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Comment by kkielhofner | Hacker News Reader

I grew up and live in small town Wisconsin. Sounds very believable.

I say this with the utmost respect and concern for my friends, family, and neighbors:

This attitude is part of the reason why the rust belt exists - filled with towns and cities that are a shell of their former selves. Areas of constant economic hardship, endemic drug use, etc.

The two big factories in the town I went to high school in are closed. Needless to say things aren’t going well… Yelling at the TV didn’t do anything to prevent that and it’s not going to do anything to prevent the next wave of it.

It’s harsh, but an important lesson since the beginning of time:

Adapt or die.

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I disagree. It's good that people scrutinize and resist corporate greed. Accepting that "AI" (whatever that means) should be in every single product I use is not adapting. It's bending over. People have the power to vote with their wallets (and their actual votes), and they should do so.

Now, I'm not American and not an expert on the Rust Belt, but I'm pretty certain this is not the reason why the Rust Belt exists. Probably rather something to do with corporate greed and greedy politicians.

> It's good that people scrutinize and resist corporate greed.

I agree. Problem is it didn't do anything when they were saying the exact same things that led to the closure or significant job loss of the manufacturing that was the core of these communities:

1) "Hah, my factory job is complicated. The Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, etc will never figure it out." Racist/xenophobic but said at the time. Even more wrong.

2) Look at robotics. It also took some time for the technology to develop and many of these same people looked at early implementations and thought the exact same thing: "Oh those robots don't really work and they never will". Then their factory jobs became a fraction of the head count with a completely different skill set...

Throughout history this has played out over and over again.

> People have the power to vote with their wallets (and their actual votes), and they should do so.

Key word being /should/. Yet it has been proven time and time again that people regularly vote against their own best economic interests in the ballot box and with their wallets. The same people who laughed at and dismissed the Chinese are going to Wal-Mart everyday and buying goods from (you guessed it) - China. They're also voting for the same corporate-funded politicians.

For many of these people their best option now is working at the large Amazon warehouse down the road where they pick and pack goods largely from (you guessed it again) - China. But even then there just aren't that many of those jobs and as the horror stories reported in the media show they're routinely abused there.

> Now, I'm not American and not an expert on the Rust Belt, but I'm pretty certain this is not the reason why the Rust Belt exists.

Next time you're in the US visiting New York, California, Florida, etc come visit the rust belt in "flyover country" and see just how devastating the effects of this are. I see and live it (to some extent) everyday.

> Probably rather something to do with corporate greed and greedy politicians.

A huge factor and the ultimate root of the problem but back to voting, wallets, etc: in the real world this isn't going anywhere and from what I see it's just getting worse.

My concern comes from seeing the blight and literal deaths in MY community. My concern now is AI is coming for the white collar workforce as well.

Another old adage:

"Don't underestimate your enemy/competition".

I agree with most of your points. However, I stand by my point that corporations looking to cut costs moved those production jobs abroad. This will happen time and again under capitalism. I think blaming the working poor is not the right conclusion to draw.

The only way to prevent this is to reign in capitalism. Neoliberalism does not work.

> Yet it has been proven time and time again that people regularly vote against their own best economic interests in the ballot box and with their wallets.

Unfortunately, yes. People are strongly influenced by propaganda. Propaganda is often bankrolled by corporations. A good start with be curb lobbyism and make it more transparent.

Your position is ahistorical.

The Rust Belt exists (primarily) because the companies who owned all the big manufacturing in the late 20th century outsourced all of that labor to Asia.

If people who live there have a higher-than-average distrust of big corporate bullshit, it's an effect of being abandoned by them, not the cause of it.

This could be a really funny comment in 5 years if the plagiarism generators actually worked.

You could be out of a job with as little control of the whole situation as those rustbeltians you have such disregard for.

NAFTA and globalism killed the rustbelt. The refusal of auto plant Larry to learn Java didn’t.

When you ship off a persons job in mass this is what happens.

> You could be out of a job with as little control of the whole situation as those rustbeltians you have such disregard for.

I'll admit I was a bit angry and offended when I first read this. Did you miss the part about how horribly this has affected my friends, family, and neighbors? I say this expressly out of concern and literal, actual love.

Where do you live?

> NAFTA and globalism killed the rustbelt.

As I said in my other reply the generation before this one also outright dismissed the ability for Mexico, China, etc to take their jobs. In any case it certainly wasn't prevented.

> The refusal of auto plant Larry to learn Java didn’t.

Again, as I said in my other reply what little manufacturing is left is a fraction of the jobs with a completely different skill set - CNC programming, etc. While you're off on Java because (frankly) you don't know what you're talking about it's pretty much exactly this.

> While you're off on Java

I think OP referenced Java because it was the hot language of the 90s/early 2000s that people would harp on about studying.

Sort of like how people nowadays go to bootcamps to study JavaScript and Python

I live in the Midwest. I don’t know what all your other reply’s to other people say.

I’m not sure what your point is substituting one language for another - you can’t take a guy who’s painted cars his whole life and retool him to “cnc programming” even if the lathes didn’t git moved with the rest of production. The c suite did hit their stock goals tho so at least that is good!

If you’re telling a blue collar worker who’s been laid off “adapt or die” then you have contempt for those very love ones you claim to sympathize with.

Frankly the fact that you expect everyone who lived around you to just up and reskill shows that even if you lived there, you did not understand the people you lived with. People are limited, flawed, and 50% of them are below average in most any stat you could come up with. Does that mean it's their fault when the legislators in Washington decide it's time for their industry to go bye-bye? To put it concretely, is the fair punishment for "being too slow to adapt to industry trends" the total destruction of their family and the communities which once supported it? You seem to think that if people just swallowed their fear and dove in head-first, things would be OK. But in reality, the people who can, generally -do-: it is the people who don't think they have a chance at reskilling who are the most afraid, and are the most likely to lash out against the possibility of it happening. Because if it does, what are they going to do? Not every press operator can turn into a CAM engineer, there just aren't enough roles. Destitution was prearranged for the large majority of them.

This is the economic system you and others choose to support, by your rhetoric if nothing else. The purpose of a system is what it does &c &c

Or they have developed a good filter for BS marketing. The markets can adapt also.

> Or they have developed a good filter for BS marketing.

Maybe. Or (maybe) yelling at the TV is a lot easier (and more visceral) than thinking "Hmm, this whole AI thing just might work out. Maybe I should treat the threat seriously this time just like my dad should have with the Chinese, robots, etc". As I said in my other reply it's generally not a good idea to outright dismiss what is even in the early stages a pretty clear potential threat to your livelihood.

> The markets can adapt also.

This can mean nearly anything and I'm not sure what you're trying to communicate in this context.

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