6 ms·

A few years ago, I believed outsourcing was the main culprit removing the bottom rungs on the career ladder. That was until someone, older than I was, told me:

A few years ago, I believed outsourcing was the main culprit removing the bottom rungs on the career ladder. That was until someone, older than I was, told me: "A career is not a right." That's when I understood that it is a choice by business owners and business managers to only hire pre-trained workers. It is a choice to run at half staff while waiting for a "perfect fit". Despite the large number of skilled, and near-skilled, workers, businesses are choosing to hire fewer workers, all the while bemoaning a skills gap.

busterarm 13y ago
This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy. If it comes to that, I prefer a French Revolution style class war. Fewer deaths, more gain for each death and in total, thus more efficient. Between 10 million deaths, no correlation between dying and deserving it, and chaos and no reason to believe in political progress, versus 200,000 deaths, a high correlation between dying and deserving it (i.e. higher death rates among the current elite) and the likely deposition of the corporate upper class, I know which one I'd pick. I'm not sure I agree with your premise-- I don't think society ever needs traumatic death, and I wouldn't want the violent revolution or the flu pandemic-- but if it were true, there's a much better way of getting it, which is to rise up and depose the assholes running the world now. I think the problem is related to what you are saying but much more prosaic. For the most part, humans are myopic and reactive, and the people who tend to rise in organizations (in peace time) are even more that way than the general population. They make shitty leaders, though, due to their lack of vision. The result is that, when there is progress, such people would rather cut costs (and involve fewer people) than do more. That, in a nutshell, is why Corporate America is so depressing: it's run by mindless cost-cutters, not leaders. Couple this with the mean-spiritedness of the US society and you have long-term joblessness and, eventually, widespread, cancerous poverty of a kind not seen since the 1930s.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    Women got better quality jobs in the 30s/40s not because they were capable (they were) but because there was a shortage of men to do those jobs. Eventually those in control of a mean, sexist elite were forced to modify their perceptions because of economics. I'm ultimately just saying that the only thing that will force a mean, privileged elite to modify their perceptions will be economics. Class war sure would give my sense of vengeance a boner, but I think it's both less likely and much more risky for those who we'd like to benefit from it (at present).
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      pg must be thrilled that this site has now devolved to the point where we talk longingly about putting entrepreneurs up against the wall.
      - busterarm 13y ago
        Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. I'm sure patent trolls consider themselves entrepreneurs too. If someone is a greedy asshole at the expense of others, I have no problem advocating putting them up against the wall.
        twoodfin 13y ago
        Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. And how does a "class war" distinguish them?
        busterarm 13y ago
        Sorry, I left my tea leaves and tarot cards at home. But French nobility continued through the Revolution into the 19th century and there about ~230 remaining noble families (present day) of which at least 130 were titled and had their titles officially restored in 1852. So in the most notable instance of class war at least, not everyone got the axe. The point you're asking me to respond to is a separate discussion entirely.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  Not only is it horrible, but it is also mean, wrong and stupid. Well done, you nearly have the full set.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    How else do you propose removing a large group of people who also have the largest amount of wealth and political influence and a high life expectancy who are purposefully removing economic opportunity from younger, less fortunate generations? A deadly flu (which is something that used to be and will again be common) seems like the LEAST mean/stupid option to me.
    - adventured 13y ago
      The starting premise is entirely false. I don't propose removing them at all, and I argue that you're wrong across the board. It assumes that one person's wealth is an impediment to another person's opportunity, such that there is a finite amount of wealth to go around and no more is ever created. Classic fraudulent economic argument. In 1932 your argument would have held just as much weight then as it does now, and would have been just as false. We're vastly better off and wealthier as a nation across the board than we were then. Wealth is not finite, and one person's success (or failure) does not mean there is less or more wealth to be had. A simple proof of this in action, is the stock market crash of 2009. Trillions were lost by the 1%, and that wealth should have been picked up by the 99% in your theory; it wasn't however, specifically because wealth can created and destroyed, it is not only transferred as your premise assumes. The 1% suffering a 40% haircut on their wealth did not create more opportunities for the 99%, which again your theory proposes to be the case.
      - busterarm 13y ago
        You're putting arguments in my mouth. I'm not saying that there's only one economic pie that we all pull from, I'm just not spelling out every single way how a currently powerful class of people is robbing our future. Sure, wealth gets created, but that doesn't mean you can't have a confluence of conditions that cause an economy/to decline. Arguing that we're fucking ourselves over long-term is not the same as saying wealth is finite. If my premise is flawed, it's no moreso than your response.
- adventured 13y ago
  Same logic used for the broken window fallacy. Things would be better if only we destroyed some existing value. If you applied the same logic to the whole world, it would mean billions dead, because hey, what good are those 600 million Chinese living on $2 a day. Any time an argument begins with: hey you know what we need, a billion dead people - you know immediately the argument is false. If you have vast under-utilization of labor, there are numerous obvious solutions to that problem that don't involve millions dying.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    Failure to recognize the argument. I'm not advocating mass death as the "cure". I'm saying "you know, traditionally, lots of people dying ahead of their life expectancy had an (typically healthy) impact on the economy and since that's not happening right now, that's having an impact too."
    - adventured 13y ago
      You are saying exactly that. You said: "It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy." Mass death is needed for the health of our economy, is what that says. Emphasis on needed and for the health of our economy.
      - busterarm 13y ago
        I was being (quite obviously) cheeky. I mean, this is the internet...
  - waps 13y ago
    You don't believe in evolution then ? I'm pretty sure it says that 1) populations will grow far above reasonable levels and extremely far above sustainable levels. 2) this WILL get resolved.
    - lotharbot 13y ago
      > "populations will grow far above reasonable levels" This theory was considered state of the art in 1798 (when Malthus proposed it) and refuted by 1838 (when Verhulst came up with a better model, which fits actual population data much better). Populations do occasionally grow "far above reasonable levels" and then crash, but this requires pretty extreme circumstances. The best example I can think of is the Kaibab Deer population -- various human decisions (killing off predators, changes to hunting policies, changes to livestock grazing policies) caused the deer population to explode over the course of 20 years, and the deer population crashed a few years later as it overshot what the environment could sustain and caused substantial damage. That population curve is more or less A-shaped, with a steep climb and steep dropoff. Populations in general don't behave that way. Most populations of most organisms we know of have an S-shaped curve, with a steep growth phase and then a leveling out phase that involves very little "overshoot" and very little "catastrophic resolution". (Human population looks to be following exactly such a trajectory, and is on course to level off somewhere in the 9-12 billion range.)
- taivare 13y ago
  Give it time...directed history..then they'll get you a job burying the dead !
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I find it frustrating that your argument, as mean-spirited as it is fallacious, can get traction just by being both those things simultaneously. The fall of the USSR initiated a period of privation that involved a significant population decrease through starvation. This event did nothing to improve their economy, indeed it hobbled it. You are correct that some wars have helped economies improve. Protip: it's the massive economic reorganization rather than the death that does that. Edit: it is true that in Europe, the black death eventually resulted in considerable economic growth but that was an utterly different economy and the changes were on the order of hundreds of years, not decades. Edit2: Re: regarding the randomness of disease: the deaths involved in wars have generally fallen on the less well off, at least in the times modern warfare (Post US civil war and the machine gun). Contrawise, the deaths involved in the collapse of the USSR were fairly widespread and uniform because most previously existing enterprises became unviable and so many otherwise skilled laborers and professionals were left unpaid.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    The problem with what you're saying is that it didn't affect everyone pseudo-randomly like a highly infectious disease does. Certain classes of people thrived and got filthy-fucking rich off the fall of the USSR and most of that had to do with how much power they had from the outset. The whole point of the "deadly plague" comment is that it kills kings and paupers alike.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    You are correct that some wars have helped economies improve. Protip: it's the massive economic reorganization rather than the death that does that. War creates demand for labor which means that people doing the work have leverage. (See: my note about dividing the 1000 richest people artificially into "Red" and "Blue" teams and putting them into war.) Without it, the world seems to be run by yes-men and visionless cost cutters (do the same damn mediocre thing with less resources) than people with the leadership and creativity to actually advance the world. It seems to be a pretty dismal fact of humanity that the only thing that prevents social cancer (i.e. the emergence of a parasitic, non-producing, and aggressively self-enriching elite that causes increasing dysfunction in the society, while labor's leverage approaches zero) is the existential threat to a society posed by major war. I wish it were otherwise. I wish we were a species that could mobilize around solving cancer or clean water in the way we are able to mobilize around killing people. The problem is that, during peace time, the good seem to become complacent and bad peoples' superior ability at social ascendency and ingratiation puts them into positions of leadership (see: the rightward lurch of American politics after 1980, and the increasing mean-spiritedness of Corporate America beginning around that time). Eventually, the social rot reaches an "overflow" point where the dysfunction of one society or more causes violent conflict. Then there's war, which makes good and bad people warlike both. Wars don't always make economies improve, of course, and war is pretty much the worst thing imaginable. However, to this point, humanity hasn't come up with anything else that gives the disenfranchised enough leverage to shock society out of a cancerous state. I really hoped that Silicon Valley would show the world a way out of that idiotic cycle, but the actual behavior that is in it, thanks to the VCs turning it into Hollywood for Ugly People, has rendered that impossible.
MereInterest 13y ago
>That's when I understood that it is a choice by business owners and business managers to only hire pre-trained workers. It is a choice to run at half staff while waiting for a "perfect fit". I would say that it is entirely the prisoner's dilemma. It benefits everyone to have a supply of well-trained workers. However, if you can skimp on training by hiring workers that other companies have trained, you can an advantage. But when everybody does so, suddenly you can't find any "perfect fits". It makes perfect sense from any one company to refuse to hire non-perfect fits, but it is ridiculous for every company to do so.
- pcurve 13y ago
  Yep, once company trains you thoroughly, they have to spend even more money retaining you because you may jump ship. Good old days of lifetime employment where loyalty was two-way street had its benefits. Because of this mutual distrust, it's too hard to retain good employees these days. Irony is that, most good employees are completely wasted in corporate environment anyway.
  - bitcuration 13y ago
    The new era is becoming more entrepreneur encouraged. Totally agree good employee in corporate is a completely waste of life. People just need time to transition their mind from good old 70's. There is no more evil Soviet Union, the middle class is a merit on your own, a right than a welfare. Those grown up from last century aren't used to it but will be soon.
  - kamaal 13y ago
    >>Irony is that, most good employees are completely wasted in corporate environment anyway. The biggest problem with the loyalty system was the contributions were in no way equal. Some employees contributed a lot and some nothing, yet both got equal rewards. The system was unfair. The same continues till today's date. The benefactors are different. The system in large set ups is still by and large very unfair. This is classic socialism with manifests in various forms. And the result is obvious too, good people gravitate where rewards are in proportion to their efforts. Bootstrapping, start ups, side projects etc. A thing to note is like the hard working consider large set ups to be unfair to them, the system considers start ups/bootstrapping/side projects unfair to them. Because the assumption is some people must always sacrifice their lives for the larger good. The opposite behavior is called selfishness, greed etc
beedogs 13y ago
This is why, although I don't do it, I don't have a problem with folks lying on their resume in order to be that perfect fit. If you can fool an employer into hiring you (and can fake it pretty well once you're in the building) you deserve that career.

busterarm 13y ago

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy.

michaelochurch 13y ago
It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy. If it comes to that, I prefer a French Revolution style class war. Fewer deaths, more gain for each death and in total, thus more efficient. Between 10 million deaths, no correlation between dying and deserving it, and chaos and no reason to believe in political progress, versus 200,000 deaths, a high correlation between dying and deserving it (i.e. higher death rates among the current elite) and the likely deposition of the corporate upper class, I know which one I'd pick. I'm not sure I agree with your premise-- I don't think society ever needs traumatic death, and I wouldn't want the violent revolution or the flu pandemic-- but if it were true, there's a much better way of getting it, which is to rise up and depose the assholes running the world now. I think the problem is related to what you are saying but much more prosaic. For the most part, humans are myopic and reactive, and the people who tend to rise in organizations (in peace time) are even more that way than the general population. They make shitty leaders, though, due to their lack of vision. The result is that, when there is progress, such people would rather cut costs (and involve fewer people) than do more. That, in a nutshell, is why Corporate America is so depressing: it's run by mindless cost-cutters, not leaders. Couple this with the mean-spiritedness of the US society and you have long-term joblessness and, eventually, widespread, cancerous poverty of a kind not seen since the 1930s.
- busterarm 13y ago
  Women got better quality jobs in the 30s/40s not because they were capable (they were) but because there was a shortage of men to do those jobs. Eventually those in control of a mean, sexist elite were forced to modify their perceptions because of economics. I'm ultimately just saying that the only thing that will force a mean, privileged elite to modify their perceptions will be economics. Class war sure would give my sense of vengeance a boner, but I think it's both less likely and much more risky for those who we'd like to benefit from it (at present).
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    pg must be thrilled that this site has now devolved to the point where we talk longingly about putting entrepreneurs up against the wall.
    - busterarm 13y ago
      Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. I'm sure patent trolls consider themselves entrepreneurs too. If someone is a greedy asshole at the expense of others, I have no problem advocating putting them up against the wall.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. And how does a "class war" distinguish them?
        busterarm 13y ago
        Sorry, I left my tea leaves and tarot cards at home. But French nobility continued through the Revolution into the 19th century and there about ~230 remaining noble families (present day) of which at least 130 were titled and had their titles officially restored in 1852. So in the most notable instance of class war at least, not everyone got the axe. The point you're asking me to respond to is a separate discussion entirely.
moocowduckquack 13y ago
Not only is it horrible, but it is also mean, wrong and stupid. Well done, you nearly have the full set.
- busterarm 13y ago
  How else do you propose removing a large group of people who also have the largest amount of wealth and political influence and a high life expectancy who are purposefully removing economic opportunity from younger, less fortunate generations? A deadly flu (which is something that used to be and will again be common) seems like the LEAST mean/stupid option to me.
  - adventured 13y ago
    The starting premise is entirely false. I don't propose removing them at all, and I argue that you're wrong across the board. It assumes that one person's wealth is an impediment to another person's opportunity, such that there is a finite amount of wealth to go around and no more is ever created. Classic fraudulent economic argument. In 1932 your argument would have held just as much weight then as it does now, and would have been just as false. We're vastly better off and wealthier as a nation across the board than we were then. Wealth is not finite, and one person's success (or failure) does not mean there is less or more wealth to be had. A simple proof of this in action, is the stock market crash of 2009. Trillions were lost by the 1%, and that wealth should have been picked up by the 99% in your theory; it wasn't however, specifically because wealth can created and destroyed, it is not only transferred as your premise assumes. The 1% suffering a 40% haircut on their wealth did not create more opportunities for the 99%, which again your theory proposes to be the case.
    - busterarm 13y ago
      You're putting arguments in my mouth. I'm not saying that there's only one economic pie that we all pull from, I'm just not spelling out every single way how a currently powerful class of people is robbing our future. Sure, wealth gets created, but that doesn't mean you can't have a confluence of conditions that cause an economy/to decline. Arguing that we're fucking ourselves over long-term is not the same as saying wealth is finite. If my premise is flawed, it's no moreso than your response.
adventured 13y ago
Same logic used for the broken window fallacy. Things would be better if only we destroyed some existing value. If you applied the same logic to the whole world, it would mean billions dead, because hey, what good are those 600 million Chinese living on $2 a day. Any time an argument begins with: hey you know what we need, a billion dead people - you know immediately the argument is false. If you have vast under-utilization of labor, there are numerous obvious solutions to that problem that don't involve millions dying.
- busterarm 13y ago
  Failure to recognize the argument. I'm not advocating mass death as the "cure". I'm saying "you know, traditionally, lots of people dying ahead of their life expectancy had an (typically healthy) impact on the economy and since that's not happening right now, that's having an impact too."
  - adventured 13y ago
    You are saying exactly that. You said: "It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy." Mass death is needed for the health of our economy, is what that says. Emphasis on needed and for the health of our economy.
    - busterarm 13y ago
      I was being (quite obviously) cheeky. I mean, this is the internet...
- waps 13y ago
  You don't believe in evolution then ? I'm pretty sure it says that 1) populations will grow far above reasonable levels and extremely far above sustainable levels. 2) this WILL get resolved.
  - lotharbot 13y ago
    > "populations will grow far above reasonable levels" This theory was considered state of the art in 1798 (when Malthus proposed it) and refuted by 1838 (when Verhulst came up with a better model, which fits actual population data much better). Populations do occasionally grow "far above reasonable levels" and then crash, but this requires pretty extreme circumstances. The best example I can think of is the Kaibab Deer population -- various human decisions (killing off predators, changes to hunting policies, changes to livestock grazing policies) caused the deer population to explode over the course of 20 years, and the deer population crashed a few years later as it overshot what the environment could sustain and caused substantial damage. That population curve is more or less A-shaped, with a steep climb and steep dropoff. Populations in general don't behave that way. Most populations of most organisms we know of have an S-shaped curve, with a steep growth phase and then a leveling out phase that involves very little "overshoot" and very little "catastrophic resolution". (Human population looks to be following exactly such a trajectory, and is on course to level off somewhere in the 9-12 billion range.)
taivare 13y ago
Give it time...directed history..then they'll get you a job burying the dead !
joe_the_user 13y ago
I find it frustrating that your argument, as mean-spirited as it is fallacious, can get traction just by being both those things simultaneously. The fall of the USSR initiated a period of privation that involved a significant population decrease through starvation. This event did nothing to improve their economy, indeed it hobbled it. You are correct that some wars have helped economies improve. Protip: it's the massive economic reorganization rather than the death that does that. Edit: it is true that in Europe, the black death eventually resulted in considerable economic growth but that was an utterly different economy and the changes were on the order of hundreds of years, not decades. Edit2: Re: regarding the randomness of disease: the deaths involved in wars have generally fallen on the less well off, at least in the times modern warfare (Post US civil war and the machine gun). Contrawise, the deaths involved in the collapse of the USSR were fairly widespread and uniform because most previously existing enterprises became unviable and so many otherwise skilled laborers and professionals were left unpaid.
- busterarm 13y ago
  The problem with what you're saying is that it didn't affect everyone pseudo-randomly like a highly infectious disease does. Certain classes of people thrived and got filthy-fucking rich off the fall of the USSR and most of that had to do with how much power they had from the outset. The whole point of the "deadly plague" comment is that it kills kings and paupers alike.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  You are correct that some wars have helped economies improve. Protip: it's the massive economic reorganization rather than the death that does that. War creates demand for labor which means that people doing the work have leverage. (See: my note about dividing the 1000 richest people artificially into "Red" and "Blue" teams and putting them into war.) Without it, the world seems to be run by yes-men and visionless cost cutters (do the same damn mediocre thing with less resources) than people with the leadership and creativity to actually advance the world. It seems to be a pretty dismal fact of humanity that the only thing that prevents social cancer (i.e. the emergence of a parasitic, non-producing, and aggressively self-enriching elite that causes increasing dysfunction in the society, while labor's leverage approaches zero) is the existential threat to a society posed by major war. I wish it were otherwise. I wish we were a species that could mobilize around solving cancer or clean water in the way we are able to mobilize around killing people. The problem is that, during peace time, the good seem to become complacent and bad peoples' superior ability at social ascendency and ingratiation puts them into positions of leadership (see: the rightward lurch of American politics after 1980, and the increasing mean-spiritedness of Corporate America beginning around that time). Eventually, the social rot reaches an "overflow" point where the dysfunction of one society or more causes violent conflict. Then there's war, which makes good and bad people warlike both. Wars don't always make economies improve, of course, and war is pretty much the worst thing imaginable. However, to this point, humanity hasn't come up with anything else that gives the disenfranchised enough leverage to shock society out of a cancerous state. I really hoped that Silicon Valley would show the world a way out of that idiotic cycle, but the actual behavior that is in it, thanks to the VCs turning it into Hollywood for Ugly People, has rendered that impossible.

MereInterest 13y ago

>That's when I understood that it is a choice by business owners and business managers to only hire pre-trained workers. It is a choice to run at half staff while waiting for a "perfect fit". I would say that it is entirely the prisoner's dilemma. It benefits everyone to have a supply of well-trained workers. However, if you can skimp on training by hiring workers that other companies have trained, you can an advantage. But when everybody does so, suddenly you can't find any "perfect fits". It makes perfect sense from any one company to refuse to hire non-perfect fits, but it is ridiculous for every company to do so.

pcurve 13y ago
Yep, once company trains you thoroughly, they have to spend even more money retaining you because you may jump ship. Good old days of lifetime employment where loyalty was two-way street had its benefits. Because of this mutual distrust, it's too hard to retain good employees these days. Irony is that, most good employees are completely wasted in corporate environment anyway.
- bitcuration 13y ago
  The new era is becoming more entrepreneur encouraged. Totally agree good employee in corporate is a completely waste of life. People just need time to transition their mind from good old 70's. There is no more evil Soviet Union, the middle class is a merit on your own, a right than a welfare. Those grown up from last century aren't used to it but will be soon.
- kamaal 13y ago
  >>Irony is that, most good employees are completely wasted in corporate environment anyway. The biggest problem with the loyalty system was the contributions were in no way equal. Some employees contributed a lot and some nothing, yet both got equal rewards. The system was unfair. The same continues till today's date. The benefactors are different. The system in large set ups is still by and large very unfair. This is classic socialism with manifests in various forms. And the result is obvious too, good people gravitate where rewards are in proportion to their efforts. Bootstrapping, start ups, side projects etc. A thing to note is like the hard working consider large set ups to be unfair to them, the system considers start ups/bootstrapping/side projects unfair to them. Because the assumption is some people must always sacrifice their lives for the larger good. The opposite behavior is called selfishness, greed etc

beedogs 13y ago

This is why, although I don't do it, I don't have a problem with folks lying on their resume in order to be that perfect fit. If you can fool an employer into hiring you (and can fake it pretty well once you're in the building) you deserve that career.