We’d all like to believe that regardless of where we come from we can make it. There are literally trillions invested and tens-of-millions of people whose jobs exist to ensure we can climb the ladder. Guess what, friends? It’s all a waste. You’re doomed. Not only is the game rigged, but they’ve stopped pretending you’re even useful, let alone important.

Read the below link so you know what I’m talking. Or don’t read it, I don’t care, many of you might not understand what I’m talking about anyways because I’m a bizarre idiot. Or you’re an idiot. Or maybe we’re both just sleepy. Either way, if the website asks you for money, don’t read it. Jeff Bezos already has more money than Satan. He doesn’t need the 1.4 cents from your click:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-recovery-puzzle-a-new-factory-in-ohio-struggles-to-match-jobs-to-job-seekers/2014/04/05/098d53ec-b44e-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html 

So essentially a corporation wants to open an egg plant in the middle of nowhere and hire forty people with good benefits. The point of the article is they can’t get it done because there is a lack of qualified applicants. These aren’t bad people, they just don’t have the skills and experience necessary to operate and maintain machines that will do the work that people used to.

First off note how a plant that breaks over one million eggs a day only requires forty people to run it. The robots are truly taking over. I have no idea but I assume that fifty years ago the same one million eggs a day capability required ten times as many people.

Remember that all the robot inventors and smart (foolish) experts will tell you that having machines do all our future tasks will liberate society to do other things. So the people in this article who were rejected from the egg plant all get to become artists, writers, and adventurers. Except that they don’t. They’re unemployed and desperate. Here’s what it’s going to look like folks. Don’t let the machine making men fool you. This future of gears, microchips, and tungsten is going to do wonders. But it’ll also be a horror.

Also note that our friend Bernie is supposedly a master at this hiring thing. Unfortunately for him, he’s also can’t seem to understand the very people he’s supposed to employ. Illustrated here is the growing gap between those who have made it in the knowledge economy and those who haven’t. Not only can they not work together, they can’t even relate to one another. Bernie believes in Japanese philosophy that is just as alien to these people as Arcturan battle tactics. Hey Bernie, they don’t care. They’re just trying to make it in this cruel world. You said you eat salad every night. They eat frozen chicken, store bought mac & cheese, and fast food. They’re not stupid people, they’re just not like you, please try and understand.

Thus those who run the knowledge economy have pointed to the importance of getting everybody educated to the point that they can perform. This is the reason for the efforts behind getting everybody through some kind of college. Apparently, attendance at university is going to prepare everybody for the enhanced worker skills necessary to build, operate, and maintain the robots necessary for the egg plant to work. Yet, as we can see here the education system is so broken that we have a substantial portion of society that can’t even fill out a competent resume. This is the most basic of tasks necessary to find work in the knowledge economy. And they can’t do it. Again, they’re not bad people. I just think nobody’s ever properly taught them.

We owe more on defaulted student loans than we have gold on Earth and this is the result? Now you’re going to kindly inform me that college graduates weren’t up for the interviews in this article so it’s not relevant. I substantially disagree. I submit the result would have been the same. Talk to anybody hiring these days and they will delightfully inform you how utterly worthless most young university graduates are.

I suspect the reason is that most degrees are of no use to our modern knowledge economy. So many are taught pointless, worthless subject matter that they’d be of no use in an egg plant just like most of the people in this article. Even allegedly hard core, necessary subjects like science and math fall short.

In theory, I have science degree. And yet twenty days after graduation I took a supervisory job over eighteen scientists and engineers. Anybody want to guess how much of my very expensive, hard worked degree was of practical value? Almost none. I could have studied occult worship and been equally as effective as their boss. I was truly shocked at how worthless it had all been. What did I get other than that blessed check in the block?

We’ve invested trillions in a system of primary, secondary, and university education that doesn’t deliver. The result is you can’t hire forty folks to break eggs anymore. How do we fix this? I think a lot of the growing efforts at apprenticeship and vocational schooling is probably the answer. Forget college, go take an apprenticeship as a plumber. Everybody’s needs water, right? Tell the social studies professor to eat it, go to a vocational school that teaches you how to program industrial robots. We’ll all need lots of robots, right?

My Grandfather was a heavy aircraft mechanic. My Grandmother worked as a librarian. They were so poor they could only go out to eat once a year. And when they did it was to the same small pizza parlor every single year. They did it to welcome spring. But all four of their daughters went to college with degrees in business, medicine, and hard science. What we need is this kind of social mobility. It’s essential if our functioning democracy is to endure. And I fear we either no longer have this or that we soon won’t.

So you’re probably asking why I consider this a good thing when I just got done trashing education. Well, I guess it’s because thirty years ago I think a degree actually meant something. I get the feeling that today’s university is about plush dorms & cool gyms. It’s a business model not designed to distribute educational content, but an experience. Back then the dorms sucked, there was no gym, but they had good classes.

As I grew up and developed the conception of what a job was I was surprised to learn what my Grandfather did. Why? Because in all the pictures of my Granddad he’s wearing a suit, tie, or at the very least a collared shirt. That was how it was done back then. Aircraft mechanics, store clerks, tax men, and so on. It didn’t matter. You got dressed.

Contrast that with the performance and attire of those mentioned in the article. Now granted, I’d commute to work each day in pajamas if they’d let me. And I’ve generally found that appearance and performance are not always equivalent. So I guess I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here other than that this strikes my brain as a symptom of the larger issue.

Once you’ve got the job maybe jeans and pajamas are okay. But you’ve got to at least prove you can look reasonable. When a substantial portion of society can’t wear one decent set of clothes, show up on time, or hold a conversation then don’t be surprised when a substantial portion of society is permanently unemployed.

Everybody’s failed us. Each political party, social organization, or human entity has a plan to solve these problems. None of them are working. These people want your money or your votes. But you need to ignore most of what they say. They can’t help you even if they truly wanted to. Not because they’re evil people, but because they don’t know you. To them, you’re just a spreadsheet metric. But the guy interviewing you for the egg plant job wants to get to know you.

You’re on your own. Government, education, corporations, social organizations, whatever. You’re on your own. You have to make it as best as you can. Use the resources these aforementioned folks are offering you as necessary when you can. But be skeptical of what they’re extending to you.

It seems to me that as we grow into this newfangled modern world of ours that the further we go, the more we are separated and left to fend for ourselves. All our modern institutions are failing us. Don’t believe even the most dedicated, genuine zealot that there is help out there for you. There is, but they’re not going to fix things for you. They can’t. The problems are too big for them to solve. They’ll fall flat.

Take control of your life. Don’t plod along until you’ve consumed your share of oxygen and then die. Make something of it, fight back, try and live well.

You can work for the robots here; but you have to earn it on your own.