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The trades are always a good option for many people. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, or welders as was noted. Those things can't be outsourced to India or whatever is the current route. Some people college isn't the best choice. Some people are more "doers" and learn via hands on and other people are more bookish, so we need to have various options out there.
I've mentioned this before but back in HS in the 12 grade I remember as the school year was ending various representatives from colleges and trade school were on campus handing out flyers and trying to recruit kids. One of these reps came into the classroom and spoke for a few minutes and he said something that really for some reason resonated with me even to this day I remember it. He said to do something with your life. Even if it wasn't going to his program/school. I think it has been a new world for a long time now. The days of just winging it and finding a job that pays well enough are gone. You have to have more specialized training more and more these days. Unless you're happy flipping burgers or pouring coffee.
I thank god I'm not a new young kid right out of college. So many kids are having it rougher and rougher trying to find a good middle class income type of work. These kids are coming out of school with HUGE college debts and are finding it harder to get a job.
I get college isn't all about just getting job training, but there has to be a pragmatic streak somewhere in there. You can be an art history major and all but people need to have something a bit more tangible in the new information age economy we are now in.
Things are only going to get worse as automation has/is and will be taking more jobs in the future. I used to balk at the idea of a universal basic income, but I fear it is the future in the coming decades. Not getting political here but when you hear these politicians talking about jobs coming back they are full of it. History is littered with examples of technology replacing workers.
The trades are always a good option for many people. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, or welders as was noted. Those things can't be outsourced to India or whatever is the current route. Some people college isn't the best choice. Some people are more "doers" and learn via hands on and other people are more bookish, so we need to have various options out there.
I've mentioned this before but back in HS in the 12 grade I remember as the school year was ending various representatives from colleges and trade school were on campus handing out flyers and trying to recruit kids. One of these reps came into the classroom and spoke for a few minutes and he said something that really for some reason resonated with me even to this day I remember it. He said to do something with your life. Even if it wasn't going to his program/school. I think it has been a new world for a long time now. The days of just winging it and finding a job that pays well enough are gone. You have to have more specialized training more and more these days. Unless you're happy flipping burgers or pouring coffee.
I thank god I'm not a new young kid right out of college. So many kids are having it rougher and rougher trying to find a good middle class income type of work. These kids are coming out of school with HUGE college debts and are finding it harder to get a job.
I get college isn't all about just getting job training, but there has to be a pragmatic streak somewhere in there. You can be an art history major and all but people need to have something a bit more tangible in the new information age economy we are now in.
Things are only going to get worse as automation has/is and will be taking more jobs in the future. I used to balk at the idea of a universal basic income, but I fear it is the future in the coming decades. Not getting political here but when you hear these politicians talking about jobs coming back they are full of it. History is littered with examples of technology replacing workers.
Yep. My son has what I call a "math brain." Very technical. He just does not enjoy reading and writing and language, and even as an Accounting major, I had to write essays CONSTANTLY. Colleges just love to make you read and write like crazy. He is better with anything from mathematical equations (he filled notebooks with them for fun) to following technical specs, building things, doing origami, even making music...but in that way that is tied to math. He loves to draw and he's very creative, but even his art is pretty technical and spatial, if that makes any sense. He's very smart but in a very specialized way.
So I figured, hey, the trades, that's a good route for him to go.
My other son can't settle to anything. One day he's taught himself guitar, then lost interest and taught himself Java coding, then got bored and got into stop motion animation, he's all over the place. While it impresses me, I worry that his inability to specialize might hurt him. He's going to need to focus. Right now his tentative plan is to enlist in the military and shoot for something cyber-security related long term.
Frankly, I see things like the military as being the sort of busy-work we end up with, when robots have taken all the jobs. Not that I am shaming soldiers or diminishing the value of their hard work, but I feel like from a macro perspective, the big picture...when the machines are doing all of the growing, harvesting, building, manufacturing, repairing themselves and operating independently...well, the world leaders can always start a war, that'll give a bunch of people something to do. Destroy a bunch of infrastructure and all, so that then people can work on rebuilding it. Rinse, repeat. Not a very tidy way to go about managing the species, if you ask me.
And hey. Nobody does "work for work's sake" like the military. No one. My ex used to tell me that when we were stationed in Washington, the guys would get sent out, in the rain, into the parking lots with nothing but butter knives, to scrape the moss off the rocks and pavement. Uncle Sam will give you something to do. "Builds character."
A friend with whom I maintain a slightly flirty but safely-platonic-feeling interaction, has just sent me a video. In this video, he puts a wrapped Starburst in his mouth, then works it around in there a while then spits out the candy, then works on the wrapper, then after about 30 seconds, spits out a tiny origami crane.
It is possible that he was attempting to hint at some kind of "oral skills" but this makes me want to joke that he is some kind of a human vending machine, dispensing candy and tiny toy things like, and to ask if I could stick a quarter in his ear, crank his nose, and get a prize.
I woke up in the middle of the night to catch a movie. Didn't see it from the beginning, but I caught enough to get the just of the story.
A man goes camping in family venue on a lake, and while his two older children are horsing around to get his attention, someone steals the youngest daughter from the picnic table in their camping spot.
This man takes her back to his makeshift cabin just outside of the campground, and does what these type of people do.
The father is struggling to understand. Angels and God (Graham Greene plays God), show the man his daughter and how she is happy where she is. They tell him she cant see him but knows he is near.
It makes the guy feel better to know his daughter is in a nice place, surrounded by good souls, and is happy.
The guy gets in a discussion with God. They discuss how the man is a repeat offender. The answer that God gives (bare in mind, this IS a movie), although as one who has studied what it is to be Christian, the answer blew my mind, and although the father in the movie comes to accept it, I guess you could say it kind of rubbed me and the father the wrong way - God says, he hasn't struck the PedoCreeper in the woods down yet, because he hasn't given up on him yet. From the perspective of a mortal, those children's innocent lives were worth saving, but from the perspective of God, as innocents, they were already safe.
Perhaps this can give some insight into the mind of "who's running the universe". It's not so much the life that counts, but more about the outcome of that life. If a PedoCreeper can feel remorse and change his ways then God doesn't need to cast him into hell. The evil one has confessed and repented. The innocent victim is an innocent. There is no evil to try to resolve, no soul being cast into hell. The child simply goes home to God.
Ive always been taught that everything that happens is a part of God's plan. The problem being that the plan may only make sense to God, and we mere mortals are left to wonder, and even lament at times because the plan does not make sense to us, and appears to have even hurt us. The hardest thing being to accept that we are not meant to understand the plan. This would mean to accept that we are not God.
What would this mean to an atheist? I don't know.
Last edited by ComeCloser; 06-25-2018 at 07:04 PM..
I woke up in the middle of the night to catch a movie. Didn't see it from the beginning, but I caught enough to get the just of the story.
A man goes camping in family venue on a lake, and while his two older children are horsing around to get his attention, someone steals the youngest daughter from the picnic table in their camping spot.
This man takes her back to his makeshift cabin just outside of the campground, and does what these type of people do.
The father is struggling to understand. Angels and God (Graham Greene plays God), show the man his daughter and how she is happy where she is. They tell him she cant see him but knows he is near.
It makes the guy feel better to know his daughter is in a nice place, surrounded by good souls, and is happy.
The guy gets in a discussion with God. They discuss how the man is a repeat offender. The answer that God gives (bare in mind, this IS a movie), although as one who has studied what it is to be Christian, the answer blew my mind, and although the father in the movie comes to accept it, I guess you could say it kind of rubbed me and the father the wrong way - God says, he hasn't struck the PedoCreeper in the woods down yet, because he hasn't given up on him yet. From the perspective of a mortal, those children's innocent lives were worth saving, but from the perspective of God, as innocents, they were already safe.
Perhaps this can give some insight into the mind of "who's running the universe". It's not so much the life that counts, but more about the outcome of that life. If a PedoCreeper can feel remorse and change his ways then God doesn't need to cast him into hell. The evil one has confessed and repented. The innocent victim is an innocent. There is no evil to try to resolve, no soul being cast into hell. The child simply goes home to God.
Ive always been taught that everything that happens is a part of God's plan. The problem being that the plan may only make sense to God, and we mere mortals are left to wonder, and even lament at times because the plan does not make sense to us, and appears to have even hurt us. The hardest thing being to accept that we are not meant to understand the plan. This would mean to accept that we are not God.
What would this mean to an atheist? I don't know.
We were just talking about the atheist thing just a day or two ago. Struggle with the whole organized religion thing personally but I fully support their rights to pursue their beliefs. I'm a big supporter of personal liberty and rights. What's happening on college campuses right now is disheartening to me and I hope it corrects itself out soon.
We were just talking about the athethis thing just a day or two ago. Struggle with the whole organized religion thing personally but I fully support their rights to pursue their beliefs. I'm a big supporter of personal liberty and rights. What's happening on college campuses right now is disheartening to me and I hope it corrects itself out soon.
Ive struggled with organized religion myself. As the song says, "I don't believe that Heaven waits, for only those who congregate...". I happen to believe in God, but am no missionary and would never proselytize.
I don't know what's happening on campuses. If it has made the news, its been drowned out by children being separated from their parents at the border.
I would add that for most, a four year degree from college is what a high school diploma was in my day. You need a Masters or better to shoot for that middle class life.
Two areas to aim at - Healthcare and Government. Neither will ever go out of business or be completely consumed by automation.
Last edited by ComeCloser; 06-25-2018 at 07:26 PM..
So I went outside to walk over to the store, and I was shocked at what I saw. I saw a Bentley parked on my block.
For the record, while I live in a decently nice neighborhood, it is not Bentley-nice. It is full of basic, but overpriced circa 1960s-1980s apartments and condos. With a couple of million dollar homes mixed in. Its the Bay Area, so basically this passes for normal.
I had 3 questions:
1. I thought driving a Bentley requires a car and driver
2. Who parks a Bentley on the street?
3. Bentley makes SUVs/Crossovers?
To your #3 question, Jade, I saw a ridiculous little frumpy coupe of a thing, just a lame little sedan looking vehicle, utterly unimpressive, and on the back it said, "Porche." I was like wow. That's a Porche? Really?
Different people have different priorities, though. I've seen some super swanky vehicles parked near really sub-par housing before, and parked there persistently enough that you knew it was a resident. That person chose where to put their money.
The last several posts here got my brain in a rambly state, and I wrote this big long post wandering all over philosophical territory, then decided it was kinda uncool to drop a wall of text of that nature here (I'm trying, you guys!) so I plunked it in my "blog" space of my profile instead. If anyone has nothing better to do, it's here: http://www.city-data.com/blogs/blog4...ramblings.html ....rather than cluttering up this thread.
ComeCloser, though, my generally atheist sort of perspective on your comment is in there, roundabout the last paragraph if you want to skip the other stuff.
I woke up in the middle of the night to catch a movie. Didn't see it from the beginning, but I caught enough to get the just of the story.
A man goes camping in family venue on a lake, and while his two older children are horsing around to get his attention, someone steals the youngest daughter from the picnic table in their camping spot.
This man takes her back to his makeshift cabin just outside of the campground, and does what these type of people do.
The father is struggling to understand. Angels and God (Graham Greene plays God), show the man his daughter and how she is happy where she is. They tell him she cant see him but knows he is near.
It makes the guy feel better to know his daughter is in a nice place, surrounded by good souls, and is happy.
The guy gets in a discussion with God. They discuss how the man is a repeat offender. The answer that God gives (bare in mind, this IS a movie), although as one who has studied what it is to be Christian, the answer blew my mind, and although the father in the movie comes to accept it, I guess you could say it kind of rubbed me and the father the wrong way - God says, he hasn't struck the PedoCreeper in the woods down yet, because he hasn't given up on him yet. From the perspective of a mortal, those children's innocent lives were worth saving, but from the perspective of God, as innocents, they were already safe.
Perhaps this can give some insight into the mind of "who's running the universe". It's not so much the life that counts, but more about the outcome of that life. If a PedoCreeper can feel remorse and change his ways then God doesn't need to cast him into hell. The evil one has confessed and repented. The innocent victim is an innocent. There is no evil to try to resolve, no soul being cast into hell. The child simply goes home to God.
Ive always been taught that everything that happens is a part of God's plan. The problem being that the plan may only make sense to God, and we mere mortals are left to wonder, and even lament at times because the plan does not make sense to us, and appears to have even hurt us. The hardest thing being to accept that we are not meant to understand the plan. This would mean to accept that we are not God.
What would this mean to an atheist? I don't know.
I was raised Catholic, which is a non Christian sect to many protestants, but still. Regarding God's mysterious ways, at about age 14 I figured out that I had to buy into the mystery with all my heart, or buy into my feeling that the mystery was just a response to a the apparent contradiction that an all knowing and all loving God would allow all the malignancy we encounter. And all the smoting in the old testament. I chose to leave the church, but almost every day I wish I could accept the mystery.
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