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Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

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Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#51

Post by approxim8ion »

adventured wrote: post #21
approxim8ion wrote: post #11

This might surprise you but Americans aren't the only people on this forum. But I guess it's okay to leave us all out to pasture if it means you can concentrate just a bit more of wealth.

> But I guess it's okay to leave us all out to pasture if it means you can concentrate just a bit more of wealth. If we're speaking of things like employment, of course people should look out for their own self-interest. Proposing the opposite is to propose suicide. The people of Norway should donate their trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund to Togo? As opposed to continuing to concentrate their extraordinary wealt…

You conveniently misrepresented an opinion and then ran it to the most illogical conclusion possible.

Saying the most highly paid US workers take a 10% pay cut if it means other economies rose above the poverty line is absolutely fine in my opinion. If you think that is akin to starving the entire US population so my country can live like Sheikhs, I feel like that's on you.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#52

Post by adventured »

staticassertion wrote: post #28
adventured wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I guess it's okay to leave us all out to pasture if it means you can concentrate just a bit more of wealth. If we're speaking of things like employment, of course people should look out for their own self-interest. Proposing the opposite is to propose suicide. The people of Norway should donate their trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund to Togo? As opposed to continuing to concentrate their extraordinary wealt…

> Proposing the opposite is to propose suicide. That feels extreme... I don't think the opposite of "some jobs will leave the US" is "I'm going to kill myself". Ditto the rest of your post. Nothing but a bunch of straw man/ slippery slope.

You didn't actually say anything in retort. Merely saying ditto, or saying that something is supposedly a straw-man, isn't a supported position, it's the lack of supporting your position/claims.

It's particularly obvious "suicide" is meant as a figure of speech, although frankly it's not too far from the truth, given what deindustrialization (loss of very large numbers of manufacturing jobs) did to large swaths of the US. It did in fact cause large increases in suicide numbers, along with a horror show of other consequences / fallout. I doubt anybody is confused over the dire consequences of what happened across the US as manufacturing jobs got wiped out.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#53

Post by mch82 »

underseacables wrote: post #2

What percentage of a pay decrease would you accept to work from home? If your job said come into the office, or take a 30% cut and work from home, would you do it?

Zero pay cut. Why should a person take a pay cut in exchange for being more effective at home?

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#54

Post by zeroonetwothree »

People have been worried about this since the 90s. But it hasn't stopped compensation from increasing dramatically.

Demand for software work is only increasing. The more software we create, the more valuable marginal software becomes. The total number of software engineers has doubled every 5 years for a long time. Of course that won't continue forever but there's no reason to think it will stop very soon either. For a long time employers have been unable to hire enough to meet demand (the marginal engineer at the top tech companies adds something like $500k-1m in value).

I would guess that increasing WFH will cause at most a modest slowing of compensation increases. I would be very surprised if it led to any decrease. In the long term it will only be a minor factor, the bigger things to worry about are general economic trends and things like better tools (even AI?) making the job more accessible and easier to learn.

Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#55

Post by adventured »

approxim8ion wrote: post #51
adventured wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I guess it's okay to leave us all out to pasture if it means you can concentrate just a bit more of wealth. If we're speaking of things like employment, of course people should look out for their own self-interest. Proposing the opposite is to propose suicide. The people of Norway should donate their trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund to Togo? As opposed to continuing to concentrate their extraordinary wealt…

You conveniently misrepresented an opinion and then ran it to the most illogical conclusion possible. Saying the most highly paid US workers take a 10% pay cut if it means other economies rose above the poverty line is absolutely fine in my opinion. If you think that is akin to starving the entire US population so my country can live like Sheikhs, I feel like that's on you.

> If you think that is akin to starving the entire US population so my country can live like Sheikhs, I feel like that's on you.

Talk about jumping 27 places in terms of drawing artificial conclusions.

I got to see, up close, what deindustrialization looks like, during the 1980s and 1990s in the US. Its consequences are intensely negative on the population it affects. Allowing the US tech industry to be outsourced to save big corporations money, would be an identical repeat of the stupidity of what the US intentionally allowed to happen to its industrial empire - in the name of globalist corporations boosting their margins - in the second half of the 20th century.

If you want to see what a selfish industrial policy looks like, look no further than Germany. They protected their industry, they acted in their own national self-interest, and their people have benefited enormously from it over the last few decades.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#56

Post by fuckblaine »

tartoran wrote: post #38
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #12

Well at least it'll curb some entitlement from the current IT crowd. A lot of IT people making 4x more than people of other professions assume that they are the cream of the crop and sincerely believe that their work is so hard that they deserve to have a 4 hour working day (because it is 'impossible' on being productive for a longer period of time in a day). No. People in other areas work just as hard, or harder, it…

The question of working 4 hours is more like 4 hours of intense work and honestly nobody in any industry could consistently put more than 4 hours a day without burning themselves up (or they’re some type A personality and feel miserable not working every single waking moment of their lives). Second, the IT industry has some of the highest burnout rates, that must have something to do with the amount of work put in, d…

oh cry me a river of tears. You obviously have no idea of what it is like to work 8-12 hours a day, for 6 days a week, of constant concentration for days, turning to months, turning to years on end.

Get real - you've been spoilt and have no clue of how others earn a living

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#57

Post by fuckblaine »

approxim8ion wrote: post #11

This might surprise you but Americans aren't the only people on this forum. But I guess it's okay to leave us all out to pasture if it means you can concentrate just a bit more of wealth.

yes - thats why i'm hopeful for a decent paying (by my standards) job with a US company

Bring it on!!

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#58

Post by isatty »

dataflow wrote: post #50

I don't like my salary going down any more than everyone else where, but how are we going to save the planet without reducing carbon emissions and shouldering some of the resulting impact on our personal lives?

What’s that gotta do with this discussion?

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#59

Post by furyofantares »

I haven't looked into this particularly deeply, but from what I can tell, many major tech companies have made more revenue per developer the higher their developer count has gotten.

To my mind, this also matches the tendency of big tech companies to always be hiring, often with no specific positions to fill, and of the incredible wage increase over time. And the manner in which we build upon each others' work makes some sense of this as well.

Re: Tell HN: Don't root for WFH, it might destroy well-paying jobs

#60

Post by dataflow »

isatty wrote: post #58
dataflow wrote: post #50

I don't like my salary going down any more than everyone else where, but how are we going to save the planet without reducing carbon emissions and shouldering some of the resulting impact on our personal lives?

What’s that gotta do with this discussion?

WFH -> less cars on the street?
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