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I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years, "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in Americ
by eropple 7y ago
I don't understand why your post is so defensive. For years, "tech jobs" were marketed as a way to the upper middle class for a broad swath of people (in America and elsewhere). This was not the doing of "two-bit journalists" (and Steve Lohr has a track record of pretty good work!); it was a concerted effort by tech companies.
It's turning out to not really be the case and the successful stories are comparatively few and far between, while the rest of America falls further and further behind for reasons largely not of their own making.
Should that not be talked about?
- devoply 7y agoWhat should be talked about is what's actually the point of jobs. It's not as a means to get work done so corporations can generate profit. Jobs are a tool to organize society. Profit is a side-effect of that but an irrelevant part the primary function of jobs. This concept of jobs as a tool to organize society rather than a way to solve problems using human "capital" or humans as machines or tools for problem solving which can then be replaced by other machines which can solve the same problems cheaper needs additional studying. As using humans to solve problems for corporations is becoming more and more irrelevant.
- eropple 7y ago> What should be talked about is what's actually the point of jobs. I fully agree, FWIW. Perhaps it's where my interests have typically lain, but as a developer whose primary job has been to automate other tech people--sysadmins mostly, but developers as well--this has been on my mind for about a decade now. I don't know what the solution is.
- Noumenon72 7y agoYou mean a tool to organize society like castes were? Or a tool to organize society so that it produces enough medical care and has a large enough army? The first one really doesn't fit with how dynamic jobs are, as they can be created at any income level or sector regardless of the impacts to social class.
- paultopia 7y agoI find this a little bit confusing. The primary function of jobs is that it's hard for workers with specialized skills to extract all the value from their labor alone, so they get together in organizations to do it, and the people doing the organizing (and capital investing etc.) get to skim a healthy chunk off the top (too much in our current economy) for doing so. Is this the same as what you're saying, or different?
- skookumchuck 7y agoNobody hires another in order to "organize society".
- czbond 7y agoI believe you have it reversed. The initial (main) point of a job is so the corporation can generate profit. The secondary, positive side effect, is that it can, sometimes, organize society.
- marsrover 7y agoYou're right, I shouldn't be so harsh towards the writer. I've modified my post.