What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers • Hacker News Board

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

#591

Post by quijoteuniv » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:56 AM UTC

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…

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

#592

Post by bazodedo » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

purplemoonx wrote: post #588

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

#593

Post by barrenko » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #260

MichaelZuo wrote: post #224

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

#594

Post by throw-the-towel » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

paulorlando wrote: post #563

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

#595

Post by orangeberrytea » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:00 AM UTC

bazodedo wrote: post #592

purplemoonx wrote: post #588

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

#596

Post by barrenko » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:00 AM UTC

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

#597

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:01 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #534

noduerme wrote: post #525

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.

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

#598

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:02 AM UTC

purplemoonx wrote: post #588

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

[deleted]

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

#599

Post by bothers » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:02 AM UTC

elmer2 wrote: post #273

pixelready wrote: post #246

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…

"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." This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses. A 'robust' healthcare system that the governmen…

>I suppose the people that are actually working will just need to get more guns.

If shit gets as bad as people are hoping it will get, workers aren't going to be in the "gets things" class anymore.

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

#600

Post by chii » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

quijoteuniv wrote: post #591

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…

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 int…

> much intrinsic meaning now

work should not be considered to have to have intrinsic meaning for it to be worthwhile - you merely need to make sure your pay is worthwhile.

Find intrinsic meaning outside of work. The best way, imho, is to find the highest paying job you can, work super hard and earn maximally, until you built up a nest egg from which you can draw a living off indefinitely. Then, use the remaining time you have left to pursue what you find to be intrinsically rewarding.