Tech most certianly does kill jobs. It may make even more in the long term, but they are very different jobs. For the 50 year old newly laid off factory worker with kids he has to put through college now, the fact that there are suddenly lots of new jobs in robot design isn't a lot of comfort.
Exactly. And even if he were a sharp-enough wit to retrain in another field, the cost of the kids alone going to college is going to use up all the funds that he would need to go back and get his skills up to date. When the only answer to obsolescence and unemployment is training, the only result is a new job + a load of debt you accumulated to get it.
And what happens when McDonald's introduces an automatic fry-cooker, or a machine that makes hamburgers? Just because we currently have a lot of low skill service jobs now doesn't mean that they won't be replaced by technology in the future. With the advances in robotics we can all see where this is going.
Let's assume we can separate all cooks into Grade-A, Grade-B, Grade-C, and Grade-D cooks. Grade D cooks haven't spent much time practicing cooking, and are just barely good enough at it to get a job at McDonald's, while higher grades have worked longer and harder to acquire skills.
A machine comes along and replaces all the Grade D cooks. They're pissed that they don't have a job, but they haven't really sunk much time into it, so they go find a different job. But now a machine comes along and replaces the Grade C cooks. A few may just be naturally talented, but by and large they've spent a lot more time (that they can't get back) training to be better cooks.
So they go to look for a new job as a pencil pusher, and sure enough, there are Grade A-D pencil-pushing jobs. Well, there were, except the grade-D pencil-pushing job has also been mechanized. Only people who start off with enough experience to get a Grade C job can get it.
So now we have someone who has trained, but their training is no longer useful. And to compound the problem, we put the onus (and the financial burden) on this person to get themselves retrained, assuming they even have the natural abilities to be a pencil-pusher.
Thankfully, technology has created a new job: computer developer. But this job only starts at Grade B, and then you can go to A and A+. To get to Grade B you need training, education, and experience, and all of that you are expected to acquire on your own time at your own expense. Also, since all those Grade-C and B pencil pushers are out hunting for work, there's increased competition, which means that employers can get you for less. So more training, but lower wages.
Also, from what I remember, one of the Patriot Act provisions was requiring any school that received any federal funding to share any student records with military recruiters.
To this day I still cannot fathom how my children are safer in a biker bar than they are a public school. If you punch someone in a bar, the police are called and you go to jail. If you do it in a public school, at worst, you spend some time in the principles office or get suspended.
Depends. There are a fair number of schools with officers patrolling the halls; the one I taught at had at least one student tazed and dragged out into the patrol car per year.
No, it isn't about ass covering. This move creates far more liability than it removes. This is about the school system pushing farther and farther into the role of parent in an attempt to increase the size of their bureaucracy and thus the amount of funding they get. This school has just declared that it is their responsiblility to stop kids from commuting suicide.
No doubt they will soon be complaining that they are held responsible for the responsibilities they have demanded.
Yeah, the first time a parent says, "But you told us you were watching our kids 24/7! How then did my children get into a fight at the shopping mall?"
Teachers aren't a special category. I'm underpaid too. Blame the guy making $500billion and the congressman who kisses up to him - and when you go to blame him, take all your underpaid brethren with you - not just other teachers. Pay stagnates because people march for their own special industries instead of grouping together and demanding change for everyone. I'm sure you know this as a social studies teacher.
What? Ayn Rand could be wrong? The shock and horror of it!
Seriously though the question is difficult to answer on anything more than a philosophical level. It is a bit vague to quantify and would need to be rephrased to be practically measurable.. Maybe I should put my beer down and go read TFA....
Don't get me wrong, I like the added features, but I hope nobody expects laptops that can be used for multiple days in a row without recharging (with sleep mode enabled between sessions of course) or next-gen smart phones that can go a week without recharging. They will figure out how to use that extra power somewhere, leaving us at around the same runtime as before.
If someone will finally make a netbook with an e-ink screen, we could get around to that kind of battery life. I know the refresh rates suck, but the equivalent of a Kindle Paperwhite with a full keyboard, a basic word processing app, and a battery that lasts for days on end would be a writer's dream.
There is some value to UI/process stability. Even if the overall operation is optimized, the time it takes to retrain users still counts for something...
Roomba proves that robots can revolutionize domestic cat transportation.
Now they just need to provide a way for the cat to steer the darned thing and provide a more comfortable surface for the cat to sit on.
Allowing cats to steer robots is a sure fire way to doom us all.
I'm convinced that instances like this, more than anything else, are behind the poor performance of our public schools. Good teacher does X which doesn't conform 100% to what the school bureaucrats or politicians (who frequently don't even have their kids IN public schools) have mandated. Good teacher gets good results, but is punished by said bureaucrats/politicians for not following their mandated actions. Eventually, good teacher gets tired of fighting the system and leaves the teaching profession. This just leaves the teachers who will do exactly what they're told without any cares as to whether they are giving the students a good education.
Then the bureaucrats and politicians see falling scores, cry horribly about it (in front of as many cameras as possible, of course), and come up with more actions (ranging from misguided to idiotic) that they are sure will save our schools.
As an example, see the Common Core testing that New York State students have been subjected to. Elementary students as young as Kindergarten are taking these extremely stressful tests and teachers aren't allowed to see them at all. After taking them, they go to Pearson where they are graded and destroyed so nobody can double-check them. Kids have been so stressed that they've thrown up on the tests. Yes, Pearson demands that the thrown-up-upon tests be bagged and sent back to them. Tossing it in the trash can get a school in deep trouble (as it could leak what's on the test). Teachers hate these tests, parents hate these tests, students hate these tests, but Pearson/bureaucrats/politicians love them so they are mandated.
Regarding the teacher issue, I've heard it called the "Dead Sea" effect... anything that can (or is forced to) escape does, just like the water vapor, and then the salt and detritus just accumulates over time. But it's easy to manage, because it's already known beforehand. Happens sometimes in IT departments too, but in business there's often more of an incentive to innovate. In public education, the squeaky wheel gets the ax, and then everyone else abides until someone becomes problematic, and then they get the ax.
The tests, then, become a convenient way to decide who is most deserving of the ax.
Illinois high school teacher John Dryden has been reprimanded and docked a day’s pay after informing his students of their Constitutional rights before administering a school-mandated survey about “at-risk behavior.”
Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. When I was teaching high school journalism, I got repeated verbal orders to infringe on student free speech, which I was supposed to follow up on without a paper trail so that admin couldn't be connected to the violation. Got in a fair amount of trouble for "failing to do so" a few times. Needless to say, I don't work there anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Tech most certianly does kill jobs. It may make even more in the long term, but they are very different jobs. For the 50 year old newly laid off factory worker with kids he has to put through college now, the fact that there are suddenly lots of new jobs in robot design isn't a lot of comfort.
Exactly. And even if he were a sharp-enough wit to retrain in another field, the cost of the kids alone going to college is going to use up all the funds that he would need to go back and get his skills up to date. When the only answer to obsolescence and unemployment is training, the only result is a new job + a load of debt you accumulated to get it.
And what happens when McDonald's introduces an automatic fry-cooker, or a machine that makes hamburgers? Just because we currently have a lot of low skill service jobs now doesn't mean that they won't be replaced by technology in the future. With the advances in robotics we can all see where this is going.
Let's assume we can separate all cooks into Grade-A, Grade-B, Grade-C, and Grade-D cooks. Grade D cooks haven't spent much time practicing cooking, and are just barely good enough at it to get a job at McDonald's, while higher grades have worked longer and harder to acquire skills. A machine comes along and replaces all the Grade D cooks. They're pissed that they don't have a job, but they haven't really sunk much time into it, so they go find a different job. But now a machine comes along and replaces the Grade C cooks. A few may just be naturally talented, but by and large they've spent a lot more time (that they can't get back) training to be better cooks.
So they go to look for a new job as a pencil pusher, and sure enough, there are Grade A-D pencil-pushing jobs. Well, there were, except the grade-D pencil-pushing job has also been mechanized. Only people who start off with enough experience to get a Grade C job can get it.
So now we have someone who has trained, but their training is no longer useful. And to compound the problem, we put the onus (and the financial burden) on this person to get themselves retrained, assuming they even have the natural abilities to be a pencil-pusher.
Thankfully, technology has created a new job: computer developer. But this job only starts at Grade B, and then you can go to A and A+. To get to Grade B you need training, education, and experience, and all of that you are expected to acquire on your own time at your own expense. Also, since all those Grade-C and B pencil pushers are out hunting for work, there's increased competition, which means that employers can get you for less. So more training, but lower wages.
I think we'll all look back with pride when we tell our grandchildren how we served on the day our country called us.
Local hunters report needing #000 buck shot to take down hallucinating birds. Live at 11.
General Electric dumped tons of PCBs into the Housatonic near Pittsfield, too. And for years we were told that they probably weren't a big deal.
Also, from what I remember, one of the Patriot Act provisions was requiring any school that received any federal funding to share any student records with military recruiters.
To this day I still cannot fathom how my children are safer in a biker bar than they are a public school. If you punch someone in a bar, the police are called and you go to jail. If you do it in a public school, at worst, you spend some time in the principles office or get suspended.
Depends. There are a fair number of schools with officers patrolling the halls; the one I taught at had at least one student tazed and dragged out into the patrol car per year.
No, it isn't about ass covering. This move creates far more liability than it removes. This is about the school system pushing farther and farther into the role of parent in an attempt to increase the size of their bureaucracy and thus the amount of funding they get. This school has just declared that it is their responsiblility to stop kids from commuting suicide. No doubt they will soon be complaining that they are held responsible for the responsibilities they have demanded.
Yeah, the first time a parent says, "But you told us you were watching our kids 24/7! How then did my children get into a fight at the shopping mall?"
You get what you pay *everyone*.
Teachers aren't a special category. I'm underpaid too. Blame the guy making $500billion and the congressman who kisses up to him - and when you go to blame him, take all your underpaid brethren with you - not just other teachers. Pay stagnates because people march for their own special industries instead of grouping together and demanding change for everyone. I'm sure you know this as a social studies teacher.
Now if only we had one big union... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
Creepy Larry would have done it for free.
He offered me his card, but I didn't want to take it out of his front pocket.
It would be hilarious if people start creating social media accounts to post made up shit using the names of the students.
And no catty 13-year-old would *ever* do that.
Flouride in our water is contaminating our precious bodily fluids.
Mandrake? Can you hear me Mandrake?
What? Ayn Rand could be wrong? The shock and horror of it!
Seriously though the question is difficult to answer on anything more than a philosophical level. It is a bit vague to quantify and would need to be rephrased to be practically measurable.. Maybe I should put my beer down and go read TFA....
Never put your beer down! Priorities!
Neat article! But... um... where's the map?
How about we just start typing everything in International Phonetic Alphabet?
69 more balloons, and they should be red.
I think that project is being run by Google.de
You know, I wouldn't mind it if my laptop smelled like fire and brimstone when I was grading papers. It would kind of help get me in the mood.
more smellily for sure
Oh, you discovered the "leakage alert" feature!
Don't get me wrong, I like the added features, but I hope nobody expects laptops that can be used for multiple days in a row without recharging (with sleep mode enabled between sessions of course) or next-gen smart phones that can go a week without recharging. They will figure out how to use that extra power somewhere, leaving us at around the same runtime as before.
If someone will finally make a netbook with an e-ink screen, we could get around to that kind of battery life. I know the refresh rates suck, but the equivalent of a Kindle Paperwhite with a full keyboard, a basic word processing app, and a battery that lasts for days on end would be a writer's dream.
And the most important question why is management pushing agile down the throat of developers?
Much easier to fire developers, sub in new and unprepared ones, and then blame delays on the "agile" programming.
There is some value to UI/process stability. Even if the overall operation is optimized, the time it takes to retrain users still counts for something...
Roomba proves that robots can revolutionize domestic cat transportation. Now they just need to provide a way for the cat to steer the darned thing and provide a more comfortable surface for the cat to sit on.
Allowing cats to steer robots is a sure fire way to doom us all.
9th and 10th cases are difficult to prove. Not that you're not on to something, but it's often better to try to find a violation of the first 8.
I'm convinced that instances like this, more than anything else, are behind the poor performance of our public schools. Good teacher does X which doesn't conform 100% to what the school bureaucrats or politicians (who frequently don't even have their kids IN public schools) have mandated. Good teacher gets good results, but is punished by said bureaucrats/politicians for not following their mandated actions. Eventually, good teacher gets tired of fighting the system and leaves the teaching profession. This just leaves the teachers who will do exactly what they're told without any cares as to whether they are giving the students a good education.
Then the bureaucrats and politicians see falling scores, cry horribly about it (in front of as many cameras as possible, of course), and come up with more actions (ranging from misguided to idiotic) that they are sure will save our schools.
As an example, see the Common Core testing that New York State students have been subjected to. Elementary students as young as Kindergarten are taking these extremely stressful tests and teachers aren't allowed to see them at all. After taking them, they go to Pearson where they are graded and destroyed so nobody can double-check them. Kids have been so stressed that they've thrown up on the tests. Yes, Pearson demands that the thrown-up-upon tests be bagged and sent back to them. Tossing it in the trash can get a school in deep trouble (as it could leak what's on the test). Teachers hate these tests, parents hate these tests, students hate these tests, but Pearson/bureaucrats/politicians love them so they are mandated.
Regarding the teacher issue, I've heard it called the "Dead Sea" effect... anything that can (or is forced to) escape does, just like the water vapor, and then the salt and detritus just accumulates over time. But it's easy to manage, because it's already known beforehand. Happens sometimes in IT departments too, but in business there's often more of an incentive to innovate. In public education, the squeaky wheel gets the ax, and then everyone else abides until someone becomes problematic, and then they get the ax.
The tests, then, become a convenient way to decide who is most deserving of the ax.
Illinois high school teacher John Dryden has been reprimanded and docked a day’s pay after informing his students of their Constitutional rights before administering a school-mandated survey about “at-risk behavior.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/29/high-school-teacher-punished-for-informing-students-of-their-fifth-amendment-right/
Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. When I was teaching high school journalism, I got repeated verbal orders to infringe on student free speech, which I was supposed to follow up on without a paper trail so that admin couldn't be connected to the violation. Got in a fair amount of trouble for "failing to do so" a few times. Needless to say, I don't work there anymore.