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I might not see people lighting kerosene lamps but I see people climb big ladders to fix lamps that light up public spaces. I assume the people doing that work

I might not see people lighting kerosene lamps but I see people climb big ladders to fix lamps that light up public spaces. I assume the people doing that work might have been lighting lamps in the past.

tharkun__ 2y ago
The profession of "lamp lighter" definitely has been destroyed though. The person that can raise a burning stick to a kerosene lamp has to have a different skill set than the person fixing lamps in public spaces. I'm assuming you don't mean "screwing in a light bulb" type work, which would be close enough in skill requirements, that the person whose profession was destroyed could reasonably do the new profession without a lot of learning being required. In the same vein, you doing OCR and now doing other work is not a profession change. You're still a computer scientist doing computer engineering work just on a different problem set. Lamp lighter to cheese tapper is a profession change. A lamp lighter with bad hearing or attention to detail is not a problem per se. Tapping cheese to see if its ripe (and all the other skills that come with cheese making) will potentially be different enough. Now the problem comes in, when lamp lighter is supposed to start doing OCR engineering work. Unless the lamp lighter was horribly over qualified, most lamp lighters will not be able to do OCR engineering or any computer scientist style engineering work at all. Professions do get destroyed all the time. Hopefully while a new profession is born that has similar enough skill level requirements as the previous ones, just in different form. Like a lamp lighter might do well in an Amazon warehouse but not as an AWS software engineer.
- lightedman 2y ago
  "The profession of "lamp lighter" definitely has been destroyed though" It's somewhat still held by the same people that somewhat-traditionally did the job. In some places, it used to be job of the night watch constable to light the kerosene lamps. Police now days just report a broken traffic light.
jon-wood 2y ago
Even if someone can transfer from lamp lighter to street light technician people will have lost their jobs, because you no longer need enough people to make sure all the lamps get lit within a reasonable space of time, you just need maybe a dozen people covering maintenance and repairs on a city full of streetlights.
numpad0 2y ago
OTOH, no one likes "American Flavored Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Food".

tharkun__ 2y ago

The profession of "lamp lighter" definitely has been destroyed though. The person that can raise a burning stick to a kerosene lamp has to have a different skill set than the person fixing lamps in public spaces. I'm assuming you don't mean "screwing in a light bulb" type work, which would be close enough in skill requirements, that the person whose profession was destroyed could reasonably do the new profession without a lot of learning being required. In the same vein, you doing OCR and now doing other work is not a profession change. You're still a computer scientist doing computer engineering work just on a different problem set. Lamp lighter to cheese tapper is a profession change. A lamp lighter with bad hearing or attention to detail is not a problem per se. Tapping cheese to see if its ripe (and all the other skills that come with cheese making) will potentially be different enough. Now the problem comes in, when lamp lighter is supposed to start doing OCR engineering work. Unless the lamp lighter was horribly over qualified, most lamp lighters will not be able to do OCR engineering or any computer scientist style engineering work at all. Professions do get destroyed all the time. Hopefully while a new profession is born that has similar enough skill level requirements as the previous ones, just in different form. Like a lamp lighter might do well in an Amazon warehouse but not as an AWS software engineer.

lightedman 2y ago
"The profession of "lamp lighter" definitely has been destroyed though" It's somewhat still held by the same people that somewhat-traditionally did the job. In some places, it used to be job of the night watch constable to light the kerosene lamps. Police now days just report a broken traffic light.

jon-wood 2y ago

Even if someone can transfer from lamp lighter to street light technician people will have lost their jobs, because you no longer need enough people to make sure all the lamps get lit within a reasonable space of time, you just need maybe a dozen people covering maintenance and repairs on a city full of streetlights.

numpad0 2y ago

OTOH, no one likes "American Flavored Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Food".