- Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men.
Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those skills at a novice to intermediate level.
- Men who refuse to work. Part of why they refuse to work is that they might not recognize the solution above: to build skills relevant to a career they consider meaningful. This may also be due to a lack of monetary resources to live somewhat comfortably while building those skills (That said, I lived in a tent for months while teaching myself web development). Or they are overburdened by obligations and decided to give up and check out of society (i.e. turn towards homelessness and/or drugs)
Caveat: I know some folks who call themselves "poor folks". The reality is that their problem isn't that they're poor. Their problem is that they refuse to put together a well formatted resume, apply to jobs, and accept that they may have to start at the bottom of the career ladder. (And/or build new skills)
The concept of "Work" is but one link on a dependency chain:
Study -> Skills -> Productivity -> Work -> Career -> Build resources
There seems to be a duality among people where some people find satisfaction working with their minds, others with their hands.
I know it's a controversial view but I truly believe it: some people just want to see something physically accomplished at the end of a day's work. A roof shingled, a road graded, a cabinet hung....
When society pivots and those manual jobs go overseas, just telling everyone they're better off going into tech anyway is not going to fly.
Perhaps those career assessment test or whatever I took in high school had some validity after all. For better or worse, I understand shop classes are gone now from high school. I took a wood shop class (and still make things from wood to this day). Metal shop class was offered (stick welding was sort of the pinnacle of that class), shop class (where you worked on cars that the teachers brought in — always likely a sort of side business the teacher had going.)
My daughter went to Norway as an exchange student and it sounds as though Scandinavian schools still have some idea of a vocational track in public school education. While we may have sent most of the factory jobs overseas we still construct, wire, and plumb houses here, still build roads and bridges.
I agree. People have differences in satisfaction based on the type of work they're attracted to.
Personally, I love working with my hands. But I want a job that pays very well and offers location flexibility. (Plus I love learning an entire system of skills which builds upon itself) So, I chose IT.
But I still plan to do construction projects-- a Maker Space near me offers evening courses in welding, electrician skills, and carpentry.
I think the unfortunately reality is also that:
- There are differences in effort
- There are differences in intelligence
- There are differences in industriousness (how proactive a person is)
Which leads to some people being more suited towards intellectually challenging work. Others are more suited or interested in less mind-oriented work. Which is totally ok-- there is a huge demand for both.
I'm entirely like that. If it wouldn't wreck my body and it paid the same—or even close—I'd carry boxes from one side of a room to another all day, over programming or most other office work. Or basically any trade work except electrical. Trying to maneuver those tiny little wires in tiny little spaces makes me irrationally angry.
The amount of meaningful, well-paid work in our society is also shrinking at a rapid rate.
Expecting everyone to just become baristas and waiters (which is what's happening in the UK at least) is just pushing people towards a giant mental health crisis.
Without manufacturing there is no middle-class, and the West has abdicated its manufacturing. That's led to the bifurcation of our society in two halves - the well-to-do service workers who have accumulated valuable knowledge, and the people serving them. I don't think it's a healthy outcome.
Service work can be elevated to a living wage career since we depend on it and there is so much capital tied up in restaurants and retail.
Of course people will say they don’t want to pay more but we’re already paying enough to support higher wages.
Factory owners didn’t want to pay much either so we don’t have good-paying factory work. VCs and CEOs don’t want to pay much for programmers either and we see where they’re taking the industry for the next generation.
Even if something like food service at McDonald's is automated, it's tough to argue that we should be getting humans to work on things that can be automated.
Imagine working 40 hours a week then seeing that the machine both prepared more product and made fewer mistakes than you, or feeling like you're doing work just because someone (the government) pities you enough to force some jobs to remain non-automated.
Working with more complex, higher-skilled work that makes you feel like you're improving the lives of others is what our brains crave, not repeating menial tasks over and over again.
> Imagine working 40 hours a week then seeing that the machine both prepared more product and made fewer mistakes than you
The Ballad of John Henry is Civil War era, but even he was a century or two after the Luddites started wrecking automated weaving machines. It's actually been a feature of the Industrial Revolution for awhile, but I think the effects are more pronounced now than ever.
The problem with that is that there are people that are more or less intelligent and more or less motivated.
There's NOTHING wrong with the occasional menial task, and there's nothing wrong with being unmotivated, so long as it's not a net negative drain on society.
Once everything is automated away, I suspect it won't be the Star Trekian Utopia we'd like.
Order-taking is miles apart from the actual prep, cooking and serving. Imagine owning AND MAINTAINING a machine that can do all of that with less combined labor and expense.
I feel like some people will gravitate back towards self sufficient activities. There are a lot of people on this site doing stuff like building their own furniture, gardening, etc. Of course I do think there will be a subset that use their time for more destructive things, as happens even now.
there is a huge opportunity for environmental conservation and clean-up, and care-giving for the sick / elderly / mentally ill.
unfortunately there isn't a profit motive for those things, so the work in those industries tends to be low paying and requiring a high level of education.
there is definitely still a ton of work to do in the world, we just don't have anyone willing to pay for it.
> Their problem is that they refuse to put together a well formatted resume, apply to jobs, and accept that they may have to start at the bottom of the career ladder.
I see this a lot. Younger people who have been led to believe by incendiary reddit and twitter rants that everyone lived like some Leave it to Beaver sitcom in the near past and they should be able to own a house and support a family at 19 on a McDonald's salary, and anything short of that there's no point participating because it's not fair. There are a lot of legitimate grievances in there regarding stagnating real wages and student debt etc. but for many it's just an excuse.
Except that there really was a time when a person was able to graduate high school, go down to the local factory, and get a job that would buy a house and support a family with nothing other than a firm handshake. They didn't do it on a McDonalds salary, but that's because this all happened before McDonalds were around, and the cafes and restaurants that McD's later replaced all paid living wages.
My high-school-diploma, literally raised in a barn, divorced-with-child-support-plus-another-kid-out-of-wedlock dad, who piddled around at odd jobs making almost nothing in his 20s before finally getting job at the railroad and working up to middle management, retired early as a millionaire, having paid my way through college (a cheap one, but still). My mom had a junior college degree and only worked like 6 years, before they got married, so they were single-income, too. We went on a nice couple-weeks-long road trip every year and traveled to see family around holidays. They could afford to drop a stupid amount of money on a Tandy for me when I was really young, in case the whole computer thing took off. We did great.
It really, really was different for the boomers. And union-won retirement benefits were so good back then. Plus that money was tied up in the retirement scheme, so you couldn't "defect" and spend it to compete for housing (driving up prices) rather than putting it in your 401k.
There's also a third, or subset under your refuse to work category. Some people who check out do so because the system is stacked against them. These could be people with criminal records, health issues, etc. Good luck getting a good job if you have any sort of record, mental illness, etc. Even stuff like delinquent child support can prevent your hiring. How about that - can't pay your support because you don't have a job, can't get a job because you're behind on your support...
many many people simply won't work if they don't have to. If they're able to live off parents or significant others and can get enough entertainment/stimulation online to keep them satisfied then that's all they're going to do.
- A 30 year old guy who lives at his mothers house. He's a part time videographer. For the last 5 years, hasn't proactively built any other skillset. Currently he says he'll work on getting into the construction industry. The irony is that he studied through calculus recently at a community college, but isn't enthused by the non-social work of a IT professional. Like other gig workers I know, he's only recently wised up to the fact that maybe he can't support himself on gig work, and that lacking business skills/knowledge he's unlikely to be a entrepreneur. Reality is beginning to dawn on him: he's getting older, and women will be less and less likely to see him as an adequate provider.
- a 32 year old guy who has a family trust he lives off of. Dropped out of college around age 19 or 20 to spend the next decade smoking marijuana and playing video games nearly as though it's a full time job. Fortunately he recently returned to finish college and will soon have a science degree. He'll be about 33-34 and start working at a career level of a typical 22-23 year old. The difference though is that he lacks common sense developed by resource scarcity & the existential need to become a professional. So, at 33, he'll be a less mature version of a 23 year old. It's sad to see. (I firmly believe young adults shouldn't be given free money-- they'll end up without a proper incentive structure.
It's a bit like getting cheat codes to a game: there's no longer a reason to work at it.)
It's one thing to say that about very young men, and quite another who followed society's and especially goverment's pushing and funding of higher and higher education. Only later do they find out that their crazy study hours were largely wasted, and they'd have done much better in a trade. They were led astray.
It would be better for people to be integrated into the workforce _during_ their education, to ensure that it stays relevant and to keep the movtivation. This idea of education as a kind of social enlightenment is an elite luxury, and makes people more miserable and regretful and unemployable.
/g/ is full of intelligent people who could easily do what I do every day at work and are still unemployed.
It's not a lack of skills. Getting a job (especially your first) is a lot of work. In some ways IMO it's more work than what you would be payed to do. Once you get payed what do you do with the money? You spend it to participate in society.
Except most of our social institutions are gone anyway. Marriage (the larger motivator) is practically symbolic at this point. All that's left are the hard economic ideas, so they can spend it to live in their own place and not deal with their mom. Even those aren't doing so well, look at home ownership or even renting. Is it worth it? Some say yes and get jobs, plenty say no.
We've restructured society so there's no place for these men even if they did find jobs, then on top of that we've brought in millions more men to ensure if that any niche that developed would be immediately filled. This is what people really mean when they complain about low wages or high inflation and it's not something that can be fixed by fiddling with the money supply.
I imagine that we would disagree mightily on quite a few things, but this I do feel is mostly accurate. I think a key and missing component of the way American society is structured is a real way for people to (for lack of a better term) upskill and make a way for themselves, with dignity, without requiring outside help. There are some who manage it, even marginalized folk, but with the caveat that they made some sort of major, risky sacrifice ("Yeah, I lived in my car why studying"), or else had access to a support network ("Thank you so much for subscribing, I'm opening commissions tomorrow!").
This is part of why things like (for example, and bear with me) the failure of single-payer healthcare was such a blow. It would have been a way to end a huge factor in why people are tied to the dysfunction of the current structure, of course, but there was also a hidden loss: so many people continue to be unable to access mental health care. With the transformation of the system in Obama's first term, might we have created a crucial nexus and resource for young people and their concerns to have met and been heard by older generations? A way, in particular, for young men to embrace guided reasoning through their desires for life in a society where traditional paths had broken down? For the people observing this unpacking of hopes and lived experience to, perhaps, find the wherewithal to parlay and make way? Maybe. Instead we got Gamergate and the toxicity of contemporary social media culture, abject failures as balms for even the ills they try to address.
Of course, this is just one link in a long chain of missteps that lead us to where we are. To expand on your statement: it's not something that can be fixed by fiddling with the money supply because it's not something that started merely with poorly-conceived monetary policy.
The problem is:
- Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men.
Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those skills at a novice to intermediate level.
- Men who refuse to work. Part of why they refuse to work is that they might not recognize the solution above: to build skills relevant to a career they consider meaningful. This may also be due to a lack of monetary resources to live somewhat comfortably while building those skills (That said, I lived in a tent for months while teaching myself web development). Or they are overburdened by obligations and decided to give up and check out of society (i.e. turn towards homelessness and/or drugs)
Caveat: I know some folks who call themselves "poor folks". The reality is that their problem isn't that they're poor. Their problem is that they refuse to put together a well formatted resume, apply to jobs, and accept that they may have to start at the bottom of the career ladder. (And/or build new skills)
The concept of "Work" is but one link on a dependency chain:
Study -> Skills -> Productivity -> Work -> Career -> Build resources