[Barbing]

If (1) many bright and very online people are going to lose their jobs, and (2) the response has not been mass unionization, might I rethink [1] a more likely future of work or rethink [2] the psychology of the average/collective knowledge workforce, or...

"where union" in short.

Perhaps the concept is too foreign for white collars, or on average folks think they'll be OK and it's the juniors who'll go... maybe too focused on immediate needs... a belief unionization is the wrong response... (and I'm not advocating for anything in particular btw)

[ben_w]

To extend on what Jensson wrote:

A union has the power to organise one thing, to withdraw labour. In the industrial era, the threat of all the workers not showing up was a threat to end a business.

If AI does what is promised, to replace labour, then a threat to withdraw labour is only threatening the owners with a good time.

[adrianN]

Yeah, the swing riots ultimately did not lead to better working conditions

[ben_w]

Riots are very different to trade unions in the same way that a civil war is different from an electoral democracy.

[adrianN]

Well, if riots don’t help, I don’t think peaceful strikes work better.

[ben_w]

Yes? I'm saying unions, whose power is strikes, cannot possibly work because the strikers have zero power in the circumstance "we have decided to make you all redundant".

[adrianN]

And I’m providing further evidence for your claim.

[Jensson]

Unions doesn't give you power they just help you use what power you have. Unions don't help if you don't have any power, see Detroit factory workers, they were highly unionized but that didn't help them at all. And if you have power then you can start a union, so there isn't a reason to start a union early before you need it.