Thinking of jobs… Michigan is a rust-belt state. People have been moving out ever since the factories closed. But people also move in because opportunities have changed. And work has globalized, anyway.
Population is relative. it’s not necessarily bad when ppl move away from an area. Life adapts. …To fit the needs of whatever population density a place has.
Also, ppl give jobs to themselves. They go where they want and find what to do. When we talk about “giving” people jobs, it kinda sounds like a parent and that’s awkward in terms of adults. Kind of like “our Ford who art in heaven.”
In turn this kinda makes me think about how some colleges pitch themselves as “training people today for the jobs of tomorrow.” Jobs always tend to disappear, for one thing, due to efficiency, but there are always good things to do somewhere. For another thing the goal isn’t jobs but life. College firstly shd help (not “train”) to be able to see beyond jobs, to be creators and leaders and then jobs may or may not come from that. “Training” is voc-tech which is cool but not college, not higher education.
Or, what’s this about training employees, what about employers?
Kinda like how engineering depts today train students in how to build stuff for hire. But really they need to also, and equally, be teaching students and helping them understand WHY to build stuff, to look at the history and culture of engineering. To critique it. Study bad engineering, construction that has been complicit in evil. Ethics has recently become part of engineering education but only in the lowest way — how to not rip off customers. There are far bigger ethics to consider: should anyone willingly design or build a minimall in an area of sprawl? Shouldn’t instead such areas be quickly de-engineered? De-engineering and un-building needs to be part of engineering education. One might say this is Urban Planning or Zoning or some such and that the engineers are only doing what they’re hired to do. Um, so we just follow orders, is that it? Shouldn’t engineers refuse to do work that’s bad? Shouldn’t they call out and protest such work? Or should they say “If I don’t do it, someone else will, and I have to feed my family, after all.” …Obviously, this is the only way evil works.
The goal is to contribute. That might mean creating stuff that gets rid of jobs to free ppl to do better things. Maybe some view being human as a “job.” And, sure, we’re all employees at some level, including employers. And, yes, the president is the employee of the people. But there are other ways of viewing life and work. Getting beyond jobs is reasonable. Colleges think they’re training us to fit in but its also impt to guide colleges in what they think they’re doing. Maybe colleges that train conformity should be shut down. Maybe someone should be doing that kind of work.
Or maybe that kind of “we make workers” attitude needs to be out-competed and defeated by a better attitude. People who are truly educated don’t always live to be employees or even employers — they might be liberators.
“Yeah but we need money.” Again with the slavery. Ask yourself: are you being played?
College is for figuring out what money is and setting it up so in the future without jobs people can still exchange things of value. That’s the work, or the job, that really needs doing pronto!
