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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

#651

Post by lelanthran »

mac-mc wrote: post #627
lelanthran wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a class of tech workers absolutely fired up about the new Industrial Revolution, That's because they're thinking that they're still going to get paid $200k/y for typing in "Duh, Claude, make me an app, here the specs from the client, doh!" They aren't seeing that there is very little value to add when all they are, is an interface to a magic software-making machine.

It's very similar to being an EM, and if you think EMs are useless, the vast majority EMs have decided it's not worth their time to educate you, and the few who have tried to gently probably went over your head.

> It's very similar to being an EM, and if you think EMs are useless,

I don't think EMs are useless, I just think that you are naive if you think that LLMs can't do the EM work as well.

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

#652

Post by tediousgraffit1 »

maybe I'm missing something, I'll admit I haven't made it through the whole smug article, but critiquing knowledge work, especially IT work, just a few years after that field yielded it's...what, fourth?... major contribution to society in the last say 40 years is pretty funny imho.

I'm counting:

1. the pc (80's) 2. the web (90's-early 2000's) 3. the cloud (early 2010s) 4. the computers that speak natural langage (early 2020s)

a big chunk of gdp in the most prosperus nation on earth is dedicated to knowledge work but sure, it's abstract so I guess it doesn't feel as useful.

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

#653

Post by lelanthran »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #625
lelanthran wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a class of tech workers absolutely fired up about the new Industrial Revolution, That's because they're thinking that they're still going to get paid $200k/y for typing in "Duh, Claude, make me an app, here the specs from the client, doh!" They aren't seeing that there is very little value to add when all they are, is an interface to a magic software-making machine.

[flagged]

> Lmao, any one else in favor of adding a coding test to be able to post in the subreddit to keep these non-hackers out

You think I'm a non-hacker?

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

#654

Post by Toutouxc »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #120
ComputerPerson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a well-known book that labels programmers as a specific type of pointless job. "Duct tapers" is the category. Also task masters, who would have a foot under the software development umbrella, have space in the book. "Bullshit Jobs" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

We are socially punished for our extremely cushy jobs SWE has negative social value. Saying you’re a SWE or god forbid anything in AI in a dating/courtship context is basically suicide. We are paid so well as compensation for debasing ourselves socially. A lot of normies intuitively understand the concepts in that book even without reading it and either see you as evil or a grifter, maybe both, when you say you work…

There isn’t a word in the comment that I can relate to. Might be a US thing, I’m in Europe.

My [very normal although otherworldly beautiful] wife thinks my job is interesting and talks about me with pride.

When I tell people that I work in IT, they almost never think of FAANG, because these companies aren’t really considered that interesting or important over here. I think it’s uniquely a US thing to conflate “IT” with “SV sociopaths”.

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

#655

Post by altern8 »

I've been trying to figure out how to make money with trading for years (and I _might_ be getting closer, now).

Trading is the only way to make money I can think of where you don't have customers/clients and are truly in control of your own destiny.

But of course it's not that easy.

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

#656

Post by dinkumthinkum »

notsmarthuh wrote: post #236
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.

The problem in the Western world is that switching to a different career is made almost impossible. This society pushes people out of the workforce all the time. I'm one of them. I've been "unemployed" since 2012 with apparently ZERO ability to get any kind of skilled job ever again, just due to a "zigged when I should have zagged" situation decades ago.

What are you talking about? Why do you call out "Western world," this seems like the reflexive idea of the left that the West is some brutish downtrodden hellhole. What's weird is what you are describing is the opposite. It is much more common in the West to be able to change your career than in the East, by an enormous margin. In many places in the East, a tremendous amount of career possibilities are removed from kids from tests they take having barely begun puberty. How many Adam Steltzner's do you think there are outside of the West? What are we talking about? As far as your specific situation with 2012, I have no idea but this is not laid at the feet of the Western world.

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

#657

Post by Matumio »

chii wrote: post #620
quijoteuniv wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, work is supposed to be at least useful for somebody. Ideally for the society you live in, at least indirectly. If you are wasting your work time, you are also wasting you life time in the same breath. Would you turn every leaf in the forest around twice, if it was the highest paying job? No, because that's a bullshit job.

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

#658

Post by close04 »

jimbobbam wrote: post #557
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 was a printer not to far from that Burger King, in a building now owned by the academy of art. In 1963 he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda. He died early, but extended family stayed in the business. It was union work, he as the youngest operator of the 4 color press. His wife my grandmother didn’t work.…

> he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda

How well would you need to be paid now in any career to support a family like that one while accumulating that wealth already early in life? Careers can evaporate just the same but what they leave behind is vastly different from 60 years ago.

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

#659

Post by 0123456789ABCDE »

sph wrote: post #641
mac-mc wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very similar to being an EM, and if you think EMs are useless, the vast majority EMs have decided it's not worth their time to educate you, and the few who have tried to gently probably went over your head.

WTF is an EM? Please expand your acronyms.

prolly Engineering Manager

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

#660

Post by dinkumthinkum »

tayo42 wrote: post #252
notsmarthuh wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in the Western world is that switching to a different career is made almost impossible. This society pushes people out of the workforce all the time. I'm one of them. I've been "unemployed" since 2012 with apparently ZERO ability to get any kind of skilled job ever again, just due to a "zigged when I should have zagged" situation decades ago.

I've been curious about leaving software but it really feels impossible. Theresa no careers that you can learn on the job and you need to go back for another 4year degree to maybe get into the entry level job,no guarantee though.

If you a degree already, you don't necessarily have to go for four years for another degree, you will have to take the courses for your major and a small amount of additional requirements versus a first degree.
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