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> Once you have a semester or two under your belt at university no employer really cares about a high-school diploma This felt like a complete non-sequitur. Y

> Once you have a semester or two under your belt at university no employer really cares about a high-school diploma This felt like a complete non-sequitur. You were talking about education, and suddenly you switch to employment? The purpose of an education is not to serve a boss. These days, in this capitalist world, most of us do have to subject themselves to the will of an employer or another. So we do have to look good to them. Education as I understand it is supposed to help us out of this servitude, so we can be emancipated citizens and responsible adults. Remember, an employee is not free. Better off than a slave or a serf, but still not independent.

hueving 11y ago
>Remember, an employee is not free. Free from what? I can choose to quit whenever I want. You are speaking from a pretty privileged background pretending that employees don't have freedom. Freedom doesn't mean you should be able to do whatever you want and have society be forced to support you in doing so.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- foota 11y ago
  I believe parent's point (which I am not agreeing with) was that employee's are not free because in a capitalist society you more or less need to work to survive
  - daniel-cussen 11y ago
    You used to have to hunt to survive. In general you (for like a quadrillion values of "you") have to do something to survive and thrive, and it generally involves depredation or parasitism...comensalism...etc.
  - gandarojin 11y ago
    Especially because employees have to work for someone who tells them what to do.
  - loup-vaillant 11y ago
    You need to work for someone to survive. The point is, there is a tiny minority of capitalists, who decide what to work on, and how. The rest of us hardly have a say. In terms of personal freedom, this is just as bad as a command economy (no more, no less). Also, remember that in some places, people can't even chose their employer. It's work in the mine, or starve. We westerners have it easy. An independent contractor will still need to work to survive. But at least she's free from any boss… if she's really independent —that is, she can afford to turn down contracts. Pensioners, or otherwise "financially independent" people are even free from lucrative work. They don't need to work for their continued survival. They can instead like look over their grandchildren or do some community work. I'm sure there are higher attainable degrees of freedom yet. But let's work on the worst problems first. We more or less solved slavery and serfdom. Now there is employment. Next will be the need to survive. Next… I don't know, physical limitations?
    - hueving 11y ago
      This isn't correct. Look at the number of small business owners in the US. It's a minority, but it's not some tiny elite like your comment leads people to believe. It doesn't take much for a regular person to start a business. If they provide a good the population likes at a reasonable price, they will succeed.
      - loup-vaillant 11y ago
        A link with the actual numbers would have helped. > It doesn't take much for a regular person to start a business. Generally in the order of 50.000€ for your average starting business —even a simple bakery. Not the end of the world for a Bay Area software engineer. A moonshot for minimum wage workers. Sure, you could ask for a loan. But if you're poor, you will likely not get it.
- yarou 11y ago
  Not so long ago, societies were structured to foster intellectual curiosity. Now, they are structured to kill any form of innovation. Just because you live in a broken, intellectually devoid capitalistic society, doesn't mean that's the optimal or even correct way to organize society.
  - hueving 11y ago
    If what you are saying is true, why is the US the leading tech innovator by a wide margin? The entire bay is centered on the concept of disruption via innovation.
    - loup-vaillant 11y ago
      Most of the technical innovation in the US is financed by military sources and state-sanctioned monopolies. Things like the internet and self-driving cars basically came from ARPA and DARPA fundings —at least initially. Compared to those thing, the typical web startup we see in the Bay area innovates little and disrupts nothing. They're just facilitators and middle men. The likes of DropBox, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, even Facebook… none are needed. They only compensate for our asymmetric bandwidth, without solving the real problem. If you want real innovation, you need to finance fundamental research. You know, things that have no short term benefits, uncertain long term benefits, and uncertain monetisability. In any case, the US is one of the most militaristic countries out there. It wages war all over the place for oil, and develops nice military devices to secure its supremacy. That's a pretty good drive for technical innovation.
      - hueving 11y ago
        Pretty feeble argument IMO. You restrict your analysis to companies you deem trivial and then you claim they aren't innovative. Yet you ignore the entire smartphone revolution that was started by Apple and Google. Innovation and invention aren't the same thing. The invention of a technology is only a small component of its success. Combining it with other components to fulfill a good usecase is what makes it something useful. Google is the main player making self driving cars actually something useful,not DARPA funding. You can continue to be apologetic for other countries being so far behind in tech innovation, but it doesn't change the point that it's happening in the US even though some ignorant commenter thinks the education system gets rid of innovation.
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  > Free from what? I can choose to quit whenever I want. Lucky you. Many people don't have that privilege. Some don't have any saving, so switching employers isn't an option. Even in a country with good unemployment insurance, you are generally denied the benefits if you just quit —you have to be fired. And of course, there are some horrible places where there is only one employer, and your only choice is to work for him (sometimes risking your life or health in the process), or starve. > You are speaking from a pretty privileged background May I ask what do you think that background may be?
  - hueving 11y ago
    Not having savings doesn't mean you can't quit. A one employer town doesn't mean you can't quit. In both cases you just quit and immediately move or take any job you can find while you look for something better. Being free isn't having someone feed you grapes with a silver spoon while you ponder on which industry you would like to support with your intellectual prowess.
    - loup-vaillant 11y ago
      Now who's talking from a privileged perspective… Searching for a job takes time, and quitting is risky. Sure, most of the time it will be fine. But sometimes you just end up searching for a job (any job) for more than a few weeks, and next thing you know your landlord is kicking you out. When I say "no savings", I do mean zero. Nothing. Like "I can't buy food this week" nothing. Then there's social pressure. Why quit your job in these times of mass unemployment? That would be crazy. Even prospective employers will not see that with a good eye: in white collar jobs, you can always say "it was time for me to go", or high-status non-explanations like that. But picture a cashier looking for a cashier job. The employer will want a real reason, and you'd better forge one that doesn't look too bad. (Disparaging the previous employer looks bad, mentioning material constraints often looks bad… following your spouse might not.)
Zak 11y ago
I think you're mixing up education and credentials. Attending high school is an important part of most peoples' education in much of the world, but obtaining a diploma is not an education. In fact, getting expelled for publishing what other students have to say about the teachers is likely far more educational than completing the final two or three months and obtaining a diploma.

hueving 11y ago

>Remember, an employee is not free. Free from what? I can choose to quit whenever I want. You are speaking from a pretty privileged background pretending that employees don't have freedom. Freedom doesn't mean you should be able to do whatever you want and have society be forced to support you in doing so.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
foota 11y ago
I believe parent's point (which I am not agreeing with) was that employee's are not free because in a capitalist society you more or less need to work to survive
- daniel-cussen 11y ago
  You used to have to hunt to survive. In general you (for like a quadrillion values of "you") have to do something to survive and thrive, and it generally involves depredation or parasitism...comensalism...etc.
- gandarojin 11y ago
  Especially because employees have to work for someone who tells them what to do.
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  You need to work for someone to survive. The point is, there is a tiny minority of capitalists, who decide what to work on, and how. The rest of us hardly have a say. In terms of personal freedom, this is just as bad as a command economy (no more, no less). Also, remember that in some places, people can't even chose their employer. It's work in the mine, or starve. We westerners have it easy. An independent contractor will still need to work to survive. But at least she's free from any boss… if she's really independent —that is, she can afford to turn down contracts. Pensioners, or otherwise "financially independent" people are even free from lucrative work. They don't need to work for their continued survival. They can instead like look over their grandchildren or do some community work. I'm sure there are higher attainable degrees of freedom yet. But let's work on the worst problems first. We more or less solved slavery and serfdom. Now there is employment. Next will be the need to survive. Next… I don't know, physical limitations?
  - hueving 11y ago
    This isn't correct. Look at the number of small business owners in the US. It's a minority, but it's not some tiny elite like your comment leads people to believe. It doesn't take much for a regular person to start a business. If they provide a good the population likes at a reasonable price, they will succeed.
    - loup-vaillant 11y ago
      A link with the actual numbers would have helped. > It doesn't take much for a regular person to start a business. Generally in the order of 50.000€ for your average starting business —even a simple bakery. Not the end of the world for a Bay Area software engineer. A moonshot for minimum wage workers. Sure, you could ask for a loan. But if you're poor, you will likely not get it.
yarou 11y ago
Not so long ago, societies were structured to foster intellectual curiosity. Now, they are structured to kill any form of innovation. Just because you live in a broken, intellectually devoid capitalistic society, doesn't mean that's the optimal or even correct way to organize society.
- hueving 11y ago
  If what you are saying is true, why is the US the leading tech innovator by a wide margin? The entire bay is centered on the concept of disruption via innovation.
  - loup-vaillant 11y ago
    Most of the technical innovation in the US is financed by military sources and state-sanctioned monopolies. Things like the internet and self-driving cars basically came from ARPA and DARPA fundings —at least initially. Compared to those thing, the typical web startup we see in the Bay area innovates little and disrupts nothing. They're just facilitators and middle men. The likes of DropBox, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, even Facebook… none are needed. They only compensate for our asymmetric bandwidth, without solving the real problem. If you want real innovation, you need to finance fundamental research. You know, things that have no short term benefits, uncertain long term benefits, and uncertain monetisability. In any case, the US is one of the most militaristic countries out there. It wages war all over the place for oil, and develops nice military devices to secure its supremacy. That's a pretty good drive for technical innovation.
    - hueving 11y ago
      Pretty feeble argument IMO. You restrict your analysis to companies you deem trivial and then you claim they aren't innovative. Yet you ignore the entire smartphone revolution that was started by Apple and Google. Innovation and invention aren't the same thing. The invention of a technology is only a small component of its success. Combining it with other components to fulfill a good usecase is what makes it something useful. Google is the main player making self driving cars actually something useful,not DARPA funding. You can continue to be apologetic for other countries being so far behind in tech innovation, but it doesn't change the point that it's happening in the US even though some ignorant commenter thinks the education system gets rid of innovation.
loup-vaillant 11y ago
> Free from what? I can choose to quit whenever I want. Lucky you. Many people don't have that privilege. Some don't have any saving, so switching employers isn't an option. Even in a country with good unemployment insurance, you are generally denied the benefits if you just quit —you have to be fired. And of course, there are some horrible places where there is only one employer, and your only choice is to work for him (sometimes risking your life or health in the process), or starve. > You are speaking from a pretty privileged background May I ask what do you think that background may be?
- hueving 11y ago
  Not having savings doesn't mean you can't quit. A one employer town doesn't mean you can't quit. In both cases you just quit and immediately move or take any job you can find while you look for something better. Being free isn't having someone feed you grapes with a silver spoon while you ponder on which industry you would like to support with your intellectual prowess.
  - loup-vaillant 11y ago
    Now who's talking from a privileged perspective… Searching for a job takes time, and quitting is risky. Sure, most of the time it will be fine. But sometimes you just end up searching for a job (any job) for more than a few weeks, and next thing you know your landlord is kicking you out. When I say "no savings", I do mean zero. Nothing. Like "I can't buy food this week" nothing. Then there's social pressure. Why quit your job in these times of mass unemployment? That would be crazy. Even prospective employers will not see that with a good eye: in white collar jobs, you can always say "it was time for me to go", or high-status non-explanations like that. But picture a cashier looking for a cashier job. The employer will want a real reason, and you'd better forge one that doesn't look too bad. (Disparaging the previous employer looks bad, mentioning material constraints often looks bad… following your spouse might not.)

Zak 11y ago

I think you're mixing up education and credentials. Attending high school is an important part of most peoples' education in much of the world, but obtaining a diploma is not an education. In fact, getting expelled for publishing what other students have to say about the teachers is likely far more educational than completing the final two or three months and obtaining a diploma.