Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#81

Post by smallmancontrov » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 12:51 AM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #72

i000 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a good comment, I would also add how much our perception of technology lifting conditions is conflated with the increased ability of governments to steer the economy to smooth things over.

All of those problems had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with economic mismanagement. And the commies were the worst at it. The US never had famines even at the worst of the great depression.

How much of the last ~25 years of outsized capital returns in the US came from selling our industrial base to the Communist Party of China?

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#82

Post by nubg » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 12:56 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #28

Aurornis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim of the article is that expectations increase at a faster rate than the work becomes easier. It probably feels that way to someone who got comfortable doing their job the old way wishes the world could go back to when they had it all comfortably figured out. If this does happen, it’s a second order effect from reducing the barrier to entry. Now that anyone can make some code with enough prompts, it’s no long…

The expectation is always that employees will do more for less. Employees are considered a cost, while their productive value is considered an entitlement, so the economics always push for cost reduction. In practice businesses above a certain size accrete layers of make-work and bureaucracy, which is how you end up with "It takes three weeks to change a button" friction. AI will make it easier to change the button,…

> but it won't necessarily - yet - cut through the processes around it.

sounds like a trillion dollar idea were one to actually solve this

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#83

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 12:57 AM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #32

briga wrote: post #21

The central premise of this post is basically not true: working conditions and wages have pretty consistently improved over the past 200 years. The cases where it didn't were generally offset by the rest of society benefiting from increased automation and productivity. Where the current revolution will lead remains unclear, but if the past is any indication things will probably continue to improve for most people.

Labour conditions in the capitalist west 200 years ago were some of the worst in history, so it's easy to make yourself look good in comparison.

Now compare that against:

1. working conditions before 200 years ago

2. working conditions under feudalism and communism

3. explain why ships laden with scores of millions of people came to the US, and went back empty

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#84

Post by smallmancontrov » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 12:58 AM UTC

tbrownaw wrote: post #61

janalsncm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Upper middle class” has nothing to do with it. In 1950, the median household could buy a house with 2 years of income. That is, 50% of households could do this. Today, the median house costs $400k. Only the top 12-14% of households make 200k per year. So proportionally, the % of households that have the same buying power as a median 1950s household has shrunk roughly 4x.

Those do not measure the same thing.

Correct. Housing measures the right thing and CPI measures the wrong thing.

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#85

Post by miyoji » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 12:58 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #78

georgemcbay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working conditions and wages have pretty consistently improved over the past 200 years They've improved, but not consistently on human timescales. Being a worker in the pre-labor-movement industrial revolution was by all accounts horrendous. Things have, so far, trended better over time but they can be bad for whole generations and also past results do not guarantee future results. > The cases where it didn't were…

> Being a worker in the pre-labor-movement industrial revolution was by all accounts horrendous. Average height and life expectancy improved steadily in the US throughout the 19th century. The pre-Revolutionary Americans tended to live short and backbreaking lives. Take a tour through Fort Williams. There is a collection of clothing from the Revolutionary War. The baby clothes look like doll clothes, and the adult cl…

> Take a tour through Fort Williams. There is a collection of clothing from the Revolutionary War. The baby clothes look like doll clothes, and the adult clothes look like they were for boys. Then look at the clothing in the Gettysburg museums. The people were taller then, but still about the size of boys.

I don't think that's a correct interpretation, see the explanation here [0]. Not quite the same situation, but likely a similar case. Are you sure the "adult" clothes weren't made for young boys or teens, or women?

[0] https://dyckmanfarmhouse.org/people-were-shorter-back-then-r...

I don't think your statement about short lives in colonial America is correct either, they had a low life expectancy like everyone else, but mostly due to a lot of childbirth deaths and young infant deaths. Surviving childhood gave you a good shot at making it to your 70s, which has been true for a long time pretty much everywhere.

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#86

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 1:05 AM UTC

noosphr wrote: post #53

vanuatu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was terrible for weavers it was great for workers around the world who now can afford clothes

Cheap cloth didn't mean cheap clothes. You had to wait a century for the sewing machine for that to happen.

Of course it meant cheaper clothes. Spend some time with a hand loom and you'll see why.

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#87

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

cosmotic wrote: post #10

Aurornis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Labour saving devices do not save any labour for the employees, their workday is just as long. Anyone who has ever worked a physical labor job will be rolling their eyes at this. There are more dimensions to labor than the number of hours worked. Imagine doing a construction job without power tools or searching through folders of documents instead of using the search function on your computer. Labor saving devices…

Yet people still have to work the same number of hours each day - they are performing the same amount of labor, just in a different form.

When I was a teen, I had a full time summer job doing yard work. At the end of the day I'd be utterly worn out.

Working with my head is a heluva lot easier.

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#88

Post by smallmancontrov » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 1:12 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #73

dumberquestions wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have people's standards for what a house constitutes gone up, or are affordable options that people would be very willing to buy less available now?

Houses are much bigger today.

Because of complete NIMBY victory, not because the youth are greedy. YIMBY is the way.

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#89

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 1:16 AM UTC

miyoji wrote: post #85

WalterBright wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being a worker in the pre-labor-movement industrial revolution was by all accounts horrendous. Average height and life expectancy improved steadily in the US throughout the 19th century. The pre-Revolutionary Americans tended to live short and backbreaking lives. Take a tour through Fort Williams. There is a collection of clothing from the Revolutionary War. The baby clothes look like doll clothes, and the adult cl…

> Take a tour through Fort Williams. There is a collection of clothing from the Revolutionary War. The baby clothes look like doll clothes, and the adult clothes look like they were for boys. Then look at the clothing in the Gettysburg museums. The people were taller then, but still about the size of boys. I don't think that's a correct interpretation, see the explanation here [0]. Not quite the same situation, but l…

> Are you sure the "adult" clothes weren't made for young boys or teens, or women?

Yes. I read the informative cards at the display. Some were for officers. George Washington was a giant in his day. Look at the short beds and low ceilings. Watch your head walking through a doorway!

Tour a navy ship of the time.

If you like, look up historical US statistics on height.

BTW, I saw Henry VIII's armor in London. Looked like a boy's armor.

As for the short colonial lives, I read an account by bone archaeologists who examined the bones of colonials and noted that they suffered much damage from overloading the bones and their age at death was usually under 40.

Just think about the hard work in making your cabin with a saw and an axe. Then a barn. Then fences. Then about the endless amount of firewood you have to chop every day. Then using a horse-drawn plow. And dig a well by hand. And so on.

Re: Most tech revolutions made work worse for employees

#90

Post by janalsncm » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #77

janalsncm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Based on your numbers, 65% of women were not working at that time. 2) That 35% number was likely even lower for married women. 3) Racism was still a systemic problem and was bad. Black men were excluded from the GI bill for example. 4) In spite of that, the median American household needed only 2x their salary to buy the median house. That number is 5x today, and after taxes the ratios are 2.2x then vs 6x today, w…

>4) In spite of that, the median American household needed only 2x their salary to buy the median house. That number is 5x today, and after taxes the ratios are 2.2x then vs 6x today, when two adults are often working rather than one. Sources for these numbers? Also, housing is only a fraction of your costs.

Median income of household was $3300 table A https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1952/demo/p60-00...

Median house $7300 https://better.com/content/how-much-home-prices-have-risen-s...

Today ratio is 5.1 https://housingalmanac.com/affordability