Elitism, clarse and all that...

[Javert]

Unbelievable and a complete misrepresentation of what I and he said..

I was referring to a much earlier comment by Deppity Dawg which might have been on a different thread before it was switched to this one.



He mentioned that working class (white) people don't feel like they are respected in this country.



As I said, I am not saying this is the entire issue or even part of it - I am merely repeating what many others have hypothesised, often based on lots of anecdotes and/or based on reports of the exact type of reports that was linked by Deppity earlier in the thread.



This also seems to be backed up by Deppity's proposal for what investment needs to go into, all of the examples he proposes investment in what you might no doubt call "real" companies that make real things that you can touch and make.  That seems to be consistent with what I mentioned.



So basically, it seems to me that what I'm saying is not even disagreeing - Deppity proposes building up the "old style" manufacturing industries in the North as a way of building up the GDP and wealth in the region.  I pointed out that this appeared to be what many working class white people want according to a lot of information you can find, including the very same report that was linked here.  Industries where you don't need a PHD in nuclear physics or sociology in order to work there.



According to Deppity, whether I personally think that's a good idea or not or will work in the long term is irrelevant because I should listen to those working class people and do what they want - therefore that is what I am proposing.



If Deppity was saying that he wants all working class white people in the north east to be sent to Oxford University and then become lawyers, then it would be "unbelievable" what I'm saying.



It's not arrogant to propose that most other people wouldn't instantly understand all the details of a job I've spent 30 years learning.  I don't know how to be a brickie as you pointed out, nor do I know how to put together a diesel engine, nor would I expect to.  I also don't know how to make a Ratatouille but I'm pretty sure I could figure it out in a few hours.



I'm willing to bet that there are some posters on this forum who wouldn't be able to do my job no matter how much training they had, but that also there are some jobs I wouldn't be able to do no matter how much training I received.  I don't see that as arrogant.



If my bosses thought that anybody off the street could do my job immediately with no training, I'm pretty sure they would've fired me already long ago and replaced me with someone on a lot less money.



I'm certainly not claiming I'm the best in the world at my job, but I must be doing not too bad if I am still there after all this time.



It's actually you guys who are Elitist wanting to claim that my IT job is not as good as a "real" job making engines or whatever it might be, or that anyone who works for xyz organisation like the BBC or Guardian, or anyone in a management or administrative role, is useless.  To me that's Elitism - it's just the other way around from what you keep claiming I am, where I have never once implied that any particular job is useless or shouldn't exist.



Also just to mention - I am the one on these threads who is trying to point out that going to Eton private school giver you an Elite advantage in life which may not be deserved according to your innate IQ and capabilities - against some posters who astonishingly seem to believe that going to Eton is just a coincidence as to whether you succeed in life or not.  I'd hardly call my side of the argument there Elitist.



By the way, just so you know I feel very respected on this forum, what with being insulted all the time and being told I'm a lefty liberal elite, feck off, etc etc.  That's real showing respect that is.

[johnofgwent]

I'm talking about in the near, mid and far future, NOT today.

Fair enough.



My experience of AI and AI developers from the first glimmers of 'fuzzy ligic' and non von Neumann architecture in tbe late 80s right up to automated vehicles today is all smoke, mirrors and hype.



I suppose if they were to get a grip on reality we might see something eventually. But from those I have met, I doubt it myself. But time will tell. Fortunately I doubt I will be alive when the tech is allowed....

[Borg Refinery]

My turn



I *LOVE* people who think AI can provide their IT solutions. They are my natural prey client of choice as their stupidity has left them in a hole with a non functioning system - or no system at all - and very little time to sort it out.



The last specific example was a whole group of idiots who believed the hype that robotic scripted software could upgrade their SQL Server based applications when SQL Server 2000 and its Visual Basic 6 based scripting language went "unsupported" some 12 years after it was launched and a full six years after its replacement first appeared. I was able to double my hourly rate for that one.



A similar problem upgrade took place in January this year, SQL Server 2008R2 the successor to that replacement has also gone the way of XP and is now wholly unsupported, but the new tool on the block that Micro Shyte are plugging as the one to upgrade to has whole chunks of automated scripting support missing.



As soon as the plague is "over" I shall be very, very busy indeed. Not as busy as I would be if Dickhead Drakeford was not still able to paralyse welsh business and travel to clients in England, but I confidently predict I wonlt have time for a holiday in what remains of the disaster area called 2020 and maybe not much of one next year either....

I'm talking about in the near, mid and far future, NOT today.

[Borg Refinery]

It's not me that's claiming that working class white people are more likely to say they don't want or need education - it came directly from that report that you linked earlier in this thread.  Why are you sending me reports that you think are elitist then and then accusing me of Elitism if I quote the report that you supplied?

Unbelievable. 🤔

You talked about respect earlier - surely as part of that respect we should listen to what working class people want.  According to my understanding of that report, many of them don't want to go to school or get higher education, they want jobs that can be done without a high level of theoretical learning.  Personally I find that strange, but that's just me - you said we need to listen to them and not me.

Unbelievable and a complete misrepresentation of what I and he said..

I can see there are plenty of posters very keen to find out the details of my job which they mainly won't understand, and will therefore inevitably claim is worthless and should be abolished.  It's generally a human tendency to think that jobs that they don't understand are somehow just time wasting and people are being paid for doing nothing useful.  This is occasionally true but most times not.

😵 The arrogance..it burns!!!



Even computer systems analysts jobs are eventually going to be replaced in the far future, what job do you have that can outmatch that?



Are you an AI programmer? That's one of tye few that will probably remain in vogue..



No wait, I think you are just a wind up merchant... ok whatever..

[Javert]

Engineering, construction (project and infrastructure), automotive (both manufacturing and aftersales support), distribution and supply chain, utilities trades (gas, water, electricity) - but less specifically, those industries that require skilled and semi skilled workers which need support to set up factories, distribution centres and support networks in this country, especially in areas that need more investment, like the North East of England. What is so difficult to understand here?

I read this with mouth open in disbelief. I had to read it again to make sure I hadn't mistaken what it said. As an object lesson in arrogant elitism, that will take some fecking beating.



Come on Javert, tell us all. What is this job you do?

Engineering of what specifically?



Construction of what specifically?



Distribution of what specifically?



What I am trying to get to is that someone then has to decide precisely which companies or people get that money - that means they need to know what they are planning to build or make etc.  Surely that would have to be part of a long term industrialisation strategy with some kind of coherent long term goals?



It's not me that's claiming that working class white people are more likely to say they don't want or need education - it came directly from that report that you linked earlier in this thread.  Why are you sending me reports that you think are elitist then and then accusing me of Elitism if I quote the report that you supplied?



You talked about respect earlier - surely as part of that respect we should listen to what working class people want.  According to my understanding of that report, many of them don't want to go to school or get higher education, they want jobs that can be done without a high level of theoretical learning.  Personally I find that strange, but that's just me - you said we need to listen to them and not me.



If you have teachers and the government telling all kids that getting a really good education is essential for their future and prospects, but their own parents are saying "you don't need to bother with all that stuff mate as you don't need to have A levels and degrees to be a brickie" , there is a big disconnect somewhere along the line.



As I've pointed out on many occasions, I never stated that I was better or worse than anyone else - my points were economic questions about how economies work in the current world.



In any case, you have completely misunderstood the original point - I was never intending to start a discussion about whether certain trades or jobs are worthless or useful, although I can see there are plenty of posters very keen to find out the details of my job which they mainly won't understand, and will therefore inevitably claim is worthless and should be abolished.  It's generally a human tendency to think that jobs that they don't understand are somehow just time wasting and people are being paid for doing nothing useful.  This is occasionally true but most times not.



The point was more about the discrepancy between what governments for example in the nineties and beyond thought people wanted.



This is a big generalisation, but they assumed that if they could get a much higher proportion of the population into a much higher level of education, we would have a much higher GDP overall because high skilled knowledge worker jobs, of the type of which no doubt many posters here think are useless or whatever, were seen to be jobs that would pay a lot more money in the globalised environment than jobs in factories, brickies, and the other examples given above.



This approach didn't seem to work nearly as much as they hoped, especially after 2008.  Some people have argued that this is partly because they misunderstood the working class aspirations, and that actually they didn't want to be trained so that their children could be IT programmers, or lawyers, or doctors, or whatever.  They wanted to have industrial skilled or semi skilled jobs that were actually making things.



They wanted to turn the UK into more of a knowledge economy where we didn't specialise in manufacturing industry or real things.  This is not what many people wanted and they didn't really explain why this was a good thing and how it would or could benefit everybody.  It may even have been pie in the sky, especially now we are leaving the EU because it made a lot more sense in the context of being part of a larger economic group.



In other words their assumption was that of course, everybody or most people wants to be middle class and professional, when actually that wasn't true.  Even if they honestly believed that was best for the country, they didn't really make any serious attempt to communicate and convince people that this would be good for them.



And no I could not do the job of a brickie.  So what?  I never claimed I was better than a brickie.  I claimed that I could do a mediocre but functionally adequate job of DIY like painting and decorating my house if I couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it.  I stand by that claim.

[Borchester]

Come on Javert, tell us all. What is this job you do?

I reckon he is employed as a professional windup merchant and his forum name should be Timex, because no one can be this big a snob.

[DeppityDawg]

Also, I still didn't see specific policy proposals to help working classes.  To me saying subsidies or more listening is vague and generalised - I was hoping for something much more specific.

The post is on page 22, halfway down, directly followed by an answer to your question re the white working class being left behind educationally, which you also asked for evidence of, and also failed to respond to

I went back to look at the last post on policy suggestions again - the bit I need to know is which specific trades and industries should be subsidised or set up?  Mining?  Green energy?  Space travel?  Betting?  Automotive?   The original plan in the 1990s was to upskill everyone so that a much larger portion of the people are doing globally high value service jobs.  

This is now getting absurd and is starting to look like deliberate evasion. Every response gets further demands for "information". Ok



Engineering, construction (project and infrastructure), automotive (both manufacturing and aftersales support), distribution and supply chain, utilities trades (gas, water, electricity) - but less specifically, those industries that require skilled and semi skilled workers which need support to set up factories, distribution centres and support networks in this country, especially in areas that need more investment, like the North East of England. What is so difficult to understand here?

Unfortunately per the document linked here the working classes don't Seem to like being educated and upskilled, they would rather just be paid more for low skill jobs.  The problem is where does the money then come from in the end?

I read this with mouth open in disbelief. I had to read it again to make sure I hadn't mistaken what it said. As an object lesson in arrogant elitism, that will take some fecking beating.



Come on Javert, tell us all. What is this job you do?

[Thomas]

In fact, all you seem to do is misrepresent, condescend to, and make sarcy remarks to others who disagree with you.



And you don't even bother reading what they write half the time, or it looks that way at least.



Why should folks respond with courtesy if you won't pay them any? And yes you do it to everyone..

You are learning dyno.



Cant you see why most of us can barely be bothered replying to him and his like the majority of the time , and when we do it turns into nothing more than a slagging match and point scoring?



Javert epitomises the very type of left wing middle class snob the inhabits the labour/liberal parties and the general lefty movement in the uk , and why it has been out of power for a decade , and is reviled.

[johnofgwent]

Same with IT - A.I. is overhyped for many things and is very far away from replacing all knowledge worker type jobs.  

My turn



I *LOVE* people who think AI can provide their IT solutions. They are my natural prey client of choice as their stupidity has left them in a hole with a non functioning system - or no system at all - and very little time to sort it out.



The last specific example was a whole group of idiots who believed the hype that robotic scripted software could upgrade their SQL Server based applications when SQL Server 2000 and its Visual Basic 6 based scripting language went "unsupported" some 12 years after it was launched and a full six years after its replacement first appeared. I was able to double my hourly rate for that one.



A similar problem upgrade took place in January this year, SQL Server 2008R2 the successor to that replacement has also gone the way of XP and is now wholly unsupported, but the new tool on the block that Micro Shyte are plugging as the one to upgrade to has whole chunks of automated scripting support missing.



As soon as the plague is "over" I shall be very, very busy indeed. Not as busy as I would be if Dickhead Drakeford was not still able to paralyse welsh business and travel to clients in England, but I confidently predict I wonlt have time for a holiday in what remains of the disaster area called 2020 and maybe not much of one next year either....

[Borg Refinery]

In fact, all you seem to do is misrepresent, condescend to, and make sarcy remarks to others who disagree with you.



And you don't even bother reading what they write half the time, or it looks that way at least.



Why should folks respond with courtesy if you won't pay them any? And yes you do it to everyone..

[Borg Refinery]

No but if I had to pay half a years salary to get it done I'd obviously live with a few streaks.

Ignored the brickie bit I see. Those fools..building your offices...



..Those stoopid manual workers in China assembling your computers eh Jav.

If you want to take a less button pushing example what about dog walkers?  In recent years I think there are about 3 dog walking businesses that sprang up near me.  There must be a lot of people with a lot of disposable income to pay dog walkers.



I suppose I wouldn't be able to walk a dog either?

Are you trying to find the most irrelevant and frankly, idiotically inane diversionary arguments you possibly can?

Accountancy has many different branches and professions within it.  For sure some of it can be automated and already has been for many years, but stating that all accounting jobs can be automated is totally wrong.

See what Borkie said, but what would he know? Only spent 30 years at HMRC

Same with IT - A.I. is overhyped for many things and is very far away from replacing all knowledge worker type jobs.  

It can map the whole universe as it expands past the big bang mate.



You are surprisingly out of touch with how far AI has advanced...

In fact arguably we will have robotic painter / decorators before we have automated IT Developers and designers.

Pretty obvious to all and sundry.

I have nothing but admiration for tradespeople. At least the good ones anyway as they are far better than me at their job.  My point is that if I had no money I could do quite a lot of that stuff without them though not to the same high standard but would be functional.

Rubbish. I really doubt you could do what brickies and plasterers and roofers do.

I went back to look at the last post on policy suggestions again - the bit I need to know is which specific trades and industries should be subsidised or set up?  Mining?  Green energy?  Space travel?  Betting?  Automotive?   The original plan in the 1990s was to upskill everyone so that a much larger portion of the people are doing globally high value service jobs.  

That was a pyramid scheme wasn't it?

Unfortunately per the document linked here the working classes don't Seem to like being educated and upskilled, they would rather just be paid more for low skill jobs.  The problem is where does the money then come from in the end?

Nah, you misrepresented his argument - and ignored my addendum.

[Baff]

A good education most definitely does give a big advantage in life.  There is no "can" or "might" about it.  Yes there are some exceptions that prove the rule, but yet again the data shows a massive link between education level and life success.



I went to a private school and I know very well that the exam that gets you in there is not that hard, and that even not very clever kids can quite easily be coached and trained to pass that exam.  It mainly weeds out those who refuse to even try or listen at all.  The exam is a test of the parents willingness to spend money and time to teach their kids a few things.



The idea that only really clever folk can get into private school is laughable, as I saw when I was there.



"Breeding is a factor" - again - laughable unless you mean in terms of having and spending a lot of money.



As I've said, anyone who claims that a child born to a very poor working class family, especially if they are on benefits and have problems like addition etc, has the same chance of doing well as a child born to a rich family is living in cloud cuckoo land.



I haven't had time to read that whole report that was put out there by Deppity, but in skimming through, this was one of the quotes that jumped out at me - they appear to be highlighting one phenomenon that white working class families appear to be more inclined to think that education is unnecessary and a waste of time - if that's the view of the parents, obviously the children won't do well at school.



"We are finding, as we've opened a centre in a predominantly white working class area, that we're having to do a lot more work with the parents in more ethnically mixed areas. Our young people who come from immigrant families, their parents are not anti-education, but need extra support, and don't know how to navigate the system. Whereas some of our white working class families have negative views of education, and no aspiration in that direction"

Manager at a charity



I also read today that Eton is planning to create their own social bubble where everyone is tested going in and out so that they can open up the school earlier - very egalitarian indeed.



Still, I suppose I should be grateful as at least it gives more good opportunities to those parents and children to do see the value in education and working hard to learn things.

IQ is hereditary.

There is a genetic compnent to intelligence.

Breeding is a factor.

As is nuture.Being pushed by your parents. or for example being trained to invest money. Taught a trade or a professional skill.

I was home schooled and could read and do maths before I hit primary school.

In Japan every child rich or poor attends private school after state school each day. So they get double the classroom hours of a typical UK child. That makes a difference to their education level.



At my public school we had thick students too.

But... The thick students were the ones who only got the national average amount of O levels.

Again they had double the classroom time a regualt kid gets. But even so...



Expectations.

All the self made millionares in my family were born poor and left school at the ages of 11, 13 and 16.

To be quite frank they have done better than those of my family who went to Oxford.

If of course, money is the measure of success in life that you are choosing.



Being poor is motivational in a way that being well off is not.

[Javert]

That has nothing to do with my post.







Oh really?



Can you paint details very carefully and precisely, and do the whole thing streak free..because most can't.



Doing something and doing it to a high standard are seperate things. Not sure what you do in IT but I'll bet it can be automated whatever it is.



Your sneering condescension towards trades becomes more apparent with every post.



Can you do what a brickie does? Moderate isn't good enough if you've a wonky wall.







Wrong again, look it up.







He was as specific as it gets.



What do you want...detailed budgets and plans? To what end?

No but if I had to pay half a years salary to get it done I'd obviously live with a few streaks.



If you want to take a less button pushing example what about dog walkers?  In recent years I think there are about 3 dog walking businesses that sprang up near me.  There must be a lot of people with a lot of disposable income to pay dog walkers.



I suppose I wouldn't be able to walk a dog either?



Accountancy has many different branches and professions within it.  For sure some of it can be automated and already has been for many years, but stating that all accounting jobs can be automated is totally wrong.



Same with IT - A.I. is overhyped for many things and is very far away from replacing all knowledge worker type jobs.  



In fact arguably we will have robotic painter / decorators before we have automated IT Developers and designers.



I have nothing but admiration for tradespeople. At least the good ones anyway as they are far better than me at their job.  My point is that if I had no money I could do quite a lot of that stuff without them though not to the same high standard but would be functional.



I went back to look at the last post on policy suggestions again - the bit I need to know is which specific trades and industries should be subsidised or set up?  Mining?  Green energy?  Space travel?  Betting?  Automotive?   The original plan in the 1990s was to upskill everyone so that a much larger portion of the people are doing globally high value service jobs.  



Unfortunately per the document linked here the working classes don't Seem to like being educated and upskilled, they would rather just be paid more for low skill jobs.  The problem is where does the money then come from in the end?

[Borchester]

It's not true for example that the job of an accountant can be automated.

Pretty near.



98% of tax accountancy consists of filling in forms provided by HMRC and then uploading the aforementioned bumpf to the Revenue's websit where it will be checked by a computer. And most accountancy is so formalised that the only time you need human intervention is when the client queries your bill.



So, once again Jarvet, what is this high powered job of yours?

[Borchester]

The other difference is that I know how to paint a wall but I am happy to pay someone else to do it, but the person who does it would be unable to do my job.  

Ok, I will bite. What is your job Javert?