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

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

#251

Post by 0xfeba » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #161

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…

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.

I don't think anyone's suggesting everyone get the same portion. I just think that if you work 40 hours (or 35, or whatever we determine is "fulltime"), you should be able to support you and your dependents without going bankrupt if you get cancer.

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

#252

Post by systemtest » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #222

I am in favor of higher taxes, but that does not solve the dignity issue at all. Taking from the rich to give to the poor only solidifies the division between the two groups. It makes givers and takers, and there will be resentment on both sides. We as a society need to find a way to not only feed and clothe and house everyone but to give them purpose and a voice. Paying off half the workforce doesn't do it.

This is exactly what is happening right now. I'm a software developer for the Dutch government and I pay about €40.000 per year in income tax.

My neighbor has the same lifestyle as me. Same apartment, type of clothing, food and sports. And she even drives a car, I don't. Yet I am gone for work for about 50 hours per week and she lives on the income tax I pay. She doesn't even try to have a job because she is happy with her lifestyle living on welfare, the same lifestyle I have to work 40 hours a week for.

I don't hate her, we have a great relationship but it does create a separation between the two groups.

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

#253

Post by maratd » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:27 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.

Europeans have been conditioned to depend on state support to the point of being unable to function without it. Not during times of duress. At all times. This creates dependency. You become a slave to the state.

When you are a slave to the state, your only recourse for redress is violence.

Paris is burning. New York is not.

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

#254

Post by arandr0x » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

MockObject wrote: post #242

rock_hard wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I came to America I had nothing: no social network, no college degree, no money! But America is a place full of opportunity and so after 10 years here and a lot of work I can look back and say that am much happier than I ever was in Europe since the day I got here! The deal is simple: work hard and the sky is the limit. I started a family, have worked at Fortune 20 companies in management positions, bought a hou…

How is this wholesome content even getting downvoted?

I don't know, I upvoted it... I think it's good other immigrants are giving their perspective. Personally I was a cultural mismatch and that's why I left... that doesn't mean nobody has these particular values or that everybody shares mine.

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

#255

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:28 PM UTC

svantana wrote: post #247

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western European countries hardly take immigrants. When you live in a homogenous, solely middle-class country like Sweden/Denmark/Norway, of course everything seems nice and comfortable. But America accepts some very poor immigrants and allows them to make money and be lifted up. Those are many of the people you saw on the bus.

Easily disproven statement by looking at real stats [1], where most western european countries are ahead of the US. If you're suggesting those immigrants are not "poor", consider the Syrian crisis, Germany and Sweden were by far the largest takers of syrian refugees in the west, while the US hardly took any syrians at all. In fact, I read somewhere that Sweden in 2015 was the largest taker of refugees per capita from…

Which has led to massive issues within Sweden.

An extraordinary 190,000 refugees are now expected to arrive in Sweden this year - double what the agency expected at the start of the year, and more people than live in Uppsala, the country's fourth largest city.

If the predictions are correct, Sweden will take 20,000 asylum applications per million people in 2015, double the rate even of Germany.

The strain is beginning to show everywhere from politics - where the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats are, according to two of the country's eight main polls, now the party with the most support - to finance, where both the central government and municipalities are struggling to find savings to cover the costs.

https://www.dw.com/en/sweden-hits-refugee-crisis-zero-hour/a...

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

#256

Post by elliekelly » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #191

Pulcinella wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty negative outlook on humanity. People do things for reasons other than making money. Also seeing your boss put in a third the effort and produce 10 times the paycheck is also demoralizing...

Of course they do. They’re called hobbies. But do they take massive risks without potential massive reward? A lot wouldn’t. Unless they’re under the rule of a dictator and their life is threatened. That’s an incentive.

Wouldn't? Or can't given the lack of safety nets?

If the worst-case scenario is starting over perhaps the risk isn't so "massive." But when the worst-case scenario is starving then it's certainly a massive risk.

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

#257

Post by Daishiman » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #231

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…

Western European countries hardly take immigrants. When you live in a homogenous, solely middle-class country like Sweden/Denmark/Norway, of course everything seems nice and comfortable. But America accepts some very poor immigrants and allows them to make money and be lifted up. Those are many of the people you saw on the bus.

This is completely false.

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

#258

Post by 0xfeba » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #219

unclebucknasty wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Nope, I think in pretty much all states, property taxes fund schools in that district. So if your parents have an expensive home, it gathers lots of property tax, which goes mostly to the school in that neighborhood.

> American Dream

The so-called American Dream of social mobility does not exist anymore. It's a relic from the 50s, where a single income from a modest job could support an entire family, with a summer vacation every year.

The more modern examples of rags-to-riches bootstrapping-my-own-widget business are atypical.

The middle class is disappearing and it's not because they are upward bound.

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

#259

Post by gotocake » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #218

gotocake wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Yes, but considering that there have always been orders of magnitude more poor people than rich and powerful people, your statement is effectively empty. More telling is that the rich and powerful get away with it, until they don’t. In France during the Revolution, in England during the civil war, in Russia when the czar system was torn down.

Push people far enough and they don’t break, they lash out and take their society down with them. It can be hard to predict when that will happen, but if circumstances don’t change it seems that it always does. Ghaddafi could have been forgiven for believing that after decades, he wouldn’t be hunted and killed by his own people. Hosni Mubarak clearly thought he was untouchable, as did Ben Ali in Tunisia.

I’ll say it again, I’d prefer an orderly and plannned redistribution rather than it all being burned to the ground because a handful of elites can’t finish their goddamned history education and ascribe to the “this time it will be different,” school of what could charitably be called “thought.”

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

#260

Post by moorhosj » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #231

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…

Western European countries hardly take immigrants. When you live in a homogenous, solely middle-class country like Sweden/Denmark/Norway, of course everything seems nice and comfortable. But America accepts some very poor immigrants and allows them to make money and be lifted up. Those are many of the people you saw on the bus.

==solely middle-class country==

Isn't it possible that the reason their middle-class is so large is due in some part on political decisions they've made?

I think it is at least worth exploring before we jump to the ethnic breakdown of the country. Political choices are something we can change relatively quickly compared to demographics. The US has a higher GDP per capita than Sweden and Denmark which implies that there is more money to spread around even with a comparatively large immigrant population.