Post by the light works on Jul 26, 2019 14:26:54 GMT
I had a thought occur to me, this morning. it didn't hurt much, but misery loves company.
the world of literature and philosophy revolves around the myth of the utopian society, and the myriad ways attempting to accomplish it all falls apart, and yet, we don't have a thread on how to recreate society so it is better. so here is a thread where we can discuss thoughts and idea on how we can make a better society.
note that this is a theoretical discussion, and assumes a nonviolent cultural shift to accomplish the changes. we can choose to ignore certain factors for the purpose of focusing on others, but we should assume there will always be a noticeable rate of nonconformity for one reason or another we should assume there will still be people who are lazy, greedy, or physically incapable of integrating into the society. purging undesirables is considered cheating.
my morning thought was to wonder how society would change if we based our expectations of people's careers on their age group. my basic premise is:
age 1-5: childhood. other than childhood chores, the child is expected to require care and supervision and won't be expected to be productive in any significant way.
age 5-20: student. the student is expected to focus on education. there will be some vocational training, and there will be some gainful employment, but for the most part the time will be spent finding and improving the student's mental aptitudes.
age 20-40: trade. this is the biggest shift - except the upper percentile of intellectuals, there would be an expectation of the graduate entering a physical trade. this would be aptitude related, and would cover all fields of endeavor, but would be predicated on the philosophy that this is the age group best able to do work. they will also be expected to continue their education for future nonphysical work. the upper age bracket would be somewhat flexible as will be addressed in...
40-60: management and intellectual trades. as workers reach a point where their mental abilities are more productive than their physical abilities, they will transition to mental work, whether management, creativity, or other intellectual productivity. this would mean both the lower and upper age brackets will be flexible.
60+: retirement. as the person ages out, they will be expected to transition gradually out of the productive class - neither feeling obligated to continue working past their ability to work, nor feeling obligated to give up work they enjoy doing.
obviously, there will be those that don't fit the traditional model, but if we had a societal expectation that young people will begin by working with their muscles, and derive social status from being able and willing to do hard work - but then learn to work effectively with their minds as they age out of doing physical work; perhaps we could break out of the mindset that the "best" kids go directly into "good" jobs and the "losers" spend their entire lives doing labor. - more specifically, the intent would be to give everybody the experience of actual work, and give more people the opportunity to move from working with their muscles to working with their brains.
of coure, I do expect this idea will get some pushback from the hereditary wealthy class. - but even some of them might see the benefit from it.
the world of literature and philosophy revolves around the myth of the utopian society, and the myriad ways attempting to accomplish it all falls apart, and yet, we don't have a thread on how to recreate society so it is better. so here is a thread where we can discuss thoughts and idea on how we can make a better society.
note that this is a theoretical discussion, and assumes a nonviolent cultural shift to accomplish the changes. we can choose to ignore certain factors for the purpose of focusing on others, but we should assume there will always be a noticeable rate of nonconformity for one reason or another we should assume there will still be people who are lazy, greedy, or physically incapable of integrating into the society. purging undesirables is considered cheating.
my morning thought was to wonder how society would change if we based our expectations of people's careers on their age group. my basic premise is:
age 1-5: childhood. other than childhood chores, the child is expected to require care and supervision and won't be expected to be productive in any significant way.
age 5-20: student. the student is expected to focus on education. there will be some vocational training, and there will be some gainful employment, but for the most part the time will be spent finding and improving the student's mental aptitudes.
age 20-40: trade. this is the biggest shift - except the upper percentile of intellectuals, there would be an expectation of the graduate entering a physical trade. this would be aptitude related, and would cover all fields of endeavor, but would be predicated on the philosophy that this is the age group best able to do work. they will also be expected to continue their education for future nonphysical work. the upper age bracket would be somewhat flexible as will be addressed in...
40-60: management and intellectual trades. as workers reach a point where their mental abilities are more productive than their physical abilities, they will transition to mental work, whether management, creativity, or other intellectual productivity. this would mean both the lower and upper age brackets will be flexible.
60+: retirement. as the person ages out, they will be expected to transition gradually out of the productive class - neither feeling obligated to continue working past their ability to work, nor feeling obligated to give up work they enjoy doing.
obviously, there will be those that don't fit the traditional model, but if we had a societal expectation that young people will begin by working with their muscles, and derive social status from being able and willing to do hard work - but then learn to work effectively with their minds as they age out of doing physical work; perhaps we could break out of the mindset that the "best" kids go directly into "good" jobs and the "losers" spend their entire lives doing labor. - more specifically, the intent would be to give everybody the experience of actual work, and give more people the opportunity to move from working with their muscles to working with their brains.
of coure, I do expect this idea will get some pushback from the hereditary wealthy class. - but even some of them might see the benefit from it.