"Also just want to add that working in a physical job for 50 years is much better for your body than sitting at a desk for 50 years. "

The experience of my neighbors from an industrial city is 100 per cent opposite. Physical jobs tend to consist of endless repetitive tasks that put a huge strain on certain joints and sinews while leaving other parts of your body idle. And many physical jobs will expose you to health risks such as breathing dust.

All the miners, steel workers, construction workers etc. I knew had major problems with their joints around 35 years of age and none of them could continue to work in their original job after 50.

On the other hand, negative effects of sedentary work can be mostly compensated by not eating processed crap (to prevent obesity) and exercising moderately three or four times a week. Plenty of people do that.

Office work is also less deadly than physical work. Just look up the numbers. Hard to fall off the office chair to your death, not so hard to fall off the scaffolding to your death.

> physical job for 50 years

I think you’re envisioning jobs with high skill requirements or low demand, or a mix of both. Like landscaper for the town, or garbage truck operator.

Otherwise you’ll generally be met with a combination of RSI, hazardous product ingestion (dust, paint fumes, exhaust…), allergies, injuries, or sheer overwork.

Working a low wage low level physical job is more often than not closer to Amazon warehouse worker than artisans healthily exercising their bodies.

I just want to iterate that working an office job also carries with it its own health problems. Low physical activity from sitting all day, forward posture from sitting all day, RSI from typing and mouse movement, eye problems, overwork (Arguably more than labor jobs).

As someone that has worked digging ditches and carrying shingles up a ladder all day. I respectfully disagree. They are not remotely comparabe.

One doesn't exclude the other. All types of work-induced health problems are possible.

Exactly

All of those are super low risk compared to having your hand chopped off by something or a ton of bricks falling on your head.

In addition, office workers have the option of engaging in exercise during their off time to compensate for the sedentary aspect of desk work.

Yep and in optimal amounts, which is surprisingly little.

> RSI from typing

Most office jobs don't involve that much typing. You can also buy keyboards with softer switches. (RSI was more common in the days of mechanical typewriters.) Low physical acitivity can be made up for going to the gym after work.

It sounds to me you never did a day of manual labor in your life.

Well not to discredit your point but a day in the life off wouldn't really bring to life any of the points we're discussing when it comes to physical injuries. Without you picking at each of my points in detail, RSI is still an injury people STILL DO get nonetheless. In the same way that the introduction of the hard hat hasn't completely stopped people having their head caved in.

My point, was that both physical/labor intensive jobs and office jobs bring their own types of workplace related problems. And just because the job may carry with it a risk of physical injury doesn't mean the job should be automated. Afterall, any type of movement the body does carries with it a risk of injury.

IMHO, anything that not enough people can find interesting and engaging should be automated — injury risk is also a great reason to automate something. Of course, there is a cost involved, so we shouldn't expect any of it to happen overnight.

While your point is true that every profession has an injury risk, it's the type of comment that misses the point: there is a significant difference in those stats, and by trying to equate them, you are purposely watering down the significance of one where injuries are more prevalent (or at least harder).

It's a response similar in style to deflecting from attempts to solve one crisis by introducing another crisis.

> Also just want to add that working in a physical job for 50 years is much better for your body than sitting at a desk for 50 years.

This is a pipe dream of white collar who never did any actual, real, physical job for a very prolonged time. It's not like going to the gym for free or doing just the right amount of sport. It's something that stresses your joints and your muscles day in day out. Obviously you will partly get used to it and be "more fit" than a white collar but you will also develop back pain and joints pain.

>Also just want to add that working in a physical job for 50 years is much better for your body than sitting at a desk for 50 years.

Not for my carpet-fitting granddad. And it's not like he has a private pension. Desk job damage can mostly be undone by proper exercise: it takes surgery to fix knees.

This is completely untrue. Contrary to popular belief, sitting at a desk is extremely healthy in comparison to manual labour, which destroys your body over time.

Standing all day is also worse for your back than sitting all day. Even being a shop assistant is harder on your body, and particularly your back, than sitting at a desk. (Alternating, i.e. an office job with a sit/stand desk, is best.)

The primary issue is complete lack of inactivity (a large component just being weight gain), which you can combat by exercising outside of the office.