[JohnFen]

You're not wrong, but the heartlessness of that sentiment is striking. Real people get hurt. That in the long run we'll adapt as a society doesn't mean we should just write off those whose lives are ruined in the now.

A little empathy is a good thing here.

[smegger001]

Yet we tell the coal miners to go take job retraining because photovoltaic are a better power source than burning carbon. It suck for people being replaced but is better for the whole. Should we subsidise buggy whip manufactures because they were obsoleted. No one is well served by trying to fight the tides.

[defrost]

> Yet we tell the coal miners to go take job retraining because photovoltaic are a better power source than burning carbon.

Do we?

Last I checked (after decades in the mining industry from driving haul paks to geophysical exploration to selling global mineral intelligence software to Standard & Poor) :

Coal mining skills easily transfer to Lithium mining (etc).

Fitters and turners still fit and turn, belt splicers still splice belts, industrial electricians still pull wire and lace looms, mechanics are still required and will easily adapt to EV heavy machines as they've been working on those since the 1970s (electric shovels, ship loaders, etc).

Could you outline some things that coal miners do that aren't applicable to rare earth mining?

[JohnFen]

That's addressing a different point than I was making. I'm not saying that we need to keep old professions around or that we shouldn't adapt to changing times.

I'm saying that speaking about the people who are harmed when things change as if they don't matter is heartless.

We need to have empathy for them, and to help them where we can, not to talk about them and treat them like obsolete machinery. They're people, not machines.