NationStates Jolt Archive

-- Yes, the professional life for me
-- Yes, it's a prerequisite for any good job
-- Yes, I don't know what else to do
-- No, it'll hold me back
-- No, I'm headed to a trade
-- No, I want to fulfill the low expectations I have for myself

Now that you've read the options that I am going to put in the poll, let me go on about my motivation.

I hired a guy to come out and look at our furnace. We were talking while he went around and checked this and fixed that. Since he worked for one of the big companies that do this sort of business, I asked what the average wages were for someone doing his type of work. The answer surprised me. He was quite happy to tell me that he made almost $6000 a month, without adding in the overtime that he almost always got. That's pretty good.

I started looking at other trades. A new diesel mechanic can make $50,000 per year in his first year. A plumber or electrician can do just as well. Again, that's all without overtime.

Those of us in tech jobs are perpetually worried about outsourcing and H1-B visa immigrants taking our jobs. In fact, my company is discussing how to outsource cable manufacture to India. Service jobs like the ones I've mentioned can't be outsourced, though. Maybe the HVAC guy is onto something, huh?

Anyway, I see all these angsty posts about which high school, which college. Although, I'm pretty sure what the answer is going to be, let me ask the question to make sure. Do you need college for a secure future? That's a specific and personal you, by the way.

For me it was both. Can't stand not learning, can't stand going to class :p

For a future? No.
For a secure future? Yes.

College is in my PAST not my future and I'm glad.
It helped me get a job I love at a really good salary. :)

Do you need college for a secure future? That's a specific and personal you, by the way.

Yeah. I wouldn't be able to do a manual labour trade. Good enough for those that do, but I don't see myself being happy or especially productive in one.

That said, university doesn't guarantee me a secure and prosperous future either. I'm a little worried about hopping between minimum wage monthly-contract jobs for the next decade or so.

So go to college and then get a job as a diesel mechanic. Best of both worlds.

It's much more difficult to change your mind later if you decide you want or need to go back to school. I tried in my late twenties and again in my mid thirties, and just couldn't make it happen. No peers, no time, too many RL interruptions, all sorts of things conspire to make later-in-life degrees much much harder.

A sheepskin (ANY sheepskin) is a requirement in so many jobs that it's insane not to get one. If you're determined to maintain your low expectations for yourself, get a cheap and crappy education while you pay for it by being an air conditioner repairman part-time. That leaves the door open for the future, when you're tired of crawling under houses or getting the oil out from under your nails.

I want to be a scientist, so I need to go to college. Plus, I'm going to spend a long time in college, and I'm already taking six college-level courses in my junior year of high school.

i'm in my final year at uni at the moment. i don't know if i actually want to become an archaeologist. in order to do that properly i'd need a second degree, but i'm equally considering being a mechanic, although i'm probably too old to start an apprenticeship there's plenty of technical colleges where i could get trained.

You left out the most important option- irregardless of your plans or future, college is the one time of your life where you can mooch off your parents, while not having to live under their roof. Just don't schedule any 8 am classes, and keep hitting your parents up for money for "books" or "lab fees" aka beer.

You left out the most important option- irregardless of your plans or future, college is the one time of your life where you can mooch off your parents, while not having to live under their roof. Just don't schedule any 8 am classes, and keep hitting your parents up for money for "books" or "lab fees" aka beer.Well, maybe for you...

You left out the most important option- irregardless of your plans or future, college is the one time of your life where you can mooch off your parents, while not having to live under their roof.

Not in my case; it was either "live here or work your own way through uni."

I chose living at home. :p

You left out the most important option- irregardless of your plans or future, college is the one time of your life where you can mooch off your parents, while not having to live under their roof. Just don't schedule any 8 am classes, and keep hitting your parents up for money for "books" or "lab fees" aka beer.

i did that for my first year or so then i started to feel guilty about it so i got a job.

Not in my case; it was either "live here or work your own way through uni."

I chose living at home. :p


That sucks. I got a scholarship to a college 400 miles away. Ahh, memories. Actually, I don't remember that much. Must have been all the beer, liquor, and pot. But I do remember it was the best time of my life. Now all I have to look forward to is Sundays, when I can sleep in and watch football all day.

Other.

If there was an option "What a dumb poll" I'd choose it.

Isn't it kind of ... well, dumb ... to only ask your peers, those making the same decision as you?
Are you really exploring your options and their consequences, or just trying to find the herd?

Though your poll shows no interest in the consequences of your choice, I'll volunteer my experience:
I went to uni (at age 16, so like your college) because I didn't know what else to do.
I had a good time for two years. I dropped out.
I don't think I'd have been any more successful in a trade.
People like me will be instantly recognizable at college. They're the ones having all the fun.

Not in my case; it was either "live here or work your own way through uni."

I chose living at home. :p

My choice was between joining the Army to get money for college (my family is quite poor) or living at home and working at KFC for the rest of my life.

I was in basic training about a week after I graduated. I got out of the Army two years ago and am now going to college. Ironically, I work part time at KFC.

My choice was between joining the Army to get money for college (my family is quite poor) or living at home and working at KFC for the rest of my life.

I was in basic training about a week after I graduated. I got out of the Army two years ago and am now going to college. Ironically, I work part time at KFC.Ick. Doesn't Michigan have any kind of grant program?

Service jobs like the ones I've mentioned can't be outsourced, though. Maybe the HVAC guy is onto something, huh?
They may not be able to 'outsource' them as in get the job to be done in another country, but what my country's currently experiencing is that the low-education jobs especially can be 'internally outsourced', so to speak, via more and more often foreign-born workers taking on those jobs, sadly on a lower-salary basis than non-foreign-born would accept to even start on. Do you need college for a secure future? That's a specific and personal you, by the way.
I, personally, do. I'm trainging to be a higher education teacher, and I need both my two-subject bachelor and my master's for that. Quite apart from the fact that I'm loving it and wouldn't *want* to not go to college/uni.

So go to college and then get a job as a diesel mechanic. Best of both worlds.

It's much more difficult to change your mind later if you decide you want or need to go back to school. [...]A sheepskin (ANY sheepskin) is a requirement in so many jobs that it's insane not to get one. If you're determined to maintain your low expectations for yourself, get a cheap and crappy education while you pay for it by being an air conditioner repairman part-time. That leaves the door open for the future[...]

QFutterT

I wanna make computer and video games, so I have to do some sort of uni or TAFE course.

That sucks. I got a scholarship to a college 400 miles away. Ahh, memories. Actually, I don't remember that much. Must have been all the beer, liquor, and pot. But I do remember it was the best time of my life. Now all I have to look forward to is Sundays, when I can sleep in and watch football all day.

Meh, I technically finished uni last wednesday, and i'm only 20. Hopefully i'll be able to have some fun before I have to settle down and work 'till I drop.


My choice was between joining the Army to get money for college (my family is quite poor) or living at home and working at KFC for the rest of my life.

I was in basic training about a week after I graduated. I got out of the Army two years ago and am now going to college. Ironically, I work part time at KFC.

That's something I couldn't do :( Fortunately, our government runs a loan system; while I, rather than my parents, paid for my uni education, I don't have to pay anything back until I am over a certain income threshold.

Ick. Doesn't Michigan have any kind of grant program?

There is the Michigan Merit Award, but that's for $3,000, which as you know is a drop in the bucket. The state isn't in a particularly good financial situation right now, what with our 7.1% unemployment rate and the huge tax breaks we give companies to keep them from fleeing to Mexico or China.

I possibly could have gone to college right out of high school, but I would have had to rack up ridiculous amounts (in the tens of thousands) of debt. As of now (my junior year) I only have $6,000 in loans.

Right now my KFC job is more of a hobby/beer money source. I get the Montgomery GI Bill for $1185/month, which is sadly more than my mother makes working 60 hours a week.

That's something I couldn't do Fortunately, our government runs a loan system; while I paid for my uni education myself, I don't have to pay anything back until I am over a certain income threshold.

We have a loan system as well, but in our system we just don't start paying back until we're finished with school.

It all depends what you have a passion for and/or what you wanna do in life.

Meh, I technically finished uni last wednesday, and i'm only 20. Hopefully i'll be able to have some fun before I have to settle down and work 'till I drop.

Bastard :p Assuming I get into TAFE, I'll have to do 4 or 5 years of uni. So, 'til I'm 21 or 22.

That's something I couldn't do :( Fortunately, our government runs a loan system; while I, rather than my parents, paid for my uni education, I don't have to pay anything back until I am over a certain income threshold.

HECS? *high fives*

The idea that it's 'needed for any good job' is an outdated way to look at degrees. That assessment is clearly not true. Degrees do not equal jobs anymore.

college inst about getting a degree. its all about getting free booze. and networking.

In the modern, globalized world, you have to be as competitive as possible, that means becoming educated.

I don't think it makes sense to plan for a career that a Chinese or a Robot could do better than you, so higher education is needed.

I think it all depends on what you want to do.

You also have to remember that the job market is entirely interdependent; if the economy slows and construction of new buildings is greatly reduced, the demand for plumbers, electricians and HVAC installers also falls considerably.

Also, those same workers depend on architects, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, and most likely a bevy of computer technicians and IT workers; the construction industry, like any industry, has a varied job pool that is totally interdependent on each of its components. Of course, no matter what you should get some form of higher education, be it a vocational school or a college degree; without those, your earnings potential and job opportunities will be severely limited. A high school diploma is almost worthless these days.

In the long term, pretty much all left-brain type work will likely be handled by various forms of robot and machine intelligence, so chances are the bulk of opportunities will lie in the "right brain" fields, which generally necessitate (not require, since you can invent or compose for example without formal education) some college education or some additional education in order to work in.

I don't think it makes sense to plan for a career that a Chinese or a Robot could do better than you, so higher education is needed.

Within the next decade or two the robots will be able to do many of the things a college graduate could do. I imagine they'll be taking a bigger and bigger share of designing the next generation of robots and organically "evolving" their AI capacity just like a living organism.

Humans will be primarily involved in more advanced fields like nanotechnology or molecular dynamics, which still require extensive human involvement to refine and develop the technologies involved.

college inst about getting a degree. its all about getting free booze. and networking.
And about acquiring a rudimentary grasp of orthography, in case spelling hasn't been mastered in primary education institutions already.
I don't think it makes sense to plan for a career that a Chinese or a Robot could do better than you, so higher education is needed.
Do I sense a certain hint of racism/ehnicism? A Chinese as or better educated/skilled as me will always be able to do as good or even better a job of something as I can. And there are lots and lots of educated Chinese.

The idea that it's 'needed for any good job' is an outdated way to look at degrees. That assessment is clearly not true. Degrees do not equal jobs anymore.
That's right, given the current economic situation in many countries even a degree will not automatically guarantee you a job anymore, meaning that even less-skilled jobs / apprenticeships are being applied for, and taken, by people with degrees and higher education; right now, people without degrees are often enough not even able to get the jobs their education level would have gotten them a while ago. How was this an argument for not getting said higher education again?

That's right, given the current economic situation in many countries even a degree will not automatically guarantee you a job anymore, meaning that even less-skilled jobs / apprenticeships are being applied for, and taken, by people with degrees and higher education

Not really anymore; that was a problem in 2001-2003 or so, but over the past few years the market has grown pretty solidly. In the US, the job market for skilled employees is very tight; the only time you run in to a problem is if your skills are either outdated or you are in a field within, for example, IT that isn't in demand right now.

However, it's nothing compared to the mid 80's when the largest employer of petroleum engineers in Texas was the grocery chain Safeway. :eek:

Not really anymore; that was a problem in 2001-2003 or so, but over the past few years the market has grown pretty solidly. In the US, the job market for skilled employees is very tight;
I am unfortunately in no position to comment on the USAian situation; I'm only speaking on the vantage point of the German, and our economic situation, and what I hear about several other comparable countries.
the only time you run in to a problem is if your skills are either outdated or you are in a field within, for example, IT that isn't in demand right now.

Well, umm, that's always the case; the question is just how many fields actually are in demand, and how amyn people have been trained for that.

Law, hua hua

I found going to university fun. If you don't think you'd enjoy it then you shouldn't go.

It's not necessarily the best thing financially; for instance, it cost me the best part of £40,000 all told to get my Masters degree (including fees, money my parents gave me, money I earned and student loans, but not including money I could've earned if I'd've had a job instead), and I now have about £15k of student loan (compound interest - most powerful force in the universe) which I'll hopefully never pay off*.

Compare to my friend who left school mid-way through A-Levels to work full time at McDonalds, and is now a McMaster; no student loan or debts of any kind, five years of management experience and earns about 25% more than I do. But, he never went to university to have fun for four years.

I suppose the best reason not to go is because, if you don't, you won't realise just how crap the while(!dead){ wake(); work(); eat(); sleep();} routine is.

*In Britain you only have to pay back your student loan when you earn £15,000 or more per year (which I don't), when you pay 10% of everything over that as loan repayments. When you die, reach a certain age or are no longer able to work your debt is annulled. It is, basically, tax on education (you've gotta love the "socialists"). You can pay back of your own free will, but with an interest rate of less than 4%pa you'd have to be pretty stupid to.

It all depends what you have a passion for and/or what you wanna do in life.

Yes... if you want to be an educated person, you do. If you don't mind being a member of the uneducated masses, don't bother.

Me, I'm a stay-at-home-mom, which is exactly what I hoped to be prior to going to college. But to me, college/uni was necessary for THIS job, too. I plan to homeschool my kids. But that's not even the point. I just think having a well-rounded and good education is important for life; not jobs, not salarys, but life.

Within the next decade or two the robots will be able to do many of the things a college graduate could do. I imagine they'll be taking a bigger and bigger share of designing the next generation of robots and organically "evolving" their AI capacity just like a living organism.Blech. Well, now I have the answer to "What's more depressing than the Holocaust?"

Blech. Well, now I have the answer to "What's more depressing than the Holocaust?"

I don't know, especially considering that things will also get a lot (read orders of magnitude) cheaper and better as a result. So, you'll be able to have a lot more leisure time and a lot more control over your life as well as an improved standard of living. It will mark the beginning of the end of involuntary employment, and will greatly reduce the need for us to work as much or as often as we currently do.

Nanomachines will clean up pollution, manufacture consumer goods, clean water, build infrastructure, cure diseases, repair and rejuvenate the body, and quite possibly enable us to live for a very long time (well nigh forever if you were to go the whole way and replace your body with mechanical parts and eventually be uploaded in to a worldwide computer net).

Personally, I'm looking forward to cyborgization...I'll be undergoing such treatments as soon as they're available.

I am unfortunately in no position to comment on the USAian situation; I'm only speaking on the vantage point of the German, and our economic situation, and what I hear about several other comparable countries.

Oh, yeah. The continental European job market has some serious problems, especially when combined with direct competition from Eastern Europe and Russia (as well as China/India).

Well, umm, that's always the case; the question is just how many fields actually are in demand, and how amyn people have been trained for that.

In IT, your skills will generally grow out of date within 5 years. So, as long as you keep upgrading your skills and learning, you'll pretty much always be up-to-date and capable of employment. Most long-term unemployed IT people are from the Y2k period, when a lot of people with outdated skills were hired to upgrade legacy systems that ran on archaic programming languages.

And about acquiring a rudimentary grasp of orthography, in case spelling hasn't been mastered in primary education institutions already.

Do I sense a certain hint of racism/ehnicism? A Chinese as or better educated/skilled as me will always be able to do as good or even better a job of something as I can. And there are lots and lots of educated Chinese.


That's right, given the current economic situation in many countries even a degree will not automatically guarantee you a job anymore, meaning that even less-skilled jobs / apprenticeships are being applied for, and taken, by people with degrees and higher education; right now, people without degrees are often enough not even able to get the jobs their education level would have gotten them a while ago. How was this an argument for not getting said higher education again?

1-attacking spelling is weak. it reminds me of the homosexuall in my school, who used to attack peoples spelling in order to make himself feel better than the tough kids who could easily beat him up. he only got beaten when he tried to insult people.

2-chinnese people in most countries are cheaper labour.

I don't know, especially considering that things will also get a lot (read orders of magnitude) cheaper and better as a result. So, you'll be able to have a lot more leisure time and a lot more control over your life as well as an improved standard of living. It will mark the beginning of the end of involuntary employment, and will greatly reduce the need for us to work as much or as often as we currently do.Increases in technology haven't historically led to less work; after all, the 8 hour day is quickly disappearing. I must say I'm skeptical.

Nanomachines will clean up pollution, manufacture consumer goods, clean water, build infrastructure, cure diseases, repair and rejuvenate the body, and quite possibly enable us to live for a very long time (well nigh forever if you were to go the whole way and replace your body with mechanical parts and eventually be uploaded in to a worldwide computer net). Watch over us, keep us in line, enforce laws, etc.

Personally, I'm looking forward to cyborgization...I'll be undergoing such treatments as soon as they're available.Eh, Immortality is overrated.

Increases in technology haven't historically led to less work; after all, the 8 hour day is quickly disappearing. I must say I'm skeptical.

However, they have ended the necessity of children and the elderly working, and even if we work longer, our settings are a lot more comfortable. Fewer people have to work rather than those who have to work necessarily working less.

Watch over us, keep us in line, enforce laws, etc.

That's the price you pay, I'm afraid. Even so, growth in technology undermines the ability of people to repress others faster than it allows them to repress more efficiently. It's like trying to catch water in a sieve, with the holes getting bigger and bigger each time you try and hold it in.

Proliferation of technology and information access expand freedom rather than constrict it; just look at how the internet has enabled people to disseminate knowledge that the conventional media might have suppressed or edited. Even the telephone and radio enabled people to get information that might have been totally suppressed if they had to rely on text or word of mouth.

Eh, Immortality is overrated.

Combine it with memory editing (artificial reincarnation, if you will) and an infinity of simulated realities, and you'd be pretty well off. Prior experience is either forgotten or hidden, and thus you never become tired of living. You could retain what you want and forget what you don't want.

The only real barrier is the end of existence itself, and hopefully we'll one day be able to solve that...we'll hopefully be able to answer "The Last Question" before time runs out.

Combine it with memory editing (artificial reincarnation, if you will) and an infinity of simulated realities, and you'd be pretty well off. Prior experience is either forgotten or hidden, and thus you never become tired of living. You could retain what you want and forget what you don't want.

The only real barrier is the end of existence itself, and hopefully we'll one day be able to solve that...we'll hopefully be able to answer "The Last Question" before time runs out.

What would be the point of all this, exactly? Why not just live out your intended lifespan and die?

What is the "last question", anyway?

However, they have ended the necessity of children and the elderly working, and even if we work longer, our settings are a lot more comfortable. Fewer people have to work rather than those who have to work necessarily working less.

Both children and the elderly work.

Proliferation of technology and information access expand freedom rather than constrict it; just look at how the internet has enabled people to disseminate knowledge that the conventional media might have suppressed or edited. Even the telephone and radio enabled people to get information that might have been totally suppressed if they had to rely on text or word of mouth.



How much of the "information" we disseminate is actually "knowledge" and how much of it is just trivia, opinion, bullshit, etc? For that matter, even if what is disseminated is knowledge, is it beneficial to us?

What would be the point of all this, exactly? Why not just live out your intended lifespan and die?

Why, when there is an infinite amount more to learn and experience? Why allow yourself to be confined to artificial ignorance and forced infirmity? If you want to, that's another story but no one should be forced to.

And, our "intended" lifespan is at best a few decades, a life of brutality and suffering, of disease and hunger, and of ultimate abandonment and death alone and forgotten. Evolution doesn't care about works of art or science, or of living a life of pleasure and experience, or of beauty and philosophical rapture...it only cares about propagating our genes and after that we can rot and be forgotten.

However, mankind's ability to learn and develop technology enables us to escape that horrific cycle and become something more...I'm just extending it to its natural conclusion.

What is the "last question", anyway?

It's from an Isaac Asimov short story (it's also the title); the question was "Can the Second Law of Thermodynamics be reversed", which in this case was meant to prevent the heat death of the universe and thus life itself.

Both children and the elderly work.

It's nowhere near the same as it was in earlier times; child labor and elderly labor in the sense of the 19th century is gone. In most cases, legal child labor is voluntary; most kids work for spending money, and in many cases the elderly work to have something to do. In the other cases, that's a problem our social system needs to be expanded to fix.

In the developing world, that still is a problem and it's one we have to address through legislation and real enforcement of labor laws.

Why, when there is an infinite amount more to learn and experience? Why allow yourself to be confined to artificial ignorance and forced infirmity? If you want to, that's another story but no one should be forced to.

Because all the effort we put into extending the physical process of life might well deprive us of our capability to appreciate its value and beauty.

Indeed, the perceived "necessity" of extending life may well be based in such an incapability; if we truly enjoyed life, we would not need to extend it.

How much of the "information" we disseminate is actually "knowledge" and how much of it is just trivia, opinion, bullshit, etc? For that matter, even if what is disseminated is knowledge, is it beneficial to us?

An environment that enables us to discuss our opinions and come up with ideas, however trivial, is still a massive step forward in personal freedom. Factual information, discussion, bullshitting and just plain entertainment can all be had now instantly when previously it was very difficult to get even the most basic reference information without a trip to the library, if at all.

You could look at how many news stories are broken almost immediately and disseminated to millions or even billions of people within hours; under the old media, many stories were not disseminated that quickly or were even covered up. In today's much more open communication systems, that's a lot harder; one person with information can spread their message around the world in seconds.

And knowledge is always beneficial; you may not like the truth, but it is more wrong to withhold the truth from people than to force them to deal with its consequences. Knowledge is always good, and it is the only way you can truly fight tyranny.

Why, when there is an infinite amount more to learn and experience? Why allow yourself to be confined to artificial ignorance and forced infirmity? If you want to, that's another story but no one should be forced to.

Please explain how such "ignorance" is "artificial" when by nature we are not immortal. It would seem to me that the life you have written about is artificial.


And, our "intended" lifespan is at best a few decades, a life of brutality and suffering, of disease and hunger, and of ultimate abandonment and death alone and forgotten.

Evolution doesn't care about works of art or science, or of living a life of pleasure and experience, or of beauty and philosophical rapture...it only cares about propagating our genes and after that we can rot and be forgotten.

However, mankind's ability to learn and develop technology enables us to escape that horrific cycle and become something more...I'm just extending it to its natural conclusion.



Who is to say that suffering is bad? Perhaps we are improved by our suffering. For that matter, I'm not so convinced that the development of technology has lessened that suffering; we just suffer in different ways than we did several hundred years ago. Nor has it changed basic human nature; I'm not convinced the human race will pull together enough to develop such machines.

Funny how evolution has somehow managed to make us able to experience all that, even if it doesn't care that we can.

I have to say, I'm really sorry if your experience of life is one of abandonment and horror. Especially since we don't have all this technology, and probably won't develop it during your lifetime, so you, too, will be doomed to die like the rest of us. It seems to me that it is more fulfilling to accept one's death, rather than to run away from it.



It's from an Isaac Asimov short story (it's also the title); the question was "Can the Second Law of Thermodynamics be reversed", which in this case was meant to prevent the heat death of the universe and thus life itself.

Again, why should we want to do this?

You could look at how many news stories are broken almost immediately and disseminated to millions or even billions of people within hours; under the old media, many stories were not disseminated that quickly or were even covered up. In today's much more open communication systems, that's a lot harder; one person with information can spread their message around the world in seconds.

Is their message worth hearing, though? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how things like MySpace manage to make us more free, or even things like Amazon.com. It seems to me that it's just another way for corporations, etc., to control people, and to further compartmentalize life. Which isn't to say I think the internet is bad, but that it is short-sighted to say it is an entirely positive development.


And knowledge is always beneficial; you may not like the truth, but it is more wrong to withhold the truth from people than to force them to deal with its consequences. Knowledge is always good, and it is the only way you can truly fight tyranny.

Knowledge, it seems to me, is neutral. My knowing how to create a nuclear bomb isn't necessarily good, especially if I use that knowledge to create one and wipe out scores of people. Any kind of skill like that could be used to help or to hurt people.

Because all the effort we put into extending the physical process of life might well deprive us of our capability to appreciate its value and beauty.

However, it's becoming less difficult to achieve the advances than it was in the past; more and more progress is being made faster. Even so, some basic things extend life or improve its quality considerably; clean water and public sanitation come to mind, as do working regulations and safe food.

Also, there are a lot of people who truly enjoy working to expand life; they find the process of discovering new medicines and finding ways to solve the problems that threaten our health to be endlessly rewarding, and find the beauty of being able to understand the very code of life itself and use it to be unparalleled. Their meaning and value of life is extending and improving it for themselves and others so that we can appreciate more of it.

Indeed, the perceived "necessity" of extending life may well be based in such an incapability; if we truly enjoyed life, we would not need to extend it.

If we enjoy life, we would want more of it to experience. It's fairly well known that people who are optimistic and happier tend to live longer, and the will to live is strongest in people who enjoy life the most. In order to want to live, you'd have to enjoy it.

It's nowhere near the same as it was in earlier times; child labor and elderly labor in the sense of the 19th century is gone.

Industrial child wage-labor was a product of the Industrial Revolution - that is, "modern technology."

True, children worked before then - but for the most part, they did not work for wages.

In most cases, legal child labor is voluntary; most kids work for spending money,

Only if we are equating child labor with child wage-labor.

I see no reason not to include compulsory education as child labor, however. Nor, in terms of historical comparison, would it make sense to exclude household chores.

and in many cases the elderly work to have something to do.

They also work to maintain their homes, to buy what they need, and so on.

And I am not at all convinced that the elderly worked all that much harder in past historical eras. (Indeed, the poverty of the elderly is in large part a creation of a society where relatives live far from one another, directly attributable to modern technology. Such an arrangement, furthermore, also increases the quantity of work the elderly need to perform.)

Also, there are a lot of people who truly enjoy working to expand life; they find the process of discovering new medicines and finding ways to solve the problems that threaten our health to be endlessly rewarding, and find the beauty of being able to understand the very code of life itself and use it to be unparalleled. Their meaning and value of life is extending and improving it for themselves and others so that we can appreciate more of it.

What about those people who find technology to be alienating, stifling, etc?

I must confess, it also seems rather pointless to me to find one's greatest pleasure in life to be merely extending it. If that were the case, one would spend all one's time finding out ways to make one's time longer. And fine, let's say we achieve immortality, we stop the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics:

What then?

If we extend life to the point where it cannot be extended further, improve life so that it cannot be improved further, have we not then destroyed our purpose for living?

Is their message worth hearing, though? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how things like MySpace manage to make us more free, or even things like Amazon.com. It seems to me that it's just another way for corporations, etc., to control people, and to further compartmentalize life. Which isn't to say I think the internet is bad, but that it is short-sighted to say it is an entirely positive development.

Nothing is entirely positive; even things like agriculture or the city caused problems like making us more susceptible to disease even though we no longer had to fear starvation, bad weather, or predators in the wild.

Myspace, or any blogging service, does make us more free; the ability to post your thoughts (no matter how inane or superficial they are) for free is an incredible boon that is unprecedented in history. Previously, publication of ideas was a much longer process and a much more expensive one, and there was no guarantee that they would even be published.

Online shopping creates more choices, which mean that it's a lot harder for one particular company to come in and force their products on us for higher prices (legislation has a similar effect, but they're complementary). With a click of a mouse, you can access dozens or even hundreds of retailers from around the world...that's a kind of freedom in itself, provided you see the ability to buy things freely to be a freedom.

Knowledge, it seems to me, is neutral. My knowing how to create a nuclear bomb isn't necessarily good, especially if I use that knowledge to create one and wipe out scores of people. Any kind of skill like that could be used to help or to hurt people.

That's where ethics come in. Technology is neutral until we decide what to use it for; it's up to us to determine that, and in some ways that is the ultimate freedom. We have to establish the values necessary to using technology responsibly, since the moral codes we rely upon may not be sufficient to use technology responsibly. It's one of the ultimate tests of the nature of mankind.

Nothing is entirely positive; even things like agriculture or the city caused problems like making us more susceptible to disease even though we no longer had to fear starvation, bad weather, or predators in the wild.

Myspace, or any blogging service, does make us more free; the ability to post your thoughts (no matter how inane or superficial they are) for free is an incredible boon that is unprecedented in history. Previously, publication of ideas was a much longer process and a much more expensive one, and there was no guarantee that they would even be published.


You have an interesting perspective, and while I understand it, I can't help but disagree. I'm curious as to what you think of this: http://epic.lightover.com/




That's where ethics come in. Technology is neutral until we decide what to use it for; it's up to us to determine that, and in some ways that is the ultimate freedom. We have to establish the values necessary to using technology responsibly, since the moral codes we rely upon may not be sufficient to use technology responsibly. It's one of the ultimate tests of the nature of mankind.

If ethics alone can tell us what to do, then isn't ethics higher than the technology it directs?

What about those people who find technology to be alienating, stifling, etc?

You can freely choose not to use technology. It might not be easy, but if you find value and meaning in living without it it would be wrong to force you to do otherwise.

I must confess, it also seems rather pointless to me to find one's greatest pleasure in life to be merely extending it. If that were the case, one would spend all one's time finding out ways to make one's time longer. And fine, let's say we achieve immortality, we stop the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics:

Well, ideally life-extension would evolve, eventually becoming a self-sustaining project that doesn't really require additional effort or input. It would develop, but the development would occur independent of your efforts to extend it.

It might be as simple as a trip to some rejuvenation facility and nothing more. And as that improved, the amount of time would fall; it might take a year to add ten years in the first generation of the technology, a month in the next, a week in the next, then a day, then an hour...

What then?

If we extend life to the point where it cannot be extended further, improve life so that it cannot be improved further, have we not then destroyed our purpose for living?

That's a good question...if that were to happen, you would be God. Ironically, that's exactly what happened in "The Last Question", albeit in a slightly different form.

I imagine it would be similar to asking God why he, a perfect and omnipotent being created a universe in the first place and what his reason for existence is. And that's a question that can't really be answered by us.

However, it's becoming less difficult to achieve the advances than it was in the past; more and more progress is being made faster. Even so, some basic things extend life or improve its quality considerably; clean water and public sanitation come to mind, as do working regulations and safe food.

All examples of artificial necessity - places where human "progress" has screwed things up, and then, centuries or millenia later, comes up with a partial solution.

Indeed, we are at such a point right now, with ecological destruction and resource mismanagement.

Not to mention the effort involved in maintaining the infrastructure, in gathering the raw materials for it, in producing goods for the people performing the labor, etc.

Also, there are a lot of people who truly enjoy working to expand life; they find the process of discovering new medicines and finding ways to solve the problems that threaten our health to be endlessly rewarding, and find the beauty of being able to understand the very code of life itself and use it to be unparalleled. Their meaning and value of life is extending and improving it for themselves and others so that we can appreciate more of it.

Definitely, but in order for them to do that work, lots of other kinds of labor are required - labor that is not always so pleasurable or rewarding.

Mining, for instance.

If we enjoy life, we would want more of it to experience.

"Want[ing] more" is always a sign of lacking.

The person who has truly enjoyed life is content with what she has lived, and does not fear death.

It's fairly well known that people who are optimistic and happier tend to live longer, and the will to live is strongest in people who enjoy life the most.

The "will to live", yes - but not the will to live at the expense of happiness.

They do not necessarily welcome death, but they do not fear it either.

And continually stressing over death probably does hurt people's health.

In order to want to live, you'd have to enjoy it.

Only enough that life is not horrifically awful (as it is for many.) You need not be genuinely content with it.

1-attacking spelling is weak. it reminds me of the homosexuall in my school, who used to attack peoples spelling in order to make himself feel better than the tough kids who could easily beat him up. he only got beaten when he tried to insult people.
Being an ESL, I'm usually far from eing a spelling nazi, as people on this board seem to like to call it, and I most certainly do not , in general, use an orthography version of ad hominem to 'attack' or invalidate a person's arguments. BUT blatant language errors in a post that basically tells us how the poster seems to think that all college is good for is massive beer comsuption, parties and other assorted fun is way too ironic and on-topic, actually, to pass up on.

By the by, referring to a person's sexuality in a comment disparaging him when said sexuaity has nothing at all to do with the 'charges' against him is ever so weak.

2-chinnese people in most countries are cheaper labour.
No shit. But first of all, offering labor for cheaper than others offer the same labor isn't a sign of lesser quality/skills, and secondly, the comment "you shouldn't be trying for a job (even) a Chinese could do" is racist as it equals Chinese with people inherently unable to do skilled labor. It'd be fine to say "you shouldn't try for a low-skilled job, like the ones many Chinese workers in my country do" (if you must mention the Chinese). On a side note, I don't think that in my country, Chinese do more unskilled work than the average, in fact the opposite would probably be the case; and I'm pretty sure I remember correctly that in the US, immigrants of Asian descent do a lot better academically, on average, than the 'white' USAians do.

A lot of unskilled labor might be outsourced to China, but Chinese immigrants in general tend to be on the higher end of the academic/skills skala, I think.

If a person has an opportunity to go to college then they should take it. I know that many parents do not support there children in going to college. Many times it is completely 100% up to the young adult to have to support ones self and pay for school. I had to do it this way. All I can say was that it was extremely difficult for me to do this. My grades suffered do to the fact of working and going to school. It was a hard earned degree to say the least.
If one can have the opportunity to have help in education process then you should feel grateful and take full advantage of it.

One thing though that I do say is that not all college degree's are created equal. If one is going to spend the time to go to school then one should make it worthwhile. Research your degree choices very carefully and find out what type of jobs that your particular degree that your shooting for will pay. I have seen dozens of examples of people getting out of college and having a near useless degree. They end up working in positions that did not require a college degree to begin with.

If you don't think that you are cut out for college and decide not to go. Then don't despair. Either pick up a trade or start your own business. I have known many people that are doing well without the college degree. These are people that have picked up a trade that pays well. There are also the people that become salesmen in the financial fields and other potential lucrative sales positions. Also no college degree is required to start your own business. This is what I do myself. My degree is basically useless for the line of work I am in.

That's a good question...if that were to happen, you would be God. Ironically, that's exactly what happened in "The Last Question", albeit in a slightly different form.

I imagine it would be similar to asking God why he, a perfect and omnipotent being created a universe in the first place and what his reason for existence is. And that's a question that can't really be answered by us.

If we can't answer that question, should we attempt to become God, then? Technology, as we have stated, provides the means; ethics, provides the ends---the ways we use that technology. If our ultimate end is to become God, but we don't know why, should we continue to progress in that direction?

For that matter, do you believe in God?

I'm not really sure why I'm in college, I'm wasting a lot of money with government loans I know that. I'm probably not even going to get a job associated with my major. I could make good money mining, fishing, or workin on a rig. Hell, I could make enough being a janitor or in waste mangement.

I'm watching the link right now, so I can't comment yet.

If ethics alone can tell us what to do, then isn't ethics higher than the technology it directs?

Well, is mankind its own master or is it subservient to technology? We create technology, and we (should) be guided by some kind of ethical code, so technology as we know it is subservient to our ethics.

I imagine if machines became self-aware, they would develop their own values that would be their own guidance as they developed their own selves, technology and culture. The real question is whether or not those values would be like ours or whether they would be alien to us, and what that means for our place in the universe.

I imagine if machines became self-aware, they would develop their own values that would be their own guidance as they developed their own selves, technology and culture. The real question is whether or not those values would be like ours or whether they would be alien to us, and what that means for our place in the universe.

If our main purpose in life is to achieve an answer to the Last Question, I think a self-aware machine could do everything we do more efficiently than we. We would become superfluous, wouldn't we?

Nothing is entirely positive; even things like agriculture or the city caused problems like making us more susceptible to disease even though we no longer had to fear starvation, bad weather, or predators in the wild.

Agriculture did not save us from starvation or bad weather. In fact, it made us more vulnerable to both, because we sacrificed the flexibility of hunter-gathering for dependence on a narrow range of plants.

If conditions are such that the growth of a few plants are impeded, hunter-gatherers will always be able to survive, but agriculturalists (independent of modern technology) will be severely harmed if they get unlucky.

If we can't answer that question, should we attempt to become God, then? Technology, as we have stated, provides the means; ethics, provides the ends---the ways we use that technology. If our ultimate end is to become God, but we don't know why, should we continue to progress in that direction?

If we can't answer it, then we will not face that problem...we know that we have limitations and the meaning of those limitations would have to be dealt with by the society at the time.

Also, we may then have irrefutable proof of the existence of a God...and that will change everything.

For that matter, do you believe in God?

I do, although God's nature is as of yet an indecipherable mystery; you could label me an "agnostic theist" I guess. I also support enhancing ourselves in a religious sense as well as a secular one; if we live longer and have more access to information and thought capacity, we may be able to discover even more about God than ever before.

If our main purpose in life is to achieve an answer to the Last Question, I think a self-aware machine could do everything we do more efficiently than we. We would become superfluous, wouldn't we?

I personally don't feel that is our purpose, but if that were our sole purpose then we would become superfluous. If it could be done, however, it would change everything we know.

However, if a computer could solve that question and could become perfect, we would be as superfluous to it as man is to God; it would be up to "God" to determine what our purpose is in this case.

Agriculture did not save us from starvation or bad weather. In fact, it made us more vulnerable to both, because we sacrificed the flexibility of hunter-gathering for dependence on a narrow range of plants.

That's true, although at the same time it enabled us to diversify ourselves away from having to survive and led to the development of more and more cultural and philosophical concepts. We made ourselves both safer and more vulnerable.

It really all comes down to what you value more, and what that means to your development as a person.

If conditions are such that the growth of a few plants are impeded, hunter-gatherers will always be able to survive, but agriculturalists (independent of modern technology) will be severely harmed if they get unlucky.

That's true. Ideally, we will eventually no longer have to depend on those plants or animals for survival in the most literal sense, but it is still a problem right now. Of course, that's why environmental protection and similar programs are so important, because until we can circumvent the problem the problem will remain and it will get worse long before it gets better unless we do something about it.

-- Yes, the professional life for me
-- Yes, it's a prerequisite for any good job
-- Yes, I don't know what else to do
-- No, it'll hold me back
-- No, I'm headed to a trade
-- No, I want to fulfill the low expectations I have for myself

Now that you've read the options that I am going to put in the poll, let me go on about my motivation.

I hired a guy to come out and look at our furnace. We were talking while he went around and checked this and fixed that. Since he worked for one of the big companies that do this sort of business, I asked what the average wages were for someone doing his type of work. The answer surprised me. He was quite happy to tell me that he made almost $6000 a month, without adding in the overtime that he almost always got. That's pretty good.

I started looking at other trades. A new diesel mechanic can make $50,000 per year in his first year. A plumber or electrician can do just as well. Again, that's all without overtime.

Those of us in tech jobs are perpetually worried about outsourcing and H1-B visa immigrants taking our jobs. In fact, my company is discussing how to outsource cable manufacture to India. Service jobs like the ones I've mentioned can't be outsourced, though. Maybe the HVAC guy is onto something, huh?

Anyway, I see all these angsty posts about which high school, which college. Although, I'm pretty sure what the answer is going to be, let me ask the question to make sure. Do you need college for a secure future? That's a specific and personal you, by the way.

There are plenty of jobs that you can make a good living at that don't require college. However, most jobs require highly specialized training. For a lot of long-established trades, that training does not get offered in colleges, but in vocational schools or apprenticeships. e.g. there's no such thing as a BA in plumbing.

However, unless you've got a family connection that will train you to be an electrician, pulmber, mechanic, etc, you're likely to be SOL without college.

But what you have to understand about going to college is that there's a difference between education and vocational training, even if you get a Bachelor's in a vocational training program. If you go to school to become a pharmacist, you may come out with great training, and very little education. If you go for a degree in philosophy, you may be very well educated, but unemployable. Engineers tend to be the worst educated because their training needs to be so intense, colleges tend to let education requirements slip. But their employment prospects are likely to be very good.

That's true, although at the same time it enabled us to diversify ourselves away from having to survive and led to the development of more and more cultural and philosophical concepts.

If you're referring to alleged increased leisure time, even the more conservative estimates of hunter-gatherer leisure time don't suggest that it was much less than that of the average modern human. (Many of the estimates say the opposite, in fact.) And, personally, I think I would find hunter-gatherer work more conducive to philosophizing than sitting in an office cubicle.

Admittedly, there are other developments that have increased our development of "cultural and philosophical concepts" - increased communicative tools being the primary ones. But, certainly, "progress" does not hold all the cards here.

We made ourselves both safer and more vulnerable.

"Safer" in what way?

That's true. Ideally, we will eventually no longer have to depend on those plants or animals for survival in the most literal sense, but it is still a problem right now. Of course, that's why environmental protection and similar programs are so important, because until we can circumvent the problem the problem will remain and it will get worse long before it gets better unless we do something about it.

My only point is that all the "progress" so far has caused immense problems, and it does not seem to me that future progress will be any exception.

I suppose this all depends on things. I am, by my very nature, a teacher; there is never a time when I am not teaching something to someone. Can I get hired as one or as a professor anywhere? No. I have to have a degree & doctorates & this test & that background check.

In some things, degrees are necessary; if I need my nuclear reactor worked on, I want to know I have a nuclear engineer on hand rather than Ralph the HVAC guy. On the other hand, I can't count the numbner of people I know with useless or unused degrees; for example, my friend Double Jenn has a poli sci degree & has worked from 18 months as a hotel front deask clerk.

Me, I think it should be more about how you suit the position rather than whenter you've got an expensive piece of paper. Kind of wish apprenticeship was still available.

I'm in uni now.

I'm not here because I want a job after. I'm here because it's interesting and I like to learn.

If you're referring to alleged increased leisure time, even the more conservative estimates of hunter-gatherer leisure time don't suggest that it was much less than that of the average modern human. (Many of the estimates say the opposite, in fact.) And, personally, I think I would find hunter-gatherer work more conducive to philosophizing than sitting in an office cubicle.

Of course, the question then is why didn't philosophy and other forms of cultural expression blossom until after the development of agriculture? It seems kind of contradictory seeing as how the hunter-gatherers did have more free time than the agricultural societies.

I imagine it had to do with competition; the hunter-gatherers couldn't compete in terms of population, technology or resources with the farmers and they gradually forced them out of their lands or even killed and enslaved them. Interestingly, whenever our society takes steps towards a cooperative rather than competitive method of functioning, the overall benefit to society is greater; mind you, this observation is made primarily in regard to technological development, but it's still an important point.

Admittedly, there are other developments that have increased our development of "cultural and philosophical concepts" - increased communicative tools being the primary ones. But, certainly, "progress" does not hold all the cards here.

No, it doesn't.

Progress comes with a cost; hopefully, further technological development will increase our leisure time and personal freedom, but that depends on how we develop it and for what purpose. Of course, that's why I work for it; I want to achieve that end of more leisure and better living standards, but that's only my own efforts.

"Safer" in what way?

More people, better dwellings and more technology; they had huge offensive and defensive advantages over their rivals which enabled them to develop more safely and less dependent on the elements.

Ironically, the danger of competing tribes of hunter-gatherers was just replaced by crime and warring city states, so safety is a highly relative term in this case.

My only point is that all the "progress" so far has caused immense problems, and it does not seem to me that future progress will be any exception.

I'm not really sure; I think the biggest change occurring now is that our technological developments aren't so much designed to make humans more productive, but to replace them in certain roles. Also, I think technology is working more to use what we have efficiently rather than to just increase the raw amount consumed; for example, nanotechnology could conceivably fulfill many of the same functions as the huge industrial processes used in manufacturing.

In my opinion, it's the current economic system rather than technology that causes the problems, and conversely technology is really the only way to solve many of its problems; a promising sign is that current trends show a clear democratization of technology that will have huge payoff in the future.

The open-source movement or grid computing are clear steps in the right direction, where our technological development is guided by millions of people working to revise and improve upon a common goal; the shift from technological development as a competitive edge to technological development as a cooperative goal is arguably the biggest change regarding the field and one that should be encouraged at every step of the process.

Ultimately, it all depends on what we do with it and for what purpose our technology is developed. I mean, I strongly support technology for improving quality of life and for advancing knowledge, but it's just as likely that someone might develop that technology to develop new weapons or to repress others.

I am going to college to get a decent job, but I cant wait until I am out. I hate academia.

I am in psychology at the moment (O/I), so its about as achedemia as you can get, but I plan on going into business the second I graduate. Lucky for me, its hard to export a job like that.

I'm still only halfway done with my college degree. I plan to get a master's in Library Science. One day.
My ex-husband had colleges and the military begging for him. His grandmother offered to pay all his expenses, including car payments and spending money ( she has some real bucks) if only he'd go to college. No way. He went in to new constuction plumbing. Liked building things. It was what he wanted to do. Made decent money. Twice as much as I did as a licensed optician.
The guy that was salutorian at my highschool became a car mechanic. Had several scholarships. He liked fixing cars.
My mother always told us if we enjoyed digging ditches, we did a good job at it, and could live on the wages we made, she'd be happy for us. In other words, she didn't need to be impressed. Just to know we were happy and could care for ourselves.

Of course, the question then is why didn't philosophy and other forms of cultural expression blossom until after the development of agriculture? It seems kind of contradictory seeing as how the hunter-gatherers did have more free time than the agricultural societies.

How do we know that cultural expression didn't blossom in hunter-gatherer societies? Indeed, it seems that it did, if we accept the conclusions of archaeology (which has discovered works of art produced by hunter-gatherers) and the data garnered from contact with hunter-gatherers in more recent times.

It's true that a lack of writing impeded the preservation of such cultural expression, however.

I imagine it had to do with competition; the hunter-gatherers couldn't compete in terms of population, technology or resources with the farmers and they gradually forced them out of their lands or even killed and enslaved them.

Yes. The farmers had one great advantage - agriculture can support professional armies, while hunting and gathering cannot.

Nevertheless, the expansion of agriculture was quite slow.

No, it doesn't.

Progress comes with a cost; hopefully, further technological development will increase our leisure time and personal freedom, but that depends on how we develop it and for what purpose. Of course, that's why I work for it; I want to achieve that end of more leisure and better living standards, but that's only my own efforts.

But if technological progress has repeatedly throughout history brought about significant problems without bringing about all that much benefits, there's good reason to be skeptical that technology can ever successfully pursue such ends.

Which isn't to say it can't bring about any kind of benefit, it clearly can - health care being one example. I happen to think that a serious re-evaluation of technological progress is necessary, but I'm not exactly a primitivist either.

More people,

More disease.

better dwellings

More nests for vectors of disease - in your living quarters, no less.

and more technology;

Not only of the beneficial sort, but also of the sort that makes killing more efficient and strains the environment. (Large-scale agricultural societies did that even before industrialization.)

they had huge offensive and defensive advantages over their rivals which enabled them to develop more safely and less dependent on the elements.

We are evolutionarily adapted to deal with the elements.

We are not evolutionarily adapted to deal with the dangers of civilization.

Ironically, the danger of competing tribes of hunter-gatherers was just replaced by crime and warring city states, so safety is a highly relative term in this case.

Indeed.

I'm not really sure; I think the biggest change occurring now is that our technological developments aren't so much designed to make humans more productive, but to replace them in certain roles.

Who gathers the raw materials for these technologies? Who does the research? Who programs them? Who makes sure they work properly, and fixes them when they don't?

Human beings all forced into Office Space-like conditions might be preferable to factory labor, but it is hardly an ideal state.

Also, I think technology is working more to use what we have efficiently rather than to just increase the raw amount consumed; for example, nanotechnology could conceivably fulfill many of the same functions as the huge industrial processes used in manufacturing.

But that doesn't help if it only means that we'll produce even more, and addict ourselves to more junk we don't need.

In my opinion, it's the current economic system rather than technology that causes the problems, and conversely technology is really the only way to solve many of its problems; a promising sign is that current trends show a clear democratization of technology that will have huge payoff in the future.

That was my position as well, for a long time.

I'm no longer convinced. All modern technology depends on specialization; specialization requires the division of labor. The division of labor creates "interdependence," but in practice means that the more talented, or just those better at manipulating the reigns of power, can gain control. Indeed, that is what history indicates.

Not only that, but as long as we retain the present economic structures (and I'm speaking more fundamentally than mere arrangements of property) it seems to me that we will only continue to addict ourselves to more technology we don't really need, and the reckless pattern of overconsumption will lead to overwork and ecological catastrophe.

I think the former problem is soluble without abolishing the division of labor, but it requires a radical restructuring of our society and a serious reconsideration of the merits of economic "incentives." (This would also have beneficial effects in terms of human freedom.) I think the latter problem is insoluble without abolishing the present economic structures, which is implicit in solving the former.

All that said, I question whether society will ever reach the point where the need to make these changes is ever felt by the majority. It seems more likely to me that we have doomed ourselves, for the most part, to lives that are tolerable, but not good.

The open-source movement or grid computing are clear steps in the right direction, where our technological development is guided by millions of people working to revise and improve upon a common goal; the shift from technological development as a competitive edge to technological development as a cooperative goal is arguably the biggest change regarding the field and one that should be encouraged at every step of the process.

It's one of the positive indicators, no doubt. It should be interesting to see how it develops.

Ultimately, it all depends on what we do with it and for what purpose our technology is developed.

The problem is that whatever the ends for which technology is developed, there are certain costs associated with it that are inevitable.

Of course, the question then is why didn't philosophy and other forms of cultural expression blossom until after the development of agriculture? It seems kind of contradictory seeing as how the hunter-gatherers did have more free time than the agricultural societies.

But it DID blossom. Go to each & ever one of those tribes & you'd find a wholly different & unique culture, each with their own ways to live the philosophies to guide them.

I imagine it had to do with competition; the hunter-gatherers couldn't compete in terms of population, technology or resources with the farmers and they gradually forced them out of their lands or even killed and enslaved them. Interestingly, whenever our society takes steps towards a cooperative rather than competitive method of functioning, the overall benefit to society is greater; mind you, this observation is made primarily in regard to technological development, but it's still an important point.

That is entirely correct. When you induce totalitarian agriculture as our culture's progenitors did 10 millennia ago, you create a massive population outgrowth. You begin to take over other lands, annihilate their populace (either through absorption into your our culture or physical destruction), & there is nothing that they can stop you with because you can resupply food & people at will because of that totalitarian agriculture. And then it starts all over again as you expand more. A sad cycle that's doomed to failure.

Progress comes with a cost; hopefully, further technological development will increase our leisure time and personal freedom, but that depends on how we develop it and for what purpose. Of course, that's why I work for it; I want to achieve that end of more leisure and better living standards, but that's only my own efforts.

But technology alone will not work. Also, how do you define "better?" These are items that must be addressed at the basic fundamental level. The foundational aspects of this culture must be seen for the self-destruction it is & set aside, or it will absolutely collapse. There is no other way; ecology has seen to that.

Ironically, the danger of competing tribes of hunter-gatherers was just replaced by crime and warring city states, so safety is a highly relative term in this case.

But not really. Those tribes play Erratic Retaliator; the city-states play Annihilator. That's a major difference.

Ultimately, it all depends on what we do with it and for what purpose our technology is developed. I mean, I strongly support technology for improving quality of life and for advancing knowledge, but it's just as likely that someone might develop that technology to develop new weapons or to repress others.

Technology is a wonderful thing, yes, & we are at the beginning stages where many items can be produced by simple automation with no need for human action in the roles. Because those products can bee so easily created, the value of things & the nature of the economy changes. If people are now freed to pursue their chosen endeavors, perhaps then that might give rise to an economy of competency, where people's "worth" & "value" are determined by how much they know & what they can do. The more you know, the richer you are, & thus poverty becomes a voluntary option. Even hobos have usable skills.

Yes. The farmers had one great advantage - agriculture can support professional armies, while hunting and gathering cannot.

Nevertheless, the expansion of agriculture was quite slow.

Professional armies weren't the advantage. The wide range of the leaders was the big thing.

In a hunter/gatherer society, the only thing that will enable you to gather an army, professional or not, is your own charisma and your ability to persuade people that following you will be to their advantage. People who can do that with huge populations are rare. That's why everyone knows who Ghengiz Khan is, even though he never set foot in Europe.

In an agricultural society just being the guy in the big chair means people do what you say. The people are more obedient.

In individual battles h-g's have done very well against agriculturalists. It's just that individual casualties make for a larger percentage of the h-g society than the agro one. So you end up with battles of 50 - 100 people against thousands. They can't beat those odds, no matter how much tougher their warriors are than the agro guys soldiers. They might win 5 major battles in a row, but before they can recover from even the first one, the agro society has a whole new army ready to fight them.

Professional armies weren't the advantage. The wide range of the leaders was the big thing.

In a hunter/gatherer society, the only thing that will enable you to gather an army, professional or not, is your own charisma and your ability to persuade people that following you will be to their advantage. People who can do that with huge populations are rare. That's why everyone knows who Ghengiz Khan is, even though he never set foot in Europe.

In an agricultural society just being the guy in the big chair means people do what you say. The people are more obedient.

In individual battles h-g's have done very well against agriculturalists. It's just that individual casualties make for a larger percentage of the h-g society than the agro one. So you end up with battles of 50 - 100 people against thousands. They can't beat those odds, no matter how much tougher their warriors are than the agro guys soldiers. They might win 5 major battles in a row, but before they can recover from even the first one, the agro society has a whole new army ready to fight them.

But tribes fight in a different fashion than a society driven by totalitarian agriculture. Tribes fight in the Erratic Retaliator style; they give as good as they get, know that they will get hit themselves, & know that it keeps things in balance. TA societies play Annihilator--"we as a group are going to go over there & utterly wipe those guys off the face of the fucking earth & then take their land because they are in our way."

Historically, against those odds the tribes had no chance of winning. Now, however, the modern technological advances of this TA culture can help reverse that & create a stalemate; that is at best all that is required.

For me, college was a nessisity, as (at least in Nevada) they don't let you teach without that BA/BS.

I also agree with Fris though. My step-father did a lot of technical jobs though his life, groundcrew forman for the phone company, built houses, mechanic and so on. He earned a lot... till the hell he put his body through started catching up to him about 15 years before retirement and he suddenly found that he no longer had the physical stamina to still do what he had been making a living on.

As he himself notes, rather ironically, he dropped out of college because the money was better in the tech jobs, now he really wishes he had stayed for those last few years because any job that actually makes money that he could do, needs that diploma.

The idea that it's 'needed for any good job' is an outdated way to look at degrees. That assessment is clearly not true. Degrees do not equal jobs anymore.

That's why I put in the 'It's going to hold me back' option. There are people that can do things well without any education. Not lots, but certainly a significant number.

I'm in uni now.

I'm not here because I want a job after. I'm here because it's interesting and I like to learn.

When I graduated from high school (USA), I had a couple choices. The first was to marry the girl I was dating and take over the family farm. Not a real bad choice, the girl was great, the farm was not in debt. The other choice was to take my scholarship and go to college. I figured the other choice would always be there. So I went to college, mainly because of the intrigue of just going to Hot'lanta for a few years.

I ended up liking college, getting a Ph.D. in Physics, marrying the girl anyway, having a short career in Marine Corps aviation, and someday I'll inherit the farm. Not to bad for a country boy from North Georgia, huh?

Anyhow, I come down on the 'try it for a year' side. If you don't like it, or can't cut it, there's plenty of other opportunities. None of the good ones are going to be easy without some education, whether it's tech school or an apprenticeship.

But it DID blossom. Go to each & ever one of those tribes & you'd find a wholly different & unique culture, each with their own ways to live the philosophies to guide them.

That's true; the only problem is that very little of it survived, so it's hard to really compare the cultural accomplishments of the pre-agricultural societies to those that came after them and were able to record their culture for the future (as well as write the history).


That is entirely correct. When you induce totalitarian agriculture as our culture's progenitors did 10 millennia ago, you create a massive population outgrowth. You begin to take over other lands, annihilate their populace (either through absorption into your our culture or physical destruction), & there is nothing that they can stop you with because you can resupply food & people at will because of that totalitarian agriculture. And then it starts all over again as you expand more. A sad cycle that's doomed to failure.

Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why, through the use of technology, move farther and farther away from that kind of centralized dependence that leads to such abuses. I believe that the kinds of technology in development now will make a significant change in the nature of our system and may allow us to develop that kind of cultural flourishing again without the pressures exerted by competitors. It would take significant effort to achieve this, if it can be achieved in its purest sense, but any step towards it would be infinitely beneficial.


But technology alone will not work. Also, how do you define "better?" These are items that must be addressed at the basic fundamental level. The foundational aspects of this culture must be seen for the self-destruction it is & set aside, or it will absolutely collapse. There is no other way; ecology has seen to that.

Better is vague; generally, I mean more freedom and a healthier, more comfortable lifestyle. It also includes access to the various aspects of a healthy life (clean water/food, solid shelter, etc.) as well as access to technological tools and the free sharing of information with minimal government censorship.

That's one of the reasons why I emphasize that our economic system needs to change in order to achieve these ends. Fundamentally, it's our economy that is causing the most damage and which is unsustainable; the very principles behind it involve an ever-increasing amount of raw materials consumed in order to support itself, and on a finite world (space colonization, while inevitable, not going to be available before we hit the limits to growth on Earth), this system will eventually collapse.

We can't change the culture without changing the economic system, and we will likely not be able to change the economic system permanently without the kinds of technological advances I'm thinking of. So, if we support these technologies we may be able to repair some of the damage as well as begin to change our culture;

But not really. Those tribes play Erratic Retaliator; the city-states play Annihilator. That's a major difference.

Yes, you're correct. An error on my part.

Technology is a wonderful thing, yes, & we are at the beginning stages where many items can be produced by simple automation with no need for human action in the roles. Because those products can bee so easily created, the value of things & the nature of the economy changes. If people are now freed to pursue their chosen endeavors, perhaps then that might give rise to an economy of competency, where people's "worth" & "value" are determined by how much they know & what they can do. The more you know, the richer you are, & thus poverty becomes a voluntary option. Even hobos have usable skills.

Ideally, that would be the end result. A society where people are free to pursue their own goals or interests without having to worry about material scarcity; if we were to shift our sense of values from what we own to pursuing the maximization of happiness, personal growth, and learning, our society would improve immensely.

If we really think about it, one of the fundamental sources of discontent in modern society comes from the fact that we focus on creating wealth or accruing things rather than developing our personal potential; I mean, having beautiful things and a comfortable life is wonderful, but if we have to devote so much of our energy to achieving those ends and we leave other forms of development unattended, are we really happy? There's a sense of lack, of something missing, in that type of life and I think we do need to change it in order to preserve ourselves.

And, of course, it is effectively impossible that the "end of scarcity" would lead to rampant overconsumption, both due to the simple concept of utility as well as the death of consumerism as an idea. If everyone can have a comfortable life, and they can personalize their possessions to their heart's content, there is no longer that need to keep up with other people or show off, because everyone is effectively equal in terms of material well being. As added benefit, the equality is not imposed but is rather the natural state of society which helps to eliminate the problems that other societies had when they tried to create equality.

I'd say a necessary nuisance. It's a requirement for the teaching career I want to pursue, thus a bare (bear :D) necessity. Right now it's more than just a nuisance - I want and need to finish to get on.

*snip*

I love you. Let's get married. Unless you're male, in which case, I offer you a senior staff position in the revolution. (Guys are fun to play with at times but not so much for the marrying for me.)

How do we know that cultural expression didn't blossom in hunter-gatherer societies? Indeed, it seems that it did, if we accept the conclusions of archaeology (which has discovered works of art produced by hunter-gatherers) and the data garnered from contact with hunter-gatherers in more recent times.

It did (as Shikishima mentioned), but the problem is that those cultures were wiped out by agricultural societies and very little remains for us to learn about.

Yes. The farmers had one great advantage - agriculture can support professional armies, while hunting and gathering cannot.

True. Also, the faster technological development and centralized nature of agricultural societies made them better suited to professional warfare and gave them a huge edge even when hunter gatherers might have had innate physical and survival advantages in the wild.

Nevertheless, the expansion of agriculture was quite slow.

It was slow, but like most exponential or logistic trends (depending on how it develops), that period of seemingly linear growth started to take off as the rate of increase grew faster and faster. That's why it can be so hard to predict the outcome of something, since exponential trends look very linear in its


But if technological progress has repeatedly throughout history brought about significant problems without bringing about all that much benefits, there's good reason to be skeptical that technology can ever successfully pursue such ends.

That's one of the reasons why I try to be so active in promoting technology and in supporting organizations that try to democratize technology; I know that it can cause problems, and I want to try and offset as many of them as I can by encouraging people to move in directions that promote a more positive form of technological development.

Which isn't to say it can't bring about any kind of benefit, it clearly can - health care being one example. I happen to think that a serious re-evaluation of technological progress is necessary, but I'm not exactly a primitivist either.

Now is the critical time for that kind of re-evaluation; technology is advancing (and I use that in a neutral sense) at a faster and faster rate, and it is likely unstoppable so we will have to take action now to prepare for the future. It's like someone telling you that you have to walk between two buildings on a tightrope and you have a year to learn...it's still a while before the fact, but you've got to start now if you want a chance of succeeding.

More disease. More nests for vectors of disease - in your living quarters, no less.

That's true; thankfully, many of the problems of disease have been solved but the very nature of living in close quarters virtually guarantees that new problems will emerge.


Not only of the beneficial sort, but also of the sort that makes killing more efficient and strains the environment. (Large-scale agricultural societies did that even before industrialization.)

That's true; look at the Middle East, especially Mesopotamia to see that in action. Large parts of Iraq and its neighbors used to be fertile land before intensive irrigation-based farming led to a buildup of salts and desertification that rendered the land unusable. Similar things occured in the central US during the Dust Bowl or the Aral Sea region in the 1970's-1980's.

That's another reason why I'm more optimistic about some current technological trends; they tend to focus more on minimizing the amount of energy, raw materials, and machinery needed to manufacture goods or engineer computer chips while simultaneously performing the tasks more precisely and more efficiently. We're focusing not only on quantitative improvements but also qualitative ones, so I am more confident that the next generation of technological development will be overall more positive than prior ones.



We are evolutionarily adapted to deal with the elements.

We are not evolutionarily adapted to deal with the dangers of civilization.

That's interesting; in many ways it is important because we have to adapt to something that is developing many times faster than the biological systems that enabled it to develop in the first place. It's a challenge because mankind now has to deal with a rapidly evolving noosphere rather than the much more stable biosphere. Hopefully, our experiences have produced some adaptation to the changes, but there are a lot of signs out there that show we are far from adapted.

Indeed.



Who gathers the raw materials for these technologies? Who does the research? Who programs them? Who makes sure they work properly, and fixes them when they don't?

Human beings all forced into Office Space-like conditions might be preferable to factory labor, but it is hardly an ideal state.

Ideal, no, but still an improvement. Unfortunately, these kinds of changes take time; still, if we consider that it took over 11,900 years for us to move from primarily agricultural to industrial but only 150 years to move from industrial to services, it's a pretty significant improvement.

And in the past decade, we've seen even bigger changes from the Internet and telecommunications which make working at home a possibility for an increasing number of workers. Far from a majority, of course, but still a major change in such a short time.

But that doesn't help if it only means that we'll produce even more, and addict ourselves to more junk we don't need.

But if most, or even all, people have access to the same high-quality goods and services, it removes a lot of the drive to accumulate more; if there's nobody to compete with and you no longer have the same kind of status symbols that come with price or brand affiliation Many of the things we want we only want because they are either expensive or famous; this kind of economic change may greatly reduce or eliminate these two aspects of purchasing.

That was my position as well, for a long time.

I'm no longer convinced. All modern technology depends on specialization; specialization requires the division of labor. The division of labor creates "interdependence," but in practice means that the more talented, or just those better at manipulating the reigns of power, can gain control. Indeed, that is what history indicates.

I wonder, though, what will happen when many specialized tasks can either be performed by machines or can be easily operated through a "translation" of complex processes in to simpler directions due to technological development;

If our economy becomes considerably more creatively oriented, what effect will that have on our division of labor? Interdependence will definitely become more real because ideas require a lot more cooperation, especially when it comes to making them a reality, than simply designing new programs or products according to pre-established programming languages or platforms.

Not only that, but as long as we retain the present economic structures (and I'm speaking more fundamentally than mere arrangements of property) it seems to me that we will only continue to addict ourselves to more technology we don't really need, and the reckless pattern of overconsumption will lead to overwork and ecological catastrophe.

I don't know; a lot of our desire to consume seems to be based more on status and attainment of "happiness" rather than actual need. If we were to abolish much of the status aspect associated with products, overall consumption might fall because people would be able to attain material contentment and focus on other things.

After all, if anyone can get an expensive car, comfortable furnishings, or a powerful computer thanks to an individually or community-owned nanofactory it removes a lot of the incentive to get one, or even more importantly more than one. We would still want nice things, but we wouldn't want an ever-increasing number of them.

Also, the actual process would be much more efficient; garbage would effectively become nonexistent, saving a lot of the resources we consumer and greatly reducing strain on the environment. Energy generation will likely be distributed, with each house generating its own power and removing the need for the kind of ecologically damaging power plants or centralized industrial sites we currently rely on.

I think the former problem is soluble without abolishing the division of labor, but it requires a radical restructuring of our society and a serious reconsideration of the merits of economic "incentives." (This would also have beneficial effects in terms of human freedom.) I think the latter problem is insoluble without abolishing the present economic structures, which is implicit in solving the former.

I'd have to agree. Ultimately, the social upheaval produced by these changes may work towards this goal but it's very speculative. However, I would support the use of technological development towards achieving this kind of end. Effectively, technology is the underlying thread that any attempt to change society will have to use.

All that said, I question whether society will ever reach the point where the need to make these changes is ever felt by the majority. It seems more likely to me that we have doomed ourselves, for the most part, to lives that are tolerable, but not good.

I think it will ultimately depend on how things develop; really, it's hard to say more than that since it is so speculative at this point. However, we're not really talking 100 years or 50 years in the future, but more like 10-20 for many of the major technological fields; this is something that will happen within our lifetimes

A good sign, however, is that individuals do have a greater say in the process than they did in the past. It's still small, but it is growing.

It's one of the positive indicators, no doubt. It should be interesting to see how it develops.

I'm positive on it because it does work and it's growing more popular; the role that open-source plays is expanding from just computer programming or operating systems to fields like pharmaceuticals or medicinal research and even the design of physical objects. It's got a lot of potential, and its development will be vital to developing a more positive form of technology.

The problem is that whatever the ends for which technology is developed, there are certain costs associated with it that are inevitable.

Yes, and we will have to deal with those costs as they arise; this is an issue that will affect most people alive today, and so everyone has a stake in how the situation will develop.

I love you. Let's get married. Unless you're male, in which case, I offer you a senior staff position in the revolution. (Guys are fun to play with at times but not so much for the marrying for me.)

Unfortunately, I'm male so I guess I'll have to take that position instead.;)

I love you. Let's get married. Unless you're male, in which case, I offer you a senior staff position in the revolution. (Guys are fun to play with at times but not so much for the marrying for me.)

There will be "senior staff positions" in the revolution?

Unfortunately, I'm male so I guess I'll have to take that position instead.;)

Consider it done. I'll figure out your placement at some point.

There will be "senior staff positions" in the revolution?

Helps to have a good command structure. For me, at least. Heinlein's rules of Revolution still apply, of course.

But if most, or even all, people have access to the same high-quality goods and services, it removes a lot of the drive to accumulate more; if there's nobody to compete with and you no longer have the same kind of status symbols that come with price or brand affiliation Many of the things we want we only want because they are either expensive or famous; this kind of economic change may greatly reduce or eliminate these two aspects of purchasing.

The problem is that all of these questions are relative.

Right now, materially a large portion of the people in developed countries are better off than they were fifty years ago, but are we really happier?

Our economies may become increasingly efficient, but it is questionable whether we will ever eliminate scarcity. Ultimately, you'll still need human labor to manage the processes.

I wonder, though, what will happen when many specialized tasks can either be performed by machines or can be easily operated through a "translation" of complex processes in to simpler directions due to technological development;

The tendency is the opposite.

The reason is that technology requires increasingly high levels of skill to manage, as the quantity of scientific data and the complexity of the technology increases.

It's true that certain technological changes (industrialization, for instance) were accompanied by a shift among many from skilled to unskilled labor, but that was because of the obsolescence of the older forms of skilled labor (a problem of specialization), not because factory machines are somehow easier to make and repair than less technologically advanced machines.

If our economy becomes considerably more creatively oriented, what effect will that have on our division of labor? Interdependence will definitely become more real because ideas require a lot more cooperation, especially when it comes to making them a reality, than simply designing new programs or products according to pre-established programming languages or platforms.

The problem, though, is as long as the "cooperation" is conceived of in terms of economic value, it will create inequality.

The division of labor both requires cooperation and eschews equality, and the result is the economic hierarchies we observe today.

I don't know; a lot of our desire to consume seems to be based more on status and attainment of "happiness" rather than actual need. If we were to abolish much of the status aspect associated with products, overall consumption might fall because people would be able to attain material contentment and focus on other things.

The easiest way to abolish the status aspect associated with products is to promote economic equality.

Which, as you'll recall from the Political Positions thread, is what I've been saying for a while.

After all, if anyone can get an expensive car, comfortable furnishings, or a powerful computer thanks to an individually or community-owned nanofactory it removes a lot of the incentive to get one, or even more importantly more than one. We would still want nice things, but we wouldn't want an ever-increasing number of them.

Yes... but once expensive cars, comfortable furnishings, and powerful computers become as common as color televisions are today, there will be other status symbols to replace them.

Also, the actual process would be much more efficient; garbage would effectively become nonexistent, saving a lot of the resources we consumer and greatly reducing strain on the environment.

We do seem to be making some steps in that direction, but genuine sustainability is still very far away.

Energy generation will likely be distributed, with each house generating its own power and removing the need for the kind of ecologically damaging power plants or centralized industrial sites we currently rely on.

That would be an excellent step towards a highly decentralized, technological libertarian community of equals. It is the sort of thing we should be looking for in technology, rather than more opportunities to produce more things.