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Comment by typeofhuman | Hacker News Reader

Yep. The blue collar workers of the US get demeaned and mocked at a large scale in the US. They are the functioning backbone of our country and without them everything stops.

They're asking for a reasonable salary and limits on automation. Seems reasonable on the surface.

It's striking to see this event juxtaposed with the college-class demanding student loan bailouts for their worthless degrees.

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Longshoreman is not a typical blue collar job. You cannot just go out and become one today. It is a nepotistic profession where positions are passed within families and closely guarded from external competition. Go read The Box. It outlines all of this in the later chapters.

Limits on automation do not seem reasonable to me.

That tends to be the common reaction amongst SW developers who's jobs revolved around automating away other jobs or developing SW products that help employers monitor and squeeze more "efficiently" out of their workers, but wait util some form of automation or workplace surveillance threatens your own job, then you'll start to empathize.

Software developers’ jobs have been automated and outsourced for many decades. It just so happens that demand for more software has kept up.

Where will this explosive growth in SW keep coming from next? How many more music streaming apps does the market have room for? How many food delivery and ride sharing apps does the market have room for? How many more social networks and dating apps does the market have room for? How many more digital payment processors, stock and crypto trading platforms does the market have room for?

Just like with every job in history, the demand for SW jobs can't continue at the same high rate indefinitely, eventually you'll run out of things to digitize and monetize by moving to the internet/AppStore while also having too many candidates in the industry.

What then?

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