I’m not going to debate what graduates should or shouldn’t be doing (as I don’t really care, frankly – although personally I’d avoid professions that could be outsourced). But, since you brought these issues up, I am curious…
What do YOU do for a living, Arraya? In a general sense – you can be as specific as you choose. You advise graduates not to run “off to become a cog in some corporate wheel in a dwindling pool of cogs,” and to avoid becoming a rat “trying to find a dry spot in a sinking ship that blame the other rats in steerage for the ship sinking.” Which may in fact be very good advice for many, just to be clear. But, along with your environmental/anti-corporate/anti-material views – all of which are perfectly fine, mind you – it does beg the question: What do you do and how do you manage to stay so “pure” (that is, “pure” by your definition, just to be clear)?
By the tone of your posts, I envision you leading a “self-sustaining” lifestyle out in the woods somewhere, albeit with internet access. Which is perfectly cool if that’s what you’re into. You clearly have what many folks would describe as “high ideals,” but as my father often noted, the problem with high ideals is that they are seldom easy to live by.[/quote]
sigh
Ok, I’m a cog in the machine, so I guess that disqualifies me from criticizing it. Since I’m not living in a organic hemp tent, selling hackey sacks for a living, right .
Let me keep my it simple for you
IMO, This social/economic (and political) system known as capitalism is fucked, it has worked its way way past the point where the road to the edge of the Grand Canyon runs out, and is suspended in mid-air. Doesn’t matter if it turns its back to the ground, its front, its feet or its head, it’s bound to fall
Whether it falls over the next 5 years in a series of massive financial crashes or it stair-steps down over the next 5 decades devolving into a small wealthy minority living in high tech fortresses, it’s pretty much a failed social experiment for reasons too numerous for this post. Or maybe failed is a poor choice of words may it’s just time to move on because our relationship with it has become increasingly unhealthy.
Either way, this has nothing to do with “ideals” or the “environment”, just a conclusion based on several years worth of observation and study. It was not what I expected to conclude, it just kind of happened.
Frankly, I don’t know how I will express my rage against the machine, if I ever do. I may just shut up, close my eyes and enjoy my privileged place on the wealth pyramid while swallowing the nonstop bullshit offered up for me to feel good about how great we are as society decays around me.
However, If we ever were to grow up as a civilization the technocrats of the 30s were going in right direction, kind of a technology drivin socialism where we only work about 1/10 the amount because it’s just not necessary and waste of resources and of course, their is no such thing as finance. They considered the “monetary” culture as our biggest hang up to socially evolving and I have to agree.
The world’s present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy; and the associated monetary culture which has evloved from folkways of prehistoric origin.
“The first of these two systems has been responsible for the spectacular rise, principally during the last two centuries, of the present industrial system and is essential for its continuance. The second, an inheritance from the prescientific past, operates by rules of its own having little in common with those of the matter-energy system. Nevertheless, the monetary system, by means of a loose coupling, exercises a general control over the matter-energy system upon which it is super[im]posed.
[quote=walterwhite]no i meant be a real unsubsidized hobo.[/quote]
Scaredy – it sounds like you had a similar experience to mine… I had no clue what to major in out of high school… so I got a job and moved out. A few years of office work convinced me that college WAS a good option and I was motivated when I went back to school.
I don’t think I’d be an engineer if I’d gone straight to college from high school… I’d be a college drop out.
[quote=walterwhite]no i meant be a real unsubsidized hobo.[/quote]
Scaredy – it sounds like you had a similar experience to mine… I had no clue what to major in out of high school… so I got a job and moved out. A few years of office work convinced me that college WAS a good option and I was motivated when I went back to school.
I don’t think I’d be an engineer if I’d gone straight to college from high school… I’d be a college drop out.
[quote=walterwhite]no i meant be a real unsubsidized hobo.[/quote]
Scaredy – it sounds like you had a similar experience to mine… I had no clue what to major in out of high school… so I got a job and moved out. A few years of office work convinced me that college WAS a good option and I was motivated when I went back to school.
I don’t think I’d be an engineer if I’d gone straight to college from high school… I’d be a college drop out.
[quote=walterwhite]no i meant be a real unsubsidized hobo.[/quote]
Scaredy – it sounds like you had a similar experience to mine… I had no clue what to major in out of high school… so I got a job and moved out. A few years of office work convinced me that college WAS a good option and I was motivated when I went back to school.
I don’t think I’d be an engineer if I’d gone straight to college from high school… I’d be a college drop out.
