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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

#981

Post by salawat »

jongjong wrote: post #868

I think the part that's hard to absorb is that software engineering was a brutal path. You had to restructure your entire identity, ego, personality, social relationships around that career choice. People didn't expect their career to last forever, but they thought it was a ticket out to gain autonomy. Back in 2010-ish, many developers thought that, in the future, they'd all be running their own systems and servicing…

Almost like all western civilization is architected to ensure the benefit of a few at the expense of the many by design doesn't it? If not by design than by emergent consequence of how it executes.

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

#982

Post by amoe_ »

flaburgan wrote: post #839

I don't understand those articles, especially, I don't see why AI changed anything. At least for me, the important quest isn't how you build, but what you build. If your product is meaningless, useful only to the company because what it does is futile, then the emptiness you feel is not coming from the fact that AI is "stealing your job". Don't quit to a farm with goats, find a way to distribute food which would have…

But for a large proportion of people, "what they build" is meaningless (in social terms). Doing as you suggest would eliminate the majority of work.

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

#983

Post by foco_tubi »

senordevnyc wrote: post #976
mbesto wrote: post #928

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire premise of the article is that we're being promised that an entire workforce is going to be eliminated overnight. The people who are promising this, do not care about what happens to the working class. This is clearly causing anxiety. The comparison is useful. Printers had decades to pivot and hence the anxiety didn't exist like it does today. Today's capital allocated wants this to happen within a decade.

Who are you talking about? Who has promised that the entire workforce is going to be eliminated overnight?

a workforce, not the workforce

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

#984

Post by johnnyanmac »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #511
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…

Many folks have talked about optimizing for engagement and while I do think this is a factor, I don't think this is the cause. HN has a pretty simple set of algorithms and yet it's largely followed the same trend of negativity and despair. I'm partial to what I call the "doomer effect". If you feel sad or disenfranchised you're just much more likely to spend time online talking. A person with a fulfilling social life…

It's partially negativity bias, and partially the effects of being in a low trust society. Some people may say that we still have it good compared to any other time in history, but humans tend to react more towards rate of change than we want to admit. We can "feel" when things overall are starting to look up or look down, and the last few years especially definitely have a lot of "look down" effects on us.

You may try to kick things out when it gets too negative, but at some point all your friends may become negative. And then what? Do you kick yourself out of society, or do we recognize that there's systematic issues going on (a perhaps, as you say, "depression")?

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

#985

Post by kaffekaka »

dom96 wrote: post #417
hollowturtle wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean in which lucky place of the planet you live in? I dunno u but where I live it's 40 degree celsius out there and all over europe. I'm a remote worker and most time of the year going outside is just not possibile, over heat or too cold or raining like it never did before(climate change you know)

Not the person you're replying to, but this is genuinely the killer feature of the UK. Yes, we get heat waves and more of them now, but it's much better than mainland Europe. Especially if you stay away from London (which I would recommend).

You'll be amazed when you hear about scandinavia.

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

#986

Post by johnnyanmac »

strangegecko wrote: post #780
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FWIW, I had a similar impression of your comment as JohnMakin. > give the friend a subtle clue that it's time to move on If a friend needs someone to listen about life struggles and you tell them you're tired of it and don't want to hear it anymore, then you're not being a friend. Maybe you want to be encouraging and that is fine, probably helpful. But you immediately seem to turn that encouragement into threats of s…

>If a friend needs someone to listen about life struggles and you tell them you're tired of it and don't want to hear it anymore, then you're not being a friend.

That sort of feedback is exactly why males can often feel like they have no one to go to. Even if they theoretically have "friends". They are trying to reach out and instead they are rejected from their support group. If they don't have a spouse (and why should you need to be romantically involved to want to listen out to someone's problems?) then they might feel they have no one to go to.

So now they are the perfect audience for radicalization. To be told "I understand you, it's not your fault, it's [insert target to redirect issues onto]'s fault instead. We need to correct [target] and you'll feel better!".

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

#987

Post by cpill »

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…

yeah, most ppl I know just don't go on social media. but they are grown-ups now... life is fine without it.

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

#989

Post by johnnyanmac »

josh_p wrote: post #536
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…

You mention the election cycle and things getting worse. I live in the US and I’ve watched in real time every sad, terrible decision made by the current administration and every sad terrible decision by what’s supposed to be the opposition party. It all makes me want to scream. And then I’m offline and my life carries on because none it has really affected my white privileged middle class tech worker butt. It all fee…

Just gotta stay safe and count your blessings. S178 probably did a good part in driving tech to be the canary in the coalmine of the new "forever layoff" model. That was a political decision that affected a lot of us.

even if that wasn't, I'm sure you were hit by higher prices for everything We're all being hit, it just depends on a bit of luck and how financially ready we are to buffer the storm. Most people unfortunately aren't.

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

#990

Post by ajkjk »

mh- wrote: post #344
ajkjk wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. HN comments would (maybe still do) accuse you of astroturfing if you said you preferred an office. Not that much stock should be put in strangers accusing you, but, it was telling how ignorant it was.

I believe "LLMs are useful"* is the current zeitgeist's version of "Working from the office has upsides", in terms of attracting astroturfing accusations over expressing an opinion held by many. * simplifying, of course.

I agree, somewhat, but that is a much more evidence-backed stance---they're obviously useful in a sense; the debate is over what worldview / posture one ought to adopt as a result of that.

Whereas the RTO stuff was a debate between an entirely emotionally-motivated argument, "I don't want to work in an office therefore I must deny that anyone wants to in order to prevent the idea from getting airtime", versus the obvious reality that there are a range of stances on the subject.

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