7 ms·

It takes ten years to train people of that skill. Not having access to a capable glassblower as a chemical researcher is an infrastructure problem that cannot

It takes ten years to train people of that skill. Not having access to a capable glassblower as a chemical researcher is an infrastructure problem that cannot be solved with any amount of money. You need a master glassblower to train the next generation, and you need capable apprentices, and it still takes ten years. Neoliberals, note that fact.

seizethecheese 10y ago
Noted. Please explain how this interesting article warrants political mudslinging.
- jakobegger 10y ago
  It's a shame that a single snarky line gets a comment flagged and hidden. Here's the parent comment, in case you can't see it: --- It takes ten years to train people of that skill. Not having access to a capable glassblower as a chemical researcher is an infrastructure problem that cannot be solved with any amount of money. You need a master glassblower to train the next generation, and you need capable apprentices, and it still takes ten years. Neoliberals, note that fact. --- I think there is a point here, but it could have been worded less incendiary. If you always try to lower costs, outsource everything, buy the cheapest glass from some chinese factory, you will lose local expertise. If you outsource entry level positions now, you will lose experienced craftsmen in the future. But with some foresight, a university (or any company) can easily avoid this, by hiring apprentices early; if you give a young person a chance, they will often be loyal and stay even if, after years of training, they could now get a better paying job somewhere else.
  - battlebaconxxl 10y ago
    The people down voting you are the same people who mock the Brexit leave voters.
  - anexprogrammer 10y ago
    Doesn't even read as incendiary, just a slightly snippy turn of phrase. I doubt anyone sees neoliberalism as problem free. One of the problems being an excess of short-termism.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I think it's entirely appropriate. The exact same point is made just as well in other comments, so it really doesn't add anything, and the offhand comment at the end spawned a flame war.
- fastbeef 10y ago
  While snarky in tone, he has a point - The Market doesn't have a spectacular track record of having foresight longer than the next quarterly report.
  - seizethecheese 10y ago
    Yours is an example of an interesting comment. Had he made an actual argument I wouldn't have called it out.
  - vacri 10y ago
    I remember having this argument with an invisible-hand fanatic, who thought that the economics of supply and demand simply solved everything. "So... a neurologist takes 13 years to train from scratch. How does the market manage that?"
    - seizethecheese 10y ago
      Well, to be fair the market does manage quite well! Since it's so hard to become a neurologist, there's a shortage unless the pay is so good that people are willing to forgo 13 years of their life to get there.
      - venomsnake 10y ago
        And the bodies of the people that did not get their treatment (or got the wrong one, because their neurologist was overworked, tired of burning the midnight oil) pile up. Free market is good only when you have both elastic supply and demand.
      - vacri 10y ago
        13 years is a very slow lag time. For comparison, the general public has only been aware of the internet for about 20 years.
      - x0x0 10y ago
        If you ignore the massive subsidization by the federal government, then the market manages just dandy. Taxpayers spend north of $15B on graduate medical education annually.
Kenji 10y ago
If Neoliberals were in power, useless schools and education tracks wouldn't be so massively overfunded both with tax dollars and tax-funded loans, and thus people would actually have to learn a trade, something useful and something someone on the market requires, rather than, idk, gender studies. The idea that the free market creates useless people is ludicrous - given that the government is gobbling up everything that even resembles education and bastardizes it.
- tanderson92 10y ago
  > "If Neoliberals were in power" Neoliberals are in power.
  - Kenji 10y ago
    I disagree. If you see the size of our governments and the amount of laws, it's absolutely mindboggling. Our laws have tens of thousands of pages and the volume of regulations and laws seem to be at an all-time high and growing. No substantial deregulation ever happened across the board in almost 100 years, possibly more. The volume of the regulation is so incredibly huge that even large and well funded companies are incapable of following them all, nor is it possible to enforce anything but an arbitrary selection. If you talk to industry leaders, CEOs and people in the business, you see that this is a real problem and a harmful practice everyone has to deal with every day.
    - Ericson2314 10y ago
      Big regulation != Strong regulation. Seems like non-programmers don't understand this so well.

seizethecheese 10y ago

Noted. Please explain how this interesting article warrants political mudslinging.

jakobegger 10y ago
It's a shame that a single snarky line gets a comment flagged and hidden. Here's the parent comment, in case you can't see it: --- It takes ten years to train people of that skill. Not having access to a capable glassblower as a chemical researcher is an infrastructure problem that cannot be solved with any amount of money. You need a master glassblower to train the next generation, and you need capable apprentices, and it still takes ten years. Neoliberals, note that fact. --- I think there is a point here, but it could have been worded less incendiary. If you always try to lower costs, outsource everything, buy the cheapest glass from some chinese factory, you will lose local expertise. If you outsource entry level positions now, you will lose experienced craftsmen in the future. But with some foresight, a university (or any company) can easily avoid this, by hiring apprentices early; if you give a young person a chance, they will often be loyal and stay even if, after years of training, they could now get a better paying job somewhere else.
- battlebaconxxl 10y ago
  The people down voting you are the same people who mock the Brexit leave voters.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  Doesn't even read as incendiary, just a slightly snippy turn of phrase. I doubt anyone sees neoliberalism as problem free. One of the problems being an excess of short-termism.
- mikeash 10y ago
  I think it's entirely appropriate. The exact same point is made just as well in other comments, so it really doesn't add anything, and the offhand comment at the end spawned a flame war.
fastbeef 10y ago
While snarky in tone, he has a point - The Market doesn't have a spectacular track record of having foresight longer than the next quarterly report.
- seizethecheese 10y ago
  Yours is an example of an interesting comment. Had he made an actual argument I wouldn't have called it out.
- vacri 10y ago
  I remember having this argument with an invisible-hand fanatic, who thought that the economics of supply and demand simply solved everything. "So... a neurologist takes 13 years to train from scratch. How does the market manage that?"
  - seizethecheese 10y ago
    Well, to be fair the market does manage quite well! Since it's so hard to become a neurologist, there's a shortage unless the pay is so good that people are willing to forgo 13 years of their life to get there.
    - venomsnake 10y ago
      And the bodies of the people that did not get their treatment (or got the wrong one, because their neurologist was overworked, tired of burning the midnight oil) pile up. Free market is good only when you have both elastic supply and demand.
    - vacri 10y ago
      13 years is a very slow lag time. For comparison, the general public has only been aware of the internet for about 20 years.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      If you ignore the massive subsidization by the federal government, then the market manages just dandy. Taxpayers spend north of $15B on graduate medical education annually.

Kenji 10y ago

If Neoliberals were in power, useless schools and education tracks wouldn't be so massively overfunded both with tax dollars and tax-funded loans, and thus people would actually have to learn a trade, something useful and something someone on the market requires, rather than, idk, gender studies. The idea that the free market creates useless people is ludicrous - given that the government is gobbling up everything that even resembles education and bastardizes it.

tanderson92 10y ago
> "If Neoliberals were in power" Neoliberals are in power.
- Kenji 10y ago
  I disagree. If you see the size of our governments and the amount of laws, it's absolutely mindboggling. Our laws have tens of thousands of pages and the volume of regulations and laws seem to be at an all-time high and growing. No substantial deregulation ever happened across the board in almost 100 years, possibly more. The volume of the regulation is so incredibly huge that even large and well funded companies are incapable of following them all, nor is it possible to enforce anything but an arbitrary selection. If you talk to industry leaders, CEOs and people in the business, you see that this is a real problem and a harmful practice everyone has to deal with every day.
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    Big regulation != Strong regulation. Seems like non-programmers don't understand this so well.