Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

noemamag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 1001 posts

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

#621

Post by purplemoonx »

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…

The fact you say "on mastodon" proves it's effectively centralized, just pointing that out

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

#622

Post by throw-the-towel »

csomar wrote: post #605
THX1137 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing me to go out every day and talk to human beings face to face, even just little things like making sure I was showered and dressed every day This part is strange to me. I've worked from home for about 10 years and I've never once had an issue with twice-daily showering, meeting people face-to-face, going out for coffee, going outdoors, going to the gym, etc. The fact I can just go sit in a park, on a hiking…

The previous poster doesn’t realize he is part of the problem. He wants everyone to go back to the office so that he can see people face to face again and have the social pressure to wash himself. Makes you wonder why no one wants to be his friend? If you are ever in a situation where you are alone and no person works for you, realize you are most likely the problem. It took me a while to figure it out and it’s hard…

> Makes you wonder why no one wants to be his friend?

Wow, what a way to be bitter and defensive.

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

#623

Post by NateEag »

tossitawayplz wrote: post #97

A lot of people truly enjoyed the craft and creativity of building something. That is being stripped away. The building is being outsourced now. In some cases, the design too. Everything they once enjoyed and took pride in is being done by machines now. That is not a good feeling. Imagine you are a master craftsman, a furniture builder. You sourced the wood, designed the furniture, built it by hand, took pride in you…

You have channeled a great deal of my anxiety, stress, anger, and sorrow with this comment.

Every day at my job I search for a chance to write some fragment of code by hand, a place where just for a moment I remember the joyous struggle to be a craftsman.

I have the sense that you're right - musicians, writers, illustrators, actors, animators - they largely seem to hate the way the genAI companies vacuumed up everything that was meant for other people to feed the soulless dreck-vomiters.

I wish I knew the way to unite the programmers who were and are craftsmen with the artists who desire well-crafted tools that respect their artistic autonomy and creative freedom.

There could be some good cooperation there, if someone could solve the coordination problem.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts - I empathize strongly and appreciate what you had to say.

I hope your quest goes well.

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

#624

Post by quijoteuniv »

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…

Isn’t it better to find out that a lot of corporate work may not have much intrinsic meaning now, rather than just before you die? At least then you get a chance to do something about it.

It seems to me these changes are much more daunting if you live in a country where no job means no health insurance, and where the pay gap between skilled and unskilled work is huge. That makes an existential question about work into a very material one.

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

#625

Post by bazodedo »

purplemoonx wrote: post #621
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…

The fact you say "on mastodon" proves it's effectively centralized, just pointing that out

To be fair, saying "overheard an argument at the pub" wouldn't imply that theres but a single pub in the world.

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

#626

Post by barrenko »

nradov wrote: post #264
MichaelZuo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously there is some latent risk in choosing a career anywhere, that the demand disappears. There can’t literally be zero risk of structural demand changes.

I'm pretty sure there's literally zero risk of structural demand changes for law enforcement. Defunding the police isn't going to happen and there's no plausible path toward automating most of the work. Security cameras and robots can only do a fraction of what will be needed.

We've already defunded the police, and you can see the ramifications all over the world.

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

#627

Post by throw-the-towel »

paulorlando wrote: post #594

This came up in a few responses below as various roles have been replaced by machines (gas station attendants, printers, travel agents...) so I'm responding in a new thread. When it comes to revolting against industry change, there's a good paper by Eric Hobsbawm called The Machine Breakers. Yes, he's focused more on the Luddite-style reaction of destruction. But interestingly, he notes two types of machine breaking.…

> That solidarity was more naturally built in places like coal mines where workers were closely collocated and was more difficult to build in framework knitting, where workers were scattered.

Did someone just say "WFH"?

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

#628

Post by orangeberrytea »

bazodedo wrote: post #625
purplemoonx wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact you say "on mastodon" proves it's effectively centralized, just pointing that out

To be fair, saying "overheard an argument at the pub" wouldn't imply that theres but a single pub in the world.

Nah your pub is like saying "overheard online"

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

#629

Post by barrenko »

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…

Our public offline lives are also miserable. If you live in a westernish society, you know exactly what are the problems, and if you are 40 something you can see that for your whole life no one has ever attempted to solve it. We just live with extreme negligence. Like child of permissive parents. And we're all, each and every single one of us both the children and the parents!

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

#630

Post by ricardobayes »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #562
noduerme wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Oregon. Up until last year , you weren't allowed to pump your own gas in most parts of the state. The law required gas station attendants to do it, as a scheme to keep them employed. The most annoying part of this wasn't the tiny marginal cost, but that it sometimes took forever to get your gas if the attendant was busy. You'd just sit there looking at the pump you weren't allowed to put your credit card in…

As a New Jersey native (the single remaining state that still mandates gas station attendants) I have spent my entire life convinced this is sour grapes from other states. Why would you want to leave your warm cozy car in the winter to pump your gas?!

In Dubai and other gulf states, you can order gas to your home and they fill your car up in your driveway.
Post reply on HN