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

#941

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:04 AM UTC

austin-cheney wrote: post #395

Just as a reminder this subject of AI replacing developers come up all the time but it has not happened yet. People want to focus on AI but the same problem has always been there for 2-4 decades. Software, as a profession, has no credentials, no common elevation path, no common training criteria. You just show up and everyone is super insecure. AI just provides a name to identify that insecurity. Nothing else has cha…

>it has not happened yet.

That's the worst part. The idea of it replacing people is impacting people. Even though it is not ready yet.

>Software, as a profession, has no credentials, no common elevation path, no common training criteria.

I don't think that affects much when every field except healtcare and maybe education are down. This isn't about credentials or qualifications. Nor even getting work done. It's a circus today.

>Nothing else has changed.

The last 10 years changed pretty much everything.

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

#942

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:07 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #22

Because the free ride and the day-care rest and vest ZIRP tech life style is over. In 2012 - 2023, this lifestyle used to be at Google, and Facebook and everyone outside wanted to join. In 2023 - present The day care lifestyle is at NVIDIA, OpenAI and Anthropic and everyone outside wants to join (they are too late) after getting laid off. It's that simple. There will be a new day care somewhere but it if you are look…

>if you are looking for a safe and stable job, it does not exist.

Are all safe and stable jobs "day cares" in this lens? This issue isn't limtied to tech these days.

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

#943

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:12 AM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #98

8by3 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be _that_ extreme, Many of us just wanted vaguely what the promise of a good job was supposed to offer. A decent wage, the ability to afford a home one day, support our families etc. Maybe not everyone but up until about 2022 I had great job security and loved my work. I knew I was extremely lucky. I didn't have a crazy silicon valley salary but I was doing pretty well on any kind of global scale.…

>what the promise of a good job was supposed to offe So did the people at car factories, at steel mills, at any number of places that no longer have that either. Your last sentence is correct, we're just coming down to the reality that everyone else is suffering. But hey, tech unions are socialism, we'll pull ourselves up by our bootstraps at any moment now.

At least factories and mills were smart enough to unionize. Tech feels like the fable of the scorpion and the frog as of now in terms of this. rather pretend they are the top of the food chain and bring everyone down with them than do the reasonable thing.

On topic: the bigger issue here is that I don't really see the angle of "we'll just retrain and adapt". All white collar work is in danger, and most blue collar work is also on the decline in numbers for other reasons. Are we all going to be nurses for boomers at this rate? Or doordashers and youtubers? I don't see the "next frontier" here and people thinking they they will "be their own manager" are blind to how large an impact this will be.

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

#944

Post by lumost » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

estearum wrote: post #733

Animats wrote: post #222

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…

I think we have unfortunately apt historical comparisons. The economic state of Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century matches a society where wealth had been completely and utterly bifurcated.

The result was “seizing the means of production”

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

#945

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:16 AM UTC

salawat wrote: post #884

jongjong wrote: post #792

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.

Being a ignorant college student in the early 2010's certainly didn't help. 2016 was a wakeup call but I still figured the checks and balances would be there.

2024 was my "fool me twice" moment. It won't happen thrice without some proper resistance; I'll make sure of that next time.

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

#946

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

chasing wrote: post #318

“Tech” is one of the most rapidly-changing disciplines historically. It was very different in 2016. In 2006. In 1996. In 1986. It will be very different in 2036. If this is your career, part of your job is being aware of those changes and being the person who can help others create value from whatever new technologies come around. I’ve always found these changes exciting and fun, but I’ve also been aware my entire ca…

>Trepidation is a part of excitement.

Sounds like a line I'd hear straight out of Cyberpunk. Or perhaps Outer Worlds.

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

#947

Post by prime_ursid » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

burnte wrote: post #916

dan_q wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "us" vs "them" thought pattern is the essence of "Western" (read: white, European, colonialist) culture, dating back to Plato's Republic. Marimba Ani's seminal work Yurugu is a sociological study of this culture from a non-western perspective. I can't recommend it strongly enough if you want to understand the nexus of social/psychological/epistemic factors that sustain the "us" vs "them" thought pattern and its c…

> The "us" vs "them" thought pattern is the essence of "Western" (read: white, European, colonialist) culture, dating back to Plato's Republic. No, us vs them is an innate aspect of human psychology going back tens of millions of years. It is found in literally every single group of humans that numbers more than 20.

Source: it was revealed to me in a dream

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

#948

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

tossitawayplz wrote: post #97

A lot of people truly enjoyed the craft and creativity of building something. That is being stripped away. The building is being outsourced now. In some cases, the design too. Everything they once enjoyed and took pride in is being done by machines now. That is not a good feeling. Imagine you are a master craftsman, a furniture builder. You sourced the wood, designed the furniture, built it by hand, took pride in you…

It can be a bit sad scrolling through reactions to stuff like this and seeing a bunch of shrugs or outright dismissals of the issues highlighted in the article.

But this was a nice breath of fresh air and gave me a bit of needed optimism. So thanks for posting this comment. My background is game development, so perhaps I'm not really in "tech" the same way but am more of an "artist" who definitely sympathizes with real artists. But that background definitely had me more scrutinous to what AI can do and how it can take over one's mind. Which is poison to an artist who needs to constantly figure out how to channel their experiences to bring out new creations.

I'm still sadly on the "find a way to provide for myself and my family" phase, but I too hope to live a life like this. One for me and my loved ones, not to serve some coporate overlord.

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

#949

Post by johnnyanmac » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:41 AM UTC

vrganj wrote: post #658

NateEag wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have channeled a great deal of my anxiety, stress, anger, and sorrow with this comment. Every day at my job I search for a chance to write some fragment of code by hand, a place where just for a moment I remember the joyous struggle to be a craftsman. I have the sense that you're right - musicians, writers, illustrators, actors, animators - they largely seem to hate the way the genAI companies vacuumed up everyth…

I wonder if an indie games studio might be the place for both kinds of craftsmen to create unique rewarding quality work.

It sure is... it's also doing terrible right now if you are trying to do it for survival. Games has never been stable, but AI as a catalyst has also accelerated that.

But if financial survival isn't in the equation I can think of no better way to truly express your creative and technical intent than with a nice game.

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

#950

Post by lrvick » Sun, Aug 09, 2026, 2:47 AM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #940

lrvick wrote: post #198

I am finally able to deliver on years of backlog ideas thanks to the GPUs I racked up in my garage. Having a blast. Everyone I know fully dependent on corpotch seems pretty sad though. I frequently suggest that they stop. It has not worked.

> I frequently suggest that they stop. It has not worked. Are you offering to make up for their lack of a job yourself? If no, I'm not surprised people don't just upend their lives for... nothing? Especially in the days where getting any job after quitting is a massive ask. It's rough out there.

Every single new innovation in technology wipes out giant swaths of jobs. The invention of the loom, the printing press, the refrigerator, the radio, automobiles, the internet... etc etc. Technological progress is not evil, and those of us that adapt quickly do not have to apologize to anyone for doing so. Those that learn those technologies early and adapt fast have a major advantage.

Those that just want complain and hope the technologies are going to go away, and refuse to adapt how they work, should probably move to a country with socialized healthcare and universal basic income ASAP. I know this is harsh, but I do not make the rules.

My way of helping is freely mentoring the smart and motivated that shows up in my communities. Beyond that I have to focus on adapting to the transition myself.