What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#981

Post by lbrito » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 7:38 PM UTC

punkbit wrote: post #635

testerius wrote: post #621

Currently, I have 3 main issues with AI, LLMs and so on. Generally speaking I am happy that I can use Claude Code and Codex to help building, fixing and maintaining software in my job. To be honest it is so helpful, I am less stressed bacause most of the time I can "find out" solution without asking collegues for help or I do not have spend a lot of time struggling myself. Yeah, if you understand what feeling it is t…

Three really good points. Specially the third one. Not sure why HN readers are downvoting you…

Because a large portion of people are in this industry for the high salaries only, and always disliked the actual job of programming. Those people welcome LLM coding with open arms.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#982

Post by estearum » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC

spwa4 wrote: post #979

lumost wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have unfortunately apt historical comparisons. The economic state of Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century matches a society where wealth had been completely and utterly bifurcated. The result was “seizing the means of production”

You mean it was a whole political theory resulting in a revolution "to end class society" who immediately, nearly as a first step created a new elite class, equally impossible to enter and with far bigger wealth inequality than capitalism? Judging by the reaction in discussions it is a very sore point of socialists to point out that Marx was obviously upper class, definitely part of the bourgeoisie and in his actions…

I don't think anyone was suggesting this was a successful project or even a project that earnestly pursued its stated objectives, thus the scare-quotes around the slogan.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#983

Post by cheschire » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 11:01 PM UTC

sackfield wrote: post #552

cheschire wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the remote thing before Covid and rejected it for many of the same reasons. Then Covid happened and so many people got to experience it and loved it. But I still hated it while I was forced to. Every time I told anyone that I personally didn’t like working from home, and was excited about the return to office that would inevitably come, I got SHOUTED at. Absolutely flayed for not being 110% in support of this t…

Wow I thought I was the only one. I have also had these experiences, including abused by people on this site for the crime of saying I miss the office. I am back at the office now, and am enjoying the separation between work and home.

There are dozens of us!

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#984

Post by slowhadoken » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 1:34 AM UTC

throw-the-towel wrote: post #601

slowhadoken wrote: post #546

Tech corporations co-opted open source technologies and liberalism by employing a bunch of wokies to act as social interfaces. Feminism has been doing the same thing to tech and media that Mitt Romney and private equity firms have been doing to brick and mortar businesses for the last 25 years.

Can you elaborate please?

It’s a lot of transnational corporate level head game stuff to realign Democrats towards neoliberalism. It results in gutting companies for ideological and/or post-political globalist ends. Grifting has nearly eliminated civics. It’s like players are trying to buy, strip, and flip America. Like a leveraged buyout of the US or something. Look at everything that came out about Blizzard for example. It’s spooky.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#985

Post by matheusmoreira » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 3:20 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #959

matheusmoreira wrote: post #96

Because society sucks so people enable Daniel Plainview mode.

>Daniel Plainview mode What does this mean?

Ruthlessly and possibly sociopathically pursuing wealth with the goal of eventually fucking off to a secluded mansion where all of our wants and needs are met and then isolating oneself from the unfixable society we cannot tolerate or meaningfully change.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#986

Post by purplemoonx » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 3:59 AM UTC

rphv wrote: post #968

This sounds like the lament of a group of people who have nothing in their lives they consider more valuable than work.

Having a roof over your head and food and stuff, yeah

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#987

Post by sicktriple » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:28 AM UTC

I don't know about anyone else, but I still quite enjoy knowing and learning things. I'm probably not going to stop knowing and learning things just because we made the knowing and learning things machine.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#988

Post by sicktriple » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:41 AM UTC

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #803

jvidalv wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small forums is the answer. In spain they are still popular and after some time it feels like an small town in the good sense, you know everyone and everyone knows you. Of course small forums will not IPO

Tildes is nice, Hubski's a nice slow and thoughtful

I'm very interested in these small-ish forum communities. They're always invite only, however. I guess that's what must be done to keep it sane.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#989

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 5:32 AM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

> Going online it's like everyone is really angry and tired and sad all the time, and it's getting worse every year.

Oh my. You need to step up shepherding the algorithms that decide what to put in front of your eyes. If you reject content that contains angry, tired and sad people it stops showing up. And you are left with content by cool people, energetically and optimistically doing awesome things.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#990

Post by scotty79 » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 5:38 AM UTC

pardon_me wrote: post #761

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been in the industry over 25+ hands down this is the worst period of being online. There has always been that programmer who wanted to quit and run a restaurant, but tech world lost its original soul. We were making people’s lives better, now we are just creating more wealth gap. Majority of the industry is hostile, online communities are extremely hard to get into and very exclusive, if you are ne…

For me this culminated to a deep belief that technology =/= progress. This has shaken my core to re-evaluate who will ever be allowed to benefit from my skills and time, but ruined a lot of my genuine enjoyment and enthusiasm.

> For me this culminated to a deep belief that technology =/= progress.

I landed on the opposite conclusion. People don't progress in any domain if technology doesn't force them. Sometimes the ride might be bumpy and it might be taking them forwards kicking and screaming, but without new technology no progress happens on any issue.

Science drives technology, technology drives economy and technology and economy drive culture and science. That's the virtuous feedback loop that drives itself and everything human as a side effect.