Pools of sorrow, waves of joy
Society is getting dumber by the second.
How many adults do you know pronounce “thing” with a hard K at the end?
More than 1? I can’t count the number I’ve heard recently. We’ll be living in trees soon if this carries on.
A few hundred years ago, it was possible for one person to know virtually all that was knowable. Mathematics and the other sciences could be covered in detail by a single mind.
Of course, it might be argued that each discipline is now so vast and complicated that it’s not possible for that to be true today. You might have a good grasp of, say, history, but your knowledge of chemistry is limited to dim recollection of things changing colour in test tubes in the school lab.
I’ll accept that. It’s impossible to be a generalist in the way Leonardo Da Vinci was. So, we specialise in the subjects we study - that is, if we study at all.
I remember a chap in school gladly proclaiming on his last day of compulsory education “that’s the last book I’ll have to read”.
It seems a lot of people are happy to not learn anything further - they become trapped in the circle of wage slavedom - the only new facts that enter their heads are ones relevant to their chosen profession. Good luck if you lose your job; those highly specialised skills that bring in a fantastic salary today might stop you getting a job in Mickey D’s tomorrow as you are too qualified, too experienced. Perhaps too smart.
So, having said that, does this BBC article surprise you?
I realise a maths qualification isn’t really a requirement for a degree in English (who hasn’t met someone who only has their job because they have a degree, rather than an ability to do it?), but even I can do the British test in the article, and it’s 20 years since I’ve needed to do trigonometry for any reason.
Took me about 15 minutes of sweat; I simply cannot estimate how long it’ll take me to do the Chinese national test.
Think to the future.
We’ve stopped manufacturing in the UK pretty much. Various governments haven’t even tried to keep foreign companies making things here.
So, we have become a service supplier. But now what service is that? One of those that can be done remotely? The government won’t stop it being outsourced by some shareholder driven need to cut costs.
So, what will be left?
Seriously, look at your job. What elements *have* to be done here in the UK?
What happens when China, India and everywhere else tire of being a source of cheap labour, yet are the only ones who actually know how our business processes, and IT systems work?
Give them a decade, and it won’t be “we outsourced to save money”, but “we have no choice, no-one here can do the job and now we can’t afford the outsourcer’s price”. Businesses will suffer, in the same way you suffer when you try to call a plumber out on a bank holiday weekend. The supplier will dictate the rate, not the other way around.
There’s nothing you, or I can do as individuals to stop this. Except maybe encourage our kids to be car mechanics or plumbers. Outsource that 
Don’t stop thinking. Read a book today.
Add comment April 25th, 2007
