Hacker News Reader

Comment by ap99 | Hacker News Reader

This argument has been used against every new technology since forever.

And the initial gut reaction is to resist by organizing labor.

Companies that succumb to organized labor get locked into that speed of operating. New companies get created that adopt 'the new thing' and blow old companies away.

Repeat.

View on HN

> And the initial gut reaction is to resist by organizing labor.

Yeah like tech workers have similar rights to union workers. We literally have 0 power compared to any previous group of workers. Organizing of labour cant even happen in tech as tech has large percentage of immigrant labour who have even less rights than citizens.

Also there is no shared pain like union workers had, we all have been given different incentives, working under different corporations so without shared pain its impossible to organize. AI is the first shared pain we had, and even this caused no resistance from tech workers. Resistance has come from the users, which is the first good sign. Consumers have shown more ethics than workers and we have to applaud that. Any resistance to buying chatbot subscriptions has to be celebrated.

Labor organizing is (obviously) banned on HackerNews.

This isn't the place to kvetch about this; you will literally never see a unionization effort on this website because the accounts of the people posting about it will be [flagged] and shadowbanned.

I'm curious as to what previous group you're comparing yourself (and the rest of us) to.

I'm also curious as to what you do, where you do it, and who you work for that makes you feel like you have zero power.

Just a regular senior SDE at one of the Mag7. I can tell you everyone at these companies is replaceable within a day. Even within an hour. Even the head of depts have no power above them, they can be fired on short notice.

What would your version of fair balance of power look like?

This website is literally a place for capitalists (mostly temporarily embarrassed) to brag about how they're going to cheat and scam their way to the top.

So race to the bottom where you work more and make less per unit of work? Great deal, splendid idea.

The only winners here are CEOs/founders who make obscene money, liquidate/retire early while suckers are on the infinite treadmill justifying their existence.

You're describing all technological advances.

I can harvest crops by hand, but a machine can do it 100x faster. I'm not paid 100x though so it's a bad deal - destroy the machines.

The real advantage now that code is cheaper to write is who can imagine the best product.

I'm happy to compete at that level.

Thank you for proving the point for me. Productivity goes up, 70% of people are fired and salary barely grows up. Amazing deal.

https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/publica...

> The real advantage now that code is cheaper to write is who can imagine the best product. I'm happy to compete at that level.

I’d probably be as happy as you, if I had such big ego.

Maybe society shouldnt be optimising for that.

Do you like working 8 hours a day instead of 12? 5 days a week instead of 7? You can thank organized labor.

Those same jobs are no where to be found in the places that the organized labor started.

It moved outside the US.

because of a concerted effort to break labor power… you’re making my point.

So your solution is to temporarily make big $$$ until the capitalists move overseas?

What is wrong with a the status quo? A competitive market that keeps labor here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com