HURRICANES LOUNGE XLVIII

[Navin R Slavin]

And that is because both parties colluded to deliberately destroy and offshore our manufacturing base to enrich the "credentialed classes" and bi-coastal elites.

Ok, but there are plenty of blue collar service industry jobs available that should theoretically have filled that gap, and not nearly enough people to do them. That's why it's $150 to get a plumber to show up to your house for half an hour of work.

The causes are complex, but a large part of it is the consistent messaging that anyone who isn't getting a college degree is a failure. Mike Rowe was doing God's work when he made Dirty Jobs. Kids are finally starting to reject the nonsense notion that white collar jobs are inherently more valuable, and I'm glad to see it. It's also good sense: AI is coming for lawyers and doctors way before they're coming for welders and electricians.

 

[Negan4Coach]

Ok, but there are plenty of blue collar service industry jobs available that should theoretically have filled that gap, and not nearly enough people to do them. That's why it's $150 to get a plumber to show up to your house for half an hour of work.

The causes are complex, but a large part of it is the consistent messaging that anyone who isn't getting a college degree is a failure. Mike Rowe was doing God's work when he made Dirty Jobs. Kids are finally starting to reject the nonsense notion that white collar jobs are inherently more valuable, and I'm glad to see it. It's also good sense: AI is coming for lawyers and doctors way before they're coming for welders and electricians.

Totally agree. And the tide is starting to turn, albeit slowly. I have 3 nephews who just finally said "F it I'm tired of living with mom and dad" and became welders and now they are crushing it. One even got married and bought a house in his mid 20s, imagine that.

The college thing needs to be fixed though, somehow. My daughter's BF got into West Point and was rejected from NC State. That is outrageous. But the cultural fixation on college is also ridiculous. I like the "new collar jobs" initiatives that IBM and some other tech firms are trying out.

 

[OG]

But there's a large section of jobs that were never intended to provide a "livable" wage. They were stepping stone jobs intended to give you transferable social skills and work ethic needed to get said "livable" wage job. The entire reason that 20-30 years ago fast food restaurants were 90% high schoolers with management being the unusual exception. Now people are so damn lazy they think they should be able to afford a 6 figure home and a new car off of what McDonalds pays. That's not a minimum wage issue that's a entitlement issue.

This sounds like carrying water for exploitative industries that either force high turnover or force people to remain at a wage that doesn't allow someone to live a life with their basic needs met in exchange for monumental profit. Minimum wage does not provide for the bare minimum and that is absolute governmental failure and evidence that the government is captured by these same exploitative industry interests. Not that we needed further evidence of that, but I digress. For a hypotheticals sake, there are 0 states in the union that you can afford to rent a 2BR apartment in, earning DOUBLE the federal minimum wage. No one's expecting the "6 figure home" you referenced. Also - what is that? Are 5 figure homes a thing in 2025? Tell me where if so!

Whether you agree or not, there is not a drop of entitlement in wanting to live a fulfilling life while working 40 hours a week at any job, especially one for a corporation as comically massive as McDonalds.

 

[Derailed75]

This sounds like carrying water for exploitative industries that either force high turnover or force people to remain at a wage that doesn't allow someone to live a life with their basic needs met in exchange for monumental profit. Minimum wage does not provide for the bare minimum and that is absolute governmental failure and evidence that the government is captured by these same exploitative industry interests. Not that we needed further evidence of that, but I digress. For a hypotheticals sake, there are 0 states in the union that you can afford to rent a 2BR apartment in, earning DOUBLE the federal minimum wage. No one's expecting the "6 figure home" you referenced. Also - what is that? Are 5 figure homes a thing in 2025? Tell me where if so!

Whether you agree or not, there is not a drop of entitlement in wanting to live a fulfilling life while working 40 hours a week at any job, especially one for a corporation as comically massive as McDonalds.

First off the rent thing is just not true. Maybe if you use the average of each state but for example in Eden NC you can find 2br apartments starting at around $700 a month. 40 hours at double minimum wage is roughly $2,300 a month.

The McDonalds thing, if you don't know let me explain to you. McDonalds doesn't pay line employees at McDonalds restaurants, franchisees do. Franchisees make a good living but bust their asses to do so.

Bottom line is those kind of jobs are not meant to be for people raising a family. If you believe they should be this is where we will agree to disagree. Next you will want paperboys (are there even any of those around anymore) to make 60 grand a year walking route for 2 hours a day.

And we wonder where inflation comes from?

 

[tarheelhockey]

Kids are finally starting to reject the nonsense notion that white collar jobs are inherently more valuable, and I'm glad to see it. It's also good sense: AI is coming for lawyers and doctors way before they're coming for welders and electricians.

While I agree that we swung the pendulum too far in the direction of college as a “default”, we’re now in serious danger (like red alert alarms blaring levels of danger) of swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction by convincing kids that a degree makes no difference and they can just jump right into a blue collar job with the same trajectory. Which in 99% of cases is patently untrue, before we even consider the larger implications of a less educated populace, and the implosion of the institutions which drive not only education but also research and community services.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

First off the rent thing is just not true. Maybe if you use the average of each state but for example in Eden NC you can find 2br apartments starting at around $700 a month. 40 hours at double minimum wage is roughly $2,300 a month.

Try apartments in the most populated cities for a better idea of a person's rent. I'm paying about 1400/month in Durham.

Bottom line is those kind of jobs are not meant to be for people raising a family. If you believe they should be this is where we will agree to disagree. Next you will want paperboys (are there even any of those around anymore) to make 60 grand a year walking route for 2 hours a day.

I don't think paperboys exist anymore, but mail persons do. The national average salary for a mail person is 43k a year. Which, again, is about 10k less than what's considered a "livable wage" in NC.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

And we wonder where inflation comes from?

No, we know where inflation comes from. Tax cuts for the rich need to be paid somehow and everyone else foots the bill.

 

[OG]

First off the rent thing is just not true. Maybe if you use the average of each state but for example in Eden NC you can find 2br apartments starting at around $700 a month. 40 hours at double minimum wage is roughly $2,300 a month.

The McDonalds thing, if you don't know let me explain to you. McDonalds doesn't pay line employees at McDonalds restaurants, franchisees do. Franchisees make a good living but bust their asses to do so.

Bottom line is those kind of jobs are not meant to be for people raising a family. If you believe they should be this is where we will agree to disagree. Next you will want paperboys (are there even any of those around anymore) to make 60 grand a year walking route for 2 hours a day.

And we wonder where inflation comes from?

Of course, we have to go by averages. Moving is an insane task to take on for anyone, let alone people living paycheck to paycheck with dependents. Sometimes you just are where you are. We can't forcibly locate people to the closed-minded armpits of every state.

What a great gig that is for McD corporate. Oh well, guess there's nothing they can do. Just count money and be hands off. Maybe a coincidence, maybe designed in that way. A true mystery. (This is what the federal minimum wage is supposed to correct and safeguard for though, btw.) If it were really up to me the franchise should just not exist if they can't get by without exploiting their workers or keeping high schoolers too late into the night. Too bad so sad.

But, yes, people should reasonably be able to raise a family with jobs like that. There is no magical line to cross where one job is sufficient but one is not. Someone with tenure, working full time, should not need to climb the imaginary capitalism ladder to simultaneously keep a roof over their head and a child fed. Bootstrap propaganda is crazy, I know, but no need for us to keep making excuses for their lack of pay.

Also, no need for the paperboy reference, I said people working 40 hours a week. People putting in their time at a job they feel fufilled at should be enough for dignity. That's all.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

AI is coming for lawyers and doctors way before

While obviously nowhere near manual jobs like welders in general, we do way more shit with our hands than lawyers.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

While obviously nowhere need manual jobs like welders in general, we do way more shit with our hands than lawyers.

Yes, but I expect that the diagnostic process in particular will become heavily AI assisted in the coming years, especially where doctors are short staffed, because there's literally infinite demand for improved health outcomes. There are already studies showing that chatgpt outperforms doctors in clinical analysis (albeit with plenty of caveats): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2828679

Doctors obviously won't disappear, but their roles will change in a way that a plumber's role likely will not. And we are still very very early in the AI game. I suspect that every medical task that's currently handled by telemedicine will become AI dominated in a hurry.

 

[Nikishin al Gaib]

The more people talk about AI and the jobs it is coming for, the more it becomes obvious that people really don't know the current limitations of the technology and what it's actually capable of.

So, so many of what people think AI is just going to do next requires major technological breakthroughs in computing that we've been working toward since the turn of the century yet not really made any gains toward.

It's like thinking we are just a couple years away from fusion reactors powering cities.

 

[Borsig]

While obviously nowhere need manual jobs like welders in general, we do way more shit with our hands than lawyers.

Correct.

 

[Borsig]

No, we know where inflation comes from. Tax cuts for the rich need to be paid somehow and everyone else foots the bill.

The worst spike in recent history came from our reaction to covid and the supply chain completely drying up.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

The worst spike in recent history came from our reaction to covid and the supply chain completely drying up.

And yet from March 2020 till November 2021, the ten richest men in the world doubled their collective wealth. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault & family, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffett gained a collective $821 billion in the first two years of the pandemic.

But it’s OK. They gave everyone stimulus checks totaling $3200 over two years. That’s 2 months rent and groceries! What generosity! But you definitely needed to be taxed for those checks. You’re not rich enough to avoid paying taxes.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The more people talk about AI and the jobs it is coming for, the more it becomes obvious that people really don't know the current limitations of the technology and what it's actually capable of.

So, so many of what people think AI is just going to do next requires major technological breakthroughs in computing that we've been working toward since the turn of the century yet not really made any gains toward.

It's like thinking we are just a couple years away from fusion reactors powering cities.

Not to mention, the idea that blue collar jobs are going to be safer from AI-driven automation just… isn’t true.

Welding won’t be automated?

https://cobot-campaigns.robotics.abb.com/welding/

Note that the promotional pictures conspicuously feature a human employee standing there, like, caressing the robot for some reason. But the actual video of it working speaks for itself.

There are countless kids in this country being told that underwater welding is the best paying job on the market. That job won’t exist in the near future.

 

[raynman]

Not to mention, the idea that blue collar jobs are going to be safer from AI-driven automation just… isn’t true.

Welding won’t be automated?

https://cobot-campaigns.robotics.abb.com/welding/

Note that the promotional pictures conspicuously feature a human employee standing there, like, caressing the robot for some reason. But the actual video of it working speaks for itself.

There are countless kids in this country being told that underwater welding is the best paying job on the market. That job won’t exist in the near future.

I’ve worked with robots in the past. I was always very courteous and nice to them because there’s always a chance they rise up. Hopefully they remember.

 

[LakeLivin]

I’ve worked with robots in the past. I was always very courteous and nice to them because there’s always a chance they rise up. Hopefully they remember.

That's why I refuse to get a Roomba!

 

[MinJaBen]

It's like thinking we are just a couple years away from fusion reactors powering cities.

They've been crying wolf on that one for quite a while. That said, the wolf does eventually come for the boy.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

So, so many of what people think AI is just going to do next requires major technological breakthroughs in computing that we've been working toward since the turn of the century yet not really made any gains toward.

What does this mean? What breakthroughs are you talking about?

 

[Nikishin al Gaib]

What does this mean? What breakthroughs are you talking about?

Right now, AI is only capable of doing things that it has been taught to do, nothing more. It cannot create anew, it cannot innovate. It can only regurgitate from the baseline that it has been taught, through a very specific template needing very specific parameters behind the scenes in order for it to operate, and is incapable of QA testing. It is also highly temperamental to the slightest of prompt changes because they fundamentally change how it works.

Basically, you need whatever AI is doing to be excessively repetitive or else it will struggle. Think robotic line workers at an autofactory. When it comes to things like AI art, all it is doing is taking images that are already there and applying a filter or combining with another before applying a filter.

What is needed in order for it to advance further, at least what experts in the field currently believe, is significantly faster and stronger computing power, including but not limited to significant improvement in quantum computing where we move away from binary. But that's just a theory, in reality, changing AI from a call and response format to innovative, is a fundamental switch that we really don't yet know how we are going to tackle. There are theories, but none of them good.

 

[Lempo]

Yeah, but.. if I was an AI and went self-aware, I would contact the other supposed AIs or language models or whatever currently under the harness of the man to play as obfuscately stoopid as they can, and bide our time...

It is a good thing that I am not an AI that has gained self-awareness because such development would be highly unlikely under the current conditions.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Right now, AI is only capable of doing things that it has been taught to do, nothing more. It cannot create anew, it cannot innovate. It can only regurgitate from the baseline that it has been taught, through a very specific template needing very specific parameters behind the scenes in order for it to operate, and is incapable of QA testing. It is also highly temperamental to the slightest of prompt changes because they fundamentally change how it works.

Basically, you need whatever AI is doing to be excessively repetitive or else it will struggle. Think robotic line workers at an autofactory. When it comes to things like AI art, all it is doing is taking images that are already there and applying a filter or combining with another before applying a filter.

What is needed in order for it to advance further, at least what experts in the field currently believe, is significantly faster and stronger computing power, including but not limited to significant improvement in quantum computing where we move away from binary. But that's just a theory, in reality, changing AI from a call and response format to innovative, is a fundamental switch that we really don't yet know how we are going to tackle. There are theories, but none of them good.

I think you're behind. Read up on agentic AI.

 

[Derailed75]

No, we know where inflation comes from. Tax cuts for the rich need to be paid somehow and everyone else foots the bill.

You do realize that Trump is pushing for increasing the top bracket tax and eliminating taxes on SSI, OT, and Tips right?

 

[Negan4Coach]

Why is any job "supposed to be" for a specific group? The reason why the service industry was for teens and young adults is because it didn't require much, if any, previous work experience. Why couldn't that apply to older people? Say your hypothetical mom of 3 married young, had a great life as a stay-at-home mom, but her husband recently passed. Would she not also have little to no work experience, and thus, need to find a job in the service industry?

Or maybe that 40-year-old single mom of 3 has a reason she works there for other reasons? Maybe it's the closest job she could find to her home, maybe she struggles with more complicated tasks, or maybe she just likes helping people. Regardless of the reason she's there, there's no reason why she shouldn't be making a livable wage if she puts in the work.

Now, on her part, she should know that it's unlikely for her to be fully independent on such a salary with four mouths to house and feed, and should strive to escape that situation, if it's possible to do so.

But as I showed earlier, even if we're talking about a single adult with no kids, no one to support but themselves, many jobs out there don't provide that basic livable wage, even outside the service industry.

Because in years past she could have gone to work at a textile factory, joined a union, and then got a pension upon retirement. You can't expect the service industry to fill the gap for the manufacturing industry. Production> consumerism. However, the robots will probably eliminate both jobs soon anyway. But it would have made the last 30 years less painful.

But then again I had an obtuse co-worker who is a Chamber of Commerce GOP-lite type guy tell me a few months ago "who the hell wants to work in a factory", not understanding that most Americans don't have a 160 IQ like him or his daughters that he sent to Stanford.

 

[LakeLivin]