|
computer parts posted:No one's aspiring to it though, it's "we have TOO MANY people going to college so some of them have to go somewhere else". That's mostly a social thing, though. It's because people in the US have this kind of lack of willingness to speak to people from the "wrong" jobs. I've noticed I'm one of the few academics who is actually interested in talking to people doing retail or professional/physical labor. Otherwise in mixed social situations there's a real bubble. It's a mental shift that needs to be done. As for a rich man's son becoming a plumber, they're not going to be adjuncting themselves to death or doing retail, are they? Who cares about them.
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 08:08 |
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:That's mostly a social thing, though. It's because people in the US have this kind of lack of willingness to speak to people from the "wrong" jobs. I've noticed I'm one of the few academics who is actually interested in talking to people doing retail or professional/physical labor. Otherwise in mixed social situations there's a real bubble. It's a mental shift that needs to be done. It's not just the US, that's exactly what Germany's system does. You take a test when you're 12 and that effectively determines your career for the rest of your life (you can move down but rarely up). quote:As for a rich man's son becoming a plumber, they're not going to be adjuncting themselves to death or doing retail, are they? Who cares about them. Because this has all the makings of turning into (more) formalized class stratification , and especially in the US that means racial stratification too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:42
|
|
|
computer parts posted:It's not just the US, that's exactly what Germany's system does. You take a test when you're 12 and that effectively determines your career for the rest of your life (you can move down but rarely up).  That's, um, kind of a hosed up system. Are you straight up just not allowed to study for or work other jobs? And is this a test that you are only allowed to take once in your entire life?If the answers to both of those questions are yes, then thank god I don't like in Germany, that sounds awful.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:47
|
|
|
computer parts posted:It's not just the US, that's exactly what Germany's system does. You take a test when you're 12 and that effectively determines your career for the rest of your life (you can move down but rarely up). Their down sounds more sensible than our down. At least it doesn't involve a career-useless degree and mountains of debt. quote:Because this has all the makings of turning into (more) formalized class stratification , and especially in the US that means racial stratification too. So do we force this child of rich parents to be a plumber or a carpenter? I really don't see the point here. BA/BSc as a tool of socioeconomic mobility is a bankrupt notion, ironically leaving people with debt that can't be discharged through bankruptcy - and those aren't the kids of rich folks.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:48
|
|
|
VerdantSquire posted:
You get put into one of three class tracks - the lowest one is for trades, the middle one is for white collar work, and the upper one is for theoretical sciences and math and stuff. You spend a few years in that and then you go to whatever school you've been training for I don't think it's the law that you can't switch but in practice no one ever goes from a trade school to a white collar school. Absurd Alhazred posted:Their down sounds more sensible than our down. At least it doesn't involve a career-useless degree and mountains of debt. Our system's problem is one of funding, their system's problem is institutional. quote:So do we force this child of rich parents to be a plumber or a carpenter? I really don't see the point here. BA/BSc as a tool of socioeconomic mobility is a bankrupt notion, ironically leaving people with debt that can't be discharged through bankruptcy - and those aren't the kids of rich folks. My point is that you're forcing minorities to do lower class work. That's not something we want to encourage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:53
|
|
|
SedanChair posted:There's no good reason for inheritance of any kind. Provide universal housing, health care, college education and GMI. If pops wants to leave you his train set or his Camaro fine. Trusts? Businesses? Sorry, they should revert to state ownership. And if millionaires try to flee the country their accounts should be frozen and their necks implanted with an RFID chip. In your world the government would get control and likely send the whole drat thing bankrupt because they have no experience or interest in running Another Random Business. People would be out of work, specialized knowledge would be lost, and the community would be poorer. SedanChair you are a loving lunatic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:53
|
|
|
The best way to fix the US educational system is to accept that yes, people mainly go to University to improve their job prospects, and gut the stupid amount of time spent studying things unrelated to your major. If university was free than wasting time on Philosophy whilst studying Chemistry is one thing, but you guys are being charged an arm and a leg for the privilege. End student loans and subsidize courses that directly benefit society (eg not Underwater Basket Weaving), and make students sign a bit of paper that lists the average income earned by graduates of that course before starting. Let the market return prices where they belong.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:57
|
|
|
computer parts posted:My point is that you're forcing minorities to do lower class work. That's not something we want to encourage. How do you want to decide who gets to be a plumber?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 05:58
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:How do you want to decide who gets to be a plumber? I don't care who gets to be a plumber, I care who gets to be a white collar worker.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:00
|
|
|
computer parts posted:I don't care who gets to be a plumber, I care who gets to be a white collar worker. Ok, how do you decide that?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:00
|
|
|
computer parts posted:I don't care who gets to be a plumber, I care who gets to be a white collar worker. Well, that's your problem. You basically want a social system which doesn't give a poo poo about anything other than this specific path to greatness that doesn't work for even most people who take it. I think it's just as important who gets to be a plumber, because as it stands right now, the professions are usually family affairs and generally poorly known, so people who will not make it as white-collar workers don't even know how to get there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:04
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:Well, that's your problem. You basically want a social system which doesn't give a poo poo about anything other than this specific path to greatness that doesn't work for even most people who take it. I think it's just as important who gets to be a plumber, because as it stands right now, the professions are usually family affairs and generally poorly known, so people who will not make it as white-collar workers don't even know how to get there. And my point is that "people who won't make it as white collar workers" are generally those that the system fails (i.e., minorities). Stuffing a field full of minorities isn't going to make it prestigious unless you fix the underlying issues that failed them in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:05
|
|
|
VerdantSquire posted:
The test just determines who gets resources to university vs. trades. You are not forced down a path, but you are certainly "gently" nudged. It is not as bad as it sounds because trades are highly valued in German society and the wage gap between blue and white collar jobs is not the same as it is in the US. However, this relies on maintaining cultural values that seem to be eroding across Europe.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:08
|
|
|
My Lil Parachute posted:The best way to fix the US educational system is to accept that yes, people mainly go to University to improve their job prospects, and gut the stupid amount of time spent studying things unrelated to your major. If university was free than wasting time on Philosophy whilst studying Chemistry is one thing, but you guys are being charged an arm and a leg for the privilege. There is a reason that people in the sciences are expected to take classes outside of their discipline; being well-rounded is critical to being a contributing member of society. Also I have to laugh at the idea that philosophy is a "waste of time" for those in the sciences. Science without ethics is a nasty prospect. Aves Maria! fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Dec 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:08
|
|
|
computer parts posted:And my point is that "people who won't make it as white collar workers" are generally those that the system fails (i.e., minorities). What is failing them? How is not having trade school as an option in high-school helping minorities? Because I don't see the upside.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:08
|
|
|
computer parts posted:And my point is that "people who won't make it as white collar workers" are generally those that the system fails (i.e., minorities). I'm pretty sure even our economy can't support an economy with only white collar workers at this point. Unless you know something about robot plumbers coming out next year?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:08
|
|
|
Qublai Qhan posted:I don't really disagree but in terms of 'education leading to a profession directly related to the economy' applied sciences of every kind are pretty much at the top of the ladder both in terms of intellectual effort and (I think) average financial return (I said I think because my guess would be that education that helps get into the more lucrative management positions is probably a bit of a gamble and probably ends up being less rewarding on average, but that's just my instinct and it may not be correct). Even then, applied sciences are quickly becoming less of a "sure thing" out of college. I posted a few pages back about how engineering/tech majors straight out of school have unemployment rates similar to those in fields people would consider "hobbies" in this thread, e.g. Theater and Drama Arts. This doesn't seem to be as cut and dry as some people are suggesting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:12
|
|
|
My Lil Parachute posted:So.. suppose I've spent my life building up a small business manufacturing widgets. Like many other small businesses my family knows how it's run inside and out. My oldest son is the people person knows the small world of widget buyer/sellers like the back of his hand. My youngest son has decades of widget design experience. When I die they could easily take over the business. Your son would have the opportunity to earn the same wage as every other worker at the widget factory putting his knowledge to use.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:13
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:What is failing them? How is not having trade school as an option in high-school helping minorities? Because I don't see the upside. People who fit the mold of "not right for college" will tend to be minorities. This is because they were not properly educated in school (primary through high school). This is because they are chronically underfunded. And this is because our system is fundamentally racist. Just going "let's funnel them off to this [coincidentally] low prestige field" is not going to solve anything. Qublai Qhan posted:I'm pretty sure even our economy can't support an economy with only white collar workers at this point. Unless you know something about robot plumbers coming out next year? I didn't say it would only be white collar workers. I said that white collar work is the most prestigious of non-Rich People work and that it is vitally important to have minorities in there at significant rates. I mean you can see this already in the tech bubble - do you think having all the programmers be white people or model minorities is a good thing while all of the support staff are black people and Hispanics, even if the latter supposedly pays well?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:13
|
|
|
computer parts posted:No one's aspiring to it though ... And you're not going to see a rich man's son become a plumber. Maybe we need a futures market on plumbing breakdown, that way plumbers can get paid even when poo poo is ok, And when poo poo is exploding everywhere the rich man's son can profit by abusing people when they are in most need of help. Another option is to make sure all plumbers get laid constantly, in compensation for the poo poo they gotta deal with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:15
|
|
|
DBlanK posted:Why is no one aspiring to be a plumber? Do they not see the rewards of helping others? You're talking about the USA, one of the most highly "individualistic" developed countries in the modern world.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:16
|
|
|
420DD Butts posted:There is a reason that people in the sciences are expected to take classes outside of their discipline; being well-rounded is critical to being a contributing member of society. Australia (and many other countries) generally focus on what Adults entered university to learn, and there is no huge outcry about it. Exactly how many dollars is the average student spending to become "well-rounded" at university? Please factor in fulltime income lost due to time spent whilst studying. quote:Also I have to laugh at the idea that philosophy is a "waste of time" for those in the sciences. Science without ethics is an nasty prospect.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:17
|
|
|
SedanChair posted:Your son would have the opportunity to earn the same wage as every other worker at the widget factory putting his knowledge to use.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:19
|
|
|
computer parts posted:People who fit the mold of "not right for college" will tend to be minorities. So you want this system to be fundamentally racist and destine minorities to be manual laborers and lower-level service workers because perish the thought they do incrementally better, and, say, be in a position to be better able to help their own children overcome those gaps? You're encouraging a vicious circle because the perfect is beyond reach right now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:19
|
|
|
420DD Butts posted:Even then, applied sciences are quickly becoming less of a "sure thing" out of college. I posted a few pages back about how engineering/tech majors straight out of school have unemployment rates similar to those in fields people would consider "hobbies" in this thread, e.g. Theater and Drama Arts. This doesn't seem to be as cut and dry as some people are suggesting. I'm not seeing your post on that, can you cite the statistics you're referring to? What you're saying doesn't sound really likely to me but I'd like to see what's actually being claimed before I try to take a random stab since this could be going any number of directions (including me just saying 'wow, ok, I'm wrong', I just kind of doubt it).
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:21
|
|
|
420DD Butts posted:You're talking about the USA, one of the most highly "individualistic" developed countries in the modern world. As well, as previously stated, plumbers are not held in high regard in terms of class. Popular media is, as usual, a good reflection of this. Take a mental inventory of the sorts of professions that you tend to see celebrated or emphasized in television shows, films, and so on. They're generally upper class positions (doctors, lawyers, high-tech crime investigators, businesspeople, etc.), emphasizing repeatedly the desirability and overall superiority of these positions. The plumber, by contrast, is usually a background or comedy relief character; they are not someone who inspires awe or interest.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:23
|
|
|
My Lil Parachute posted:Australia (and many other countries) generally focus on what Adults entered university to learn, and there is no huge outcry about it. Exactly how many dollars is the average student spending to become "well-rounded" at university? Please factor in fulltime income lost due to time spent whilst studying. I generally do not look at the world through the lens of a cost-benefit analysis. Also - Core requirements typically only take up 1/3 of your credits. You an fill your schedule of general electives with whatever course load you want - it's precisely what I did when I had switched into the sciences, my electives were all inside my own major. quote:Realistically how long should a specialized ethics subject take? At the end of the day if someone is a horrible human being a few university courses isn't going to change that. I like to think that it's not as simple as someone being a horrible human being, unless we are to posit that all business majors are predisposed to being horrible human beings. Having to take ethics classes did me a world of good in terms of forming my approach to my field. I imagine it is the same way for many others. Hell, a large chunk of biology/conservation is about establishing an ethical approach to field/lab work and you see scholars arguing this point over and over again.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:23
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:So you want this system to be fundamentally racist and destine minorities to be manual laborers and lower-level service workers because perish the thought they do incrementally better, and, say, be in a position to be better able to help their own children overcome those gaps? You're encouraging a vicious circle because the perfect is beyond reach right now. No, I want to fix the fundamental racism. Their children won't be helped if the system still fucks them over.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:26
|
|
|
Qublai Qhan posted:I'm not seeing your post on that, can you cite the statistics you're referring to? What you're saying doesn't sound really likely to me but I'd like to see what's actually being claimed before I try to take a random stab since this could be going any number of directions (including me just saying 'wow, ok, I'm wrong', I just kind of doubt it). https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/9t0p5tm0qhejyy8t8hub The only broad academic fields with <6%* unemployment as fresh college grads are Recreation and Education. Aves Maria! fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Dec 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:26
|
|
|
Why is everyone going on about plumbers like that's some low skill, low pay job? I've got a close family member who is a master plumber and he pulls three digit dollars an hour plus a big markup on materials. A 10 hour custom install (pretty common in a large city) pays him more than a lot of people make in two or three weeks of work. And the dedication and schooling it takes to become a master plumber is no joke either. SedanChair posted:Your son would have the opportunity to earn the same wage as every other worker at the widget factory putting his knowledge to use. Who would be managing this situation? spacetoaster fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Dec 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:27
|
|
|
spacetoaster posted:Why is everyone going on about plumbers like that's some low skill, low pay job? No one is, to my knowledge. Can you provide some posts that you believe say this? My particular point isn't that plumbing is a no-skill position that any idiot can do, but that it is not portrayed or emphasized as an important role in society in the same way that upper class professions are. Consequently, fewer people want to take it up as a profession.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:30
|
|
|
Vermain posted:No one is, to my knowledge. Can you provide some posts that you believe say this? My particular point isn't that plumbing is a no-skill position that any idiot can do, but that it is not portrayed or emphasized as an important role in society in the same way that upper class professions are. Consequently, fewer people want to take it up as a profession. Computer parts referred to it as lower class work, and someone else was going on about rich people not being plumbers. Plumbers, heck any skilled tradesman/woman, can actually be the rich folks we're all talking about here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:35
|
|
|
computer parts posted:No, I want to fix the fundamental racism. Their children won't be helped if the system still fucks them over. Are you going to wave a magic wand and have that happen? If not, it's going to require a process. In that process, the child of an employed carpenter is likelier to get a white-collar job for a white-collar degree than is the child of an underemployed overqualified debt-ridden striver. You need to look at how this works generation-to-generation. Hell, I look at most of the white people I know, and if I look a generation back, they came to be graduate students through trades and teaching; for quite a few of them they're the first in their family to do a PhD, but their parents weren't laborers. There wasn't a lot of laborer-to-professor/businessman jumping even for my own family, and I'm an old-immigration Ashkenazi Jew in Israel. Your problem is that you are blinded by how things go for the 1%, but that's not relevant to social processes that are going to improve things for the rest.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:36
|
|
spacetoaster posted:Why is everyone going on about plumbers like that's some low skill, low pay job? Because manual labor is seen as inherently low-class in the American culture. spacetoaster posted:Computer parts referred to it as lower class work, and someone else was going on about rich people not being plumbers. Not really, no. They can make it to the upper middle class, but it's debatable whether anyone really keeps working as a skilled trade worker after they're independently wealthy, let alone how many people manage to become independently wealthy as trade workers. And their children don't work as plumbers, either.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:38
|
|
|
spacetoaster posted:Computer parts referred to it as lower class work, and someone else was going on about rich people not being plumbers. It is lower class. Median income is above average but that speaks more to how dogshit our wealth divide is here. Absurd Alhazred posted:Hell, I look at most of the white people I know, and if I look a generation back, they came to be graduate students through trades and teaching; for quite a few of them they're the first in their family to do a PhD, but their parents weren't laborers. Hmm, it's almost as if there's some distinguishing factor there. To be more direct: a black plumber is going to live in a black neighborhood. This means they send their kids to the black school, which is dogshit. This means that their kid has little to no opportunities outside of what that black plumber had as a kid. And the system persists.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:38
|
|
|
computer parts posted:Hmm, it's almost as if there's some distinguishing factor there. It's almost as if you're bad at sarcasm. I'm saying that trades are a necessary, not a sufficient step. What you are effectively saying is "oh, well, since we live in a racist country let's remove that step and make it even less likely for minorities to succeed".
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:39
|
|
computer parts posted:It is lower class. Median income is above average but that speaks more to how dogshit our wealth divide is here. Well, not really. A black plumber that's making 80 grand a year is living in a neighborhood where his or her white neighbors are making 30 grand a year. Or in other words, if you can make it to the upper-middle-class while black, you get the privilege of living in a lower-middle-class to working-class white neighborhood. Absurd Alhazred posted:It's almost as if you're bad at sarcasm. I'm saying that trades are a necessary, not a sufficient step. What you are effectively saying is "oh, well, since we live in a racist country let's remove that step and make it even less likely for minorities to succeed". The idea that you move from trades to white-collar requires a permanent underclass of some kind to prevent everyone from ending up in an office job within a few generations.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:42
|
|
|
Effectronica posted:The idea that you move from trades to white-collar requires a permanent underclass of some kind to prevent everyone from ending up in an office job within a few generations. computer parts` argument is that the white-collar workforce needs to be more diverse. I am saying that the path from laborer/low-end-service to white-collar in my experience predominantly goes through trades. So by insisting on the status quo, where trades are not promoted anywhere nearly to the same level as debt-inducing college, it decreases the chance of the white-collar workforce diversifying. I wasn't talking about paths from white-collar to trades; that is going to become more and more likely as the realization that white-collar is saturated sinks in. As for white-collar/trades to laborer, well, there's nothing barring that happening for people who aren't part of the 1%. If I come from a family with a few white-collar and blue-collar people and I don't make it, I guess I'll labor. That requires a different front of, say, raising the minimum wage, or introducing mincome, or whatnot, to make sure that those jobs are manageable. These are all different fights and there's no reason to refuse to fight them individually just because it's not going to solve all the problems at once.
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:48
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:. If I come from a family with a few white-collar and blue-collar people and I don't make it, I guess I'll labor. If you have kids, will you tell them "you should go be a plumber"?
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 08:08 |
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:computer parts` argument is that the white-collar workforce needs to be more diverse. I am saying that the path from laborer/low-end-service to white-collar in my experience predominantly goes through trades. So by insisting on the status quo, where trades are not promoted anywhere nearly to the same level as debt-inducing college, it decreases the chance of the white-collar workforce diversifying. I wasn't talking about paths from white-collar to trades; that is going to become more and more likely as the realization that white-collar is saturated sinks in. As for white-collar/trades to laborer, well, there's nothing barring that happening for people who aren't part of the 1%. If I come from a family with a few white-collar and blue-collar people and I don't make it, I guess I'll labor. That requires a different front of, say, raising the minimum wage, or introducing mincome, or whatnot, to make sure that those jobs are manageable. The problem is that people want upward mobility and they don't want to fall. In order for this to happen, there needs to be an underclass to provide a barrier against downward mobility and this is largely a matter of race in the USA. Ending white supremacy means significantly rethinking class relationships or creating a new, non-racial underclass that can provide that same barrier. If white-collar, blue-collar, pink-collar, etc. were all roughly equivalent and mobility was largely lateral, much, though not all, of these issues would be resolved, but that of course requires, if not full communism, at least something very close to it.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 28, 2014 06:53
|
|