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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

#931

Post by johnnyanmac »

dan_q wrote: post #709
hdndjsbbs wrote: post #492

The bigger problem, for me, is that knowledge work has become stupid. If you want to write code by hand and do a good job, you will be ruthlessly replaced by your boss churning out "good enough" LLM code. The CEO at my company tried to PR code to my repo. It didn't make any sense but it was a whole political thing to make it go away. The industry has always been stupid and selfish and short-sighted but now the ICs at…

> The industry has always been stupid and selfish and short-sighted but now the ICs at the bottom of the pyramid are themselves being commoditized like all the workers they "disrupted". Are you allowed to use the word "union" on this website?

Sure. Reactions to the word are mixed, though. Tech is still very resistant to the idea for various reasons.

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

#932

Post by johnnyanmac »

jebarker wrote: post #92
rarisma wrote: post #59

"It's good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know. But lately, I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over." I feel like this can be applied to a lot of things, but this is pretty much how I've felt working in tech for the last 2ish years.

What makes you feel like that? Is it AI specifically?

having some 6-7 yeras of fruitful work followed by 3 years struggling to make ends meet. I thought getting over the 5YOE hump would mean I'd be set for any future roles, but that delusion is long past.

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

#933

Post by johnnyanmac »

InfinityByTen wrote: post #856

I went through the whole article, agreeing to most of it and I was baffled by how skeptical people were in the comments here, with remarks of "follow the money". I didn't read all of it in one shot, but in breaks over the course of 2 days and when I finally got to the last paragraph I understood what people in the comments were on about. I grew up in a culture where hustle and work was the way out of a terrible life.…

> but work is still a lot of what I derive meaning from

Not work directly. But my rent sure does threaten to take my meaning away. Can't create when I'm begging for scraps on the street.

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

#934

Post by johnnyanmac »

xnx wrote: post #248
dspillett wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases being told "just treat it like you are a manager", when we've always done our level best to avoid anything vaguely like management because we like doing things particularly the nitty gritty details.

Nah, the part of management that sucks is the people. Management/operation of a thinking machine is a dream by comparison. With AI you can still get into the details all you want. AI won't get offended for being "micro-managed".

>AI won't get offended for being "micro-managed".

And you say the quiet part out loud on why some people really, really want AI pushed in at all costs.

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

#935

Post by johnnyanmac »

scottLobster wrote: post #117
NicuCalcea wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quarter of Americans (and 40% of young Americans) see Mangione favourably, so it definitely is a society thing. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/51189-presidential-pardons...

The only reason in my mind to view Mangione unfavorably is that vigilante justice, however justified, does not result in a civilization anyone would want to live in. It's the same reason we can't just go around killing everyone in the Epstein files. It's not that they don't deserve it, it's that the resulting corrosion destroys the entire system, including the good parts. If Mangione had killed the UHC CEO by being h…

> It's not that they don't deserve it, it's that the resulting corrosion destroys the entire system, including the good parts.

You're right that it's not the right way. But if things keep going, it will be the inevitable way. History doesn't really have an extended history of serfs being continually robbed of all freedoms and just accepting it peacefully. People talk of the French Revolution but not the centuries of instability afterwards.

I guess the US will be the same if we keep going at this rate.

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

#936

Post by johnnyanmac »

cleandreams wrote: post #513

I am not excited about tech anymore. I dread it to be honest. I was an early engineer at a AI company that got acquired. From that and related stock (golden handcuffs) was able to retire a couple of years ago. There were some tech problems that I wanted to investigate and I took a bunch of classes. Fun. I loved my career. Wow have my feelings changed. I'm disgusted. It's a moral disgust. The scene turns me off SO MUC…

> Just a recent tidbit: I think it is Anthropic that is buying old (some antique, vintage) books, scanning them, then pulping them.

I wouldn't be surprised if all the companies are doing that, and Anthropic was just the featured company that had someone talk about it.

>The other day I was sitting around doing nothing and suddenly out of the blue dreamed up an app that could help build community regarding an activity I care a lot about.

Wish you the best of luck. But from my honest experience: the hardest part of building community was never the technology.

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

#937

Post by johnnyanmac »

robofanatic wrote: post #152

Because most of us are middle aged with mortgages, kids etc. Not old enough to retire and live off of savings or 401ks, not young enough to start all over again.

Starting over isn't worth it anyway. Entry level is being hosed the worst, so this isn't an issue you can retrain yourself out of.

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

#938

Post by johnnyanmac »

arendtio wrote: post #119

I think we shouldn't be depressed, but work on ideas and concepts of how this could be changed into something good. I see a lot of people hyping AI and condemning it, but very few seem to be interested in working on what our future should look like.

>but very few seem to be interested in working on what our future should look like.

That involves policy, and people here are still squeamish to talk about the dreaded P word, despite it controlling every aspect of society.

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

#939

Post by johnnyanmac »

hn_submit wrote: post #735

LLMs are not going to put large numbers of software developers out of work. It may have some influence on copywriters, artists and musicians, but to which extent is unknown at the moment. Most workers lament having to give up their cozy desk jobs and having to do work which currently can't be automated, like health care and service jobs like plumbers and roof repair men, construction etc.

This isn't a good market to transition into anyway. Healthare is the only growing sector and that sector will start declining once boomers start dying out in the coming decades (which is just starting to happen).

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

#940

Post by johnnyanmac »

Kuyawa wrote: post #760

Am I the only one that loves my career more than ever? The one that has seen his productivity explode? Ideas to products in minutes instead of months? Building my own coding agents that help me being even more productive? This is the year I have been the happiest in my 40 year long career as programmer and I feel much more excited for the years ahead of us.

Not being laid off helps with that mentality. I was not so lucky. Owning assets also helps. I was not so lucky.
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