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

721–730 of 1001 posts

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

#721

Post by Oras »

My personal take is it’s not the tech or AI, it’s the lack of leadership to make things correct. I’ve seen it a lot in tech.

Working on your own project doesn’t seem tiring or as exhausting as a job, because it has the sense of achievement, you work, learn, make something that you believe is making a change. On the other side, you see how pointless the work is when it’s just contributing to a number in a slide for a manager that has no idea what they are doing.

The solution is not technical though, it’s human, and that is more challenging to fix.

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

#723

Post by Balinares »

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…

I haven't found that to be true at all. So I suppose there's a personal component to it and your observation doesn't apply universally? If so, though, that's possibly good news: it means there may be factors that are yours to evolve for better prospects.

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

#724

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pjmlp wrote: post #707
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why should the age play a role at all in unions? In European unions you pay the membership and that is it. On top of that many apply to complete industry sectors, they are not tied to specific jobs and don't care one second how you got your skills.

The union lobbies for regulations that require you to apprentice under an existing master in order to enter the trade. The union's masters then purposely limit the number of apprentices they take to limit the supply of license holders. Since the slots are then valuable as a result of artificial scarcity, they get allocated on the basis of nepotism etc. You're not the nephew of anyone currently in the union so you don't get an apprenticeship.

Moreover, getting your own full license takes around a decade, during which time you're expected to work as an underling regardless of whether you already have the capacity to do the job yourself. So to the extent that anyone can get an apprenticeship without blood relations or graft, they expect someone who is willing to be stuck in an entry level position for that long even if they already have significant relevant experience from a related field, and then you get in the queue behind a million high school seniors and never get a slot.

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

#725

Post by don_esteban »

throwaway_7274 wrote: post #299
elmer2 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"that money doesn’t buy happines" I think people get this meaning wrong all the time. The love of money doesn't buy happiness. Having money can definitely make your life easier, and you can spend it on things that make you happy.

Yeah absolutely. And obviously I’m overplaying my naïveté and idealism for effect here, a little bit, but I was still surprised how much it really did improve my quality of life. I don’t even buy a lot of things, really, I still don’t own a car and hope I never will. But now I just don’t feel quite so wracked with guilt over getting a haircut or getting the organic raspberries or whatever. There are so many little wa…

There are two thresholds.

Below the lower threshold, you have to worry too much about money to just get by. Unfortunately, too many people live below this threshold. Even in rich countries. Below this level, it is difficult to be truly happy, as your life is filled too much with money worry.

Above the upper threshold, all you basic and not so basic needs are covered and more money does not buy you much in terms of happiness.

Of course, these thresholds are very individual. The lower your thresholds are, the freer you are.

Both marketing and general enshittification from late stage capitalism are trying to push both of these thresholds up.

On the other hand, the society should strive to get most/almost all people above the lower threshold. Both by pushing the expenses of basic needs down (education/health care/public transport), and by creating environment for easier earning (good economic environment for entrepreneurship, antitrust regulation, minimal wages, unions, social assistance). Well, at least most countries see it that way. US has a slightly different take ...

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

#727

Post by alex43578 »

Tade0 wrote: post #719
listenallyall wrote: post #689

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…

Disregard the grandfather for a moment. How is today better than the situation 20 years ago?

Most of those measures, just less significantly compared to the grandfather.

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

#728

Post by dan_q »

pydry wrote: post #511
cheschire wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you chasing the feeling of successfully solving a problem? Have you replaced problem solving with LLM chats? Maybe instead of engineering, you’ve been subtly shifted into project management and hate that career. But it’s tough to engineer much these days. Instead I find I’m PM’ing the bots more than solving problems.

The culture of the tech industry started going to shit in 2022/2023 after rates were hiked and before LLMs were capable of anything much. There's more toxicity, more waterfall, more authoritarianism, less autonomy, more pressure. Consequently lower productivity, too. Sometimes AI is just the label that gets slapped on "all the ways the tech industry has changed over the last 3 years".

2022/2023 is when the AI wrecking crews came in in full force

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

#729

Post by dan_q »

punkbit wrote: post #648
testerius wrote: post #632

Currently, I have 3 main issues with AI, LLMs and so on. Generally speaking I am happy that I can use Claude Code and Codex to help building, fixing and maintaining software in my job. To be honest it is so helpful, I am less stressed bacause most of the time I can "find out" solution without asking collegues for help or I do not have spend a lot of time struggling myself. Yeah, if you understand what feeling it is t…

Three really good points. Specially the third one. Not sure why HN readers are downvoting you…

This site aggressively suppresses any criticism of LLMs, especially LLM generated/"assisted" code.

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

#730

Post by Rumple22Stilk »

jleyank wrote: post #481
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…

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.

There is no tech created like this. This is a literal thinking machine. And it replaces other thinking machines. You.
Post reply on HN