> Where does our next generation of skilled labor come from?
I don't really want to talk to you because you're being deliberately abrasive. But I will leave you with one answer.
Your question presupposes that all the other areas of the economy that have eclipsed still-growing manufacturing do not produce "skilled" labor. I do not think this is a valid assumption.
There's infinite people to talk to on the internet-- indeed there's more people to talk to on this thread that share your views than I can manage. I don't need to pick the sub-branch which is unnecessarily unfriendly.
edit: I care, too. I mean, I went into education where I'm teaching future high-skilled labor and building human capital ;) And--- where I am, the kids are alright.
They are all right for now. No joke. The ones who can afford to see you that is. ( education is currently expensive, not a slight on you at all)
There are good reasons why the percentage of people who agree with me are high.
Edit: yes you absolutely do get to pick and choose and I support your ability to do so! However I will observe that you are operating at a disadvantage by doing so
I'm at a private high school, so sure I breathe rarefied air.
But they're doing stuff like machining aerospace gear that will fly in space, doing structural and thermal analysis, designing and assembling circuit boards, implementing LQG controllers. Or just doing carpentry and fabrication for theater productions to the highest aesthetic standards.
And I go to competitions against other schools and see a ton of what we would have before considered "high skilled" adults, except they're 13-16 year old kids. They're going to go to university and further develop the ability to work with their head and their hands. But they're not going to go supervise a press stamping out the same part over and over, and they're not going to reinvent the wheel that they can buy for 30 cents per unit.
> There are good reasons why the percentage of people who agree with me are high.
This isn't a very good argument for the validity of an idea.
> Edit: yes you absolutely do get to pick and choose and I support your ability to do so! However I will observe that you are operating at a disadvantage by doing so
Avoiding being trolled is not "operating at a disadvantage." There's plenty of reasonable discussion, and the points you raise have already been answered and debated in cousin threads. I'm choosing to answer you a little more because you've been a little nicer.
It does produce some skilled labor, but those skills aren't always the same as the ones needed to make things and make them well and make them inexpensively and make them sustainably.
And by percentage it's no replacement for what we had before. All one needs to do is take a look at massive numbers of young people looking for opportunity not able to find it to understand what this all means.
Hey I marked the snark. I guess I don't want to talk to you either if you can't handle a little real discussion.
And that helps nobody, yourself-included. There's nothing on this thread that you should turn your back away from. There's nothing on this thread that should even hurt!
And finally, I'll always talk to the other people. Keeping that door open is the only way we get progress. Just consider that for the future.
What's your calling abrasive is passion. I actually do really give a shit. Consider that too.