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Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#111

Post by [deleted] »

Domenic_S wrote: post #95
aphextron wrote: post #76

It is splitting our entire society in two. There are people who work in the old economy, actually doing things in the world. These people are still "tied to the land" in a sense. Their income isn't high enough to live alone, so they still maintain strong familial and neighborly bonds. Their work is physical (that doesn't mean unskilled or low paid, just that it requires physical manipulation), and requires them to ph…

I've been in tech my whole professional life and I can't relate to the second class at all. The technologically enabled upper middle class are fighting over Yeezys, Supreme drops, and Rolexes (seriously, try to find any of those at retail price). My neighborhood is filled with WFH techies, and we all head outside in the evening for our kids to ride bikes with each other while we sample microbrews together. Those truc…

[deleted]

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#112

Post by baroffoos »

drewg123 wrote: post #64

We're heading toward a future where more and more is automated and there is less and less room for non-creative work. Let's face it, not everybody can be creative in a way that is lucrative. Do we really want to doom more and more of the population to a subsistence income, while more and more of the gains due to automation go to a shrinking segment of the population? I tend to think that a generous UBI is really the…

I think everyone can be creative but most will struggle to monetize their creativity. Maintaining an elaborate garden outside the front of your house requires a great deal of creativity and skill and you could argue that its a benefit to society but it earns the one who put the effort in no money. Some will be able to get jobs as gardeners but there are a limited number of people willing to pay to have a garden maintained.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#113

Post by xiphias2 »

whateveracct wrote: post #25
ipnon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the average IQ of a STEM graduate is a standard deviation or more above average [0][1], then how does a more educated populace result in something besides the stratification we see today? STEM education can help a person get on the right side of the tech split, but the STEM education itself is already prohibitively difficult. [0] https://thetab.com/us/2017/04/10/which-major-has-highest-iq-... [1] http://www.randal…

You don't need to be special to do STEM work, but it's possible the attitude that you do is keeping us from learning how to better train the average person in it.

Average person with less intelligence is capable of doing the same thinking, just slower. I believe that the problem is that STEM classes aren't separated by the speed of thinking. Also easier for a person to accept that he/she just doesn't get math, instead of the fact that he/she is thinking slower than other people.

I found myself thinking slower as I get older (and having more health problems), but so far I was able to counteract the disadvantages with better life decisions, so actually I have a happier life.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#114

Post by flukus »

shard972 wrote: post #100
dominotw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes its now grounds for ban on twitter :D

Is basically my point. On one hand we can't expect journalists who I imagine are very Intelligent to get into programming but somehow we are just going to change our education system and everyone will just be coders? I feel like you have to subscribe to tabula rasa to think this is going to go off without a hitch.

> Is basically my point. On one hand we can't expect journalists who I imagine are very Intelligent to get into programming

Nobody seriously expected this to happen, it was an exercise in turning their own solution "all these laid off coal miners can learn to code" against them when they were laid off. Twitter now considers pointing out this hypocrisy to be harassment. I can see their point, it's kicking a person while they're down, but they were fine with undesirables like coal miners being kicked while they're down.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#115

Post by TACIXAT »

bearmcbearsly wrote: post #59
TACIXAT wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't wealth redistribution via taxes treating the symptom and not the cause? We should look at the structures that allow massive wealth inequality to form in the first place. This could be a lot of things besides tax policy.

That's what the entire article was about.

Really? I didn't see anything about about wealth distribution via taxes versus other means.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#116

Post by a_tractor »

whateveracct wrote: post #43
atemerev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Redistribution” is inherently unfair; there is no “redistribution” except by force. Venezuela was the most recent in the vast row of examples of how redistribution works; probably not the last, as the idea keeps being pushed by some people for some reason, completely unimaginable to me.

Why is redistribution of wealthy any more unfair than the circumstances that gave rise to it in the first place? Nobody inherently deserves their wealth - it's largely a function of circumstance.

"Property is always and everywhere a kind of amnesty. It says: whatever happened in the past, this is now what is. When we all agree that everyone has what they now have, however they got it, we have a formula for peace. When we say that everyone should have what they deserve, we can never expect everyone to agree – which means we have planted permanent seeds of discord." --Curtis Yarvin

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#117

Post by pmiller2 »

freehunter wrote: post #101
pmiller2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your evidence? IQ tests undoubtedly measure something, and that something correlates with things like academic performance and certain types of job performance. What’s flawed about that?

The quickest Google search for "flaws of IQ tests" comes back with so many studies showing that IQ is not correlated to intelligence that at this point the burden of proof is on anyone who says IQ is relevant. Even if IQ does measure something , it's not an indicator of anything other than the ability to pass a standardized test. It certainly is not an indicator of intelligence. In other words: what is your evidence…

I never said anything about IQ tests measuring intelligence. No doubt the “something” that is measured is, at least in part, “intelligence,” at least as it applies in an academic setting. However, for you to dismiss them outright is simply not supported by the literature. For example:

> Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achievement, economic success, even greater health, and longevity.[0]

Yes, you can improve your performance on IQ tests with practice and motivation, but that does not make them “scientifically invalid” in any way. The fact is that so many things are correlated to IQ that it’s a useful theoretical construct, even if it’s misnamed and has little to do with what you’d call “intelligence.”

[0]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/what-does-iq-really-...

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#118

Post by baroffoos »

gumby wrote: post #61
toomanybeersies wrote: post #27

The problem is that as a society we believe that people need to work 40 hours a week to survive. We replace people with robots and retain the same output. We are more productive than ever before, yet work the same amount. Physical and uneducated work is being replaced by automation, yet we expect these people replaced by robots to find jobs to survive where there are now none. I don't believe in Universal Basic Incom…

> I don't believe in Universal Basic Income though, we live in a society and it is our duty to contribute to that society. There are plenty of things people do that are valuable to society yet are not captured in the GDP, and are thus not highly valued by contemporary society. They range from visiting and looking after elder parents, playing with your children, writing poetry etc. Then there are undervalued activitie…

I knew a guy who worked 6 months a year doing contract work and then spent the other 6 months on hobbies and personal projects.

I remember asking him if he gets bored during those 6 months not working and he said to me "I don't base my life enjoyment off of making someone else money". That advice has really stuck to me and its really cool to see the electronics projects he builds in those 6 months.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#119

Post by sdenton4 »

jedberg wrote: post #70
sdenton4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything will be fine when everybody is above average... Historically, the economic promise has been that everyone who CAN get a job will just get a Different job when new technologies make their current jobs obsolete. Plow-pushers will become welders, for example. And the usual futurist's question is whether instead the low-skill workers are more like horses in the 1930's, soon to be completely useless. The intere…

> Everything will be fine when everybody is above average... That's not at all what I said. What I said is that education opens the opportunity for those who have the innate ability.

Exactly. And those who have the innate ability are not the whole story, by a long shot.

Re: Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

#120

Post by freehunter »

pmiller2 wrote: post #117
freehunter wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quickest Google search for "flaws of IQ tests" comes back with so many studies showing that IQ is not correlated to intelligence that at this point the burden of proof is on anyone who says IQ is relevant. Even if IQ does measure something , it's not an indicator of anything other than the ability to pass a standardized test. It certainly is not an indicator of intelligence. In other words: what is your evidence…

I never said anything about IQ tests measuring intelligence. No doubt the “something” that is measured is, at least in part, “intelligence,” at least as it applies in an academic setting. However, for you to dismiss them outright is simply not supported by the literature. For example: > Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achieve…

If IQ can be improved through education, then you cannot use it to argue that lower IQ people cannot be educated to be better at STEM jobs as the parent was arguing.

Sure, I'll give you that IQ measures something. The question is, is that something relevant to the argument that you can only be competitive in STEM with a higher IQ and therefore many people cannot be educated into STEM careers? Does IQ make you better suited for those jobs, or does the training for those jobs cause you to score higher on IQ tests?

It's no shock that richer and healthier people do better in school. If you want to call that "IQ" then fine, but saying the correlation goes the other way is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof. Without proof that a higher IQ makes you richer and healthier rather than the other way around, then yes, it is entirely scientifically invalid. Especially if you're not exactly sure what IQ is actually measuring.

If the parent wants to argue that some people can never be trained in STEM careers because STEM careers require too high of IQ, I demand proof that this psuedo-science malarky is defined and that it is proven to be inherent and cannot be trained during the course of STEM education.

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