4 ms·

So you what your indirectly saying is that instead of telling everyone to go to school and get good grades they should all aspire to be programmers?

jp555 12y ago
I read it as: Aspire to make things people want. the things you're interested making may require extensive education, but that should always subordinate to making things people want.
jjoonathan 12y ago
Perhaps, but at the very least nthj is postulating the existence of good jobs for everyone if only they would train effectively for them. I take serious issue with this assumption: even if you found a more effective way to get drowning people out of the water and into lifeboats, how do you know that you won't just sink the lifeboats? The usual response from those with more faith in the free market than I is that "increased employment will stimulate demand in a virtuous cycle." It's a nice theory and certainly true to a degree, I just don't see any reason why we should expect this virtuous cycle to converge at more-or-less total employment. What I do see is an overabundance of evidence that it does not converge at total employment. I also see a number of disturbing trends that suggest the problem will get worse before it gets better.
rm445 12y ago
There are other professions that make money. But it's possible to get educated in all kinds of fields where either there isn't much demand for work, or the work intrinsically breeds a few stars and others in the field get nothing. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with pursuing those fields anyway; the question is, are the people going into them properly informed?
- gaius 12y ago
  14% of CS grads in the UK are unemployed. Tony Blair told a generation, don't learn a trade, get a degree. Now we have graduates making coffee, and we import all our skilled labour from Eastern Europe, because no Brits know how to be plumbers, electricians and carpenters anymore.

jp555 12y ago

I read it as: Aspire to make things people want. the things you're interested making may require extensive education, but that should always subordinate to making things people want.

jjoonathan 12y ago

Perhaps, but at the very least nthj is postulating the existence of good jobs for everyone if only they would train effectively for them. I take serious issue with this assumption: even if you found a more effective way to get drowning people out of the water and into lifeboats, how do you know that you won't just sink the lifeboats? The usual response from those with more faith in the free market than I is that "increased employment will stimulate demand in a virtuous cycle." It's a nice theory and certainly true to a degree, I just don't see any reason why we should expect this virtuous cycle to converge at more-or-less total employment. What I do see is an overabundance of evidence that it does not converge at total employment. I also see a number of disturbing trends that suggest the problem will get worse before it gets better.

rm445 12y ago

There are other professions that make money. But it's possible to get educated in all kinds of fields where either there isn't much demand for work, or the work intrinsically breeds a few stars and others in the field get nothing. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with pursuing those fields anyway; the question is, are the people going into them properly informed?

gaius 12y ago
14% of CS grads in the UK are unemployed. Tony Blair told a generation, don't learn a trade, get a degree. Now we have graduates making coffee, and we import all our skilled labour from Eastern Europe, because no Brits know how to be plumbers, electricians and carpenters anymore.