> Any unemployment from automation has to be preceded by a large gain in productivity
This is what he's arguing isn't true. Layoffs can happen for many reasons. It's actually not intuitive that an increase in productivity would lead to layoffs, which to me increases the chance that recent tech layoffs are narrative obfuscations of real belt-tightening.
Shoemakers could be put out of work by a barefoot running fad. If the fad doesn't make sense, demand will return reasonably quickly, but the narrative may already have killed the shoe making industry, making it very difficult for supply to keep up until people un-re-skill to get back into the industry. Same with AI. We're being told that software development is dead. Who wants to get a college degree to go into a dead industry? What skilled developer would rather not just quit than be told he's worthless by delusional management? Productive technology is not a necessary condition for suppression of demand for skilled labor.
hodlbod
npub1jl…jynqn
2026-06-01 17:11:29 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…yaa3
Author Public Key
npub1jlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qdjynqnPublished at
2026-06-01 17:11:29 UTCEvent JSON
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