Focused education can land you in a life of focused jobs.
It can, certainly. It's no more limiting than a law degree, a history degree, or a sciences degree is likely to limit the holder to be a lawyer or an academic, though. A good book on this topic is
Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
What will those blocklayers and pipefitters do when the tech changes, or when their jobs are out sourced to some other country, or replaced by machines?
I don't know, and neither do you. The basic abilties of literacy and athrimatic are useful skills for most people, I don't contest that. The few that I've met that were illiterate were certainly limited in many respects, but every one of them attended a public school until eighth grade at least. The public educational system failed
them. Their parents didn't and neither did they do it to themselves. All but one of those illiterate men were either black or hispanic, BTW. The one that was white was quite obviously dislexic and still working in his 60's. He is likely dead by now, since I met him at 20. As for those who couldn't do math beyond addition and subtraction, there exist little pocket reference books for tradesmen. Called "Uglies" books, for whatever reason I know not. The one for electritians had common trig shortcuts and examples for the accurate bending of conduit, as well as pre-calculated tables for wire capacity selections and such. Somewhere along the line, an educated electritian decided to write that little book, and have aided his brothers in ways unmeasurable.
Still, if the blocklayer can read, he can get another job if he loses his. And in my experience, if he is fairly intelligent, he is either going to be running his own company/crew in short order or find a less physically demanding career anyway.
You know where the economy is going; a steady life-long job is quickly becoming a myth thanks to technological progress.
It's always been a myth. The average career has been only seven years for at least a generation. I've had many careers, only loosely related to one another.
I'm sure they are happy living their lives at their level of income, and that's fine, but I doubt most of them have a choice, either (I don't want to get into a conversation of grownups accepting their lot in life and being happy with it). As example, my parents both have degrees in molecular biology. Dad ended up working in genetic engineering instead. When both of my parents jobs hit a pay ceiling, they both studied and switched to software development. It's not a subject either of them particularly likes, and learning it was difficult, but since school and the rest of life was a difficult education in how to learn, they did ok.
Really? Your own parents didn't stick with their degree subject and yet you ask how a blocklayer is going to be able to maintain his standard of living because he isn't as well educated as his peers? If he has the desire to educate himself, he will. If he does not, he won't. He's an adult, he can make his own choices. If your parents traded a career they enjoyed for one that they did not but with higher incomes, that's their choice. Americans generally don't define themselves based upon their occupation. I work to live, not live to work. I once knew this electritian who would work every week diligently, but never show up on Fridays. I asked him, "why do you only work four days a week?" and his response was something like "because I can't make in on three!"
As for learning, the biggest issue is that you can't learn something if you don't know what it is or what it's called. Google is a vast resource, but even it can't help. For example, if you wanted to invest in a mix of stocks/bonds, and wanted to know how to calculate the optimal mix, how would know know what information to even search for if you did't know the terms " markowitz efficient portfolio theory?" Better yet, how would you even begin thinking about it if you didn't know that such a concept even existed? Only bringing this up as example because I actually personally ran into this specific problem myself a few months ago.
How did you ever find Bitcoin? Did your economic instructor give you the link? No, you either surfed here by following your own interests or because someone you know referred you here.
As for examples of uninteresting but required subjects, everyone should know how cells, blood, nerves, etc work (anatomy) so you can make informed medical decisions, even if the subject is boring.
While I agree that this is useful knowledge, even the biggest rock I've ever known had the sense to seek advice from a doctor for medical issues. That is not necessary information for anyone in modern society. People in third world villiges need to knwo that kind of stuff, adn even then there are books dedicated to that subject targeted at those people. See
Where there is no Doctor by Dr David Werner.
Wait, how did I know that such a book existed!? I never had that in school!
Everyone should know at least some rudimentary algebra and basic finance to deal with money, loans, investments, and other life things (I just had to use it for te recipe I was cooking up this week), even if they hate math.
Again, I agre that it's beneficial; but to say that
everyone must is provablely false. You don't
need math to adjust your recepies, you find it useful. You could just use a recepie book at it's stated values; or use Recepies.com to make those conversions for you.
Someone needs to maintain those skills for society to function, but to claim that
everyone does is patently false.
Everyone should know some basic physics and understand the scientific method, even if only time they'll need it is to pull a car out of a ditch, lest they think science is conspiracy bunk and start believing crazy religious/cultish shit.
REally? You don't think that my blocklayer could manage to get a truck out of a ditch without a formal education in the scientific method?
I think everyone should have some exposure to culture and history, if only to know where they came from and on what foundation to build their life upon.
Great idea, but that is not what public education is for, and doesn't do that. They barely teach history at all. You could get a much better mastery of US history by watching the History Channel on cable than by attending a public school in just about any city in America. That might not be true in Russia, but not everyone lives in Russia.
Sure, there are thousands of people that don't have much of an education, work their normal hard low level jobs, and are perfectly happy. Personally, I think they just don't know any better, and that's their business. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.
The phrase "I don't know and I don't care" is also something that my family and have never encountered before coming to America. And I think it embodies shameless intellectual laziness. I don't like ignorance or laziness.
Okay, so don't associate with such people. They don't represent myself or anyone that I know.
