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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

#681

Post by RivieraKid »

fzeroracer wrote: post #436
RivieraKid wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working. I w…

> UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. If you believe this, then surely you also believe pension plans are the devil? If we can't have UBI then we can start by tearing away pension plans for all of the old people my tax money is being wasted on.

Pension systems don't have a huge effect on the incentive to work. They have some effect but not enough to collapse the system. But we could possibly see a collapse in the future in a country like Italy.

By the way, I support some level of rich-to-poor redistribution, not sure what's the optimal level but to get a reasonable range of where the optimum could be, look at the top 20 countries.

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

#682

Post by close04 »

roenxi wrote: post #663
close04 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he had 5 children, a house in Daly City and 3 apartments across the street from Dolores park as well as a brand new home in Terra Linda How well would you need to be paid now in any career to support a family like that one while accumulating that wealth already early in life? Careers can evaporate just the same but what they leave behind is vastly different from 60 years ago.

If you're happy to live life to a 1960s standard, it'd be quite cheap. If I'm interpreting the stats properly [0], he expected to put two children through high school and the other 3 would have been contributing a lot to the family quite early on. It'd also be interesting to check whether it's legal to build the same apartment in Daly City's current regulatory environment because that isn't a given. Plus, the US gove…

Obviously I’m interested in the modern equivalent of whatever that man had. If those apartments were on the outskirts of the city, then something equivalent today. If society expected the kids to finish no more than high-school then but university today, then university it is.

And I want to understand if there’s any chance to do it the same way with salaried work, not with clever investment over decades, or winning the lottery, or getting an inheritance. Which are all valid ways to have a lot of wealth but don’t tell me the value of salaried work in the US today.

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

#683

Post by chii »

Matumio wrote: post #625
chii wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> much intrinsic meaning now work should not be considered to have to have intrinsic meaning for it to be worthwhile - you merely need to make sure your pay is worthwhile. Find intrinsic meaning outside of work. The best way, imho, is to find the highest paying job you can, work super hard and earn maximally, until you built up a nest egg from which you can draw a living off indefinitely. Then, use the remaining time…

No, work is supposed to be at least useful for somebody. Ideally for the society you live in, at least indirectly. If you are wasting your work time, you are also wasting you life time in the same breath. Would you turn every leaf in the forest around twice, if it was the highest paying job? No, because that's a bullshit job.

> Would you turn every leaf in the forest around twice

if someone is paying for this, then it must mean it is useful to the one doing the paying. If you're not the one paying, you also cannot decide whether it's useful to the payer or not.

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

#684

Post by andrepd »

listenallyall wrote: post #669
lp4v4n wrote: post #648

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…

In other words: everything to do with economics is worse and everything to do with the inexorable march of progress is better. Yeah sorry but no shit. Technology has progressed since grandpa's day.

"TVs are better and cheaper" is not a useful counterpoint when discussing the economy of the 2020s.

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

#686

Post by pjmlp »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #650
paulorlando wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mentioned Etaoin Shrdlu and hot type / linotype... There are a lot of industries (at least historically) that have organized labor. In the UK, there was the “Wapping Dispute” in 1986 when computer technology enabled journalists to type in their copy directly, doing away with the need for workers to set type using linotype printing. Linotype was a big improvement on the older letter-by-letter typesetting and…

> Result of the strike: failure. 6000 printers were fired, but there were jobs for 670 new workers who used word processing. The sad part is that it kind of does work from the other end. Suppose you're a former press operator who can't expect to find any more work operating a printing press. Should you take a McJob? You have years of experience working with electric motors and hydraulics and pumps and industrial cont…

Why should the age play a role at all in unions?

In European unions you pay the membership and that is it.

On top of that many apply to complete industry sectors, they are not tied to specific jobs and don't care one second how you got your skills.

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

#687

Post by don_esteban »

chii wrote: post #595
quijoteuniv wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it better to find out that a lot of corporate work may not have much intrinsic meaning now, rather than just before you die? At least then you get a chance to do something about it. It seems to me these changes are much more daunting if you live in a country where no job means no health insurance, and where the pay gap between skilled and unskilled work is huge. That makes an existential question about work int…

> much intrinsic meaning now work should not be considered to have to have intrinsic meaning for it to be worthwhile - you merely need to make sure your pay is worthwhile. Find intrinsic meaning outside of work. The best way, imho, is to find the highest paying job you can, work super hard and earn maximally, until you built up a nest egg from which you can draw a living off indefinitely. Then, use the remaining time…

You know, convincing the masses to 'work super hard' is a good trick.

Too bad you have to work super hard until you drop dead, never managing to build that nest egg. Surely you just did not work hard enough. Soo sorry, but its all your fault anyway.

Or maybe you did manage to do that at a tender age of 60, perhaps even 50 or 40 if you were super lucky/smart. Too bad your best and most creative years are past you and you have no family (or spent almost no time with your kids, who are now alienated grown ups). Such is life, you know.

Meanwhile, the kids of the rich live by a different set of rules...

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

#688

Post by zelphirkalt »

xlii wrote: post #85

Long long time ago people in tech were in tech because of the tech. Then, at some point, being in tech became a gilded profession and everyone: salesmen, artists, clerks etc. joined in. Not because they wanted to be in tech. They wanted gold. For years it was working, but right now things shifted. You can no longer just do the thing you learned for a job and continue doing so, because landscape shifted. So they're mi…

It doesn't derail them, except for them not finding a new job and many being unfortunate enough to lose their old one. Instead many jobs are taken by "AI engineers", glorified prompters, who are not in tech because of the tech, but because they will do anything for that paycheck.

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

#689

Post by prmoustache »

RealityVoid wrote: post #247
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…

I sense there is this air around of "demand our jobs keep being relevant" - I personally feel this kind of thing holds the world backwards if it works. I think if our jobs were to become obsolete, embracing it and re-orienting oneself is the one thing that is personally effective and is morally right. But what do I know, I'm just some doofus on the internet. The irony is not lost on me on all those years where people…

It really depends about the income and debt.

If a $20000/y a job is deemed unrelevant, chances is that one might easily find similar or better in a totally different area.

If a $200000/y job is deemed unrelevant and is lost, and one has mortgage payments they can't pay with a $50000 or $100000 job, they have a big problem because selling that house might become difficult when all other $200000/y workers will try to sell their house and move within the same period and the housing market crashes. So you can ruin the economy of a large area quite quickly.

So a bit of anticipation is useful.

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

#690

Post by mattjhall »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #650
paulorlando wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mentioned Etaoin Shrdlu and hot type / linotype... There are a lot of industries (at least historically) that have organized labor. In the UK, there was the “Wapping Dispute” in 1986 when computer technology enabled journalists to type in their copy directly, doing away with the need for workers to set type using linotype printing. Linotype was a big improvement on the older letter-by-letter typesetting and…

> Result of the strike: failure. 6000 printers were fired, but there were jobs for 670 new workers who used word processing. The sad part is that it kind of does work from the other end. Suppose you're a former press operator who can't expect to find any more work operating a printing press. Should you take a McJob? You have years of experience working with electric motors and hydraulics and pumps and industrial cont…

> And you can't even get the apprenticeship to begin with because you're 45 years old and the union won't take you.

This is not how unions work in the UK

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