a college degree in 2025/2026/2027 ... don't

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Sandy Kemp wrote:If I was advising a young person today, I'd point them to work that can't be done by AI, plumbing, electrician,etc. Those jobs will last longer and the skills are useful for life.

Yes, I totally agree.
AI doesn't have hands!

Yet.

Maybe not AI yet but I'm guessing older astronauts didn't imagine a robot could take samples on Mars either.

It is probably worth mentioning that going back to as long as I can remember, maybe 1954, there has been talk of machines taking over jobs ( I am confident the talk goes back well before then).   While I am aware that many people have been replaced by machines, many jobs have been created as well.  

In many college text books is the example of San Francisco seeking to reduce the city payroll by using computers.  It didn’t work.  While the computers did do a great deal more work, they also created more work. In the end, there were no savings.

This is not to say that seeking independence is not an excellent idea.   I still go back and review the “Have More Plan”.   But, while I do have concerns, I am not pushing the panic button.

paul wheaton wrote:The AI robots will have the knowledge and skill of a thousand first class plumbers.  They will probably be 20 times more trustworthy and reliable at a tenth of the price.

I said 'AI doesn't have hands'. Yes, I know robots become more and more 'handy' (skillfull). But to build a robot that has the 'hands' able to do the work of a first-class plumber and that makes decisions based on AI .... I don't think that can be done well and cheap enough Paul
Especially the part of 'making decisions', I don't trust have much trust in AI for that ...

It's just a matter of time. How much time nobody knows.

We don't have actual AI yet as far as I know. As soon as we do and AI can reproduce and repair themselves there will be little need for hired human plumbers or maybe especially electricians. May be no need for human anything as far as they are concerned. But skills of any kind are always good to have and teach others.

Since powers that be seem intent on this way forward it seems best case would be if they take their elite dummies and get off the planet and leave the rest of us alone with our hugels and sunroots and peace etc.

No need to be afraid. Probably wise to be prepared with a have it so I don't need it mindset. Maybe humanity can still wise up before it's too late.

I worked jobs. Technically dropped out of high school for not showing up enough for their liking. Got the GED. I was encouraged many times to "go to college". Had I taken that advice I don't think I would be alive today. I might be able to get a decent "job" now though had I lived through it.

Learned about debt pretty early on. Only debt now is due to it being 1% from a bank error in my favor that was like birthing a unicorn. A few times I've been able to even make money from debt but those opportunities are few and far between.

I own a home and a another 40 acres. Looking more likely I'll need to sell both at some point to afford the future. They are my retirement and my social security and my health care. I can't count on any of what has been and is here now to be here when I will need it.

I would never advise anyone to spend money on college unless they know exactly what they want to do and won't go into debt to do it. Too me, my "educated" friends sound a bit dumber everyday. Usually while trying to sound smart.

       I don't know that I have any ideas that fit into the strict definition of permaculture, but they are about the things that robots cannot replace , like human touch while keeping a sick or dying person as comfortable as possible.  In my opinion, community and and caring for one another fits well into permaculture.
      Some of this may seem a little graphic to many people, but stuff I'm going to mention is dinner table conversation in my house.  
       While AI may replace some functions in health care, but it's not going to replace cleaning a person who is incontinent or first line care of bleeding wounds/trauma.  I'd like to see a robot elbow deep in excrement or blood.  I've been there countless times, and have been through enough that if I came across some poor soul mauled by a creature or shot it would not shock or horrify me.  
        A robot won't massage sore muscles, give a hug, put a cold cloth on a fevered head.  One can use AI to chat about one's fears of dying, but it can't replace a loving, human presence.  While blood, poop, sputum, and appalling injuries disgust many people, humans can become immune to the disgust and turn it into something good.  
        Hands-on, caring professions cannot be replaced by AI or a robot, and forgive me, but they can't be replaced by growing your own food.  Get some Valley Fever from the soil and you'll know what I mean.
        Weaving nursing and healthcare into permaculture communities is an idea that nags at me.  Whether you embrace natural care, western medicine, or both (which I recommend), I think it's something to be considered as an important part of permaculture communities (or any community).  And education is a major part of being able to do that.
       The fear among health care professionals is not of AI that will improve diagnosis and treatment, but the fear of the fact that as we move towards health care for all, it will be managed by private equity firms that have almost completed taking ownership of the health care system in the USA, and now they are eyeballing the rest of the world.  
      Take heed, and be scared.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:BTW if you're interested in studying, in learning more on a certain subject ... and it's a subject that's taught in college/university ... you still don't have to go to college.
I found out that by 'studying' yourself, in your spare time, by reading books and articles (most of them can be found on the internet) you can learn so very much! You can go on learning about interesting subjects for all of your life, in fact even for all eternity (there will always be more to learn about!)  :-)

I think independent study is great and I continue to do so myself, but I still think the intellectual community is the most beneficial aspect of college. I remember my Taoism professor describing and then demonstrating in her great course why texts like the Tao Te Ching are not really meant to be read in solitude by a monk in a cave. Conversation and synthesis of the ideas is integral to these works’ value. This is actually a theme of The Seven Taoist Masters, and I also think is an aspect of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I think this is also a big part of the Permies’ value. Being together in person has its own value as well, and some of my greatest realizations happened in laughter filled dorm room debates and camping trips with college friends.

Every time someone says AI can't do X or doesn't have Y, the answer is always, always -- not yet, but it will. The only way automation doesn't end up doing literally everything we can do, and more, and better, and faster is if we crash things into an unrecoverable dark age. I give it 50/50.

Regardless, however much machines can or can't do, or which jobs they displace humans from, knowing how to grow a lot of food (and build a shelter and stay warm/cool) is all up-side.

Dan Robinson wrote:
Here's the problem:

Achieving these AGI goals requires massive amounts of energy (electricity) to run data centers and train algorithms, not to mention an enormous supply of computer chips, such as GPUs, etc. The amount of energy needed to accomplish these nefarious goals is NOT yet available.

Then there is the side issue of cooling, where massive amounts of water are diverted to cool the data centers.

The current U.S. electrical grid cannot handle the load. Data centers are already driving up electricity costs for customers in various locations around the country. Natural gas is also being diverted to power these data centers, not to mention almost defunct coal-fired facilities being brought back online.

There is a lot of talk and research into nuclear energy and micro-nuclear reactors to supply the required energy. But it takes a lot of time and money to build this out, not to mention potential regulatory issues.

Dan’s laying out some of the many reasons generative AI companies lose money every time their products are used, even and especially the paid products. even if there were plenty of electricity and cooling to supply these things, each new and (dubiously) improved iteration requires more hardware that’s more expensive (and rapidly degraded) and more electricity to train and run and loses more money with each use than the previous iteration. this trend could reverse, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it will.

if you lose money on every sale, can you make it up in volume?

we could get into some technical reasons LLMs are such power hogs, but the main idea is that they’re inelegant inefficient tools that use brute computational force to make crude statistical models. their resemblance to intelligence as most would define it is superficial at best.

my most salient personal experience with AI is that the proliferation of this stuff has made looking for information and tools on the internet very much more frustrating and unlikely to succeed. I suppose creating a less appealing internet does lead to some salutary outcomes.

bringing it back to the college degree question: making big decisions by trying to game out where this all leads and when doesn’t strike me as a great idea. AI is only the latest excuse for big layoffs. there were other excuses prior and there will be new excuses after. whether a degree (or other formal education) is the right move for a person will depend on a whole lot of things that are particular to that person and their time and place. I certainly wouldn’t put much or any faith in what strangers on the internet predict a robot will be able to do.

get your priorities and values straight with yourself, be honest and realistic about what motivates you and what you’re capable of, observe what’s going on in the world and your community, carefully examine the assumptions you’ve adopted or inherited, and give figuring out where you want to fit in all that a try. you might get it wrong. try again. any or all of the above might change. no problem. small incremental actions while you’re figuring these things out are often better than big and irrevocable ones from my point of view, but sometimes a big dramatic move is the right one. whatever the case, don’t go to college (or reject it) because that’s expected of you. at the same time, don’t buck expectations just for the hell of it.

making choices and adopting habits that lower the stakes of failure seem prudent whatever life a person pursues. to me that means avoiding debt. it means growing (and preparing and EATING) a lot of food. minimizing the energy I consume. maximizing my interdependence with my close community. doing what I can myself or with the help of friends instead of paying someone else. giving current events some attention but not too much. for the time being it also means keeping a square job (that requires a degree and license) to, among other things, support my aging parents and hedge against the unpredictable.

but enough prattling. prattling is kinda fun, though. I guess I’m a prattler. blame it on my time in college.

I've never heard funerals going out of business...This could be one job that  AI could not do. Somewhat morbid? I don't thinks so

I had huge hopes that we would embrace the scenario I laid out, and then explore permaculture solutions.  

With a humble home and a huge garden ...

  - maybe it doesn't matter if you lose your job

  - maybe you have a MASSIVE advantage

  - maybe all this stuff becomes interesting rather than scary

  - is better than living in the city with a lot of money ...  which will drain away

  - maybe you can share your bounty with friends

paul wheaton wrote:I had huge hopes that we would embrace the scenario I laid out, and then explore permaculture solutions.  

With a humble home and a huge garden ...

  - maybe it doesn't matter if you lose your job

  - maybe you have a MASSIVE advantage

  - maybe all this stuff becomes interesting rather than scary

  - is better than living in the city with a lot of money ...  which will drain away

  - maybe you can share your bounty with friends

I wonder what projects people have been able to complete when they haven't had a workee job? I find it easier to contemplate big life changes when I can compare them to similar ones in my past. So here is a list of some of mine:

Built a 30x80 garden with a 7.5' tall fence
Changed the timing belt in my car (twice)
Swapped an engine in a Ford Ranger
Mowed a neighbor's field so that drivers could see around the corner.

paul wheaton wrote:I had huge hopes that we would embrace the scenario I laid out, and then explore permaculture solutions.

A number of permaculture solutions are hid within all this discussion:
Care of people, building community, and looking after the elderly have been mentioned.
Building Resilience, by learning skills that can help you get by no matter what happens.
Planting food even if it's only a small space.

I think this is very difficult because we've got generations of people who've been sold the mantra that money is everything. Helping people change that mindset to the gift economy, or the barter economy, is huge and scary, because it's an unknown path to try to walk down. There are many needs in modern society that can only be met with cash the way things are currently set up. This wasn't the case as little as 100 years ago when my husband's grandfather would accept a ham as payment for medical services. Deciding what is an "honest" trade is a skill our current generations in North America have little to no experience with figuring out. I understand how scary that could feel to some people.

Jeremy VanGelder wrote: I wonder what projects people have been able to complete when they haven't had a workee job? I find it easier to contemplate big life changes when I can compare them to similar ones in my past...

My property is shady and cool, and has deer and rabbit pressure in spades.

My friend owns a property nearby with a sunny, warm, fenced back-yard.

Her husband built me a raised bed 4'x10' and her son helped me fill it with finished compost from my land. I planted a squash and pumpkin in two of the corners and produced 9 fruit. I planted 8 tomato plants (purchased starts) and got pounds and pounds of tomatoes. I planted 8 bean plants to shade the soil, not expecting to get any food but we've eaten multiple meals of beans and I'm about to make bean dip from some that grew past the eating stage.

I learned how to make green tomato mincemeat, because I knew that the weather was changing and they wouldn't all ripen.

My friend called my bed, "The Jungle". Her beds were all neat, orderly, single species beds. Mine was a happy riot of green leaves at all levels. My "Jungle" is backyard annual growing with permaculture attitude, and it has provided me with plenty of raw material that my family likes to eat.  Permaculture solutions can start small.