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Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

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Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#31

Post by jononor »

pax wrote: post #14
im3w1l wrote: post #7

I think it's sad how we are getting further and further away from genuine human interaction. I guess we can't afford each other anymore.

That's arguable. Digital platforms are both facilitating and changing human interaction - for both better and worse.

Yes, but many popular modern platform facilitate very transactional interactions, this-for-that. They are also generally high-frequency, low-"touch". People will strive to find those rarer valuable connections, and many will succeed - now with digital platforms, as before without them. But I can't help the feeling that platforms are seeking more to exploit the human need for connection than to actively support it.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#32

Post by megaman22 »

I've worked with a lot of Fortune 500 companies, and never have I heard a story of where they outsourced IT work and it actually went well. Maybe it saved a few dollars, but invariably it added mountains of inconvenience, delay, wastage and frustration.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#33

Post by senthil_rajasek »

robbyt wrote: post #28
mistermann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your opinion of presenting speculation as fact?

It's called "empirical evidence" probably from experience and observation.

Or anecdotal.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#34

Post by tonyedgecombe »

crdoconnor wrote: post #24
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the low hanging fruit for outsourcing is also the low hanging fruit for automation.

I think that's being completely unfair. Outsourcability is purely about how easy it is to extend a supply chain to another continent without impacting quality control and lead time. Automation is purely about how easy it is to program a computer to do the work. The two have very little to do with one another. In fact, the more automateable a job is, the less likely it will be pushed offshore because managing a highly…

Yet if you look at what the West has offshored it's manufacturing, customer service, IT support, etc. All areas that are amenable to automation because the deliverable arrives down a wire or in a container.

What hasn't been offshored are jobs that require a physical presence, these are much tougher to automate.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#35

Post by maxerickson »

briandear wrote: post #30
philjohn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is ... unless there's a universal income, or new jobs for all these people, who in the hell is going to buy your products?

Weren’t we making the same arguments with weavers in the early 1800s and with the assembly line? Same story, different century. The auto made horse traders and blacksmiths redundant, automated weaving looms made weavers redundant, high yield farming made many small farmers redundant — yet worldwide poverty is lower than it has ever been, unemployment rates are fairly constant. New industries form when others decline.…

Maybe people would rather not have a repeat of the tumult and violence that accompanied the industrial revolution?

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#36

Post by klibertp »

mistermann wrote: post #25
happy-go-lucky wrote: post #15

Most of these tech workers are too lazy to keep up with what’s going on or learn new skills, and their compensation is out of proportion to their usefulness. Their employers are no different. Both are always haunted by the fear of being made redundant by their clients. They suffer from aversion to change. As a matter of fact, the automation that the article says has taken the place of these workers should have happen…

What's your opinion of presenting speculation as fact?

I have no knowledge of India at all, but I witnessed a process similar to what GP describes in Eastern Europe: 20 years ago knowing a little bit of Windows internals (like how to connect a printer...) was enough to get a job with a decent pay. With time, however, a generic "computer skill" in population grew and universities started producing a lot of programmers (and, a bit later, admins), which made the requirements for tech jobs steadily raise. A lot of my acquaintances lost their jobs along the way and either moved to other careers or got to one of a handful of places where such jobs are still available and secure, mostly in the govt institutions.

I'm not sure if the reasons I stated are really responsible for this, but the requirements in job postings getting higher over the years is a hard fact you can probably check easily.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#38

Post by mrow84 »

im3w1l wrote: post #7

I think it's sad how we are getting further and further away from genuine human interaction. I guess we can't afford each other anymore.

Fred Hirsch's book "Social Limits to Growth" contains a very interesting exploration of the nature of positional goods, including personal time. One relevant aspect is that as material productivity increases, the relative prices of positional goods increase, because their supply remains limited. It is quite an unsettling read, and I highly recommend it.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#39

Post by nerdponx »

abalashov wrote: post #4

Isn’t the more interesting story that half of India’s IT workforce is going to be structurally out of work in the near future, if this article and McKinsey are to be believed?

It sounds like there's a big shortage of competent, trained therapists, however. Not even being snarky. Therapy is like an oil change for your brain, humans seem to need it in order to function 100% over a long period of time.

Re: Made redundant by automation, tech workers in India are embracing online therapy

#40

Post by walshemj »

megaman22 wrote: post #32

I've worked with a lot of Fortune 500 companies, and never have I heard a story of where they outsourced IT work and it actually went well. Maybe it saved a few dollars, but invariably it added mountains of inconvenience, delay, wastage and frustration.

And many big companies now insource than outsource so as to have direct control
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