So I think the apocalypse is double-bladed: while automation kicks a bunch of current workers out by making them immediately redundant, it also freezes out the next generation by removing entry level jobs and not really replacing them with anything equivalent. Meanwhile, universities and vocational ed programs won’t get this memo for another ten years so they will continue to happily propel waves of students onto a set of closed and locked doors.
Finally, people start getting it. I think it was a comment on Hacker News.
There are no jobs left and it’s getting worse by the minute. The hockey stick exponential curve thing: most people know the first part -the slow part but fewer experience the fast part that dramatically changes, all the time. That part is now.
There are mostly no entry level jobs these days, only jobs and gigs. And rare good jobs and good gigs. Career has a wild spectrum of definition. Everything is contracted out, as much as possible, with no more benefits. The system is just ruthless.
I could still make some money just a few years ago, as a web developer. No one is on anything but social media. And if you do have a website you use a service, click a bunch of shit and you have a beautiful page now. The entire web designer/developer career: 1999-2015ish (unless you work for a campus or a giant company; wayyy fewer jobs and harder to get). That’s a good-paying job in a thriving environment, growing and shrinking in fifteen years. We can’t build a future society on moving parts like that.
It’s a colossal change from pre-2010s, yet hard to really see.
We’re a big bunch of human beings, living longer than ever, and we’re automating everything faster than ever, producing more wealth than ever.
It can’t work without serious wealth redistribution. It just can’t. And it shouldn’t be hard to change. It’s the right thing to do, the only thing to do too.
A bunch of signatures over a few laws and contracts, a few people get way less extremely wealthy, another billion breathes, everything changes smh.