[heavyset_go]

Throughout history, what were once middle class and artisan professions were increasingly automated and tons of people and their families ended up in poverty until they died.

We just gloss over them and villify the ones who tried to do anything about it (the ones that weren't executed also died in poverty).

[rybosworld]

Yeah this always get's completely glossed over in these conversations.

People always say: "Things ended up working out in the end"

Things only worked out in the sense that society carried on without all the people who lost their jobs.

The U.S. has recent examples of large scale job destruction.

Michigan: From 2000-2009. Massive job destruction. 330,000 auto workers in 2000. Down to 109,000 in 2009. Estimates are that 1/3-1/2 of all those affected never achieved equal/similar employment. That is, somewhere around ~70k-120k workers never earned as much as they previously did. Since this was msotly contained within one city (Detroit), it's pretty easy for the country to ignore it and go on with their lives.

(Detroit was in decline since the 50's really. 2000-2009 is just a particularly bad snapshot.)

Coal mining towns have experienced the same phenomenon but more gradually. The poverty left behind by the destruction of those jobs has never been addressed.

With AI, we are heading into a situation where potentially a much larger amount of people will be affected. So maybe that changes the calculus on the government stepping in and fixing the problem. But I wouldn't count on it.

Sources for Michigan numbers:

https://lehd.ces.census.gov/doc/workshop/2010/LEDautopres031...

https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205...

[Zarathruster]

> Since this was mostly contained within one city (Detroit)

It's concentrated in Detroit but also distributed throughout the state, as you can observe in the census.gov slides.

The devastation is regional. It's been a wild experience, watching it all fall apart over the last 40+ years. The decay is immense and impossible to convey to someone from a rich state. Someone from the Eastern Bloc might get it, but I've never been able to communicate it to a Californian. Hop in a car and drive from town to town. Once-prosperous communities are boarded up and gradually reclaimed by nature. Department stores are converted into soup kitchens or marijuana dispensaries.

"Things will work themselves out" is not a law of nature, unless we broaden our definition of "things working out" to include outcomes like "everyone young enough flees, everyone else clutches their savings until they eventually die impoverished."

But with AI, even outcomes like that might be overly optimistic. Where will young people flee to? Where can they go, what trade can they learn, to be safe enough to eventually die in comfort?

When I look at Michigan I see both the past and the future, and I am planning accordingly.

[baxtr]

You need to be careful with these things. Such exaggerated narratives are the reason people are afraid.

during the Industrial Revolution many artisan and skilled trades lost their livelihoods.

And yet, while many people did suffer serious short-term hardship and wage collapse, most did not simply remain in lifelong poverty, because over time industrialization created new types of employment and average wages eventually rose.

You don’t want to go back to before the Industrial Revolution. Do you?

[izacus]

[flagged]

[tomhow]

> Because your ignorance is painful.

It's not acceptable to attack a fellow community member like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for better than this:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[izacus]

Being kind to people who blatantly lie about history and hide suffering of thousands is how we got into the current mess.

[tomhow]

We don't need a defiant mini-sermon and it's very poor conduct to use the term "blatantly lie" for a fellow community member who is just expressing their understanding of a topic. It is never morally necessary to abuse people on this site. This is a community not a battleground.

If you have a different understanding of the topic, share it, so all can benefit. That's what people do when they are sincere about contributing positively here.

If instead you insist on continuing to use abusive terms towards others here, we'll have to ban the account.