4 ms·

While I think he's made some important observations and I agree with some of his advice, I don't agree with his conclusion that young people are screwed. Here'

by Suncho 14y ago

While I think he's made some important observations and I agree with some of his advice, I don't agree with his conclusion that young people are screwed. Here's an important insight that I definitely agree with: "But won’t a college degree pay for itself? It probably won’t." It won't. You probably shouldn't get one if your goal is to make money. Here's some advice I disagree with: "My advice to young people is to figure out how to make something. That means either working with your hands, or learning how to type code with them." The job market is a game of musical chairs. You can give a person a strategy for winning at musical chairs, but it doesn't change the fact that there are fewer and fewer chairs each round. It's not reasonable to tell young people (or any people) that their goal should be to find a job so they can be self-sufficient and they can support themselves financially.

angersock 14y ago
It's not reasonable to tell young people (or any people) that their goal should be to find a job so they can be self-sufficient and they can support themselves financially. Are you kidding? How am I supposed to parse this properly? It reads like you are suggesting that it is not reasonable to suggest that you should get a job to keep yourself secure.
- Suncho 14y ago
  Yes. That is what I'm suggesting. And I am not kidding. Do you disagree?
  - angersock 14y ago
    I'm concerned that I'm maybe putting the wrong emphasis on some bit of what you said, because if I'm not then yes, I disagree with you. There is no reason historically that people have not had to work to support themselves, and so to suggest that they not do this suggests either that you desire them all to become layabouts dependent on welfare or that you want them to stop working and die off. Please explain an alternate interpretation of this.
    - nostrademons 14y ago
      work != job
    - Suncho 14y ago
      I don't want them to die off. I do want them to depend on welfare. Whether they layabout is up to them. Historically, if you go way back, everyone grew/hunted their own food and built their own houses etc. This was a very brittle/brutal existence. Drought, disease, or a cold winter means I might die or my family might die. So we learned to be efficient by dividing up tasks and specializing. This reduced the total amount of work that needed to be done to ensure our survival. Over time, technology (algorithms) continues to get more efficient thereby continuing to reduce the work necessary for survival. Of course, this natural progression eventually leads us to point where the work necessary for our survival is completely automated. We're not there yet, but there will never again be enough jobs that everyone can have one. That's a good thing. It frees people up to do what they want with their time.
      - georgemcbay 14y ago
        "That's a good thing. It frees people up to do what they want with their time." I agree with your premise. IMO, socialism, like or it not, is an inevitable result of a highly technical society. This is a good thing in the long term but it is going to result in decades of horribleness, at least in the US, because so little of the population is going to accept this until it is clearly inevitable.
        Suncho 14y ago
        Yes. There will be growing pains as we adjust to this new kind of economy. When talking about socialism, it's important to distinguish between goods and services that have a level of scarcity and those that don't. We have the resources to provide food for everyone, but we don't have the resources to provide private jets for everyone. That means there should be a market for private jets. There should always be a market for luxuries. There should never be a market for things we can easily give everyone. As technology advances, old markets will collapse and new markets will rise. The government should provide for its people as much as it can. No more. No less. The good news is that once society recognizes that having a job is optional, we no longer need to worry about silly things like minimum wage, living wage, or unions. You'd be working at a job because: A. You enjoy spending your time that way. B. It pays enough that you're willing to sacrifice your time in order to gain access to luxuries. If a job pays $3 an hour and you don't like it, then don't work at that job. It's in no way tied to your survival.
usaar333 14y ago
> It won't. You probably shouldn't get one if your goal is to make money. For most majors, this is true. Absolutely not true for lucrative fields that effectively require one: engineering, medicine, finance
Mvandenbergh 14y ago
>It's not reasonable to tell young people (or any people) that their goal should be to find a job so they can be self-sufficient and they can support themselves financially. It's quite correct to tell any given young person or group of young people to do so! That doesn't mean that it works as a policy prescription. To take your musical chairs model a bit further: I might like there to be more chairs, I'd like that quite a lot actually. It'd be great to get youth unemployment down. In the mean-time though, you bet I'll be working on my musical chairs strategy, and if anyone asks me for advice I'd tell them to do the same. Will that fix the lack of chairs? No, of course not. It will keep me comfortably housed and fed though, and while that is not the only thing I care about it is rather important to me. Would a degree from Yale have value if everyone got in? Much less. Would I advise an individual who got accepted to go? Yes of course I would.
- Suncho 14y ago
  Excellent points. But it's important to remember that as the number of chairs keeps decreasing, your advice becomes less appropriate for any given young person. Personally, even today, I would advise most individuals who got accepted by Yale not to go. The quality of free online education is so high that we've essentially reached the point where "everyone got in" to Yale. What does the decrease in the number of chairs mean? It means that less work is necessary and fewer jobs are necessary to support our society. This is good. We should want it to continue decreasing. I would like there to be fewer chairs, and faster. =)
  - Mvandenbergh 14y ago
    Sure enough, but to strain the analogy even further, if we need fewer chairs then we need to find a place for people not playing the game to sit. Also, the quality of free online education is not high enough to make it folly to go to Yale. Of course you still have to into account the cost, but for many people that will be much lower than sticker because of their generous endowment funded financial aid policies.
    - Suncho 14y ago

by Suncho 14y ago

angersock 14y ago

It's not reasonable to tell young people (or any people) that their goal should be to find a job so they can be self-sufficient and they can support themselves financially. Are you kidding? How am I supposed to parse this properly? It reads like you are suggesting that it is not reasonable to suggest that you should get a job to keep yourself secure.

Suncho 14y ago
Yes. That is what I'm suggesting. And I am not kidding. Do you disagree?
- angersock 14y ago
  I'm concerned that I'm maybe putting the wrong emphasis on some bit of what you said, because if I'm not then yes, I disagree with you. There is no reason historically that people have not had to work to support themselves, and so to suggest that they not do this suggests either that you desire them all to become layabouts dependent on welfare or that you want them to stop working and die off. Please explain an alternate interpretation of this.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    work != job
  - Suncho 14y ago
    I don't want them to die off. I do want them to depend on welfare. Whether they layabout is up to them. Historically, if you go way back, everyone grew/hunted their own food and built their own houses etc. This was a very brittle/brutal existence. Drought, disease, or a cold winter means I might die or my family might die. So we learned to be efficient by dividing up tasks and specializing. This reduced the total amount of work that needed to be done to ensure our survival. Over time, technology (algorithms) continues to get more efficient thereby continuing to reduce the work necessary for survival. Of course, this natural progression eventually leads us to point where the work necessary for our survival is completely automated. We're not there yet, but there will never again be enough jobs that everyone can have one. That's a good thing. It frees people up to do what they want with their time.
    - georgemcbay 14y ago
      "That's a good thing. It frees people up to do what they want with their time." I agree with your premise. IMO, socialism, like or it not, is an inevitable result of a highly technical society. This is a good thing in the long term but it is going to result in decades of horribleness, at least in the US, because so little of the population is going to accept this until it is clearly inevitable.
      - Suncho 14y ago
        Yes. There will be growing pains as we adjust to this new kind of economy. When talking about socialism, it's important to distinguish between goods and services that have a level of scarcity and those that don't. We have the resources to provide food for everyone, but we don't have the resources to provide private jets for everyone. That means there should be a market for private jets. There should always be a market for luxuries. There should never be a market for things we can easily give everyone. As technology advances, old markets will collapse and new markets will rise. The government should provide for its people as much as it can. No more. No less. The good news is that once society recognizes that having a job is optional, we no longer need to worry about silly things like minimum wage, living wage, or unions. You'd be working at a job because: A. You enjoy spending your time that way. B. It pays enough that you're willing to sacrifice your time in order to gain access to luxuries. If a job pays $3 an hour and you don't like it, then don't work at that job. It's in no way tied to your survival.

usaar333 14y ago

> It won't. You probably shouldn't get one if your goal is to make money. For most majors, this is true. Absolutely not true for lucrative fields that effectively require one: engineering, medicine, finance

Mvandenbergh 14y ago

>It's not reasonable to tell young people (or any people) that their goal should be to find a job so they can be self-sufficient and they can support themselves financially. It's quite correct to tell any given young person or group of young people to do so! That doesn't mean that it works as a policy prescription. To take your musical chairs model a bit further: I might like there to be more chairs, I'd like that quite a lot actually. It'd be great to get youth unemployment down. In the mean-time though, you bet I'll be working on my musical chairs strategy, and if anyone asks me for advice I'd tell them to do the same. Will that fix the lack of chairs? No, of course not. It will keep me comfortably housed and fed though, and while that is not the only thing I care about it is rather important to me. Would a degree from Yale have value if everyone got in? Much less. Would I advise an individual who got accepted to go? Yes of course I would.

Suncho 14y ago
Excellent points. But it's important to remember that as the number of chairs keeps decreasing, your advice becomes less appropriate for any given young person. Personally, even today, I would advise most individuals who got accepted by Yale not to go. The quality of free online education is so high that we've essentially reached the point where "everyone got in" to Yale. What does the decrease in the number of chairs mean? It means that less work is necessary and fewer jobs are necessary to support our society. This is good. We should want it to continue decreasing. I would like there to be fewer chairs, and faster. =)
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
  Sure enough, but to strain the analogy even further, if we need fewer chairs then we need to find a place for people not playing the game to sit. Also, the quality of free online education is not high enough to make it folly to go to Yale. Of course you still have to into account the cost, but for many people that will be much lower than sticker because of their generous endowment funded financial aid policies.
  - Suncho 14y ago