Wisdom, right here. My position has one foot in the engineering department and one on the factory floor. The engineers think the factory workers are all troglodytes that just have to push buttons, and the factory workers think the engineers don't do anything but sit in front of the computer. Oddly, both believe the other does not have to think because the machine/computer does all the thinking for them, which is so far from the truth.
It all seems to grow from a Seed of Ignorance:; a complete lack of understanding of what someone else's job actually entails, coupled with the subjective measure of how difficult a thing is which is largely based on our own narrow limitations and experiences. It's a weed that grows easily and is difficult to kill in the manufacturing sector.
There are people who find jobs that require very little work, and its probably easier to find these jobs in offices. It works very well with technical work that management do not understand, and where output is difficult measure. its possible that people on HN might know of some jobs that fit this…
There are extreme cases, such as people dying and no one realising that their work is not being done, and that is rare, but a certain amount of slacking off, spending time of social media, etc. is not at all uncommon.
In many Japanese companies entry level engineers were required to work on a factory line for a few months before being assigned their engineering job. This gave them perspective on how their company makes money by manufacturing, and what that activity entails. (this concept, and my knowledge of Japanese companies may be outdated now...)
I wonder if there would be any benefit to allowing each to take a peek into the other's world? I am not sure how it could be done, but some way to allow them to try on the other's role for a day so they can see a full picture of what their co-workers do.
> It's a weed that grows easily and is difficult to kill in the manufacturing sector.
In my experience, it seems to apply to every sector out there. I got started in a different industry than what I'm active in now, and what you describe I have seen across any type of job I've held.
Then there are Excel collar workers who decide what gets build in the first place or what needs to be downsized. People in private equity decide which resource is worthy of keeping or which needs to be let go.
I wish there was a good term for it like we have "fundamental attribution error" for that other pernicious cognitive fallacy.
The core mistake is that believing that all we know about something is equivalent to all there is to know about something. So if you don't know anything about welding, you assume it must be brain-dead simple because your knowledge of it is so tiny. If you don't know anything about engineering, you assume it's just pushing buttons.
It's not just about people's jobs, either. It shows up everywhere once you start looking for it.
I dont think it is as simple as that. Throwing everyone into the a-hole pool is a rather simplistic approach, and a very dismissive one at that. In particular, the first sentence is often a reply to someone lamenting their situation, while the second sentence is often a statement ment to insult upwards. Context is important.
What do finance guys think about the other two? They are just moving numbers up and down. Have finance guys ever built anything brick by brick (digital bricks or physical bricks)
I don’t think people saying these things are inherently wrong. “Not working” is obviously wrong because using brain is work, and it’s exhausting work in many cases. The flip-side, and this is probably what is meant, is that you don’t break your body doing it. Similarly it’s obviously silly to think a higher education is necessary for a good working life. A lot of independent contractors and trades people have some really cool jobs that most office workers would be jealous of. Again what is meant is the perception that not having a higher education leads to a poorer life, which it can, but doesn’t have to.
I think that especially calling white collars out as not doing real work is often lovingly. It can be said by assholes, but the language around physical labour is often “tough love”. I’m not sure calling blue collar workers unfulfilled is very often lovingly though, so I think most people who do that are assholes.
What is interesting in the debate to me, is that I see a lot of IT work as blue collar work. Not all of it, but a lot of what we do is basically trade-skill related similar to how plumbing is. It’s just no physical. Over all though, I think it’s best to spend very little time on people who actually mean it hatefully when they call you X. Who cares what assholes think?
> What is interesting in the debate to me, is that I see a lot of IT work as blue collar work.
Society has loads of edge cases like this.
I broke my arm a few years back, went to hospital, and a surgeon put some titanium plates and screws in. The orthopaedic surgeon spends a lot of the day standing, they repeat similar work every day with minor variations, they can't work remotely, they're exposed to hazardous chemicals, they have face-to-face interactions with customers, they earn money by working rather than from investments or inheritance, they're union members, they get paid overtime, they wear blue employer-issued workwear, many do shift work, and they literally put in screws for a living.
And yet nobody would say surgeons are blue collar workers.
Maybe because of the $500k salaries, or the air-conditioned hospitals they work in, or because their status is equivalent to doctors who are pretty much the definition of upper-middle-class tie-wearing knowledge workers.
>“Not working” is obviously wrong because using brain is work, and it’s exhausting work in many cases.
"Exhausting work," lol.
The only people who say nonsense like this are the people who've never done manual labor for a living. I've done both and there's just no comparison of exhaustion levels.
You can't please everyone — and even more important: Some people just love to complain for the sake of it. I suspect they put themselves above others that way. "Shit I could sit in that warm office" becomes "You are lazy" or else they have to question their life choices. Vice versa "Shit I could do something less boring" becomes "But I have learned more" for similar reasons. Grass is always greener..
My experience as someone who needs to do both is that often "game recognizes game", so great office workers will appreciate great blue collar workers and vice versa — if given the chance.
Every blue collar worker had situations where they had to wait because some lazy office bum that had to give them paperwork would rather chat with their collegues than do their job.
And every white collar worker had situation where a craftsperson communicated in single word fragments, went off and was seen to smoke cigarettes for half the time only to write them down as work hours while leaving things broken afterwards.
The only thing capable blue/white collar workers hate more than that is uncapable people on their own side.
Do people really think like that? I don't. I'd be ill-suited to most office jobs and most blue-collar jobs. I tend to think "you should have better labor laws, workplace safety, safety net, health care, education..."
"Lot's of people have tough lives, and things like minimum wage can help these people," is something I can potentially get behind. "You're a privileged sitter. Your kind control society yet refuse minimum wage increases, demonstrating a lack of empathy" just alienates me. I struggle to understand this the benefit of this framing outside of in-group virtue signalling.
Frustrated people use frustrated language, sometimes we have to be able to see past that. As someone who used to live below minimum wage, but haven't in a long time, I guess it's easier for me to understand why people get frustrated enough to use emotional language, as it's (seemingly or actually) affecting their daily life at every turn, and they see others around them get richer and richer.
Ironically enough, that you cannot see past the emotional language and describe the quote as "alienating me" also demonstrate an lack of empathy for me, but I guess that's beyond the topic.
Both of kinds of language describe the same reality? The first sounds aspirational, and the second acknowledges where power lies. Maybe you would feel less alienated if you put effort into organizing to raise the minimum wage, for example.
> When you do office work you get the "you're not really working"
> When you do blue collar you get "you should've studied harder"
Do you really though? I know there's a lingering sentiment from somewhere, but at the same time... I don't recognise this sentiment at all, neither from personal experience nor anecdotal from diverse / random people on the internet in 2024.
In my own experience, I'm the oldest of five and was very much pushed to go to college in a family where my dad, his brothers, and one of my brothers are carpenters. Another of my brothers is a manual machinist. On this side of things, there is a continuous stream of "I can't imagine sitting at a desk all day and dealing with those sorts of people." (because office people are wimps and having less than a yelling, swearing disagreement is unthinkable)
On the other side of things, because I still do a lot of that sort of "trade work" to help out friends since it's my background, I get a lot of "how do you know how to do all this, aren't you glad you went to school and don't have to do this every day, have you tried to convince your family to go back to school?" (and of course, the republicans are bad / dumb undertones, even present in the linked article)
You could be an engineer doing something physical like construction or mechanical engineering? Advanced degree and high pay but you spend plenty of time doing real tangible stuff. Also, there's obvious stuff like surgeons: highly respected and you're doing physical work.
Yeah, add to that the famous Elon Musk's troll quote, "working from home is unethical, because other people can't all work from home - think about all the people growing your food etc". Yeah, Am I also supposed to feel bad because I work normal working hours and others work at night? What about the people that have to lift heavy objects all day and do back breaking labour, and I "sit or stand at my desk all day". How about those that have a 3h commute while I walked to work from my city center apartment (back when I did work on site).
People will always find something to beat you over the head with. The most important thing is not to let them infect you with their negativity.
Brain work for me is like muscles for others - if I don’t squeeze out every ounce of energy from my brain with problems all day, I feel like I haven’t lived a full day. Many people prefer good workouts instead, if they don’t their body is punitive with restlessness and sleeplessness. Code is my infinite playground but others won’t touch it - despite me trying to convince them for years. They would rather work in the sun, or with other people, or in a busy environment.
People filter themselves into jobs they would rather do, when they have awareness of the possibilities. With social media that awareness is increasing.
I’ve had friends who had the definition of blue collar standing job and chose to transition to nursing, which is another standing job.
Immigration status and lack of language skills may tie you to standing jobs, but if people want to learn and grow out of them, in the US there are pathways. If someone curates a course on career pathways via youtube and spreads them through immigration centers and schools and social programs that will help even more people find their way.
I find healthcare workers to be an interesting mix in this discussion. Their work is extremely physical and mental, and emotionally draining. Demand for it will only go up. Compensation for it will likely go up. Who picks up the jobs will be enlightening. Yes you have the bottleneck for doctor and nurse training, but CNA and PA are not as limited. Doctor liability is an extreme source of stress, but that somehow doesn’t apply to nurses as much, so even doctors recommend their kids become nurses.
> Brain work for me is like muscles for others - if I don’t squeeze out every ounce of energy from my brain with problems all day, I feel like I haven’t lived a full day. Many people prefer good workouts instead, if they don’t their body is punitive with restlessness and sleeplessness.
I need both.
Too little brain work and my thoughts are racing (unproductively) and my sleep needs fall down to ~4h (happens on vacation) which isn’t actually enough to make me feel rested.
Too little physical activity and I’m restless and can’t focus, can’t sleep, and generally stuff falls apart.
Physical activity is integral to optimal cognitive function and mental performance. Sedentary lifestyles impair our intellectual capabilities regardless of natural talent or education. Research shows regular exercise enhances memory, focus, creativity, and stress management - all crucial for professional success. Healthcare workers actually demonstrate this mind-body connection well: their physically demanding jobs support rather than detract from the complex mental work they perform.
(obv. I don't know you or your routine, whether you move often by default or are not neurotypical, YMMV)
In case you haven't done that before: I suggest an experiment where you try to have a moderate amount of exercise (w few min in zone 2 cardio) before or during a break at work. Do it for 2-3 weeks and see if there's a difference in your cognitive performance.
I'm saying that not only because:
- there's scientific consensus that lack of exercise negatively impacts our cognitive abilities. Your thought sponge is a part of your body; our minds and bodies are not separate systems. *
- At some point I realised I was used to my default mental state (or performance, so to speak), and never noticed how much better I could feel/think after including more exercise in my life.
* many people would agree that Descartes and mind-body dualism is to blame here, at least partially.
Although I can appreciate your point about having some 'innate' desire for an activity like coding, I think this desire is just one of many factors in choice of work.
My own anecdotal experience is that because of several factors, I had to explore many things before I could figure out that I can actually learn to code, enjoy it, create useful things and be (relatively) good at it. All of this was necessary to actually be able to produce some code for a living.
Here's a list of some of the factors that may affect your desire, aside from some innate interest and intelligence:
- Having access to a computer at an early age and in the formative period
- Parental interest in computing and/or STEM
- Parental understanding of computing and/or STEM (informal tutoring)
- Parental pressure/expectations to pursue computing and/or STEM
- Effective teaching of math and computing concepts as a jumping board
- Knowledge of English (given that most programming concepts were defined in English first)
- Early successes and/or rewards in coding/STEM as opposed to non-STEM
- Social valuation of programmers and STEM (i.e., "nerds")
- Parental socioeconomic status
- Number of siblings (e.g., with respect to competition or pressure to leave home early)
- False beliefs ("I'll never be good at math/coding")
- Learning consistency and discipline (i.e., spaced repetition)
- Knowledge of how to learn difficult subjects effectively
- Recognition of fun or social usefulness of coding (with respect to any other pursuit)
- Understanding of implications of choosing particular options (e.g., college prep, career progression) instead of others, at particular stages in life (12-18 years old, with family)
- Familial duties (caring for a parent/sibling, having kids early)
- Sunk cost fallacy (i.e., 3rd year medical school, working vs going back to school)
Again, intelligence and innate desire will play a role, but I think there is nothing genetic about loving to look at some text on a computer. Personally, I met enough intelligent people, STEM and non-STEM, who think they should've just developed a desire for programming because they're burned out, exploited, fatigued and/or underpaid. These aren't implications most could predict when they made significant career choices.
> Standers are more likely to be exposed to the outdoors — something that will become more and more dangerous as our planet warms.
Feels almost absurd to see that framed as (just) a bad thing. (I would think Sitters are more likely to be exposed to the indoors, which includes a lack of sunlight and fresh air, possible exposure to mold and bad ventilation, and heated arguments over hot-desking.)
Thought the same.
It is clear that this presentation is definetely biased towards showing the problems of standing workers, as there haven't been any negative options about sitting presented.
Unfortunately, while medically known and even legislated (forced breaks), problems of sitting workers are still widely ignored (often by themselves too) until too late or trivialized.
I was getting consistent headaches at work, and attributed it to my coworkers being obnoxious. Then I brought in an air quality monitor, turns out my building had some serious ventilation issues, and there was not clean air at my desk.
This seems like a great demonstration of basing arguments on a dependent variable. Every slide I've seen so far would be better explained by white collar vs blue collar rather than sitter vs stander.
The classic from which all this comes is the UK bus system. You had the driver and the conductor. Equivalent jobs, from an equivalent background, with equivalent lifestyles away from work. But drivers sat and the conductors stood. Very, very different outcomes.
This is literally the example from which we learned that standing and walking around helps prevent heart attacks.
Those jobs seem about as equivalent as driver and passenger. You have to focus and avoid risks all day long as a driver. I'm suprised conductor pays more. I imagine they attract different types of people as well -- customer service people vs video game people. Must have been tough epidemiology to tease a signal out of that.
It seemed to me that it was using the dependant variable intentionally so that it could build up to the twist: actually it's all about race.
To be fair, the twist did get me. I thought it was leading up to discussing injury rates, or health in old age. Since I'm not from the US, the pivot to discussing race wasn't very interesting/relevant to me.
Ha, I’ve heard a few Dutch say that American style racism didnt really apply to them, but then later they say that some person isn’t Dutch because they aren’t white. All in the workplace.
I think it’s just not as top of mind in other places, but its there.
Its apparent very early on that it is about the US, and everything in the US is all about race.
Race is far more important in the US: it seems to be fundamental to people's identity and how they are regarded in a way that is difficult to grasp from outside. It is strange to me that people who accept self-identity of gender regard race as an immutable inherited characteristic.
The nearest parallel is caste in India. It is inherited, immutable and hierarchical.
> Since I'm not from the US, the pivot to discussing race wasn't very interesting/relevant to me.
Does your home country have any minorities that are economically lower class? And, importantly, are they visibly identifiable, like different skin colour? I assume yes -- most countries have them if you look close enough. Would it be more interesting if the data were viewed through the lense of these different ethnic groups in your country?
I have the thought that racial divisions are even more stark elsewhere, although in cases across different lines. I would, for example expect a lot more Chinese in to positions in that country alongside far lower diversity.
Is it not this way? How about where you are from, since you're "not from the US"?
I agree, it was bit of a bait and switch and (also as a non-American) the racial twist took me by surprise.
The actual data would still have made as much (or more) sense if it was white vs blue collar, but I suppose no one would be surprised by that, and wouldn't have clicked through long enough for the "switch" to hit.
Isn't white vs blue collar a latent variable? You have to operationalize it somehow. If you just ask "how blue collar are you?", people's answers will be influenced by all kinds of subjective biases.
I'd argue sitter vs stander distinction also makes this presentation more visceral, memorable and understandable. Collar color would feel unnecessarily abstract and boring.
You have this backwards - sitting/standing (and autonomy etc.) are the data, and blue-collar/white-collar are names for clusters in that data, and the latter depend on the former. After all, workers choose a shirt according to their job role, not the other way around!
Also more importantly, I think the main point of the article is that it's not just two clusters; there are several interesting axes to look at. E.g. electricians are "standers" but have autonomy; bookkeepers are "white collar" but do little problem-solving, etc.
> bookkeepers are "white collar" but do little problem-solving
It is interesting that you think bookkeepers (accountants?) do little problem solving. I am sure they spend most of their day trying to track down missing expenses, or duplicates, or hard to categorise, or some weird tax law. That sounds like more than "little" to me.
Perhaps you're right. I suppose my annoyance is that by choosing sitting/standing as their variable, they gave the impression that they were telling a new and/or interesting narrative, when really they were presenting something well established and entirely common-sense (physical laborers get paid less and have poorer working conditions than office workers).
> bookkeepers are "white collar" but do little problem-solving, etc.
If you think that then I’d wager you’d never had to digitise any form of economic based system. I need an accountant to even begin to tell me how to do their weird nonsensical math, because it’s not actually math but law. Law which is open to interpretation. Law which still has to be boiled down to financial calculations and budget planning.
In Germany you get a green tariff when you produce solar energy. You do this in most of Europe, but in Germany the tariff goes away if you exceed a certain amount of energy production, as in, you’re either paid X or you’re paid 0.
I don't think white collar vs blue collar comparison is necessarily better. There are heaps of ways to slice and dice data and this one of them. I'd argue that it's a rather interesting perspective.
My point is that it isn't really a different slice, though. The vast majority of the "sitting" occupations are white collar; the vast majority of the "standing" ones blue collar.
They forgot to mention that the number one cause of death is a disease associated with by a lack of physical activity or prolonged periods of sitting or inactivity.
This is a worthwhile read, but I think it would be better if it offered not just interactive exploration or a video, but a conventional document, too—ideally as the primary form of presentation. This is by the same creator who made the This Is A Teenager exploration.
In that presentation, I was happy with how succinctly they were able to get down to what makes environments "high-risk", and I found the classification of "a quiet place to study" as a basic necessity (and its relationship to the prevalence/absence of "chaotic routines") as being particularly striking and memorable:
> Researchers determined risk by asking lots of questions. For example, they asked whether the kid has basic necessities, like electricity or a quiet place to study.
> They also asked about factors that could destabilize the home environment – chaotic routines, parents who have disabilities, or relatives struggling with substance abuse.
(So many environments nowadays, even the ones that are ostensibly created to fulfill this sort of thing, are just total failures at actually providing them. I'm thinking of things like public libraries. I live in Austin and have a major axe to grind about the public libraries here, which are nothing like what you'd get if you were actually interested in the pro-social goals that you'd think a public library would have in its charter. A teenager looking to escape their high-risk environment or an adult who's had their feet knocked out from beneath them basically stands no chance at getting out of their predicament if their only option were to use the public libraries here, which would unfortunately act more like a vortex to ensure they stay in the suck. But this is all beside the point.)
I suspect but cannot prove that there's a similar link to the presentation of information—that the best presentation is simple static media, ideally printed, that is supplemented by these types of exploratory environments so that you can make the main resource come to life. Failing that, you'd want the printed presentation, sans interactivity, and then finally as a last resort, just dumping the person into these kinds of presentations. cf: the widely felt phenomenon of handwritten notes being better than notes typed on a laptop + Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death.
What specifically is lacking in public libraries in Austin, Texas? Ideally, you can also share a point of comparison, e.g., the libraries in Boca Raton, Florida have much better young adult fiction.
Have you considered a tablet with pen to not cut down so many trees (transflective is the new cool kid on the block i hear, ipad works pretty well ime)? By now i actually prefer its better searchability with ocr and miss pinch to zoom on real paper ;) Or do you think that the paper being wobbly is important? I mean i get missing the indentability. My experience as a student is its more important to move your hands and have an intuitive sense for location on a sheet of paper (more intuitive/faster navigable than with a typed word processor) to easily form deep memories with what you are dealing with (+spaced repetition!!). So in total tablet works great (for me) once you get used to it. :)
Please indulge me on your short tangent on Austins public library, how can they improve? Same budget?
There is one other analysis that would, I suspect, adjust the OP’s conclusions: age. Hypothesis: sitters vs standers, and other measures of the quality of the job (danger, flexibility…) correlate substantially with the age of the worker. As you go from your teens to 20s to 30s and beyond you tend on average to get better jobs. It’s not absolute, but I bet it’s a very strong trend, perhaps stronger than racial factors. That’s a hypothesis I wish this analysis examined.
They were too busy making weird barely coherent points like "someday it will be too hot to venture outside" and "America is rich because of black people and the Chinese."
Source? The two claims you listed have some elements of truth behind them, so without seeing the exact claim made, it's impossible to tell whether you're giving an uncharitable summary, or they're actually making absurd claims.
Readit News
When you do blue collar you get "you should've studied harder"
We never win, and sometimes accepting that is the right decision.
To not be loved is a simple mistake, to not love one another is a fatal mistake.
It all seems to grow from a Seed of Ignorance:; a complete lack of understanding of what someone else's job actually entails, coupled with the subjective measure of how difficult a thing is which is largely based on our own narrow limitations and experiences. It's a weed that grows easily and is difficult to kill in the manufacturing sector.
There are extreme cases, such as people dying and no one realising that their work is not being done, and that is rare, but a certain amount of slacking off, spending time of social media, etc. is not at all uncommon.
In my experience, it seems to apply to every sector out there. I got started in a different industry than what I'm active in now, and what you describe I have seen across any type of job I've held.
I wish there was a good term for it like we have "fundamental attribution error" for that other pernicious cognitive fallacy.
The core mistake is that believing that all we know about something is equivalent to all there is to know about something. So if you don't know anything about welding, you assume it must be brain-dead simple because your knowledge of it is so tiny. If you don't know anything about engineering, you assume it's just pushing buttons.
It's not just about people's jobs, either. It shows up everywhere once you start looking for it.
Conversely “you’re not really working” comes from blue collar workers.
Both sentences are the same and they are usually used by assholes from one or the other side that either feel attacked or feel superior.
There is no intrinsic value in any of those statements besides what it is saying about person using it - that person is an asshole.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9_oWUI7Vo_M
I think that especially calling white collars out as not doing real work is often lovingly. It can be said by assholes, but the language around physical labour is often “tough love”. I’m not sure calling blue collar workers unfulfilled is very often lovingly though, so I think most people who do that are assholes.
What is interesting in the debate to me, is that I see a lot of IT work as blue collar work. Not all of it, but a lot of what we do is basically trade-skill related similar to how plumbing is. It’s just no physical. Over all though, I think it’s best to spend very little time on people who actually mean it hatefully when they call you X. Who cares what assholes think?
Society has loads of edge cases like this.
I broke my arm a few years back, went to hospital, and a surgeon put some titanium plates and screws in. The orthopaedic surgeon spends a lot of the day standing, they repeat similar work every day with minor variations, they can't work remotely, they're exposed to hazardous chemicals, they have face-to-face interactions with customers, they earn money by working rather than from investments or inheritance, they're union members, they get paid overtime, they wear blue employer-issued workwear, many do shift work, and they literally put in screws for a living.
And yet nobody would say surgeons are blue collar workers.
Maybe because of the $500k salaries, or the air-conditioned hospitals they work in, or because their status is equivalent to doctors who are pretty much the definition of upper-middle-class tie-wearing knowledge workers.
"Exhausting work," lol.
The only people who say nonsense like this are the people who've never done manual labor for a living. I've done both and there's just no comparison of exhaustion levels.
My experience as someone who needs to do both is that often "game recognizes game", so great office workers will appreciate great blue collar workers and vice versa — if given the chance.
Every blue collar worker had situations where they had to wait because some lazy office bum that had to give them paperwork would rather chat with their collegues than do their job.
And every white collar worker had situation where a craftsperson communicated in single word fragments, went off and was seen to smoke cigarettes for half the time only to write them down as work hours while leaving things broken afterwards.
The only thing capable blue/white collar workers hate more than that is uncapable people on their own side.
I would suggest putting in the time to find a different definition of "win" for your life, rather than accepting it.
Ironically enough, that you cannot see past the emotional language and describe the quote as "alienating me" also demonstrate an lack of empathy for me, but I guess that's beyond the topic.
> When you do blue collar you get "you should've studied harder"
Do you really though? I know there's a lingering sentiment from somewhere, but at the same time... I don't recognise this sentiment at all, neither from personal experience nor anecdotal from diverse / random people on the internet in 2024.
On the other side of things, because I still do a lot of that sort of "trade work" to help out friends since it's my background, I get a lot of "how do you know how to do all this, aren't you glad you went to school and don't have to do this every day, have you tried to convince your family to go back to school?" (and of course, the republicans are bad / dumb undertones, even present in the linked article)
Deleted Comment
People will always find something to beat you over the head with. The most important thing is not to let them infect you with their negativity.
Did he really say that? Farmers are the original WFH-ers.
You never win everything simultaneously, yes.
People filter themselves into jobs they would rather do, when they have awareness of the possibilities. With social media that awareness is increasing.
I’ve had friends who had the definition of blue collar standing job and chose to transition to nursing, which is another standing job.
Immigration status and lack of language skills may tie you to standing jobs, but if people want to learn and grow out of them, in the US there are pathways. If someone curates a course on career pathways via youtube and spreads them through immigration centers and schools and social programs that will help even more people find their way.
I find healthcare workers to be an interesting mix in this discussion. Their work is extremely physical and mental, and emotionally draining. Demand for it will only go up. Compensation for it will likely go up. Who picks up the jobs will be enlightening. Yes you have the bottleneck for doctor and nurse training, but CNA and PA are not as limited. Doctor liability is an extreme source of stress, but that somehow doesn’t apply to nurses as much, so even doctors recommend their kids become nurses.
I need both.
Too little brain work and my thoughts are racing (unproductively) and my sleep needs fall down to ~4h (happens on vacation) which isn’t actually enough to make me feel rested.
Too little physical activity and I’m restless and can’t focus, can’t sleep, and generally stuff falls apart.
The secret to understanding exercise is knowing that there are both physical and mental benefits.
Definitely. We all do.
In case you haven't done that before: I suggest an experiment where you try to have a moderate amount of exercise (w few min in zone 2 cardio) before or during a break at work. Do it for 2-3 weeks and see if there's a difference in your cognitive performance.
I'm saying that not only because:
- there's scientific consensus that lack of exercise negatively impacts our cognitive abilities. Your thought sponge is a part of your body; our minds and bodies are not separate systems. *
- At some point I realised I was used to my default mental state (or performance, so to speak), and never noticed how much better I could feel/think after including more exercise in my life.
* many people would agree that Descartes and mind-body dualism is to blame here, at least partially.
My own anecdotal experience is that because of several factors, I had to explore many things before I could figure out that I can actually learn to code, enjoy it, create useful things and be (relatively) good at it. All of this was necessary to actually be able to produce some code for a living.
Here's a list of some of the factors that may affect your desire, aside from some innate interest and intelligence:
- Having access to a computer at an early age and in the formative period
- Parental interest in computing and/or STEM
- Parental understanding of computing and/or STEM (informal tutoring)
- Parental pressure/expectations to pursue computing and/or STEM
- Learning disabilities (ADHD, dyslexia, numeracy)
- Introversion/extraversion
- Visible role models in STEM
- Addictions (gaming, social media, TV)
- Effective teaching of math and computing concepts as a jumping board
- Knowledge of English (given that most programming concepts were defined in English first)
- Early successes and/or rewards in coding/STEM as opposed to non-STEM
- Social valuation of programmers and STEM (i.e., "nerds")
- Parental socioeconomic status
- Number of siblings (e.g., with respect to competition or pressure to leave home early)
- False beliefs ("I'll never be good at math/coding")
- Learning consistency and discipline (i.e., spaced repetition)
- Knowledge of how to learn difficult subjects effectively
- Recognition of fun or social usefulness of coding (with respect to any other pursuit)
- Understanding of implications of choosing particular options (e.g., college prep, career progression) instead of others, at particular stages in life (12-18 years old, with family)
- Familial duties (caring for a parent/sibling, having kids early)
- Sunk cost fallacy (i.e., 3rd year medical school, working vs going back to school)
Again, intelligence and innate desire will play a role, but I think there is nothing genetic about loving to look at some text on a computer. Personally, I met enough intelligent people, STEM and non-STEM, who think they should've just developed a desire for programming because they're burned out, exploited, fatigued and/or underpaid. These aren't implications most could predict when they made significant career choices.
Feels almost absurd to see that framed as (just) a bad thing. (I would think Sitters are more likely to be exposed to the indoors, which includes a lack of sunlight and fresh air, possible exposure to mold and bad ventilation, and heated arguments over hot-desking.)
Unfortunately, while medically known and even legislated (forced breaks), problems of sitting workers are still widely ignored (often by themselves too) until too late or trivialized.
This is literally the example from which we learned that standing and walking around helps prevent heart attacks.
To be fair, the twist did get me. I thought it was leading up to discussing injury rates, or health in old age. Since I'm not from the US, the pivot to discussing race wasn't very interesting/relevant to me.
I think it’s just not as top of mind in other places, but its there.
Race is far more important in the US: it seems to be fundamental to people's identity and how they are regarded in a way that is difficult to grasp from outside. It is strange to me that people who accept self-identity of gender regard race as an immutable inherited characteristic.
The nearest parallel is caste in India. It is inherited, immutable and hierarchical.
Is it not this way? How about where you are from, since you're "not from the US"?
The actual data would still have made as much (or more) sense if it was white vs blue collar, but I suppose no one would be surprised by that, and wouldn't have clicked through long enough for the "switch" to hit.
I'd argue sitter vs stander distinction also makes this presentation more visceral, memorable and understandable. Collar color would feel unnecessarily abstract and boring.
It's perhaps less relevant now that a lot of people can roll out of bed and start their remote job in sweatpants, but it's stuck with me.
Also more importantly, I think the main point of the article is that it's not just two clusters; there are several interesting axes to look at. E.g. electricians are "standers" but have autonomy; bookkeepers are "white collar" but do little problem-solving, etc.
If you think that then I’d wager you’d never had to digitise any form of economic based system. I need an accountant to even begin to tell me how to do their weird nonsensical math, because it’s not actually math but law. Law which is open to interpretation. Law which still has to be boiled down to financial calculations and budget planning.
In Germany you get a green tariff when you produce solar energy. You do this in most of Europe, but in Germany the tariff goes away if you exceed a certain amount of energy production, as in, you’re either paid X or you’re paid 0.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...
Previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40053774>
In that presentation, I was happy with how succinctly they were able to get down to what makes environments "high-risk", and I found the classification of "a quiet place to study" as a basic necessity (and its relationship to the prevalence/absence of "chaotic routines") as being particularly striking and memorable:
> Researchers determined risk by asking lots of questions. For example, they asked whether the kid has basic necessities, like electricity or a quiet place to study.
> They also asked about factors that could destabilize the home environment – chaotic routines, parents who have disabilities, or relatives struggling with substance abuse.
(So many environments nowadays, even the ones that are ostensibly created to fulfill this sort of thing, are just total failures at actually providing them. I'm thinking of things like public libraries. I live in Austin and have a major axe to grind about the public libraries here, which are nothing like what you'd get if you were actually interested in the pro-social goals that you'd think a public library would have in its charter. A teenager looking to escape their high-risk environment or an adult who's had their feet knocked out from beneath them basically stands no chance at getting out of their predicament if their only option were to use the public libraries here, which would unfortunately act more like a vortex to ensure they stay in the suck. But this is all beside the point.)
I suspect but cannot prove that there's a similar link to the presentation of information—that the best presentation is simple static media, ideally printed, that is supplemented by these types of exploratory environments so that you can make the main resource come to life. Failing that, you'd want the printed presentation, sans interactivity, and then finally as a last resort, just dumping the person into these kinds of presentations. cf: the widely felt phenomenon of handwritten notes being better than notes typed on a laptop + Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Please indulge me on your short tangent on Austins public library, how can they improve? Same budget?
Dead Comment
Deleted Comment