Hacker News Reader

Comment by elchief | Hacker News Reader

25% of Americans were farmers 80 years ago. Now it's 1%.

Farming is actually a great example. There were farmers who did fight back against farm machinery. Sabotage of tractors and equipment was an actual thing here in the US and abroad. You can even find whole groups of anti-tractor types in the American Amish country.

These days it's sabotage against GMO crops. You'll find Monsanto and other companies will place their GMO test fields in regions of the country known to be sympathetic and/or will keep them under armed guard.

The views of the Amish regarding technology have absolutely nothing to do with employment rates.

But yet everything to do with this topic. The Amish believe one must work in harmony with nature. Tractors as an example threaten this harmony. I'm just waiting for some religion somewhere to state that self-driving vehicles are the work of the devil, or a threat to the Protestant work ethic. There might even be some political aspects of this a they are a signal of the coming "liberal leisure society."

> The Amish believe one must work in harmony with nature.

I don't quite like that description either. I think it's more that they want to encourage interdependence within the community. They are not opposed to technology that they believe doesn't threaten that community dynamic.

80 years is a very long time. It's long enough for two or three generations to grow up, decide what they want to do for their career, notice their dad's career outlook doesn't seem to be on the rise, and go to work in a factory or office.

If the number of truck drivers goes down by 90% in the next 80 years, that would be fine. If it goes down by 90% in the next 8 years, then we'll have a lot of mis-trained ex-truck drivers out there, and that's nothing to scoff at.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics The Average age of current Truck Drivers is 51. Where is a guy, 14 years away from retirement who probably doesn't have a college degree going to go? I suppose he COULD get a loan, and try to get a degree, then pay off that loan and earn a living for another 10 years.

Farmers transitioning is a bad analogy. People live longer, require more education, and have less control over their work life if they aren't tech-savy.

I see 4 possibilities. We have an aging work population 65 and older working entry level skilled jobs to pay off college loans they got later in life. Or we have a larger "welfare" state, we have a better "public higher education" program, or we have more millennials taking care of their boomer parents because their parents couldn't find work, and social security hasn't kicked in yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com