The problem with such a system is that a large segment of the population are not educated pros.
I have serious doubts that anyone on this forum has an IQ less than 100.
But, by definition half of the population does.
The jobs that have by and large been exported and eliminated by automation have been the very menial jobs that were filled by that segment of the population.
Which is better, putting bolt 'A' into hole 'B' of widget 'C' 40 hours a week, or flipping burgers at a burger joint?
It's always nice to have someone tell me I must have a menial education and perhaps IQ since my career was largely moved offshore. I was a very devoted electronic engineering technician for most of 20 years, and a hardcore audio engineering hobbyist since I was in grade school. Within 2 years of graduating college, I was assisting some of the best engineers in the digital video engineering community internationally at Tektronix. Later on I was assisting 4-5 top engineers in cinema products engineering at Dolby Labs. After the 3rd layoff, and knowing what trends were going to win, I went back to college and got a Paralegal degree, only to find out that there were 300 experienced Paralegals here in Portland OR who can't find work. I had no experience in law. I could never even find an internship, where I would be working for free. Now I design and build high end guitar amps and hi-fi speakers and signal processors as a hobby. I'd start a business around that if the government hadn't created this competition with offshore labor rates thing. Reagan opened the borders for free trade in 1982 without leveling the playfield, and I've been watching layoffs in the thousands on a regular basis ever since. Now I'm 57. Who is going to hire me at that age? So I guess I'm just a loser who deserves what I got. Thanks for pointing that out.
I don't know about the rest of the world but here in Australia having a high IQ is a not an asset. high moral and ethical standards are also an impediment; most employers want "YES" men who will simply do as they are told when they are told, even if the order is illegal or immoral.
When I think seriously about it all of my hippie mates who "opted out" in the 70s and early 80s made the right choice
When I think seriously about it all of my hippie mates who "opted out" in the 70s and early 80s made the right choice
I think,
In most companies just want yes men...The bottom line is they are making money and so everything else is of less interest.
An example of why some want to get out (retire).
This does go against the grain with moral people and they can have a stressful time trying to do a good job and please the employer who isn't interested in the fact that you may be putting people at risk, because its you that will get the come back if something goes wrong..(This could even be a jail term for breaking legislation) Money rules in any company..its quite sad..
Eg don't teach that we haven't got time..but its the required isolation system and they don't know it.." Just do as your told or meet me in the office".
Regards
M. Gregg
In most companies just want yes men...The bottom line is they are making money and so everything else is of less interest.
An example of why some want to get out (retire).
This does go against the grain with moral people and they can have a stressful time trying to do a good job and please the employer who isn't interested in the fact that you may be putting people at risk, because its you that will get the come back if something goes wrong..(This could even be a jail term for breaking legislation) Money rules in any company..its quite sad..
Eg don't teach that we haven't got time..but its the required isolation system and they don't know it.." Just do as your told or meet me in the office".
Regards
M. Gregg
Eeeh, the ones I've met back then made their money travelling across Oz, shearing sheep and working chicken farms, bagging birds at night and getting paid by the feather, not the hour.
let me put it this way.
I have an audio system that most people would not afford here where I live. yes it does sound nice but it's far from what I'd choose if money wasn't a problem.
can you be sure that I'm happier (or use whatever word you want for this) than the guy listening through a boombox?
all I can say for now is that I've many times wondered if it's worth it. do I have a definite answer? no. but somehow the biggest enjoyment I've ever received from music has been at the time I was listening to a much cheaper system which sounded worse by all standards than the one I'm using now.
I have no idea. don't have the answers, maybe I never will.
even if it were so classic IQ tests don't tell a thing, best case they tell how good is one at math. I've never done a test myself but I guess I'm mediocre at best.
Bob (122) I was talking about the manufacturing base in the USA.
It started way before Regan. As far back as the 60s companies were trying to move manufacturing to Taiwan and other off shore countries.
Singer moved it's major sewing machine manufacturing to Mexico in the 70s only to see quality plummet and have to move back to the USA.
In the 1950s, the USA was the leading manufacturer in the world. That continued through the 60s, but started to turn in the 70s with the advent of high quality Japanese electronics, and later automobiles. (Japanese automobiles in the 60s were of very poor quality.).
By the late 70s (remember the gas shortage?) economic issues also took their tole on the US economy (and the rest of the industrialized nation s as well), but it was the accelerated move to offshore manufacturing that began to make a big impact with the loss of jobs for the labor base.
The declaration of a "Service Economy" as the solution to the loss of manufacturing jobs was a total farce as without a 'Goods" manufacturing base there are no jobs for the vast number of high school graduate (the percentage of students pursuing postgraduate degrees is roughly 60%. However, half those don't graduate. And of the ones that do graduate, half can't find a job in their field!
So we have 2/3 - 3/4 of HS graduates are either without professional training or trained in a profession where there are no jobs (history degree any one?), with very few manufacturing jobs available.
What do they do, Flip burgers, Stock shelves at Wal Mart?
This is our Service Economy!
http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf
Numbers vary, but most sites I looked at report similar results to this study.
It started way before Regan. As far back as the 60s companies were trying to move manufacturing to Taiwan and other off shore countries.
Singer moved it's major sewing machine manufacturing to Mexico in the 70s only to see quality plummet and have to move back to the USA.
In the 1950s, the USA was the leading manufacturer in the world. That continued through the 60s, but started to turn in the 70s with the advent of high quality Japanese electronics, and later automobiles. (Japanese automobiles in the 60s were of very poor quality.).
By the late 70s (remember the gas shortage?) economic issues also took their tole on the US economy (and the rest of the industrialized nation s as well), but it was the accelerated move to offshore manufacturing that began to make a big impact with the loss of jobs for the labor base.
The declaration of a "Service Economy" as the solution to the loss of manufacturing jobs was a total farce as without a 'Goods" manufacturing base there are no jobs for the vast number of high school graduate (the percentage of students pursuing postgraduate degrees is roughly 60%. However, half those don't graduate. And of the ones that do graduate, half can't find a job in their field!
So we have 2/3 - 3/4 of HS graduates are either without professional training or trained in a profession where there are no jobs (history degree any one?), with very few manufacturing jobs available.
What do they do, Flip burgers, Stock shelves at Wal Mart?
This is our Service Economy!
http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf
Numbers vary, but most sites I looked at report similar results to this study.
One big problem I see is the failure of higher education to keep up with the changing world.
Most colleges still push liberal arts degrees as if this was 1912, even though they know the degree does not prepare students for employment any more. Most parents want their kids to get a college degree without understanding the ramifications. They have bought the story that a college education will ensure their children are better off than they are. While true in the 1950s and 1960s, this is no longer true.
Certainly we need general education degrees for teachers, but we graduate more people with degrees in education than there are jobs.
I suspect the liberal arts college system is simply perpetuating itself at a great cost to society.
I'm not sure what the solution is since it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a resurgence in manufacturing in the USA.
We certainly could use more engineers and scientist, but there is a limit to jobs available in pure science and engineering.
I just don't see a service economy as any solution to the loss of manufacturing of durable goods, but none of the politicians has anything but lip service to the problem.
Most colleges still push liberal arts degrees as if this was 1912, even though they know the degree does not prepare students for employment any more. Most parents want their kids to get a college degree without understanding the ramifications. They have bought the story that a college education will ensure their children are better off than they are. While true in the 1950s and 1960s, this is no longer true.
Certainly we need general education degrees for teachers, but we graduate more people with degrees in education than there are jobs.
I suspect the liberal arts college system is simply perpetuating itself at a great cost to society.
I'm not sure what the solution is since it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a resurgence in manufacturing in the USA.
We certainly could use more engineers and scientist, but there is a limit to jobs available in pure science and engineering.
I just don't see a service economy as any solution to the loss of manufacturing of durable goods, but none of the politicians has anything but lip service to the problem.
Liberal arts degrees are valuable for higher degrees like law and business. They teach people how to think critically and objectively. They educate the human side of people, which is sorely needed now. We have a bunch of immature idiots trying to make moral and ethical decisions in areas like law and politics. These folks clearly have no capacity for rational thought as taught by a good liberal arts degree.
Otherwise, just go to a trade school.
Otherwise, just go to a trade school.
this was written by DF96 in another thread, I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him:
We need to revive the technical colleges which teach practical engineering, as well as the universities teaching the hard theory properly. Instead, we make everyone get a 'degree' with just enough maths to confuse them but not enough to be really useful.
There are very few people who actually need to know any math beyond basic stuff. The standards now in the U.S. are to have all high school students know algebra, but some have great difficulty with that. Very few people actually use algebra in real life. It's not necessary.
Students have become "intellectual capital" and that's just wrong. They are human beings first, workers second. Education is supposed to be about the whole person, not just some narrow technical aspect. All this blather about the U.S. being behind the world is just stupid in my opinion. We've long lost the human aspect of education and thus we are fast on the road to fascism through the mechanization and regimentation of society. The idea that a free people are subjected to strict regimentation is absurd in my opinion. We are a free people first!
Students have become "intellectual capital" and that's just wrong. They are human beings first, workers second. Education is supposed to be about the whole person, not just some narrow technical aspect. All this blather about the U.S. being behind the world is just stupid in my opinion. We've long lost the human aspect of education and thus we are fast on the road to fascism through the mechanization and regimentation of society. The idea that a free people are subjected to strict regimentation is absurd in my opinion. We are a free people first!
Thats a very interesting comment..
Are we free people? Its the needs of the person and the wants of the people that keep us tied to a working environment..However without that need there would be no industry, no jobs and no retirement..
Here is another example..how can you own a piece of the earth (land) you buy it from someone who owns it before you? go back until there was someone who said this is mine..I have taken possesion of it...We own something that we can't theoretically own.. we create our own reality.
And everyone is sweept along with it..we have very little choice..
Regards
M. Greggch
Are we free people? Its the needs of the person and the wants of the people that keep us tied to a working environment..However without that need there would be no industry, no jobs and no retirement..
Here is another example..how can you own a piece of the earth (land) you buy it from someone who owns it before you? go back until there was someone who said this is mine..I have taken possesion of it...We own something that we can't theoretically own.. we create our own reality.
And everyone is sweept along with it..we have very little choice..
Regards
M. Greggch
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that was exactly DF96's point. and it seems to happen everywhere around the world.
it's basically let's make everyone learn algebra, without thinking whether they want it, need it or use it. it'd be ok if algebra grew on trees but teaching it actually costs money.
where I live we learn differential calculus in 11th grade and integral calculus in 12th. and some introduction in quantum mechanics, not so basic organic chemistry and whatnot.
I've been active in engineering (misc fields) since I graduated 10 years ago but I couldn't remember what a covalent single bond is if my life depended on it, I'm surprised I even remember the term.
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