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The great displacement is already well underway?

(shawnfromportland.substack.com)
511 points JSLegendDev | 3 comments | 12 May 25 14:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.68s | source
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stego-tech ◴[13 May 25 20:31 UTC] No.43977365[source]▶
I think a lot of folks are missing the forest for the trees, here. OP is (presumably) a competent professional who has fallen on hard times despite record growth of the private enterprise and their immense profits. Their story is not unique, and Microsoft is adding another seven thousand bodies to the pile alone this week.

The fundamental problem is, as the OP gets at towards the end, what happens when a society built upon the trade of time and labor for income to provide for one’s needs, meets innovations that threaten to wholesale eliminate vast swaths of labor, permanently. A society that demands labor for survival, against corporations that demand growth at all costs, inevitably creates a zero-sum conflict between the working class and the Capitalist classes.

Workers, desperate to survive in a society hostile to the under or unemployed (and increasingly hostile to the presently employed), will continue to resort to more desperate means over time and as their numbers grow. This is an inevitability bore out through history time and time again, OP is just joining the chorus of voices warning that we are rapidly approaching such an inflection point if we continue soldiering onward “as-is”.

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1. markvdb ◴[13 May 25 23:45 UTC] No.43979135[source]▶
Many a healthy above median earner is unaware of the privileged shortcut to capital class available to them. Spend a third of your income for nine years and you're there. Make that a quarter to finish in six years. Especially for dual income people without dependents, that's quite feasible.

Not diminish your analysis. I just hope it adds a bit of perspective.

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2. stego-tech ◴[16 May 25 14:00 UTC] No.44005636[source]▶
There is no “shortcut” to vast wealth, because if there were then everybody would be using it as the default and it would no longer be a shortcut. What are often described as “shortcuts” are highly situational opportunities with lower-than-typical risk, which by virtue of announcing them to others means the opportunity has passed and the risk has increased.

For there to be vast amounts of wealth hoarded by a few, there must also be vast amounts of exploited people desperately getting by on table scraps. There is a finite supply of wealth, and if we do not build systems to redistribute it equitably then it will always and inevitably by hoarded by the few lacking a moral compass or basic empathy for their fellow man.

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3. markvdb ◴[18 May 25 02:42 UTC] No.44018591[source]▶
Thank you for you interaction.

> There is no “shortcut” to vast wealth, because if there were then everybody would be using it as the default and it would no longer be a shortcut.

Absolutely. I was not writing about shortcuts to vast wealth though.

> What are often described as “shortcuts” are highly situational opportunities with lower-than-typical risk, which by virtue of announcing them to others means the opportunity has passed and the risk has increased.

Of course the shortcuts are highly situational opportunities with lower-than-typical risk. "above median earner", "healthy", "dual income", "without dependents" are situational to a large extent. Yes, that means some people have more agency.

Some will play the personal finance game smart. They realise the smart way is to focus their game away from the situational, to where they have most control: on the expenses side.

Where we disagree is about announcing a shortcut to wealth equaling it disappearing. Not every informed actor decides to take the shortcut. Not all the situationally blessed want to ruthlessly focus on expenses.

> For there to be vast amounts of wealth hoarded by a few, there must also be vast amounts of exploited people desperately getting by on table scraps.

I share this analysis.

> There is a finite supply of wealth, and if we do not build systems to redistribute it equitably then it will always and inevitably by hoarded by the few lacking a moral compass or basic empathy for their fellow man.

Redistribution of wealth is a tricky problem. It requires a delicate balance between individual agency and collective force. Push too far towards either and humans will be suffering unnecessarily.