The Rise and Rise of the Cognitive Elite 671
hessian writes "As technology advances, the rewards to cleverness increase. Computers have hugely increased the availability of information, raising the demand for those sharp enough to make sense of it. In 1991 the average wage for a male American worker with a bachelor's degree was 2.5 times that of a high-school drop-out; now the ratio is 3. Cognitive skills are at a premium, and they are unevenly distributed."
Re:The More Young College Grads I Meet... (Score:5, Funny)
Get back to work kid! (Score:5, Funny)
...the more I look to hire high school drop-outs and illegal immigrants.
Seriously, don't Kids These Days want to put in a full day's work and pay some dues any more?
You tell'em! These whipper snappers think that they can go to school, party, come out with a degree and automatically get a decent paying job!
Back in my day, we didn't have all this Globalisation! All we had to do is compete with Japan and Germany and they cheated with their efficiency and better quality - I tell you!
Now, we have these trading "partners" like China where we can get the labor done for a fraction of the price! And I tell you me, it's been helping ALL of us! Just look how our standard of living has increased! Why the cheap products available in the China Outlet Store (Walmart) have never been cheaper!
Can't compete with China or India?! Well something wrong with you, kid! In my day, we had to compete with those damn cheap Southerners - you know, that cheap labor in the Carolinas, Georgia and other Southern States. They were paid a whole 1/4 less and we did it! So can you. So what that a Chinese man makes less than a tenth of what you do! You just need to be 10 times more productive!
Job went to India!?! Well, you just need to learn more skills and get them up to date and be 10 times more valuable! All you got to do it work harder - just like the CEOs! Why they busted their ass to have their Father get them into Harvard! An then they had to network constantly at keggers so that they can make the contacts to get those CEO jobs when they get out! It's hard for them to ship jobs overseas so that they can ruin a company and then get their 100 million dollar bonus!
I tell ya! Kids these days!
Now, get back to work and fund my Social Security and Medicare! I have to go to the doctor and then the Cadillac dealer because there's a new model and it'll look good in my Second home in Florida!
Re:Class Difference (Score:5, Funny)
I don't have the time to find out
Not having a college degree makes you much less impressive when I have a stack of 200 people who do.
Basically, you are unwilling to do the hard work required to build an effective team. Instead, you take the easy path and assume that an institutional designation of qualified is the same as the correct qualifications for your company. You are part of the problem.
That's a bit harsh. How's he meant to sift through hundreds, potentially thousands of resumes? I remember putting up an ad for a job which got us 3000 CVs in our inbox, most of them irrelevant.
True story: a mate of mine was working at a firm that was looking to expand. Boss comes in, ask the secretary what she's up to.
Secretary: "Sorting through this big pile of CVs!"
Boss takes half the pile, throws it in the trash.
Secretary: "Why'd you do that?"
Boss: "We don't hire unlucky people!"
You'll get dinged for a lot less than not having a qualification.
Re:Class Difference (Score:2, Funny)
But maybe this is a problem. Just maybe all the college educated people that follow the rules and create an insular network where only other college grads can participate is a really big problem.
Maybe what the degree says about a person is that they are only capable of being lead and following the beaten path. Maybe that degree says the degree holder is a good little robot, a good little cow ready to do what the farmer says it should do and corporate USA loves good little cows.
Maybe people that are willing to do endless hours of pointless busy work that, in some case has nothing at all to do with their future career, are demonstrating how totally cattle-like they are.
To me it appears that education system we have in place today teaches students to always respect authority, to be punctual, to stay in line, color inside the lines and to be a good little cog in a much larger machine. It seems that it is common knowledge that schools in the USA are designed around the idea of preparing student to be good assembly-line workers when they grow up.
No matter that these assembly-lines no longer run and there are so few manufacturing jobs left. In the USA it is tradition for the sake of tradition; truth, reason and logic be damned. Maybe the authority doesn't deserve respect, the lines we are not to cross are arbitrary and meaningless and we are following many pointless rules. Maybe we would notice this if we stopped to question it all.
Maybe those people that don't fit in with the system, reject it, self-educate and go into the workforce without debt are actually living life more effectively than the college educated. Maybe they show initative, drive and self-sufficience where the college educated counterparts show complacency, laziness and dependence.
Maybe you respond with, "Well, those people could easily join the club by getting a degree, too."
But maybe, just maybe, by getting the degree they become broken. Maybe while being educated, they also lose part of themselves, their minds being slowly eroded, so slowy to be almost imperceptible, until their world view is such that titles and laurels matter more ability.
Maybe?
Maybe getting the degree indicates that you are like cattle and you are rewarded by a system run by cattle in order to perpetuate your cattle-like materialistic, consumption-driven lives.
Maybe you don't care about any of this because you already bought your ticket on the cattle train and second-guessing yourself now would mean taking a hard look at how shallow the system is, to put a piece of paper before actual skills. Maybe it is easier to just look for the stamp of approval (BA, BS, MA, MS, PhD) that it is took take a deeper look at the job canidate because, after all, it is about money and not about people. Maybe after years of education you have been trained to trust those systems and to see people as pegs to be put into round or square holes. Maybe you only see the degree and not the person because that is what you paid to be trained to see.
What do you think about this possibility?
Re:CYA Culture (Score:5, Funny)
Heh. Because no one uses Cold Fusion anymore.