[baron816]

A key feature of “late stage capitalism” is that people move up the value chain, stop doing menial labor, and find better, more fulfilling jobs that don’t involve putting boxes in other boxes.

[rob74]

In the past, this has meant that people who had manufacturing jobs (i.e. producing something tangible that they could conceivably be proud of doing right) were moved to service jobs like call center operators, delivery workers, Uber drivers, Amazon warehouse workers etc. etc. Not really a step up, I would say. And in the foreseeable future all these jobs (and also some better qualified ones) will be replaced by robots - probably the most dangerous and least fulfilling of them, like delivery workers, will be replaced last. Yay, progress!

[baron816]

Have you ever worked in a manufacturing job? Surveys have shown that people are much happier, on average, with their service jobs than they were in the past when manufacturing was more prevalent. That's because factory work involves doing dangerous, repetitive, mind numbing work in a loud, often overcrowded, odorous, and hot space. It's a meme that everyone wants to bring back manufacturing jobs, but no one actually wants to work in manufacturing. People want cozy office jobs.

[netdevphoenix]

You can't move up without training. Training costs money and time which is something most people lack

[thewebguyd]

Or aptitude. Not everyone is suited to work like electrical engineering to build the robots, or software development to make the software for them. Computer Science and Engineering is hard, and there’s a lot of folk that just won’t excel in that type of work.

We’re going to hit a point where we need UBI, and as a society, be OK changing our views on existence and dispel the notion that one has to “earn” their right to exist within society, because the only other alternative is the top few percentage are the only ones that benefit from the automation while everyone else starves to death.

[Arainach]

s/feature/illusory promise/