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Comment by lawnchair_larry | Hacker News Reader

Retraining is a ridiculous proposition to address this issue, which is what he says about the topic as well.

Just train all of the cashiers and truck drivers to become mechanical engineers. It's simple! /s

Why do you jump from blue collar to high tech in the retraining conversation? Sounds like an extreme that people aren't arguing for. I think retraining a cole miner to use similar tools or equipment (like in a quarry) would be what most people are talking about. Or retraining retail to be in customer service.

The Green New Deal would create tens of thousands of blue collar jobs. Can a coal miner be retrained to install and maintain solar panels? I bet they can.

So what if they can be trained to install solar panels? Are there going to be gobs of new solar panel installation jobs in their hometowns where the coal mine closed? This is a huge part of the problem. The brightest and most ambitious get out of dying communities and go elsewhere (heck, America is made largely of the descendants of people who did exactly that). But not everyone wants to move away from their hometown. Not everyone has the resources to start over somewhere else, even if they wanted to do so.

> Are there going to be gobs of new solar panel installation jobs in their hometowns where the coal mine closed?

Maybe if everyone's, say, getting a $1000/mo UBI...

Is anyone silly enough to think even one former coal miner is going to spend their $1k on solar panels?

I don't see why you're silly enough to think none would. I certainly agree that a former coal miner with no source of income but the UBI is unlikely to, at best. But a former coal miner re-employed, with an additional extra $1k, doesn't seem any more unlikely than baseline.

And if all the still-unemployed former coal miners in town have $1k/mo instead of $0/mo, there is much more opportunity for former coal miners (and everyone else in town) to offer them services.

Retraining is literally the #learntocode meme.

That seems like a gross oversimplification. Retraining could fit as a component of a much larger plan to tackle the issues facing the job market and employability of people in these fields. Or maybe it can't. Either way, oversimplifying doesn't further the discussion.

It doesn't have to be from coal miner to software engineer, or some kind of massive transformation. Skills training and education for adults is more than that, IMO.

It's not a meme, it's a good advice. There is no person who will regret learning to code. Even if they end up doing something else, knowing how to code would definitely come in handy for something.

I think the point of contention is that not everyone is well suited for it. Certain people are strong creatively but not analytically. If you love socializing and want to work with people or love being outdoors and working with your hands or tools there's no reason to learn how to code.

It's like saying no one will regret learning to farm or hunt. They're essential should for some of us but we become incredibly inefficient as a society if we all try to learn all of the important skills.

My academic background and work experience is 95% outside the software field but I've always liked the idea of programming. Since a little kid with an already anachronic ZX Spectrum. I would write programs by hand in a notebook waiting for it to arrive.

When the time came that my profession sort of blended in with data science (or rather that data science became a part of it and we'd rather keep the domain experts), I had/am having a great time. So I understand the tunnel vision.

The thing is that people have different talents and inclinations. Despite the outstanding role of economic necessity, liking or even being proud of something about one's work life is a psychological necessity that has to be much more common than enjoying code. I see construction workers on top of tall buildings to be, looking into the sky -- they must like this feeling, or the endorphins of hard physical labor, or the fact that something so tangible and durable is coming out of their muscle aches. Or something. There are easier ways to make a lower-class wage than work on top of buildings.

I don't like dealing with new people a lot, so I would be miserable working the cashier in a 24/7 store. But there has to be some psychological return to this work. Despite people resenting it and sort of being stuck for economic reasons.

Would these people have the same sense of accomplishment and belonging-in-the-world as middling coders in the typical death-march situations coders experience in real life?

It’s idiotic advice. It’s a meme to troll with. Nobody thinks that a 50 year old life long trucker is going to pick up programming. If they do think that, they shouldn’t be allowed to make any decisions for society. Hell, they probably shouldn’t even be allowed to vote.

Or maybe the new #learntoread meme?

and UBI is an excuse to write off the bottom half the population.

All 3 are popular with the HN crowd. Not surprising.

The argument for UBI is that society is going to write off the bottom half of the population anyway, so something is better than nothing.

The counterargument is we could just not write them off.

And how do you propose we do that?

We will, though. Globalization and automation aren't going to stop, and we're going to end up with an entire class of people rendered surplus to requirements whose labor value in the marketplace will be zero or well below subsistence levels.

Trump's populist promises to keep the coal mines open and auto factories rolling and dial the American economy back to the 1950s won't work, the world has moved on. Reeducation and retraining won't work at scale, especially not in the US where education means an unpayable private debt in many cases.

So if not UBI, then what?

First it'll be the bottom half, then the bottom two-thirds, then the bottom 90%. Automation isn't going to stop at manufacturing, truckers, and retail workers: it'll hit radiologists, accountants, lawyers, etc eventually.

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