| > we got taught that early economists thought capitalism and increasing productivity from innovation would lead to less work and effort needed from people and not more Keynes wasn't wrong. The issue is macro-level productivity is orthogonal to personal effort and productivity. And what Keynes was talking about was macroeconomics, not individuals. For example, it takes 10% the workforce it took in early 20th century to produce the same amount of agricultural output in the US in the 21st century. Similarly, end-to-end automotive manufacturing via industrial robots has reduced the need for a line worker who's job was to screw in a door on an assembly line. The economy is much more productive and efficent today than it was a century ago, but automation leads to a subset of workers specializing and a larger set of workers deskilled or unemployed because they didn't upskill when they had the chance. It's interesting to watch the same class of people who told coal miners "they should learn to code" back in the early 2010s now getting the same comeuppance. Frankly, American SWEs got lazy and lost their competitive edge especially during the early 2020s. |
When I told people to learn to code in that situation it was with pity and I would talk to them about how I felt forced to do so after I graduated with a useless degree during the Great Recession.
It was more of a “here’s one of the few growth areas left that are feasible to self teach”, rather than contempt for people not being on the same class as me.
> Frankly, American SWEs got lazy and lost their competitive edge especially during the early 2020s.
If “competitive” edge at this point means needing to get a masters on top of needing to train unpaid on your free time I think it’s more that corporations in America have gotten to the point of wanting increasingly rare or expensive to acquire skills in their labor force, while simultaneously deciding that they will be paying approximately $0 in any and all training costs.
AI is only accelerating that as every manager and exec is drooling at the mouth at the idea of never hiring juniors again. It’ll be some other assholes problem like their future self who has to deal with what happens after the lack of people in training finally catches up to the industry.