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

#691

Post by detourdog » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:19 AM UTC

Peaches4Rent wrote: post #663

danans wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Aah, so by definition only a select few can do it

I would say only a few do it and they are self-selected. The ones that do it have a sense of agency that is lacking in the ones that dont do it. Some people never notice their own agency they believe it comes from outside them.

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

#692

Post by zelphirkalt » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

xlii wrote: post #85

Long long time ago people in tech were in tech because of the tech. Then, at some point, being in tech became a gilded profession and everyone: salesmen, artists, clerks etc. joined in. Not because they wanted to be in tech. They wanted gold. For years it was working, but right now things shifted. You can no longer just do the thing you learned for a job and continue doing so, because landscape shifted. So they're mi…

It doesn't derail them, except for them not finding a new job and many being unfortunate enough to lose their old one. Instead many jobs are taken by "AI engineers", glorified prompters, who are not in tech because of the tech, but because they will do anything for that paycheck.

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

#693

Post by detourdog » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #676

danans wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I found that that stock market is the way to scale income. One can't make big money with just their hands unless they are an artist.

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

#694

Post by prmoustache » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:22 AM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #247

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…

I sense there is this air around of "demand our jobs keep being relevant" - I personally feel this kind of thing holds the world backwards if it works. I think if our jobs were to become obsolete, embracing it and re-orienting oneself is the one thing that is personally effective and is morally right. But what do I know, I'm just some doofus on the internet. The irony is not lost on me on all those years where people…

It really depends about the income and debt.

If a $20000/y a job is deemed unrelevant, chances is that one might easily find similar or better in a totally different area.

If a $200000/y job is deemed unrelevant and is lost, and one has mortgage payments they can't pay with a $50000 or $100000 job, they have a big problem because selling that house might become difficult when all other $200000/y workers will try to sell their house and move within the same period and the housing market crashes. So you can ruin the economy of a large area quite quickly.

So a bit of anticipation is useful.

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

#695

Post by roenxi » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

close04 wrote: post #684

roenxi wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're happy to live life to a 1960s standard, it'd be quite cheap. If I'm interpreting the stats properly [0], he expected to put two children through high school and the other 3 would have been contributing a lot to the family quite early on. It'd also be interesting to check whether it's legal to build the same apartment in Daly City's current regulatory environment because that isn't a given. Plus, the US gove…

Obviously I’m interested in the modern equivalent of whatever that man had. If those apartments were on the outskirts of the city, then something equivalent today. If society expected the kids to finish no more than high-school then but university today, then university it is. And I want to understand if there’s any chance to do it the same way with salaried work, not with clever investment over decades, or winning t…

The modern equivalent to what the man had is what the man had. You'd need to be paid maybe a bit less to support a family like he had because everything has gotten slightly more efficient over the years. If you want to define things by means and medians, the median worker had a median lifestyle then and a median lifestyle today.

If you want much more than he had, you're going to need to pay much more for it. Bit of an obvious one.

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

#696

Post by mattjhall » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:24 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #652

paulorlando wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mentioned Etaoin Shrdlu and hot type / linotype... There are a lot of industries (at least historically) that have organized labor. In the UK, there was the “Wapping Dispute” in 1986 when computer technology enabled journalists to type in their copy directly, doing away with the need for workers to set type using linotype printing. Linotype was a big improvement on the older letter-by-letter typesetting and…

> Result of the strike: failure. 6000 printers were fired, but there were jobs for 670 new workers who used word processing. The sad part is that it kind of does work from the other end. Suppose you're a former press operator who can't expect to find any more work operating a printing press. Should you take a McJob? You have years of experience working with electric motors and hydraulics and pumps and industrial cont…

> And you can't even get the apprenticeship to begin with because you're 45 years old and the union won't take you.

This is not how unions work in the UK

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

#697

Post by alt227 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:24 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #686

listenallyall wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!), ex…

In other words: everything to do with economics is worse and everything to do with the inexorable march of progress is better. Yeah sorry but no shit. Technology has progressed since grandpa's day. "TVs are better and cheaper" is not a useful counterpoint when discussing the economy of the 2020s.

The luxury market has been commoditised.

No matter how many billions you have in the bank, you cant get a better netflix subscription, TV, or iPhone than the normal person. This is the 'march of progress' you speak of. The things people wanted and coveted most have been squashed to a market value most people can just afford, and then subsidised with credit plans to make them affordable by all.

This is the basics of modern economies. It is not separate to technology progressing. The technology progressing has become the foundation of all modern economies.

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

#698

Post by yard2010 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:32 AM UTC

serf wrote: post #82

ausbah wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i’m in the US, if you took a call for more than a few mins a busy metro car I’d tell you to knock it off

My dad speaks loudly on speakerphone phones in restaurants and public spaces daily because he's a rude old asshole. No one beside myself has ever told him to stop because I think being old gives one a bit of a 'get out of jail free card ' with regard to social behaviors. I would love for you or someone like you to happen upon him and tell him to knock it off, but alas that seems fleetingly rare.

What would he do if I would tell him to knock it off? Wouldn't he just yell at me making the situation worse than it was to begin with?

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

#699

Post by jdm2212 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:37 AM UTC

lp4v4n wrote: post #650

jimbobbam wrote: post #541

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.

If you're ok with 1963 living standards, you can in fact have the grandfather's same lifestyle today at a very reasonable cost.

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

#700

Post by yard2010 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:45 AM UTC

tacker2000 wrote: post #462

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…

I found it easier to use anc headphones with white noise. I'm waiting for the next 5 years to pass, then I could also have my glasses that block all kinds of abominations from my vision, as it became normal to put cancer video ads everywhere in the public space. The future looks really good imho!