Posted in economy, politics, technology, tagged academia, academic inflation, afford, ahead, America, American Dream, analysis, analytical, appliances, applicants, average, bachelor of arts, bankruptcy, banks, benchmark, Big Business, big fish, blame, bottom lines, boutique, brain drain, branding, built to last, business, capitalism, career, Century, CEO, challenge, cheap, cheaply, child, China, collectible, college, columnist, compete, competitive, complaints, conglomerates, consequences, consumerism, consumers, control, corporate, cost, costly, creative, Daniel Pink, debate, debt, deception, decline, defect, degree, disadvantage, disparity, disposable, doctoral, doctors, Dollar, down waging, downwardly mobile, driven, economic, economic insecurity, economists, economy, edge, education, educators, elite, ethics, expansion, expensive, factory, family, fast buck, feudalism, finances, financial, First World, forecast, foreclosure, free market, free trade, future, game theory, global, globalism, globalization, Google, grad school, Great Recession, Green, hegemony, hidden costs, high end, higher ed, higher learning, hiring, house of cards, human rights, illusion, imbalance, immigration, implications, India, inferior, inhumane, innovator, insource, international, interview, irreplaceable, jobless recovery, jobs, jobs creation, Keynesian, labor, laborers, ladder, laissez faire, Lawrence Katz, lawyers, leaders, level playing field, lies, life span, living wage, longevity, loss, low end, lowest common denominator, Main Street, make work, market, marketing, marriage, masters, MBAs, Microsoft, middle class, MIT, motivated, myths, NAFTA, neocapitalism, new normal, New York Times, noncompetitive, NYT, offshoring, Old South, opportunism, outsource, panacea, perfect market, Ph.D, planned obsolescence, policy, pool, poor workmanship, poverty, prediction, pride, problem solving, product, progress, projections, protections, purchase, quality, quality control, race to the bottom, ramifications, ranking, rational, reality, recruit, Reform, repairs, replace, resume, retailer, retrain, revenues, rise, risk, saturated, scam, schools, security, seeker, silent depression, skills, slave, slippery slope, spending, standard of living, STEM, stimulus, student loans, substitute, succeed, success, superpower, survive, Susan Hockfield, sweat shop, sweatshops, system, talent, taxation, teachers, technology, Third World, Thomas Friedman, thrive, tipping point, Todd Martin, trade, traders, training, transnational, trend, unemployment, unethical, university, untouchables, US, wages, Wall Street, warranty, waste, Whole New Mind, workers, working class, workplace, world, zero sum on October 25, 2009 |
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
— Henry David Thoreau
In “The New Untouchables “, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that in this downwardly mobile economy there is no room for average. Extraordinary is what it takes to survive and thrive in the modern workplace.
I get that.
Yet for all my appreciation for education — I hold two degrees so I do, in fact, lean in favor of Friedman’s premise that education is key to American competitiveness — his education-as-a-panacea argument oversteps its reach.
Most strikingly, Friedman’s description of a successful “untouchable” American worker isn’t a portrait of educational endowment at all. Friedman’s favorite descriptors, instead, refer to personality attributes: entrepreneur (risk taker), creative (visionary), analytical (critical thinker), and persuasive (charismatic). The obvious problem with Friedman’s pin-the-tail-on-the-wrong-donkey premise is that temperament is inborn — teachers, let alone parents, cannot instill personality characteristics that are not there to begin with.
Friedman’s eagerness to finger the usual suspects — schools — also ignores six reasons why Americans are at a competitive disadvantage in the global era. Here we examine those realities, and the future these changing times have in store.
First, there are more of us occupying this country — and this planet at large — than ever before. At some point, the mathematics of population growth have to matter. The sheer number of people in today’s workforce suggests more and more people are competing for the same jobs even as we adopt more and more technology to displace human hands. That’s not a sign of a lack of education; it’s a sign that business owners comprehend that productivity gadgets and gizmos don’t require breaks, a salary or workers’ compensation.
It comes down to the numbers.
Second, I would argue the inverse in response to Friedman’s suggestion that there just isn’t enough talent to be had here in the States. Over the past 50-some years there are more colleges turning out more graduates on an annual basis than employers of the past had access to. Many foreign nationals, in fact, come to the US for higher education opportunities. On the flip side, there are only so many engineers, M.B.A.s, lawyers, scientists and the like universities can churn out before higher-end fields become saturated in much the same way low-end jobs are chalk full of contenders.
It’s no longer merely a question of whether there are clear winners and losers on the academic front.
Job scarcity is a threat, in part, because of the decades-long trend of mergers, acquisitions and a globalized labor pool. Consider: There are generally fewer than a dozen heavyweights in a given industry — everything from mainstream media to appliance manufacturing. This trend does not bode well for domestic job expansion. And if jobs aren’t available to begin with, it is tough to gain a competitive advantage even with above-average potential. So what we are seeing, in this author’s opinion, is an over-supply of talent.
But that doesn’t mean the proponents of Friedman’s dire self-fulfilling prophecy won’t get their wish.
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Posted in media, technology, tagged 1984, 21st Century, ADD, addiction, ads, advances, adverse, advertising, age, alter, Amazon, analog, Animal Farm, annotations, apathy, ash, assumptions, attention span, back, backbone, backlit, balkanization, Big Brother, BlackBerry thumb, books, brain, burning, business, cap and trade, capacity, carpel tunnel, cell phone, cell phones, censor, censure, Century, change, chaos, children, China, chronic, Circuit City, citizen, claims, clean, coal, competing, complacency, complex, computer, Computer Vision Syndrome, consequences, consumers, contact, content, contracts, control, controversy, copies, copyright, cost, creative control, CRTs, cultural, CVS, data centers, debate, deceptive, deficit, delete, demand, dependency, deprived, development, device, digital divide, dirty, disabilities, disabled, disconnects, disinformation, display, distributed, distrustful, downloaded, duality, dumbing down, e-book, e-reader, ebook, eco-friendly, ecological, editor, education, elbow, electric, electromagnetic, electronic leash, electroshock, EMF, energy, entertainment, ereader, ergnomics, ergonomists, evolution, exchanging, experiences, Eye Fatigue, eyes, eyestrain, Facebook, fatigue, fine print, finger, flat panel monitors, flicker, free, freedom, future, gadget, gatekeeper, generate, generation, George Orwell, globe, grapevine, Green, grids, growth, gullible, hand, hardware, headache, health effects, herd immunity, high technology, history, hoaxes, impacts, information, injury, insomnia, Internet, intrusions, issues, journalism, keyboard, kids, Kindle, LCD, learning, letter, liberty, Libraries, library, life, limiting factors, literature, load, look back, losing, loss, magazines, margins, materiality, media, mentality, mind, model, monitor, musculoskeletal disorders, MySpace, myths, net, networks, neurological, news, newspapers, nostalgia, NYT, occupational, offsets, on demand, operate, optic, orthopedic, Orwellian, overload, ownership, pain, paper, PC, personal, photograph, physical, physiological, pirated, planet, plugged in, pollution, power, practice, predecessors, price, printed, privacy, production lines, productivity, programming, progress, publisher, rates, reading, realities, reality, recycle, refresh rate, repetitive strain, response time, responsible, rights, risk factors, RSI, rumors, sacrifice, screen, sense of place, sentimental, sever farm, shared, shift, sites, sleep, smokestack, snapshot, social, social capital, society, sociology, software, Sony, static, stunt, systems, tactile, talking, tangible, tech, teens, television, texting, threatens, time capsule, touch, tradeoffs, trains, transform, trends, turn of the Century, unauthorized, unsustainable, usage, video, view, virtual, Walter Cronkite, wary, watching, web, white space, word, world, wrist, written on July 19, 2009 |
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Amazon’s electronic reading device known as Kindle is not exactly as “Green” as it is cracked up to be, but now we have another reason to reconsider the merits of paper-based reading: Censorship.
Kindle users may not have anticipated it, but Amazon can recall an e-book purchase at the push of a virtual button. Need those annotations for a book report? If your digital reading material is recalled, Amazon removes those too.
Tough luck.
Amazon claims they are working to amend a hasty retraction process that resulted when an allegedly unauthorized source made available a number of e-books to which the lawful copyright holder objected, reports the New York Times in “Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices“. Refunds for the illicitly encoded material are on the way, but the questions have only begun. And well they should.
In an ongoing series on the transformative impact of high tech, the Social Critic aims to explore the lesser known consequences of the virtual world. In this instance, we find a stark reminder that in the digital universe the price of “virtual” amounts to easy come, easy go. You can’t share an e-book. You can’t recycle an e-book reader — at least not in the Green manner one might have hoped [see "GreenSmart vs. GreenDumb"]. And you can’t take for granted that you “own” anything in the virtual realm in the same physical manner it is possible to own DVDs, books, magazines, newspapers and the like.
What this article doesn’t touch upon is disturbing in its own right: The questionable health effects, particularly on the eyes and brain, of exchanging the tangible for an imperceptibly flickering digital view screen. Over time, exposure may blunt brain development in children, promote sleep and attention disorders, lead to career-limiting repetitive strain injuries to the spine, elbows, wrists or fingers — or more commonly still, eyestrain and headaches — all while aiming electromagnetic radiation at our craniums (of which cell phones and CRT monitors are among the worst EMF offenders). None of this, however, takes into account the fastest growing concern of all: the controversial notion of Internet addiction. Until recently, in fact, China took a very heavy-handed approach to digital addicts: electroshock therapy.
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Posted in health, technology, tagged agriculture, Amazon, appliance, area, biodegradable, boards, book vs. Kindle, books, breaking point, byproducts, calculate, carbon footprint, carcinogenic, centralization, chemicals, children, chip, chips, circuits, clean, coal power, computers, computing, conscious, conservancy, consumption, contaminated, cost, costly, costs, cultivated, dangers, data centers, degradable, demand, devices, disposable, dumb, e-lusion, e-readers, e-waste, Earth, eco-conscious, electricity, electronic frontier, electronics, Elinor Abreau, energy, energy vampires, environmental, environmental awareness quotient, equation, exposure, factories, First World, footprint, forested, free lunch, gadgets, Gaia, gasses, gear, geek, globe, Google, gray, gray side to green, Green, green is gray, green side, grid, growing, harm, hazardous, heavy metals, high-tech, human health, hypocrisy, IBM, impact, industrialization, Industry Standard, infrastructure, integrated circuit, Internet, IT/IS, Jeff Monroe, Kindle, land, lead, library vs. Internet, limit, load, love affair, manufacturing, megawatts, MEMEX, Microsoft, minimal, misinformation, modernity, myths, nature, nerd, net, network, newspapers, obsession, online, overuse, paper vs. digital, paperless, PCs, perceptions, petro, petroleum products, planet, plants, plastics, politics of green, population, power, power grid, price, print, production, public, public health, quantify, question, reader, reading, reality check, recyclable, recycling, renewable, reproductive, requirements, researchers, resources, scrap, semi-conductor, server farm, Silicon Valley, simple, sites, smart, smokestacks, solution, steward, tech, technology, territory, Third World, threat, toxicity, toxins, trade, trees, trendy, USA Weekend, usage, Vicki Kriz, waste, web, woodland, workers, world wide web, Yahoo on July 14, 2009 |
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Trees: 181,000 of them to be exact. That’s the number of leafy green lives we will save if we pay our bills online, writes Vicki Kriz, author of GreenSmart: Save trees, pay bills online in a July 5, 2009 USA WEEKEND Magazine column. A wise idea, right? “To find out the impact your household could make, use the ‘Green Calculator’ at payitgreen.org,” the article concludes.
That’s all well and good, but who’s asking the even bigger question: How many trees are we trading for coal-burning smokestacks vis-à-vis the increasing load our proliferating gadgets place on the electric grid?
Consider the carbon footprint of the Internet itself. The electrical requirements are astounding, yet as long as the public perceives all things Internet and electronic as a “free Green lunch”, no end to this grand, green e-lusion lies in sight.
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