Re:The great reversal in the demand for skill and cognitive ...
by maxerickson on Sunday April 12, 2015 @11:49AM
(#9363702)
The pretext of the 20 hour work week stated above is that we don't really live in a division of labor society (in the sense that material needs can be met with a fraction of the available labor).
I agree that we tend to pick winners and losers, but I think a lot of the time those decisions are more arbitrary than we think they are (for example, good judges of character might conflate that judgement with appreciation for charisma without realizing it).
In addition to probably being more arbitrary than we think, the winner/loser way of thinking is also self polarizing, rewarding prior success with more success and punishing lack of success.
(Think about a student that gets some bad grades when they are 10. In our system, that might follow them around for decades (they don't get into a private Junior high, they don't get into Harvard...). There's no reason it should follow them into the next year of school.)
I agree that we tend to pick winners and losers, but I think a lot of the time those decisions are more arbitrary than we think they are (for example, good judges of character might conflate that judgement with appreciation for charisma without realizing it).
In addition to probably being more arbitrary than we think, the winner/loser way of thinking is also self polarizing, rewarding prior success with more success and punishing lack of success.
(Think about a student that gets some bad grades when they are 10. In our system, that might follow them around for decades (they don't get into a private Junior high, they don't get into Harvard...). There's no reason it should follow them into the next year of school.)