Skilled immigrant here, not in America. Could you guys (Americans) please get on with leading the world. This is a tough one. We leave our countries because conditions are not good (to generalise). The root cause is typically bad government. A dictator, corruption or just bad economic decisions. I do think the most sustainable solution is for all countries to attain a level of acceptable governance. Rooting out a dictator is hard, predicting what happens afterwards is harder. I still feel the world is giving dictators/corrupt governments an easy ride.

Before you start saying all governments are corrupt. Again I have to generalise. There is a joke that does the rounds every once in while. I am paraphrasing. African and Asian guy study engineering in the west. Both become ministers of transport in their governments. African guy visits Asian minister. He notices the Asian minister has property and cars well beyond a government salary. He inquires, Asian takes him to window, points at modern highway, winks and says 10%. African guy nods knowingly. A couple years later the Asian guy visits his African counterpart. He too notices the African guy is rich beyond a government salary. African guy takes him to window points at highway, Asian looks hard but cannot see highway. Confused he looks at African guy and says he cannot see it, the African minister winks and says 90%. That is one of the reasons I am an immigrant.

There is some merit to what social conservatives say in that traditional white male masculinity is changing in American society. Ultimately, I view the changes as a good thing, but for those not exposed to a sphere of influence close to them where other acceptable alternatives are promoted by people they trust, they see a void in their lives that are not adequately filled. This is very much a social problem.

I don't know what the solution is - this is merely observations I have had in my interactions on both sides of the fence.

I said "working-class males", not "white men", but your overall point is correct. The problem is, the Democratic party places a higher priority on helping the disadvantaged and downtrodden citizens of other countries over the ones in the US. The fact that low-skilled immigrants are taking jobs that the "Men Without Work" who are US citizens could do is apparently of no concern to them. Nor is the fact that an unlimited supply of low-skilled labor will drive down the cost of low-skilled labor in the US, and hence, the standard of living for those citizens who are not cut out for white-collar work.

People mostly only see what they have now compared to what others have in their social sphere, as it translates to social ranking. When people talk about "better opportunities" it lacks understanding of just what the social sphere encompass.

For example, there was a study in wage differences done in Goteborg (Sweden) which found that in the age group below 25, women generally earned more than men for the same job and education. Between 25-35 there was no wage differences, and above 35 wages slowly started to favor men with the higher differences when people reach over 50. If we then count the number of years people stay in the work force we can easily see that 35+ is significant larger than 25 and under, but is it fair (and empathic) to call it an privilege for young men that old men at 50+ earn so much more money than women over 50?

The Democratic Party and the left movement in general could start to switch rhetoric towards individual needs and disadvantages rather than generalizations of groups. It would still be the same politics but it would include everyone who at some point in life, location, (or any other qualification) becomes disadvantaged compares to others in their social sphere. Young white men without work is their voter group if they just stopped generalizing them into the privileged rather than the disadvantaged.

people only see the delta - how much they used to have, how much they have now.

The difference is the tendency - if this is downward future looks bleak even if "objectively" your life is better than others

And how much others have and they have.

I'm not one to truly believe that she could've created a miracle, but it seems to me that it's better to be sober and encourage retraining sets of people into new jobs related to say, solar energy engineering, instead of attempting to abolish regulations on dying industries (coal) or encourage more industries that are likely to have little job gains due to automation (e.g. manufacturing).

Also, given the access to affordable, if not free online education and incredible resources online (photocopied textbooks, discussion forums, insightful blog posts, step-by-step instructions, high quality videos), I'm left somewhat less sympathetic to people who are completely unwilling to train themselves in other industries that are in demand, when my own dad who truly struggled in an extremely poor family in the middle of nowhere, Asia, and earned a scholarship to study medicine.

I feel this odd dichotomy where some Americans have this 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' mentality (and consequently, dislike things that could benefit everyone like single payer health insurance), have access to an incredible environment(free resources online, no major civil war, clean water and food), and yet don't take advantage of it to its fullest.

People don't want to hear that the old blue-collar middle class jobs are dead. They don't want to believe that automation is what will exist if that manufacturing comes back.

A strong focus should be on "a path to employment", your job is to follow the path and you are guaranteed to have a job. (Which may be following a different education path (retraining))

Welfare, which maybe those voters aren't even on anymore, is demoralizing. It's expecting different results from the same effort; applying for ever 'job' you can see, many of which are simply recruiting agencies and other black holes which won't even end up hiring someone.

Here's another idea. If the millions of people who are in the US illegally and working here were to be deported, and new ones stopped from coming in, it would open up jobs for the millions of American citizens with below-average IQs who are currently unable to find work. And it would increase the wages for all of the American citizens who do low-skilled work.

Of course, would you support a national ID card as a means of combating this variable you accuse?

In the US we pretty much have such a thing already, just without any proper security or identification aspects... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erp8IAUouus (A short (< 8 min) video by the ever informative CGP Grey on the inanity of US SS cards.)

I blame the federal government, which has willfully failed to enforce the laws that are already on the books.

And the Democratic politicians running these "sanctuary cities" who are willfully thwarting enforcement of federal immigration laws.

The Democrats and their smug upper-class elites have well and truly stabbed the American working class in the back. Anyone who thinks Trump won Michigan and Pennsylvania because of Wikileaks is way off the mark. That's the last thing a man cares about if he has a family to raise and a mortgage and he's only qualified to do manual labor and he's unsure that he'll be able to stay employed to retirement.

Oh, and constantly calling those people racists and xenophobes doesn't help the Democratic party much among those people either.

* Democratic party's actual donors, have the economic interest of having immigration legal or illegal, continue. * If you have unfortunately bought into the meme of Dems being kinder, examine how much wealthy Dem politicians actually donate to charity each year. I bet, as a percentage of income, it is less than you (HN reader) give.

Republican party donors are split on the issue, while Trump's stated interest was on limiting it - thus the R political in-fighting going on and the relative Dem solidarity.

Scrotus Trump has barely addressed education policy which is the solution to allow people to join the new knowledge economy. As a matter of fact he put a completely incompetent person in charge of the dept of education.

Trumps views are either dishonest, predatory, or completely delusional.. I'm not sure which.

The implications of all of them are terrifying.

It's not that at all. Trump realizes that, for example, the steel industry would not employ as many people as it did in the 1970s even if we barred all imports. It simply takes far fewer people to produce a ton of steel today than it did back then.

But for people who would work in steel mills today if the jobs were still around, why shouldn't they get first crack at jobs that are still around today that are not vulnerable to automation and imports, like landscaping or hanging drywall, rather than those jobs going to low-skilled, low-educated immigrants, illegal or otherwise, who in many cases are working under the table, not paying income taxes?

The Democratic party is stabbing those people in the back. Those people don't want UBI, they want decent jobs. And they're being royally screwed by the party to whom they were so loyal for so long.

> Trumps views are either dishonest, predatory, or completely delusional.. I'm not sure which.

> The implications of all of them are terrifying.

Trump's views are based on putting the interests of working-class American citizens ahead of the citizens of other countries, unequivocally and unapologetically.

And the Democratic party and their smug upper-class elites do indeed find that terrifying, as well they should. Trump is not like other gutless Republicans who are either in the pockets of big business, or who are still afraid to be called racist.

And that's why they're going all in to destroy Trump. They realize that if he's successful, it could be the beginning of a sea change that could drive the Democrats out of power at the federal level for decades.

Agri-business wants cheap labor to avoid having to invest in automation for hard to harvest items - thus they benefit from illegal immigration, a source of cheap labor.

If immigration is in fact cracked down upon, then they will invest in automation rather than paying the higher labor rates that will be in effect.

The flaw in your reasoning is that not everyone has the actual ability to be a knowledge worker, as I think you would define it.

By definition, only the top (25% ? 30%? 40%?) portion of the population can do it well. So what happens to the others?

If you are alluding to Mexicans, they will just up and go home. They are here to provide for their families, if they can't do that from here they might as well join their loved ones back in the old country.

Here's some supporting evidence to my claim: http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-...

This problem will only be exacerbated by an unlimited flood of low-skilled, poorly-educated women, legal or otherwise, into the traditionally male US workforce. Yet the Democratic party is staunchly opposed to any measures the might stem this flow. Instead, they lecture and name-call one of their former major constituencies, working-class males, who are the big losers in this equation.

but honest Q: wouldn't (next to job market restrictions) an alternative solution to this problem be better education?

that way they don't have to compete for the same lowskill jobs.

I really don't think so, and here's why:

I grew up in a steel town in the rust belt that was thriving up until the 1980s. Among my peers, almost everyone's father was gainfully employed, but relatively few were doing white-collar type work. (There were plenty of those types in the region, they just didn't live in the same neighborhoods where I lived.) So the people discussed in this article are not some abstract sociological concept to me, they are where I came from. Now I live in a neighborhood and school district that is predominantly white-collar with aspirations of higher education for the children growing up there, but I still have strong ties and frequent contact with my old world. And, from my experience, I know there are many men who are simply not cut out to be "knowledge workers". I don't need an expert or a study to tell me that.

These people saw their opportunities and incomes shrink (or disappear altogether) from an onslaught of imported manufactured goods. And now, they see their already shrunken piece of the pie being taken by immigrants. The Democrats tell them, "college for everyone, go to school and be a computer progammer!"

To which they reply, "Screw you, we're voting for Donald Trump. He cares more about our interests than the plight of poor Mexicans!" (And then they turn on the TV and see some Democratic politician talking about how hateful and racist they are.)

Ok to paraphrase and understand your main point:

The blue-collar attitude is part of the local culture b/c it's so dominant?

In your pov: What paths exist other than showing and creating other possible alternatives? Personally i can't think of any other way than high quality education for the general population. (but obviously super biased here)

These are men who would be farm labor in another era, except that we mechanized all of that. Or they might be steel workers in another era, except that we mechanized all of that and then shipped it overseas. Many of them are tradesmen or warehouse workers and will be mechanized out of a job in the coming decades.

It's not that they don't have anything to offer, but it's that as a society we no longer have a productive use for them.

Honestly, I think a lot of them will become more involved in child care than their wives over the coming decades, and I think that that transition will be hard for us as a society. The only other alternative I can think of involves us colonizing the Moon or Mars, because those are the kinds of places where men like these shine.

While the wives do... what? Work white-collar jobs? We've just been talking about how hard it is for a certain subsection of men to get these jobs, so why are their wives able to fair better? Is it because women are smarter than men? Some other factor?

It's right there in his comment:

> I think the point he's really making is that there are a lot of men who aren't cut out for higher education or technical school. It's not that they're not capable people, but it's that they think very concretely and it's difficult for them to grasp higher education because of all of the abstractions.

Women are actually pretty good at that. I say this as a man who really struggles with it, with a few friends that have the same issue.

TFA.

The generational declining male labor participation rate. The economy is being geared towards knowledge work and has been going that way for some time, yet men are participating less, and women are participating more.

That very dynamic would seem to suggest some underlying issue, and IMO the issue is that generally speaking, a large portion of our society is incapable of doing the type of work the economy is geared towards and rewards most heavily (outside of finance).

Here[0] is an example article about the differences in academic behaviors between men and women.

> Remember that the majority of programmers are men, and the majority of STEM faculty at research institutions are men

I'm trying to speak in aggregate, but I do concede that most of our profession is male. The entire population of our profession as a percentage of the workforce is rather small though[1], as compared to something much more accessible to the average person like being a truck driver[2] (which itself is going away sometime in the next 5-10 years, only exacerbating the problem being discussed here).

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/why-gi...

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

[2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...

That doesn't mean that all women are participating in "knowledge work" jobs though. K-12 education and healthcare are also two fast growing sectors that have a high proportion of female workers. I doubt that all jobs in those sectors should be considered "knowledge work".

Participation stats for women could also be due to sectors like HR, or just generic office work. Obviously I don't deny the existence of female programmers and scientists. I just don't think there's evidence to suggest that they can do those jobs strictly better than men can.

>a large portion of our society is incapable of doing the type of work the economy is geared towards and rewards most heavily (outside of finance).

I think this is plausible.

The blue-collar attitude is part of the local culture b/c it's so dominant?

I think you missed my main point, to wit, that in any given population, there will be a significant percentage for whom manual labor is their only viable means for doing productive, remunerative work. Consider that the median IQ is 100. [1] That means that half of US citizens (roughly speaking, since I don't know how that was arrived at) have an IQ below 100. So they're never going to be engineers or software developers or pharmacists. And, yes, there may be a cultural aspect as well, but if that were the only obstacle I would think it would be surmountable.

These people have it hard enough with imported manufactured goods, automation, and soon, AI, reducing the demand for people of their ability level. And the Democratic party wants them to also compete with immigrants who are even more poor and more desperate than they are.

> In your pov: What paths exist other than showing and creating other possible alternatives? Personally i can't think of any other way than high quality education for the general population. (but obviously super biased here)

Another alternative is to recognize the fact that, while unrestricted free trade and immigration may improve certain metrics like GDP, and corporate profits, that not everyone automatically benefits from growth in those metrics. We could structure our immigration laws in a ways that do not further erode the already-shrinking piece of the pie that our citizens on the lower rungs of the achievement ladder are relying on. What might we call this new approach to governing our country? Perhaps there's something catchy that would resonate with those voters. Perhaps something like "America First!"

Oh wait, never mind, Chris Matthews on MSNBC said that phrase is "Hitlerian".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification

Ultimately, this is the question: people may have "had it" with automation and AI, but are they willing to pay for a product built with more expensive labor? Because in the end, price rules in many people's minds when it comes to the choice of goods they buy. And businesses know this.

You could restrict immigration to zero in my opinion, and this still would be a problem. Most factory floors are heavily automated. It's kind of like many farm crops: it would be foolhardy (more costly, less reliable) to force farmers to replace the single combine with huge amounts of human labor. Likewise, you're not going to replace the machines on the factory floor with people unless you accept a much higher price for the consumer. Heck, you could eliminate all imports, and manufacturing floors still would heavily use machines.

That's why ultimately, it is difficult for me to envision a path for many of these people that does not involve some sort of education, training, or similar. It doesn't have to be STEM type work.

But 1950s style industrial work is not coming back, immigrants or not. Eliminating the immigrants would only open up the opportunity for certain low-salary manual labor positions. While that might add jobs, it won't be the same kind of jobs their fathers had.

Just take Japan's NEET problem and multiply it (at least) a few fold. That isn't just what is coming for us, it's what is here now, and getting worse.

Other commenters have said it better than I could but many people in our society are just not suited to the solution being offered here (and elsewhere), of more education and training. They just aren't.

Additionally, it is not an unchangeable attribute, it just doesn't tend to change. This has more to do with people's circumstances and environment not changing than their inability to change. There is clinical data demonstrating IQ changes of over 20 points within the space of about 4 years. I've read about a number of cases where impoverished children with below average IQs achieve above average scores several years later with improved nutrition and an enriched environment.

Ok, but how many master-level players have average or lower IQs?

Small firms account for 55% of all jobs and 66% of new jobs and 54% of all US sales [1]. Leadership can do a better job of incentivizing entrepreneurs to start new businesses and to help SMBs hire more people. Requiring health care and rising costs coupled with a highly indebted workforce makes it more difficult for both parties. Education can also help prepare more entrepreneurs.

[1] https://www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/energ...

And in the US, it has also created a lot of people who are capable of neither, but are saddled with crushing student loan debt.