To an extent, I think that there's something to be said for there being problems in American culture. Few on the right would argue that participation trophies, passing students when they can't actually do the coursework, watering down elementary School and high School curriculum to make it easier, or stifling kids with rules preventing them from doing anything but the are good things. Few on the right would argue that the coddling of children to the point that 10-year-olds can't even ride down the street on their bike without the cops getting called is a big problem. Few on the right would argue for the failed approach of so-called gentle parenting is a net negative and fails to teach kids self control. Few on the right would argue on behalf of replacing shop class with gender studies. These are all things going on with our culture right now. They're all things that I think everyone would agree probably need to change.
On the other hand, there's the story about why the Americans beat the Germans to the atomic bomb despite the Germans having all the best physicists. The highly educated Germans kept on trying to do all the math based on a cubic plane, where is the more practical Americans did all the math based on a sphere, greatly simplifying the math. That difference ended up being critically important to solving the problem which ultimately ended up helping to win the war.
Now let's go back to the culture question, is the United States the same country that won the race to the bomb through clever application of practicality? I think it would be really difficult to make that argument. How many kids are working with their hands? How many are growing up learning to weld with their parents? How many are going out camping on their own for days on end having to figure out how to handle things on their own without an adult present? How many are working on their own cars? How many kids are stuck doing basically nothing but watching brain rot on YouTube all day?
Now sure, there are some households where stuff like this still happens. Rest assured that my boy will be learning how to weld poorly from me and hopefully much better from his grandfather, and I'll be involving him with routine repairs on the car, and obviously won't be able to send him camping alone, but we can go camping with minimally required supervision.
But the other thing is that necessity is the mother of invention and opportunity is the father, and a lot of people won't have a chance to have an entry-level job. Sure, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went on to found apple. No one seems to mention the fact that they had good jobs at HP before that to learn their trade and get the sort of capital they were going to need to start their company. And Jeff Bezos, he was able to get himself into a very nice career in finance before quitting it all to go start Amazon in a garage. Getting an entry level job is actually very important. Not to mention, having that entry level job and still being able to afford a place to live -- if jobs and Wozniak we're spending three quarters of their income on housing then they never could have quit their jobs at HP to start Apple computer.
But it's a big problem companies have, they want to have fully developed employees without actually having to develop employees. And for now the ways around this have been to get Americans to pay for their own education, but they still aren't actually ready for the workforce at that point. So at that point, you are expected to spend a boatload of money on education most of which has nothing to do with what you were going to do for a job, then you are expected to spend a boatload more of money at an unpaid internship so that maybe someday someone might actually pay you. Employment ends up being a luxury for the rich. And then Vivek Ramswami says that you're a bad person for wanting a job and to have time off now and again. When I was learning my field, everyone told me that things were going to be so easy because all the boomers were about to retire. Well that took a little bit longer than expected because the world economy crashed and then the world economy shut down 15 years later, but now the boomers are retiring and they're dying of old age, and it doesn't matter because even though those jobs are open there's been no one groomed into those positions. I was lucky and diligent and that allowed me to walk a very narrow tightrope, but most people won't have the luck I did. Most people need some kind of practical pathway to get from no experience to ready to work.
The purpose of a job is not to have a job though, unless you're a CEO like him. The purpose of a job is to be able to support yourself and go off and have a family and do all those things, maybe be able to help your friends and family, donate to your church. Most of these people who work 80 hours a week are going to go extinct because they don't do any of the things that matter in life.
In the end, the diagnosis makes it pretty clear first of all that trying to replace the American workforce with h-1b's is viciously immoral -- it is simply refusing to give basic levels of opportunity to the people living in the country that you are using to develop your business. What really needs to happen is a systemic overhaul where first of all parents are allowed to and encouraged to help their kids learn real skills from them, are allowed to and encouraged to help their kids learn self control, are allowed to and are encouraged to go above and beyond helping still virtue in the future generations, and are dissuaded from using new age postmodern forms of parenting that reduce the impact of the family and leave young people adrift; second of all teachers and schools are encouraged to focus on many of the same things, real skills, virtue and trying to excel, because at the end of the day there aren't that many hours that kids spend in school or at home. Childhoods aren't that long. So kids need to be taught stuff that actually matters, not cultural brain rot from people who are more interested in reinventing all of society than in the success of individual children; third, workplaces need to be incentivized into creating entry level jobs and hiring local people into them. You will never have any journeyman electricians if you never hire any apprentice electricians. You will never have any senior engineers if you never hire any Junior engineers. You will never have any senior managers if you never hire any Junior managers. It's insane that this point needs to be brought up, but the entire of global industry doesn't seem to understand that.
One thing that is not an answer that a lot of governments seem to think is, is putting out more advertising campaigns to try to get kids into engineering and the trades. When an apprenticeship comes up, there are hundreds of applications received. The idea that nobody wants an apprenticeship is just wrong. Now, for a lot of people once they get into the apprenticeship they realize that they don't want that job, and that's why you should be able to hire tons of apprentices and fire most of them. One of the points of an entry level job is to find out if that person is actually suited for that job, and the idea would be to quickly get rid of them if they're not suited for that line of work. In higher education this happens pretty often. Engineering classes will start with hundreds of people, and have a graduating class of a few dozen because most people can't do that job. But at least give people a chance.
On the other hand, there's the story about why the Americans beat the Germans to the atomic bomb despite the Germans having all the best physicists. The highly educated Germans kept on trying to do all the math based on a cubic plane, where is the more practical Americans did all the math based on a sphere, greatly simplifying the math. That difference ended up being critically important to solving the problem which ultimately ended up helping to win the war.
Now let's go back to the culture question, is the United States the same country that won the race to the bomb through clever application of practicality? I think it would be really difficult to make that argument. How many kids are working with their hands? How many are growing up learning to weld with their parents? How many are going out camping on their own for days on end having to figure out how to handle things on their own without an adult present? How many are working on their own cars? How many kids are stuck doing basically nothing but watching brain rot on YouTube all day?
Now sure, there are some households where stuff like this still happens. Rest assured that my boy will be learning how to weld poorly from me and hopefully much better from his grandfather, and I'll be involving him with routine repairs on the car, and obviously won't be able to send him camping alone, but we can go camping with minimally required supervision.
But the other thing is that necessity is the mother of invention and opportunity is the father, and a lot of people won't have a chance to have an entry-level job. Sure, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went on to found apple. No one seems to mention the fact that they had good jobs at HP before that to learn their trade and get the sort of capital they were going to need to start their company. And Jeff Bezos, he was able to get himself into a very nice career in finance before quitting it all to go start Amazon in a garage. Getting an entry level job is actually very important. Not to mention, having that entry level job and still being able to afford a place to live -- if jobs and Wozniak we're spending three quarters of their income on housing then they never could have quit their jobs at HP to start Apple computer.
But it's a big problem companies have, they want to have fully developed employees without actually having to develop employees. And for now the ways around this have been to get Americans to pay for their own education, but they still aren't actually ready for the workforce at that point. So at that point, you are expected to spend a boatload of money on education most of which has nothing to do with what you were going to do for a job, then you are expected to spend a boatload more of money at an unpaid internship so that maybe someday someone might actually pay you. Employment ends up being a luxury for the rich. And then Vivek Ramswami says that you're a bad person for wanting a job and to have time off now and again. When I was learning my field, everyone told me that things were going to be so easy because all the boomers were about to retire. Well that took a little bit longer than expected because the world economy crashed and then the world economy shut down 15 years later, but now the boomers are retiring and they're dying of old age, and it doesn't matter because even though those jobs are open there's been no one groomed into those positions. I was lucky and diligent and that allowed me to walk a very narrow tightrope, but most people won't have the luck I did. Most people need some kind of practical pathway to get from no experience to ready to work.
The purpose of a job is not to have a job though, unless you're a CEO like him. The purpose of a job is to be able to support yourself and go off and have a family and do all those things, maybe be able to help your friends and family, donate to your church. Most of these people who work 80 hours a week are going to go extinct because they don't do any of the things that matter in life.
In the end, the diagnosis makes it pretty clear first of all that trying to replace the American workforce with h-1b's is viciously immoral -- it is simply refusing to give basic levels of opportunity to the people living in the country that you are using to develop your business. What really needs to happen is a systemic overhaul where first of all parents are allowed to and encouraged to help their kids learn real skills from them, are allowed to and encouraged to help their kids learn self control, are allowed to and are encouraged to go above and beyond helping still virtue in the future generations, and are dissuaded from using new age postmodern forms of parenting that reduce the impact of the family and leave young people adrift; second of all teachers and schools are encouraged to focus on many of the same things, real skills, virtue and trying to excel, because at the end of the day there aren't that many hours that kids spend in school or at home. Childhoods aren't that long. So kids need to be taught stuff that actually matters, not cultural brain rot from people who are more interested in reinventing all of society than in the success of individual children; third, workplaces need to be incentivized into creating entry level jobs and hiring local people into them. You will never have any journeyman electricians if you never hire any apprentice electricians. You will never have any senior engineers if you never hire any Junior engineers. You will never have any senior managers if you never hire any Junior managers. It's insane that this point needs to be brought up, but the entire of global industry doesn't seem to understand that.
One thing that is not an answer that a lot of governments seem to think is, is putting out more advertising campaigns to try to get kids into engineering and the trades. When an apprenticeship comes up, there are hundreds of applications received. The idea that nobody wants an apprenticeship is just wrong. Now, for a lot of people once they get into the apprenticeship they realize that they don't want that job, and that's why you should be able to hire tons of apprentices and fire most of them. One of the points of an entry level job is to find out if that person is actually suited for that job, and the idea would be to quickly get rid of them if they're not suited for that line of work. In higher education this happens pretty often. Engineering classes will start with hundreds of people, and have a graduating class of a few dozen because most people can't do that job. But at least give people a chance.
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