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I'm afraid you've moved from one fading career path to another. In ten years that delivery van will be an autonomous drone carrier. A far smaller crew of humans

I'm afraid you've moved from one fading career path to another. In ten years that delivery van will be an autonomous drone carrier. A far smaller crew of humans will be just for exceptional stuff, like oversized packages and updating map details. Your wife's career in law seems much more robust.

thebradbain 8y ago
In my opinion, you’re missing the point: “Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are the same.” Maybe he doesn’t have the same stability or ‘prestige’ as his last job or his wife’s, but, hey, his last one turned out to not be so stable after all, and your ego can’t buy you a house or put food on the table.
verisimilidude 8y ago
This guy was previously among journalism's elite. He interviewed five U.S. presidents! Wouldn't you consider that robust? Between the lines, his whole point is that no career is robust these days.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure we're in the middle of the biggest revolution this world's ever seen. And being in the middle of it is blinding us to it. These jobs, these people slipping through the cracks are the transition to something I hope is better. But it's that in-between time, that many many people will suffer very badly.
  - pixl97 8y ago
    I have people keep arguing with me that automation hasn't replaced jobs,and that more people have jobs than ever, yet none of these new jobs have any security whatsoever, and the job lifespans are so short. The automation revolution is here, we are blind to it.
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    I guess I'm more inclined to think that most people are going to be transitioned to fertilizer, but that's pessimism for you.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > These jobs, these people slipping through the cracks are the transition to something I hope is better. Some people may be slipping through the cracks, but others are doing far better than anyone could ever imagine. Crises do stir stuff up, but in this case the net result to society is far too positive to imply it's a bad thing.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      Thr question is, how many others?
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        It’s crazy how much data shows diverging lines in society between the haves and have nots, yet people are claiming all is well. It would be one thing if the whole pie was getting bigger and everyone’s share was increasing, but all the data indicates the gains are going to fewer and fewer, which makes sense since automation and globalization disproportionately benefit the owners of capital.
        chriscappuccio 8y ago
        Maybe, but the wealthy classes are growing fast too.
- sparrish 8y ago
  And here's the downfall, in my opinion, of Sport Illustrated (as well as ESPN) and why they're failing. Instead of, you know, sports... they got all political and their readers who subscribed for sports weren't interested in getting political reporting from a sports publisher.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    I’m an SI subscriber for 20 years and counting. 99+% of the articles I remember seeing have been about sports.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Look at it from the other side: I like reading political reporting to a certain extent, but I don't give two shits about sports. So why would I subscribe to a sports magazine to read political articles? I think you have a point here: if I want to read about sports, I'm not going to read The Atlantic, I'm going to read some sports magazine. If I want to read about politics, well sports magazines and nude-women magazines aren't exactly what first comes to mind... but somehow, decades ago, this seemed to be the thinking for some odd reason. What I see here is things being corrected to the way they should have been all along. You want to look at pictures of naked women? Find a publication that specializes in that. You want to read about politics? Find a different publication that specializes in that. The two have no business being in the same magazine.
ilaksh 8y ago
You can't count on any career if we achieve AGI.
jaabe 8y ago
Isn't that most careers these days though? I work in the digitization department of a muniplicity in Denmark. We're LEAN-consultants, project-managers, service-designers and developers but most of what we do is about helping managers have less employees. I don't think there is a single area we aren't covering. So that's everything from lawyers, hr-personal, various office workers to nurses, pedagogues, teachers and various social workers. Hell in the past 4 years, we've even said good bye to one person in my department and three in IT. No one has been fired though, so there hasn't really been a big focus on it. A lot of positions simply haven't been refilled. Basically we're in the process of quietly doing to every workplace what the assembly-line did to factories 100 years ago. It's created new jobs of course, there wasn't a digitization department 20 years ago after all, but even my own field of software engineering is changing. 20 years ago you'd need a team and half a year to build what a single developer can get running in the cloud in a week today. Who knows what it'll look like when I'm 57.
CydeWeys 8y ago
He's 57. He's not embarking on a lifelong career path, just something temporary to make money for now. By the time self-driving delivery trucks take over he'll be retired. And anyway, this is a low-skill, low-wage profession. Even if it goes away to automation in a couple decades, there'll still be plenty of others that do not. So which particular one you're working in now is irrelevant. It's not like he needs to get into retail now or forever have that door closed to him.

thebradbain 8y ago

In my opinion, you’re missing the point: “Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are the same.” Maybe he doesn’t have the same stability or ‘prestige’ as his last job or his wife’s, but, hey, his last one turned out to not be so stable after all, and your ego can’t buy you a house or put food on the table.

verisimilidude 8y ago

This guy was previously among journalism's elite. He interviewed five U.S. presidents! Wouldn't you consider that robust? Between the lines, his whole point is that no career is robust these days.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
I'm pretty sure we're in the middle of the biggest revolution this world's ever seen. And being in the middle of it is blinding us to it. These jobs, these people slipping through the cracks are the transition to something I hope is better. But it's that in-between time, that many many people will suffer very badly.
- pixl97 8y ago
  I have people keep arguing with me that automation hasn't replaced jobs,and that more people have jobs than ever, yet none of these new jobs have any security whatsoever, and the job lifespans are so short. The automation revolution is here, we are blind to it.
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  I guess I'm more inclined to think that most people are going to be transitioned to fertilizer, but that's pessimism for you.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > These jobs, these people slipping through the cracks are the transition to something I hope is better. Some people may be slipping through the cracks, but others are doing far better than anyone could ever imagine. Crises do stir stuff up, but in this case the net result to society is far too positive to imply it's a bad thing.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    Thr question is, how many others?
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      It’s crazy how much data shows diverging lines in society between the haves and have nots, yet people are claiming all is well. It would be one thing if the whole pie was getting bigger and everyone’s share was increasing, but all the data indicates the gains are going to fewer and fewer, which makes sense since automation and globalization disproportionately benefit the owners of capital.
      - chriscappuccio 8y ago
        Maybe, but the wealthy classes are growing fast too.
sparrish 8y ago
And here's the downfall, in my opinion, of Sport Illustrated (as well as ESPN) and why they're failing. Instead of, you know, sports... they got all political and their readers who subscribed for sports weren't interested in getting political reporting from a sports publisher.
- paulcole 8y ago
  I’m an SI subscriber for 20 years and counting. 99+% of the articles I remember seeing have been about sports.
- magduf 8y ago
  Look at it from the other side: I like reading political reporting to a certain extent, but I don't give two shits about sports. So why would I subscribe to a sports magazine to read political articles? I think you have a point here: if I want to read about sports, I'm not going to read The Atlantic, I'm going to read some sports magazine. If I want to read about politics, well sports magazines and nude-women magazines aren't exactly what first comes to mind... but somehow, decades ago, this seemed to be the thinking for some odd reason. What I see here is things being corrected to the way they should have been all along. You want to look at pictures of naked women? Find a publication that specializes in that. You want to read about politics? Find a different publication that specializes in that. The two have no business being in the same magazine.

ilaksh 8y ago

You can't count on any career if we achieve AGI.

jaabe 8y ago

Isn't that most careers these days though? I work in the digitization department of a muniplicity in Denmark. We're LEAN-consultants, project-managers, service-designers and developers but most of what we do is about helping managers have less employees. I don't think there is a single area we aren't covering. So that's everything from lawyers, hr-personal, various office workers to nurses, pedagogues, teachers and various social workers. Hell in the past 4 years, we've even said good bye to one person in my department and three in IT. No one has been fired though, so there hasn't really been a big focus on it. A lot of positions simply haven't been refilled. Basically we're in the process of quietly doing to every workplace what the assembly-line did to factories 100 years ago. It's created new jobs of course, there wasn't a digitization department 20 years ago after all, but even my own field of software engineering is changing. 20 years ago you'd need a team and half a year to build what a single developer can get running in the cloud in a week today. Who knows what it'll look like when I'm 57.

CydeWeys 8y ago

He's 57. He's not embarking on a lifelong career path, just something temporary to make money for now. By the time self-driving delivery trucks take over he'll be retired. And anyway, this is a low-skill, low-wage profession. Even if it goes away to automation in a couple decades, there'll still be plenty of others that do not. So which particular one you're working in now is irrelevant. It's not like he needs to get into retail now or forever have that door closed to him.