141–150 of 151 posts
Knowledge is not becoming meaningless. If anything, we are approaching a phase in which it will get even more value because only people really able to master and recognise knowledge will be able to ripe all the fruits of AI. I would not consider any job that is mostly based on pattern recognition (like medicine). Enter coding only if you think you'll be top 1% because those will be the only people who will still be a…
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Trades is a bit of a brutal profession on your body. Plus, there's a shortage at the moment but there's no guarantee that will continue.
Trades are recession-proof though. Rich or poor, recession or not, people still need to shit and don't like doing so in the dark, so at least plumbing and electrical will still have work. People need housing, so anything construction and building work will also be fine. Same for heating and HVAC. The fields mostly impacted by recessions are those that never had a business in the first place - lots of tech has been bu…
It really gets old hearing software developers talk about trades yet none of them do them. I've seen what the trades have done to my dad, uncle, grandparents. They earned good livings - but it was real, hard work, and they paid for that hard work.
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Plumbing and electricians can be a great career but “one of the less physical one” denies the fact that it still wears out your body all the same. Speaking from a family of manual labor + friends in trades.
Agree - but the trajectory is to become a "Master Plumber" (this is an actual title/license) then you can operate your own plumbing business and the harder physical stuff can be done by younger employees. Getting to this level takes 7-10 years (from a cursory Google search), so he could have it by his early 30s. Usually the worry blue collar/trades people have is when their body starts breaking down in their 40s/50s…
May hate my answer. Learn to be optimistic long-term, go to therapy, exercise, make friends, have relationships, and try different things to find a career you enjoy. AI is overblown and knowledge is only becoming more valuable in a world spammed with low-quality information.
> go to therapy Unless you have psychological issues you want to resolve, "make friends" makes this part redundant. The idea that everyone needs to pay a professional to talk to unnecessarily medicalises the human condition.
Paul Graham has some nice advice on this in his essay, What You'll Wish You'd Known. http://paulgraham.com/hs.html "In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don't commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range…
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Blue collar means spending your youth with tough physical labour surrounded by grumpy men to make some even angrier old man richer - while your friends are in college partying with fun girls and making contacts for easy jobs. Some people can be successful in a blue collar career, but the odds are you'll be abused, dogged and low paid. For that experience, you are better off spending your youth in the hospitality busi…
But I know so many grumpy old engineers and IT people! Every job has it's hazards. I say try a number of them myself. Manual work is good for people, especially young people (in my opinion). I don't know about 30 years of back breaking labor though.
I complete agree! Manual work is great for the mind and spirit. That's why gyms and sports became so popular in the 80s and forward. But getting a job in manual labour, odds are much higher that you will be doing the back breaking stuff - or working for an asshole boss. That inverts the situation and the work becomes bad for the mind and spirit.
Manual work is best done for yourself, or being the boss, or for a good company with decent pay if you're extremely lucky to find it. I'd switch IT to manual work in a heartbeat if it came with competitive pay and some decency and respect in the workplace.
I've spent most of my professional career as a front-end software engineer and started hating it a few years ago--thought I'd be happier as a plumber, electrician, or even a paralegal: I wanted to get away from screens, to do something practical, straightforward, and more people-oriented.
Then I did my research, took a few courses, talked to tradesmen, paralegals, and lawyers, and came out the other side realizing that working in tech isn't so bad, and that a lot of what I disliked about it could be mitigated from within the profession, without my having to start from scratch.
All that being said, to answer your question (which is admittedly very individual and hard to answer as a stranger) I'd say be an entrepreneur. Technology (including AI) empowers us as individuals to be far more productive and capable. Leverage this to your advantage and avoid the bullshit of office politics and bosses. Foster your curiosity and creativity, learn how to think, and how to tackle complex problems. Find cool opportunities that present themselves in the constantly shifting landscape our economy has become. You'll never be irrelevant.
It all depends - advice for these matters is more about listening. If you’re in a headspace where ChatGPT has you freaked out, pass on giving advice.