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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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This is probably a good thing long term for Amazon's employees, assuming that AI doesn't lead to mass job elimination.

A job that can be done remotely from your suburban home can also be done remotely from eastern Europe. And the average wages of a tech worker in Seattle are probably something like 5x a Romanian one.

It was inevitable that most high-paid remote tech workers would be replaced eventually. American workers are not inherently superior to those in many other countries.

Still, a product which can be developed in offices in Seattle can also be developed in offices in Romania or India. Granted, there are coordination problems, and teams have to talk to each others, which is more difficult when they live in different time zones, but the option to outsource some team is always on the table.

A job that can be done remotely from your suburban home can also be done remotely from eastern Europe. And the average wages of a tech worker in Seattle are probably something like 5x a Romanian one.

And it can also be done in the same time zone from Latin America for like an eighth of the price, with no language barrier because professional class argentines and Brazilians and Mexicans all speak English, even if accented.