Breaking News: Bourgeoisie isn’t what it used to be.

Bourgeoises of the world, unite?

There is a great piece about “Why robotic middle class is trapped in The Matrix” that says a lot of great things, but does not make it clear enough who should listen first. Here are the great things:

• The biggest elite lie fed to the middle class in modern history is that “progress” is linear.
• Robots are elbowing the middle class out of the jobs market , [leading it] to unprecedented unemployment.
• The bourgeoisie does not grasp the scale of this existential challenge… The middle-class stampede to ditch “arts” subjects in favour of the sciences in order to “compete” is a dismal case in point… not motivated by a modern zeal for the cutting-edge but rather a dull desperation to be “marketable”.

And the reason for this post is in the two sides of this picture:

Go read that article from top to bottom, but replacing every occurrence of “bourgeoisie” or “middle class” with “each and every PARENT”. It is every parent who should:

Help kids fight the Matrix with REAL innovation

Quoting again from the article, think to Renaissance, Enlightenment, the early computer age: “Moments of high, real innovation have occurred [when] people have shown hunger for artistry and deep thought”.

The big lesson in this for all parents is that the children of today’s “middle class” parents will not stay “competitive” by becoming like computers, but by “challenging and mastering technology in ways that demand rebellious creativity rather than robotic conformism”.

Possibly avoiding, if I may humbly add:

• the too many dead ends of the “rebellious creativity” of fifty years ago. Let’s learn from history, please
• the idea that the MERE increase of “women in STEM” is good, in the long run