That is a truly great piece.
The concept of planning a career is shown to be fallacious. Serendipity rules. The controlling force is uncontrollable entropy.
An education lacking generous doses of science and math is problematic. Learning to develop problems to be solved is the key.
What was isn’t...... here. What was is beginning to seep in to explosive change from poverty to relative plenty elsewhere. Until and unless that concept is understood, life will be difficult and unrewarding.
I was telling young people in the late 80’s that in the future you will not be able to afford a home (other than a cramped apartment) if you can not say one of these things about your job:
1. I’m in sales.
2. I own my own business.
3. You can not pull an average person off the street and teach them my job in a few weeks.
It is coming true. Our standard of living is in decline. The good news is that many are learning that there is a difference between a high standard of living and a high quality of life. I left the former in the suburbs of Seattle (Bellevue) and found the latter on a farm in Central KY. I almost feel like I wasted those decades in Seattle. Almost - for they gave me an appreciation for what I have here. ;-)
OK, everyone is going to be i-pod programmers and live happily ever after. Too bad half the country has an IQ < 100 and couldn’t learn anything more than a manual labor job. So pay them to not work and buy products made by third world slaves. What a system.
If we could just get the govt boot off the neck of the private sector, a thousand flowers would bloom.
Nah, better to sit in a gray cube in a dirty govt office for 40 years, then retire, having accomplished nothing. It’s a very satisfying life.
With respect to the poster, this article seems like pie in the sky “free trade” propaganda, to excuse off-shoring, and provide cover for not doing anything to stop it.
Bring back American jobs, bring back American manufacturing.
We need to make things here.
Jobs of the future are — jobs.
They'd also hate working at Wal-Mart or Best Buy, and not get paid nearly as much while creating nothing.
"information technology provides the iPod/Facebook generation with the means to find work"
Yeah.... For H1Bs to find work. Of the Americans they DO hire, what exactly are they PRODUCING that adds real VALUE to the economy? If the iGadgets were actually manufactured here, that would be another matter.
Right now there are a number of good paying jobs for these types of young people, here in the Pennsylvania gas fields.
The #1 problem that these reporters are reporting is that decades of Liberalism has destroyed their work ethic.
The first time things get a little tough, they get into an argument with the boss, or have to pull overtime in bad weather they cop an attitude and they quit.
Rush is talking about this essay. It’s a brave new world.