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  • The decline of blue-collar and farming work

    From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jan 7 15:55:27 2025
    The decline of blue-collar and farming work was a major source of
    social upheaval that we're still coping with today. A more recent
    trend (and one sure to be accelerated by gen AI) is the decline of
    office & administrative work, another traditionally middle-class
    vocation.

    graph pic <https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:2siuzncztvvgr47k7e7esvim/bafkreiaen4ucdm6563oijmgnsaztrtka7sezf6knegh4b5sqlrykcw7qcq@jpeg>

    https://bsky.app/profile/steverattner.bsky.social/post/3lf5tek4nik2u

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Retrograde@21:1/5 to JAB on Wed Jan 8 04:25:04 2025
    On 2025-01-07, JAB <here@is.invalid> wrote:
    The decline of blue-collar and farming work was a major source of
    social upheaval that we're still coping with today. A more recent
    trend (and one sure to be accelerated by gen AI) is the decline of
    office & administrative work, another traditionally middle-class
    vocation.

    graph pic
    <https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:2siuzncztvvgr47k7e7esvim/bafkreiaen4ucdm6563oijmgnsaztrtka7sezf6knegh4b5sqlrykcw7qcq@jpeg>

    https://bsky.app/profile/steverattner.bsky.social/post/3lf5tek4nik2u

    There were a lot of other things happening in the same timeframe though,
    so I don't think it's as simple as that:

    * increased international trade routes
    * economic misfortune
    * changes to the labor pool
    * decline of the church
    * decline of the nuclear family
    etc.

    The first impact GenAI is going to have on us is that it is going to
    crash the electric grid.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From D@21:1/5 to JAB on Wed Jan 8 10:28:27 2025
    On Tue, 7 Jan 2025, JAB wrote:

    The decline of blue-collar and farming work was a major source of
    social upheaval that we're still coping with today. A more recent
    trend (and one sure to be accelerated by gen AI) is the decline of
    office & administrative work, another traditionally middle-class
    vocation.

    graph pic <https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:2siuzncztvvgr47k7e7esvim/bafkreiaen4ucdm6563oijmgnsaztrtka7sezf6knegh4b5sqlrykcw7qcq@jpeg>

    https://bsky.app/profile/steverattner.bsky.social/post/3lf5tek4nik2u


    Doubt it... the effects will be marginal. It might make nonsense job
    people slightly more effective at generating nonsense, but not enough to
    upset the apple cart.

    If OpenAI actually manages to produce AI, it will become more interesting.
    I doubt it, and I believe we'll see a new AI winter in 1-2 years or so.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From JAB@21:1/5 to fungus@amongus.com.invalid on Wed Jan 8 07:30:02 2025
    On Wed, 8 Jan 2025 04:25:04 -0000 (UTC), Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

    There were a lot of other things happening in the same timeframe though,
    so I don't think it's as simple as that:

    For farming and blue collar employment, mechanization, "assembly-line" techniques got better, and also for blue collar folks, Reagan's,
    et.al. large budget and trade deficits.

    Mechanization (or mechanisation) is the process of changing from
    working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that
    work with machinery. Wiki

    Horse powered implements were replaced with ICE tractors/combines,
    which greatly replaced the labor needed.

    Henry Ford's assembly-line, for instance, required many workers in
    earlier days, but fewer as tech-improvements were made.

    Paul Krugman - And the trade deficits of the 80s also arguably marked
    the point at which the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing really got
    going. To be honest, it's hard to find a break in the trend when
    looking at jobs data, but there was a very distinct break in
    perceptions: according to Google Ngrams, the Reagan era was when
    people began referring to the industrial Midwest as the Rust Belt:

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)