Comment by rhapsodic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhapsodic | Hacker News Reader

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> Q: wouldn't (next to job market restrictions) an alternative solution to this problem be better education?

I really don't think so, and here's why:

I grew up in a steel town in the rust belt that was thriving up until the 1980s. Among my peers, almost everyone's father was gainfully employed, but relatively few were doing white-collar type work. (There were plenty of those types in the region, they just didn't live in the same neighborhoods where I lived.) So the people discussed in this article are not some abstract sociological concept to me, they are where I came from. Now I live in a neighborhood and school district that is predominantly white-collar with aspirations of higher education for the children growing up there, but I still have strong ties and frequent contact with my old world. And, from my experience, I know there are many men who are simply not cut out to be "knowledge workers". I don't need an expert or a study to tell me that.

These people saw their opportunities and incomes shrink (or disappear altogether) from an onslaught of imported manufactured goods. And now, they see their already shrunken piece of the pie being taken by immigrants. The Democrats tell them, "college for everyone, go to school and be a computer progammer!"

To which they reply, "Screw you, we're voting for Donald Trump. He cares more about our interests than the plight of poor Mexicans!" (And then they turn on the TV and see some Democratic politician talking about how hateful and racist they are.)

Yea i fully understand that sentiment

Ok to paraphrase and understand your main point:

The blue-collar attitude is part of the local culture b/c it's so dominant?

In your pov: What paths exist other than showing and creating other possible alternatives? Personally i can't think of any other way than high quality education for the general population. (but obviously super biased here)

I have a lot of blue collar friends, and I think the point he's really making is that there are a lot of men who aren't cut out for higher education or technical school. It's not that they're not capable people, but it's that they think very concretely and it's difficult for them to grasp higher education because of all of the abstractions. They can be taught to perform tasks, and some of them have people skills that are good enough that they can lead teams, but they will never be computer programmers unless we commit as a society to put in decades of work per person.

These are men who would be farm labor in another era, except that we mechanized all of that. Or they might be steel workers in another era, except that we mechanized all of that and then shipped it overseas. Many of them are tradesmen or warehouse workers and will be mechanized out of a job in the coming decades.

It's not that they don't have anything to offer, but it's that as a society we no longer have a productive use for them.

Honestly, I think a lot of them will become more involved in child care than their wives over the coming decades, and I think that that transition will be hard for us as a society. The only other alternative I can think of involves us colonizing the Moon or Mars, because those are the kinds of places where men like these shine.

>Honestly, I think a lot of them will become more involved in child care than their wives over the coming decades

While the wives do... what? Work white-collar jobs? We've just been talking about how hard it is for a certain subsection of men to get these jobs, so why are their wives able to fair better? Is it because women are smarter than men? Some other factor?

> why are their wives able to fair better

It's right there in his comment:

> I think the point he's really making is that there are a lot of men who aren't cut out for higher education or technical school. It's not that they're not capable people, but it's that they think very concretely and it's difficult for them to grasp higher education because of all of the abstractions.

Women are actually pretty good at that. I say this as a man who really struggles with it, with a few friends that have the same issue.

>Women are actually pretty good at that.

But are they just flat out better at it than men? What data do you have to support that assertion? Remember that the majority of programmers are men, and the majority of STEM faculty at research institutions are men. You may struggle with certain things, but there are many men who don't. And of course there are plenty of women who struggle with CS as well.

> What data do you have to support that assertion?

TFA.

The generational declining male labor participation rate. The economy is being geared towards knowledge work and has been going that way for some time, yet men are participating less, and women are participating more.

That very dynamic would seem to suggest some underlying issue, and IMO the issue is that generally speaking, a large portion of our society is incapable of doing the type of work the economy is geared towards and rewards most heavily (outside of finance).

Here[0] is an example article about the differences in academic behaviors between men and women.

> Remember that the majority of programmers are men, and the majority of STEM faculty at research institutions are men

I'm trying to speak in aggregate, but I do concede that most of our profession is male. The entire population of our profession as a percentage of the workforce is rather small though[1], as compared to something much more accessible to the average person like being a truck driver[2] (which itself is going away sometime in the next 5-10 years, only exacerbating the problem being discussed here).

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-gi...

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

[2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...

>The generational declining male labor participation rate. The economy is being geared towards knowledge work and has been going that way for some time, yet men are participating less, and women are participating more.

That doesn't mean that all women are participating in "knowledge work" jobs though. K-12 education and healthcare are also two fast growing sectors that have a high proportion of female workers. I doubt that all jobs in those sectors should be considered "knowledge work".

Participation stats for women could also be due to sectors like HR, or just generic office work. Obviously I don't deny the existence of female programmers and scientists. I just don't think there's evidence to suggest that they can do those jobs strictly better than men can.

>a large portion of our society is incapable of doing the type of work the economy is geared towards and rewards most heavily (outside of finance).

I think this is plausible.

>Ok to paraphrase and understand your main point:

The blue-collar attitude is part of the local culture b/c it's so dominant?

I think you missed my main point, to wit, that in any given population, there will be a significant percentage for whom manual labor is their only viable means for doing productive, remunerative work. Consider that the median IQ is 100. [1] That means that half of US citizens (roughly speaking, since I don't know how that was arrived at) have an IQ below 100. So they're never going to be engineers or software developers or pharmacists. And, yes, there may be a cultural aspect as well, but if that were the only obstacle I would think it would be surmountable.

These people have it hard enough with imported manufactured goods, automation, and soon, AI, reducing the demand for people of their ability level. And the Democratic party wants them to also compete with immigrants who are even more poor and more desperate than they are.

> In your pov: What paths exist other than showing and creating other possible alternatives? Personally i can't think of any other way than high quality education for the general population. (but obviously super biased here)

Another alternative is to recognize the fact that, while unrestricted free trade and immigration may improve certain metrics like GDP, and corporate profits, that not everyone automatically benefits from growth in those metrics. We could structure our immigration laws in a ways that do not further erode the already-shrinking piece of the pie that our citizens on the lower rungs of the achievement ladder are relying on. What might we call this new approach to governing our country? Perhaps there's something catchy that would resonate with those voters. Perhaps something like "America First!"

Oh wait, never mind, Chris Matthews on MSNBC said that phrase is "Hitlerian".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification

On the flip side, free trade, immigration, and automation lower the price of consumer goods.

Ultimately, this is the question: people may have "had it" with automation and AI, but are they willing to pay for a product built with more expensive labor? Because in the end, price rules in many people's minds when it comes to the choice of goods they buy. And businesses know this.

You could restrict immigration to zero in my opinion, and this still would be a problem. Most factory floors are heavily automated. It's kind of like many farm crops: it would be foolhardy (more costly, less reliable) to force farmers to replace the single combine with huge amounts of human labor. Likewise, you're not going to replace the machines on the factory floor with people unless you accept a much higher price for the consumer. Heck, you could eliminate all imports, and manufacturing floors still would heavily use machines.

That's why ultimately, it is difficult for me to envision a path for many of these people that does not involve some sort of education, training, or similar. It doesn't have to be STEM type work.

But 1950s style industrial work is not coming back, immigrants or not. Eliminating the immigrants would only open up the opportunity for certain low-salary manual labor positions. While that might add jobs, it won't be the same kind of jobs their fathers had.

> That's why ultimately, it is difficult for me to envision a path for many of these people that does not involve some sort of education, training, or similar. It doesn't have to be STEM type work.

Just take Japan's NEET problem and multiply it (at least) a few fold. That isn't just what is coming for us, it's what is here now, and getting worse.

Other commenters have said it better than I could but many people in our society are just not suited to the solution being offered here (and elsewhere), of more education and training. They just aren't.

You're overvaluing IQ. IQ measures a narrow set of skills, and it mainly improves unskilled performance. For example, IQ only correlates with chess ability for novice players. This correlation disappears by the master level.

Additionally, it is not an unchangeable attribute, it just doesn't tend to change. This has more to do with people's circumstances and environment not changing than their inability to change. There is clinical data demonstrating IQ changes of over 20 points within the space of about 4 years. I've read about a number of cases where impoverished children with below average IQs achieve above average scores several years later with improved nutrition and an enriched environment.

For example, IQ only correlates with chess ability for novice players. This correlation disappears by the master level.

Ok, but how many master-level players have average or lower IQs?

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