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The idea that skilled people who work with their hands don't identify with their work is laughable.
by harvey9 5mo ago
The idea that skilled people who work with their hands don't identify with their work is laughable.
- somenameforme 5mo agoIt's also reflective of the author living in a very small bubble. It's quite a shame that chose to include that as I think the article is otherwise relevant and pertinent, but it colors the whole thing.
- agumonkey 5mo agoOne tiny nanoscopic nitpick, because i agree with you mostly, programming is often creating wider things (abstractions, frameworks). I think it hits a different part compared to most jobs. Maybe... i'm not sure, but that's how i feel compared to other manual occupations that i loved too.
- brianleb 5mo agoOP did not say anything about skilled workers who make things with their hands. You are describing an artisan or craftsman, or at the very least a tradesman. The quote is talking about manufacturing labor. This is the guy on the assembly line who lowers the press, makes his thousandth widget for a day, and then lifts it up. Rinse and repeat.
- esperent 5mo agoThat person would have been a skilled laborer like a blacksmith a few generations ago. I'm sure many of those people felt the same way when factories started to produce what they had spent a lifetime learning to make. Now that is happening to many kinds of knowledge workers. Assembly lines mechanized the work of artisans. LLMs are in the process of mechanizing knowledge and creative work, of certain kinds.
- harvey9 5mo agoI think you have a very narrow conception of even assembly line work.
- sudosteph 5mo agoYes, and this is something that is routinely overlooked. Work identities run deep, and they are not easily changed. Andrew Yang actually made a strong point when he was talking about automation-driven job losses way back in 2019. He said you can offer the best and most expensive retraining programs imaginable to help people displaced from their jobs move to fields like healthcare - but most truck drivers, even if out of work, will never even consider retaining to work as a nurse. Identities are not as malleable to the whims of supply and demand as some might want to believe.
- watwut 5mo agoTruck driver to nurse is special kind of issue, because nursing is feminine coded occupation and trucking attracts men who want to prove own masculinity. But they will take jobs that are not that much feminine. And nursing also require a lot more study then people assume, 40 years old trucker will have hard time spending that much time in school even if it was his lifelong dream.
- ornornor 5mo ago> nursing is feminine coded occupation and trucking attracts men who want to prove own masculinity In your head maybe?
- throwuxiytayq 5mo agoSome stereotypes are a useful description of reality. You’ve gotta pick your battles. In the US, 87.3% of nurses are female and 92.3% of truckers are male.
- ornornor 5mo agoMaybe this nomenclature of yours doesn’t help. A “computer” used to be a job mostly done by female. Now it’s the opposite.
- 5mo ago
- victorbjorklund 5mo agoI’m not sure people working on an assembly line in a factory is defining themselves as their work task. Someone working in a factory mounting IPhone screens probably don’t make their job their identity the same way a designer, developer, author does. (Of course there are manual jobs that people have as their identity.)
- smikhanov 5mo agoThe article says nothing about “skilled people who work with their hands” specifically, so it’s unclear what is being refuted here. However there are people in the workforce who don’t identify with their work. Those are likely not in professions that Marx thought of when he wrote about alienation, but instead are Uber Eats delivery drivers, call centre workers, flight attendants on low-cost airlines, nurses in mediocre hospitals, and so on.
- emodendroket 5mo agoI'm sure there are but I am just as sure some of these people also identify with their work.