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Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

theguardian.com

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Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#281

Post by ambicapter »

anonacct37 wrote: post #205
chrisseaton wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English and other liberal-arts degrees are universities and schools This is such nonsense. Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree, and with an English degree you can apply for 90% of jobs. You could graduate and go on to be anything from an advertising executive, to a soldier. Most jobs don't care - it's technology that's unusual.

That's true in software. Source: mid 6 figures principal engineer w/ high school diploma. Other jobs are pickier.

mid 6 figures? As in, half a million?

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#282

Post by lioeters »

wfo wrote: post #91

Say it with me friends and colleagues, Union. This is the future for all of us, when programming becomes commoditized just as teaching has. When our salaries are pushed to the bottom. We are not owners, we are not capitalists, we are not bosses, we are people with a skill you can learn on the internet and a corresponding talent for it. Either a) this will happen to us as programmers, b) we have credentialing and gate…

As a variation on (b), the supply of programmers can be kept artificially lower via "over-complication and obfuscation", to make basic operations more difficult than it needs to be. It sometimes feels like bureaucracies choose this strategy to keep themselves "necessary" and overpriced.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#283

Post by gthtjtkt »

tpeo wrote: post #257
chrisseaton wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the most part, the only jobs that hire for English and other liberal-arts degrees are universities and schools This is such nonsense. Most jobs don't care what degree you have as long as you have a degree, and with an English degree you can apply for 90% of jobs. You could graduate and go on to be anything from an advertising executive, to a soldier. Most jobs don't care - it's technology that's unusual.

You know, that's a problem too. I mean, I take that 90% of jobs aren't specialized positions. Once you need a college degree for a position that only requires general skills, or in which the employee can do just fine on-the-job training and experience, then what are those years in college for exactly? As far as I know, people could get by with a high school degree in the 1970s: there was no significant wage differenc…

Exactly this. The problem here is wanting to be a tenured professor, not having an English degree.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#284

Post by amalgan »

This is the number one reason for endowment reform. Many universities have the GDP of small countries tied up in endowments, but cry poverty when state and fed budgets are cut.

Unlocking endowments will free up money so that universities can be held accountable for tuition and salaries.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#285

Post by dragonwriter »

msla wrote: post #271
wfo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions are great at establishing entrenched interests. s/Unions/Companies/g Unions can be for unskilled labor. They can exist without qualifications and gatekeeping. That's why I presented that as a distinct option, separate from them. All they need to do is bargain with employers to make working conditions better. That's it. Unpaid overtime "just this once because we're all part of the team, guys" every month? We s…

Unions still must restrict the supply of labor, or else they're not unions, which would destroy Open Source, or at least Open Source which isn't appendant to a company which pays programmers to work on projects. Otherwise, by using GNU Emacs, you're depriving a union worker of their wages, and, since GNU Emacs gets updated even when there's a General Strike on, contributors are scabs, and union supporters have, histo…

> Unions still must restrict the supply of labor, or else they're not unions

This is true insofar as setting a floor on any of wages or working conditions is, strictly speaking, a supply restriction.

> which would destroy Open Source

No, it wouldn't.

> Otherwise, by using GNU Emacs, you're depriving a union worker of their wages

I'm a member of a union that represents programmers. None of our contracts restrict the use of open source (or even paid off-the-shelf) products by the employer.

Contracting out custom programming work isn't even prohibited, though it is redtricted.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#286

Post by brewdad »

vidarh wrote: post #174
sol_remmy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Texas has cheap, well-funded state schools. It is financially a well-managed state. Maybe you should switch to saying "That's Illinois" or "That's Chicago", they're the dysfunctional state now.

We're more likely to start referring to them as Texas than change the term.

Perhaps a more modern take might be Florida Man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Man

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#287

Post by egypturnash »

phkahler wrote: post #213
rayiner wrote: post #202

If someone had written an article about struggling actors turning to sex work and sleeping in cars, nobody would blink an eye. Acting pays little for the same reason being an academic pays little. Lots of people want to do it, but there is limited demand, hence only the really exceptional folks make any money doing it. Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. It's n…

>> Obviously, people shouldn't need to sleep in cars. But the answer to that is a basic income. Here we go again. Please show evidence that it works. Oh right, there isn't any. Please point to a reasonably complete economic model that shows it will work.

Utopia for Realists[1] has several chapters on the basic income experiments of the 70's, and the conclusions people have reached when analyzing the data from them against various control groups. Entire towns provided with basic income had higher rates of kids graduating, lower rates of domestic violence, lower medical costs, and less homelessness.

It contains extensive citations, and costs about twelve to seventeen bucks on Amazon[2], depending on whether you buy it as an e-book, paperback, or hardback. If you don't wanna spend that much money, buy it and send a picture/screenshot of the receipt to egypt@urnash.com, and I'll cover it for you.

1: https://thecorrespondent.com/utopia-for-realists/ 2: http://amzn.to/2xJ4IKP

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#288

Post by jdavis703 »

intern4tional wrote: post #86
3pt14159 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In parts of Europe there the expression: "That's Texas." It roughly means "That's crazy." but with a 'Murica flavor to it. Lately, I've been finding myself frequently thinking: "That's Texas." Let me get this straight. Take a course load of 4 double semester courses per year with 200 hours of class time total in the given year. Let's double it to 400 hours just to be safe to include exam marking and office hours. A s…

I work part time as an adjunct at a local 4 year college in WA state and am paid a flat fee of $150 a student per class. For one of my higher level (400 level) courses, I have 4-5 students usually and prep work to keep the course current still requires at least 2-3 hours a week in addition to teaching class. At the end of the day, I make less than minimum wage teaching these students. I'm lucky that I have another jo…

> Add in the racket that is software + books and things add up quickly.

Don't students have to pay for software and books? Where I went to school the library didn't stock any textbooks, and there was an extra per-credit hour "technology fee" slapped on to the regular tuition? You'd think the "technology fee" would cover all required software, but it only really paid for things like Microsoft Office, Peoplesoft, etc. Specialized software had to be bought separately (glares at Adbobe) at the student's expense.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#289

Post by SubiculumCode »

BeetleB wrote: post #189
SubiculumCode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say that those who can do research probably dont become adjuncts, but continue as a researcher on soft money or go in industry. The more liberal arts, philosophy, turn to adjunct positions.

>I will say that those who can do research probably dont become adjuncts, but continue as a researcher on soft money or go in industry. The more liberal arts, philosophy, turn to adjunct positions. I know a bunch in engineering and medical fields who are adjuncts. It's not rare. They do get paid a lot better than liberal arts ones, though and often get benefits as well. But they're situation is as precarious - they c…

Seems surprising that such can't find a position outside of academia. I am cog-neuro so a little more bound.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#290

Post by dragonwriter »

giggles_giggles wrote: post #243
dragonwriter wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be a soldier without ant college education (and qualify for a direct path to Officer Candidate School with a two-year degree or equivalent credits, IIRC), so giving “soldier” as on option with 4-year English degree is literally suggesting that it is worth the same as no college education at all.

You can only enlist without a degree. With a college education you can be an officer. In that case, the degree would almost certainly be worth it.

Yeah,the OCS requirement is different than what I remembered.
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