I taught for a while... and here's what a lot of people miss. Education is a mass service. People often forget this.
You have exceptional people like Bill Gates and many 'smarter' people who think everyone is as interested and capable in learning as themselves. They're not. So most 'advanced' interesting educational initiatives flop in the real classroom. Oh believe me... we were always bombarded with all kinds of new strategies... you very quickly lose interest in these. At best, you can grab these kids, put them in an advanced class, and try these activities there. Unfortunately, educational politics seems to always be against this kind of 'advanced stream'.
You don't even need awesome teachers. I mean you can have an awesome teacher. Wonderful. But there are thousands upon thousands of classes. There is just no way to get awesome teachers in every classroom... anymore than you can get every engineer to be awesome. To design a 'mass service' like education, you really just need to focus the average.
It's amazing the lack of mass-service that infects the education system. Do people really think every grade 9 math class is teaching unique strategies for their kids? Give me a break. We always tell kids they're unique and special... try telling that to any teacher year after year. It seems the education profession has deluded themselves into believing their own crap:P They're all teaching the same damn thing. So why aren't the lesson plans available for everyone. heck, we should have the entire curriculum online like the Khan academy for all grades. You can't imagine the time this would save teachers from dilly dallying making up lesson plans. Oh there's plenty of sharing from past teacher... but this really should be available for everyone... I mean... it's paid for by tax dollar right?
This is really what education should be like in public schools. Most of the problems are not problems on the educational material. It's family problems, discipline problems...
What most people will find if they teach for a few years... is that teaching is fairly generic and repetitive. It's a mass service. You don't need excellent teachers. You just need good enough teachers. Where the money really needs to be spent is on the kids. Support workers, social services for families...
And yes... for the smart ass kids... get them into special classes if they're bored. I always gave mine a fair amount of leeway to work on side projects (since I taught computer science...)... but in many classes that really isn't doable. They need to be in another class.
Do you think that it cost $500 because there is a free market in health care products or because of insane government regulation and restrictions on market entry that make the device so costly?
this is assuming you have a guaranteed income... what this whole thread is about... so they don't need to work... they just use the guaranteed income.
This as i said, is why slavery was historically popular. You just need a small enslaved population to make the civilized areas do well.
Assuming we don't want slavery, someone is going to have to do what work.
and so job sharing becomes a much better option. Maybe we only need people to work 2 weeks a year on the farm.
It is more practical than trying to find one person to work the farm all year long, while the rest get the guaranteed income form the government and spend it all and get free food.
hence, the infeasible of the guaranteed income until robots can do everyhting.
when people talk of the guaranteed income... they mean... something that is enough to have a roof on your head and food your table, electricity... a decent life.
Most people are just not that greedy. Offer them this and they won't want to work. You also face money needs to be able to purchase things.
So what would you do with your extra money you earn at some job?
Can you eat out a lot with the money you earn in the mines? Well... that waiter is not working at the restaurant because they're on the guaranteed income. So the cost of eating out is high. So you're working in the mines, hard all day...for what? What would you really be able to purchase to make your life much better than someone on a guaranteed income that gives them a decent life?
Not really.. most of your service industry that makes money worth something would disappear if the service workers were able to get a guaranteed income.
The value of money in a guaranteed income system quickly disappears. It really becomes a kind of rationing system for housing/food/electricity...
Today, people work to earn a living. Then they expect a better life than most people if they work in something requiring skill or is really really hard.
The problem with the basic income is that all the work people *need* done is not work that is the high-level work people *want to do*
I'm an engineer. I'd probably still do it to an extent even if I was paid a basic income. Ditto for doctors, nurses, artists... we all might not work as hard... but these kinds of jobs will still get filled to some extent.
But the jobs that *need* doing. Who will go work in the mines? You know all the cool battery technology we develop... they need people to go mine various minerals. Who will work the farms? Who will sew clothes. Who will dissemble electronics for recycling......
We're just not there at a point where technology can take over these jobs.
This is actually why slavery used to be very popular. There is always a certain small portion of work that needs to be done. If only you had slaves, you could enhance the lives of the rest of your population quite significantly.
And so, I'm totally against a basic income. Rather, I advocate job sharing and lowering the cost of living. If we take mining as a good example. Maybe large numbers of people need to work 2 weeks a year mining or 3 weeks a year picking fruit on the farm.
Ditto for nurses, teachers
We job share as much as possible... even if it seems 'inefficient'. It will be fair... and avoids the slavery problem.
I fear the hard part will be the 'highly skilled jobs' We'll probably face financial problems trying to get highly specialized surgeons and the like financially motivated to work if they end up earning not that much more than the average joe.
Most important we have to get off the treadmill of inflation and growth. Government and banks are both dependent on it... while technology seems to be working towards making things cheaper... deflation.
oh you mean.. slide into poverty... as in work like the working class?
You mean... someone who is 'middle class' should just magically earn more than a waiter or warehouse worker or farm worker... because someone deems them a 'middle class' job.
If technology reduces the middle class job to have no more value... then why should a middle class job earn more than a farm worker? Wouldn't we be better off if all these middle class people worked on the farm producing food so that it wasn't such a degrading and hard job that only migrant workers want to do it?
Indeed technology assures us one important thing. That the middle class and working class will be merged into one working class. We're all really only worth minimum wage:P And I don't say that sarcastically.
It's absolutely true. True equality will be forced on the vast majority of workers. Of course what we typically define as a 'good' job typically means having a better job than someone else and being able to exploit their labor.
But technology will force equality instead of privilege on us.
I've been saying this for a while. I see Krugman is finally coming to a certain realization. What technology really allows is a small group of skilled workers to serve billions of people. You need a relatively small number of engineers to build a Hulu or youtube to serve the video interests of billions. Before, you employed lots of local people in every neighborhood at a blockbuster:P You only need a few Operating systems...
------- While all true in a totally free market system... we don't live in such a system. As we become more efficient in the private sector and production... this really means deflation.
And governments and banking are both inflationary systems... not deflationary. They also happen to the the forces in charge.
For example, as we automate more and more, we should theoretically, be able to allocate more people to be nurses, doctors, teachers... we would all be richer as a society. We would all 'get more stuff' and 'have better services'.
The problem is that we do not let the free market push labor in such a direction. The public sector expects to earn a premium over other people. This was fine if the autoworker made 80K... then the teacher can make 80k, and they can both exploit the labor of the restaurant worker making 25K.
When the autoworker is automated, the gap between the teacher and the restaurant worker must drop.
This is not allowed to happen.
Ideally, as we automate more... the 'public sector' jobs should begin job sharing as that is where the 'need' is... but it won't happen is public sector unions always expect pay increases and a premium position in society. They will never accept the deflationary aspect that technology guarantees. -----------
The reality that I'll emphasize is that everyone likes talking about equality... but everyone loves privilege.
People who have 'good' jobs only think they have 'good' jobs because they have a better job than someone else... which they can use to exploit that person's labor.
How easily do you think those who have privilege will give it up? It takes a lot... don't we still have a drug war so police officers, lawyers, prison guards can have positions of privilege?
The future of technology pretty much promises more income EQUALITY amount regular workers. That is the gap between regular workers (engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, waiters, warehouse workers...) must fall. The few companies that produce things for the world will be headed by a few rich executives... but understand they serve such a large number of people... that redistributing their wealth won't yield much.
So yes... job sharing is the key... but more important... you must first address a society's dependence on growth and inflation. As job sharing and everything we think makes sense will result in deflation.
"Unfortunately in the real world no one wants to accept responsibility for the consequences of their decisions."
That's kind of the big issue isn't it.
In the real world, justice needs to be done and things resolved.
If your building collapsed after hiring construction company X to do some work... you want to be compensated and move on with your life.
For all you know, it might have really just been a total accident. The worker was qualified and trained. Everything was on the up and up. Crap still happens.
Having a full blown institutional investigation is just not practical and hardly ever comes up with a 'this person or this group is to blame'. There's always lots of blame to go around. heck, you can really go on tangents. Maybe you should sue the government if the worker was operating a crane... and you think crane operators should be regulated and licensed if they're so dangerous.
Anyone who works probably faces the same kind of issue when projects fail. It's just not that practical.
And so our justice system does the only thing it can practically do to have a working society... it blames the whole institution.
Who would you hold accountable if something went wrong like that. You face the same kinds of issues any institution... even government faces.
Implementation is everything... and asking a court to decipher responsibility in an institution is extremely difficult.
Whose to blame? The individual worker? Their manager? The director? The CEO? The contractor?...
What if it was really just a worker screwing up... say a construction workers accidentally collapses a building and the victim gets a judgment of 5 million dollars. Do you expect the worker to pay this fine? Or would you expect the company to have insurance... thus holding the whole company responsible?
Ideally, individuals are held accountable... in a perfect world with perfect knowledge... that would be the case. In a practical world... it is much more difficult. By all means charge individuals if it can proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they were responsible or grossly negligent. The laws allows this. But in practice... this is very difficult to prove. But we do know the 'company' or 'institution' did something wrong.
There are many problems with our justice system and that all over the world... but on many big issues... things are far more complex when you look at the details of what they'd face on a day to day basis.
Yes, the computer world allows you to clone a car in good working order.
So, yes, you can be an ignorant car driver who doesn't change the oil, rear ends everyone, throws it in reverse while the car is in motion... but unlike real life... when the car stops working... you can very quickly... restore the car to a clone in good working order.
You're not paid to fix the car... you're paid to keep the service running. Two very different things.
At some point... it does become cheaper to just replace things... than fix them. This has happened in many fields. There used to be people called TV repairmen? Who does that anymore? You just buy a new one as the cost is less.
It's a perfectly valid thing to do. If there's something that keeps going wrong, then you call in an expert to figure it out. But for the average sys admin... restore image!
This is all part of automation which is very good. A good architect can setup the system, backup... and the average sys admin just restores. You only need a few of these expert architects. Heck, your company might not even employ them. They might just be consultants.
What most people fail to realize is that this is where professional schools come in.
When academics stop and the real job market begins.
In most other jobs of comparable skill, you have some kind of professional 'residency' period. Lawyers have articling. Nurses have their own programs... Chartered accounts and other have their own programs. Doctors have residency. Trades people have journeyman programs. And no, I'm not talking about coop placements... although that does help. The real difference is that real professional programs take training the next generation as part of the profession.
IT people will never be trained and ready-to-go as employers don't want to pay for the appropriate training and mentorship to go along with it.
So they take ill-prepared people and shove them into operations and things kinda work.
And private industry had to give it up when it was deemed unaffordable.
It's easy to start a pension system and promise people money for the future. Much like health insurance, it was promised in lieu of wages with the expectation that the company would keep growing.
Well what happens when you actually have to pay out? Ooooops.
So private industry realized how insane this was and backed out of it.
I've never really understood the process of jury selection.
I know the theory is that you 'weed' out people who might have biases... but in the end... is not the process of selecting juries creating another bias.
Better we just stick to true randomness. A random selection of people. Maybe have them at most pass a basic literacy/logic test. Then aim for 80% agreement or something to knock off the oddballs.
As I say... it's hard giving people what they want. That's why government loves leaving that to the private sector.
But they reserve all the endless goals for themselves so they funnel any amount of money into endless job creation programs for themselves that produce nothing.
Can you ever have enough security?
Kind of like education which stopped being about educating kids long ago. It's now a self serving system for bureaucrats, committees, teacher unions...
I mean... can you ever have enough education... and if what they do doesn't work... just need more programs and more money......
It's that they don't produce much of value. Many lawyers work very hard. So do many bankers and financial planners and accountants... they just don't produce anything and rely largely on the government to make laws to give them work.
Much like the police, prison guards, lawyers... and the war on drugs. They work very hard dealing with a lot of crap. Is society any better off for the work they do? Nope.
Those are the real unproductive areas of the public sector and the associated private sector jobs that rely on government (lawyers, accountants...).
You certainly need some of them... as overhead for society... but they've become industries on their own.
I don't care much if a public sector worker is 10% or 20% less efficient than a private sector worker. It's what you actually produce.
I have no doubt those working for the national security IT jobs will work very hard. But will our society be any better off for it? Will you actually value the work they do? Easy way to find out...
How much of your own money would you pay so the government can have a national it security program?
This is why central planning tends to fail. Those in the central planning tend not to provide what people need... They serve themselves, create work and systems so those inside the system prosper with money and power and society feels progressively poorer and poorer. All those resources spent on stuff no one values.
Are there things government does that has value? Of course. I would pay for clean water, roads, urban planning... now ask yourself how much of the budget is spent on these essentials... versus everything else.
Case in point... Obama recently proposed cutting infrastructure funding for water treatment as part of his budget cuts. And now he wants this big national security it system.
Good trade off? No... but very common for central planners.
Well is it so shocking people think differently from you?
For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why the average person doesn't want something like school choice... and yet... I know these people exist.
Why do you want to dis-empower yourself and give it to some bureaucratic entity?
I don't know... but people do.
There is one theory that I'm increasingly thinking is probable (not mine... read it in a book I cannot recall right now).
People have a natural desire to be told what to do. In every society there is either a king, mafia boss, priest... someone telling you what to do and how to live.
In western liberal societies, there is no such person... and this leave people with a feeling of uncertainty and fear without a certain object. So they clamor to the idea that government must provide them with guidance.
My own view... is that we must resist this. That guidance should come from family and culture... not from government in this areas. Being shamed in your family/community is enough to keep most people in check. And best of all, if you're so against it, you can simply leave your family/community and join another group.
Not as true with government. You have to leave the entire country... and even then... there's just another government in your new country.
But that doesn't stop politicians from talking about it. Politicians will latch onto anything that brings any hope of avoid dealing with reality.
Yes, I work in the 'innovation industry'... but you know... it will and will always be a small job market. You can maybe support a small state off it... like a Singapore or Sweden of a few million people. But by in large most jobs in a large country are going to be 'regular' jobs.
You're just going to be able to employ 200 million people in a 'STEM' job for a few reasons.
1. We don't need that many people. You already have pretty bright minds doing R&D in all kinds of fields. It's not like you add much value by throwing people at the problem. How many operating systems or networking boxes do you need... Just look at everything Google is able to do... and it employs a measily 20 000 people. The common figure is to look at apple which employes like 50 000 people... while its manufacturers (foxconn..) employs in the millions.
2. So much of the innovation economy... is getting rid of jobs. We do things to make society more efficient. To an extent, we are an inherently deflationary system. We do free up money so people can spend on other things though. You look at every old prediction on the future... and they rightly predict... we'd all be working less. yet, our politicians, media, and even us... are so focused on working more... and creating more work... when I think the right approach is to job share and enjoy the spare time. Unfortunately, people don't want equality (job sharing with their neighbor), they want privilege. They want to earn more than someone else, so they can use/exploit their labor
3. I always tell people to look back at your high school class. That's the last time you were around a reasonable cross section of society. Really what percentage of that class do you really think would have a great value in your company? lets be generous and say 20%... that same 20% has to be shared with doctors, lawyers...
4. It's a little colonial to think that we in the West are the only innovative people. That we are too good to work our own farms, make our own widgets... Those can and should be real jobs that people have.
i could go... but it just defies logic how anyone can think the innovation economy is going to save a large country.
my own... albeit political view... is that innovation economy is just an excuse to keep various special interests groups in power. You can always spend more on 'education' in the name of innovation. you can always funnel money to the venture caps and bankers to 'invest' in new companies.
Precisely... and this is the kind of thing the federal government should be handling. It's amazing how government ignores the issues it should be handling... and is always venturing into areas it has no business in.
The federal government... gosh... has a right to regulate interstate commerce. This is something they need to workout. A simple federal law would be... if you are shipping to an address, you charge and pay the sales tax in that state. To keep it simple, you do it by state... no municipal or county variations within a state.
There's plenty you can do. Somewhere developers and computer folks in general had misguided notion that as long as click or grant permission that you should be able to do anything you want on a computer.
The vast majority of the general public, like my friends and family find it insane that juts by installing or clicking something, it can cause harm to your computer.
What can be done? Plenty... I'm not saying the following should be done... but there's plenty you can do beyond just 'ask for permission'
1. Only run executables for installed programs 2. Make sure all installed programs are registered with the OS with appropriate checksums 3. Give applications limited rights unless run in some sysadmin mode. They can only access their program directory and all user files must be passed in by the standard os file selection. 4. Monitors programs for suspicious behavior. Windows should come pre installed with Security essentials for example. 5. Protect all system files by only having them accessible in a sys admin mode (above the administrator mode). 6. If connected to the internet, submit the file name/hash to the OS for analysis to see if there's a security risk. 7. Have an executable file system mask as on unix which requires you to actively mark a file as executable
I could keep going... but it's besides the point. There's plenty the OS could do to be more secure. User prompts are not the only solution.
The problem is that things that would test real skill and knowledge are easier to cheat at. Projects are by far the best way to learn. The problem is they're very easy to cheat. Just copy an old project. Or you can leach of others. Just ask any engineering student.
"It's time to stop this garbage and teach people real skills and test to that"
Yeah... its just hard to test real skills for a large number of people. You need real one on one relationships to do that. That's typically what PHDs or professional schools do.
It's easy to find fault in things. It's harder to pose better solutions.
Much of our society is based on educational credentials. Everyone cannot be a doctor, lawyer, nurse, scientist, teacher... so you need to find a way to exclude people. We do this via grades.
The wider the number of test applications, the more it focuses on 'basic' learning which is just often memorization. As the number of test applications is shortened, you then have a workable number where you can have an expert teacher actually test skill and pass on 'real skill'. This occurs in later years at university... or in your masters/PHD programs... or in professional schools (med schools...).
And quite frankly, if you can't handle enough memorization to get through the early years... you don't deserve to be in the more advanced classes where you can apply your actual skill.
If you really are a genius who just doesn't fit the mold...then you're free to do your own thing and maybe prove everyone wrong and be in Einstein or something.
While all true in a totally free market system... we don't live in such a system. As we become more efficient in the private sector and production... this really means deflation.
And governments and banking are both inflationary systems... not deflationary.
For example, as we automate more and more, we should theoretically, be able to allocate more people to be nurses, doctors, teachers... we would all be richer as a society. We would all 'get more stuff' and 'have better services'.
The problem is that we do not let the free market push labor in such a direction. The public sector expects to earn a premium over other people. This was fine if the autoworker made 80K... then the teacher can make 80k, and they can both exploit the labor of the restaurant worker making 25K.
When the autoworker is automated, the gap between the teacher and the restaurant worker must drop.
This is not allowed to happen.
Ideally, as we automate more... the 'public sector' jobs should begin job sharing as that is where the 'need' is... but it won't happen is public sector unions always expect pay increases and a premium position in society. They will never accept the deflationary aspect that technology guarantees.
Slashdot Mirror
I taught for a while... and here's what a lot of people miss.
Education is a mass service. People often forget this.
You have exceptional people like Bill Gates and many 'smarter' people who think everyone is as interested and capable in learning as themselves. They're not. So most 'advanced' interesting educational initiatives flop in the real classroom. Oh believe me... we were always bombarded with all kinds of new strategies... you very quickly lose interest in these. At best, you can grab these kids, put them in an advanced class, and try these activities there. Unfortunately, educational politics seems to always be against this kind of 'advanced stream'.
You don't even need awesome teachers. I mean you can have an awesome teacher. Wonderful. But there are thousands upon thousands of classes. There is just no way to get awesome teachers in every classroom... anymore than you can get every engineer to be awesome. To design a 'mass service' like education, you really just need to focus the average.
It's amazing the lack of mass-service that infects the education system. Do people really think every grade 9 math class is teaching unique strategies for their kids? Give me a break. We always tell kids they're unique and special... try telling that to any teacher year after year. It seems the education profession has deluded themselves into believing their own crap :P They're all teaching the same damn thing. So why aren't the lesson plans available for everyone. heck, we should have the entire curriculum online like the Khan academy for all grades. You can't imagine the time this would save teachers from dilly dallying making up lesson plans. Oh there's plenty of sharing from past teacher... but this really should be available for everyone... I mean... it's paid for by tax dollar right?
This is really what education should be like in public schools. Most of the problems are not problems on the educational material. It's family problems, discipline problems...
What most people will find if they teach for a few years... is that teaching is fairly generic and repetitive. It's a mass service. You don't need excellent teachers. You just need good enough teachers. Where the money really needs to be spent is on the kids. Support workers, social services for families...
And yes... for the smart ass kids... get them into special classes if they're bored. I always gave mine a fair amount of leeway to work on side projects (since I taught computer science...)... but in many classes that really isn't doable. They need to be in another class.
Quick question.
Do you think that it cost $500 because there is a free market in health care products or because of insane government regulation and restrictions on market entry that make the device so costly?
no, it becomes 'who' will do the work problem.
this is assuming you have a guaranteed income... what this whole thread is about... so they don't need to work... they just use the guaranteed income.
This as i said, is why slavery was historically popular. You just need a small enslaved population to make the civilized areas do well.
Assuming we don't want slavery, someone is going to have to do what work.
and so job sharing becomes a much better option.
Maybe we only need people to work 2 weeks a year on the farm.
It is more practical than trying to find one person to work the farm all year long, while the rest get the guaranteed income form the government and spend it all and get free food.
hence, the infeasible of the guaranteed income until robots can do everyhting.
the point is... the work that needs to be done... (mining, farming...) is hot interesting motivational work.
That's the point.
when people talk of the guaranteed income... they mean... something that is enough to have a roof on your head and food your table, electricity... a decent life.
Most people are just not that greedy. Offer them this and they won't want to work. You also face money needs to be able to purchase things.
So what would you do with your extra money you earn at some job?
Can you eat out a lot with the money you earn in the mines? Well... that waiter is not working at the restaurant because they're on the guaranteed income. So the cost of eating out is high. So you're working in the mines, hard all day...for what? What would you really be able to purchase to make your life much better than someone on a guaranteed income that gives them a decent life?
Not really.. most of your service industry that makes money worth something would disappear if the service workers were able to get a guaranteed income.
The value of money in a guaranteed income system quickly disappears. It really becomes a kind of rationing system for housing/food/electricity...
Today, people work to earn a living. Then they expect a better life than most people if they work in something requiring skill or is really really hard.
The problem with the basic income is that all the work people *need* done is not work that is the high-level work people *want to do*
I'm an engineer. I'd probably still do it to an extent even if I was paid a basic income. Ditto for doctors, nurses, artists... we all might not work as hard... but these kinds of jobs will still get filled to some extent.
But the jobs that *need* doing. ...
Who will go work in the mines? You know all the cool battery technology we develop... they need people to go mine various minerals.
Who will work the farms?
Who will sew clothes.
Who will dissemble electronics for recycling...
We're just not there at a point where technology can take over these jobs.
This is actually why slavery used to be very popular. There is always a certain small portion of work that needs to be done. If only you had slaves, you could enhance the lives of the rest of your population quite significantly.
And so, I'm totally against a basic income.
Rather, I advocate job sharing and lowering the cost of living. If we take mining as a good example. Maybe large numbers of people need to work 2 weeks a year mining or 3 weeks a year picking fruit on the farm.
Ditto for nurses, teachers
We job share as much as possible... even if it seems 'inefficient'. It will be fair... and avoids the slavery problem.
I fear the hard part will be the 'highly skilled jobs'
We'll probably face financial problems trying to get highly specialized surgeons and the like financially motivated to work if they end up earning not that much more than the average joe.
Most important we have to get off the treadmill of inflation and growth. Government and banks are both dependent on it... while technology seems to be working towards making things cheaper... deflation.
oh you mean.. slide into poverty... as in work like the working class?
You mean... someone who is 'middle class' should just magically earn more than a waiter or warehouse worker or farm worker... because someone deems them a 'middle class' job.
If technology reduces the middle class job to have no more value... then why should a middle class job earn more than a farm worker? Wouldn't we be better off if all these middle class people worked on the farm producing food so that it wasn't such a degrading and hard job that only migrant workers want to do it?
Indeed technology assures us one important thing. That the middle class and working class will be merged into one working class. We're all really only worth minimum wage :P And I don't say that sarcastically.
It's absolutely true. True equality will be forced on the vast majority of workers. Of course what we typically define as a 'good' job typically means having a better job than someone else and being able to exploit their labor.
But technology will force equality instead of privilege on us.
I've been saying this for a while. I see Krugman is finally coming to a certain realization. What technology really allows is a small group of skilled workers to serve billions of people. You need a relatively small number of engineers to build a Hulu or youtube to serve the video interests of billions. Before, you employed lots of local people in every neighborhood at a blockbuster :P You only need a few Operating systems...
-------
While all true in a totally free market system... we don't live in such a system. As we become more efficient in the private sector and production... this really means deflation.
And governments and banking are both inflationary systems... not deflationary. They also happen to the the forces in charge.
For example, as we automate more and more, we should theoretically, be able to allocate more people to be nurses, doctors, teachers... we would all be richer as a society. We would all 'get more stuff' and 'have better services'.
The problem is that we do not let the free market push labor in such a direction. The public sector expects to earn a premium over other people. This was fine if the autoworker made 80K... then the teacher can make 80k, and they can both exploit the labor of the restaurant worker making 25K.
When the autoworker is automated, the gap between the teacher and the restaurant worker must drop.
This is not allowed to happen.
Ideally, as we automate more... the 'public sector' jobs should begin job sharing as that is where the 'need' is... but it won't happen is public sector unions always expect pay increases and a premium position in society. They will never accept the deflationary aspect that technology guarantees.
-----------
The reality that I'll emphasize is that everyone likes talking about equality... but everyone loves privilege.
People who have 'good' jobs only think they have 'good' jobs because they have a better job than someone else... which they can use to exploit that person's labor.
How easily do you think those who have privilege will give it up? It takes a lot... don't we still have a drug war so police officers, lawyers, prison guards can have positions of privilege?
The future of technology pretty much promises more income EQUALITY amount regular workers. That is the gap between regular workers (engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, waiters, warehouse workers...) must fall. The few companies that produce things for the world will be headed by a few rich executives... but understand they serve such a large number of people... that redistributing their wealth won't yield much.
So yes... job sharing is the key... but more important... you must first address a society's dependence on growth and inflation. As job sharing and everything we think makes sense will result in deflation.
"Unfortunately in the real world no one wants to accept responsibility for the consequences of their decisions."
That's kind of the big issue isn't it.
In the real world, justice needs to be done and things resolved.
If your building collapsed after hiring construction company X to do some work... you want to be compensated and move on with your life.
For all you know, it might have really just been a total accident. The worker was qualified and trained. Everything was on the up and up. Crap still happens.
Having a full blown institutional investigation is just not practical and hardly ever comes up with a 'this person or this group is to blame'. There's always lots of blame to go around. heck, you can really go on tangents. Maybe you should sue the government if the worker was operating a crane... and you think crane operators should be regulated and licensed if they're so dangerous.
Anyone who works probably faces the same kind of issue when projects fail. It's just not that practical.
And so our justice system does the only thing it can practically do to have a working society... it blames the whole institution.
Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that.
Who would you hold accountable if something went wrong like that. You face the same kinds of issues any institution... even government faces.
Implementation is everything... and asking a court to decipher responsibility in an institution is extremely difficult.
Whose to blame? The individual worker? Their manager? The director? The CEO? The contractor?...
What if it was really just a worker screwing up... say a construction workers accidentally collapses a building and the victim gets a judgment of 5 million dollars. Do you expect the worker to pay this fine? Or would you expect the company to have insurance... thus holding the whole company responsible?
Ideally, individuals are held accountable... in a perfect world with perfect knowledge... that would be the case. In a practical world... it is much more difficult. By all means charge individuals if it can proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they were responsible or grossly negligent. The laws allows this. But in practice... this is very difficult to prove. But we do know the 'company' or 'institution' did something wrong.
There are many problems with our justice system and that all over the world... but on many big issues... things are far more complex when you look at the details of what they'd face on a day to day basis.
While you try and be sarcastic.
Yes, the computer world allows you to clone a car in good working order.
So, yes, you can be an ignorant car driver who doesn't change the oil, rear ends everyone, throws it in reverse while the car is in motion... but unlike real life... when the car stops working... you can very quickly... restore the car to a clone in good working order.
You're not paid to fix the car... you're paid to keep the service running. Two very different things.
At some point... it does become cheaper to just replace things... than fix them. This has happened in many fields. There used to be people called TV repairmen? Who does that anymore? You just buy a new one as the cost is less.
It's a perfectly valid thing to do. If there's something that keeps going wrong, then you call in an expert to figure it out. But for the average sys admin... restore image!
This is all part of automation which is very good. A good architect can setup the system, backup... and the average sys admin just restores. You only need a few of these expert architects. Heck, your company might not even employ them. They might just be consultants.
What most people fail to realize is that this is where professional schools come in.
When academics stop and the real job market begins.
In most other jobs of comparable skill, you have some kind of professional 'residency' period. Lawyers have articling. Nurses have their own programs... Chartered accounts and other have their own programs. Doctors have residency. Trades people have journeyman programs. And no, I'm not talking about coop placements... although that does help. The real difference is that real professional programs take training the next generation as part of the profession.
IT people will never be trained and ready-to-go as employers don't want to pay for the appropriate training and mentorship to go along with it.
So they take ill-prepared people and shove them into operations and things kinda work.
Let's not even get into outsourcing...
And private industry had to give it up when it was deemed unaffordable.
It's easy to start a pension system and promise people money for the future. Much like health insurance, it was promised in lieu of wages with the expectation that the company would keep growing.
Well what happens when you actually have to pay out? Ooooops.
So private industry realized how insane this was and backed out of it.
Government just keeps on going.
I've never really understood the process of jury selection.
I know the theory is that you 'weed' out people who might have biases... but in the end... is not the process of selecting juries creating another bias.
Better we just stick to true randomness. A random selection of people. Maybe have them at most pass a basic literacy/logic test. Then aim for 80% agreement or something to knock off the oddballs.
As I say... it's hard giving people what they want. That's why government loves leaving that to the private sector.
But they reserve all the endless goals for themselves so they funnel any amount of money into endless job creation programs for themselves that produce nothing.
Can you ever have enough security?
Kind of like education which stopped being about educating kids long ago. It's now a self serving system for bureaucrats, committees, teacher unions...
I mean... can you ever have enough education... ...
and if what they do doesn't work... just need more programs and more money...
It's not a matter of if they work hard or not.
It's that they don't produce much of value. Many lawyers work very hard. So do many bankers and financial planners and accountants... they just don't produce anything and rely largely on the government to make laws to give them work.
Much like the police, prison guards, lawyers... and the war on drugs. They work very hard dealing with a lot of crap. Is society any better off for the work they do? Nope.
Those are the real unproductive areas of the public sector and the associated private sector jobs that rely on government (lawyers, accountants...).
You certainly need some of them... as overhead for society... but they've become industries on their own.
I don't care much if a public sector worker is 10% or 20% less efficient than a private sector worker. It's what you actually produce.
I have no doubt those working for the national security IT jobs will work very hard. But will our society be any better off for it? Will you actually value the work they do? Easy way to find out...
How much of your own money would you pay so the government can have a national it security program?
This is why central planning tends to fail. Those in the central planning tend not to provide what people need... They serve themselves, create work and systems so those inside the system prosper with money and power and society feels progressively poorer and poorer. All those resources spent on stuff no one values.
Are there things government does that has value? Of course. I would pay for clean water, roads, urban planning... now ask yourself how much of the budget is spent on these essentials... versus everything else.
Case in point... Obama recently proposed cutting infrastructure funding for water treatment as part of his budget cuts. And now he wants this big national security it system.
Good trade off?
No... but very common for central planners.
That's the beauty of government jobs. Since they don't produce anything of value, people can't not buy them, and thus the demand is always there.
That's why we have lots of lawyers, bureaucrats, business analysts...
It's the ultimate job security.
Well is it so shocking people think differently from you?
For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why the average person doesn't want something like school choice... and yet... I know these people exist.
Why do you want to dis-empower yourself and give it to some bureaucratic entity?
I don't know... but people do.
There is one theory that I'm increasingly thinking is probable (not mine... read it in a book I cannot recall right now).
People have a natural desire to be told what to do. In every society there is either a king, mafia boss, priest... someone telling you what to do and how to live.
In western liberal societies, there is no such person... and this leave people with a feeling of uncertainty and fear without a certain object. So they clamor to the idea that government must provide them with guidance.
My own view... is that we must resist this. That guidance should come from family and culture... not from government in this areas. Being shamed in your family/community is enough to keep most people in check. And best of all, if you're so against it, you can simply leave your family/community and join another group.
Not as true with government. You have to leave the entire country... and even then... there's just another government in your new country.
You really want such an answer?
1. Everything is an industry. Education is no different. The people in those fields protect their jobs, maximize their pay.
2. It's good to know your professor. You talk to them. You interact with them.
I don't get it either...
But that doesn't stop politicians from talking about it. Politicians will latch onto anything that brings any hope of avoid dealing with reality.
Yes, I work in the 'innovation industry'... but you know... it will and will always be a small job market. You can maybe support a small state off it... like a Singapore or Sweden of a few million people. But by in large most jobs in a large country are going to be 'regular' jobs.
Restaurant workers, warehouse workers, nurses, doctors, teachers, manufacturing workers, janitors...
You're just going to be able to employ 200 million people in a 'STEM' job for a few reasons.
1. We don't need that many people. You already have pretty bright minds doing R&D in all kinds of fields. It's not like you add much value by throwing people at the problem. How many operating systems or networking boxes do you need... Just look at everything Google is able to do... and it employs a measily 20 000 people. The common figure is to look at apple which employes like 50 000 people... while its manufacturers (foxconn..) employs in the millions.
2. So much of the innovation economy... is getting rid of jobs. We do things to make society more efficient. To an extent, we are an inherently deflationary system. We do free up money so people can spend on other things though. You look at every old prediction on the future... and they rightly predict... we'd all be working less. yet, our politicians, media, and even us... are so focused on working more... and creating more work... when I think the right approach is to job share and enjoy the spare time. Unfortunately, people don't want equality (job sharing with their neighbor), they want privilege. They want to earn more than someone else, so they can use/exploit their labor
3. I always tell people to look back at your high school class. That's the last time you were around a reasonable cross section of society. Really what percentage of that class do you really think would have a great value in your company? lets be generous and say 20%... that same 20% has to be shared with doctors, lawyers...
4. It's a little colonial to think that we in the West are the only innovative people. That we are too good to work our own farms, make our own widgets... Those can and should be real jobs that people have.
i could go... but it just defies logic how anyone can think the innovation economy is going to save a large country.
my own... albeit political view... is that innovation economy is just an excuse to keep various special interests groups in power. You can always spend more on 'education' in the name of innovation. you can always funnel money to the venture caps and bankers to 'invest' in new companies.
So the politicians can just keep this game up.
Precisely... and this is the kind of thing the federal government should be handling. It's amazing how government ignores the issues it should be handling... and is always venturing into areas it has no business in.
The federal government... gosh... has a right to regulate interstate commerce. This is something they need to workout. A simple federal law would be... if you are shipping to an address, you charge and pay the sales tax in that state. To keep it simple, you do it by state... no municipal or county variations within a state.
There's plenty you can do. Somewhere developers and computer folks in general had misguided notion that as long as click or grant permission that you should be able to do anything you want on a computer.
The vast majority of the general public, like my friends and family find it insane that juts by installing or clicking something, it can cause harm to your computer.
What can be done? Plenty... I'm not saying the following should be done... but there's plenty you can do beyond just 'ask for permission'
1. Only run executables for installed programs
2. Make sure all installed programs are registered with the OS with appropriate checksums
3. Give applications limited rights unless run in some sysadmin mode. They can only access their program directory and all user files must be passed in by the standard os file selection.
4. Monitors programs for suspicious behavior. Windows should come pre installed with Security essentials for example.
5. Protect all system files by only having them accessible in a sys admin mode (above the administrator mode).
6. If connected to the internet, submit the file name/hash to the OS for analysis to see if there's a security risk.
7. Have an executable file system mask as on unix which requires you to actively mark a file as executable
I could keep going... but it's besides the point. There's plenty the OS could do to be more secure. User prompts are not the only solution.
The problem is that things that would test real skill and knowledge are easier to cheat at. Projects are by far the best way to learn. The problem is they're very easy to cheat. Just copy an old project. Or you can leach of others. Just ask any engineering student.
"It's time to stop this garbage and teach people real skills and test to that"
Yeah... its just hard to test real skills for a large number of people. You need real one on one relationships to do that. That's typically what PHDs or professional schools do.
It's easy to find fault in things. It's harder to pose better solutions.
Much of our society is based on educational credentials. Everyone cannot be a doctor, lawyer, nurse, scientist, teacher... so you need to find a way to exclude people. We do this via grades.
The wider the number of test applications, the more it focuses on 'basic' learning which is just often memorization. As the number of test applications is shortened, you then have a workable number where you can have an expert teacher actually test skill and pass on 'real skill'. This occurs in later years at university... or in your masters/PHD programs... or in professional schools (med schools...).
And quite frankly, if you can't handle enough memorization to get through the early years... you don't deserve to be in the more advanced classes where you can apply your actual skill.
If you really are a genius who just doesn't fit the mold...then you're free to do your own thing and maybe prove everyone wrong and be in Einstein or something.
"Cutting taxes is not always good, nor is regulation always bad. "
what worries me as that someone trying to sound pragmatic... only used examples from one side of the political spectrum.
How about Cutting taxes is always good, nor is more government always good, nor is regulation always bad, nor is a public monopoly always good.
While all true in a totally free market system... we don't live in such a system. As we become more efficient in the private sector and production... this really means deflation.
And governments and banking are both inflationary systems... not deflationary.
For example, as we automate more and more, we should theoretically, be able to allocate more people to be nurses, doctors, teachers... we would all be richer as a society. We would all 'get more stuff' and 'have better services'.
The problem is that we do not let the free market push labor in such a direction. The public sector expects to earn a premium over other people. This was fine if the autoworker made 80K... then the teacher can make 80k, and they can both exploit the labor of the restaurant worker making 25K.
When the autoworker is automated, the gap between the teacher and the restaurant worker must drop.
This is not allowed to happen.
Ideally, as we automate more... the 'public sector' jobs should begin job sharing as that is where the 'need' is... but it won't happen is public sector unions always expect pay increases and a premium position in society. They will never accept the deflationary aspect that technology guarantees.