Watch Out, Here They Come

I'm reading a good book called "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, which talks about how the global business playing field is being leveled by technology. The book talks about the concept that "it used to be better to be an average person in America than to be a genius in India" and that now that is no longer the case.

When you've got uneducated kids like this on the streets of India, able to schmooze tourists in 8 different languages just to earn a dollar, you really better start believing that in the near future, "average in America" = "royally fucked".



Of course, there have always been sharp little multilingual Indian kids selling trinkets to tourists in Mumbai. The difference is that now they can take their skills to the internet and help you make your airline reservations from Boston to Tampa. Soon, they'll be America's accountants and paralegals. Eventually, they'll be networked into every facet of American business, from managing retail inventory, to providing laboratory and radiology and diagnostic services, to systems monitoring and maintenance, to banking and investing, to traffic control.

To put it simply: If they don't need to touch it to work on it, you can bet that they'll be doing it.

The book explains it in stark detail: When it comes to Master's and Doctorate level job skills, America doesn't have to worry because Indian scientists and engineers don't want Americans to earn as little as they do; they want to earn as much as Americans... and that is what will happen. But, when it comes to the rote work, the drudgery, the labor, and the people who don't engage in original and critical thinking, there is going to be a global readjustment in compensation and value of work, and it will be downward. (It's why I'm keen to get out of my current profession sooner rather than later.)

The main point of the book: Prepare your kids with critical thinking skills, with focuses on hard science and engineering, with an underlying broad skill set that will make them professionally dynamic and versatile, or watch them get run over by kids like the one in this video... or more accurately, the millions of his countryfolk who are as sharp as he is, and can actually afford to go to school.