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

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

#461

Post by DragonStrength »

Animats wrote: post #221

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…

My grandfather’s career was in decline before my father hit adulthood (autoworker, electronics), my father’s career (nuclear control systems engineer) was in decline from the day he established it, and I’ve never expected my new-fangled software career to be there for the next generation, but there’s a rhyme probably.

I find this comparison to printers arbitrary, precious, and specious. Aren’t the armies of software engineers in tech more akin to the line-level autoworkers than artisans? The numbers would certainly suggest so. But it’s also silly to pretend such a new profession is anything akin to a generations-old trade. But maybe those tradesmen aren’t such victims either in this context? How privileged to be able to pass your profession down to the next generation! No one in my family has had that since farming, when only the oldest benefited.

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

#462

Post by titanomachy »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #268
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider two people talking to each other in a waiting room or on a train very rude too. If they are loud enough that the people next to them or behind them can hear the words they are saying, then it is rude of them. Of course, this is relative to how noisy the place is overall.

[flagged]

Maybe he's just Japanese, or German.

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

#463

Post by tacker2000 »

agys wrote: post #5

Side note: a half an hour call on a commute train (or in public spaces) is considered extremely rude in many parts of the world.

Unfortunately people all over are starting to not do anything.

On a recent plane ride some old guys were watching movies on their phones on full volume. I complained and they stopped, but another guy in another row started doing it again. It gets tiring.

Last week I was on a NYC subway train to JFK Airport and there was a guy blasting some loud hip-hop/trap and a small kid playing some loud game, totally oblivious to the people on the train. After they left some older guy stepped in talking on full speaker to someone for 10 minutes.

It was quite crazy tbh, and I guess people here have already given up and start accepting it since it is tiring to police somebody new every 5 minutes and could also end in violence.

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

#464

Post by titanomachy »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #108
elric wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is rude and annoying in general. But even in quiet cars it seems like many people just don't give a fuck and will simply jabber on obnoxiously without any care for anyone else. Would be nice if people could keep their noise levels down in general.

[flagged]

I sincerely hope you're able to someday deal with your issues and become free from your suffering

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

#465

Post by WorldPeas »

titanomachy wrote: post #418
hollowturtle wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean in which lucky place of the planet you live in? I dunno u but where I live it's 40 degree celsius out there and all over europe. I'm a remote worker and most time of the year going outside is just not possibile, over heat or too cold or raining like it never did before(climate change you know)

You live somewhere where you can't go outside "most of the year"? Did we evolve on the same planet?

You realize that humans are an invasive species in most places they currently reside, right?

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

#466

Post by aetherspawn »

austin-cheney wrote: post #394

Just as a reminder this subject of AI replacing developers come up all the time but it has not happened yet. People want to focus on AI but the same problem has always been there for 2-4 decades. Software, as a profession, has no credentials, no common elevation path, no common training criteria. You just show up and everyone is super insecure. AI just provides a name to identify that insecurity. Nothing else has cha…

I want to open with: I have 20 years exp as a hacker and deep tech software engineer. LLVM and such.

I shared your opinion until just last week, when I started using Fable on Autocode and passing it huge requirement specs I had written for desktop apps.

$500 in -> 5 days -> an app that would take me a year to write, and the code quality was fine. I just left it running in /loop… I did nothing.

Now I, unfortunately, believe the propaganda, and I too am worried.

Can the economy support the burn rate of AI companies though? My mission now is to create all the apps and products that are stuck in my head while I still can, before Fable is inaccessible due to bankruptcy or they hike the price or some other thing.

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

#467

Post by hellohello2 »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

Yeah I'm not sure what happened but Reddit in particular is beyond saving, and I'm not saying it was ever great. I think we simply don't know how to create online communities that make any sense yet. I'd rather have second hand smoke than any more algorithmic "engagement" maximization at this point.

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

#468

Post by WorldPeas »

tacker2000 wrote: post #463
agys wrote: post #5

Side note: a half an hour call on a commute train (or in public spaces) is considered extremely rude in many parts of the world.

Unfortunately people all over are starting to not do anything. On a recent plane ride some old guys were watching movies on their phones on full volume. I complained and they stopped, but another guy in another row started doing it again. It gets tiring. Last week I was on a NYC subway train to JFK Airport and there was a guy blasting some loud hip-hop/trap and a small kid playing some loud game, totally oblivious to…

The number of people blasting video on a regional flight with no internet really made me reconsider just how necessary airplane mode is. Probably an applicable case study for many other societal boundary-breaches silently spreading.

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

#469

Post by bonoboTP »

sandworm101 wrote: post #377
Foobar8568 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lawyers

HN moment. The median lawyer isn't who you think it is.

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

#470

Post by rootusrootus »

hellohello2 wrote: post #467
marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

Yeah I'm not sure what happened but Reddit in particular is beyond saving, and I'm not saying it was ever great. I think we simply don't know how to create online communities that make any sense yet. I'd rather have second hand smoke than any more algorithmic "engagement" maximization at this point.

I feel like we're probably going to have to give up something, most probably anonymity, to get back to anything like sanity. We'll see communities that are militantly anti-AI where it's hard to get in and easy to get kicked out, and it will probably cost money and require you to divulge who you really are. It could still be semi-anonymous at the user level but not at the administrative level.

I'd like to see something like that take off, because I'd be willing to give it a try. I also think the communities should be limited. Maybe have several sizes and see how it plays. Something that never grows beyond 250. Never past 1000. Something along those lines.

Relatedly, I'm just about on board with the idea of a modern day Compuserve or Prodigy. Pay to play, but in return you get no ads, no malware, no algorithms, no AI. A gated community for the Internet.

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