Read through other people's code and criticize their decision-making. Answer questions on SO related to whatever you're currently doing. If you can't explain it, you don't really know it.
Out of curiosity, what actual(valid?) argument did I actually produce?
The fact that you are somehow extracting an opinion from my statement is fascinating. No where have I stated my beliefs, no where have I implied my beliefs. Your statement is a simple display of black and white thinking: "If you criticize my comment, you disagree with everything I believe". The fact that "people like me" exist in the context of this commentary is probably a good thing.
Let me reiterate: My opinions were never stated anywhere in this entire thread. I criticized your train of thought and your straw man argument. Nothing more.
I don't really understand how you read that from my comment. I didn't imply he was lying. I was demonstrating how easy it is to straw man. It's clearly very easy to dismiss opinions you may disagree with by twisting them into something else. "You're stupid because I can mock you" doesn't give any validity to your arguments.
Similarly: "I've never seen a plausible argument supporting what Snowden did that boiled down to more than [my morality is more important than your laws]. At most, you get a side order of [George Orwell] mumble mumble [he wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything if he tried to do it differently] mumble mumble [The government was so evil towards him that he fled to RUSSIA!]". These aren't arguments that people actually make. If they ARE making either claim, you're choosing some poor conversational partners.
I don't know anything about chemists. However, I struggle to believe an industry with a career path starting freshman year has more variance in ability than a technical field pulling poli-sci majors off the curb to fill seats.
Supply/demand of a chair takes a distance second to the value of the product of that chair. Medicine/law/finance are all oversupplied with high salaries. Try showing up to a teaching position interview and convincing them to pay you more because of econ 101.
When the supply of programmers catch up, the weak go to slaughter. 2 people digging a hole for $5 an hour are more effective than 1 person digging for $10 an hour, almost completely irrelevant to digging ability. 2 dummies don't make 1 smartie in programming. Unions exist in fields where replaceability is high. That happens much less in educated professions. The main other reason they exist is for professions with a high risk of injuries. Carpal tunnels only takes so many programmers every year.