csa

> Is that a bad thing? Aren't there always a range of products that cater to different levels of interest?

Sure.

I think the poster you are replying to is trying to say that the “k-shaped” economy is incentivizing the market to cater only to the high end and simply ignoring the low end.

A few businesses I own are dealing with this issue now. It’s just much more profitable and logistically easier for them to charge what seems like an absurd price, justify it with some inexpensive “white-glove” service, and just ignore the rest of the market.

On the one hand, this is a tribute to modern marketing that high value-add products and services can match with customers more efficiently. On the other hand, it has the potential to create a bizarre “race to the top” such that only suckers will cater to anything other than the top 1% of their target market (in terms of wealth / willingness and capacity to pay).

Where I currently live, this is happening with frightening efficiency with health care. Almost all of the “good” PCP doctors are going concierge, and the concierge prices are increasing at a rapid clip.

> Is this all that unusual for the field of education research?

Large swathes of education research are extremely questionable due to things like limited or no ability to be reproduced, circular references, or just straight up fraud.

The more that something that falls under the moniker of “education research” is built on the foundation of a more traditional (and typically more rigorous) academic discipline, the less likely that it is bogus research (e.g., Howard Gardner’s core research on multiple intelligences, which was science based on aphasic patients), versus the derived works on MI, many/most of which are bunk that he does not endorse).

> Some lessons had teachers covering words up and asking kids to use guessing strategies at what they might be.

This is just a cloze exercise. These can have a legitimate role in a learning environment when used appropriately.

> how are they required at all?

I’m going to take your comments at face value. I encourage you to find a good salesperson and shadow them for a day or two.

> why can't a company publish its products and services on its website and customers can take it or leave it?

Do you assume most people actually read product info? If they do, so you assume they understand it? The answer to both of those is a resounding “no” (especially in areas that change rapidly like tech and medicine), even if it doesn’t apply to you. For some potential customers this is due to lack of time, and for others it’s simply lack of ability.

A good sales person is finding and connecting their product or service with customers who will find value with their product or service. “Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door” has largely been shown to be untrue.

> why do we need commission-paid schmoozers in-between, who make multiples of what rank-and-file workers earn?

There is a lot to unpack here.

Commission-based pay can be debated, but I assure you that any system that yielded better results consistently would become the new standard fairly quickly. It is what it is.

The amount sales people earn is generally based on two things — their relative value to the company and the market for sales people. Losing one key salesperson to a competitor can mean the end of a lot of small businesses.

The “schmoozer” comment can simply be addressed by saying that some people are more likely to pay for a product or service from someone they know or like. This might be a rational criterion in some cases, irrational in others, but it’s very real.

> The workers create value, and are paid the least.

Workers do create some value for sure. Matchmaking the customer to the product or service also has value. You may not personally believe that, but the market seems to.

The relative amounts of pay are largely market driven, imho.

I completely agree with your comment about Japan killing every generation since the bubble popped. It has been wild to witness.

The subtle but profound ways those generations have experienced being essentially abandoned by the government and “Japan Inc” will have a lasting impact on Japan for many decades to come.

There are some leaders who actually grasp the problem and actually have decent ideas for solutions, but the will and capacity to execute those ideas just isn’t there.

> I really enjoyed Fair Play. While we didn't really prescribe to playing the game rigorously or really start keeping track of cards, it was a great read for our relationship and really made both of us look at how we lived our lives and acted in our relationship.

This is probably the best (and maybe the only) way that this is a good game. As soon as it turns into score keeping, the relationship will almost certainly go sideways.

Maybe some relationships should go sideways, but that can be addressed in a different way.

Two points of unsolicited advice:

1. You may want to work on your reading comprehension skills.

2. You would probably benefit from being more curious and less certain.

> If one teacher is an outlier that uses it badly then sure, the teacher is to blame and be judged. But if a collective is using it badly, then perhaps the capability of the collective should have been evaluated before handing the tool to them.

You won’t get any argument from me that most teachers are poorly trained. Money can largely buy someone out of that trap.

That said, just forbidding a tool that is critical in modern life just because some/many people are bad at using it does not strike me as a particularly constructive solution to the problem.

> I don't have an answer - it is bad to withhold a tool from the hands of people who will use it badly. But the overall outcome has to also count.

My “solution” to this is not a popular one. Lower expectations for public mass education.

Over the last 120 years, we have taken a curriculum that was targeted at elites and forced it onto almost everyone.

High quality education should be available and cheap or free to everyone, but I really don’t think it should be mandatory.

If we stopped compulsory education at 8th grade and replaced most high schools with some sort of other skill development program or work/study program, the expectations and outcomes would probably be better aligned.

Large parts of the tertiary education system would be gutted, but maybe that’s a good thing.

> Sales

Yes, many sales people or even whole sales teams are effectively dead weight, but a highly-skilled sales team is a godsend both to the company and the economy.

We should all be wishing for more effective sales teams — the world would be a better place.

Most people have never experienced a good sales team, so I’m guessing this sounds like total fiction.

> Lots and lots of middle management and HR jobs (off the top of my head) are absolutely 0 value add and definitely just leech off of actual labor.

That’s a very engineer type of take.

Both middle management and HR serve roles that are believed to be useful to someone (maybe not you).

Often it is some form of protection by serving as a fall guy or complying with regulations, but it can be other things (e.g., increasing headcount/budget to gain power, etc.).

> So you gave up when it got hard? That’s kind of what I read out of that.

That’s a very uncharitable reading.

I have made my mark in the world by exploiting the Achilles’ heels of “authority figures” (which is usually just some form of a lack of empathy). I have caused a few to fall, I’ve made others reform, and I’m just an annoyance to many others. I have trained others to do the same.

That said, I could get whacked out of existence figuratively or literally if I crossed the wrong person or group.

There are others like me, but (as I mentioned before) we aren’t always easy to find.

I know the above may seem grandiose, but I’ve had a chip on my shoulder about these “authority figures” since I was a kid. I’ve done something about it, but I also didn’t choose to bang my head against a wall and call it progress.

> When the CEOs of these companies are saying that we will risk extinction and jobs will be decimated, why do you even need a "foreign agent"?

Three claims of propagandists with agendas.

While I do think AI will be disruptive like other tech advances, I think the manner and extent to which it could cause trouble is rarely discussed in a way that will be looked back on as resembling what actually ends up happening.

> However, I would fear that the issue with home-schooling would manifest: that the rarified atmosphere would render them incapable of engaging or coping with the brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs in their work and life in the 'real world'.

Having been to a school like that, I agree with you. I had to learn those lessons quickly.

I largely opted out of being in the middle of that world, but I am still adjacent to it due to its ubiquitousness.

> Then I think you probably learned the wrong lessons.

> The lesson you should have learned would be that we should tear down the "brutal reality of binary-minded Authority figures and hierarchical social constructs." We only tolerate these things as "normal" because people go through their lives not actively trying to tear them down and break them.

I was a product of an environment like that (magnet school with a lot of unstructured time and good access to resources), and it didn’t take me very long to run into the Binary Authoritarian Figures’ version of “you and what army?”, and they were largely correct.

There are ways to undermine parts of the establishment, sometimes even at scale, but the process is not always obvious or easy to access.

> but watching other kids get a leg up because their parents continue to jump in and save them

Can you give us an example to what his looks like in your context (not necessarily you and your kids)?

> The same was said for laptops and tablets. Now there is a push to remove them from the curriculum. Having them meant the students didn't retain anything because they were distracting. I feel using AI in place of pedagogy will have similar results

Laptops, tablets, and AI are just tools. If the folks wielding these tools (or ostensibly teaching others to wield these tools) are not using a tool effectively, then we shouldn’t be surprised when the outcomes are unimpressive.

Simple example — put a hammer in the hands of a skilled builder, and you can get a deck or a house frame. Put the same hammer in my hands, and you will get nothing more than bent nails and sore thumbs.

All that said, just like I feel confident that I could learn how to use a hammer well if I took the time to learn and practice, I think students and teachers can learn to use their tools (laptops, tablets, AI, etc.) well if they take the time to learn and practice (ideally with some good scaffolding).

Most doctors make good money, but most who are good doctors could make much more.

Simple example pitch that many general practitioners might consider using (based on local laws, of course):

“Insurance covers C, Y, and Z. I can offer these additional services for A, B, and C that are not covered by insurance.”

Where I live, you get a lot of this via “concierge doctors”, but that system can go far beyond basic concierge service, and people are willing to pay for top quality care.