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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26629 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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I don't understand the obsession with it, either. Not everyone in society is going to be elite. Some people are going to be normies. The struggle is to identify areas of economic need and study those. Blue collar work is in demand, and we desperately need conscientious people with integrity in these roles that are undervalued for status reasons. White collar jobs still exist.

I don't mind being "normal" if normal means middle-class. But I'm worried that the middle-class is dying out. You're either a leader, or a follower. A manager/capitalist, or a worker/proletariat. We had, for a while, a middle class of technicians, educated from normal schools, who were able to use our brains to make a good living. But that option seems to be hollowing out.

You're either a leader, or a follower. A manager/capitalist, or a worker/proletariat. We had, for a while, a middle class of technicians, educated from normal schools, who were able to use our brains to make a good living. But that option seems to be hollowing out.

I'm not sure who you mean, because I think "technicians", read broadly, are still in pretty good shape. There's a whole flurry of medical professions often requiring a 2-year degree that would fit the bill (many are "technologist" rather than "technician"). The blue collar jobs called "technician" are still around too, though obviously some are better than others. It's the vast class of lower-skill blue-collar factory jobs which have gone away, and those were always solidly in the "worker" realm.

We had, for a while, a middle class of technicians, educated from normal schools, who were able to use our brains to make a good living. But that option seems to be hollowing out.

This upper middle class group hasn't been hollowed out, it's been growing. What is hollowing out is the middle class factory line worker who makes good money despite being effectively a low skilled laborer. The skilled knowledge workers have been growing in numbers and income.

The skilled knowledge workers have been growing in numbers and income.

Until they in turn will be hollowed out by AI taking over their jobs, as is the fond hopes of the owners of the companies employing them. We may look back in future decades at these "skilled knowledge workers" as the equivalent of the "unskilled labourer" on the assembly line.

I don't think AI is going to be either the bugbear or the cornucopia of post-scarcity that it's being portrayed as, but I do think some people are going to get unpleasant surprises about how "skilled" their ability is deemed for work.

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