Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

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> Just look at the lack of non-college work in the US that pays a living wage.

A problem that doesn't exist. Plenty of that work out there.

Try to get a custom 3-phase power line run in the datacenter. Average age of electricians is about 55 around here. Nobody goes into the trades because the trades will "destroy your body before you're 35" yet all the thin healthy tradesmen around here are mid-50s boomers. Hmm. The union local total compensation package for mere journeymen is a hair over $65/hr because of mandatory health care and retirement extras that most people can only dream of, but even the takehome pay alone is still over $45/hr. On one hand that's only about twice what you'd get for emptying trash cans at Costco. On the other hand, you don't have to empty trash cans at costco AND you get a cooler more interesting job. Either way that power line isn't going to install itself.

The real mystery is all it takes to be an electrician is ambition, low time preference, agency, self discipline, motivation, concentration and study, and especially staying away from drugs, so how do you find people like that in a culture that glorifies the opposite and vilifies those values? Well, you don't ... thus they end up very unsuccessful in life and my power line ends up not installed.

If doing what you are told leaves you unsuccessful, maybe time to start distrusting those people when they give life advice. That's going to be the real turmoil and rebellion point in the next decade. "We were promised all our lives that self destructive behavior and self destructive beliefs would lead to a pleasant mirage."

Or maybe that the majority that possess those traits go into other higher paying jobs that also require those traits. Starting around here for electricians is closer to $25-35. If you are concentrating and studying the NEC, you could alternatively study to be a dev and make more.

Union elections in the bay area rake in about 140k/year after 5 years on the job. Highly competitive, but no college required.

That's in a HCOL and about half the starting salary of a FAANG dev, probably about the same as starting for a non-FAANG dev in that area, right?

If I could be reasonably expected to make that in my area (Philly region), then that sounds great and is substantially more than I make as a dev.

That sounds about right.

Im not saying it is the best job in the region, just demonstrate that blue collar jobs can still provide a comfortable living with such salaries.

I would expect it to scale by regional COL.

And this is perhaps the issue, people compare expectations against 'best' much more than they did in the past, because of all the (soc)media pushing it at them.

>especially staying away from drugs

We know very different electricians ;). But seriously, I wonder how much of the 'conservatives are uneducated!' trope that gets thrown around in conversations like this is due to conservatives in high school placing a higher value on providing for a family, doing the math, and consequently getting into the trades rather than university.

> Nobody goes into the trades because the trades will "destroy your body before you're 35" yet all the thin healthy tradesmen around here are mid-50s boomers.

I just wanted to point out that this is quite literally textbook survivorship bias. Instead of looking around and talking to the people that made it that far, you should try talking to those that didn't.

To be fair, I feel that the sedentary lifestyle of being a dev is just as damaging. Heart surgery vs joint replacement basically.

You can't replace your back.

And if you become obese from a sedentary job, it is easy to herniate the disks in your back doing ordinary things.

People doing manual labor are just as obese as us office workers.

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