the good works that have been gutted recently and see how seriously they take you!) and dealing with the crap until things stear back towards the good is too much for some.

Not everyone has the fortunate needed to fight a bad system from within, or the desire to, no matter how many heartstrings you pull to try shame them into reconsidering the good within the bad.

You are completely ignoring the “you don't always know the full nature of the task until after clearance” part. If you don't know it isn't one that will be a problem for you, it could be one that is. My point there is that bit.

> And I specifically excluded the military.

So did I. Hence I explicitly said afterwards “And that is before considering those who want “conscientious objector” status with regard to anything military related."

I stopped reading at this point because if you didn't bother properly reading my previous before blurting out a response, then explaining more, giving you more to not fully read, will likely achieve nothing beyond consuming my time.

If not, it's all down to value judgements and your personal evaluation of the current power structures.

Personally, I would feel guilty if I did anything that empowered the Trump regime.

Regardless, absolutely, yes, I would take a job in Nazi Germany which required clearance, if that job was to feed poor children. What the hell? I literally used feeding babies as an example, please provide some context in where innocent babies should be left to starve. Children are literally the absolute concept of innocence, and a baby is beyond culpability!

That is... unless you're advocating some form of weird let babies starve, because of the crimes of their parents?! Which is effectively along the lines of suggesting ethnic cleansing???

Any form of ideological stance which is this extreme, is realistically actually inline with fascism, for it puts politics before people.

True. Though to be frank, before typing my longer response I did consider just telling you the same about the “but forget everything else and think of the children” line of reasoning.

Nobody said Trump is literally Hitler. But literal Hitler did exist, so it all becomes a question of where do you personally draw the line?. For you, it seems to be somewhere between Trump and Hitler. For me, it's somewhere before Trump. I'm not establishing equivalency, I'm establishing subjectivity.

Along those lines, who said anything about crimes of parents?

Let me be more concrete: Would you feed children on camera so the propaganda apparatus can film a movie about a concentration camp titled "The Führer gifts a City to the Jews"? [0]

Everything you do can and will be instrumentalized by the regime. The innocents, too, are just a medium for their machinations.

There is a treshold at which even nominally good acts become morally reprehensible because they serve to sustain a harmful system. The only question is which system do you consider harmful enough to pass that treshold?

You're presenting your moral line as if it's objectively correct. I’m pointing out it's a judgment call with no easy absolutes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_(1944_film)

None of that is relevant. Why? My statements have been quite clear; the government is not the party in power. And further, that there may be portions of the government that may offend, that saying "all parts" is obscene and inane.

Recall the original conversation. It's not the mess you've made of it now. Recall my objection was to someone saying that any government job was bad.

I cited a government department with a specific outcome. Feeding children. The counter with the Nazis, therefore, is inline with that statement of mine. Yes, in Nazi Germany, I would work for the government to feed children.

The sensible inference is that my statement is akin to the same for the current US government feeding children. You've now changed that condition to, instead, being some sort of actor for films about feeding children.

This is not what we were discussing. For the record, no, I would not star in a propaganda film willingly.

In as this entire conversation has revolved around how the US government has a myriad of programs which are ethical and moral, and how it therefore would not be untoward to seek clearance and work in those jobs, yes I stand my ground.

I have also indicated that if one found the job questionable, then don't take it! And naturally one can quit if the job changes.

It's such an enormous stretch to try to claim that every single possible job the US government has is reprehensible. The notion is absurd, see my other post about how some of these departments have been unchanged for decades. Lived through both parties.

So yes, there is an easy absolute here. That currently (because, no one can claim to know the future), there are government jobs which are moral and ethical. Period. Hands down. Absolute certainty.

You wonder about the "crimes of the parent". Well, if you refuse to feed children because their parents are in Nazi Germany, then presumably part of that has to do with their parents. For example, would you feed the children of dissenters? If the answer is "yes", yet when asked "would you feed the hungry children of Nazi zealots" you say "no", then you are indeed punishing babies for the crimes of their parents.

A child is a child is a child, and to feed that child is noble. To feed the children of your enemy is noble. To feed the children of someone who murdered your children is noble. To feed the children of those who wish you harm is noble.

There is no ground where not feeding children is reasonable. None. Nada. Ziltch.

Children are not a political game. Children are not something you use to do battle. Children are not something cease helping, because you worry about it helping the enemy.

You. Feed. Children.

Period.

To do so reinforces and legitimizes the power structure, and that is what I take issues with. Children are not enemies, I am fully with you on that.

The enemy is power structures and me not supporting a particularly harmful one might save more children than the concrete act of me feeding them personally.

You wave your hands about, and cite far flung examples of how it could be, then there is not here, but then is not now, the future is not now, and we are speaking of the current.

If your concern is that it "could be" at some point, well I hate to break it to you, but that also covers every type of job you might imagine. "Could be" covers a lot of change and time. "Could be" is a wide brush to paint with, especially considering the object isn't even before us, but a misty, intangible, not yet formed thing.

That it doesn't get him instant hired is the sad part, what are we coming to.

Thank you for your work on Wesnoth, I spent many hours playing back in the day. There's also a good android port.

So, uh, I'm now one of the leads of Frogatto and boy howdy could I use a job too after a recent mass staff reduction at my day job.

edit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-roberts-b9410654/