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Do you have some data to show that outsourcing is the culprit? It seems just as easy to blame "foreigners" as it is to blame "AI", especially considering your b

Do you have some data to show that outsourcing is the culprit? It seems just as easy to blame "foreigners" as it is to blame "AI", especially considering your blanket followup statement about those foreigners always making "shittier" products.

horns4lyfe 1y ago
It’s obvious, you just have to look around. Please don’t tell us not to believe our eyes because we don’t have a double blind study.
- rco8786 1y ago
  It's not obvious to me. I look around and nobody I know is outsourcing anything anymore than they were 5, 10, 20 years ago. Nor is it obvious that outsourced products are inherently shittier than something made domestically. You can't just make a blanket statement about the entire economy and say "it's obvious". We live in a big world. Your perception is not my perception. That's why data is so important.
  - smileson2 1y ago
    Most mid sized companies I’ve worked with are nearshoring almost everything or in the process of doing so It doesn’t bite me as much due to seniority but it’s still happening Tbh if I was younger I’d just try to relocate myself seems fun
    - antisthenes 1y ago
      What exactly is nearshoring? Canada/Mexico? SLatAM? What is "mid-sized" ? There's so much vague descriptors in your post as to be almost entirely meaningless.
  - fzeroracer 1y ago
    Do you work in the tech industry? In what part? Because from personal experience I've seen loads of companies wind down and remove internal teams like internal QA in favor of outsourcing to other regions, for example. It's made my job extremely annoying because I can't just tap the shoulder of my nearby QA engineer and see what's up, I have to wait an entire day for them to get the next build and then deal with the wrong stuff they've reported.
- jjulius 1y ago
  That's great that it's obvious to you! To some of us, not so much. I'd love to hear more about what it is, specifically, that your eyes are seeing, so that I may possibly shift my perspective. Thanks! :)
  - happytoexplain 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - jjulius 1y ago
      Thanks for the feedback, I suppose I can see how it reads that way, but I assure you it wasn't intended as such. I simply want to politely ask them to expand on their perspective. Kinda like what you just asked others to do.[1] [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859330
      - happytoexplain 1y ago
        Hmm, thanks, but I don't think I can read your post any other way. Sorry, it's hard to interpret the tone as unintended, however, maybe other adjectives could be argued instead of the two I chose. Regarding my other comment - I'm not sure what you mean. I wasn't trying to politely ask that commenter to expand on what they said. I was criticizing their attitude and also their uncharitable use of the "show me the data" ultimatum.
        jjulius 1y ago
        What I did in my first post was try to respect the fact that that may be their view of things and validate their perspective, then kindly explain that I don't see it, and would be open to hearing more about what they see. I could perhaps see how the "Thanks! :)" unintentionally adds a layer of sarcasm, but it's kind of a bummer if that's the case. Regarding your other comment, I know, and that's exactly my point. You had a concern about the way that the other post framed the user's opinion. My comment attempted to do exactly what you're asking for - approach the user with a positive attitude and ask for more data without vilifying them (eg, "[making] people sound like assholes"). Ah, well. Enjoy your day. :)
happytoexplain 1y ago
You can ask for data without trying to make people sound like assholes for having an opinion based on observation, which would be an unrealistic blanket restriction for humans talking to each other.
- fao_ 1y ago
  IDK, I kind of agree with Mao insomuch as people should do a certain amount of research before spouting off on subjects they don't understand. Otherwise you've just got reams and reams of people waffling about things they actually, do not know about. "Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn't that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak?" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-work... The only caveat here is that Mao didn't follow his own advice, lol
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Yeah, not surprising from the "power flows from the barrel of a gun" guy. So what it boils down to is "unless you agree with me, you will be deprived of the right to speak". And that's the problem. "Do your research before spouting off" is good in principle. But it gets weaponized via "if you don't agree with me, you obviously haven't done your research", and used to silence anyone who disagrees. We have to put up with uninformed opinions, in order to leave space for dissenting views.
    - fao_ 1y ago
      > We have to put up with uninformed opinions, in order to leave space for dissenting views. I think your comment is great at conflating "allowing criticism against the government and speech on a sidewalk" with "disallowing unconsidered speech in certain private spaces because of the danger that some kinds of information has". You're very clumsily conflating two discrete things here. First, you assume that people spouting complete nonsense without investigation into something can be productive. I fundamentally disagree with this, based on experience. I have encountered people with what essentially were delusions of grandeur — they had very limited and grossly incorrect physics knowledge, with no mathematical foundation, and they stated that they saw falsities in Einsteininan Relativity. They then proceeded to argue that, were Einstein alive, they would be entitled to a debate with him, as would presumably everyone else with misgivings from ignorance. They had absolutely no understanding of what Relativity was, no understanding even of what an electron is, and the entire discussion of trying to explain anything to them was essentially a complete waste of time, as they had neither the mathematical basis, nor the understanding of physical law and experimentation, to understand the vast amounts of evidence in support of Einstein's theory of spacetime and relativity. Every single sentence out of their mouth was either mildly incorrect waffling from ignorance, or complete and utter nonsense. I for one, do not think that this debate was productive, and they argued that me finishing on the note that they should, in fact, avail themselves of the knowledge of physics so that they can understand the tests that have been done for themselves, was an "argument to authority". From the outset, there was absolutely no possibility of meaningful debate, because they had chosen to remain ignorant despite the internet being flooded of places where they could learn even a modicum of basic knowledge. This is what it means to "do research" and "learn". I argue based on these experiences that you do, actually, owe people around you to learn about something before spouting inane garbage on the matter. Secondly, I argue we can allow dissenting views without leaving room within society, for popular subjects of misconception, such as holocaust denial or the hundreds of right wing grifters trying to sell people on the idea that vaccination is evil, to be given platforms. There are people who engage in debate, not truthfully, or honestly, to discuss ideas and learn, but instead to spread their misinformation, hoping to catch people in the crowd that they can profit off. I assert that this is one of the reasons why a myriad of right wing ideas are taking hold right now. Vaccine denialism, holocaust denial, transphobia, etc. are rife — because it comes down to scientific misinformation and profit. People who are already ignorant, finding that it is monetarily fruitful to spread this ignorance in the name either of ideological malfeasance (such as in the case of transphobia — one big example being the christofascist Heritage Foundation injecting millions of dollars into the UK) or just purely out of self-interest (Jordan Peterson being a notable name there). And all of it is remedied through people who are misinformed of the scientific evidence "shutting the fuck up and learning". The root comes from people abusing platforms to spread their ignorance, and then people parroting that without research. I think that there is room for people to say whatever they want in a public space (in a shopping mall, on a sidewalk), but I do not believe that it is right nor in the best interests of society, for these people to be given room by universities, by public theaters, or by online platforms. These people feed off waffling in front of an audience, only way that we can beat this epidemic of literal bullshit is by denying them that audience, starving them of social oxygen and saying "no, learn more before you deserve a space to speak publicly about this".
rglover 1y ago
Here's some backup to that claim [1], though, offshoring is only part of it. In reality, it's likely several factors: - Offshoring/outsourcing - Businesses running out of ZIRP cash/returns - Software replacing a lot of "paper" jobs (AI being a sliver of this) - Older people needing and not vacating jobs like past generations - Higher CoL expenses meaning lower-paying jobs that would/could be occupied by a recent graduate aren't. - General market sentiment being cautious/conservative due to the whiplash of the last 17 years. As with most things, it's not one convenient scapegoat, it's many problems compounding into one big clusterf*ck. [1] https://archive.ph/8Zda3 https://archive.ph/8Zda3
- e40 1y ago
  Add to that section 174 of the tax code. This directly impacts software companies and profitability.
wing-_-nuts 1y ago
I don't have data, but I can tell you that covid taught my company how to 'work remotely' and having learned that lesson, they seem to have pivoted away from a 30 / 70 mix of direct hires and onshore h1-b contractors, and have heavily utilized 'near shore' folks in LATAM. I would not be surprised at all if other companies have quietly done the same while touting 'the future of AI', because as a society we seem to grudgingly accept automation far more readily than we accept offshoring.

horns4lyfe 1y ago

It’s obvious, you just have to look around. Please don’t tell us not to believe our eyes because we don’t have a double blind study.

rco8786 1y ago
It's not obvious to me. I look around and nobody I know is outsourcing anything anymore than they were 5, 10, 20 years ago. Nor is it obvious that outsourced products are inherently shittier than something made domestically. You can't just make a blanket statement about the entire economy and say "it's obvious". We live in a big world. Your perception is not my perception. That's why data is so important.
- smileson2 1y ago
  Most mid sized companies I’ve worked with are nearshoring almost everything or in the process of doing so It doesn’t bite me as much due to seniority but it’s still happening Tbh if I was younger I’d just try to relocate myself seems fun
  - antisthenes 1y ago
    What exactly is nearshoring? Canada/Mexico? SLatAM? What is "mid-sized" ? There's so much vague descriptors in your post as to be almost entirely meaningless.
- fzeroracer 1y ago
  Do you work in the tech industry? In what part? Because from personal experience I've seen loads of companies wind down and remove internal teams like internal QA in favor of outsourcing to other regions, for example. It's made my job extremely annoying because I can't just tap the shoulder of my nearby QA engineer and see what's up, I have to wait an entire day for them to get the next build and then deal with the wrong stuff they've reported.
jjulius 1y ago
That's great that it's obvious to you! To some of us, not so much. I'd love to hear more about what it is, specifically, that your eyes are seeing, so that I may possibly shift my perspective. Thanks! :)
- happytoexplain 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - jjulius 1y ago
    Thanks for the feedback, I suppose I can see how it reads that way, but I assure you it wasn't intended as such. I simply want to politely ask them to expand on their perspective. Kinda like what you just asked others to do.[1] [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859330
    - happytoexplain 1y ago
      Hmm, thanks, but I don't think I can read your post any other way. Sorry, it's hard to interpret the tone as unintended, however, maybe other adjectives could be argued instead of the two I chose. Regarding my other comment - I'm not sure what you mean. I wasn't trying to politely ask that commenter to expand on what they said. I was criticizing their attitude and also their uncharitable use of the "show me the data" ultimatum.
      - jjulius 1y ago
        What I did in my first post was try to respect the fact that that may be their view of things and validate their perspective, then kindly explain that I don't see it, and would be open to hearing more about what they see. I could perhaps see how the "Thanks! :)" unintentionally adds a layer of sarcasm, but it's kind of a bummer if that's the case. Regarding your other comment, I know, and that's exactly my point. You had a concern about the way that the other post framed the user's opinion. My comment attempted to do exactly what you're asking for - approach the user with a positive attitude and ask for more data without vilifying them (eg, "[making] people sound like assholes"). Ah, well. Enjoy your day. :)

happytoexplain 1y ago

You can ask for data without trying to make people sound like assholes for having an opinion based on observation, which would be an unrealistic blanket restriction for humans talking to each other.

fao_ 1y ago
IDK, I kind of agree with Mao insomuch as people should do a certain amount of research before spouting off on subjects they don't understand. Otherwise you've just got reams and reams of people waffling about things they actually, do not know about. "Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn't that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak?" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-work... The only caveat here is that Mao didn't follow his own advice, lol
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Yeah, not surprising from the "power flows from the barrel of a gun" guy. So what it boils down to is "unless you agree with me, you will be deprived of the right to speak". And that's the problem. "Do your research before spouting off" is good in principle. But it gets weaponized via "if you don't agree with me, you obviously haven't done your research", and used to silence anyone who disagrees. We have to put up with uninformed opinions, in order to leave space for dissenting views.
  - fao_ 1y ago
    > We have to put up with uninformed opinions, in order to leave space for dissenting views. I think your comment is great at conflating "allowing criticism against the government and speech on a sidewalk" with "disallowing unconsidered speech in certain private spaces because of the danger that some kinds of information has". You're very clumsily conflating two discrete things here. First, you assume that people spouting complete nonsense without investigation into something can be productive. I fundamentally disagree with this, based on experience. I have encountered people with what essentially were delusions of grandeur — they had very limited and grossly incorrect physics knowledge, with no mathematical foundation, and they stated that they saw falsities in Einsteininan Relativity. They then proceeded to argue that, were Einstein alive, they would be entitled to a debate with him, as would presumably everyone else with misgivings from ignorance. They had absolutely no understanding of what Relativity was, no understanding even of what an electron is, and the entire discussion of trying to explain anything to them was essentially a complete waste of time, as they had neither the mathematical basis, nor the understanding of physical law and experimentation, to understand the vast amounts of evidence in support of Einstein's theory of spacetime and relativity. Every single sentence out of their mouth was either mildly incorrect waffling from ignorance, or complete and utter nonsense. I for one, do not think that this debate was productive, and they argued that me finishing on the note that they should, in fact, avail themselves of the knowledge of physics so that they can understand the tests that have been done for themselves, was an "argument to authority". From the outset, there was absolutely no possibility of meaningful debate, because they had chosen to remain ignorant despite the internet being flooded of places where they could learn even a modicum of basic knowledge. This is what it means to "do research" and "learn". I argue based on these experiences that you do, actually, owe people around you to learn about something before spouting inane garbage on the matter. Secondly, I argue we can allow dissenting views without leaving room within society, for popular subjects of misconception, such as holocaust denial or the hundreds of right wing grifters trying to sell people on the idea that vaccination is evil, to be given platforms. There are people who engage in debate, not truthfully, or honestly, to discuss ideas and learn, but instead to spread their misinformation, hoping to catch people in the crowd that they can profit off. I assert that this is one of the reasons why a myriad of right wing ideas are taking hold right now. Vaccine denialism, holocaust denial, transphobia, etc. are rife — because it comes down to scientific misinformation and profit. People who are already ignorant, finding that it is monetarily fruitful to spread this ignorance in the name either of ideological malfeasance (such as in the case of transphobia — one big example being the christofascist Heritage Foundation injecting millions of dollars into the UK) or just purely out of self-interest (Jordan Peterson being a notable name there). And all of it is remedied through people who are misinformed of the scientific evidence "shutting the fuck up and learning". The root comes from people abusing platforms to spread their ignorance, and then people parroting that without research. I think that there is room for people to say whatever they want in a public space (in a shopping mall, on a sidewalk), but I do not believe that it is right nor in the best interests of society, for these people to be given room by universities, by public theaters, or by online platforms. These people feed off waffling in front of an audience, only way that we can beat this epidemic of literal bullshit is by denying them that audience, starving them of social oxygen and saying "no, learn more before you deserve a space to speak publicly about this".

rglover 1y ago

Here's some backup to that claim [1], though, offshoring is only part of it. In reality, it's likely several factors: - Offshoring/outsourcing - Businesses running out of ZIRP cash/returns - Software replacing a lot of "paper" jobs (AI being a sliver of this) - Older people needing and not vacating jobs like past generations - Higher CoL expenses meaning lower-paying jobs that would/could be occupied by a recent graduate aren't. - General market sentiment being cautious/conservative due to the whiplash of the last 17 years. As with most things, it's not one convenient scapegoat, it's many problems compounding into one big clusterf*ck. [1] https://archive.ph/8Zda3 https://archive.ph/8Zda3

e40 1y ago
Add to that section 174 of the tax code. This directly impacts software companies and profitability.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago

I don't have data, but I can tell you that covid taught my company how to 'work remotely' and having learned that lesson, they seem to have pivoted away from a 30 / 70 mix of direct hires and onshore h1-b contractors, and have heavily utilized 'near shore' folks in LATAM. I would not be surprised at all if other companies have quietly done the same while touting 'the future of AI', because as a society we seem to grudgingly accept automation far more readily than we accept offshoring.