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

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

#341

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:25 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.

Neither side really "accepts" poor immigrants, the availability of unskilled work visas is extremely limited.

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

#342

Post by gotocake » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #289

gotocake wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they riot and rebel. The surest way to see how violent people can be is to offer them no choice in the matter. This is a country with a lot of guns, tons of space, and a poorly paid police and military. It’s not hard to imagine how the prospect of a quiet, ignominious death would go over. There are already militias and preppers, and I for one want those movements to do something other than flourish and expand.

If they rebel, then either there is a use for some of them for guards, or those we can hire for guards are better (and will win). The US indeed have a large amount of land and many guns, but that land is already termed "fly-over" country, do you think most people on the coasts care if somebody runs around up in the Apalachian mountains with a gun shouting down with the rich? If (which I do not believe) those persons…

If they rebel, then either there is a use for some of them for guards, or those we can hire for guards are better (and will win). The US indeed have a large amount of land and many guns, but that land is already termed "fly-over" country, do you think most people on the coasts care if somebody runs around up in the Apalachian mountains with a gun shouting down with the rich? If (which I do not believe) those persons will have no value at all, we will deal with them when/if they riot.

If only we had some proximal lesson from recent history to look to, as a way of explaining just how deveststing insurgencies can be in the modern world. You know, a lesson involving a bunch of mountain men with guns, fighting from their home turf. Oh well, I can’t think of anything, but if it comes up I’m sure that our record stamping them out quickly, effectively, and without catastrophic loss of life and treasure will speak for itself.

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

#343

Post by torbjorn » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

lghh wrote: post #267

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.

Trust me, I don't work 3x harder than most of the people I make 3x of. My wife is a teacher and I am in tech, I make 3x her salary. She works way more and spends more of both her physical and emotional labor on her job. I work hard and I do good work, but what she does is not even in the same stratosphere as what I do. I'm not innovating anything, I'm just writing decent code. She's finding new ways to help kids lear…

The teachers' situation is more demoralizing for sure.

Capitalism would explain the difference between a tech worker's pay and a teacher's pay as based on skill and worker scarcity, not on who works the hardest.

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

#344

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

linkmotif wrote: post #271

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…

Poor people could do well in America if they made economic decisions that led to them accumulating wealth.

Yeah, about as much as you could win a fortune in a casino if only you made the decisions that lead the fruit symbols on the slot machine to line up.

This view is severely underestimating the role played by path dependence (e.g. your environment, wealth of your parents) and pure luck.

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

#345

Post by CalRobert » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

xamuel wrote: post #232

CalRobert wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen to that - more than this, I worry that "we" didn't decide anything, but rather that keeping people in a state of imagined scarcity proved handy for preserving the status quo in terms of concentration of power. What would a population do if people were able to act freely and do the things they cared about? How many folks would be fighting climate change but are _instead_ doing Dumb Shit That Doesn't Matter (most…

Here's another perspective you might not be accounting for. Currently, people who work elite jobs tend to live around people with elite interests. If you're an upper class developer, you'll live in a neighborhood with other developers, lawyers, doctors, white-collar workers. If somehow housing were made affordable everywhere, how would that pattern be maintained? By definition, there would be nothing stopping "Cletus…

Thanks for pointing out a motivation for density restrictions that isn't purely cartel-ish. I appreciate the perspective.

I'm not sure what to do about Cletus, to be honest. I'd like to say "enforce the laws about making tons of noise and discharging weapons" but I know that can be a fool's errand in some cases. After all, I was a loud student once.

Ultimately I think that neighborhoods near the core of cities need to grow (densify), as they did for most of history, and the existing homeowners can enjoy the consolation of watching their home become substantially more valuable as a result of somebody wanting to put 10 apartments there instead of one house. It's telling that in many places the most desirable neighbourhoods are the ones built _before_ current laws made them illegal.

'course, I just bought a house in the country, so we'll see how that goes.

Also, Cletus was a caricature... Poor people can be quiet and rich people can be loud.

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

#346

Post by adamsea » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:27 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,…

The flip side is say, those, who, because there was no safety net, did not or were not able to turn their lives around the way you did and fell on really, really hard times - who didn't make it.

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

#347

Post by kaffeemitsahne » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

why-el wrote: post #310

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you quit and work on your own passions and projects for free then? This is what I don't understand about most Europeans. All of my friends in Europe all do exactly what your neighbor is doing, almost all of them just live on welfare and it is great. They have so much money from welfare they can come visit the states and hangout regularly and have endless vacation while getting paid. All of them use this tim…

> They have so much money from welfare they can come visit the states and hangout regularly and have endless vacation while getting paid. This sounds too good to be true. Do you have any numbers? The welfare systems in EU are shrinking.

Welfare in the Netherlands is ~1200/month. If you live cheaply (e.g. in a 500/month room in a shared house) that leaves more than enough for a transatlantic plane ticket every now and then.

Source (in Dutch): https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2018/12/19/uitke...

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

#348

Post by snarf21 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #243

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.

I'm beginning to think increasing minimum wage will help. You don't need to tax the rich, just make them pay their people better. But that's still at odds with two thing. 1) it will increase incentive for more automation - but that's already happening as fast as the engineers can do it. 2) it will increase the incentive to use undocumented workers who can be paid under the table below minimum wage. Before we can talk…

I don't think minimum wage increases work. There are some unintended consequences. Let's say you pay people $15/hour to flip burgers. They have a higher wage but companies generally pass this cost increase on to consumers. All companies that raised these prices tend to be the ones that the poor people shop at. In the end you don't get the increase in buying power that you might think just by raising wages.

Additionally, what about the EMT that went to school for 2 years and makes $36K ($18/hour)? You have now totally destroyed the value of their education investment and made this job undesirable. Over time, people won't choose this job without wage increases. This may not happen instantly but eventually this ripples higher and higher. As it does so, the wage increase cause higher prices. Eventually at equilibrium it doesn't seem likely to me that anyone's buying power is really improved.

I still think the only solution is to tax the "rich" more and move to almost no taxes for those that are poorer. There is no reason at all to tax someone who is making minimum wage. Given the wage gap, the tax doesn't even need to increase very much to do this.

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

#349

Post by adamsea » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #265

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…

Maybe if the "favored class" Americans took the bus or went to the laundromat like I did for years they'd want poor people to do well too. You're making two assumptions: (1) There's a favored class, and (2) The favored class does not want poor people to do well. Both assumptions are wrong.

Yeah, it's not as if America is like some episode of 'Star Trek' where one group of a planet's inhabitants consider themselves superior because their skin is of one particular hue, and historically have used that as an excuse to exploit and oppress the other groups.

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

#350

Post by ummonk » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #340

shanusmagnus wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth asking why your wife doesn't switch to your job, to make 3x the salary. Either a) she couldn't do it, in which case by extension it boils down to supply and demand, or b) she doesn't want to do it, because she gets a whole bunch of joy from the job which is invisibly priced into compensation (and which indirectly goes back to supply and demand.) I don't see the discrepancy as any kind of market failure.

> "she gets a whole bunch of joy from the job which is invisibly priced into compensation" This is a pretty naive statement.

How so? Many people (women even moreso than men in my experience) prioritize fulfilling work over higher paying work. This is observable in, for example, people pursuing careers in saturated industries like journalism, art, or acting, as well as going for "more meaningful" startup jobs instead of FANG jobs.

I personally switched from rocket science to tech and then to a FANG so I could get increased compensation and have a chance of catching up to Bay Area housing prices. My compensation increased 3x in the process. Most of my peers wouldn't do that.