Obviously there are tons of practical considerations to deal with, but in a theoretical, general sense, is “left behind” a problem? Shouldn’t lifelong learning be a thing everyone is indeed capable of?
Why is the burden placed on the employer to grow their employee and not the human being to grow themselves? In a generic sense, it could be outside of the purview of the employer to consider the employee's future in that specific way (in other ways it makes more sense, like health and happiness while employed).
It seems oddly paternalistic, to me, and once you remove that moral presumption doesn't the conversation become more complex?
Even if we did presume that jobs should be required in society, how would it even work for a job creator to preemptively know what skills were needed with enough time to ensure at your current job you were trained for future jobs? Why would that fall to your current employer?
This is only an issue if either there are genuinely not enough jobs in the field lots of people are trying to go into, in which case people should not be encouraged to go into it; or if older people demand higher compensation for the same skillset as younger people based purely on age, in which case that doesn't seem fair anyways.
And realistically, a mid-life learner is generally the better option to begin with - it's nearly impossible that someone after years of working has picked up no transferrable hard or soft skills and made no network connections of any value.
That's just a polite way of saying "willing to work for less" which again means either somebody's asking for too much or someone's being exploited, which is the real issue.
Obviously its mere anecdote, but every company I have ever worked for has gladly hired middle aged entry level employees. If anything they have been preferred.
Leaving people behind is problematic because not everyone can keep up or has the time and means to do so. Should a single mother be expected to put in hours every week learning some crap on top of working and raising kids or can that person just breathe and deal with their other problems? Full time house parent that loses a spouse and has to start working. Someone in a low income house that can’t afford professional courses/books or even has access to a computer.
You ever see those commercials about kids that can’t focus on school because they’re hungry? Yeah it’s not just them. When people are deprived of life essentials or dealing with personal problems studying is the last thing on their minds.
Here we have people in tech burning themselves out and we want to export that mentality to everywhere else instead of seeing it as a problem.
Ray is a trans humanist who believes we’re on the cusp of eternal life via the singularity.
One of the things he is relying on is that people will keep up with technology through computer brain interfaces like Neural Link but faster.
We should be seeing this come to market sometime around now.
It’s not here so I guess that’s not good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykY69lSpDdo
Worth a watch…
https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1968#comi...
We "ought" to share the rewards and efficiencies of automation with the people that it displaces, rather than solely with the owners of capital.
For example you place the burden of “learning new things” at the feet of the employer, but you don’t really justify that. Why, in a general sense, can people not learn on the remaining hours of the day?
Your comment is riddled with moral presumption and I think it’s worth figuring out what those are.
But yeah, I think there are many books on spaced repetition and deliberate practice such that it's hardly a secret.
Besides, does everyone have a right to every single one of those things you've listed all the time? I wouldn't argue so, considering we're talking about people who are providing less value over time to their fellow human being.
When time conflicts exist, you must prioritize, and I would imagine "remain able to contribute meaningfully to society" (with caveats around capability) ends up being more important than, "maintain multiple hobbies".
And no, I don't think people are, generally, perfectly optimizing their time.
If you did indeed live in such a world, would your opinion change? If people did indeed have ~30 minutes a few times a week to keep up with their field's growth (and that's all it took), would that matter to you?
Trying to find the theoretical line for you.
I'm not sure where you're getting those things, these aren't "either/or" suggestions, but "both/and".