> This is not just an economic crisis but also a crisis of meaning. The mines and factories provided stable, decently paying jobs. People could feel they had a place in the world and see a future for their children. Now what?

Exactly! When people don't see a future they either despair (ie. Hit the bottle or meth) or rage (ie. Political polarization and extremism).

> I fear that the college-graduate white-collar work that has provided meaning, stability, and economic sustenance for most of us on this site is headed for a similar pass with AI

Already started happening in certain segments of tech. If you work in Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, or Cloud the talent base across the board doesn't exist in the US anymore - it's mostly in Israel and India now.

Similar shifts are going to happen over the next few years now that

1. Plenty of US trained and educated H1Bs are forced to return to India and China

2. Remote work is normalized

3. Colleges don't teach much aside from leetcode and some fullstack development now.

Accounting, back office, marketing, communications, and administrative roles have already been outsourced or automated