<story><title>Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway People’</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/us/trucking-jobs.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>treehau5</author><text>I agree that there must be jobs, but with one important and subtle distinction. There should always be jobs for anyone &lt;i&gt;willing to work&lt;/i&gt;. The difference is it leaves out the subtle dehumanization implied in your response  (and I know it was unintended), and leaves out our limited, market-driven and popsci ideals about human intelligence out of it.&lt;p&gt;We have all met some damn smart people who never went to college, or learned how to read or write profeciently. My father was brilliant at arithmetic from learning to count money in restaurants and gambling. He was a middle school dropout. The trucker didn&amp;#x27;t all of a sudden go from stupid to intelligent once someone showed him how to read -- all he needed to do is for someone to teach him!&lt;p&gt;There is a wonderful TED talk about how our STEM-driven craze is a tragedy in terms of how it defines human intelligence by a renounced English teacher and professor, highly recommend it.&lt;p&gt;The short of it is we should never discriminate on arbitrary things like IQ, reading levels, etc, because we have no idea what even constitutes &amp;quot;intelligence&amp;quot;, much less how to duplicate it from adolescent to adolescent.</text></item><item><author>gumby</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s important that there be jobs for people without much education.  When I was in my twenties I volunteered as a reading instructor.  One of the students was a trucker in his late 30s who had never learned to read.  He had just memorized certain routes and took the same ones.  He wanted to read so he could get better jobs.&lt;p&gt;Not a dumb guy, but he&amp;#x27;d slipped off the rails at a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; early age, and dropped out of school as soon as he could. He did already know the alphabet and numbers.  He was embarrassed to even talk about this with his peers.&lt;p&gt;Abstract ideas of &amp;quot;job retraining&amp;quot; may sound great but I think they are generally unrealistic.  Folks who figured they were &amp;quot;done with school&amp;quot; at 18 or even 22 and then find themselves unemployed in their 40s have a hard time changing direction in my somewhat limited experience.&lt;p&gt;(But those students at community college who are aged between late 30 and 50?  &lt;i&gt;Really driven&lt;/i&gt;.  It&amp;#x27;s embarrassing to compare typical college students to them.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>int_19h</author><text>If it&amp;#x27;s a job that doesn&amp;#x27;t actually need to be done (i.e. it&amp;#x27;s only done to keep the person willing to do it occupied), is it still a job, or is it just a hobby?&lt;p&gt;You might say it depends on whether it pays or not... but if there&amp;#x27;s a paycheck in exchange for essentially useless work, it&amp;#x27;s just welfare in disguise.</text></comment>
<story><title>Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway People’</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/us/trucking-jobs.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>treehau5</author><text>I agree that there must be jobs, but with one important and subtle distinction. There should always be jobs for anyone &lt;i&gt;willing to work&lt;/i&gt;. The difference is it leaves out the subtle dehumanization implied in your response  (and I know it was unintended), and leaves out our limited, market-driven and popsci ideals about human intelligence out of it.&lt;p&gt;We have all met some damn smart people who never went to college, or learned how to read or write profeciently. My father was brilliant at arithmetic from learning to count money in restaurants and gambling. He was a middle school dropout. The trucker didn&amp;#x27;t all of a sudden go from stupid to intelligent once someone showed him how to read -- all he needed to do is for someone to teach him!&lt;p&gt;There is a wonderful TED talk about how our STEM-driven craze is a tragedy in terms of how it defines human intelligence by a renounced English teacher and professor, highly recommend it.&lt;p&gt;The short of it is we should never discriminate on arbitrary things like IQ, reading levels, etc, because we have no idea what even constitutes &amp;quot;intelligence&amp;quot;, much less how to duplicate it from adolescent to adolescent.</text></item><item><author>gumby</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s important that there be jobs for people without much education.  When I was in my twenties I volunteered as a reading instructor.  One of the students was a trucker in his late 30s who had never learned to read.  He had just memorized certain routes and took the same ones.  He wanted to read so he could get better jobs.&lt;p&gt;Not a dumb guy, but he&amp;#x27;d slipped off the rails at a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; early age, and dropped out of school as soon as he could. He did already know the alphabet and numbers.  He was embarrassed to even talk about this with his peers.&lt;p&gt;Abstract ideas of &amp;quot;job retraining&amp;quot; may sound great but I think they are generally unrealistic.  Folks who figured they were &amp;quot;done with school&amp;quot; at 18 or even 22 and then find themselves unemployed in their 40s have a hard time changing direction in my somewhat limited experience.&lt;p&gt;(But those students at community college who are aged between late 30 and 50?  &lt;i&gt;Really driven&lt;/i&gt;.  It&amp;#x27;s embarrassing to compare typical college students to them.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Bakary</author><text>I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly, but the problem is that some types of intelligence become less useful than others as society changes. STEM-type intelligence becomes more in demand while a very smart person who lacks skills like these (whether they are not attuned to it or didn&amp;#x27;t have the opportunity to learn) will still struggle because the competition pool is so large that there are tons of people in the same situation and a limited number of ways they can become economically useful. The end result is likely to be a large scale dehumanization even for smart folks unless there is some intervention.&lt;p&gt;Edit: to clarify, the market driven popsci definition is paramount because the market determines your dehumanization</text></comment>