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ffrryuu | 12 years ago

Blaming the victim, favorite American pastime.

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thatthatis|12 years ago

Look, I'm trying to understand what's happening and why. If you re-read what I wrote, I think you'll have a hard time finding any normative statements or any statements ascribing fault. I did use the term "dead end jobs" which is pejorative, but that's a term copied from the original article used as a reference not as a personal evaluation.

The only people I'm blaming for anything are the people writing these articles that leave out what I believe to be crucial and potentially explanatory information.

Any victim blaming you found into my comment was put there by you.

Another way of parsing the data, which is fully coherent with my prior point: society is making great progress, we're approaching the point where even our janitors are afforded the luxury of a college education.

im3w1l|12 years ago

You are using this phrase as if it would automatically mean that the people you refer to are not to blame, just because they are in a bad position. I disagree. I think that people need to take responsibility for their careers, and that frankly, if they end up in a dead-end job, it IS their fault.

Now, by saying this, I don't mean that we should settle for the status quo and that all is well. Just like with interfaces we should make systems that make it easy to choose right and hard to choose wrong.

ye|12 years ago

In this case the victim is often responsible for making poor career choices.

The whole "I graduated, I'm entitled to a job" sentiment must go away, or we will end up with an army of hungry homeless history, women-study, art, philosophy graduates.

Pxtl|12 years ago

But it used to work that way.

A generation or two ago you had a bunch of guys with degrees in literature and art-history managing plants full guys with highschool diplomas. And they all were middle-class or higher.

btian|12 years ago

They should learn skills that are desirable in the current economy. Not just programming, but also nursing, chemical engineering etc.

ffrryuu|12 years ago

So what do you recommend they do? We can't all be programmers.