Why don't we exalt those who created such great things that we take for granted?
Because there are too many of them. Look around you. The objects you can currently see or touch have been built though the effort of, literally, tens of thousands of people. My MacBook alone is the work of a small city's worth of designers, engineers, techs, modelers, miners, carpenters, accountants, physicists, chemists, machinists, architects, caterers, truck drivers, and so on. You couldn't read all their names aloud in a week even if you knew their names.
We do give people individual credit, sometimes. The movies have credits with names in fine print. And a few lucky (?) people become archetypes: They're the ones who appear in the encyclopedia under inventors.
But mostly engineers and other builders take pride in the results. To praise a Pixar engineer, praise the movies. To praise an Apple engineer, praise the MacBook Air (which by the way is absolutely excellent). To praise my semiconductor engineering, talk about how thin your phone is or how good its reception is. Most of the credit isn't mine, but a little of it is, and that's going to be good enough.
I disagree that our country would be a better place if we all spent even more time blowing sunshine up each other's butts. Rather, I think the world benefits from teamwork: People who do their jobs effectively and consistently and take pride in the results.
I disagree that our country would be a better place
if we all spent even more time blowing sunshine up
each other's butts.
I completely share your view. In fact, the software industry is a perfect one to be in if you want to enjoy life without having to make noise and conform to social norms. And while I personally like to have diversified relationships, the industry as a whole has a rich enough culture for us to be comfortable on our own.
In comparision, I love Mathematics, but the field is too narrow. I have heard stories about how investment bankers hate their crowds. And lawyers are always in stiff competition with one another. Looking from this perspective, the software community is similar to the designers' community. We share a lot and we genuinely like each other. Well, maybe that's a problem itself. We tend to form into cults and we are too ignorant with what else is going on in the world, hence we tend to be more socially awkward. But that's an internal problem and not an external one. We have to fix that individually.
However, while I don't think we should strive for more publicity and social status, not having enough cash can hurt. This is a real issue. In my country, on average, a programmer gets paid as much as an accountant, if not less. I know a lot of couples where the guy is a coder and the girl is an accountant, and they eventually had to break up partly because the girl is earning more.
I like your points so I will compliment the mechanical fish ;)
To bring it back to the OP's point with your perspective, we should then not attempt to make the designers famous but rather highlight the importance, fun and satisfaction that is their craft.
We all appreciate what the designers make, but we don't spend much time exalting the designers. I don't think the OP necessarily wants all of them famous, just like we don't sit around talking about various primary care physicians. We do tell our kids that they can grow up to be those doctors though. I'm of the opinion that the next generation of parents could be telling their kids that they can build anything they want when they grow up. Something that legos drove home to me, but I consider myself lucky enough to be in a family that encouraged such thinking and could provide the tools for me to explore it.
Because there are too many of them. Look around you. The objects you can currently see or touch have been built though the effort of, literally, tens of thousands of people. My MacBook alone is the work of a small city's worth of designers, engineers, techs, modelers, miners, carpenters, accountants, physicists, chemists, machinists, architects, caterers, truck drivers, and so on. You couldn't read all their names aloud in a week even if you knew their names.
We do give people individual credit, sometimes. The movies have credits with names in fine print. And a few lucky (?) people become archetypes: They're the ones who appear in the encyclopedia under inventors.
But mostly engineers and other builders take pride in the results. To praise a Pixar engineer, praise the movies. To praise an Apple engineer, praise the MacBook Air (which by the way is absolutely excellent). To praise my semiconductor engineering, talk about how thin your phone is or how good its reception is. Most of the credit isn't mine, but a little of it is, and that's going to be good enough.
I disagree that our country would be a better place if we all spent even more time blowing sunshine up each other's butts. Rather, I think the world benefits from teamwork: People who do their jobs effectively and consistently and take pride in the results.