4 ms·

Hope is nice, but it doesn't get the guy housing or food or health insurance. As a society, we're moving toward a new economic model. One that's superior in te

by scarmig 12y ago

Hope is nice, but it doesn't get the guy housing or food or health insurance. As a society, we're moving toward a new economic model. One that's superior in terms of creating output and wealth, but strikingly materially inferior for lots of people: it requires a different and much less broad-based skill set than the old economy required. It's possible for an individual to find the odd piecemeal job that requires those old-style skills, but extremely difficult to make a real living off of it. Short of turning people into soylent green or magically educating everyone to above the current median skill level, I see the only real solution to this problem to be a basic income or a job guarantee. (I don't, however, see any way for US political institutions to create those solutions.)

seanflyon 12y ago
> educating everyone to above the current median skill level I see improving education as the best solution here. There is plenty of room for innovation and improvement.
- scarmig 12y ago
  The issue is that we've been pointing to education as the solution for decades. Despite that, we still have no real clue as to how to improve education, and this is particularly true for the bottom 20% of performers--throwing more teachers or different curriculum at them has resolutely failed, experimentation by charter and independent schools hasn't given us any plausibly paradigm-changing leads, and initiatives like Khan Academy and Coursera are focused on self-directed learners, who that bottom 20% definitely are not. Obviously better education would be the dream solution for taxpayers, society, and students, but so far as I can tell it's just a dream that never translates to reality.
  - edgyswingset 12y ago
    Education also finds itself on the chopping block before anything else in this country. This leads to things like Universities hiring researchers over instructors so they can somehow justify themselves before the politicians who want to remove funding whenever they can. We point at education, but we don't exactly supply it with the capability to perform what we want it to.

by scarmig 12y ago

seanflyon 12y ago

> educating everyone to above the current median skill level I see improving education as the best solution here. There is plenty of room for innovation and improvement.

scarmig 12y ago
The issue is that we've been pointing to education as the solution for decades. Despite that, we still have no real clue as to how to improve education, and this is particularly true for the bottom 20% of performers--throwing more teachers or different curriculum at them has resolutely failed, experimentation by charter and independent schools hasn't given us any plausibly paradigm-changing leads, and initiatives like Khan Academy and Coursera are focused on self-directed learners, who that bottom 20% definitely are not. Obviously better education would be the dream solution for taxpayers, society, and students, but so far as I can tell it's just a dream that never translates to reality.
- edgyswingset 12y ago
  Education also finds itself on the chopping block before anything else in this country. This leads to things like Universities hiring researchers over instructors so they can somehow justify themselves before the politicians who want to remove funding whenever they can. We point at education, but we don't exactly supply it with the capability to perform what we want it to.