Dean Kamen, Manual Laborers, and You

[Laremere]

Dean was talking *to* the kids, yes, but he was talking *about* the economy as a whole. He specifically said that we don't want the old jobs back (which is hard to hear when you know a lot of people who would really, really, REALLY like to have their old jobs back -- there's a lot more pride in swinging a hammer than being on welfare).

I took it that he was saying it's much better to create new jobs which increase our quality of life than to bring back old jobs which due to the increase in our levels of technology are no longer required.
It's something I've thought about myself, it seems that whenever a large amount of jobs are no longer needed, people who worked in those jobs should now be able to work in new jobs which increase our quality of life. The problem with this is that someone is needed to create those new jobs, a fine challenge considering the crowd.

As for Dean's comment about nobody wanting to be a manual laborer, I didn't notice during the speech, but I agree that he is incorrect about that statement. I know I don't want to do manual labor, I bet Dean doesn't like manual labor, but I know plenty of people who enjoy it, and I try to not take for granted said labor which makes our quality of life possible. It is my firm belief that the diversity of people is one of our greatest strengths as a people, however one problem is people may not see that they have the opportunity to pursue what they love to do as a career or even that such an opportunity exists. I find FIRST great in it's ability to inspire people who may be people which make great engineers and mathematicians, however I don't think everyone wants to be one, nor should everyone be one.

[StuMac]

Making money with your mind is rewarding, awesome, and should be encouraged in every possible way.

But making money with your hands is (or used to, depending on the economy sadly) a way to feed you and yours, and feel just as satisfied with life.

There are a lot of jobs people don't want. I have yet to meet a 16 year old who's aspiration is to grow up flipping burgers. And yes, some jobs aren't as pretty or glorious as others. But if I have chance to work with my hands, I'll take it every chance I can get. It's not only an awesome way to learn how things actually work (I'll learn more about a motor by taking it apart and experimenting than just looking at schematics), but also a way to realize that putting in a day of hard work is satisfying, knowing that you've done a good job, weren't afraid to mix things up, and earned your pay.

FIRST does a fairly good job of that. Not everyone will grow up to be an engineer, but everyone can have a place in FIRST.

[BrendanB]

Manual labor is not a bad thing. In fact, it is critical to everyday life as we know it. Robots are good for taking over dangerous jobs so that we don't put peoples lives in danger, but we can't have robots picking up trash, fixing roads, farming food, raising cattle so we can have steak, building houses, clearing land, etc. Life just would not function without these areas in life covered. I recently wrote an essay for my college writing class on this topic and discussed how college is not for everyone and how our country is slowly taking away from the value of the "trades" and manual labor. Our country has this image that we students will play varsity sports, get good SAT or ACT scores and receive tons of scholarships, play college sports while maintaining studies, and get a high paying job. Hate to break it to most of Americans, but that just does not happen in real life! Engineering is a great field of work that shapes the future of the world, but it is not the only thing that will change the future, there are so many jobs that change how the day happens and functions.