Nigel, another excellent article. We do seem to be on a cusp of something. But what about Musk. Ok, he deals with staff brusquely. Mick Jagger has a rider saying no one can talk to him or look at him backstage. That’s a privilege of power, but it’s also a necessity when there are 200 people backstage and you’re headlining a show and you just can’t say Hi to everyone and retain focus. Another substacker today in his first ever post questions why engineers in the UK aspire to working on an F1 team, and in the USA aspire to working for SpaceX. Musk really makes spacecraft differently than anyone imagined. He’s quartered the cost of space flight. What he does on Twitter seems small biscuits compared to that. Rather than studying international relations or media studies, those minds could learn to code. But it’s hard. And doesn’t carry well at parties in Sydney. Anyway no answers from this end. The interesting Substack on engineering can be found at the https://gruffydd.substack.com/p/the-decline-of-engineering-in-britain
It's the characteristic of the truly high-functioning sociopath that they pursue great goals, and in their horrible way, enable others to contribute to those goals. And a substantial fraction of workers will agree to that tradeoff. But we can name Jagger, Musk, and Jobs precisely because such people are so rare.
> Rather than studying international relations or media studies, those minds could learn to code.
Unfortunately, probably not. Or at least, they couldn't learn to code better than ChatGPT.
It's possible that this is a historical transition.
Conor Sen: "Since World War II, when Mexican farmworkers came to the U.S. to meet wartime demand, Mexico has always been the default answer for any labor shortage in the U.S."
But I've read that on net, Mexican citizens have been repatriating to Mexico for a decade because the birthrate of Mexico dropped in the 1990s and there are now plenty of jobs there. The US made up for that by importing people from Central America. But I've read that the total fertility rate of Latin America as a whole is now below replacement, so that won't last. The current cost of getting smuggled into the US is reported to be about US$10,000, which is near the GDP/capita of the world as a whole, so presumably all those people from middle-income countries will keep coming for a few decades. But it's not clear that can hold up for more than another couple of generations.
Nigel, another excellent article. We do seem to be on a cusp of something. But what about Musk. Ok, he deals with staff brusquely. Mick Jagger has a rider saying no one can talk to him or look at him backstage. That’s a privilege of power, but it’s also a necessity when there are 200 people backstage and you’re headlining a show and you just can’t say Hi to everyone and retain focus. Another substacker today in his first ever post questions why engineers in the UK aspire to working on an F1 team, and in the USA aspire to working for SpaceX. Musk really makes spacecraft differently than anyone imagined. He’s quartered the cost of space flight. What he does on Twitter seems small biscuits compared to that. Rather than studying international relations or media studies, those minds could learn to code. But it’s hard. And doesn’t carry well at parties in Sydney. Anyway no answers from this end. The interesting Substack on engineering can be found at the https://gruffydd.substack.com/p/the-decline-of-engineering-in-britain
It's the characteristic of the truly high-functioning sociopath that they pursue great goals, and in their horrible way, enable others to contribute to those goals. And a substantial fraction of workers will agree to that tradeoff. But we can name Jagger, Musk, and Jobs precisely because such people are so rare.
> Rather than studying international relations or media studies, those minds could learn to code.
Unfortunately, probably not. Or at least, they couldn't learn to code better than ChatGPT.
It's possible that this is a historical transition.
Conor Sen: "Since World War II, when Mexican farmworkers came to the U.S. to meet wartime demand, Mexico has always been the default answer for any labor shortage in the U.S."
But I've read that on net, Mexican citizens have been repatriating to Mexico for a decade because the birthrate of Mexico dropped in the 1990s and there are now plenty of jobs there. The US made up for that by importing people from Central America. But I've read that the total fertility rate of Latin America as a whole is now below replacement, so that won't last. The current cost of getting smuggled into the US is reported to be about US$10,000, which is near the GDP/capita of the world as a whole, so presumably all those people from middle-income countries will keep coming for a few decades. But it's not clear that can hold up for more than another couple of generations.