Comment by otterley
11 hours ago
> You'd have said the same thing in 1928...
Hindsight is 20/20. Besides, what good is panicking? It won’t help with the inevitable; better to adapt and save for it.
> the tools that make the problem require better tools to solve them
You’ve found the opening :-)
Sorry but you are coming off as utterly tone deaf and patronizing. People are losing their jobs. This is not a small thing and it will cause a lot of misery for those people. To effectively tell them to man up and to adapt when that simply isn't an option is losing sight of the human angle. Not every problem is a technical one and not every problem can be solved with technology.
I'm not worried about myself, I've had a lot of luck in my life for which I'm super greatful. But I'm also quite aware of the exceptional position that puts me in and how many people are not so fortunate that they could probably live on their savings for the rest of their life if things ground to a halt.
Most people live paycheck to paycheck, or they may have a few thousand bucks in savings at most. They've worked hard all their lives and simply were never in a position to save enough against this kind of eventuality because the deck was stacked against them.
Have a heart, and realize that barring a couple of unfortunate moves it could be you looking at your last 500 bucks with rent due and a couple of mouths to feed.
>Sorry but you are coming off as utterly tone deaf and patronizing.
I agree, but I'd like to think these people come from a optimistic point of view.
A lot of people don't seem to understand that the "human in the loop" is exactly the thing the big AI leaders want to cut out as much as possible.
That's being willfully blind at this point in time.
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I hate the idea that it’s considered “tone deaf” to encourage people to adapt to changing conditions. I’m not going to adopt a pessimistic tone and say “yup we’re all fucked, ain’t nothing we can do.” It’s intentionally changing the tone, not being deaf to it.
> Sorry but you are coming off as utterly tone deaf and patronizing.
I’m sorry if it’s coming across that way. It’s not my intent, and I’m aware that many people are a lost paycheck away from a crisis.
But if you really think the right thing to do in response is to complain and commiserate, I don’t think that is helpful, either. I think it’s much better to encourage behavior that has a chance of being effective.
If you think it’s somehow wrong to encourage people to behave in such a way that has a better chance of setting them up for success, then I vehemently disagree.
> To effectively tell them... to adapt when that simply isn't an option is losing sight of the human angle.
You must have a pretty low opinion of people if you think they can’t adapt.
You really don't get it, and I think I've tried my best so have a nice life.
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> But if you really think the right thing to do in response is to complain and commiserate, I don’t think that is helpful, either.
What if complaining and commiserating leads to fighting for political actions that lead to outcomes we like better?
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How long would you be able to sustain a mostly-comfortable lifestyle if you were to lose your job right now with no chance of finding new employment? If the answer is, say, more than a year, that might alter your perspective on the issue.
As the conversation was about the societal trend. For the vast majority of people the answer is <= 1 month and it drops off precipitously adding months on.