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The Case For Working With Your Hands
theodp writes "At a time when the question of what a good job looks like is wide open, a book excerpt in the NY Times magazine says it's time to take a fresh look at the trades. High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this a huge mistake? A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic instead of accumulating academic credentials is now viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive, complains Matthew Crawford, who took his University of Chicago PhD and opened a motorcycle repair shop. Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, 'You can't hammer a nail over the Internet' (never say never). Guess we all should have paid more attention to Nicholas Negroponte's landmark-in-retrospect Being Digital (ironically, no Kindle version)."
Ok, lets say I'm a plumber, you have a clogged toilet. You aren't going to call some guy from China who will fly out and meet you there. Same thing with electricians, roofers, carpenters, etc. Heck, even the more "manual" parts of computer sciences (computer repair, sysadmin, help desk) won't be outsourced because someone has to plug in the cable, change the RAM, swap out HDs, etc.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
A simple example......it used to be you could stop at a gas station and a couple of guys would come out, fill up your car, check your oil/water and clean your windshield. They didn't need a BA in business. What are these guys supposed to do now?
We're going to have to find a way for people to Not Work. Sooner or later nobody is going to have to. Eventually a robot will make a better burger than a person can make, et cetera. We have two possible futures ahead of us, the one where we're put into slavery and forced to work just to keep us busy, and the future where we find some new paradigm (sorry) in which it's not necessary for people to work all the time, or there are new things for them to work on.
Just think about what happens when all the cars go electric... automotive repair will be practically restricted to body, paint, and suspension work. What are all the people who fix cars now going to do? Especially since body and paint work are becoming niche applications over time; some of the newest designs for vehicles use space-frame engineering with plastic body panels and molded colors.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Please read the article.
While some people may be missing the 'elephant in the room', you sir, have missed the 'point of the article'.
Unfortunately, half the summary talked about job security giving a false impression. Job security was only a small part of the article, and in that regard, the jobs that were referenced were specialized, intellectual jobs. You will have 'grunt' workers in every profession. You can take anyone off the street and train them in a week for those positions. It could be construction work just as it could be data entry or answering phones.
The people he references in the article are experienced craftsmen who make difficult analysis and decisions based on subtle real world problems. Yet there is a stigma attached to those who do that while working on concrete, real world problems (eg: mechanics) when there is no such stigma on those who do exactly the same thing on less tangible problems (eg: IT professionals).
The main bulk of the article focuses on this stigma, but also covers a wide range including satisfaction by being able to see the direct effects of your labor.