> One of the biggest differences that you don't mention is the use of your body.
Oh, for sure. I was a dev for many years, then switched to product design. What I left out of my first comment was that my older brother is a maintenance guy for a hospital—basically a handyman with an office in the basement. Growing up, it was clear that he was at least as smart as me, but at a certain point he went one direction and I went another. Cut to 25-30 years later: his body is a wreck, mine is okay (modulo poor diet and lack of exercise), he's always broke, and I'm doing alright.
When I said that our jobs are very similar, I just meant that, like a handyman, much of what a SWE does is basically attaching one thing to another thing while cursing. That's a joke, but you get what I mean. My point was that neither are rocket science, but we shouldn't think we're especially smart for being programmers just because we get paid too much for it. Add the physical element of handyman work to that and that just underlines the point I wanted to make.
> I strongly disagree with "all the out of work engineers and designers will move into those industries.
This is timely. I said that because I was thinking about it yesterday, when talking to some friends about what they'd do if and when AI obviated their current jobs (which is in the realm of possibility). A common answer was that they'd become electricians. I think there are at least two problems with that: one is the physical aspect of being a tradesman, which nobody thinks about. The other is that there would certainly be more people going into the trades, not less, if those industries became a safe harbor from AI. Many of these people would wash out, sure, but at least some of them (like yourself) wouldn't. That, combined with all the upper-middle-class people being suddenly broke, would probably drive down wages for people who work with their hands. I can't imagine anything else happening, though of course I could be wrong.