Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#211

Post by HarryHirsch » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

wincy wrote: post #197

arandr0x wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just think people who come in late at the party because their kid was sick and they're mentally ill and they live way out in the middle of the country and there's no pie left should at least get a couple apples or something.

My kid is disabled and I have severe anxiety and suffered depression. I live right in the middle of the US. I didn’t start my tech career until 28 because of all that, but I’m doing ok. I live in a big house with good schools. From what I’ve gathered of non-US (European) tech jobs, I’d never have gotten an opportunity to work as a programmer because I never got a bachelors degree. Maybe it isn’t like that everywhere,…

if the safety net was too comfortable I doubt I’d have ever felt the need to climb out of it

Americans have been conditioned into accepting a staggering amount of abuse and into perpetuating that abuse.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#212

Post by atemerev » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

normal_man wrote: post #201

atemerev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my wealth that is going to be “redistributed”. I am a relatively well off software engineer; I was born in a poor family on the outskirts of a Siberian town. I learned to program all on my own, by visiting my friends with computers and taking programming books from the local library. It wasn’t a “function of circumstance” — it was a function of my interest and targeted activity. What is unfair here?

Unless you are a multimillionaire, no it will not be your wealth being redistributed. The problem is not well-off people driving their Teslas around and taking two vacations a year, it is the relatively few people hoarding such obscene levels of wealth that their personal holdings dwarf those of entire lower economic classes of people. More than they could possibly need for 1000 lifetimes.

If you expropriate the entire wealth of the top 0.1% (6 trillion dollars), it will last around 2-3 years (social security/medicare/medicaid expenditure of the US is more than 2 trillion dollars per year). The "relatively few people" are of course rich, but they are, as you have said, relatively few. Most of the taxable money are made by the middle class.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#213

Post by FussyZeus » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #27

The problem is that as a society we believe that people need to work 40 hours a week to survive. We replace people with robots and retain the same output. We are more productive than ever before, yet work the same amount. Physical and uneducated work is being replaced by automation, yet we expect these people replaced by robots to find jobs to survive where there are now none. I don't believe in Universal Basic Incom…

I'm curious how you plan to have a less-than-40-hour workweek while still having living wages? It's going to be hard enough to get the capitalists on board with just paying people who do work they find inferior enough to live.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#214

Post by systemtest » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

In places like Amsterdam the poor get a free car (Canta) and a free washing machine (Miele) from the city. It's good that they don't endure hardship, but it also doesn't give them the perspective that you experienced and they may never have enough incentive to make their life better. If people in Amsterdam had to go to the laundromat that could give them the push to find a good job so that they can earn a nice washing machine.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#215

Post by FussyZeus » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #181

aantix wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without incentives, there is no innovation. And if everyone is entitled to the same portion of the pie, what’s the incentive to work harder? Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

Why does every conversation about social safety nets or a more equitable distribution of wealth involve a rebuttal by one group that goes directly to fulminant communism, the likes of which has never existed? And, how does that same group--that is supposedly so concerned about fairness--see as fair, a status quo which favors capital over labor to an untenable degree?

Because of internalized anti-Russia propaganda. If the person is young enough to have not been around during the Cold War, they just internalized it from their parents instead of the Government.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#216

Post by gabrielhoch » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #25

ipnon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the average IQ of a STEM graduate is a standard deviation or more above average [0][1], then how does a more educated populace result in something besides the stratification we see today? STEM education can help a person get on the right side of the tech split, but the STEM education itself is already prohibitively difficult. [0] https://thetab.com/us/2017/04/10/which-major-has-highest-iq-... [1] http://www.randal…

You don't need to be special to do STEM work, but it's possible the attitude that you do is keeping us from learning how to better train the average person in it.

I'm a software developer who comes from a non-STEM (music) background, but before I went into tech I thought there was no way I would be "smart enough" to do what I do now for a living.

Turns out you don't need 4-years of heavy maths/physics/CS education to write React components, but most of my friends (and a surprising number of recruiters) still think you do.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#217

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #211

wincy wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid is disabled and I have severe anxiety and suffered depression. I live right in the middle of the US. I didn’t start my tech career until 28 because of all that, but I’m doing ok. I live in a big house with good schools. From what I’ve gathered of non-US (European) tech jobs, I’d never have gotten an opportunity to work as a programmer because I never got a bachelors degree. Maybe it isn’t like that everywhere,…

if the safety net was too comfortable I doubt I’d have ever felt the need to climb out of it Americans have been conditioned into accepting a staggering amount of abuse and into perpetuating that abuse.

[deleted]

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#218

Post by danmaz74 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

gotocake wrote: post #17

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the jobs require higher IQs than 85? Suddenly we have 15% of the population entirely unemployable? Wealth redistribution is a choice of ethics. What if we start to create better technologies that augment the economic usefulness of the lowest IQ people?

Wealth redistribution is a choice of ethics. If you study world history you’ll quickly realize that it’s ultimately the choice of the mob with the torches and pitchforks. You’d be amazed at how disinterested they are in moral relativism or a chat about Atlas Shrugged. Personally I’d prefer a more equitable redistribution based on planning, rather than a redistribution based on plutocrats being put up against a wall.…

If you study history, you also quickly learn that there were orders of magnitude more poor people killed by the rich and powerful than the other way around.

Are mobs always morally in the right? Absolutely not. But neither the opposite is true.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#219

Post by chosenbreed37 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

unclebucknasty wrote: post #186

aantix wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have access to “the top” through resourcefulness and risk taking. But if one is not inclined to be that type, I’m not sure what ensures them to the rewards of those willing to do so?

> You have access to “the top” through resourcefulness and risk taking You forgot generational wealth. In the U.S. the class into which you are born determines the class you'll reach more than any other factor. Overwhelmingly. It's not even close. So, it's doubtful that poor people's problem is that they just don't take enough risks.

> In the U.S. the class into which you are born determines the class you'll reach more than any other factor. Overwhelmingly. It's not even close.

Interesting...I've always thought of the US as being more of a meritocracy than the UK and Europe in general. I mean that is what the American dream is all about right?

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#220

Post by laurentl » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #199

arandr0x wrote: post #156

I saw this when I arrived in America, and it's the reason I left. I take the bus and seeing literally every day that there were people with families who worried and laughed and were kind who spent 2 hours a day transporting themselves to service or manufacturing industry job when I sat in an air conditioned office making 3x their wages was making me feel terribly guilty. I eventually went back to a country with a soc…

I work in tech. My wife does not. We came to the EU and I noticed that I make a good deal less, but she makes more. Even more important, though, instead of me getting lots of vacation time and her getting almost nothing, we both get a month off a year, protected by law (no bullshit "unlimited vacation" policy can take it away). We can finally take proper holidays together. Life is better here.

Good for you! Where in the EU? There is quite a bit of variation in work regulations and norms (e.g. minimum wage and salary variance) depending on the member states.