The Screws are Coming Out

Now I’m sure you all know about Aaron Clarey‘s war on Higher Edumacation; that if you haven’t read, you’ve at least read about his book Worthless; and that you understand how messed up college is nowadays.

Well, it gets even worse.

Aaron’s already written about a lot of the problems; about how a degree in transgendered turtle studies doesn’t allow you to build the stuff people actually want (forcing us to hire the Chinese, Japanese, and Indians to do all of this, while we produce…).  About how the levels of debt created by these faux-educations are going to wind up crippling the next generation.  And about how the entire system – even the STEM degrees – are being dumbed down in favour of diversity quotas, leading to a less-talented pool of workers.

But I’ve noticed a couple more things thanks to my Love of Structuralism and some personal anecdotes.

1. The Inefficiency of Serfdom

So let’s look at this non-STEM workforce; the Big Names with their degrees in transgendered turtle studies are receiving government grants and prosecuting pet stores, but what happens to the 99%?  It’s hard to imagine having more state-sponsored feminism than we already do (though I trust Obama to keep on trying!), and as it stands there are nowhere near enough jobs for all these Women’s Studies majors.  We have a glut of people with useless degrees.

Useless degrees and crushing debt.

As everyone has pointed out, these are the idiot Occupussies, protesting the 1% (their college profs, ironically), and demanding more handouts; and while it’s True* that all Occupussies have useless degrees, not all useless degrees beget an Occupussy.

Some of them have Blue Collar backgrounds and Blue Collar Pride; they find jobs, and slave away under the burden of their debt.

Only the problem is, that slaves don’t tend to do the best work.  So now we’ve got a generation of mis-educated kids half-assing it at their jobs.  They’re stressed out and indifferent to the final product, and now the corporate culture comes more and more to rely upon the stick, rather than the carrot.

These are people desperate to make a buck, who are willing to do anything – even if what they’re doing is stupid and destructive for society (HR, diversity training, most lawyers) because they’ve got that student loan Crushing down on them.  This isn’t even getting into the fact that they don’t have the finances to invest in society – buy a home, build a neighbourhood, raise a family – hoarders savers are good for an economy, yes, but people who are too flat broke to buy the latest doo-dad?  That just raises the price of used cars.

But wait, why can’t they get ahead by becoming innovators?  By performing well, and getting promotions?  The baby boomers can’t lock-down the Upper Echelons forever – your theory is Anti-Capitalist!

2. Incompetence, and the Prevalence of Credentialism

For a variety of reasons (banning of IQ tests, a glut of degrees) credentialism has become the new norm; most business owners and HR departments don’t even question the logic behind it – simply, they demand that somebody have a degree, even if all that means is that they were stupid enough to get a degree and shouldn’t be running a popsicle stand, let alone a business.

1% become famous; 50% Occupy; 44% turn into wage slaves…

…and %5 are well-connected enough to become middle managers.

Welcome to the incompetence of the modern workplace.

My last manager was a 27 year old kinesiologist (sports ‘doctor’), and a (male) histrionic.  The owners (read: nepotistic inheritors) of the business were a couple of MBAs (and just ask the Captain how useless THAT degree is) who spent most of their time golfing.  What resulted was the most stressful, poorly-run, preventing-the-workers-from-doing-their-job company that it’s ever been my displeasure to work for.  But these companies keep on going because most companies are run this way.

There’s not just a deficit of people with useful talents; they’re a deficit of management with skills and talent.  The Big Money established these companies ages ago.  These things have momentum, legacy – they own the infrastructure, their clients are loyal.

And as for incompetence?  The idiots running the things are terrified of competence.  Competence would these waifs for the down-turn that they are.  Any day of the week, they’ll pick the guy who knows how to say Yes massa, no massa! over a man who can actually get the job done – it’s about their ego, not about the product.  And so will their clients.  And so will their client’s clients.  We’ve got a managerial caste who are more concerned with looking right than doing right – in their eyes, Good Work makes you a threat!

This is why you should never work for someone who knows less than you.

Incompetence from the top to the bottom; and an incentive structure that makes it so everyone pretends that nothing’s wrong.  We’ll just keep on keeping-on… just a little further… just a bit more, ignore the man behind the curtain…

Until the Wheels Fall Off.

The blind leading the blind, and ganging up on the one who can see.

This bubble isn’t going to be popped by the 44%; it’s going to be popped by those who never jumped into the University Shell Game in the first place.  Gods, I can’t wait for that day.

It shall be glorious

*Bayesian Assessment >0.95