Ideal worlds: How would a high-education society work?

[K. A. Pital]

Make middle education (the 10/11-year school) stronger and give more real skills in last grades. There's no need to waste resources by making a 100% higher education society, unless you have shifted most of the unskilled labour functions to either robots or migrants, face it.

Moreover, generic universal education raises the bar hign enough for a person to employ logic and critical thinking; higher education is a study in a specialized field and it will not promote overall critical thinking (all too often people who are competent in their higher education sphere spew bullshit about everything else, that's how you get creationists who have higher education as well).

[salm]

Why couldn´t this society just give better benefits to janitors? Lets say there are very few people who want to be janitors, so we raise their pay and lower their work hours, and there will be people wanting to do the job, no matter how educated.
Personally, if i had the chance to either be a janitor making 5000€/month working 4 hours / day i´d take the job over a 5000€ / month working 8 hours / day rocket scientist.
There are certain ways to get people interested in jobs they´d otherwise not touch with a ten foot pole.

[salm]

Ah, and you´d probably have to find a way to educated people into identifying less with their field of work. In our society many people are their job and it would be a pretty large desaster for them if they had to work in a different work area.

[Junghalli]

Make middle education (the 10/11-year school) stronger and give more real skills in last grades. There's no need to waste resources by making a 100% higher education society, unless you have shifted most of the unskilled labour functions to either robots or migrants, face it.

I agree with this, I honestly think our society has too much of a quantity over quality mindset in education. There's no reason you should have to put everyone or anywhere near everyone through 16+ years of school: if you can't teach people the basics in 12 years IMO you're probably doing it wrong.

[PeZook]

I would not want to live in a world where I wasn't permitted to make things with my hands, and where there was no role for handcrafted items. Please do not invite me to your dystopia, I find the notion revolting.

Why exactly wouldn't you be permitted to do this? We already automate most production of, say, cars, which doesn't mean people aren't allowed to custom build or tinker with their own vehicles.

[Lagmonster]

Because there's such a thing as supply and demand. It's wasting a huge amount of time, money and effort on a degree only to take a completely different job, even a menial job, out of necessity. Such a huge a lack of demand for graduate skills means people won't want to bother getting them, unless forced to.

I get the idea that it's a waste of time for someone to get a specialization when they're already set to become a garbage man - but you don't get a degree with the intention of being a garbage man, you get the degree with hopes of doing better. It's fanciful to envision a scenario where a generation produces a legion of geniuses, but I'm just amplifying that problem to discuss what might happen.

I entirely agree that if you put in money and time, work hard, and graduate, you want to see a positive return on your investment, but what do you do when you graduate an intelligent, educated, knowledgeable person by any standards we have today, and STILL find yourself in the bottom 5% of an enormous class? You are still an educated, intelligent person, but you have discovered that you will never find a job in your specialization. What do you do, starve?

[Junghalli]

I entirely agree that if you put in money and time, work hard, and graduate, you want to see a positive return on your investment, but what do you do when you graduate an intelligent, educated, knowledgeable person by any standards we have today, and STILL find yourself in the bottom 5% of an enormous class? You are still an educated, intelligent person, but you have discovered that you will never find a job in your specialization. What do you do, starve?

Realistically, probably settle for what's still available, because it beats starving. Like I said, I see a lot of very resentful college graduate janitors in this scenario.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I would not want to live in a world where I wasn't permitted to make things with my hands, and where there was no role for handcrafted items. Please do not invite me to your dystopia, I find the notion revolting.

You just called The Archduchy of the Great Nebula in Carina a Dystopia? Eee! Considering the quality of life we'd talking about here, a post-scarcity society by definition, I can't understand that attitude at all.

Seriously, Broomstick, there's nothing stopping people from doing that in their spare time, and with a 25-hour workweek allowed by the enormous automation, you'd have plenty of time to engage in such effort. For instance, in this one society I was using as an example, zero-gravity cooking has become a performance art. Sure, you could have all your food prepared automatically, but isn't it much more awesome when you can watch chefs making your meals by spinning in circles as they hack vegetables apart they'd just pinned to the wall with darts?

So what if you don't need to make anything by hand? You can do it if you want to, since you have plenty of free time. This is the exact response of many people in the early 19th century to the initial introduction of automation, and it makes no sense at all, just like it didn't then.

[Winston Blake]

Because there's such a thing as supply and demand. It's wasting a huge amount of time, money and effort on a degree only to take a completely different job, even a menial job, out of necessity. Such a huge a lack of demand for graduate skills means people won't want to bother getting them, unless forced to.

I get the idea that it's a waste of time for someone to get a specialization when they're already set to become a garbage man - but you don't get a degree with the intention of being a garbage man, you get the degree with hopes of doing better. It's fanciful to envision a scenario where a generation produces a legion of geniuses, but I'm just amplifying that problem to discuss what might happen.

I didn't say it's a waste because they had prior intention of entering a blue collar job. It's a waste because they can't get a job at the end, even if they want to. There would be a far greater number of graduates than jobs to fill. Why would I want to go to university when I see graduates everywhere, unable to find jobs? A genius generation wouldn't change the needs of society such that it needs 1000x the number of lawyers or rocket scientists.

I entirely agree that if you put in money and time, work hard, and graduate, you want to see a positive return on your investment, but what do you do when you graduate an intelligent, educated, knowledgeable person by any standards we have today, and STILL find yourself in the bottom 5% of an enormous class? You are still an educated, intelligent person, but you have discovered that you will never find a job in your specialization. What do you do, starve?

How is this is a good thing? You take a different job and become unhappy. Unhappy being forced to take a job that doesn't use any of your uni skills, and unhappy having wasted all that time/effort/money. You deeply regret not having done an apprenticeship instead of a degree, and you advise any young people you meet accordingly. This regret is amplified by greatly increased wages in fields that don't require a degree, that now have a huge shortage of workers.

It's not stable. If changed overnight by magic, this society's demographics would quickly snap back to pretty much how they were before.

[Broomstick]

I would not want to live in a world where I wasn't permitted to make things with my hands, and where there was no role for handcrafted items. Please do not invite me to your dystopia, I find the notion revolting.

You just called The Archduchy of the Great Nebula in Carina a Dystopia? Eee! Considering the quality of life we'd talking about here, a post-scarcity society by definition, I can't understand that attitude at all.

Seriously, Broomstick, there's nothing stopping people from doing that in their spare time, and with a 25-hour workweek allowed by the enormous automation, you'd have plenty of time to engage in such effort.

I don't want to make things in my spare time, I want to make things for a living, as my primary activity. Sure, should I find myself in such a society I could probably survive being chained to a desk 25 hours a week shuffling papers or data - hell, I've done that in THIS society, and for more like 40 hours a week - but I'd hate to live in a society where human creativity is regulated to a "hobby" and not seen as a potentially serious occupation.

For instance, in this one society I was using as an example, zero-gravity cooking has become a performance art. Sure, you could have all your food prepared automatically, but isn't it much more awesome when you can watch chefs making your meals by spinning in circles as they hack vegetables apart they'd just pinned to the wall with darts?

No, it's much more satisfying when I can prepare my own meals. You know, create with my own two hands. While the occasional automatic meal or performance art meal is fine I would find it very disheartening to not make the majority of my and my family's meals. It's a very, very basic form of nurturing and taking care of those I love. Maybe that's why I had such a visceral reaction to the notion, it's like telling me I shouldn't hug my loved ones, I should express my affection primarily by text messages. I don't want to be forced to get my three squares a day from a Star Trek like replicator nor do I want to be forced to watch "performance art" as a matter of course. I don't' object if YOU want those things, I understand some people do not like to cook and others enjoy performance art.

So what if you don't need to make anything by hand? You can do it if you want to, since you have plenty of free time.

Again, I don't want a HOBBY, I want a PROFESSION. I thoroughly enjoy making a living with my hands, with building things, with creating things that didn't exist before. Pushing a button to have a factory make widgets just isn't a satisfying substitute for me.

[Junghalli]

Again, I don't want a HOBBY, I want a PROFESSION. I thoroughly enjoy making a living with my hands, with building things, with creating things that didn't exist before. Pushing a button to have a factory make widgets just isn't a satisfying substitute for me.

If our hypothetical super-automated society is like ours I imagine there would be a market for handicrafts that may be more expensive than mass-produced items but are appreciated for novelty/artistry/snob appeal, and you could make a living doing that. Such a thing already exists in our society, after all.

[phongn]

Er, Broomstick, nothing's stopping you from creation as a profession in a highly-automated world. In many respects, we're already in Marina's scenario - just not as far down that path.

[Broomstick]

It's not the technical can-or-can-it-not-be-done aspect but rather the society's attitude towards handwork. A good illustration is Marina's post where she is exuberant about having cooking totally automated, or as a performance, but the idea of a person cooking for enjoying or as a gesture of caring seems to be absent. We already see this today, where tradesmen are looked down up for doing manual labor or working with their hands instead of being one of the upper management paper pushers.

[PeZook]

It's not the technical can-or-can-it-not-be-done aspect but rather the society's attitude towards handwork. A good illustration is Marina's post where she is exuberant about having cooking totally automated, or as a performance, but the idea of a person cooking for enjoying or as a gesture of caring seems to be absent.

I think you're making a lot of assumptions about this future society that just plain aren't there. Why would you be barred from cooking your own meals? Are you forbidden by law today from making your own garden or baking your own bread?

No. And there are even specialized stores, appliances and hell - even schools - that help you with the above, because people enjoy doing it. And if you want a job, well - there will always be a market for handicraft, from hand sewn clothes to custom cars.

Most ironically, you don't actually cook your own meals today. Do you use a stove, dishwasher and running water to do it? Then guess what, most of the menial labor related to cooking is already done for you, leaving (mostly) the fun parts

We already see this today, where tradesmen are looked down up for doing manual labor or working with their hands instead of being one of the upper management paper pushers.

Bwah?

Since when? They have enough political power to paralyze half the country over here, and being a craftsman good with his hands (like a mechanic, a good welder, jeweller, competent electrician, drywaller, etc.) is a badge of honor. Hell, a good tile layer earns three times as much as I do in my stupid management job, and you have to book him six months in advance

[Broomstick]

Most ironically, you don't actually cook your own meals today. Do you use a stove, dishwasher and running water to do it? Then guess what, most of the menial labor related to cooking is already done for you, leaving (mostly) the fun parts

No, actually I don't have a dishwasher. I fail to see how utilizing a stove is somehow not actually cooking my dinner, it's not like I rub a piece of meat between my hands until friction cooks it. If you want to get picky, however, I have produced very nice meals over wood fires and also hauled water from a well to cook.

We already see this today, where tradesmen are looked down up for doing manual labor or working with their hands instead of being one of the upper management paper pushers.

Bwah?

Since when? They have enough political power to paralyze half the country over here, and being a craftsman good with his hands (like a mechanic, a good welder, jeweller, competent electrician, drywaller, etc.) is a badge of honor. Hell, a good tile layer earns three times as much as I do in my stupid management job, and you have to book him six months in advance

YOU live in Poland. I live in the United States. Cultural difference. People do not want their children to go into the trades, it is actively discouraged in high schools, and tradesmen are definitely seen as inferior here.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's not the technical can-or-can-it-not-be-done aspect but rather the society's attitude towards handwork. A good illustration is Marina's post where she is exuberant about having cooking totally automated, or as a performance, but the idea of a person cooking for enjoying or as a gesture of caring seems to be absent. We already see this today, where tradesmen are looked down up for doing manual labor or working with their hands instead of being one of the upper management paper pushers.

Ironically, in one part of that universe, Broomstick (in one of the roleplaying sessions we've done in it), just to show you how you didn't get the idea, one of the characters invites another back to her flat to "watch her cook" as part of courtship/seduction. So, I have in fact already envisioned how nominally needless indulgences will remain enjoyable points of social interaction even in a post-scarcity society.

[Broomstick]

So, let me get this straight - you're saying I didn't "get" something because I haven't read a fanfic, the existence of which I was totally unaware of? I was passing my statements strictly off of what I read in this thread, which I'm sure you'll agree was an outline at best.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So, let me get this straight - you're saying I didn't "get" something because I haven't read a fanfic, the existence of which I was totally unaware of? I was passing my statements strictly off of what I read in this thread, which I'm sure you'll agree was an outline at best.

My apologies. I had thought that my statements were not so definitive as to make it seem that I was against all forms of personal artistic achievement, in short, that you were reading something that wasn't there. I simply provided the example to prove what I had actually intended... When it appeared that my meaning had been far more negative than I'd thought. Handicrafts and other such things would retain a social value even if they are not strictly part of the state, precisely because of human attitudes toward them like your own--human society would scarcely be regulated, and none of us envision the abandonment of affection or other human impulses, which would be horrible.

Indeed in such a society in which genetic engineering had become commonplace we could remove most of the causes of social divisiveness and allow natural human emotions to create immensely strong bonds. I very much disagree with the techno-fetishists who think that any post-scarcity society in which cybernetic augmentation and genetic engineering are casually easy would result in the end of human thought patterns and emotional behaviours.

[K. A. Pital]

No, actually I don't have a dishwasher

I think PeZook's point was that utilizing a dishwasher for routine tasks (cleaning plates and cups) does not take the fun away from cooking.

Automation to a degree where the human is left with the creative side of the process, while all menial tasks are done by machines, isn't really "denigrating" human abilities, isn't it?

[Samuel]

Broomstick, the situation would be no one would need you to do manual work because they can get a machine to do it cheaper. You could set up your own little commune where you could exist with others and do manual labor if you don't like it.

[Junghalli]

Broomstick, the situation would be no one would need you to do manual work because they can get a machine to do it cheaper.

Like I said, if the culture is like ours I expect there to be a market for handiworks for novelty/artistic/snob appeal value, even if they cost more. We already have such a thing today. If she's good at it, she could do that.