Two current social trends

This is unrelated to gaming. I’ve noticed two social trends I’m seeing more and more frequently.

When I mentioned something about being involved in the Oil and Gas Industry, I got an email from a computer programmer saying suggesting that the economy in the US is so bad that people are having to go back to the ‘essentials’ such as Oil and Gas. I found that amusing. The older one gets, the more one wants to get into the Oil and Gas Industry because the wages aren’t flat and are very high (average wage is $114,000 in Texas). The older you get, the less time you have. This is why you want more money in a shorter amount of time. My brother, who got hired before completing his computer science degree because it was THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION and everyone was hiring for computer skills, he wants to stop what he is doing and get into Oil and Gas but he can’t. It is too late for him.

Computer science was very much in demand in the 90s. Today, it is still an in demand skill. However, all technical skills are in demand. In terms of a trade skill, computer science is fine. However, I’m noticing more and more computer science nerds are trying to make it into a LIFESTYLE or PHILOSOPHY.

Consider this video:

“Oh my goodness! It is Gabe Newell! *squeal*” “Oh my! It is Bill Gates! *faints*” It’s not that computer coding isn’t taught in school, it is that technical skills aren’t taught in school at all. Schools exist to give unemployable women jobs, not to teach worthwhile skills.

But I’ve noticed computer science is no longer computer science. It has become a lifestyle, something I’m seeing people wear with smug superiority. What I’m also seeing is that while computer science skills are in demand, they aren’t as in demand as other technical skills. There is this ‘geek culture’ going on that I’m really getting sick of. It is the ‘I’m proud to be a geek’ and ‘geeks run the world’ and ‘yay geeks’. Bah. My instinct is saying that computer science is losing its luster in terms of demand and wage. Everyone in the world is learning it, and they are often willing to work for much less than those in the First World.

The other social trend I am seeing is tons and tons of young girls who think they are going to be authors. And they always write fantasy books! Always! I wish one of them would try writing a mystery book or something, but it is always fantasy. With E-books being flooded by these young girls and their fantasy books, each of them thinking their work is the next Harry Potter, I wonder how we got to this point.

I don’t remember young women wanting to all be fantasy book authors. Sure, there were wannabe writers out there.  But it was harder to write a book by pen and paper, by typewriter, or even with DOS computers. Now, it seems it is so easy, and so easy to publish on the Internet, they all are doing it. It makes me wonder if the two trends are related somehow.

Oh, and let us never forget: the hardcore must be destroyed!