What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers • Hacker News Board

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

#831

Post by Theodores » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

woopah wrote: post #375

pixelready wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is always the one we don’t want to talk about: a robust public safety net. This is the balance to “move fast and break shit” technological disruption. It’s great to have an adaptive overall system, but disruption has a human cost. If there’s a robust public healthcare and UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down. If instead we stick our…

Definitely agree with this! Given the pace of technological development, we should basically expect entire groups of people to constantly drop out of the competitive labor market. Don't get me wrong, new jobs will be created as well, but it's also very possible many people will also not be able to reskill into those new roles without some sort of structural support. People have faith that technology will create new m…

I can remember the Thatcher years when redundancies for hundreds of thousands was routine, with the unemployment figures going stratospheric.

The miners, auto-workers, ship workers, BT (phone) workers and other swathes ended up leaving the workplace as a general rule.

To massage the figures, the government were able to expand the education sector and take the 'long term sick' off the books.

For the education sector there are mature person degrees, however, education mostly takes the young off the books, the people that did apprenticeships.

Long term sick can be an easy skive, if you have taken up the bottle, can claim to be depressed and have the doctor in the job centre believe you. The incentive is more money than dole and no need to check in with the job centre on a fortnightly basis.

IMHO AI is the fig leaf for what is going on, with further financialisation of Western economies (rent seeking) and absurd energy costs, due to the Anglo-American 'war for oil against humanity', making most Western economies doomed to never be competitive ever again. Soon the only jobs will be 'multi-drop delivery drivers' and 'care workers for seniors'. Immigrants and young people will fill these roles, not whomever is being laid off 'due to AI'.

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

#832

Post by victorbjorklund » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #752

Macha wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also fails to distinguish between “society came out of it fine” (generally true) and “individuals came out of it fine” (much more mixed of a track record)

Yes. And individuals largely don’t come out fine. We have this notion of “retraining” but that’s not real. It’s like how studies show it’s very hard to make friends as an adult. Most people whose jobs were shipped overseas in deindustrialization never recovers.

It’s harder to go from 30 years as an assembly worker to a career as a developer than go from developer to say product manager or whatever roles will survive.

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

#833

Post by purplemoonx » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #389

There is one major difference from previous technological advancements: AI is going to hit many if not most sectors at the same time. And it's not like hitting just one sector has ever been gentle: machines entering manufacturing caused an 80 years slump in British occupation rates and salaries. Machines entering agricultural fields by the end of 1800s caused a similar slump in work conditions in Europe that really e…

Not at the rate it is currently gatekept - it will be prohibitively expensive for most people to use AI and AI-based robotics.

It's already out of reach for most small businesses to justify spending on it, and some LLM consumer plans are going for $200/mo.

If a chatbot is $200/mo, what's a full human AI robot going to cost to do general labor? $100k/year? And let me guess, you have to replace it with newer models each year?

Companies will ask: "What's the point?" in losing the people resource, accountability, and everything else in exchange for the same cost of labor (or more).

AI tech needs to be freed up so we can innovate with it, like the Internet was. It's currently too locked down and the K-shape thing only works with goods and assets. I don't think you can lock the majority of people out of technology (and it be as good) the way you can lock people out of home ownership (and it improves home value).

If the plan is that only a minority of ultra-wealthy have the best technology and everyone else is some underclass who can't afford it, then the technology just won't be very good or useful. It will be like the $200 chatbot or an Apple Watch or a Tesla. Some specific kind of wealthy geek will get it, but it won't be that world changing.

If individuals and companies can't meaningfully save time and money without significant additional engineering, then it'll be like flying cars or robotic bartenders and the dream of displacing all people (lol) just won't materialize.

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

#834

Post by victorbjorklund » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

bushbaba wrote: post #781

estearum wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised no one has made the extremely obvious observation that it took literal centuries for printing technology to eliminate the trade of printers, which could not have possibly have employed more than 0.01% of people at its peak. Compared to the potential obsolescence of 40% to 60% of the US workforce over the course of 10 - 20 years? You can argue about whether the obsolescence is real or not, but if it is , the…

I doubt unemployment can even raise to 40% before the government and billionaire class is overthrown. The French Revolution was not an isolated event

You have way higher unemployment among young people in many countries without any revolution. What are they gonna do? Randomly kill people who are ”kulaks” and that will solve their problems how? Are they gonna get to eat if they kill a guy running a saas company?

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

#835

Post by zero-sharp » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

thegrim33 wrote: post #801

estearum wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised no one has made the extremely obvious observation that it took literal centuries for printing technology to eliminate the trade of printers, which could not have possibly have employed more than 0.01% of people at its peak. Compared to the potential obsolescence of 40% to 60% of the US workforce over the course of 10 - 20 years? You can argue about whether the obsolescence is real or not, but if it is , the…

The difference is that one of those things actually happened, and the other one is your hypothetical extremist/exaggerated/worst possible case of what might happen this time.

The parent is making a point about the rate/scale at which technology replaced workers. If you think the hypothetical is too extreme, then what would a more realistic version be? Are you uncertain about the rate of disruption?

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

#836

Post by dec0dedab0de » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #570

THX1137 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing me to go out every day and talk to human beings face to face, even just little things like making sure I was showered and dressed every day This part is strange to me. I've worked from home for about 10 years and I've never once had an issue with twice-daily showering, meeting people face-to-face, going out for coffee, going outdoors, going to the gym, etc. The fact I can just go sit in a park, on a hiking…

The previous poster doesn’t realize he is part of the problem. He wants everyone to go back to the office so that he can see people face to face again and have the social pressure to wash himself. Makes you wonder why no one wants to be his friend? If you are ever in a situation where you are alone and no person works for you, realize you are most likely the problem. It took me a while to figure it out and it’s hard…

Dude. This is too mean. I'm a real person.

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

#837

Post by kasey_junk » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #471

ang_cire wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that WFO-preferenced people don't exist, it's that it aligns with the narratives of the extroverted management (who approve their own PTO) that it's better, and people who aren't extroverts dread being forced back. No one who prefers WFH is actually against people who prefer offices being allowed to go there, they're opposed to people publicly claiming they prefer that- unqualified- because they see…

I'm not an extrovert, I'm more or less on the line between the two extremes, and I prefer WFO or hybrid. Teams should really be choosing their model of work themselves, and anyone who doesn't like it should shuffle off to a different team within the company. Top down RTO is nuts.

I’m an extrovert and strongly prefer working remotely.

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

#838

Post by purplemoonx » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

chrisjj wrote: post #31

FLeXMurphy wrote: post #7

This article is too inward, clique referential looking. It uses too many "known" things to frame and validate its points, but has very little contributions of its own. The way that people are described, and the conditions portrayed, have been this way for quite some time. The only thing that is changed is now there is a clearly defined boogeyman to point to that justifies it. Because the other boogeymen make the usua…

> This article is too inward Too inward for what?

Can't say the inward here (it's racist)

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

#839

Post by sluggishpudding » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

zulban wrote: post #764

Havoc wrote: post #444

I'm not even a programmer (by profession, though hobby) and I must say I find the gleefulness in the article off-putting. That said I do think it is useful from a societal perspective that programmers are both doing this and getting hit. I'm not going to celebrate someone's job being threatened but in this particular case I think that symmetry is a major societal win for surfacing the question as to how are we collec…

> See translator jobs getting wiped out. Nobody even blinked an eye, it didn't spark any discussion, no deep thoughts were had. Whenever someone writes something like this "nobody talks about it, nobody cared" I always think that just tells you more about the media sources and community of the author (you) than anything else. Of course people talked about it. They are still talking about it. Of course they cared. The…

Nah. OP's real point is that people didn't talk about translators _enough_. Of course people in the circle are devastated and are screaming at the top of their lungs right now, but at a societal level no one cared enough to for example seriously consider policy changes (like UBI for example).

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

#840

Post by freejazz » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #829

estearum wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero reason to think about events that haven't happened yet. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

I don't think they said that at all. I'm pretty sure they were saying that the thing to think about / discuss is the thing that happened, rather than the hypothetical.

The entire premise of this article is a hypothetical