Also, I recently watched the latest (Dec 4, 2014) talk with Thomas Sowell on Uncommon Knowledge. Dr. Sowell made an interesting point about 15 min in comparing wages across age groups starting from 1960. The disparity between younger workers and the top older group expanded over time with the top earning older group moving up in age as well. His observation from this was that it demonstrated the move away from skills of the young, strength and endurance, to those that came with age, experience and knowledge. Just exactly what we’d expect as the march toward a machine-civilization moved forward. The machines do the work while the rewards go to those with the skills to use the machines in new ways.

This tells me that in using education to move up the earnings ladder earlier, we need to not look at replicating the current work practices but rather what, perhaps commercially anachronistic, experience the school can provide to advance the student’s understanding of the underlying elements often hidden by the machine doing the job.

A reflection from a 3rd Mate regarding his captain:
When asked why he spends so much time in the office:

“There comes a time in most men’s careers when they stop being paid for what they do and start getting paid for what they know…. and by asking such a question of your Captain it’s clear to me that if you want a check next month you better go find a chipping hammer.”

I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly is extremely interesting.

“In my story, educational credentials are not a cause. They are a symptom”

Bethesda is full of JDs and MDs and PhDs. I think it would be completely impossible to even get a phone interview for most of their jobs without an advanced degree with a D at the end. In some cases it wouldn’t even be legal to do those jobs without the degree. Things might be a little different in Silicon Valley, but in DC it would be very, very hard to go without the education signal.

I have wondered if I could teach my minecraft playing toddler how to use Autocad if he were as motivated.

There is a “learn java with minecraft course” that is rated for 8 years old and up. Java is what my spouse makes a good living with.

Arnold and Bryan are hypothesizing over different different things.

Arnold’s hypothesis says prosperity can only emerge from the morass through genetic mutations (aberrations). Brian’s does not take a view on the cause of differences, it only focuses on how the “aberrations” make it out of the morass.

Regarding Arnold’s hypothesis, it is difficult to believe it is all genetics.

I came from parents who were born into the poverty of 1930s carribean. My dad did not get to start high school. And my mom did not get to start middle school. They came to the US and settled into rural mid west (away from the urban centers), worked blue collar jobs, and had 7 kids. I, the youngest of 7, was able to compete high school, undergrad (in engineering) and graduate school (MBA) and am now a business professional. So what explains my story – genetic mutations? Birth order in immigrant families? Improved standard of living between the first and last birth? Other forms of circumstance?

Even if the root cause for my story and the stories of so many others were genetics, then you have to conclude that there are so many “genetic mutations” that making predictions with parental genetics will make you wrong very frequently.