One point of the article that rankled me was his concept of a G.I. Bill so that everyone had access to higher education. That seems very misguided in my opinion. Instead of focusing on "higher education" should we not attempt to remake our primary education system such that we provide people with more relevant knowledge and skills?
Average Is Over
131–140 of 254 posts
Re: Average Is Over
#132This is fascinating. I think the big (and scary) meta-trend is this: The population is increasing and the requirement for people is decreasing. This gap is made wider by increased birth-rates and better automation. More people are being born into a world where fewer are required. That is quite a scary thought. Computers and machines automate and replace people everywhere. I have some anecdotal evidence of this: At my…
> I could not find one that would trigger an email from my Gmail account if a contact had not responded.
You might want to look into a more powerful email client. Gnus (a part or emacs) could be programmed to perform such a task. Setting it up to download your gmail over IMAP and the running a process filter would probably do the trick.
Re: Average Is Over
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never understood the argument of "allowing" people to become billionaires. Many of these people created things that changed the world. Should they be artificially limited even more on their income?
Yes. Yes they should be restricted. We artificially limit people to protect other peoples freedoms all the time.
Which committee decides exactly how many million dollars a man is allowed to make in his lifetime? I nominate Hugo Chavez for chairperson; he's an international expert on these affairs and surely the Venezuelan economy's current state of double-digit inflation and economic contraction in all sectors (except for oil) are completely unrelated to his confiscatory policies. ;)
Re: Average Is Over
#134I think that we're taking the concept of "average" too literally. Picture two lines: average worker competency and need/requirement for the company to be competitive. The author states that historically those two lines have been so close as to be equivalent in management's eyes. Now the second line has moved up.
So according to this definition, the average line is no longer acceptable. As a result we need to move it up to realign with the need line.
Under this definition the author is not as problematic as before.
Re: Average Is Over
#135I can't believe those Presto touchscreens at restaurants are $100 per month. I love gadgets and technology, but much prefer dealing with a server and think most people do. My kids like the games and nag incessantly to play the "pay" ones, but I hardly think this is the end of waitresses and waiters. (I hope)
Agreed, I think replacing waitresses with touchscreens removes an important part of the whole dining out experience. A touchscreen waiter seems very cold and utilitarian. It reminds me of the cheap LCD displays that have replaced gas station attendants. Almost all of the gas stations that I've used recently have them, and they all have very poorly worded prompts that show no regard for the time that I spend interacti…
My desire to interact with a waiter varies depending on the nature of the restaurant. Clearly this system isn't going to be installed at a 4 star restaurant any time soon, but if I go to a restaurant just to eat it would be useful. It would also be useful in a crowded pub where the service is generally slow and terrible and the social aspect is more about hanging out with your buddies than being waited on with a date/wife/kids. People could enter their food and drink orders and they would at least know they are in process.
In San Francisco there is a sandwich shop called Specialty's that has installed iPad kiosks patrons can order from, which allows them to handle the lunch time rush with essentially no line and two cashiers. You are also assured that your order is correct because you can see all the ingredients on the sandwiches and make additions and subtractions. It's really quite great, although I have thought it is the sort of thing that is much more likely to be successful in a technology hub than in most cities.
Re: Average Is Over
#136Ridiculous. The solution to average people becoming less relevant in the economy (which I don't dispute, btw) can of course never be to make everyone above average as that is by definition impossible. It's a feel good message for average folk that papers over the truth, which is that average folk that used to make a decent living doing average work will become poor. All of them, eventually. How poor exactly? Well, yo…
The solution is none. There is no "solution" because it, in itself, is not a problem. The problem is that everybody feels entitled to a top 10% salary and many would kill for "their fair share" when nowadays even the lower 10% have their basic needs covered and some left for leisure. The problem is that a society where everybody have similar incomes is somehow fairer, when there is no logical chain leading there and…
|nowadays even the lower 10% have their basic needs covered and some left for leisure.
What dream world do you live in? The bottom 10% have enough to live and leisure?! Where the heck did you get that statistic? And how much money, exactly, do you think people need to have their "basic needs" covered with money left over for leisure?
|Not salary disparity though, as it isn't a problem in the first place
Again, this is clearly based on your own opinion rather than any facts. If you were paying attention you'd see that having less income disparity leads to less crime, increased satisfaction within the population, better health of the population (and therefore productivity), decreased violence, decreased drug abuse, etc. Watch Richard Wilkinson for specifics: http://www.ted.com/speakers/richard_wilkinson.html
Income disparity absolutely is the problem. We shouldn't have total income equality, I don't think that is realistic, but we should set up our society so we can minimise it as much as possible.
Re: Average Is Over
#137What's usually missed is the value of being a skilled tradesman. Who fixes your robot? Who builds your house? Not everyone is cut out for college, actually, most people aren't.
> who fixes your robot? Who fixes humans? Robots will do this eventually. > Who builds your house? Robots here too. Just because they can't do it today doesn't mean you shouldn't plan on them being able to do it.
The question is, will a robot that is autonomous enough and sophisticated enough to build a house be cheaper to operate than a human worker? As complexity of machines increases, the number of ways they can break down increases exponentially. Humans bodies are self-repairing for the most part except in cases of severe traumatic injury and disease.
Re: Average Is Over
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw an interesting chart, but can't find it now, that showed the average salary of programmers in the US hadn't budged in 10 years either... Hardly something you would expect if there was a true shortage. Since I never pass up a chance for the joke: A lawyer or accountant with 30 years of experience is charging a lot of money or semi-retired... A programmer with 30 years of experience is likely unemployed.
I actually happen to know TONS of unemployed lawyers and accountants. There's quite an oversupply of lawyers. Not sure about accountants, but they are increasingly marginalized anyways.
You must know a lot of unlucky people. The unemployment rate for lawyers is 1.5%!
http://www.cooley.edu/newsevents/2011/081111_lawyer_employme...
Re: Average Is Over
#139I suppose the original author is worried about U.S. average falling with respect to world average.
Re: Average Is Over
#140tl;dr
america in decline. getting a job hard? try school.