> The ice-agers’ misfortunes contrast starkly with those of the generation that came just before. During the bubble years of the 1980s, companies hired voraciously.
> Everything changed as the bubble popped in the early 1990s. Japan’s rigid employment system made it hard to shed existing workers, so they cut hiring instead. The ratio of job openings to college applicants fell from nearly three at peak to below one by 2000.
> Many graduates who failed to secure regular jobs ended up in temporary or contract work. Japan’s labour market sharply distinguishes between regular workers, who enjoy strong legal protections and seniority-based pay rises, and irregular ones, who often do similar work for much less money and are the first to be laid off in downturns.
This is what skeptics are missing. The strongest answer to what AI has delivered to society so far is the new, fulfilling hobby of vibecoding. Their disparagement is like being skeptical of the routine, regular investment into iterative improvements in smartphone cameras purely on the basis that you can't pinpoint a specific lump of business process value. The vibecoding is the point. That's what people want and what they are willing to pay for.
People like OP have frivolously wasted large chunks of their life writing and maintaining open source code that no valuable businesses really care about, just because they have this dumb hobby of typing out code and thinking about logic. (I'm saying this tongue in cheek.) They, of all people, should be to understand the unlock that AI is for a large swath of humanity.
And it's not just because the agents execute faster than humans, it's primarily that they have lower friction to onboard and off board. In the past we needed a "standing army" (salaried, full time work). Again this is not about the soldiers in the army being bad of incompetent, those are excuses. The real reason is that it takes a lot to train and maintain a soldier. Bu t when we now have ephemeral agents which spin up and down as needed, then there is going to be a strong incentive to cut down on the salaried middle class.
Simultaenously platforms like Mercor which offer white collar task based gig work are on the rise.
The logic is that ordinary humans are becoming too expensive to maintain on a standing basis.
What I thought the post would be about is the dissolution of the White Collar Kitchen Brigade The kitchen is run by the Chef but it needs the Sous Chef, Line Cooks, Kitchen Hands to operate.
Many software engineers have made a good living acting as the sous chefs and line cooks underneath the rockstar chefs, but with AI companies are inclined to turn the whole kitchen over to the top dog and their AI crew and the ordinary human crew is slowly being churned out.
I'd like to dip my toes into more fully autonomous long running agentic coding but I'm put off by thinking through the 'right' way to have it all running. How are you running your agents? What do you do for sandboxing and cost control? How do you handle secrets? Etc.
This also points to a weakness in the product itself: it jumps to creating a solution without pushing for more info.
It's not exactly hard for humans in dispute to conjure up negative tones.
That's the problem, the story is saying he stopped focusing full-time on the business in order to make his own ends meet. It looks like the main innovation of the mediator generated deal is that it attempts to reconcile by drafting a way back in to 50/50 if he recommits. The starting 60/40 split is not that important.
> Increase your surface area for luck
I'd argue it's basically entirely this. The modern food environment is incredible (over)-stimulating. Food is ubiquitous and abundant, with a dizzying array of novel variations. Food cues enticing you to eat are ever present.
Being vegan has the accidental side effect of counteracting much of this. A lot of the built-up food infrastructure suddenly becomes non-existent.
Imagine. You're walking into a busy mall in a foreign country. On your left, there's a café advertising a variety of tempting pastries. Your sister told you about that cafe. She loves their cream cheese cake. To your right, the sizzling flames from a steakhouse grab your attention. Moving to another level, you spot an ice cream parlor showcasing a new flavor: Strawberry Daifuku. But all this has to wait, because you're heading straight for the ramen shop you've heard so much about. They're known for their amazing pork bone broth. It's why your foodie friends have chosen to meet up here.
Now if you were vegan, all of that is just ... gone. Possibly the foodie friends as well ;)
Non-vegans don't think about this but they recognize it subconsciously -- most non-vegans would balk at having to go vegan even for a short time, just due to the inconvenience alone.
Some of the aspects of the modern food environment come back when you figure out where to look of course, but even the even a savvy vegan consumer won't encounter the same level of choice, variety and catering and let's not forget cost-competitiveness that a modern omnivore experiences.
There have been many such cases.
Have you ever imagined something that disgusted you so much that you wished you could "bleach" the image out of your head?
E.g. if you read a detailed description of the kinds of things a facebook content moderator might have to look at, is it possible for those words to generate an image and for you to regret reading the description?
https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-fo...
Work permit conditions:
>Not marry a Singapore citizen or permanent resident in or outside Singapore without MOM's approval. This applies even after their Work Permits have expired, been cancelled or revoked.
>Not get pregnant or deliver a child in Singapore during the validity of their Work Permit unless they are already married to a Singapore citizen or permanent resident with MOM's approval. This applies even after their Work Permits have expired, been cancelled or revoked.
https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-fo...
>As an employer, you must send your female Work Permit holders for medical screening every 6 months. This medical examination screens for pregnancy and infectious diseases such as syphilis, HIV and tuberculosis.
Note how they prohibit marriage outside Singapore even after the permit expires. It's clear what it means. If you've ever had a work permit, you're marked as unfit until proven otherwise.
They call this "cache penetration" in China.
It's only a matter of time before certain governments start alpha-testing this type of technology in places like Xinjiang or Myanmar.