I think the point is that we need to be honest and transparent with ppl. We don't have enough good jobs to accommodate, and there won't be. The so called middle class positions is and will be shrinking and we have to face the fact.
What I mean is on macro perceptive, a good job should sustain a 'middle class' life style, let the ppl to afford housing, cars, children etc. And apparently by this standard, the percentage of good jobs are shrinking, and it's a global phenomena. Shrinking middle is not something I come up with. I just totally agree with it. Think about the good old days in America
We have increasing number of ppl getting higher educations, coupled with shrinking good job markets, the competitions to get good jobs is only more fierce by the day. Whatever the reason, the automation, the shifting economy, the depletion of resources, the fact doesn't change. The supply of university graduates just outpase the shrinking 'good middle class' job markets.
In the developed world there are so many industries that pay well screaming for more workers. Go on any job board and you can see this.
The problem is people get some random "lifestyle" degree (like in Classics say) and then say "why can't I get a job with this?". Maybe because the modern economy has very limited demand for archaeologists?
But if you learn virtually any trade, anything to do with IT, many forms of social work/healthcare, many parts of accounting/bookkeeping, then a middle class job is possible.
The problem is then you start getting all these qualifications to why that isn't the "right" job they want. Maybe you need to do physical work, or work outside, or work with computers/software, or work with numbers, or work somewhere dirty, or work outside a global city, or work with sick people, or join the military etc. And then suddenly it isn't a "good job" anymore.
Being a university graduate means so little these days because you can graduate in so many things that should basically be (or are) hobbies. There is no demand from customers, business, government for any of these "qualifications" so all people end up with is an inflated ego and debt.
You are talking about micro. I am talking about macro as I indicated in my first sentence. I am not interested in discussing anecdote. As someone who lives comfortably for now I can't imagine the new graduates are able to get a home, raising children. It's just too expensive. Majority of the ppl would live working poor no matter how much cost they cut.
Think about this simple question. Do you think the percentage of ppl are capable to become home owner are comparable to 50-60 years ago in America? Is the cost of living getting higher or lower?
But my point is the current macro economy, which includes BOTH supply and demand and ALL things considered. For example, the job market(current situation + forecast) relative to the amount the applications(current candidate pool + yearly growth), the cost of living(current situation + forecast), etc. I am not sure what your point is. I never solely talked about the job market. My central question is: is it easier or harder to get a good job to sustain a middle class compare to 50-60 years ago(from a macro economy perspective)? Sure everyone has a chance, is the chance higher or lower?
If you can't really tell what micro/macro mean, you should pick up those economy topics first. I am done trying to teach basic econ 101
The pool of available jobs open to people is very high if they are willing to train and do them. Cost of living has been lower on average than in recent memory (only recently has inflation begun to change this). Housing is the big exception but that is one aspect of the overall macro-economic picture.
As for your econ 101 comment: econ 101 IS MICROECONOMICS, you clown. 102 is macroeconomics. So pretty clear you are talking out your arse so no point trying to teach you the basics. .
My point is that I completely disagree with your article and that schools should focus more on teaching skills that are useful. Better to be a cog than nothing.
It's not my article but thanks for clarifying. In the future you can just say you disagree with the expressed viewpoint without reducing people to drug addicts to make some point about being a cog in an economic machine.
No, I'm going to speak up my mind in the future just as I did now. False promises and it's side effects was part of my point after all - and it was you who brought the cogs to the discussion.
Yes, thank you. Only a smart person like you could notice that. Once again, I can't thank you enough. Please keep up your efforts of informing people about what you think is useless drivel so that brains won't be harmed in the future.
Yes, computers these days can perform very sophisticated statistical calculation to simulate the appearance of intelligence. Very similar to some people that comment on HN. I'm not as smart as you so I often have a hard time telling the difference. Thanks again for your very informed viewpoint. I have learned a lot from these engagements.
Understanding code is a necessity in a technocratic society because as more and more things are automated understanding code becomes a necessity just like literacy. It's gotten to the point now that most people carry supercomputers in their pockets but instead of utilizing those computers to augment their intelligence for navigating the world people are absorbed in mindless consumption of algorithmic entertainment. This is not a sustainable state of affairs.
Keeping masses entertained has been an important feature of holding power in most past civilisations. It distracts them from taxation and elite corruption.
Which is why I said it's not sustainable. Sustaining democracies requires a citizenry who are more than just puppets controlled by the powerful. An obvious example is Twitter and social media in general. It's downright depressing to see so many people addicted to applications that have turned human interactions into engagement games just so the companies operating those interaction sandboxes can present ads for commercial activities to as many people as possible. The whole setup is outright anti-democratic and it wouldn't have happened if more people understood how computers worked and how they could utilize them to express themselves in less restricted ways.
You have it opaque.
Technology is for people not people for technology.
We want minimal, simple & easily understandable law. But the more law is created the more middleman control and bloat it.
The more technocrats you will have the more inhumane technocracy will become.
Nobody needs to understand code. The only entities that needs it are machines.
When you use a printer you need to know where to push print button not how printing was implemented.
You can't expect humanity to adjust to technology by force, especially knowing natural limitation of this. Next decade you will side with sterilisation of unfitting "modern civilization".
GDP flows & spreads in economy on all jobs shaping salaries.
If humanity do makes technological progress it means GDP do grows and so people with lowest salaries should gain buying power.
If they don't it's not their fault, it means something goes wrong with the progress that we all blindly assume is happening.
But since 1970 there is no progress on West.
There is a centralisation of global wealth scheme going on & we don't get natural replacement of those generations of civilization and progress builders as before. Middle class is literally being eradicated.
Mindless consumption is 99% of what people do in shops. Healthy human species proper diet food is 1% of products in shops. Most of stuff around is toxic & fake.
We don't need augmenting human intelligence. We need to build civilization for everyone & for humans.
Society is a pyramid.
Bottom produces top and achievements of top are co-owned by bottom from where they originate.
I agree fully with algoentertainment. But making whole society into mindless efficient machines will be the other extreme to go to.
Coding in itself is not normal natural human activity and the optimum for humans is what they evolved for in nature in their natural environment. Not observing matrix code.
Fixing eyes & natural vision, not augmenting it first.
Starting with true human food not replacing it.
Making humans drug free before drugging them for specific performance.
What people do is shaped by their (re)education, parenting, quality of their sources of information, choices surrounding them, their understanding of what a civilized human behaviour & ethics standard is, what their subjective self-assessment & habits let them become.
Big part of it is infosphere around them which they never consciously chosen to be exposed to.
Human don't even have a free will so how can he be fully responsible for "own" choices?
A physical ratcage in overcrowded concrete labirynth seems far from humane thing.
Digital escapism is like wrapping shit up in shiny paper of a magic pill to avoid facing true colours of modern reality & degredation of civilization.
We made enough progress to start reverting millennia long unnatural changes & mistakes, reinventing our optimal human state with technology & push the technology evolution in direction serving human true self.
Processing this basic truth gives a profound insights.
It's already publicly funded. Most research is funded by government subsidies and grants which are paid for by the general public through tax collection. If you want more open access journals then figure out why so much publicly funded research is locked up behind paywalls when it was already paid for by tax dollars.
I’m no cryptographer, but I would assume that a lot of the NSA’s clandestine tooling would fall under this. I don’t even want their private repos to exist. Maybe not any software.
There isn't one. Americans don't know how to reconcile their history of institutional racism with the current liberal understanding of what it means to live in a meritocratic society. This is mostly because Americans refuse to reify and deal with socioeconomic class structures that give certain groups in certain classes various advantages. Race is a red herring, the real distinctions are of socioeconomic class and legacy generational wealth inherited from racist policies.
As long as race is used as a stand-in for socioeconomic class nothing will change. The people that benefited from racist policies in the past continue to pass on those advantages to their descendants. This is particularly visible in educational institutions with legacy admissions. Groups that were disadvantaged continue to be disadvantaged because generational wealth is not something that can be "fixed" by re-balancing admissions across racial boundaries. The real problem isn't one's race but which bracket of the socioeconomic ladder one was born into.
This article overall is also kind sophomoric since it doesn't address any of the root causes of inequality and assumes race is the real issue.
When art is reduced to something that can be bought and sold then nothing stops someone with a lot of money and no cultural understanding from doing this. This is what capitalism gets you, a bunch of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
