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Of course there are plenty of creative people who pay the bills by doing things other than the commoditized analogue to their art, no? The stereotypical actor w

by alwa 2y ago

Of course there are plenty of creative people who pay the bills by doing things other than the commoditized analogue to their art, no? The stereotypical actor waiting tables comes to mind, as does Einstein in the patent office. (Edit: this submission seems timely and relevant - The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41240152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41240152 )

SoftTalker 2y ago
> waiting tables Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. If I were an artist I think I'd prefer doing commodity art pieces to pay the bills vs. working in a restaurant. And yes, it's subjective. I know some people probably like waiting tables.
- CRConrad 2y ago
  Heh, this is kinda funny... > > waiting tables > Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. From sibling comment to yours, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 : > ...a great deal of implicit classism ('i don't want to do a job like that, therefore such jobs are worthless').
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Has it occurred to you that those jobs are finite? Can restaurants continue to exist if we have scores of under/unemployed people working as waitstaff, who don't make enough money to eat out themselves? Previous rounds of innovation and steep changes in work/jobs, all the way back to the industrial revolution, were both a) not seamless transitions and left huge swathes of highly skilled people impoverished for the remainder of their lives, and b) for those who did transition to new jobs, there were new jobs for them to transition to. Not everyone can learn to be an AI developer. What jobs does AI create? Is everyone who isn't well versed enough in IT infrastructure going to have get a job as a janitor working the data centers for Azure cloud? Those are going to be some clean bloody floors. I get so tired of the rhetorical "this has happened before," no it really fucking hasn't. Not on this scale, and not when having money was so utterly critical to one's ability to survive.
anigbrowl 2y ago
Frankly it used to be a lot easier to support yourself working a blue collar job part time or full-time (40h) and still have a lot of free time left over for creative endeavor. The technologically mediated rise of productivity has been accompanied by steady erosion of perceived value for non-technical labor, along with a great deal of implicit classism ('i don't want to do a job like that, therefore such jobs are worthless').

by alwa 2y ago

SoftTalker 2y ago

> waiting tables Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. If I were an artist I think I'd prefer doing commodity art pieces to pay the bills vs. working in a restaurant. And yes, it's subjective. I know some people probably like waiting tables.

CRConrad 2y ago
Heh, this is kinda funny... > > waiting tables > Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. From sibling comment to yours, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 : > ...a great deal of implicit classism ('i don't want to do a job like that, therefore such jobs are worthless').

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

Has it occurred to you that those jobs are finite? Can restaurants continue to exist if we have scores of under/unemployed people working as waitstaff, who don't make enough money to eat out themselves? Previous rounds of innovation and steep changes in work/jobs, all the way back to the industrial revolution, were both a) not seamless transitions and left huge swathes of highly skilled people impoverished for the remainder of their lives, and b) for those who did transition to new jobs, there were new jobs for them to transition to. Not everyone can learn to be an AI developer. What jobs does AI create? Is everyone who isn't well versed enough in IT infrastructure going to have get a job as a janitor working the data centers for Azure cloud? Those are going to be some clean bloody floors. I get so tired of the rhetorical "this has happened before," no it really fucking hasn't. Not on this scale, and not when having money was so utterly critical to one's ability to survive.

anigbrowl 2y ago

Frankly it used to be a lot easier to support yourself working a blue collar job part time or full-time (40h) and still have a lot of free time left over for creative endeavor. The technologically mediated rise of productivity has been accompanied by steady erosion of perceived value for non-technical labor, along with a great deal of implicit classism ('i don't want to do a job like that, therefore such jobs are worthless').