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> In our (western civilization) societies, everyone wants to be a manager or a scrum master or at least a programmer, have a nice white collar job in the home office.

That’s a very coastal city attitude which in most parts of the US would seem utterly provincial. The man who owns the roofing company that’s redoing my roof shakes his head when he hears me talk about staring at a computer screen all day. The HVAC repairman who was at my house yesterday was horrified to find out that I need a special keyboard to prevent pain in my hands from too much typing. “Don’t you have insurance or workers comp?” he asked. He thought I was lying or mistaken when I laughed and explained that my injuries are mine to deal with on my own.

In my part of America, which is neither overly cosmopolitan nor a big city where all the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed dreamers are flocking, most people aim to work in the various trades after high school. The ambitious ones will move up in the world by owning businesses which employ tradesmen, but that’s about as far as most will go. To most HN readers this will seem like a colossal economic hole, but it’s nothing like it. Tradesmen with only a few years of experience make decent money, and business owners are enjoying conditions similar to those which HNers with “lifestyle businesses” aim to attain.

Yes, there are untold millions of Americans working menial jobs. Those jobs require no special skills or experience, which is why such workers are seen as expendable. To lump such workers and their plight together with decidedly blue-collar tradesmen is a mistake.

Sorry, I know you wanted to communicate a lot with that paragraph but I gotta ask - what keyboard do you use? I want to avoid carpal tunnel myself but haven’t been able to find any recommendations online.

You should aim for orthogonal and spitted keyboards. Big changes, you possibly need to relearn to type, but potentially life changing. One model among others which is safe for recommendation is Ergodox EZ. Warning: not cheap, none are.

I use the ErgoDox EZ (https://ergodox-ez.com/) with those sculpted caps that come without letters printed on them. I love this keyboard: it's one of my most prized possessions. I only wish they'd made one where the sculpted caps do have letters printed on them. This would make it possible for other persons in my household to use my keyboard.

I had some wrist pain building up during typing, which stopped since I switched to the ergodox. But it is a bit huge in my opinion.

Counterpoint as someone who group around the trades and whose friends parents where mostly in working class trades, they all stressed going to college so we didn't end up working hard like them.

My parents knew I could make really good money with welding and masonry like other family members but also knew that we were rough to our body, I had a uncle who lost an eye on the job! To someone working 8-10 hrs in the Texas heat all year wearing your body everyday and being physically exhausted by closing time. Sitting in an office and surfing HN is paradise to my old friends.

I agree but seems like sitting in a chair in front of a computer and not working out hard to fight the effects of the sedentary lifestyle is as bad on the human body. Some programmers spend so much time in front of the computer that they don’t have enough time, energy or motivation to hit the gym.

Also the skills learned in this field are inflating fast. Compare that to learning a trade and applying that knowledge for a lifetime of work while build solid experience in time is also a bit different.

Also software jobs quite frequently lead mental wear as much as those trade jobs are rough on the body

> If we truly payed blue collar guys a market rate, no white collar jobs would exist, because what is the price for risking your health?

Isn't that exactly what we do though? Doesn't pay (very approximately) correlate with required skill? For example, compare the salary of a skilled carpenter with some of the lower skilled "tech" jobs. All of your examples (manager, scum master, programmer) are decidedly high skill jobs when compared to the economy as a whole.

(As far as software goes, consider that demand for laborers currently outstrips supply. Prices adjust to reflect that.)

What you're really describing (IMO) is that everyone is competing with each other and we all want to be above average. Going back to your tech industry examples, I've heard it said that the majority of programmers think they're above average.

My polemic is that at least some of this "high skill" distinction that we attribute to cushy high skilled jobs is a myth. They are well paid, because we claim they are high skill. And everybody with power in that system has an interest in perpetuating that myth. (Including me, I am a programmer.) Part of the myth is that it is skill, not health risks, that should be well paid.

And I suspect one reason why we don't want to tackle climate change (or even generally take more advantage of technological progress) is that it requires a different skill set, the one that is lot more blue collar, and to make that transformation we would have to upset the existing social order.

In other words, I generally don't believe there is only one solution to the "market equations". Remuneration, price of different types of labor, also depends on cultural factors.

And because there is not always unique solution, you might end up in a local maximum of productivity. One way around it is what Doctorow suggests, we all gather around a table (well, metaphorically, with a government as our proxy) and decide, well, we have to do these things, and here are the jobs to be filled (and he further argues that we are in such local maximum regarding the climate change, and we can get out of it).

Sadly, it's been really difficult historically to get out of such local maxima without profound rifts in the society, civilizations often chose death rather than do this. And that's what I worry about, and I think we need to come to terms with.

I agree with both your posts, but I want to share an exception. At the Post Office, almost all the smart people, who have their shit together, are carriers and clerks - the blue-collar jobs. The difference in pay between workers and management is small, and it's very easy for OT to push carriers/clerks above management. This is not a secret within the Post Office, so it only makes sense to go into management if you're shooting for upper management, which most don't reach, or you just hate physical activity or like telling people what to do.

Most of the people who go into management seem to do it reflexively. They see the word promotion and go for it. As you can imagine, they don't even get a respect upgrade, because everyone knows the cards.

Of course, the Post Office has a relatively strong union - particularly by US standards. That's the major hurdle for most blue-collar jobs. They don't even have a seat at the negotiating table. Without a coordinated voice and some power, workers take first offers. Companies can afford to pay shit wages the same way that factories during the Industrial Revolution could afford to work people to death.

> Part of the myth is that it is skill, not health risks, that should be well paid.

It's hard and expensive to turn somebody into a programmer, and you can't scale it up as you wish. It's easy in comparison to have more people who can do dangerous jobs: you just need more children and wait 20 years.

For management and similar roles, I agree somewhat (it's much harder to pinpoint the skills required, and they often have less direct influence in the success of the company/project), but for the actual jobs, like software development and engineering? Yeah, they are high skill.

> Remuneration, price of different types of labor, also depends on cultural factors.

I don't think so. Unless you include religion and royalty where you can't just get into some career, the ones that are easy, low-risk and high-pay/high-power will always be attractive and you will be able to predict movements pretty well with market models.

> It's hard and expensive to turn somebody into a programmer, and you can't scale it up as you wish.

Is it? We work in one of the few industries where self-taught may actually be the norm (or at least, a significant minority).

I believe the self-taught (which is hard to define, as most are still learning by reading and imitating, it's not like people are completely removed from the world and suddenly walk out of the woods as a software developer) are pretty much here because it's so hard. If it was easier to scale the number of developers up, the people who took up programming as a hobby and then (often accidentally) transitioned into doing it for money would still be hobbyists. They're being recruited because we can't fill the seats with formally trained people.

I am an autodidact, and I'm clearly worse than actual CS people in the CS stuff, but that's not a problem for me, because we're in an industry where we lump together people who work on hard problems and people who basically translate requirements into business logic code. The CS people could do my job, I couldn't do theirs (there are some autodidacts that could, but they are a tiny minority imho), and for most intents and purposes, it doesn't matter, because most requirements don't require high level computer science, they require python, php, javascript and css etc.

Partially with much of that pay won via union work or like building codes to prevent a race to the bottom while enforcing some standard for safety. That skilled carpenter might be offered a contract for $10/hour under their union requirement but chooses to enforce their standards instead of subverting their fellow tradesmen.

A good comparison is quality comments and coding standards. Consider if there was an enforceable standard for code structure, comments, documentation, etc like most decent github repos with developers striving to reach Linux kernel level overall quality. This would include a standard training/education process, collective bargaining and action for pay/benefits and standard to changes. It is a field where not every ISO standard needs to be applied in full, but there could still be some base enforcement.

Like, what if every code base was commented, well structured, and followed general best practices like to-code electrical or plumbing work? What if code review or inspections against a standard were enforced time set aside and sign off required before wrapping a project? What if the lowest bidder on a coding job had a floor due to set benefits and standing agreement on rates and max hours per week/day? These are practices the best employers may strive for and are able to apply but are required in most trades.

I appreciate a line comparing how artists are payed compared to trades: If a band is asked to do a show for the 'exposure' they should ask the planner to call the local plumbers union and ask their going rate for 4 plumbers for a 4 hour job. Home advisor has a few estimates but project data puts an average at $317/hour. Maybe a random band isn't worth $1200/hour or $5k a gig but some definitely can command that price. If most bands stuck to a standard rate range the planner will expect and budget for proper pay.

https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/plumbing/hire-a-plumber/

So what's the solution?

So if I understand you correctly is that blue collar jobs are not attractive enough?

So does the solution include one or more of the following?

- Increase the status of those jobs in society. This pandemic has shown us who the key workers are, so increasing the status of jobs that actually benefit society, e.g. street cleaner vs product manager for a betting company.

- Pay more for these key worker jobs

- Move to a 4 day work week, so people have more leisure time and live life a little bit more

- Provide other perks if you're classed as a key worker, e.g. discount on public transport etc?

There is something about working with your hands that can't be understated. If you haven't done a hard working job, you wouldn't know. The only thing stopping me is the salary. If I could make as much money as a knowledge worker cutting greens at golf courses, I'd go back to being a groundskeeper in a heartbeat. That job is pure zen, hard work, but bliss. Most important is that you are able to leave it behind and removed from your life and headspace entirely the minute you step off the property, unlike our email driven petty political rat race.

The essay "The political aspects of full employment" by Michal Kalicki

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/political-aspects-of-full...

The only way your breakdown differs from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism is that the "clueless middle class" in Oceania seems to split into two mutually antagonistic but still self policing Outer Parties.

(also I think calling "white collar" "middle class" is a bit ahistorical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23671937 but, as with "hacker", I guess I should make an attempt to go with the times, if reluctantly)

Cleese: I get a feeling of superiority over them↓.

Barker: I get a feeling of inferiority from him↑, but a feeling of superiority over him↓.

Corbett: I get a pain↑ in the back of my neck.

Not that I especially want to validate your reference to a piece of diegetic COINTELPRO agitprop in a not very good and rather outdated polemical novel, but if it's "two mutually antagonistic but still self policing Outer Parties" you want, have you seen the ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies that currently make up American public politics?

Are you kidding me? What are these "ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies that currently make up American public politics"?

We have a broken two-party system where both parties abandoned their philosophical beginnings more than 3 decades ago to pursue headlong corporatist and globalist goals, with varying spins depending on what personally benefits party leadership the most. Both parties are working hard to systematically eliminate any real measure of freedom which exists for the average person in the nation, but taking different angles to do so. One party makes direct attacks on the very basis of our Constitution, the other party more subtly manipulates processes to disenfranchise people while acting to prevent them from having secure communications and privacy. Both parties actively support a police state, and both parties are out of touch with the realities of the majority of residents, especially those outside of cities. In neither case would I describe the current system as "ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies."

There are obviously many possible negative consequences and externalities that come from absolute freedom (libertarianism), but the current actions and words of both parties fly in the face of the claim that they are in any way advocating such a position; hidden, blatant, or otherwise.

Also, referring to "1984" as "COINTELPRO agitprop" is so tone deaf that it's nearly daft. George Orwell was a British author, first of all, and COINTELPRO was a domestic operation of the FBI in the US. Secondly, if you were to observe a theme in "1984" and follow it to its logical conclusion, I think it obvious that the books premise and message would be opposed to government operations exactly like COINTELPRO. In fact, 1984 captures the essence of our current situation pretty well to show you the dystopian future that awaits from giving up control to the state combined with technology capable of absolute surveillance.

Your comment reads like something written in a Chinese troll farm to push public opinion in support of Communism.

Thanks for that! It's been a few years now since I was accused on HN of being a paid agent of a foreign government. It's nice to see that standards here haven't changed as much as is so constantly alleged.

I think you might want to read my earlier comment again. I said "libertarian", in the "classical liberal" sense; I did not say "anarcholibertarian" or "anarchocapitalist" or "libertarian anarchist" or "autarkist". You've also mistaken my description of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism for a description of the not very good and rather outdated polemical novel in which it appears.

Given that nothing here responds to anything I actually said, there doesn't seem to be any basis for a more fruitful response than the one I have given. Please feel free to make another attempt, ideally without the misapprehension of my points. You're welcome to double down on the slander, though! For all that the intent is to insult, I can't help but find it amusing.

We do pay blue collar workers the market rate. Why do you think we don’t?

The market misprices worker health.

It’s sociopath (not psychopath), clueless, and loser...

For those lost in this minutia, they are referencing The Gervais Principle theory of company management:

"Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves."

Rao intentionally uses mean words to describe all players in the system.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/