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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

#711

Post by port11 »

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…

The author doesn’t really address the question either. Even if I agree with them that work isn’t all that important, paying your bills and eating food is, so… ahm.

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

#712

Post by RivieraKid »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #556
RivieraKid wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You have a distorted definition of UBI. The B stands for "basic", as in "not dying in the street of starvation" and a "a roof over your head". It is NOT about enabling "a modest life" or stopping people from working! On any serious UBI proposal everyone is still incentivized to work.

I didn't imply that this is how I define UBI. Look at the exact wording I used.

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

#713

Post by RivieraKid »

la64710 wrote: post #687
RivieraKid wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

No UBI is taxing the surplus productivity achieved by replacing humans with robots or AI AND redistributing it to all the citizens.

AI is just a technology, nothing fundamentally different from what has been happening for centuries.

Once AI is able to replace all human work, that's a new situation. But this is not happening in the next 20+ years.

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

#714

Post by listenallyall »

lp4v4n wrote: post #693
jimbobbam wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

The worst of all is that people will still argue that, in this day and age, labour has not been completely devalued and that you are wealthier than your grandfather. That kind of story was not uncommon at all in the past, today you would have to be a literal multi-millionaire to have that lifestyle.

Your point about affording the lifestyle isnt entirely incorrect, but it is skewed by what you choose to include vs ignore. Owning a house? Indeed, grandfather probably had it easier. More space per person in the primary residence? Grandson wins, most likely. Restaurant meals vs home cooked, international travel, ubiquitous air conditioning, threat of being drafted into the military (and actually being deployed!), expected lifespan, dental visit experience, number of sexual partners... I'd bet most grandsons have all of those significantly better than their gainfully-employed grandfathers.

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

#715

Post by pj_mukh »

lelanthran wrote: post #608
pj_mukh wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the headline is about tech workers but the article is about Knowledge workers. I know a class of tech workers absolutely fired up about the new Industrial Revolution, they're just not on this forum or featured in lengthy navel-gazing articles like this one.

> 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.

I’m sorry this wasn’t obvious in my comment but I meant AI engineers not software engineers (and not the AI capital owners either)

Either way, I empathize with your anxiety but posit that its primarily driven by techs original sin: the algorithmic feed and the resultant 24hour news cycle. I think the truth will be a lot more boring (mass upskilling and reskilling) but those narratives aren’t easily sold on the feeds.

AI is normal technology but it’s probably the largest upgrade to productivity and massively deflationary especially as it hits atoms and not just bits. That is actually extremely exciting.

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

#716

Post by RivieraKid »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #400
RivieraKid wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That is what earned income tax, payroll taxes, and Medicare and Social Security taxes are.

Free public services are similar to UBI but have little effect on the incentive to work because they don't provide all of the basic needs.

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

#717

Post by iamflimflam1 »

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've now been in tech for 30+ years in various roles up to quite senior levels.

It is hard to keep caring about something where you see repeated patterns of behaviour and failure.

Getting closer to retirement has been a very interesting experience. Turning 50 was very stressful for me. A deep feeling of - I've only got so many rolls of the dice left. Am I in a secure position financially? I've mostly been involved in startups and small companies and wondered if I'd made terrible mistakes in my career. Why wasn't I set for life when so many others had "made it"?

Not everyone is going to get lucky and retire early - it's not a given that this will happen.

I have friends who have run successful startups and are now free to do whatever they want. And I had opportunities to join them at the beginning - I would also now be very wealthy. Equally, I have other friends just like me who have also run and joined startups and completely failed.

I absolutely love the flexibility working from home gives me - but I have a strong group of people around me to meet for coffee and live in a central location in a good city so I'm not isolated at all. But I can really relate to people who don't have that and don't have support around them.

AI is unlocking all sorts of exciting things - there are projects that I've long had on the back burner that are now unlocked. It is going to radically reshape our industry.

This reshaping is tough. What made me good at my job may not necessarily be useful. Deep focussed work delivering highly technical work - maybe that's not needed now.

I'm not sure I want to work until I'm very old. I've got my financial plan that puts me on a trajectory of being able to retire in a couple of years compfortably.

It's worth modelling this. Knowing your position is a real help. Just being able to look at something and say "I'm going to be ok - I can stop in X years if needed". Or even - "I can stop now and it wouldn't be a disaster".

And if the modelling says - you need X more years - at least you know.

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

#718

Post by necklesspen »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #606
JohnMakin wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry if I am being uncharitable, but are you saying the solution to depression is that people’s friends groups (which the depressed person may not have access to to begin with) is to just like, bully them out of it? lol? Tell me you’ve never had a depressive episode without telling me. hint: the people with support groups in the first place are less vulnerable and bullying depression doesn’t really help, I could…

You are being uncharitable. In fact, you're demonstrating the dynamics I spoke of in my post. I could give you a detailed response but, given your tone, instead I'll say: assume the best and don't make everything about yourself. Several people I know have struggled with negative mental health effects of finding themselves in a caretaker role for a mentally ill friend or partner. In my experience offline groups (not i…

I'm not the person you're responding to - but I do too wonder what you meant. I would surely think that among friends it's not going to be the case that a depressed person soapboxing is met with the response you describe. I think I would agree with you if it's somewhat of a wider circle - acquaintances perhaps - that I'd expect the average response to play out as you described. But also perhaps the term soapboxing could mean something different to me - I assumed because you mention a depressive person it would be more personal, but if it's like political venting then yeah I would probably also agree with you.

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

#719

Post by pj_mukh »

danans wrote: post #681
close04 wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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? The answer is that you don't do it by getting paid (as in exchanging labor for wages). You do it by finding a way to scale your wealth with other people's labor.

Good faith counter point

>>” to scale your wealth with other people's labor”

Or you can scale your labor with openly available AI?

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

#720

Post by harvey9 »

bentcorner wrote: post #551
jleyank wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the disappearance of pink-collar jobs due to computerization and "do it yourself" that it enabled. There's lots of examples of whole career fields disappearing. The trick has always been to see whether and how things reappear.

Deleting career fields in and of itself is not a problem with technology, but when it's like the eye of sauron scouring workplaces and snapping jobs away (pardon the mixed universes), it starts to become a little alarming. University graduates are often considered min-bar for white-collar work hiring, so if it takes 4 years to train someone, how are people supposed to decide on a career path when it takes less time t…

The industry may be getting close to an NS-5 but the physical complexity of nursing means we would really prefer a Nexus-6.
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