211–220 of 497 posts
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Usually 2+ years of experience in a certain field.
How do you get enough experience for employers in said field to take a chance on you? It's all about getting over that initial hurdle of 100% unexperienced.
Most successful people have X. Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Over time the value of X is diluted, loses its status signaling, and overall quality degrades. Successful people move to Y.
There are some things that does make everyone more successful. More education is overall better for society, even if it's no longer a guarantee of "success." Some things don't really get diluted but can enrich the lives of anyone they are involved in (if we disassociate the word "success" from a comparative cycle). For example, healthcare, books, digital entertainment, internet connectivity. The comparative advantage…
Perhaps, but you shouldn't make the mistake of equating schooling and education.
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Teaching yourself new skills using the Internet.
People always parrot this but how many Doctors do you know with no degree? Take a poll at Google engineers and see how many are actually self taught and have no degree. How many Wall Street bankers/traders/etc have no degree? How many US Senators have no degree? How many World Leaders in history have had no formal education? Not counting dropouts, what percentage of Billionaires have no college education? The reality…
More discussion on "the root of this" might lead to the above changing.
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A good ZIP code is a great start. https://talkpoverty.org/2015/12/17/american-dream-zip-codes-...
What made those zip codes good?
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Very few people I know actually have careers directly related to their undergrad majors. I majored in Creative Writing and interdisciplinary (politics, philosophy, and economics) studies. Currently working as an applied AI researcher and about to go back to get my phd in AI as well. There are many paths to take. Often being different helps you stand out. Having a humanities and social science background is just as im…
"Currently working as an applied AI researcher and about to go back to get my phd in AI as well" : You're probably in the top 2% of intelligence, that's a huge advantage over most everyone else. People who are closer to the average may need to take more conventional paths to succeed.
I barely skimmed the article, but I don't find this surprising for a few reasons (some of which have been mentioned elsewhere in the comments): - "University degree" is a heterogeneous thing. While there is such thing as non-economic value, the strictly economic value of a college education tends to cluster around a small subset of degrees. - Many countries have enacted policies to increase proportion of people who g…
Most successful people have X. Government: “Let’s give everyone X!” Over time the value of X is diluted, loses its status signaling, and overall quality degrades. Successful people move to Y.
It is the people that are seen as going beyond that education baseline that are the elite, and get the best careers and the most success generally (ignoring other factors for the purpose of this conversation). As you increase the baseline, what it takes to be elite also increases accordingly. I think we can all agree that it is inherently true that not everyone can be elite, in the same way that it's impossible for everyone to be above average, which is what I think you're getting at.
I think what this view may fail to consider is that the benefits of the baseline come to resemble what was previously considered elite as overall wealth increases. Middle class people now have larger homes, more vehicles, more luxury etc. than the lower-tier elites (ignoring the billionaire class here) did 100 years ago. That increase of the baseline living standard is tied to, though very much lags, the baseline of education.
Put another way, we can not eliminate the relative gap between the baseline and the elite, but, in absolute terms, as the baseline comes to meet what was previously elite in education the baseline well-being and standards of living also come to meet what was previously elite.
It is if you major in STEM (and you apply yourself and get internships, etc) - Majoring in "Eastern Gender Studies" will likely waste 4 years of your life.
Very few people I know actually have careers directly related to their undergrad majors. I majored in Creative Writing and interdisciplinary (politics, philosophy, and economics) studies. Currently working as an applied AI researcher and about to go back to get my phd in AI as well. There are many paths to take. Often being different helps you stand out. Having a humanities and social science background is just as im…
I strongly feel that path is only an affordable luxury if you come from a upper middle class background and up. Most people can't afford to experiment with higher education given its high monetary cost. You guys might not agree, but qzx_pierri has a point.
Nothing is a guarantee of a good life. A good life requires so many different elements, but mostly comes down to one thing: what you put into it, esp. in regards to improving the lives and welfare of others around you. Do this, and you will find that your own life gets better and better. Be kind, do work to help others, care about people and their lives (and not just your own) and you'll find that life will turn out…
But lack of things and capital will never get you a good life. If you are starving, no matter what you put in or how kind you are to others, you cannot have a good life. If you are home insecure, you cannot have a good life. Period.
I'm going to define "good life" to mean food, housing, and health security.
While you're right that nothing is guaranteed, the wealthier you are, the more you can guarantee these basic needs.
Even me, being in tech making around 6 figures, I haven't achieved my definition of a good life. This is because if I lose my job, the basic needs I listed cannot be maintained.
However, if you do not need to work (i.e. CEOs, billionaires, etc.), you are more likely to have your basic needs for a good life met for the rest of your life even if you lose your "job". What I'm trying to say is that having things and lots of capital can very much get you to my aforementioned definition of a "good life".
I think we're getting ahead of ourselves with these philosophical questions of what a "good life" is. First, let's meet everyone's basic needs: food, housing, and health. Because those needs are clearly not met.