Can we have the day off? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can we have the day off?

#611

Post by abletonlive » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:50 AM UTC

throwaway63467 wrote: post #601

cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

It’s been like that for a while, economic gains went to a small fraction of people, before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side. Think about how much the US economy is growing right now and who really profits from that growth. My guess is that 90 % of the growth goes to 10 % of people, with AI maybe 99 % might go to the 1 %. Or who do you think will gain f…

> before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side.

are you sure about that? i'm a software engineer and i feel like i'm on the wining side now, even more than before. I'm considering quitting my 500K a year job to go compete against the employers. they seem like dinosaurs to me.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#612

Post by tasuki » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:55 AM UTC

manmal wrote: post #394

throw0101a wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He has this great quote about when computers came out: "We were told 'computers will save you so much time on work tasks that you won't even know what to do with your free time'. I spent the next 30 years working the same number of hours. " From about one hundred years ago: > Now it is true that the needs of human beings may seem to be insatiable. But they fall into two classes --those needs which are absolute in t…

In some European countries, you can actually go on welfare and never work again. It takes some tricks because the state doesn’t like it; and maybe you‘ll want to do some undeclared side jobs for 15h a week and you’ll be comfortable. I don’t know how such people can live with themselves. But apparently, if you’re immune to the second factor, it is possible, nowadays, to work 15h or less, without any wealth, and lead a…

> it is possible, nowadays, to work 15h or less, without any wealth, and lead a good life.

This is possible even without welfare.

Some friends of mine choose to do this: live in a shared flat, no car, no kids, it's easily doable. They live a good live and are happy.

(Let me add that I'm forty)

Re: Can we have the day off?

#613

Post by throw23232 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:56 AM UTC

jessetemp wrote: post #501

throw262672 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got into a contract. This contract specified what you will do and usually for how long. Unless this contract specified you need to get X done, I don’t see any way you can argue for this in any way that makes sense. _Nothing_ I do that benefits my employer directly benefits me. AI or not. That was the whole idea of the relationship: I show up, perform some type of labor and am shielded from the bullshit of doing b…

Creating a throwaway for this comment is telling

It's actually rather boring: I forget/don't care about my account.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#614

Post by mordae » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:56 AM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #222

Farm, and you won't have to scavenge for food. Get a tractor, and spend less time farming. The factory will save time making tractors, so everybody can have one. Computers will make the factories more efficient. AI will make the computers more efficient.

Foraging was so good we only had to work like 2h a day. We had to start farming simply because the population growth from foraging was exponential and we have ran out of easy-to-forage ecosystems.

We've also ran out of freedom at that point. We used to simply walk away from bullies, but that was no longer possible, with the farm and all.

At some point bullies stopped charging for racket. They stole the land and told us we are now working under them, for them.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#615

Post by forcedtolinux » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:58 AM UTC

abletonlive wrote: post #611

throwaway63467 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been like that for a while, economic gains went to a small fraction of people, before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side. Think about how much the US economy is growing right now and who really profits from that growth. My guess is that 90 % of the growth goes to 10 % of people, with AI maybe 99 % might go to the 1 %. Or who do you think will gain f…

> before software developers were among those that were on the winning side, now they’re on the losing side. are you sure about that? i'm a software engineer and i feel like i'm on the wining side now, even more than before. I'm considering quitting my 500K a year job to go compete against the employers. they seem like dinosaurs to me.

you personally are winning, but 500k comp is an outlier and not the norm, especially now

Re: Can we have the day off?

#616

Post by komali2 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:58 AM UTC

jlebar wrote: post #403

komali2 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economic surplus from that increase in productivity accrued to everyone in society, not just the wealthy. Sure, a poor man with two dollars is richer than a poor man with one dollar. And yet the man handing out the dollars had 100$ in surplus when he was handing out 1s and now that he's handing out 2's he's got 1,000,000,000. Look at the wealth disparity. Even if quality of life has increased, it's not wrong fo…

> Expand beyond the USA and include in your analysis how life has changed in imperialized nations that now function as cheap labor sources for our factories that pollute the local environment while exploiting workers for absurdly low wages and bad working conditions. Agreed, let's do that! Here is the economic history of the developing world over the past 70 years. https://ourworldindata.org/history-of-poverty-has-ju…

Capitalists invented metrics to show how awesome capitalism for the world, and then said "see, against these metrics, the world is better!"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2...

Putting the poverty line at 1$ a day, or saying people crossed from 2$/day to $3/day is "poverty decreasing," lets people get these self-serving numbers. Poverty declined, relative to what threshold? Do these people have secure housing, medical care, education, political power, in line with their contributions to the global market they've been shoved into?

People being moved from centuries old homes distributed across agrarian geographies into slums, that's improvement?

https://data.unhabitat.org/pages/housing-slums-and-informal-...

People living side by side to polluting factories that poison their water, that's improvement?

These people are foisted into a global supply chain, their economies changed into e.g. unsustainable cash crop or similar fragile-to-price-shock products, and themselves thrust into market dependence without any labor security since outside entities show up, exploit while it's profitable, then disappear without leaving any meaningful industrialization to the overall nation. Not to mention there's still a lot of people being straight up enslaved.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#617

Post by Ekaros » Thu, May 28, 2026, 7:59 AM UTC

yladiz wrote: post #495

manmal wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some European countries, you can actually go on welfare and never work again. It takes some tricks because the state doesn’t like it; and maybe you‘ll want to do some undeclared side jobs for 15h a week and you’ll be comfortable. I don’t know how such people can live with themselves. But apparently, if you’re immune to the second factor, it is possible, nowadays, to work 15h or less, without any wealth, and lead a…

Which European countries?

"Good" life might be bit questionable. But Finland at least it is possible. Existence will be meagre without other cashflows in cash. Might even be okay if you can make proper amount of cash.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#618

Post by tstrimple » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:01 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #552

tstrimple wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a naive view. Companies will literally pay you as little as they can get away with. If they think they can hire someone “equivalent” according to HR for less money they will often do so. Actual contribution means nothing unless you’re willing to walk away. I’ve literally seen an intern with less than one year of experience when hired into a company where a senior architect who has been at the same firm for 16…

> Companies will literally pay you as little as they can get away with. Everyone pays as little for everything as they can get away with. Companies aren't doing anything unusual or evil. This is literally just how a market works. A lot of people forget that the job market is a market. Or they wish it wasn't a market and they could block out competition for themselves so companies had to pay them more (at the expense…

> Everyone pays as little for everything as they can get away with.

Bullshit cop out. I regularly spend more than the “average” on technology because I’ve been burned by the bottom of the barrel too many times. Maybe you cheap out on all of your purchases, but it says nothing about “everyone”. The fact that you claim “everyone” has as few moral qualms as you is telling. But not in a way that reflects everyone. Just short sighted selfish assholes.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#619

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:04 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #363

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really true but it’s a nice story

It's a nice story and it's true. Weekends, sick days, vacation days, being paid in legal tender and not company scrip, maternity leave, safety regulations, disabled affordance, banning child labor, civil rights and womens' rights (while they lasted) and the minimum wage. All due to socialist activism and a non-zero amount of violence.

[deleted]

Re: Can we have the day off?

#620

Post by yurishimo » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:11 AM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #300

Auracle wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The houses built in the 60s aren't affordable either. Far, far more people and the same amount of land. > Average families aren't buying prepared food and they have a washing machine from the 90s they bought on craigslist. Well, that's just not true. The average person is absolutely terrible with their money. Not only are they buying prepared food, they're paying someone to drive it to their house.

> Well, that's just not true. The average person is absolutely terrible with their money. Not only are they buying prepared food, they're paying someone to drive it to their house. The average person is doing this? Do you have sources/stats or are you just going on vibes, or are you looking at people in your (likely non-average) peer group? Edit: A source I found cites 130 million US delivery app users in 2026, which…

No shot. As a general rule of thumb, most Americans, regardless of income, are also in a small mountain of debt. The rich and the poor alike max out their salaries with debt payments and then pile up living expenses on credit. Since that is "fake money" to so many people already, they overspend and convince themselves that using Klarna for a burrito bowl is a reasonable use of resources.