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

#901

Post by Permik » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

elmer2 wrote: post #273

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…

"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." This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses. A 'robust' healthcare system that the governmen…

I'm probably an outlier, but as someone working a non-physical job, I have been talking about how I personally would still keep working and doing jobs even if all of my basic needs are met.

I do work purely because of idealistic reasons. I'm not actually owed anything, I'm working because of us, humanity. Yeah, people are going to slack, and that's just life. It's just statistics, optimize society to such a configuration that people acts have a place and get the support they need. Most of the "slackers" who represent the people just living on the UBI type system you described, probably don't do it as a direct choice. Most likely they feel like they can't contribute to society, but that's something that's solvable. It's a matter of education and culture.

About your quote:

  "have nothing to lose and decide to attack the source of their misery. Bread and circuses will only distract so much."

There's a theory directly relating to this that I have about the modern golden age of punk and rock in the nordics. When people had all of their basic needs met, they finally had the time to take a breath, take a look inwards and face their own inner demons. I suggest that this was one of the big things that created the conditions which made the nordics the rock/punk powerhouse that they were.

Of course, the good times also had their downsides, lots of complacency in politics and not feeling the need to fight for better, because things were already better than they've ever been!

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

#902

Post by zmmmmm » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

Dusseldorf wrote: post #350

cheschire wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the remote thing before Covid and rejected it for many of the same reasons. Then Covid happened and so many people got to experience it and loved it. But I still hated it while I was forced to. Every time I told anyone that I personally didn’t like working from home, and was excited about the return to office that would inevitably come, I got SHOUTED at. Absolutely flayed for not being 110% in support of this t…

I think the reason people get angry about it is that it feels like an asymmetric ask. It feels a bit like saying "everyone needs to come I to the office because I like there to be people in the office, regardless of whether that's what they want." (not saying that's what you're saying here, just trying to shine some light on how it may be perceived)

On top of that, it seems the WFO crowd simply can't help exploiting it to their advantage once they are there. They get less work done, but they hoard higher level decisions about what work should be done. They will say "oh we had this corridor conversation and decided X and Y", and then they will even present the fact that happened as compelling evidence that everyone should work in the office. Whereas I see it as evidence of dysfunction - you want to make a decision you get all the stakeholders in the room and you ensure it's transcribed / recorded. Basically an online meeting is the ideal form of it.

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

#903

Post by zmmmmm » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

I will say here that there are meaningful jobs that especially tech people can engage with. There are gigantic unsolved problems. Climate change, cancer, thousands of rare disorders with no therapy or even good diagnostics. And many of these fields have actual roles for technical people to fill and usually can't find highly qualified people to do them because a software eng salary is far out of reach of the average research funding.

Before burning out, retiring or checking out altogether, I really recommend people look at the concept of halving your salary and taking a job that still employs your skills but is directly attached to actual meaning.

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

#904

Post by Exoristos » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #727

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…

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…

Most of it actually took about five years, as the manufacturing side of it was outsourced to China and the computer side to India. I was there. Management told us it was "because of 9/11." R.R. Donnelley was one of the world's largest manufacturing companies, a Fortune 50 company -- became a penny stock in a decade or so.

The technologies GP mentions didn't end commercial print -- they were all heavily in use _by_ commercial print.

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

#905

Post by Exoristos » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

Exoristos wrote: post #904

estearum wrote: post #727

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…

Most of it actually took about five years, as the manufacturing side of it was outsourced to China and the computer side to India. I was there. Management told us it was "because of 9/11." R.R. Donnelley was one of the world's largest manufacturing companies, a Fortune 50 company -- became a penny stock in a decade or so. The technologies GP mentions didn't end commercial print -- they were all heavily in use _by_ co…

Oh and the actual driving mechanism was vulture capitalist takeover.

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

#906

Post by Tomis02 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #903

I will say here that there are meaningful jobs that especially tech people can engage with. There are gigantic unsolved problems. Climate change, cancer, thousands of rare disorders with no therapy or even good diagnostics. And many of these fields have actual roles for technical people to fill and usually can't find highly qualified people to do them because a software eng salary is far out of reach of the average r…

It's insane that jobs involving cancer research pay half of what a regular VC-funded web company pays.

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

#907

Post by jongjong » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #884

jongjong wrote: post #788

I think the part that's hard to absorb is that software engineering was a brutal path. You had to restructure your entire identity, ego, personality, social relationships around that career choice. People didn't expect their career to last forever, but they thought it was a ticket out to gain autonomy. Back in 2010-ish, many developers thought that, in the future, they'd all be running their own systems and servicing…

Almost like all western civilization is architected to ensure the benefit of a few at the expense of the many by design doesn't it? If not by design than by emergent consequence of how it executes.

Yes, the full extractive structure is much more visible now. Used to be discussed as "conspiracy theory" but now it's obvious that such structure exists and it doesn't require any conspiracy; shared incentives suffice. So yes, I would say that this structure is emergent.

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

#908

Post by shimman » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #813

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…

I am very jealous of you.

Unless you live in a self isolated monastery you have neighbors and the only person stopping you from making friends is yourself.

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

#909

Post by rootusrootus » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

parpfish wrote: post #550

rootusrootus wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we're probably going to have to give up something, most probably anonymity, to get back to anything like sanity. We'll see communities that are militantly anti-AI where it's hard to get in and easy to get kicked out, and it will probably cost money and require you to divulge who you really are. It could still be semi-anonymous at the user level but not at the administrative level. I'd like to see somethin…

Those plans might work to give a nice sane internet experience to the folks that are willing to put in some money and effort. But most people will still opt to stay on the slop-filled web because it’s free and because they like being angry. And as long as they stay the societal problems that stem from the toxic internet will live on.

I agree, it will filter for a certain kind of person, and most probably the people who are not a problem on today's Internet. If we cannot tamp down the filth that comes along with emphatic anonymity, then at least we can create some places without it. I'm getting to the point where I may pull the plug on my Internet as soon as I retire. Kinda hate to do that, because I remember when it didn't suck (at least not everywhere).

IMO once upon a time Facebook could have been that place, though maybe that ship has sailed now. There was a time when I thought they could choose to offer a premium experience for anyone willing to pay and there would have been a small but real subset of users who would go for it. Charge $25/mo (which I believe is approximately what they make off a normal US user) in return for zero ads, zero algorithm, complete control over the experience. Add another level above that which includes actively moderated members-only discussion forums.

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

#910

Post by johnnyanmac » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 11:29 PM UTC

andai wrote: post #313

marginalia_nu wrote: post #54

Saw a meme on mastodon the other day contrasting people of the '90s going online to escape from offline reality, and people of the '20s going offline to escape from online reality. There's something to that. I think a big part of it is just how incredibly toxic the web has become. If you spend any time online, as most tech workers do, you have exceptional resiliency if you're able to stay sane and level headed. Going…

Well it used to be that the government's job was to keep morale high. At some point that seems to have inverted. The coalition-of-Molochs appears to be finding it much more profitable to make everyone want to kill themselves. (Not sure if that's a great long-term strategy, but they seem to have thought this through.)

> but they seem to have thought this through

If there's one thing I'm confident of in my government, it's that they certainly did not think this through. Thus highlighting the core issue.