Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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Equation comes from https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-...

In the US, currently, ~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US, ~400k/month, ~4.8M/year. 60k workers leaving Microsoft is a drop in the bucket, relatively speaking. But of course, they should still get as much support as possible via the packages they accept, and getting to retirement (Social Security and Medicare benefits) as pain free and least uncertainty as possible.

> Granted I know you are really talking about the local emotional effect but the granular net effect is worth the conversation too.

I vote for and support Democratic Socialist candidates, who would implement and maintain more humane and pro worker economic systems, I'm doing my part at system levels. But systems will take decades to change. It took decades to get here from Ronald Reagan and his policies. Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.

(and if you think there is a problem with corporate earnings vs what workers take home, again, that is a political and labor organizing problem to solve for)

St Louis Fed: US Wages Share of GDI at 75 Year Low - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238884 - October 2026

Pew Research: Many Americans Are Struggling to Afford Basic Necessities - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50197020 - October 2026

Gallup: A majority of Americans have low-quality jobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50195502 - October 2026

(i am once again asking to think in systems)

Listen I am not even 30 yet its a big deal when an industry leader reduces work force by 1/4. It absolutely number yeah no company ever really matters but in agrogate the little loses can be devistating for the people and the boarder economy. 4M Boomers retire is a problem if we cannot replace them and want the same set of services as before. Not nearly as many people are entering as leaving right now which makes wage pressure up but if there isn't people the business moves.

I don't really think DSA had much that would help the economy beside the basic mainstream democrat tastes. Democrats generally speaking want less monopolies, better healthcare insurance (mostly a public option) and reasonable taxation but the DSA takes things to 11 with just politically unviable rhetoric in my opinion. But most of all, I think the ideas from the DSA that work doesn't matter as long as people are taken care is likely to cost a lot people.

The Mechanic takes pride that he can fix stuff. The engineer takes pride that they can design a system. Doctors take pride that they are the reason people don't die. If you take away pride you harm a lot of people this is arguable what got the democrats (republicans voted for this too) where they are today in that they embraced Free Trade regardless of the cost. It created a rust belt that is brain washed into blaming Democrats for 100% of the harm. Fox news helps in accomplishing that that too but I think a lot of the DSA is steeped in that MAGA like style of never engage in what harms the ideology thinking and that spooks me away from that group agressively.

Enron saw 20k workers let go in 2001, Arthur Andersen saw 85k jobs evaporate when they collapsed in 2002. Yellow Corporation caused 30k union freight jobs to be lost when they failed in 2023. 33k Toys "R" Us workers lost their jobs when the company liquidated in 2017. These events happen, and the economy will carry on. Notably (and for comparison and counterexample purposes), the US. government bailout of General Motors (GM) in 2008 and 2009 saved an estimated 1.2M jobs (with up to 2.6M total jobs preserved across the broader auto industry and supplier network in 2009 alone), according to studies by the Center for Automotive Research. When we want to save a lot of jobs, we can when there is political will.

There are labor shortages throughout the developed world, due to structural demographics. This will not change in our lifetime due to global demographic trajectories. This will push wages up. This is good. Wages paid are shareholder returns not paid.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49713865 (citations)

Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49352811 - August 2026

The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866621 - August 2025 (400 comments)

The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival - https://www.suerf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/f_fa99ccdbe... - SUERF Policy Note, Issue No 197, October 2020

We agree to disagree on DSA policies. I want the Scandinavian model to protect people. IDGAF about profits, people first, full stop. Their support is very high amongst the under 35, and 2M 55+ voters age out every year. Progress is a function of time and electorate turnover. Old people with old ideas die out, and are replaced by young people with different ideas.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48781479 (citations in subthread)

Can you stop big companies from making these cuts? No, at least not without unions and laws to make it harder. So, in the short term, help these people land softly and in the long term, build better systems so that people who want to contribute have some place to from a place of economic security. That’s it’s. Feelings are irrelevant, only outcomes matter (imho).

> In the US, currently, ~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means...

Sure, from a raw numbers perspective it's a drop in the bucket. But not all numbers are created equal. How does the pay of these employees from Microsoft compare? You mention those of the baby boomer generation, but are all employees who may be leaving Microsoft of the same age range? What about their skillsets and the investments they and we as society of spent in their education? Those other factors matter quite a bit, so you can't just do a simple 1-1 analysis of "people".

> Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.

Why? Which evidence? I think more people could have more meaning if they were self-employed, were craftsmen or artisans, and such, but this nihilistic viewpoint (which is a hallmark of anti-social/authoritarian ideologies like DSA and others) not only doesn't reflect reality but seeks to belittle those who do in fact find meaning and joy in their work. I for one like my job and have liked most of the jobs I've had. Just because an organization no longer needs you, or you no longer need it, doesn't mean that the job all of a sudden "doesn't matter".

If people don't tie their identity to the thing they spend the most time doing what will they tie it to? Should a police officer or teacher not think of themselves through the lens of their chosen profession? When you ask a professor at your university do you want to work with one who doesn't tie themselves to their work or their research? Would you want to buy produce from a farmer who sort of doesn't care about the quality of the food they grow? Do you want to fly on an airplane built by people who think their job doesn't matter?

If the org can operate without you in the role, or without the role itself, the job does not matter. The human always matters, the job does not.

> If people don't tie their identity to the thing they spend the most time doing what will they tie it to? Should a police officer or teacher not think of themselves through the lens of their chosen profession? When you ask a professor at your university do you want to work with one who doesn't tie themselves to their work or their research? Would you want to buy produce from a farmer who sort of doesn't care about the quality of the food they grow? Do you want to fly on an airplane built by people who think their job doesn't matter?

Finding meaning in the human condition and experience I suppose. Is that in your job? I argue no, but everyone will find meaning in their own way, if they find it before death. If it is your job, and you are involuntarily retired, my condolences. I fly on Boeing equipment occasionally (not my choice), so I definitely fly on airplanes built by companies who think building good aircraft doesn't matter. I'm sure some people at Boeing care, but not enough to overcome institutional inertia of "bean counter idgaf".

Society, broadly speaking, runs on everyone doing just good enough in the aggregate to keep the system running. Some systems are better than others (Japan institutionalizing perfectionism, for example).

> If the org can operate without you in the role, or without the role itself, the job does not matter. The human always matters, the job does not.

Blueberries grow in the wild, ergo farmers don't matter.

> Finding meaning in the human condition and experience I suppose. Is that in your job? I argue no, but everyone will find meaning in their own way, if they find it before death.

So why are you prematurely defining what meaning should be for everyone? That's one of the problems with these authoritarian ideologies.

> I fly on Boeing equipment occasionally (not my choice), so I definitely fly on airplanes built by companies who think building good aircraft doesn't matter. I'm sure some people at Boeing care, but not enough to overcome institutional inertia of "bean counter idgaf".

I don't understand this at all. Clearly they care a lot or else these planes would be crashing and stuff. If you think they don't care and you're saying flying on the aircraft sucks because they don't care, then maybe they should care more about their jobs and then it would be a better experience, which sort of runs counter to your thesis here.

Look, I'm all in favor of fully automated (gay, space) luxury communism, but as long as work remains a major component of civil society, one of the few truly social institutions left, people will identify with it. Which makes it a problem that while a vocation needs to be lifelong to justify the time-investment of cultivating skill and experience, employment has become a rather short-term, feast-or-famine phenomenon.

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