My daughter used to call out to me to change her diaper. Now I called out to her to change the software on her laptop. This transformation took her more than 10 years. And although our roles have been reversed, the process is much the same, starting with love and patience and ending with someone crying out, “For God’s sake, how much longer do we have to keep this up?” Masu.
Diaper changes continued for about two years. Software updates will probably continue until these avowed Luddites shuffle off this coil of death and chant “analog forever, digital forever.” I’ve always been a traditionalist in technology, but there’s an abrupt line between relevance and irrelevance, especially in the media industry.
Trust me, I know. In less than a minute, you’re a young, hip satirist and novelist chronicling the quirks and foibles of Singaporean life. Then you ask again how she uses Google Sheets, and the intern gives you the sad smile that a caregiving nurse would give an elderly patient.
Is that an exaggeration? This happened to me last week.
The road to workplace obsolescence used to be a marathon, but now it’s a sprint. When you started your career as a novice journalist last century, upgrading your skills required a quick discussion with your deputy editor about tweaking your Next Page her design. Today, skill upgrades feel outdated the moment you log into your aging brain.
It’s worth reflecting for a moment on my ignominious history as an anti-Bill Gates. In 1996, a rudimentary e-mail system was installed on the computers at Manchester University Library. That’s what I thought when I received my first email from a friend two computer terminals away. “What a waste of time.” Why do we need email? ”
I have been fortunate to have access to some progressive industries: print media and print publishing. I tried to invest my time and energy into his third blacksmith job, but lost out to the Flintstones.
Complacency with work is a silent killer
That’s why I recently announced that Singapore has introduced the new SkillsFuture Level Up Program, offering every Singaporean aged 40 and above an additional S$4,000 credit to improve their skillset in areas that will improve employability outcomes. I commend the announcement. “Improving employability.”
(The real mid-career jobs crisis will come when AI creates programs to write inspirational LinkedIn posts that turn everyday encounters into little brag job applications. You will need to speak and write normally again.)
But what makes the SkillsFuture level-up program truly impressive is not because I ignore the power cap, but because I witnessed the alternative firsthand. Job complacency and subsequent job insecurity are silent killers in any developed country. In England, where I grew up, a lifetime blue-collar job is a blue-collar job for the time being, if ever. Confidence gave way to fear, and then to anger. Were these jobs gone, or were they taken by others? The culprits and scapegoats were quickly targeted. I wish there was a box I could check to wash away all the confusion in the industry. If only there was a way to make England great again.
You know the rest. The same twisted story will play out in the coming months of the US presidential election campaign.
Admittedly, this is an oversimplification, but Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong was right to focus on global turmoil, geopolitical uncertainty and the relentless rise of AI in his budget speech. It is no longer even the process of confusion that is worrying. It’s speed. The number of mid-career retirees will increase in 2023 as companies optimize their business scale. (The term “just the right number” plays a very important role here. It’s like saying that Hannibal Lecter righted his dinner guests by eating them.) Thing.)
The SkillsFutures program may prompt cynics to draw upon Huxleyan stereotypes of a productivity-obsessed nation that works its utilitarian automatons to the bone, but it is also a country that is alienated, outsourced and left behind. Have you ever seen what a frustrated citizenry does when they feel like they are being abused? I have. That’s not a good ending for a powerhouse, not to mention a tiny red dot on a fragile canvas.
But it’s the underlying emphasis on lifelong learning that makes it so appealing, especially to working-class kids growing up on East London housing estates. She was surrounded by Cockney locals who said things like, “I’ve never read a book in my life, dude.” And look at me!
That’s right, buddy, you’re a pillow.
Don’t completely discount the value of human experience
To take the most obvious example, the anti-intellectual tensions that permeate British and American society have long impeded social mobility and often kept blue-collar classes “in their place.” Whether it’s intentional or not is up to you – but it’s been a source of frustration for decades.
And the Singaporean government is paying its citizens to at least intellectualize their workplaces to keep up with teenagers launching tech startups during school lunch breaks. (I may be exaggerating here, but my daughter is currently completing songs she writes, performs, and produces on her laptop.Deleting her iTunes songs from her laptop You can not.)
But the real trick is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Given Singapore’s admirable drive to upgrade in all areas of the modern workplace, lest anyone over the age of 25 be seen as a non-stop dribbling old man who can’t even put one foot in front of the other. I have to warn you (ironically, it was me at less than a year old)) To use a cheap and selfish example, I co-present a football podcast. I don’t know what kind of technological wizardry it will take to get this show out on different platforms. I know what to say when the mic is on. The 25-minute broadcast is the result of 25 years of media work.
It’s not a pitiful plea for sympathy: “Fuck you,” but a plea not to completely succumb to the fantasies of digital technology and AI and discount the value of the human experience. SkillsFutures programs can add to human experience, but they cannot replace it. Getting the right balance between the two will be the real progress.
Still, this initiative represents Singapore’s highest aspirations for lifelong learning. It certainly inspired me to update my laptop skillset. So, when you have time, Mr. DPM Wong, please give S$4,000 to her daughter.
The SkillsFutures program may prompt cynics to draw upon Huxleyan stereotypes of a productivity-obsessed nation that works its utilitarian automatons to the bone, but it is also a country that is alienated, outsourced and left behind. Have you ever seen what an irritated citizenry does when they feel they are being abused?
Neil Humphries is an award-winning football writer and best-selling author who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and written 28 books.
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