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The last time my family was replaced by technology

339 points · 641 comments · megalomanu

  1. harimau777 · · focus · HN ↗
    Have any of these articles actually addressed HOW software developers are supposed to retrain for good jobs? Personally I have neither the money nor the years to go back to college to get a livable job.
    1. WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
      Pretty much none of us are doing jobs that existed in colonial America.
      1. bombcar · · focus · HN ↗
        There's an off-color joke that could be made here but the real question is the speed of change - we gloss over it but there have been major changes that took centuries, and others that were quite fast, this one seems to be closer to the fast end.
      2. harimau777 · · focus · HN ↗
        Yes and? You'll be shocked to know that pretty much none of us were alive in colonial America.
      3. asdff · · focus · HN ↗
        How can you not see that this time its actually different? The very need for labor is being obviated. Every technological change we had before still required a need for labor often an massive need that justified an entire city population. That is the difference. For the first time in human history, economic output is being severed from requiring maintenance of a labor pool. Considering we are that labor pool, things do not bode so well for us. As you state, look at the relative lack of abundance of candlestick makers and horeshoe makers and basket weavers and other colonial jobs. We are essentially making ourselves extinct and we don't even realize this.
        1. WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
          They said the same thing when the looms put weavers out of a job.
          1. asdff · · focus · HN ↗
            The loom still needs people to run it, you fool. This one doesn't. How are you so blind to this nuance?
            1. WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
              Then everything would be free.
        2. nickpp · · focus · HN ↗
          > this time its actually different

          The older I get the more time I heard this. Never actually true. But always used by somebody asking for power, to protect me - of course.

          1. asdff · · focus · HN ↗
            There has never been a technology with the promise of obviating both knowledge and physical based labor before. Now there is. Sorry, but this is unprecedented. The hubris to imagine all will just be swell is astounding to me.
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