Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : PC Sector Round Table -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pierre-X who wrote (501)	6/21/1998 8:03:00 PM
From: Stitch	Respond to of 2025

Au Contraire Pierre.... Pierre, I have stumbled on one of those very rare occasions when I can take an honest exception to something you have written. <<But many labor experts agree that the new technologies will contribute to the growing polarization of the job market into high- and low-skilled jobs and a corresponding disparity in wealth.>> To the above (from the article you commented on) you wrote: <<This type of simply incorrect hand-waving disguised as journalism I find amusing.>> IMO this particular journalist could as easily have said the same thing when discussing factory automation or productivity software suites, or any number of technology driven applications. That he/she chose to do so in this context only reflects the author's broader knowledge and IMO made the story more interesting. Many social scientists and statiticians have commented on what is emerging to be a growing separation (i.e. polarization) of the middle class. Much argument exists as to how great a role technology has played but most observers agree that it has played a role. Speaking globally one would have to site the vast dissolution of influence on policy by the communist party and the huge number of disenfranchised peoples brought on by regional conflicts as other meaningful reasons for polarization. But here at home technology jobs have had extraordinary growth while skilled craftsmen's work and factory employment was exported overseas. Here is one Canadian report that you might want to read. ccsd.ca A quote from the report: "The worsening market income situation of modest-income families is linked to broad transformations in the global economy, marked by greater international competition as well as massive technological change. Since the early 1980s, rapid economic and workplace changes have resulted in an increasingly polarized workforce." The world is changing much faster then anyone would have predicted. In times of rapid change there is always a statistically significant group of disenfranchised. This has been true of every significant movement in human endeavor. Did society gain by these movements? Most assuredly, but someone was left behind in each incidence of rapid social evolution. For example: The North American Indian tribes with westward expansion, or the craftspeople of Europe with the industrial revolution, or the merchant class with the advent of the Manchus hegemony over China. Nevertheless I too consider myself a technocrat and cling to the promises that technology seem to offer the world. Just my 2 cents. <G> Best, Stitch