As someone who is currently still in education for their degree looking at the current (and likely future) economic and societal outlook, it seems like employment in fields that cause/perpetuate negative issues in the world (Big Tech/Military-Industrial Complex, industries contributing to climate change, predatory sales/financial firms) continue to maintain strong employment availability and salaries as time goes on.
However, fields that have a neutral or beneficial impact on society and the world (Medical care, Food service, public infrastructure, humanitarian aid work, environmental research), either don’t have enough available positions that people are able to transition into, have worsening working conditions due to poor management or limited resources, or just don’t pay a living wage to most who work there.
I’ve read about the broken window fallacy, and I understand how focusing on personal gain without considering the impacts on the wider picture doesn’t make for a better world. But can someone feel justified contributing to the “broken windows” of the world knowing that they weren’t presented functional alternative pathways, and try to contribute towards the solution in other ways?
Like already mentioned, we’re all part of the system.The re is no such things as ‘they’ are the evil we should get rid of, we’re the good guys.
More or less intensely, all of us are contributing the worst parts of that world we like to blame… while some of us do also contribute to its best parts.
they are often the same thing.
take housing for instance. people pursue ‘good’ for the community, by restricting development, in an effort to ‘preserve’ it’s current state. at the expense of future people’s ability to share in that community, but they don’t think future people’s prospects should be valued as much as their interests in the here and now.
and this is why we have a housing crisis… it was made from the ground up by well-intentioned people trying to do ‘good’ for themselves, but that negative consequences of that good are now lead to a massive escalation in housing costs that are hurting their children and their children’s children.
a lot of our big problems, are like this. climate, economy, etc. we value the present vastly more than we value the future, and our pursuit of present self-interest will come at future costs. even on an individual level… many folks pursue their day to day immediate emotional gratification, than think about how they will impact their life years down the line.
Indeed.
Like the saying goes, ‘hell is paved with good intentions’… It just so happens that in recent years we’ve drastically sped up that paving business, turning it into a speedway ;)