American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals • Hacker News Board

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#121

Post by HarryHirsch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 12:18 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #118

HarryHirsch wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The engineers are fine. Says who? Consider the state of the physical sciences. Employment in physics has been problematic since a long time back, chemistry has suffered from outsourcing to East Asia for ten years, and in biology the pharmco bubble is bursting as we speak. That leaves computing. It's not that hard to become qualified to B.S., in this very place we see encouragements to drop out of college and "just…

You're right that science is problematic, but I said engineering. Engineering tends to be paid for by the market, science tends to be paid for by academia and government, which means employment trends in science are slightly more arbitrary.

You are forgetting the chemical and pharmaceutical companies, which always had R&D departments that employed chemists and biologists.

Employment in discovery has shrunk, both because it has become too expensive to bring a new drug to market, and the process end was offshored to China, starting about ten years back. No need to invoke the government here.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#122

Post by philwelch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 12:52 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #121

philwelch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that science is problematic, but I said engineering. Engineering tends to be paid for by the market, science tends to be paid for by academia and government, which means employment trends in science are slightly more arbitrary.

You are forgetting the chemical and pharmaceutical companies, which always had R&D departments that employed chemists and biologists. Employment in discovery has shrunk, both because it has become too expensive to bring a new drug to market, and the process end was offshored to China, starting about ten years back. No need to invoke the government here.

As you're pointing out, the private sector has relatively little interest in employing scientists. That's fine--I was mainly talking about business and engineering.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#123

Post by HarryHirsch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 1:03 PM UTC

bmmayer1 wrote: post #102

HarryHirsch wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One wouldn't doubt that there are well-paying jobs in North Dakota, but with a total of 700K people living in the whole state one immediately ask just how many $120K jobs there are, and how many applicants there are for each such job.

Lots. The fracking boom makes it the fastest growing economy in the country.

Lots? The whole state has about as many people living in it as the Columbus metro area, and the price of housing has been bid through the roof. ND isn't going to make a dent in the national unemployment statistics, and with a 2-bedroom apartment going at USD 2500/month no one moving there is going to get rich either.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#124

Post by HarryHirsch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 1:04 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #122

HarryHirsch wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are forgetting the chemical and pharmaceutical companies, which always had R&D departments that employed chemists and biologists. Employment in discovery has shrunk, both because it has become too expensive to bring a new drug to market, and the process end was offshored to China, starting about ten years back. No need to invoke the government here.

As you're pointing out, the private sector has relatively little interest in employing scientists. That's fine--I was mainly talking about business and engineering.

> As you're pointing out, the private sector has relatively little interest in employing scientists.

Boston, San Diego and New Jersey might disagree with you. That's where the pharmcos are.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#125

Post by philwelch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 1:18 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #124

philwelch wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you're pointing out, the private sector has relatively little interest in employing scientists. That's fine--I was mainly talking about business and engineering.

> As you're pointing out, the private sector has relatively little interest in employing scientists. Boston, San Diego and New Jersey might disagree with you. That's where the pharmcos are.

First you're telling me that pharmaceuticals aren't employing a lot of scientists, and now you're telling me that they are. I'm not sure where you're going with this.

I think "relatively little" (as opposed to "very little" or "none") is a fair characterization of what you said.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#126

Post by tokenadult » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #119

angersock wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're shitting me, right? Please show me the studies you draw upon.

The standard work is The Bell Curve . They studied many thousands of Americans of every race and subculture. They found that the only significant predictor of earned income was IQ. Race, location, parental income, and so forth did not matter (on average). College attendance in particular had little affect on income, it just determined whether the career was in an intellectual-style field. The school bussing and integ…

You wrote "The standard work is The Bell Curve" and that tells us that you haven't been reading on the subject since 1994, because The Bell Curve has long since been supplanted as a source on the subject. (It was decried as stupid by anyone who knew genetics from the moment it was published.) More recent sources on the issues of income, race, IQ, and related issues can be found in the publications of Eric Turkheimer, recent president of the Behavior Genetics Association, most of which he kindly shares as free full text on his faculty website.

http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/vita1_turkheimer.htm

Note particularly his recent co-authored publication

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin. American Psychologist, 67, 503-504.

http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/nisbett2012groupdi...

that directly disagrees with The Bell Curve on several points and yet was published in a leading journal for professional psychologists.

Many, many other researchers have gone beyond the amateur level of research published in the popular book The Bell Curve to grapple with the issues that book brought up and refute it. A good bibliopraphy on the general subject can be found in Wikipedia userspace at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...

with plenty of recommendations for current reading in reliable sources.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#127

Post by _delirium » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 6:13 PM UTC

praptak wrote: post #59

Permit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An exercise in trading anecdotes isn't going to get anyone anywhere. The fact that the people you've surrounded yourself are relatively well off does not offset problems surrounding unemployment and falling wages.

I got the impression that GPs point was that the American Dream is about improving ones own fate (especially when the environment is hard) rather than complaining about unemployment and wages.

I think of the American Dream as more structural: the idea that, unlike in countries with strong, hereditary class systems, anyone could succeed in the U.S. with effort, because your success was less tied to your pedigree. Imo, statistics, rather than anecdotes, are a good way of determining the extent to which that's still true.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#128

Post by HarryHirsch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #125

HarryHirsch wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As you're pointing out, the private sector has relatively little interest in employing scientists. Boston, San Diego and New Jersey might disagree with you. That's where the pharmcos are.

First you're telling me that pharmaceuticals aren't employing a lot of scientists, and now you're telling me that they are. I'm not sure where you're going with this. I think "relatively little" (as opposed to "very little" or "none") is a fair characterization of what you said.

It appears that your point is that science graduates have mainly found employment in academia. This is just not so - chemists and biologists have traditionally found employment in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.

My points is this: for a few years now chemistry has moved offshore, there have been heavy layoffs in the pharmaceutical industry, and the synthetic chemistry has been off-shored to contract shops, mainly in East Asia. But the pipeline is long, and any chemist who began their studies in the early 2000s, when the trend started, is (justifiably) pissed off that then cannot find work in their field even with a solid degree.

There is talk about alternative career path, but the observation is that those pay less then the original career promised.

We see the offshoring trend continue, the biological research is moving offshore as well, the pharmacology bubble is bursting, and soon only management will remain stateside.

This heavily afflicts people with advanced degrees. Considering that the common wisdom on this website is "skip college, get to work with the equivalent of a bachelors from Coursera/Khan &c", I cannot see that demographic unaffected. In India and China you can get an excellent education, and you will work for much less than an American or European. I cannot see computer engineering unaffected by the offshoring trend.

Exactly what is your point?

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#129

Post by philwelch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 8:39 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #128

philwelch wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you're telling me that pharmaceuticals aren't employing a lot of scientists, and now you're telling me that they are. I'm not sure where you're going with this. I think "relatively little" (as opposed to "very little" or "none") is a fair characterization of what you said.

It appears that your point is that science graduates have mainly found employment in academia. This is just not so - chemists and biologists have traditionally found employment in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. My points is this: for a few years now chemistry has moved offshore, there have been heavy layoffs in the pharmaceutical industry, and the synthetic chemistry has been off-shored to contract shops,…

You know, I didn't say anything directly about people with advanced degrees in the sciences in my first comment, and I think I should have left it at that because you're picking a fight with me over a topic you brought up.

Re: American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

#130

Post by HarryHirsch » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 9:06 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #129

HarryHirsch wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that your point is that science graduates have mainly found employment in academia. This is just not so - chemists and biologists have traditionally found employment in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. My points is this: for a few years now chemistry has moved offshore, there have been heavy layoffs in the pharmaceutical industry, and the synthetic chemistry has been off-shored to contract shops,…

You know, I didn't say anything directly about people with advanced degrees in the sciences in my first comment, and I think I should have left it at that because you're picking a fight with me over a topic you brought up.

You were the one who defined the "stereotypical unemployed Gen-Yner", as "a liberal arts graduate, and for good reason. The engineers are fine". This just isn't the case, it isn't by a long shot. Anyone who makes statements risks having them checked against reality.