I'm not sure what you mean by "the system" and what prevents a 40 year old man from gaining basic computer skills? It's not rocket surgery and being 40 means they have been around computers basically their whole adult life. But more interesting question is what "the system is actively working against them" actually means? Who is "the system" and what actions do they take?

Most full time TNC drivers I've spoken to only work 50-60 hours a week, which is about the same as what I work at my job. It leaves plenty of time to learn new skills.

The truth is that most people regardless of education and job don't realize how they utilize the 168 hours per week that we all get to split between sleep, work, eating and leisure. When I used to teach, I had students give me the excuse all the time that they didn't have enough time to complete the assignment. I would ask others in the class how long they spent on average and then ask the students making the excuse to give me a rough breakdown of how they spent their last 168 hours. After account for sleep, other classes, other work, meals and liesure, they would routinely be unable to account for about ~40 hours. Most hours are squandered.

Yes, that's normal life.

You have to be very clear and ready to tell people that they have to give that up if they want to survive.

Because in the end that's what people want. A normal life.

Not everyone is passionate. Or driven, or interested in those things that can pay well.

Which means that those hours must be stolen from a whole constellation of distractions (which get better at keeping you engaged) and interactions with other people.

So people have to be made aware that they are going to be more unhappy not doing the work, than if they did do it.

Most people aren't going to think like that.

    Most people aren't going to think like that.

But is the rest of society responsible for coddling those unwilling to contribute? For the record, I have no problem with society supporting those who cannot support themselves by providing those people with welfare. There is a difference between being unable and unwilling to contribute.

Well you have to be the one to tell people, that normal life is no longer ok. That being normal is no longer enough to count as contributing.

That people will mix up normalcy for being coddled.

So your kids have to take a STEM course, because that's the only option to earn enough money (ps earning money != contributing to society).

Or you have to learn to code, even though you don't have the ability or aptitude to do it.

do note that this is not at all about coddling, which is a luxury long lost. Making it about coddling is straw manning the argument. There's massive numbers of people who are unviable today, and can't be retrained in any practical amount of time.

"Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated." - Thomas Sowell

Earning money != equal to contributing to society, but prices are society's most effective way to communicate which contributions it considers value.

Using coding and STEM as your sole examples is a strawman. Mike Rowe, for example, has demonstrated on many occasions that we have a skills gap for many jobs which society needs done that you don't need higher education to perform. There are many jobs that society wants done that aren't STEM or software engineering.

https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/young-americans-have...

Once many of these and other in-demand jobs are lost to automation, I'll buy the argument that massive numbers of people are unviable, but until then, there are many that still are very much viable that just aren't looking at prices to determine what contributions society finds valuable.

I agree strongly with you

> prices are society's most effective way to communicate which contributions it considers value.

But its not perfect. Its vastly imperfect - for a variety of reasons involving joins/intersections of various systems.

For example - media will always move towards the grosteque or attention grabbing. The feedback loop between

AD -> Money-> Attention competition -> More Attention grabbing ads -> Repeat,

is near guaranteed to spontaneously create the echo chamber effect because of human neurology.

Other examples - the failure of environmental protection, which also involves the direct manipulation of the information by vested interest who spread and maintain FUD.

Not to mention the straight up impact of concentration of wealth, and the ability of a few to then signal value disalgined with the values for the majority.

I've also seen the various examples for other industries, and they too will fail because re-training itself is a torturous and difficult process- even when you have all the time and resources you need.

Tech is a good example because its one of the easier and better covered fields.

Just pointing out that your list of "sleep, work, eating and leisure" included no time for raising or supporting a family.

Seriously. Kids awake 12 hours/day when they're young, overlapping with work during the week which makes that calculation easy. 12x7 = 84. You can kind of do other productive stuff during that time, but not much. 8hrs/night sleep is 56 hours/week, assuming you don't need some time to wind down for sleep (most do).

84+56 = 140. 168 hours in a week. That's 28 hours left for everything that's not kids, work, and sleep. Fixing stuff around the house, keeping your relationship with your partner healthy-ish, prepping for the next day so you aren't constantly running late to everything, cleaning, entertainment, learning, everything. In practice you'll have an average of 2hrs/day that's actually free, maybe, without neglecting sleep, and they'll be your worst, lowest-energy, lowest-motivation hours (work gets all of the best hours 5 days/week, kids do the other 2 days)

Maybe don't have children unless you can afford it? I've put off having children until I have the financial resources to raise them. What is stopping others from doing the same?

It's healthier to have children at younger age.

Irrelevant point. Whether it's fiscally prudent or not is what's at stake. Generally it would seem it's not a good idea (financially) to have kids. If you must, wait until your career is at a point where you can be assured you won't have to raise them in near poverty-like conditions.

So where on your list does going to your daughter's soccer games go? Where does playing catch with your son fall?