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spongebobstoes | 1 month ago

are there examples of jobs going obsolete being a net harm to society, over a long time scale?

surely it's good to reduce the amount of menial labour being performed in the world

discuss

order

fragmede|1 month ago

Midwives were replaced by the male-dominated medical industry, which initially raised infant mortality, nevermind women losing autonomy over birth.

Night soil collectors were replaced by partial sewage systems, which resulted in cholera and typhoid outbreaks.

Local butchers were replaced by meat packing plants. The Jungle tells us why this didn't go so well either.

In all three of those cases, we rushed to an incomplete solution before it was fully ready. In this case though, no one's banning humans from driving cars anytime soon, so that part of it will go okay.

seanmcdirmid|1 month ago

The loss of manufacturing jobs and the movement of jobs in to services has been hard for the US, and is basically where MAGA came from, which I would say is a net harm to society. We wouldn't be arguing about Waymo right now if those Uber drivers had better jobs making things instead of being forced into gig work.