4 ms·

I don’t disagree, but my question still stands. Besides every single desk worker learning a trade. What else can we do? Right? We are saying the same thing. You

I don’t disagree, but my question still stands. Besides every single desk worker learning a trade. What else can we do? Right? We are saying the same thing. You are right nobody cared when it upended a lot of translation. You are right people didn’t care because it was going to effect “low skill” jobs. Okay, now that we have that out of the way. What is a proposed solution? UBI? That’s fine and dandy but what does every desk worker on a working visa do? Go home? Is that viable? I’ve said in this post, I don’t have any solutions, all I see is real hurt and anxiety. Should we have cared before? Yes, I get that.

XorNot 4y ago
But you gave the answer in the first sentence: that's exactly the solution. Because let's flip the question: why do white collar desk workers exist? Because we're specialists - we provide a service which is vital and necessary in some way, which justifies the cost and being done from a desk. The consumers of those services are everyone else, including blue collar workers who are doing physical labor, moving material in the real world, etc. So why should any of those people subsidize us sitting on our asses when AI can provide the same service cheaper?
- gwoolhurme 4y ago
  I don't think everyone learning a trade is viable for a number of reasons, there are plenty of jobs that can be done, should be done. Trades are great jobs. They are not for every single desk worker right now. So some extremely fast napkin math and some quick searching there was 63,644,000 people doing desk jobs of some variety in the US. There probably is not 63,644,000 peoples worth of trade jobs. There are trade shortages and people probably should and will go into them as other jobs disappear. Drivers, plumbers, electricians etc etc are all amazing jobs that should be highly valued. That doesn't mean everyone <can> do those jobs. Physically or otherwise. You are right that that we exist because we provide a service that justify our cost and being, however that will be replaced by a single device. I don't know if all of society can be subsidized. While a shitty thing to do, I am just telling you that "learn to trade" is not the answer to this question either though.

XorNot 4y ago

But you gave the answer in the first sentence: that's exactly the solution. Because let's flip the question: why do white collar desk workers exist? Because we're specialists - we provide a service which is vital and necessary in some way, which justifies the cost and being done from a desk. The consumers of those services are everyone else, including blue collar workers who are doing physical labor, moving material in the real world, etc. So why should any of those people subsidize us sitting on our asses when AI can provide the same service cheaper?

gwoolhurme 4y ago
I don't think everyone learning a trade is viable for a number of reasons, there are plenty of jobs that can be done, should be done. Trades are great jobs. They are not for every single desk worker right now. So some extremely fast napkin math and some quick searching there was 63,644,000 people doing desk jobs of some variety in the US. There probably is not 63,644,000 peoples worth of trade jobs. There are trade shortages and people probably should and will go into them as other jobs disappear. Drivers, plumbers, electricians etc etc are all amazing jobs that should be highly valued. That doesn't mean everyone <can> do those jobs. Physically or otherwise. You are right that that we exist because we provide a service that justify our cost and being, however that will be replaced by a single device. I don't know if all of society can be subsidized. While a shitty thing to do, I am just telling you that "learn to trade" is not the answer to this question either though.