Accepting "education is for a job" in the first place: you're lining your kids up to chase the biggest growth area of the last 20 years, when biotech is likely to be the most successful area in the next 20?
Or bioinfomatics or computational biology, where they're understanding current biology, not engineering new stuff?
You've discarded all of fundamental science, in favour of teaching your kids programming. Programming's important, but a physics degree _definitely_ teaches programming along with _how the universe works_. And stats. Lots and lots of stats. ",)
I'm just saying; you come across as a little short sighted, here.
I'd like schools to favor programming over physics and chemistry, but not ignore physics and chemistry altogether.
If you don't know physics, you don't know why there are fundamental limits to Moore's Law that we are rapidly approaching, for an example.
Nowadays physics is a hobby of mine, having entertainment value only. I can fully appreciate that "[physics] runs the shit..." but that doesn't pay the bills or get me to retirement.
Bully for you. But it's the idea of prioritizing what is essentially a technician's job (yes, we call ourselves engineers; in reality, most of us are craftsmen) over knowing how the world works, and having some of the mental tools to figure stuff out that's confusing me.
Also, physics really rubbed in abstraction as a concept: "here's the atom, it's a black box, but externally scientists at this point in history could tell this about it. Then this discovery was made. Here's the nucleus, it's a black box, but externally scientists at this point in history could tell this about it..."
How are we going to treat debilitating diseases that plague much of the world, in a cost-effective manner?
How are we going to improve the quality of life for all the people who are living longer lives?
How might we address unforeseen medical and nutritional crises?
You have a very short-sighted attitude. Which is not to even mention the impact that tying your approval of your children to the field in which they choose to work will have on them.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation#Projections_of_...)
With a population significantly less than today's level, biotech isn't really needed. Without modern biotech people can live to be 80+ on average. That's good enough in my book. I support death (even my own, at 80+!), to keep the population fresh and keep the dictators dying. Overall, I'm confident the benefits of no biotech outweigh the negatives.
I don't think I could help being disappointed if a kid of mine chose to work in a job that did great harm to others, be it cigarettes or GMO food. That's kind of natural to feel that way.
Death doesn't really need your support, although it might appreciate the fanbase as it is usually not that popular on the whole, apart from with goths, although it tends to find them a bit embarrassing.
Then you will be really annoyed when you work out what viruses get up to all on their own. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer