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from the ya-tvoy-sluga-ya-tvoy-rabotnik dept.
regift_of_the_gods writes:
"A study that was published last year by two Oxford researchers predicted that 47 percent of US jobs could be computerized within the next 20 years, including both manual labor and high cognition office work. The Oxford report presented three axes to show what types of jobs were relatively safe from being routed by robots and software; those requiring high levels of social intelligence (public relations), creativity (scientist, fashion designer), or perception and manipulation (surgeon) were less likely to be displaced.
This further obsolescence of jobs due to automation may have already begun. The Financial Times describes an emerging wave of products and services from algorithmic-intensive, data-rich tech startups that will threaten increasing numbers of jobs including both knowledge and blue collar workers. The lead example is Kensho, a startup founded by ex-Google and Apple engineers that is building an engine to estimate the impact of real or hypothetical news items on security prices, with questions posed in a natural language. Specialist knowledge workers in many other fields, including law and medicine, could also be at risk. At lower income levels, the dangerous are posed by increasingly agile and autonomous robots, such as those Amazon uses to staff some of its fulfillment warehouses.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:33PM
Not only that, but the less-educated tend to resent well-educated people and intellectuals in general, at least in this culture. America is famous for being anti-intellectual. It wasn't long ago we elected a moron to be President who couldn't even pronounce "nuclear". We hate smart people telling us what to do, and tell them they don't know what they're talking about because our "common sense" is better than all their scientific research (see the global warming debate). We're also the home of the Creationism Museum, since all that fossil evidence couldn't possibly be true when our Bibles say the Earth is 6500 years old; obviously those fossils were planet there by the Devil.
With people like that making up most of the population, and rabidly defending what they're told on Fox News, and practically worshiping ultra-rich people ("we shouldn't punish success!" "Rich people are rich because God loves them more!"), there's no way they'd stand up against the elites and their thugs in uniform.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:16PM
This is not a uniform situation. Plenty of educated people get plenty of respect, but it depends on context. It would be more accurate to state that the educated are not automatically granted respect, and that communication skills are key to developing and maintaining that respect. In this respect, it's part of the USA being a (partially) classless society.
To be entirely fair, G.W. Bush was not perhaps the brightest spark in the history of the presidency, but he wasn't really a complete idiot either (although to what extent his drug history affects the situation isn't entirely clear). He was a pilot, and real idiots don't get to be pilots because they can't pass the tests. The fact that he spoke a nonstandard dialect of English is no reflection on his intelligence as such.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think he was a great president, but if you want to complain about him, at least make sure that your complaints are cogent. He certainly did embrace the zeitgeist better than either of his major competitors, but a lot of the points which he presented (or which his handlers told him to present - pick your version of reality) were fairly subtle, and he was embraced to some extent despite that fact. So if you want to make the case that americans are broadly anti-intellectual, Bush is a bad example.
Also bear in mind that in the USA a very substantial proportion of the population has some college education. The extent to which this is a symptom of the dumbing down of college courses, and consequently how much meaning it holds, is a matter of some debate.
So in a nutshell, your position is that we have a huge group of anti-intellectual people who worship rich people (who are disproportionately, if not uniformly well educated) and who will therefore never rise up. That is exactly the sort of distraction I would actually expect from a government agent trying to keep groups from finding each other, and actually oxymoronic as a position.
Try this instead:
The typical person in this country is too well supplied with the comforts of life, and too little disturbed by the machinations of power, to want to rise against the structure which is perceived as providing them with their comforts.
However, increasing numbers are growing increasingly disgruntled at perceived abuses of power (with respect to corruption, suppression of dissent, dilution of civil liberties, removal of real political choice etc.) and should they find a consensus on an agenda of change which is frustrated by the incumbent forces (of which a large part would probably include the federal service in its various forms) the prospects of a popular rising increase dramatically.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday March 05 2014, @04:28AM
!BINGO! !BINGO! !BINGO!
The best way to keep the cattle happy on the way to the slaughterhouse is to keep them fat and entertained.
Believe that was referred to in Roman times as Panem et Circes?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.