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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

#791

Post by crossroadsguy »

Animats wrote: post #224

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…

> Aaron Horwath is the director of AI operations at a creative technology company where he is focused on implementing AI in a way that supports both humans and business.

https://www.noemamag.com/author/aaronhorwath/

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

#792

Post by [deleted] »

RivieraKid wrote: post #340
pixelready wrote: post #251

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…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#793

Post by laichzeit0 »

pydry wrote: post #779
laichzeit0 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s great to care about the craft as long as someone else is paying for it. I think most software developers are waking up to the reality that they were always just holding business at ransom with their craft. Software is a grudge purchase for businesses. No one has ever cared about the craft except the craftsmen.

The patient with heart disease doesnt give a shit about exercising and eating healthy they just want the doctor to make them better. No business has ever appreciated my craft directly and why would they? Theyve just enjoyed the indirect benefits - speedy delivery of bug free features. Sometimes execs understood why they got that from one team and not another, mostly they didn't. The difference these days is not that…

You are correct on all counts. This is the IKEA phase of software development. Disposable shit. Need something new and ask an LLM to summon it into existence. I guess you could compare it to this hand-crafted desk I’m sitting at that my great grandfather built himself. He was a carpenter. It’s still here, decades later. To be honest, my next desk would be some IKEA shit, because it’s cheap and I can replace it every few years as fashion changes. But I get the emotional attachment.

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

#794

Post by Matumio »

chii wrote: post #739
Matumio wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Would you turn every leaf in the forest around twice if someone is paying for this, then it must mean it is useful to the one doing the paying. If you're not the one paying, you also cannot decide whether it's useful to the payer or not.

Some people earn a million per day just from passive income. They could make you turn leaves all day long just for a quick laugh, and you would be unable to decide if this was useful. (They probably won't do that, I agree, but they won't think about wasting your time by accident, given how cheap it is.)

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

#795

Post by sneak »

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…

I don’t experience this. I love the internet more these days than ever. There are so many cool people doing cool things.

I think a lot of this perception that everything is bad and everybody is sad is projection because people consume mass media which makes them feel doomed and hopeless so they continue to consume that sort of content and they project it on to everyone.

The world is much better than it has ever been.

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

#796

Post by layer8 »

chii wrote: post #638
quijoteuniv wrote: post #629

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…

The FIRE model you’re arguing for isn’t realistic for most people, and besides that, spending your youth “working super hard” on a job you find meaningless will will make you a different person compared to having spent that time doing something meaningful.

And what if the FIRE plan doesn’t work out? Work generally takes up too much lifetime to spend that time on doing something one doesn’t find meaningful. That’s not a way to live a fulfilling life.

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

#797

Post by estearum »

Animats wrote: post #224

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…

Surprised no one has made the extremely obvious observation that it took literal centuries for printing technology to eliminate the trade of printers, which could not have possibly have employed more than 0.01% of people at its peak.

Compared to the potential obsolescence of 40% to 60% of the US workforce over the course of 10 - 20 years?

You can argue about whether the obsolescence is real or not, but if it is, the plight of the printers is totally incomparable.

Question: What happens when you drive a car at 90 mph into a concrete wall?

Answer: Well, actually just this morning pulling into my parking spot, I bumped into the barrier beneath my tires. It was fine!

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

#798

Post by inigyou »

listenallyall wrote: post #725
lp4v4n wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!), ex…

What if having a residence at all is more important than having a large residence?

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

#799

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

SecretDreams wrote: post #569
noduerme wrote: post #558

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…

You're half right. UBI is probably the only path where humanity comes out OK in the not so distant future. But you don't give out UBI and let people become potatoes. You give out UBI to allow them to meet their basic needs and then have them work a job they kfhr genuinely be OK at, and, ideally, enjoy. Ideally.

I'd be behind Universal Basic Employment: Any able-bodied person is assigned a job that visibly benefits society, even if something simple like sweeping the sidewalk or visiting the elderly, in exchange for basic food and shelter. If you're getting something from society, you need to give something back; both the left and right agree on that.
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