A tangent on education, basic income, and engagement.

I love most science. Paradoxes and theorems, experiments and simulations.Really, what more could you ask for in a class, and in life, than the story of everything.

Too bad I have Biology this year.

Now, don’t get me wrong, living things are great. I mean, I’m one of them (presumably) and I’ve remoted to exotic locations to learn more about them.

It’s just not… my thing, you know. It’s not really what I’d like to pursue. And I came to that conclusion after learning about life, hands on and in a classroom.

And, if my Bio teacher is reading this, I’d just like to say “Hello! You’re a great teacher and probably an amazing person in general, so keep doing what you’re doing.”

This is not any of my teachers’ faults. Nor is it mine. If you were to really to trace this issue back to its roots, you would end up at the industrial revolution. At this point in time, America didn’t really need critical thinkers and problem solvers, but it did need factory workers. Lots and lots of factory workers. Not only was there more factory work to be done, but the machines were more dangerous and less labour laws were in place so the depreciation of employees was quicker than ever before. This became less and less of a problem (at least for us) as we started to outsource a lot of manufacturing jobs to other countries.

With the manufacturing industry in America dwindling and cities like Detroit all but dying after automakers started to outsource, something had to give.

And give it did.

The 90’s came around and suddenly startups were popping up left and right, most of them internet and computing companies. And then the dot-com bubble burst. Cisco’s stock went down 86%. The NASDAQ Composite fell 78% in 30 months. Only 48% of the companies involved made it out alive.

It was devastating.

And it stopped no one.

Startup culture grew, sites like Hacker News and Product Hunt were created to pander to entrepreneurs of all sizes whether they were billionaires or just randos working on some side project.

Today, there are over 325 million registered domains.

There are 27 million entrepreneurs in the U.S. alone. If that right there isn’t capitalism, then I don’t know what is. (and those are 2015 numbers)

Because of this there was, and still is a huge influx of computing jobs around the world. A lot of these jobs are remote. More and more people are becoming freelancers, and the once fragile market is slowly but surely becoming a solid option for businesses who cannot afford in-house talent or people just working on a project on the side. Others are becoming artists, being able to easily monetize their work thanks to platforms like YouTube and Patreon.

But a huge chunk of the population isn’t ready for that. They don’t know anything other than a 9–5 desk job, or climbing up a hierarchy. And that’s fine. Those jobs are stable.

For now.

As AI continues to grow and the global economy becomes bigger than ever thanks to cryptocurrencies (read: Bitcoin) wrecking borders and trade agreements, more and more jobs are at stake. It might not be my generation. It might not be the next one. But if we don’t do something soon, a lot of the mundane stuff like accounting has a 94% chance of automation by the year 2024, which might put over a million people out of a job if automation occurs. In contrast, things like journalistic jobs have an 11% chance of automation. You can check how likely your job is to be automated at willrobotstakemyjob.com

Soon, there will be no traditional 9–5 desk jobs left. Then no logistics jobs. The markets will crash, then come back etc. etc. etc.

Then what.

At that point, Universal Basic Income will probably be common in most countries, and you’ll live fine... But living is boring. You can’t just live. You have to live, you know.

You’ll be… creative for once.

Maybe bring back that passion for art you had in high school, learn how to cook, write a book, or just do something.

“Uh, but I’m like, not creative… and stuff” the world will say.

But you’ll get so bored that you’ll do something. I mean, it’s better than rotting away in your generic minimalist apartment, no?

There is no real precedent for this, but people are working on large-scale tests and what else are you supposed to do after you eventually get bored of content itself. Chances are that we won’t know how well universal basic income will work until most citizens of a ‘developed’ country are homeless and penniless. The bells are a-ringing for the death of Capitalism as we know it, and if nothing happens, Communism might start looking like a viable option, as stupid as that might sound.

Look, something is bound to give. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but probably sooner rather than later.

The best way to get people ready for this shift is education. I mean, you have a great platform with teachers who are underpaid. Look at them. They have devoted their life to the betterment of the human race and its future generations and here you are giving them terrible salaries. Teachers are more valuable than doctors, firefighters, and police combined, because they are priceless. Teaching someone to be healthy, or to not break laws, or letting them know that messing around with fire is dangerous is a lot more valuable than having people dealing with a situation that, more often then not could have been avoided altogether. Only one teacher I’ve had over the years doesn’t invest into their own class right from their paycheck. They all work overtime, yet they’re never compensated for all the extra work that they do.On top of that, they have to deal with students just ignoring them. They try so hard just to get them engaged. And I get that. When I share something, I want as many people as I can get to be intrigued by it, to enjoy it, to learn from it. Everyone has something that they love doing, and a lot of the time, that troublemaker is disengaged because they just aren’t interested. Simple as that. If only people could… I dunno… choose their classes? Nah, that right there is outlandish.

I mean, what? People are going to pursue their passion. By themselves. Hah. That’s a great joke right there. 10/10 laughing crying emoji. 

Basically, my point is that we should educate people to create things. Help them find and pursue their passions.

Would that really be so hard?