Were we the Artisans of Old?

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I can't even start to imagine what school and university are like in the era of the internet. PCs didn't exist when i finished university. I imagine that having knowledge inside one's head...that all must have changed now that knowledge is so easily attainable with one click on Google... Maybe having knowledge is not important anymore, with the internet, and what's important instead is to have a good enough network to share knowledge... I believe this is what's made us Aspies unemployable. What the market needs is something different nowadays. Maybe an excellent surgeon nowadays is not one who has accumulated great knowledge in their heads, but one that has enough connections in the right places as to be able to, during a very advanced operation, have on screen as many eminent professors from around the world as possible, gladly wanting to exchange info with him.

i wasnt born then

Perhaps, as my great-grandfather was reknown for his artistic skill along with my older brother as well.Myself? I'm not that well versed in drawing though in some ways words can be at times very useful to me though, most people have thought of me being ret*d and stupid..Still, I try to do my best...

IMO it's not a coincidence that AS became an official diagnosis the same year (1994) that the Baby Boom Generation took the reins of political power in the Federal Government. The Boomers in general, on the New Age Left, Fundamentalist Right, and Technophobic Center, developed a hatred towards what they called the "Reductionistic Scientism" of their parents, the exact kind of logical, analytical thinking us Aspies are good at. Our way of thinking has thus become pathologized. The hysteria over a non-existent "autism epidemic" is, IMO, an expression of this anti-analytical mindset, exposed in bigoted nonsense about autistics being "souless" and "lacking empathy"

Autistics are a symbol of what most Baby Boomers in their heart fear, individuals that embody the rational, logical, analytical mindset of their parent's generation that they rebelled against in the 60s and 70s, and this we are considered "disordered" and need to be "fixed".

Great post. A lot of brilliant people are essentially prevented from using their skills because of the cult of "People Skills:".

One more thing that occurred to me is that in this way nobody ever has enough seniority and experience in the company to be a manager, which makes promotion by personal favor look totally natural.

People Skills can turn a corporation into a clubhouse, but in America we find they cannot make money. They go to work to socialize and network, there they are given an office where they can get an online degree, or several, but they do not develop job skills that make the company money.

A large part of unemployment is the young, they had no economic function, or sense of why they were there. Like the old USSR, they floated through the university and expect they are entitled to a job starting at $40,000. They know nothing of work, what the company does, or how it turns a profit.

They were the first let go, and most moved back to their parents. They would be the last rehired if the economy had something to recover on.

There are jobs, but they are for people who make money for the employer.

It looks like 20% unemployment going forward, and that will fall on the young and social.

tha's what happens when ya chose style over substance.....

That describes EXACTLY the kind of thing that I am seeing in the workplace and in the university.

This is what happens when social skills are put before technical skills and a strong work ethic. The frustrating thing is that the people who hired her can't or won't, probably both, see why this happened. She passed the social skills tests and the standardized test said this wouldn't happen. Guess what? It happened.

Yes, I think that's what happened.

Big Boom theory topic

Hey, I am a boomer, and I am an Aspie.

I am not sure that "reductionism" is all that benign, or even Aspie Neither is the anti-science approach made popular by revisionistic thinking made popular during my youth. (I am now in my mid 50s.)

Wisdom is knowing when to reduce, and when to research/expand. As for the corporate "feel good" approach (also known as the "old boys" network), this was/is detrimental to women, aspies and other minorities, and stifled new ideas and creativity in the workplace, by discounting what these people had to contribute.

again, not worried about it.

Hopefully, I can take the bull by the horns in the terms of the business world.

But regardless of that, here's one of my favorite quotes from Rocky Balboa. Consider it a special dose of inspiration:

"I'd hold you up to say to your mother, "this kid's gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid's gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew." And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching you, every day was like a privilege. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!"

It is amazing how rapidly things change. Hard to believe that at university, we did our assignments in handwriting. Only the final dissertation was printed - and that was written in hand and we paid professonal typists who made a career out of such work.

When I help my children with their homework, there is probably 10 minutes of angst ridden work on presentation for every minute of *real* work. And then the printer has to be working....the correct version of Word has to be used. Still, this is a good preparation for work where, even in a technical role, I spend 10's, maybe 100's of hours every year tediously fiddling around with the presentation of documents, ensuring they comply with corporate standards etc etc.

The underlying question to me is: has the world become a better place? All this technology, all these efficiency drives, yet depression and anxiety increase every year? Surely the connection is clear.... I also read recently that the earnings ratio between top and bottom has soared during the 'global' recession. It is clearly NOT global if those at the top are earning more than ever before. Shouldn't 'technology' and 'business' be for the benefit of the majority, if not everybody? What sort of world have we made that people are 'resources'? It seems missing the point when we discuss how bad it is to treat women as sex objects, for example, when out leaders treat us ALL as mere production objects to be exploited and thrown away when 'useful' life has expired. As Thomas Pynchon wrote "If you get them asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers".

There are several paths all leading to the end of our current civilisation at some point. Will the complacency and lack of substance mentioned here be the cause of it's demise before the resources out? It is a fundamental law of the universe that if you continually take out more than you put in....it can't last. Yet that is what we are led to believe we should be 'striving' towards. Or at least 'appearing' to strive towards. Dreaming of unearned wealth. Making a killing...

I think civilisations rise and fall in cycles. They rise based on ideas, innovation, ingenuity. Then the bureacracy takes over. The sense of entitlement grows. The complacency sets in. Maybe the success just causes overpopulation and a dilution of quality with quantity? Eventually, it all collapses in on itself. We have started on the downturn in the last 50 years or so.

That would be a negative, as we weren't alive then.

First of all, understand that as long as humans are at this point of evolution, they're gonna look for things to complain about...no matter how good things are.

A lot of the depression stems from how the world is changing and affecting NTs; due to the improvements and technology, and the way we now communicate....it's actually changing in a way that's considerably an advantage for us, but not so much for them believe it or not.

The world is a great place...sure it's run by &^%$ing idiots, put in power by other idiots, but that's nothing new, and it'll continue to be that way for quite a long time; as long as you know what runs the world, you'll have everyone and everything like putty in yer hands

Yer right...civilizations rise and fall in cycles. In fact, turn off your MSNBC or Fox News or whatever, and flip on Wikipedia, and read history. Trust me...all the same sh*t you hear there....we've gone thru it a million times before, thru over thousands over years of civilization.

When people complain "oh, but it's never been as bad as now"....it's obvious they haven't studied history, and are just parroting talking heads.

Just read up on history, learn the 48 Laws of Power--which guides most of humanity( I'm not saying it's good that it does, I'm just saying it does), and you'll know how to handle everything as it comes