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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36398 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I'm not sure entirely, but I do find it amusing that the catchphrase for blue-collar workers put out of work to "learn to code". Now it seems more likely that the laptop class are the ones whos jobs will be rendered obsolete. Should we run around telling programmers (like me), project managers, lawyers, salesmen, etc to "learn to plumb"? Making an AI bot that can do plumbing work seems a lot further off than replacing or at least greatly reducing the value of those white-collar professions.

There are two times in my life I have been preternaturally overcome by the intensity of my excitement. Once when I was younger and there was a (very) large wildfire (this one if you're curious). In the middle of the night we were awakened by a whole crew of cops and firemen banging on our bedroom windows because the fire had spread so quickly. They were screaming at us we had no time to pack anything, the fire was already there.

The other time being now. Come what may, for this moment - right now - it's just indescribably exciting.

I must admit it is a beautiful reversal, and feels like quite a solid commuppance. I’m also part of the laptop class but I love seeing people have to eat their words.

It seems that good prospects of programmers were just temporary phenomenon, the short blip when any pleb could "learn to code" and feel like king of the world is coming to end.

There were such cases too in the original industrial revolution - for example, pause between invention of spinning machine and weaving machine, when skilled weavers were in high demand.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1020951

https://archive.org/details/birthofmodern0000unse

It was the same at the other end of the country, in Essex, where the Chelmsford Gazette reported on 12 September 1823 that the local silk works was paying such high rates that girls employed there had been “mistaken for persons of distinction.”

Two young women entered the parish church of Saffron Walden, “dressed most elegantly in silks of their own production, to which were added fashionable bonnets, plumed with nodding feathers. The clergymen politely directed the strangers to be shown to a pew suitable to their appearance, and at the conclusion of the service enquired of the clerk whether he knew these elegantly-dressed young ladies, when behold it was discovered that they were two girls from the Walden silk manufactory.”

Should we run around telling programmers (like me), project managers, lawyers, salesmen, etc to "learn to plumb"?

I think it was "learn to weld".

Metal work is a lot harder than it looks. It's physically very tiring and you can also easily destroy yourself in a number of ways if you're not careful. I'm sure I'd immediately take up smoking and probably drinking if it was the only job left for me after programming.

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