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What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

noemamag.com

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Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#451

Post by Telaneo »

cheschire wrote: post #219
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #162

This dropped off the front page in the time I read it, I assume because of the controversial gate that favors upvotes to comments (which I am making worse by replying to others). It is a shame, because this really resonated with me. I've been working in tech for over 20 years now in various roles, and this is the least I have cared about it. I used to want to get better, and was constantly excited about learning new…

I did the remote thing before Covid and rejected it for many of the same reasons. Then Covid happened and so many people got to experience it and loved it. But I still hated it while I was forced to. Every time I told anyone that I personally didn’t like working from home, and was excited about the return to office that would inevitably come, I got SHOUTED at. Absolutely flayed for not being 110% in support of this t…

> So many people were so upset when megacorp said they had to return or find other employment.

Is it really surprising that people have this preference?

Their reaction to you in the moment might not be reasonable, but it's coming from an injustice done to them, and one they perceive you to be in favour of.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#452

Post by uncivilized »

MarkusQ wrote: post #105
xlii wrote: post #85

Long long time ago people in tech were in tech because of the tech. Then, at some point, being in tech became a gilded profession and everyone: salesmen, artists, clerks etc. joined in. Not because they wanted to be in tech. They wanted gold. For years it was working, but right now things shifted. You can no longer just do the thing you learned for a job and continue doing so, because landscape shifted. So they're mi…

100%. I noticed it most when the slurs they used against us became status symbols, as a hoard of grifters traded in their ties (remember ties?) and golf doodads for SF franchise bling and proclaimed themselves "geeks" and "nerds".

That was just a brief trend.

Geeks and nerds are back to being derogatory.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#453

Post by forshaper »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #385
Animats wrote: post #222

Addressing the question in the title, "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers", look at what happened to printers. That was a good skilled trade for centuries. Then it just went away. Phototypesetting took the high volume end. Desktop publishing took the low end. Computer-controlled presses took press operators. And then the newspaper business died. I've heard homeless former printers…

Fuck, there has been a class of workers who had faith in their careers? Beside Charlatans and Billionaires?

It seems like the occupations that are easiest to have faith in are generally occupations that are paid less.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#454

Post by fzeroracer »

RivieraKid wrote: post #338
pixelready wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is always the one we don’t want to talk about: a robust public safety net. This is the balance to “move fast and break shit” technological disruption. It’s great to have an adaptive overall system, but disruption has a human cost. If there’s a robust public healthcare and UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down. If instead we stick our…

> UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working. I w…

> UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work.

If you believe this, then surely you also believe pension plans are the devil? If we can't have UBI then we can start by tearing away pension plans for all of the old people my tax money is being wasted on.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#455

Post by bonoboTP »

Things are going to change once again. It's been a long time ago since things really changed. In the 70s, probably. And before that maybe in the 1920s. It will be a generational change. Life went from quaint 19th century stuff to airplanes and medicine and plate tectonics and knowledge of galaxies and washing machines and the contraceptive pill and antibiotics in one or two generations. Then there was a bit of breathing room and things are picking up once again. Life is never constant. It is something you prepare for and deal with. For reference, people in Europe over the last hundred years lived through extreme ups and downs. Cities flattened to the ground. Entire families exterminated. Properties expropriated. All streets renamed multiple times. Entire ideologies swapped out multiple times. The US has enjoyed relative constancy. But now the entire world will change once more. It's not the first time. But history is back. Whether you prepare or put your head in the sand.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#456

Post by pseudalopex »

bee_rider wrote: post #368
qlte wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always say this like it’s a panacea but n=1, I did exactly that for about 5-6 months in 2024 after I quit Twitter and didn’t want to get sucked back in to endless election drama like in 2016. For the first couple weeks it seemed like a mild to moderate improvement. Especially not having Elon’s tweets and the Twitter memes of the day in my head 24 hours a day. But after a month my baseline pretty much reset wit…

I think this idea (and I necessarily don’t believe in it, but let’s give it a fair chance) is more like a few-weeks detox. Avoiding any news at all half a year seems a bit disorienting (as you experienced). Rather than giving up on news entirely, in the long-run, I’ve just dropped political podcasts and opinion pieces. I think these products exist to give us the feeling of being informed, but mostly it is just specul…

> I think this idea (and I necessarily don’t believe in it, but let’s give it a fair chance) is more like a few-weeks detox.

> Rather than giving up on news entirely, in the long-run, I’ve just dropped political podcasts and opinion pieces. I think these products exist to give us the feeling of being informed, but mostly it is just speculation.

The idea was this would teach something. And another idea was All the news is just outrage porn and non-stop predictions of impending doom. What could someone do for months or years? Cycle outrage porn and detox. Or avoid all news. But you saw news differed and you could control your news.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#457

Post by bonoboTP »

Aurornis wrote: post #425
follow_the_mone wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We remind people that Noema Magazine is owned by Berggruen Institute: https://berggruen.org/ Which is an AI booster: https://berggruen.org/projects/ai-visionaries You cannot read these articles posing as human interest without following the money.

What does “AI booster” mean? From this comment and username I thought you meant they were funded by AI companies or doing marketing for them, but the most I see is that they filmed some interviews with filmmakers about AI? The about page says this: > In the cultural realm, Studio B is networking frontier technologists with Hollywood auteurs and science fiction authors who will shape the next narrative. The organizati…

I'd guess it just means they failed some moral purity test.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#458

Post by Aurornis »

Grombobulous wrote: post #377
epistasis wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, any funding source invalidates all the arguments.... Does this article seem like an AI boosting article? Perhaps exactly the opposite? I dislike this article intensely, and disagree with it, but its lot because somehow the Berggruen Institute is shadow pushing AI here

The funding source is incredibly important when it is relevant to the content of the article. This is why reputable journalistic outlets disclose financial ties to entities they report on, even if the connection is barely relevant. NPR will tell you about every ad buy that relates to their reporting. This source could have and should have mentioned this connection in a disclosure, and it would not have detracted from…

> This is why reputable journalistic outlets disclose financial ties to entities they report on

Where is the financial tie between this organization and the AI companies?

The throwaway account's comment above implied some financial connection, but when I clicked the links all I saw was a couple videos where one of their other journalistic outlets had interviewed some filmmakers about AI.

I don't see anything to support this accusation that they failed to disclose reporting about some financial investment in AI companies.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#459

Post by nephihaha »

follow_the_mone wrote: post #274
Animats wrote: post #222

Addressing the question in the title, "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers", look at what happened to printers. That was a good skilled trade for centuries. Then it just went away. Phototypesetting took the high volume end. Desktop publishing took the low end. Computer-controlled presses took press operators. And then the newspaper business died. I've heard homeless former printers…

We remind people that Noema Magazine is owned by Berggruen Institute: https://berggruen.org/ Which is an AI booster: https://berggruen.org/projects/ai-visionaries You cannot read these articles posing as human interest without following the money.

> You cannot read these articles posing as human interest without following the money.

Thank you for that, and look who one of their speakers is? Hardcore technocrat and transhumanist Mr. Harari! You can read his opinions about transhumanism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in "Homo Deus" and on the WEF website.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#460

Post by entropy47 »

uncivilized wrote: post #449
brushfoot wrote: post #383

"Knowledge work is mostly pointless" is the author's view, so his article (the fruit of knowledge work) should be measured by it. Amd that sentiment is hardly surprising, coming as it does from a Director of AI Operations (his title on LinkedIn).

Do you disagree that your work is pointless?

I certainly do. As usual the revolution is weeks away, but I continue to produce work better, faster and more reliably than my colleagues who have outsourced their brains to Claude.

You can tell me I'm not gonna make it and the last 5% is going to topple on the next model release, but the work I enjoy doesn't have precedents and it seems the plagiarism machine is quite bad at that specific flavour of knowledge work.

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