Marty Nemko's Blog, page 358

A Real Giant: Exploring Authenticity

Today's installment in my PsychologyToday.com series of fables tells of a Real Giant. It explores authenticity.

Just a Bit of Lint: A Fable

In today's installment in my PsychologyToday.com series of fables, I tell the story of a piece of lint.

The Hyena That Wouldn't Laugh: What's Laughable About Your Life?

My PsychologyToday.com article today tells of a laughing hyena that wouldn't laugh. 

It invites us to look at what about our life is laughable. 

The Hyena That Wouldn'tt Laugh: What's Laughable About Your Life?

My PsychologyToday.com article today tells of a laughing hyena that wouldn't laugh. 

It invites us to look at what about our life is laughable. 

Excitable Ed: A Story About A Child Whose Teacher Wants Him on Ritalin

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I tell a very short story about Excitable Ed. It raises questions about what to do when a teacher suggests a child has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD.)

Kill That Slug? A Fable

In the final of my three-part PsychologyToday.com series of short fables, I tell of a slug and whether to kill it. 

The Bee: A fable that raises stinging questions

My PsychologyToday.com article today is a short fable I wrote about a bee. It raises issues about how to live life. 

I'll be sending a big jar of exceptionally good honey to the commenter who I believe most thoughtfully answered to four questions I ask at the end of the fable.

My latest TIME article: Should you call him "workaholic" or "heroic?"

HERE is the link to my latest TIME article, just published this morning. It asks whether we're too quick to call hard workers "workaholics." Sometimes, the more accurate term is "heroic."

More on The End of Jobs. What the Hell Will Happen?

MIT has just announced it will allow students to get credit for some of its online courses for free. 

That is merely the latest step toward the conversion of paid teachers to essentially unpaid, as is the case in Udemy, Coursera, Udacity, edX, etc. Yet more people moved into volunteer work, just as so many formerly paid journalists must now write for free. 
The reduction in paid teaching is merely the latest bullet into the body of jobs. 
Tellers have been replaced by ATMs, supermarket checkers by self-checkout, toll-takers by camera watchdogs.  Waiters, in chains such as Olive Garden, Applebee's Panera, Red Robin, Chili's, and Pizzeria Uno are being replaced by tablets. (Tell the truth, will you miss the waiter any more than you miss the bank teller,  supermarket checker, or toll taker?) Soon, truck, bus, and train drivers will be eliminated in favor of self-driving vehicles that never speed, take a sick day, nor require health care benefits. The robots are coming. Offshoring is ever easier and more effective. Ever fewer of those high-cost American employees will be needed---a few geniuses at the top, lots more to do janitorial and similar work. What about the huge numbers of other people whom employers are not willing to pay a living wage plus ObamaCare, Social Security, Disability, Workers Compensation, Paid Family Leave, etc? 

What will this evolve or devolve to? Without sufficient work, people go nuts in idleness, not to mention broke, perhaps without basic food, shelter, transportation, and health care.

And with genomic medicine around the corner, we'll be living longer--more decades with not enough to do. 

What is the answer? Certainly not mandated 30-hour workweeks. That merely will cause better workers getting fewer hours and worse ones getting more. Bad, bad. 

Can we count on the creative destruction of capitalism to create enough new jobs we can't yet imagine? Who knows? 

Could this even spawn Armageddon? As WMDs become more miniaturized and powerful (like mutated highly communicable bioviruses), all it takes is one crazy bioscientist pushed over the edge because s/he can't find work to release a vial of the stuff in an international airport's parking lot bus and billions will die. Imagine what an ISIS or other terrorist groups and even countries will be able to do. 

The U.S and Europe appears to be continuing to prioritize civil liberties--worrying about whether we're kind enough to Gitmo prisoners and whether the NSA's review of anonymous phone records violates the Constitution. 

Meanwhile, might terrorist groups and maybe even the Irans and Chinas of the world, less fettered by such concerns, destroy us? 

Anyone have a more optimistic yet realistic vision?

How Much to Sacrifice for Love?

My PsychologyToday.com article today consists of the text of my "children's picture book," Venus and Iris.

It invites thoughts about these questions:
How much we should sacrifice for love?Should men be expected to sacrifice more than women?Does lookism affect how much we're willing to do for others?