The Risk Factor

Yet another data point corroborating the thesis that we live in a post-intellectual age. A distaste for appearing overly intellectual or intelligent is seen as a valid motivation in today's don't-make-me-think-dammit "culture". The people and organizations which currently enjoy political and economic power depend on people not wanting to be bothered to think and have spent the last 30+ years building massive positive-feedback loops into modern "culture" to ensure that the trend continues. In an age that actually requires jocks and grunts to be able to maintain situational awareness, that very capacity is actively and profoundly discouraged in the remainder of the population, particularly those who are not members of "the Club."

Outsourcing is a big factor, too...all the kids going into university now were teenagers when the dot-com bubble burst and seemingly 99% of American IT people lost their careers. What kid in her right mind would want to go into a discipline where everybody she's ever seen in that field over the age of 35 is now either flipping burgers or selling used cars for Sleazy Stan the Repo Man? If *I* had it to do over again, in today's climate, I would have trained as a teacher instead...somebody somewhere is going to want their kids taught the basic skills they're going to need to run their world, even if there is no longer a functioning American public-school system.

Cambridge? In most of the world, that degree would open a lot of doors. Having the degree in CS would, too often, slam them right shut again.

Are people ever going to get motivated enough to fix this? Probably not - Survivor's on tonight, yes?

So what's the problem? Today's students are just waiting for the "new, higher value" jobs that outsourcing and offshoring proponents have assured us will be created by shifting all of our "mundane coding jobs" India and China. So far, we have had to settle for Beauty Operator and Dog Groomer, but I'm sure this wave of "new jobs of the future" will hit any day now and only Americans will be qualified to do them.

David Chisnall of the University of Wales at Swansea has a very informative, insightful article on exactly this topic on his Website:

http://tinyurl.com/yu38ya

Note that he stresses how computer science is not what many people think it is. It is neither "advanced programming" nor "architecture", nor yet "development methods and processes". It's a fairly specialized discipline, which is of great value - but only to those who understand and appreciate it.

Another contributing factor, of course, is business bosses who would rather consume all their own internal organs than pay a "techie" more than a quarter of their own salary.