If I understand it correctly, that would be the fee for the self-driving feature, not the entire car. I suppose $8.50 per hour would be a reasonable rate for a car rental, although daily rates should be less.
Any cognitive advantage that is abused will be seen as manipulative, absolutely. The way to make "the illusion of choice" work is to be selective about it. You start out by giving the 4 year old the illusion of choice (the jacket or the sweater), but what you're really doing is coaching the child to make appropriate decisions. After a few times, you won't have to give the child the choice anymore, because they will know the parameters of the choices for the challenge facing them. You could simply say "let's get ready to go out."
Same thing with a boss. (S)he can use this cognitive tool to coach good decisions. People like choice and they like being right. Using this method allows for both.
You're justifying it as being in the child's (or employee's) interest, but you're not actually denying the transgression.
Lying becomes less worse when you lie for someone else's benefit but (1) that doesn't make it not lying, (2) the other person can still rightfully resent it, (3) you generally shouldn't trust yourself to only lie in another's interest. Regarding the last one: I often see normal, reasonably good parents lie to their children just to get relief, and I'm sure they can justify it to themselves as in the child's interest, but it's really just self-serving.
(You can replace "lie" with "white lie", "trick", or whatever euphemism you want for this mild, but real, transgression.)
I think one good check on this is whether the child would be OK with it after-the-fact, assuming some hypothetical wisdom and hindsight (like becoming an adult). If they aren't OK with it, then you probably shouldn't do it. And I'm telling you right now: as an adult, I don't like the fact that adults did this to me when I was a child.
> I don't like the fact that adults did this to me when I was a child.
I'm curious to know more about this. Was it cases like "the jacket or the sweater" or was it something more serious?
If your parent distracted you from not getting ice cream by giving you a toy, would you be OK with that? Basically you are distracting them because they don't yet have the cognitive awareness to distract themselves.
I wonder though, how much influence fake news had on people, not help people choose who to vote for, but to dissuade them to vote at all. A sort of unpropaganda, if you will. This election got so far into the Tyson Zone[0] that the headlines of fake news became hard for even well informed citizens to parse. Fake news could have provided a chilling effect that influenced the election.
Of course I have no data to support this, but I think it would be a fascinating case study / sociological experiment.
> But no one seems to want them, and the reasons have nothing to do with low pay, poor benefits, or a lack of available training.
This is laughable. The average plumber makes around $50,000 and will top out around $80,000[0]. And those wadges have flat lined over the last 15 years[1]. Not to mention, it's painful work climbing under cabinets, kneeling down and standing up with heavy work belts, and contorting your body into every little nook and cranny. It takes its toll on your body over a period of time, as does the vast majority of manual labor jobs that are out there. So why would the son or daughter of a plumber go into the work when (s)he sees her dad complain about how the industry has gone to hell? I guess this is confusing to Mike Rowe.
Let's imagine for a minute that an entry level plumber could make $250,000 a year after a year long apprenticeship that paid him/her $60,000. There would be zero problems filling these position with top notched candidates. Zero. So to say pay and benefits are not the problem, misdiagnoses skills gap.
I feel like many HN readers may have a non-normal view of reasonable wages - given that boot camp graduates can get absurd money relative to their knowledge/experience/contribution level.
Those figures you quote (50-80k) are starting right at the median income (around 52[0]). Assuming they're decent with money and limit their debt, that's a pretty decent living for moderate stress (granted health tolls are a valid concern, but for all the bending/lifting they're probably not suffering some of those health issues associated with high stress and crazy hours - it's all a trade off). It's also only including salary income, do they get defined benefit retirement plans? 401k? I was a financial advisor at one point and worked for a lot of these skilled jobs - most of them had pension plans that were funded (e.g. Guaranteed income for life, a non-included figure in "income" typically)
That median is also taking into account all workers, so that's people early in there career just as it is those late. If starting is actually around 50, it's not a terrible deal.
Over time though the issue should be solved as a shortage tends to drive up prices and demand follows suit. Of course throwing money at people to take a job may help in the short term, but that's not really a maintainable way to handle these issues. That money comes from somewhere, so either prices need to increase or costs need to decrease (at the risk of it going to a consumer fewer may be able to afford other things, thereby possibly costing other markets - whether or not that is good is likely contingent on the market).
[edit]: It's also worth considering that, while they may be paid low during their training, they aren't paying for it. Alternative careers may demand paid for training (boot camp, college, masters, whatever). There's not only some opportunity cost but also debt likely in this consideration.
> Those figures you quote (50-80k) are starting right at the median income (around 52[0])
Just to emphasize, as I think it might be easy for other readers to overlook: That figure is median household income, which can include multiple earners. Individually, the median income is closer to $30K (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...).
Good call, that definitely seemed like a high figure relative to what I recalled. That actually looks even better for an individual laborer! 50k looks much better
> I feel like many HN readers may have a non-normal view of reasonable wages...Those figures you quote (50-80k) are starting right at the median income
Probably, although that ignorance cuts both ways. Like if you were to think a family of four can live off of $50k anywhere in the US, when that won't be a struggle you'll ever face. And throwing around stats like "$52k" is the median US income, when conveniently ignoring, on the very source you cited, that the median income has dropped 8% since 2007 and is still not close to it's high in 1999 ($57k)[0].
I know it's safe and pleasant to hide behind macro economics, but those are real pains blue collar workers feel. Because of this, those aging blue collar workers tell their kids and their kids friends that their profession is in the toilet, and to get a 4 year degree. So here we are.
> they're probably not suffering some of those health issues associated with high stress and crazy hours.
Ever handed a customer a bill, knowing she had to choose between this and paying the mortgage? Ever had that customer flip out at you(and I'm talking the real rage, not MBA fancy boy hissy fits)? Ever get called at 2:30am because you're the one on call and someone's pipes burst, and knowing this emergency will cause a cascading effect of lateness (and angry customers) for the 7 appointments you have that day? Or have you ever worried, daily, if they'll be work tomorrow? Or worry about your physical health, because any illness or injury could put your out of work and screw up your finances.
Just because someone doesn't take their work home, and doesn't have a take home as large as yours, doesn't mean they don't work crazy hours or have huge stresses in their lives. In fact, it's quite the opposite.
> most of them had pension plans that were funded
Go down to your local union and ask them about their pensions. Pro Tip: bring a lunch, you'll be there a while.
> If starting is actually around 50, it's not a terrible deal.
$50k wasn't the starting, it was the US average. So very few plumbers start making that kind of money.
It is, in fact, a terrible deal. One thing they don't tell would be blue collar workers is, the profession's a dead end. Every.Single.One. You are employable for that vocation, and that vocation only. True, you could start your own business (and many do), but it is nearly impossible to land a new job out of industry without a huge personal investment. Most blue collar workers aren't technically savvy (like can't operate MS Word savvy), so their is a lot of ground to make up. Any job they train for and start is starting over with huge pay cuts (like over 50%). Almost all successful blue collar workers figure this out after a while. So very few actually switch. And those that do are GD heroes.
That's the whole problem I have with Mike Rowe's piece. Wages for blue collar works have stagnated over the last 15 years. The work has left them with little wiggle room to make major career advances. So it's very hard to convince someone to invest their future livelihood into a profession that might not reward them with a comfortable lifestyle.
Sure wages may have fallen, and the reasons for that I am not sure either of us fully understand (perhaps you have background I don't know).
> those aging blue collar workers tell their kids and their kids friends that their profession is in the toilet
This wasn't my experience with my clients, I am guessing again you have had some experience I haven't - I am sure that is the case for many positive/negative effects of this! For those I know - it was extra reason to build their business on top of their skill. I highly respected their attitude and how they utilized their more limited financials than I do making more (frankly it's embarrassing sometimes thinking back to how frugal and wise they were relative to myself).
> Ever handed a customer a bill, knowing she had to choose between this and paying the mortgage? Ever had that customer flip out at you(and I'm talking the real rage, not MBA fancy boy hissy fits)? Ever get called at 2:30am because you're the one on call and someone's pipes burst, and knowing ...
This seems kind of straw man, have you? I can relate to having to, at times, chose one thing over another - e.g. I gave up my successful startup for a family member's mental illness. I'm far in the hole as a result of that. Sure it's a different form, but the feeling is certainly real and similar.
> Just because someone doesn't take their work home, and doesn't have a take home as large as yours, doesn't mean they don't work crazy hours or have huge stresses in their lives. In fact, it's quite the opposite.
Again, straw man. I wasn't denying external pressures and stresses, I was suggesting work related stresses. This may be different if you are a 24/7 shop. But otherwise those are inherent in most peoples' lives, it has little to do with vocation and much about those in your life. Anyone working crazy overtime will suffer similar mental drains, never meant to suggest otherwise.
> It is, in fact, a terrible deal. One thing they don't tell would be blue collar workers is, the profession's a dead end. Every.Single.One. You are employable for that vocation, and that vocation only.
You realize that is the dream for many people right? It's one thing to say "I need a job until I figure what I want to do", others have the attitude of being happy with that kind of work - and loving the fact that they can master a domain and own it. Many of my friends fall in that and they despise the concept of my job. Conversely I feel the same way about theirs.
You seem to be attributing the way you feel to all these other people. If anything over the last several years of dealing with the challenges of "gender identity", "opinion" and other post-modern concerns - we have learned that many people's opinions diverge from our own. It's unfair to say "these people feel this way" - when Mike Rowe's assertion may indeed be real, people may not know this opportunity exists. I want to see stats on who knows about it and chooses to ignore it.
Again, you may likely know many people that I don't - but after I spoke with many I know in these circles, they seemed to confirm much of my understanding (perhaps that's a selection bias, as you may have as well).
Granted we can both agree, falling/stagnating wages is an issue (though I would cite other macro issues of rising costs - whether that be land, fuel, supplies) that the owners pass to the laborers. In those cases, I have witnessed that it's not just the laborers that hurt but also the owners (they typically get paid last...). It's easy to hate the "owner"/job provider when we don't hear their story (which is an underrepresented group when there's probably 10+:1).
You said you were a financial adviser to blue collar field owners. I'm presuming past tense (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm curious as to when your experience with blue collar professionals happened if not currently.
I say that because pre 2007, the picture you paint with the experiences you had with these people seem accurate and in lock step with their employees. Those were the same interactions I had working a blue collar job during that time. The housing bubble was the gravy train. Pay was good. Work was plentiful. Raises were frequent. Perks were ample. I heard that across housing related fields.
Post recession has been a different story altogether. And it's been these times which caused me to spit vitriol and emotional strawmans at less than well-thought-out statements.
While I agree with you that we have no idea what has caused a stagnate wadge among many blue collar industries, the "why" is something for academics. It is, we agree. And there isn't much to evidence to refute it. Which is why I find your argument confusing. You readily admit that wadges stagnate, yet are befuddled as to why the unemployed don't flock to these available jobs. An information gap? These days? Seems dubious.
It would seem you have your riddle to solve.
One step you could take towards solving that riddle is ask those in your circles (and yes, I'm sure our circles are different) what their entry level employee turnover rate is. There will be a lot of revealing information in that question, provided they answer you truthfully.
And maybe you can square this circle for me.
Wadges have stagnated (agreement).
Housing market turned around in 2012 and is now booming in most parts of the country (my assessment, but if you need proof, I'm happy to provide).
Where did that money go if not to the laborer? Rising costs ate away at everything? Really? I guess I'll need sources for that.
And look, I've heard many a story from many an owner/job provider. My experience has been, the true craftsmen who made it, work in small skilled teams and had (admittedly) good breaks. I love those guys, and am genuinely envious.
The financially successful ones are innate salesmen and have no qualms with watering down the product to boost profits. They're the ones quick to tell you their tale of perseverance and self-sacrifice (maybe these guys are in your circles?). They could also teach Machiavelli a lesson or seven.
I started in the field just before the crash and left the field in 2013 after realizing it wasn't what I wanted in my life. Great experience, but the career wasn't what I wanted to do every day.
> An information gap? These days? Seems dubious.
I've often thought this too, but I've been surprised how many people still aren't great with consuming information with tech. Even thinking about my users (we have a bunch of internal apps we develop) - I am often blown away with how they can hardly use a computer beyond the basic few things (Facebook and, to a small extent, their email).
I enjoy hearing your experience too, thanks for commenting on it :)
This. And it'll be addressed naturally once plumbers retire. The existence of fewer plumbers means that their prices will go up, which will attract more people into the trade. The fact that there is a "shortage" of plumbers means that the pay isn't high enough for ambitious people to drop what they're doing and get into plumbing.
Meat enthusiast here. There is no one who wants a viable meat alternative for meat eaters than me. The bleeding heart (pun intended) in me cares about the sustainability of meat and the sheer cost of ethical farming. Fact of the matter is though, I won't give up eating meat. I love it, so so much. And I have a leery eye towards meat substitutes. This product for example:
- How well does this product replicate the Maillard Reaction [0]? This is key when we're talking about taste and texture.
- Why did the author taste the burger with 82 toppings slathered on top by a professional chef? That's like testing out a new 21 speed, strapped to the top of an SUV.
- Why are they (presumably) trying to recreate chuck? Ground chuck is a terrible thing to replicate. It's like burger meat designed by committee[1].
- Is the sizzle coming from only extracted water from the plant burger (water vapor, decreasing heating temp)? Or are their lipids present spiking the flame, positively contributing to the cooking process?
That said, I'd love to give it a shot. Proper seasoning, a nice medium rare with a slice of American. But I'm not holding my breath. Meat is very hard.
It's quite hard but not impossible (pun intended). Full disclosure: Patrick Brown was on my committee in grad school. I've had many long conversations with him about these things and he's quite aware of all the challenges. The talk of scientifically breaking down the problem and figuring out exactly what makes meat meat is not just talk, it's actually the way he and the company operates. I think the heavy duty science they're putting into this is going to eventually yield a "burger" that is functionally indistinguishable in many applications.
I think there's always going to be a place for The Counter or other such premium burgers, but what about the zillions of patties used by the likes of Burger King, McDonald's, In-N-Out? Those are cooked heavily, and flavor engineered six ways to Sunday. The top of the SUV analogy is nice, but realistically most burgers are not terribly subtle flavor experiences coming from the brilliance of the meat substrate.
How many millions of gallons of water and tons of greenhouse gases would be eliminated if 10% of patties at big chains were vegetarian? Even small shifts in consumption could have incredibly positive impacts on the environment and perhaps even overall health.
> The top of the SUV analogy is nice, but realistically most burgers are not terribly subtle flavor experiences coming from the brilliance of the meat substrate.
Are we talking about fast food burgers? Then yes, flavor country lives in the lab, not the burger. But this article seemed to be strongly hinting at a meat substitute, not just a burger substitute for fast food chains (which I agree with you, would be wonderful). If the flavor experience isn't coming from the meat, than why is it so hard to find a widely excepted meat substitute?
That's why it seems strange the author loaded up their burger with exquisite toppings to taste the meat.
>Why are they (presumably) trying to recreate chuck? Ground chuck is a terrible thing to replicate. It's like burger meat designed by committee[1].
Probably because it's common as hell and if you could widely replace both burger patties and sausage filling with this meat substitute, you might be able to knock 5% off the worlds meat consumption with one product.
I wish they'd pick some other cut to grind up. I have to look really hard to find chuck steak. In my opinion it's the best taste/value combination - sure, a rib-eye tastes better, but you can buy five chuck steaks for one rib-eye, and chuck steak is usually cheaper, and tastier than trash like T-bones, top round, or London Broil.
I've broken down and bought the roasts and sliced them myself when I can't find proper chuck steaks.
> The bleeding heart (pun intended) in me cares about the sustainability of meat and the sheer cost of ethical farming. Fact of the matter is though, I won't give up eating meat. I love it, so so much.
This is exactly why plant-based substitutes for meat are so important. I'm a vegan, but I don't think the majority of human beings will ever be convinced to adopt a plant-based diet on ethical grounds. That's a completely hopeless cause. The only way is for plant-based versions of the foods meat eaters love to be 1) indistinguishable or better tasting 2) as cheap or cheaper. In the end, most people value convenience and their own experience over ethics and the experience of others (and I'm not saying I'm better than you or anyone else—I'm the same, just not on this particular issue), so I think the right approach is to make plant-based foods the most convenient and enjoyable experience. It may be far away, but it will happen eventually.
I think they try to do something similar to what the cow does when growing muscles (chaining proteins or whatever). So I think it browns the same.
Why chuck? Once this gets cheaper in production than meat burger, but still tastes exactly the same, the big fast-food chains might join the boat. So I guess they try to stay close to that.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend to know what, the good people of Impossible Foods, are doing. Way over my head. What I do know is recreating nature is hard work, with limited success.
Ho! A learning opportunity. I know you're a vegetarian, but maybe this might interest you...or someone.
The chuck sub-primal cut is the shoulder of the cow. As you can imagine, the shoulder gets a lot of use while the cow is alive, so there is a lot of connective tissue which makes the cut tough (fwiw the muscles that are rarely used are the most tender to eat) However, a cow being a cow and not a horse, there is a good amount of fat interspersed within the cut. So while the cut is hard to eat like a typical steak, it has a wonderful meat to fat ratio which gives it good flavor if cooked properly (think stews and roasts). That ideal fat to meat ratio, combine with the grind making it more palatable, the ease of (mass) producing, and low price point for the cut, make it the cut of choice by distributors.
A properly cooked seven bone chuck steak is a taste to behold, though. Far and away my favorite cut, with all of the marbling, on the grill. Obviously, not for you if you like your steak more than medium rare, though, since cooking it all the way through tends to make it tougher than hell.
I think you just pointed out the problem with vocational education. Going to law school is a vocational education, as is getting an education to become a mechanic. Vocational educations take years (sometimes almost a decade) to complete. From the time you start your vocational education to the time you finish it, the market can drastically change (see Law and nursing). That lucrative job that you thought was waiting for you...isn't. What then?
What happens to mechanics if cars become fully automated? Will we need that many mechanics?
I don't think fully automated cars will have as drastic an impact on mechanics as 3D printed cars. A better question to ask is this:
What happens to all the mechanics when getting an entirely new vehicle is cheaper than paying to have it fixed?
The maintenance required of a 3D printed car will also probably be automated. There's no reason why we can't have robots replace tires, brake pads, and align wheels. Heck, they could even replace the parts that break or wear down by printing new ones on-demand.
The only parts that will still need to be stocked after 3D printed auto parts take hold is glass windows, tires, and similar components that require special manufacturing.
Maybe this is my "old man" moment, but the magical world of 3D printed self driving cars that cost nothing really sounds like the flying car articles that you find in a circa 1960 Popular Mechanics.
I think this is a good perspective to have, but it might dissolve when you look at the technicalities of either problem. Airspace navigation vs, say, 3D-printing the electronics and parts necessary to make what I assume are electric cars are quite different challenges.
Actually, saying that out loud makes me think that you're right.
And paying someone who knows how to fix them their rate to replace a $.10 part can cost more than getting a new thing. I dug a 19" UltraSharp display out of the trash, tested it, and found the problem to be some bulging caps in the power supply for the backlight. The parts cost less than a dollar, and it took about 4-6 hours of my time total. I was billing $90/hr 10 years ago to do PC repair, and we didn't touch electronics, so given the value of my time, it was definitely not worth it for me to repair this monitor, which is maybe worth $100 now ($60 if you can find a good deal).
Since a car is so large and complex, I highly doubt that repair costs will exceed replacement costs in the foreseeable future. Disc brake pads are under $100 for a set of 4 for most vehicles. It's hard to find a car for $100 in any sort of road-going condition to make it more cost-effective to swap cars instead of doing the repair.
This is of course aside from things like insurance, registration, bills of sale, etc which make swapping vehicles a big hassle right now.
I honestly don't see this situation changing in the next 20 years, and the future I see is more in shared vehicle ownership, where instead of owning a car directly, one might join an organization for a few hundred dollars a month which provides access to a network of vehicles, possibly self-driving ones. Uber is, as far as I can tell, trying to be the first to do this, and they might even charge for actual usage instead of some flat monthly fee. BMW is also looking into this, but given they're a car company and not a tech company, I expect them to be badly beaten to market: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/access-over-... (I'm sure there are other companies working on similar ideas as we speak).
Right, so my hypothetical was more to show the lack of ability for the average person to predict the future...not actually predicting it.
And that's the biggest flaw I see with a vocational education. It's preparing yourself tomorrow for the workforce of today. It can work, but be ready to be out of a job in an instant.
Not what I'm saying at all. Although...maybe at some point in the future, a CS degree will be useless. It's certainly not now, nor will it be in the near future. But it certainly could happen.
Regardless, I'm pointing out the problems with the push for wide spread vocational education. My worry is the usefulness of such an education will have diminishing returns over the life of the recipient of the education, and that decay will be wide spread among many industries.
Look how fast industries and markets change now. Compare that to how long any given vocational education takes to accomplish plus the working lifespan of its recipient. The math doesn't add up to me.
Yes, mechanics to build the machines to repair them in a fully automatic fashion.
For a thought experiment on this, check out http://thelightsinthetunnel.com/ which explores the idea that eventually humans will stop inventing because we'll have everything we need
Interesting premise, if not exactly novel, but some could argue that, excepting some needed advances in medicine, we do have everything we need and we're still not satisfied. It comes down to this, will humanity ever design/invent something universally recognized as being perfect? I don't think so, I will still try to check out the book though.
The assembly process is becoming more and more automated. Some newer cars need to be taken to licensed mechanics, essentially squeezing independent mechanics out of the market.
Because you've turned a "neighborhood" into an "investment property." Neighborhoods develop culture. Investment properties develop nothing other than capital that leaves the neighborhood.
What happens when the Silicon Valley boom is over? What happen to those neighborhoods? I guess that's not your problem.
This is utter nonsense. There's no evidence that neighborhoods made up of renters are any more or less "cultural" than neighborhoods made up of, well, you haven't really articulated an alternative have you? Do you expect everyone to purchase a home, and not have renting at all?
Generally areas regarded as having a vibrant culture also correlate with high percentages of renters -- because they're in cities. Areas with high percentages of homeowners and low percentages of renters tend to be suburbs.
In any event we can answer your question of what happens when the boom is over because we've already lived through two tech booms in this area. The answer is: Prices fall and folks with investment properties will lose some money but not much else changes. Homeowners get hurt a lot more than renters when bubbles pop.
> What happens when the Silicon Valley boom is over? What happen to those neighborhoods?
When the supply of SF housing overtook demand in the late 1960s, and this oversupply led to incredibly-affordable rooms, it brought about the Summer of Love.
I had two problems while teaching myself how to code; I'm not that passionate about it, and learning technical disciplines on line is not how I learn.
I viewed coding as a means to an end. Learn to code-->start a business-->get investors-->pay someone else to code. I didn't care much about what I was learning, only that what I was learning could potentially fulfill other goals. That, in and of itself, wouldn't necessarily deter someone from learning how to code, only...
I struggled learning through on-line tutorials (Code Academy et al). It's not how I learn. That was unfortunate, seeing that coding community spearheads this type of learning. I realized that if I wanted to make it work, I'd have to register for a class. Then I became scared that maybe the struggles wouldn't persist past on-line and I'd be financially committed to it. I wasn't willing to take that risk.
I'm working on a video course myself but it takes a different take on things. Could you elaborate on the problems you face with current online tutorials? Why didn't it work out for you?
You mention you decided registering for a class is the only way to go, I would like to know if an online video tutorial teaches you to get the basics in a day and offers 100% money back if you aren't happy would you try it and how much would you like to pay for it?
There is something to be said for in person peer to peer learning.
My biggest problem was, I'd get hung up on a problem in some bizarre way. Often times when I'm learning in teacher to student only environment (or machine teacher and student), the teacher will notice the mistake, but have a hard time identifying the train of thought that got me there in the first place. Students have an easier time identifying mistaken amateur thought processes and fixing them. A typical (or automated) teacher is so far removed from amateur thought processes, they have a hard time empathizing.
Where online learning systems fall short is the peer to peer. Yes, there are usually forums where students can communicate with each other. But it is lacking. The biggest problem students have with each other is misunderstanding. In a classroom, sitting next to another student, that misunderstanding usually only takes a few minutes, tops, to resolve. In an online forum, that misunderstanding could take days, frustrating students and forcing them to drop the class.
I'm not sure if a video would help for someone like me. The problem is you're trying to streamline a process in how people learn. But people learn in all different ways. Accounting for all the different ways is hard. While I'm sure your video would work for some, chances are it won't work for most.
If I was to give you some advice, it would be to find some way to scratch your own itch. For example, if you work in an office job, is there some part of your work that you could automate through scripting? If so, learn how to do that. You'll find doing small projects like this keeps you focused as well as offering a good way to learn the fundamentals of whatever language(s) you use to do it.
As it turned out, a lot stayed with me. I got the basics down so I know the general plight of a programmer. I understand how long things can take to fix. I know what it means to be working with someone else's code. I run a linux machine. I hit ctrl-u from time to time. I set up the occasional CRM with ease. I'm not scared of the command line. I can more or less slog my way through fixing my machine through google searches if need be.
TLDR; The modern school was built in accordance with an industrial age mindset; children are raw materials and a school produces a functioning member of/worker for society. However, this institution stifles the child's "wildness" or open-minded learning that allows her/him to connect with the world, and become an eternally curious, more balanced human beings.
I agree with the author's premise that the current (US public) school model is not conducive for a child's future. The school's churns out students so they can be ready for JOBS (or get into a college that will help you get JOBS). It's been easy to fall into that trap with capitalism as the driving force behind everything. Capitalism has been evolving over the centuries, forcing workers into more specific disciplines then ever before (seriously, how many of us have 3 or 4 word job titles?).
However, that isn't to say structure doesn't have it's place. The author didn't to a good job of drawing some sort of line where structure is needed. A line is helpful here. That line should look like what we want our schools to ultimately achieve for our children and society. Are we a society of workers? Or do we want to be something else?
Living in any society automatically means you have to curtail your 'wildness'. Its 'society-tax'.
The way you define yourself(eg: family man, software engineer ect) is definition of your relationship with the society. And anything that is defined is not 'wild'.
This is precisely the myth of our culture that the article is trying to debunk.
Instead of considering "wildness" as the observable actions of an individual (in our culture generally equated with "out of line"), consider "wildness" as the state-of-mind -- or the embodied, subjective experience of an individual -- in which that individual experiences themselves as a completely sovereign individual enmeshed in a web of relationships with other completely sovereign individuals.
There are many such wild humans living in our society even now. If you're looking for the guy running through the city in loincloth beating his chest and grunting gutturally, you won't find them.
You will find them if you look for people walking through the world almost like everyone else, except their eyes sparkle like the stars.
--------
And regarding your second point about having a role meaning that something is not wild: In the actual "wild", out there in the natural ecosystems of the world, roles and wildness existing very much hand in hand. Through a certain lens, biological diversity is exactly the separation of life into distinct and complementary roles.
Wildness is not a rejection of role. Wildness is the the complete and unreserved embodiment of who-you-are (your unique and undeniable role/roles) and the expression of that in relationship to everyone else.
>This is precisely the myth of our culture that the article is trying to debunk.
So I can go murder someone I don't like because I am a 'wild human'. Personal freedom is different from social rules. You are not "wild" if you live in a society in any capacity.
I agree, but we as a society should still have a say in how we curtail our wildness. It would appear that our say has been taken away, or at least hijacked, recently.
>It would appear that our say has been taken away, or at least hijacked, recently.
Taken away by who though? There is no secret cabal called 'society' out there. You are the society. society is pure reflection of your actions, your thoughts, your relationship with others.
Society gives us security, no one is forcing people to send their kids to these 'wildnesss killing schools' but we do it because it gives use security and makes us feel safe. And that is the price you have to pay for that security, the security that your mind seeks. The conflict we think we are in with the society is merely a conflict within ourselves, the conflict of self that seeks both security and freedom .
Trade offs between "wildness" and "functional" are fine unless the schools degrade to a point at which the innocence lost is no longer worth the meager functional value provided to society or the individual. We're all aware of the position of Americas schools relative to other industrialized nations. Where is the cutoff?
Put differently, in a society of the future where "humans need not apply"[1] perhaps we might find a little more wildness to be of some redeeming value.
Insurance Fuel/charging Excise tax Parking Maintenance Cleaning
And most importantly, the hassel to deal with the above.