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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

#771

Post by rayiner »

chongli wrote: post #763
altmanaltman wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah + the world was much different than it is today. It trivializes the risk by saying we have seen it before and we were okay when its a fundamentally different problem in many aspects.

How is the GGP post (by Animats) trivializing the risk? They're saying "it's a survival issue" and saying the printers became homeless and struggling to feed themselves. Sounds much more like a warning than a dismissal to me. If 40-50% of the workforce ends up like that then we're living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland failed state.

> If 40-50% of the workforce ends up like that then we're living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland failed state.

I a lot less than that. Most people don’t have jobs that can be done remotely, which I think is a good proxy for the ceiling of who can be replaced by AI. Almost nobody on my block besides me is going to be replaced (beer brewer, several nurses, navy servicemen, cops, and teachers).

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

#772

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

listenallyall wrote: post #676
lp4v4n wrote: post #655

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…

The fact that you listed "restaurant meals" and "number of sexual partners" as a plus tells me everything I need to know here.

Yes, the people who like living in the Pleasuredome of cheap and fast thrills have it better these days. The rare few who want a stable, thoughtful life with a lifelong partner far away from the racket? Well...

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

#773

Post by rayiner »

Macha wrote: post #762
altmanaltman wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah + the world was much different than it is today. It trivializes the risk by saying we have seen it before and we were okay when its a fundamentally different problem in many aspects.

Also fails to distinguish between “society came out of it fine” (generally true) and “individuals came out of it fine” (much more mixed of a track record)

Yes. And individuals largely don’t come out fine. We have this notion of “retraining” but that’s not real. It’s like how studies show it’s very hard to make friends as an adult. Most people whose jobs were shipped overseas in deindustrialization never recovers.

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

#774

Post by preg_match »

elmer2 wrote: post #273
pixelready wrote: post #246

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…

"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." This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses. A 'robust' healthcare system that the governmen…

I just don't see this with our current safety nets, particularly SSI disability. SSI disability will pay you not to work if you have a disability. A lot of people think that surely it's abused. No. Everyone I have seen on SSI disability is doing everything they can to not be on SSI disability. They would MUCH rather work and earn a reasonable wage than be forced to live on SSI disability.

Now, not everyone can, because some people are very disabled. But the internet has brought new capabilities, and some disabled people are able to work remotely. And guess what, they do. They willingly give up the "free", say, 900 dollars a month on SSI to work for a salary.

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

#775

Post by rayiner »

soulofmischief wrote: post #766
altmanaltman wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah + the world was much different than it is today. It trivializes the risk by saying we have seen it before and we were okay when its a fundamentally different problem in many aspects.

Right now, many people do not own property and are one missed paycheck away from homelessness.

[flagged]

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

#776

Post by preg_match »

Xirdus wrote: post #300
elmer2 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses. A 'robust' healthcare system that the governmen…

> A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream. That "pipe dream" has already been achieved by most EU countries decades ago. Sure, you might argue it's worse in quality than American healthcare and that wait times are horrible, but I guarantee you most Americans would see it as an improvement over their current situation.

The kicker is that it's provably not worse in quality. Sure, maybe in the absolute, meaning if you have infinite money. But on average, health outcomes are better.

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

#777

Post by znpy »

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…

> Somehow I suspect the author inherited money.

Btw, from the author page:

> 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.

There probably is some strong bias and conflict of interest in this article. I didn’t see any line saying “btw, just so you know, my paycheque is strongly bound to me pushing AI adoption in the workplace for a living (hence exacerbating all the issues i write about)”.

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

#778

Post by [deleted] »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #600
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…

As someone who has been in the industry over 25+ hands down this is the worst period of being online. There has always been that programmer who wanted to quit and run a restaurant, but tech world lost its original soul. We were making people’s lives better, now we are just creating more wealth gap. Majority of the industry is hostile, online communities are extremely hard to get into and very exclusive, if you are ne…

[deleted]

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

#779

Post by pardon_me »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #600
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…

As someone who has been in the industry over 25+ hands down this is the worst period of being online. There has always been that programmer who wanted to quit and run a restaurant, but tech world lost its original soul. We were making people’s lives better, now we are just creating more wealth gap. Majority of the industry is hostile, online communities are extremely hard to get into and very exclusive, if you are ne…

For me this culminated to a deep belief that technology =/= progress. This has shaken my core to re-evaluate who will ever be allowed to benefit from my skills and time, but ruined a lot of my genuine enjoyment and enthusiasm.

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

#780

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

ang_cire wrote: post #280
cheschire wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the remote thing before Covid and rejected it for many of the same reasons. Then Covid happened and so many people got to experience it and loved it. But I still hated it while I was forced to. Every time I told anyone that I personally didn’t like working from home, and was excited about the return to office that would inevitably come, I got SHOUTED at. Absolutely flayed for not being 110% in support of this t…

The problem isn't that WFO-preferenced people don't exist, it's that it aligns with the narratives of the extroverted management (who approve their own PTO) that it's better, and people who aren't extroverts dread being forced back. No one who prefers WFH is actually against people who prefer offices being allowed to go there, they're opposed to people publicly claiming they prefer that- unqualified- because they see…

Here at least, I see it as the complete opposite: extroverts have normal lives, families and lack time that commuting eats up even more, so WFH is a boon to them.

Actual introverts (especially in our computer world) don't have that and often lack a healthy social life, which can be partly fulfilled by the office's interactions. Some of us even are chronically depressed, which means escaping home is important to allow changing our mindset (which becomes attached to a location given enough time).

NB: in Europe and worked mostly for small to very small enterprises.

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