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I don’t really buy the second half of this at all. It obviously doesn’t generalize very well. Is it bad if there are fewer coal miners in the future as a result of modernization? bsky.app/profile/euge...

Eugene Vinitsky 🍒@eugenevinitsky.bsky.social

To take an example, it is unequivocally a good thing that we now have 700+ new proofs of interesting things. It is bad if there are fewer mathematicians in the future as a consequence (though of course there might be more instead somehow)

7/10/26, 8:42 pm0 reposts0 likes

EmNudge

@emnudge.dev

to be clear - I don’t think it’s likely or even good, but it’s certainly not obvious if it’s correct. Why is it valuable to preserve an occupation outside of its merits? Is it just longing for an experience made unavailable? Like seeing the extinction of particular merchant or craftsman?

EmNudge

@emnudge.dev

The biggest harm (imo) is in how quickly these things happen. The biggest risk to a miner losing their job is loss of income and purpose. If they immediately got a fulfilling well paid job, I doubt there’d be much backlash

Paul

@paulbgd.bsky.social

We don’t need to mine coal but we do need to continue maths, and there are surely benefits to having people who understand the maths. Modernization (not replacement like coal mining) has always left people in the chain of knowing, like how there’s still programmers who write assembly

EmNudge

@emnudge.dev

presumably the force that causes there to be fewer mathematicIans here is also a modernizing force that makes the occupation less important. That is, if it were true (not that it is), it would be good. The loss is not bad on its own. You need to imply that it’s bad and that’s just circular.

EmNudge

@emnudge.dev

Arguing “loss of X is bad” here cannot stand on its own, is not obvious, and certainly doesn’t generalize.