Any form of labour is relevant to socialism. Contributing to FOSS is cool and all, but so is organising your office at a big tech company. The more radical people in different fields the more viable a general strike and syndicalism is.
"The People's Republic of Walmart" makes a pretty good case that planned economies aren't far off or are literally here, would recommend OP to read it
I was under the impression that operations research was more under Mathematics, though CS at various points is like an applied math exercise. Combinatorics is related, on the math side.
What would that be, electrical engineering?
Electronics engineering, computer engineering, computer science, software engineering... any of those really though you usually have to have some familiarity with electronics if you want to design that part.
I think there's no right answer. Computers are pretty powerful in what they could potentially be used for. I think any subfield of computer science/programming will potentially be useful, so just follow what you're genuinely interested in.
If you're just starting a bachelor's most of your courses will anyway just be giving you a broad background, right? Or do you already have to choose a specialization?
Yeah, if it's a bachelor don't worry about focus areas and just get through it, computers aren't going anywhere and any end game society will have them. You'll be useful in the socialist society because we all will be, that's how it works comrade.
That makes total sense. I took some optimization classes, so I have a little bit of experience with this operations research stuff. Like another commentor mentioned, it could be useful to learn lots of math if you're interested in going that direction.
Sorry I don't have much to offer in terms of concrete advice, but I hope you find what you're looking for
One thing I think, though, is that computers are a useful tool, but it's good to know a second field too so that you can apply them. Knowing Programming + X ends up being a pretty useful combo. If it's programming + music, for example, you're able to build synthesizers or music software.
If you're interested in economics/policy, you might be able to find some feedback between the two fields
You're kind of describing FinTech, but every job posting for that will be from well, finance/banking stuff, so you may probably end up serving capitalism. Otherwise, yep, data science.
what are you talking about lol, all CS is applicable to socialism
maybe they're talking about the people who work in those fields? though tbh that doesn't make sense either, in my experience the political makeup of embedded people isn't any different than the rest of the tech industry. it might actually skew a bit more conservative since it's made up of older people overall than other fields, and in the US a pretty decent chunk of the jobs available are in the """""defense""""" industry.
I believe C will never die, but I'd still learn Rust or something as a backup for more modern "kinda low level" projects in order to not forever work on legacy stuff.
Nobody really uses it for application programming anymore but in areas like operating systems and firmware it’s still the lingua franca.
I've been an embedded guy my whole career and it's all been nearly exclusively in C. I'm a Rust evangelist though so I push that whenever I can.
Maybe I’m just trying to justify my own job, but I think there’s work to be done at a smaller level at any workplace.
Like I work for a large corporation in an evil industry, but I try to influence my coworkers and inspire solidarity. It’s not like their going to unionize or anything and I’m the youngest person on my team so I can only change peoples minds so much but I advocate for myself and my team a lot. I’ve pushed really hard to get us required days off after having to work release nights and I’m very vocal when people are on vacation that I won’t contact them.
I guess it helps that the project I work on is the software our customer service reps use to help customers so it doesn’t feel very evil.
It’s still good and just if you want to go down this path, but I think there are ways you do praxis even working for something stupid or evil. But maybe I’m just being a lib trying to make myself feel better.
I'm a software engineer but don't know much about modern economics work. I would guess data science is the way to go. It's applicable to frankly every field and industry. Even economics will likely (if not already) highly reliant on ML/AI analysis and prediction. And there are a lot of good high paying data science roles and even if you start in the private sector making rich people richer, it would be easy to transition and use your powers for good
Keep your options open for grad school. For grad school in operations research and economics/statistics, you'll want to take a lot of math. Like, maybe a double major in math. That means be on track to take differential equations, linear algebra, computational analysis, etc.
I'm just saying, someone working on a team planning an economy is going to have a grad degree, probably a PhD. If you're looking to get a PhD, you'll want to take a lot of math. That's true for OR, econ, and stats. I don't know about CS.
Could be OR and math, could be econ and math, could be stats and math, could be CS and math. For OR and econ, you'll want some of the more theory based math classes (real analysis and related courses), but also dip your toes into the computational math classes (linear algebra, computational calc, etc). CS will help with the computational classes, where you'll use matlab or python or whatever language they're using these days.
If you do CS, be sure to take stats and econometrics courses, which you would get in OR, econ, or other data oriented fields. A background in stats will help with getting into grad school.
Source: double majored in econ and math, started an econ PhD but failed out
Can I ask what its like double majoring in econ and math in terms of a career?
Math major is good prep for grad school. It leans theoretical, so not that relevant for career (outside of applied maths like differential equations, linear algebra, computational). If you know you only want undergrad, I'd say drop math and stick to data, CS, OR, and a passing familiarity with econ, especially econometrics. Undergrad econ courses are terrible in my opinion, especially if they're not calculus based.
I mean that undergrad econ bears little resemblance to graduate level econ. You know very little about "economics" after undergrad econ. Econ+math is still the best prep for econ PhD, but I don't find the econ degree all that marketable on its own.
Math/CS would be better prep for OR, data grad programs. The good stuff you learn in undergrad micro is basically just OR, maximization under constraints. Undergrad macro is a joke. Econometrics is good, and is basically the marketable aspect of an econ degree
maybe I just have a dim view of it, having done it myself. CS undergrad isn't bad, my main point was to encourage at least some math, especially where there are practical overlaps. Keeps your options open. Good luck!
As others have mentioned, pretty much any specialization will be applicable to a socialist society so being able to have that as motivation shouldn't really be an issue.
Just wanted to add that while it is good you have an idea of where your interests lie, do try and get a solid grasp of what the actual day-to-day work entails for all options that are available to you (internships/co-op placements are especially good for this). That way, you'll be able to make an informed choice on what you enjoy doing (or at least tolerate spending a significant chunk of your life on) the most.
I can't help you directly but have you listened to the General Intellect Unit podcast? One of the hosts (Kyle) got some sort of advanced degree in a field similar to cybernetics I think; and the other host (Shane) is a programmer. The podcast is small time enough you could probably reach out to them in twitter with this question and you might get a response back.
Amazon is basically a planned economy already. In a just world, we'd natonalize them and us it as a state-owned retailer for basic goods.
