The last time my family was replaced by technology

Author here! Thanks for all the comments. This post isn't meant as a lesson or a judgment, something to tell "just shut up and adapt like my ancestor did". The situation is hard, and I wasn't trying to dismiss anyone's anxiety. No one wants to hear "you'll be fine" when something bad just happened. It's mostly a personal story. You can see it as a kind of tribute to a great-great-grandfather I never met, partly because I'd never heard a story like it before. It's banal but still a big adventure in the family. I find it fascinating that he grew up in a completely different world from mine and still felt some of the same doubts and anxieties I do today. And I'm really proud of him, because his "pivot" let my family stay in the village instead of maybe leaving to work in factories in the city. My father loved his job, and in a way that's thanks to him.

There is a quote from a CGP Grey video from a bit over a decade ago, "There isn't a rule of economics that says better technology makes more, better jobs for horses. It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud, but swap horses for humans and suddenly people think it sounds about right." [1] A couple hundred years ago, something like 70% of the population worked in agriculture. Technology replaced almost all of these jobs. So far, we have reimagined old professions and created brand new ones. Is this ability of ours limitless? [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMFj75kBQlU

Have any of these articles actually addressed HOW software developers are supposed to retrain for good jobs? Personally I have neither the money nor the years to go back to college to get a livable job.

Other than Uber and Uber eats, I can’t imagine myself doing anything other than those. I might get a security guard certificate and guard empty halls during the night, which quite suits me. Not a handyman, not suitable for physical jobs, I think I’m cooked! This is the fear that is always on my head.

I’ve been coding for over 20 years. I may not be the perfect coder, but for me, the real goal has always been solving problems and coding is just a side effect. If I could solve an operational problem with Excel, I would! Code, once created, is a liability I have to carry. So I’m embracing AI-assisted coding with open arms. It’s not that I don’t enjoy coding. it’s that this approach lets me solve problems faster than ever before.