The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars • Hacker News Board

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#151

Post by jdnenej » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

lawrenceyan wrote: post #143

chronotis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing this point back closer to home: I've been a "software professional" of one shape or another for over 20 years now. In my case, that's come with a never-ending need to constantly retool: new languages, new SDKs, new device types, new APIs, etc., etc. I'm sure this sounds familiar. There are a LOT of jobs out there that don't have any continuing education requirement, or where the idea of learning some new com…

Computer Science at the end of the day is just applied math. The majority of the algorithms and data structures used today in software engineering were invented more than 50+ years ago. The language or framework you use really shouldn’t matter all that much. That’s just a matter of taking some time to acquaint yourself with the vernacular. But fundamentally, the maths stays the same.

The vast majority of real world programming isn't math or algorithms. It's knowing that your framework has all of these algorithms built in already and knowing how to utilise them instead of rebuilding everything from scratch.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#152

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #80

Thriptic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I have said in a number of these types of threads, saying we will pay people off / implement UBI as a solution to reduced participation in the labor force dramatically underestimates the complexity of the problems of automation / globalization / de-industrialization. Most people want to work; they derive self-esteem from their labor and for being a provider; and status is awarded by society depending on the type o…

> People don't want "hand outs" or "charity", they want to do something to generate value Agreed that it will be a cultural shift: there is a divide between meaning and economics. People need meaning in life, but meaningful work and economic value aren't always the same. Raising children or providing caregiving to the elderly can be very meaningful and happens to pay poorly. Building community is incredibly meaningfu…

I think you'll have a much harder time convincing women to not base sexual selection, at least in part, on resource gathering. That's pretty ingrained, and not just culture.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#153

Post by electriclove » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #32

blunte wrote: post #4

One person’s right to keep a job is not greater than humanity’s right to reasonable progress. It’s cases like these that give unions a bad name.

Even coming from a place of no empathy for displaced workers lives, if we hang these people out to dry we will pay the price down the line. If america had invested in a social safety net for the past 30-40 years, we might be in a different place. People would be ok with change because they'd know that society was going to have their back while they find a new career.

Let's not hang them out to dry. But let's make the changes needed so we aren't hiring more 20 year olds into that skillset and perpetuating this endlessly.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#154

Post by evancox100 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

mateo411 wrote: post #118

This is probably tone deaf, but instead of giving the auto workers more money or open more factories, what if they gave them stock grants? If you gave them stock, they workers wouldn't want to open factories that would cause GM to lose money. It would keep the worker and the management incentives aligned.

I thought it was common in the auto industry to have profit sharing as part of compensation. Not exactly stock, but similar.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#155

Post by danmg » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

spo81rty wrote: post #141

danmg wrote: post #39

Saying that "none of this is anyone’s fault" and blaming this on new technology is entirely disingenuous. This is 100% GM's fault because they learned nothing after the government bailed them out in 2009. They continued to scrimp on labor and build quality, and that resulted in horrible cars that no one wants. And their response? Scrimp even more on labor. EVs make up a very small slice of the new car market and virt…

EV is a small part of the market today. But it's growing fast. As someone who owns an electric car, my next car will definitely be one and I wouldn't buy anything else. These union deals last 4 years. So the manufacturers have to think about labor and planning long term.

Being optimistic, EVs will never have more than a 30% market share because they're incompatible with a large portion of people's lifestyles. They will find an audience with people exclusively commute and have the facilities to charge at home. At the moment, there's some cachet to having a Tesla but the reality of owning one is represented in the deprecation rate.

The energy density of battery technology will never reach that of petroleum. Just bolting on bigger and bigger batteries to try to overcome that has its own engineering, safety and environmental problems.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#156

Post by war1025 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

klingonopera wrote: post #114

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole “learn 2 code” thing that was directed toward coal workers was exactly the wrong thing to do. Can somebody go into depth on this? Everyday I interact with people who have jobs that suck way more than coding and pay way less. Why wouldn't people want to work 40 hours remotely with full benefits making decent wages?

Because most people on this forum live in a bubble when it comes to computer literacy and the average population is really, really bad at it, you won't get them into coding when they're already failing at tasks you'd need for a basic white-collar job. Telling blue-collar workers to learn to code is in their analogy like telling them to be rocket-scientists. If they could, they probably wouldn't be blue-collar in the…

As a bit of a corollary, there are things that blue-collar workers take as absolutely basic "common knowledge" that would not be at all intuitive to people in the tech scene.

It's all about what you've been exposed to.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#157

Post by droro » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

Thriptic wrote: post #68

ericmay wrote: post #11

As a society we need to make sure we are taking care of people when their industry is destroyed. The whole “learn 2 code” thing that was directed toward coal workers was exactly the wrong thing to do. If we want those coal plants to shut down we should have offered to pay off the workers until they reached retirement age. If you “take away” someone’s job for the sake of progress, then you’ll make enemies of progress…

As I have said in a number of these types of threads, saying we will pay people off / implement UBI as a solution to reduced participation in the labor force dramatically underestimates the complexity of the problems of automation / globalization / de-industrialization. Most people want to work; they derive self-esteem from their labor and for being a provider; and status is awarded by society depending on the type o…

It kind of frustrates me that I keep seeing UBI being described as a sort of unemployment assistance. Unless you drop the "U", a UBI is something EVERYONE receives- the separation between givers/takers would not be obvious, especially if the unemployment rate remains low. And I think the unemployment rate would remain low because workers would be willing to accept lower pay if it is bolstered by a UBI. A UBI that is aggressive enough would actually create jobs by lowering the cost of labor in this manner.

The thing that prevents people from having jobs isn't a lack of demand for labor- it's the unwillingness of companies to pay for a worker's full cost of living. A UBI could correct for that.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#158

Post by jayd16 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #132

noobermin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm ignorant, why can't they just make other parts? If you have a lathe and a machine shop, you can make other pieces of metal instead of the pieces of metal you currently make.

Why can't a software company just make other software? Why did WordPerfect go out of business when they could have just made games, and OS, or a web browser?

Pretty sure the devs there did just go to other companies and make other software.

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#159

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #109

maxerickson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling that welding in particular is relatively resistant to meaningless certifications.

But it is a trade that was once taught by employers. They would teach the type/style/quality of welding they needed for the job.

What do you think they do with people that walk in the door with meaningless certifications?

Re: The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars

#160

Post by sprash » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #131

sprash wrote: post #22

Can somebody explain to me why we need to switch to electric cars when we have Fischer-Tropsch to produce fuel literally out of thin air? We could keep all the existing infrastructure while having zero CO2 impact. I think digging up loads of Lithium and Cobalt and plastering the country with charging stations is neither more sustainable nor less environmentally harmful.

1) Without emissions pricing/regulations, synthetic liquid fuel costs more to produce than fossil-derived liquid fuels, so it is unprofitable. 2) Even assuming that there were emissions pricing/regulations that kept fossil fuels in the ground, synthetic liquid fuel is much more capital intensive and energy intensive to produce than the corresponding amount of electricity needed to move a car N kilometers. Synthetic f…

Concerning point 1: Of course it will always be cheaper to pump Oil directly out of the ground. Nobody claimed otherwise.

Concerning point 2: A few billion investment seems to me far less than forcing everybody to switch to electric and building a vast network of charging stations and additional power plants to power those cars. (Which right now predominantly work with coal what everybody somehow seems to be ignoring)

Concerning point 2,3 and 4: Generating Hydrogen can easily be done with heat which you have plenty of when using solar as your primary energy source. Using electrolysis is overkill at that point.

Besides that, 69 cents per liter diesel is really not that bad considering most people in e.g. Europe pay vastly more per liter because of massive taxes.

The real problem I really see is the CO2 capture. As you said, nobody tried that at a huge scale. But maybe there is innovation possible.

It won't work if synthetic fuels are taxed the same way as fossil fuels. That is entirely obvious. I agree with that.