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Comment by jl6 | Hacker News Reader

It’s a disservice to the public to assume they aren’t capable of understanding why AI job losses might be concerning even if they aren’t directly impacted. Most people aren’t so committed to class warfare that they will root for the apocalypse as long as it stomps a rich guy first.

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You mean poor person. As long as it stomps a poor person. The rich don’t have a habit of getting stomped. They direct other poor people to stomp their contemporaries. The poor don’t have a chance.

I don't think a lot of people realize how few people are "rich" in the sense of not being impacted by the labor market, or how virtually all of them are retirees. CFOs aren't looking forward to a massive shift in the labor market for accountants any more than CPAs. Warren Buffet has a "job," he writes those letters for BH and oversees the firm's investments at a high level... and most of the people who live off of investments have children in the workforce. Even most people whose children live off of their investments have kids in the (nonprofit) workforce.

Software engineers and grocery store workers are in different income brackets, but in the same class (labor/prolaterian). It is managers, executives, and investors that are in the capitalist class. Class is determined by your relationship to production.

Software engineer salaries and stock compensation can be enough to shift alignment somewhat, especially after many years of capital accumulation.

if you make the majority of your earnings from passive income or you do not need to work to live you are more part of the leisure class

Two things: capitalists don't not work; and if you have a sizeable portfolio, you may not need to work and may earn plenty of passive income, yet still work because you add more value at the margin working than fiddling with stock allocations or angel investing or whatnot (vs index funds etc.).

It's easy to get a capitalist to come out of retirement. Most of the time you just have to ask them to take a look at your business. Before you know it they accept a board position and shortly thereafter they are running point as President.

For an illustrated example, you can watch Succession

I’ve switched from manager to IC and vice-versa a few times at FAANG. Didn’t strike me as moving between the capitalist and proletariat classes, lol!

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