From what I understand, impostor syndrome is a phrase that used to describe people with professional level skillsets who feel like they’re still beginners and carry around the anxiety that, at any moment, they’ll be exposed as lower skilled.

Today, it gets used in bootcamps and code classes to describe people with beginner level skills who make an honest assessment of themselves. A lot of them buy it, because the idea that one is secretly some kind of genius has always been alluring to some people. They can coast on that self image and get interviews, and sometimes the hiring manager gives them the benefit of the doubt because they relate to applicants who come from similar (wealthy) backgrounds.

Some of them, when given jobs, will get better at what they do. Others will not, and will truly become impostors — but they’ll continue to identify with the concept of impostor syndrome. Based on what I’ve seen in life, the latter is more common, and the quantity of them will overtake competent workers.

Eventually, no one making over 50k will be competent. No white collars will know what they’re doing. They’ll still run things, but ground level workers will be understaffed, underpaid, under-equipped, and the professional managerial class will be working increasingly pointless jobs where they do nothing except chase bonuses and try to justify the continued existence of their position to their bosses.

Perhaps this has already the world that we live in.