> Uh it might be normal for some. And by some I mean highly skilled unionized workers.

Some clarification.

I do blue collar and white collar work myself. Not in America, not a member of a union. I don't think most blue collar workers I know are in unions, maybe some of the electricians but that is probably it. I don't think they need one either, it is a kind of hold-over.

I code (for my projects, some of which spin money as well as independent work) and also do things like cleaning, plastering etc. I make a good deal more money this way in my situation.

For the sake of a comparison, I usually earn at least $30-40 per hour in blue collar activity, often more, but the payments for code tend to be highly variable. I prefer to choose jobs I find personally enjoyable or those with objectives I support, which is a freedom I value a lot. I probably make about the same or less if you averaged out everything, but it is not entirely about economics.

I also don't like to make a sharp distinction between the different things I do for a living. I think that is a old fashioned way of thinking. I've gotten software work from blue collar jobs and blue collar jobs from software work I've done. I actually think the pay is higher this way.

> Let's not forget the millions of blue collar workers who had their jobs disappear overnight in the past 15 years. Many of these people showed loyalty to their employers for spans of several decades. Of course, loyalty plays no role in the calculus of capitalism.

We should make a distinction between factory labour (which I agree has had serious job reductions over time) and the trades, which have done quite well over time and are relatively prosperous in real terms. I think this is also true in the USA judging from what I've heard.

> You think a kid should aspire to a blue collar job right after an entire generation of blue collar workers were laid off at the stroke of a pen? Right when every other post on the front page of HN carries foreboding of an automation job-pocalypse just a decade after an outsourcing job-pocalypse?

I have a computer science degree from a red brick university. I think I know about automation and AI. I have read Norvig/Russell's book from cover to cover a couple of times.

It is like this:

If your job is very routine, it was or is being automated by machines with an extreme division of labour.

That is the history of the past few centuries.

If your job is routine and information-centric, then it was or is being automated by computer programmers like myself.

That is the history of the past few decades.

If however your job falls into three categories:

1. Information-centric and novel. e.g. starting your own company with software skills, or even a job in the entertainment industry.

2. People-centric jobs, like being a host, gym trainer or prostitute.

3. Skilled labour. Skilled labour is almost always novel. Tadelakt finishes or custom cabinetry is not about to be automated.

You know why? Because people want authenticity. It is like the economy of the neo-victorians in The Diamond Age.

People who buy furniture from IKEA are not the rich of society.

Machine made = stuff normal people can buy = not elite = not fashionable. Machine production is too orderly, too linear.

This is not theoretical. I've ordered a bunch of jobs done that I could have gotten cheaper if I chose the automated option but I don't want to. This is a phenomenon I see everywhere.

> You're a maniac. Anyone capable of evaluating these options with an ounce of foresight is going to take the gamble on college and make a desperate debt-ridden attempt to scramble to the top of the knowledge economy. The only economy that isn't demonstrably under threat.

We just don't see the same world.

In fact it is much worse than you think, because I don't even agree our society is becoming more technologically advanced.

It is in computation, and computation related fields. Which is a lot. But it is not everything. Energy prices are exponentially higher than they were in the 1970s.

Silicon Valley is not powerful enough to lift up the entire economy. Not even close!

Ex-computation, there has been very little technological growth for the last few decades. There's a few bright spots, like fracking and solar but huge parts of the economy have not seen technological or economic progress for half a lifetime.

You can think I'm a manic if you want, but Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Larry Summers and Larry Page all agree with me on this.

An Edit: Just to be clear. We probably agree wages are stuck for the average person (look at my other posts), and that opportunities are dimming. The difference is that you believe automation to be the cause, but I am saying the exact opposite, that it is actually a lack of general development that is causing joblessness and wage stagnation. One of us has to be wrong!