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Comment by magicsmoke | Hacker News Reader

Something I've heard from Chinese people online about the difference between the US and China is that in America, you could be a plumber/auto mechanic/skilled trades and still have a middle-income lifestyle and a decent amount of societal respect. In China, working with your hands puts you on the lower rungs in society, hence everyone wants to get into college.

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The kind of cultural attitude you describe reflects the supply and demand logistics of the economic conditions that were responsible for modern China as it is today.

Modern China was built off the backs of Cheap Manual laborers

That's in the past in the US. It was true until maybe 20-30 years ago.

China today seems to put bright people into improving manufacturing technology. There are PhD theses from China on electrolytic capacitor free switching power supply designs for LED lightbulbs. US academia would frown on something that practical.

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It's even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It's as if they are being told ‘but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?’

https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/

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