“A new study from the International Labor Organization takes a global tour of youth joblessness and finds that what’s gone up won’t come down in the next five years. The youth unemployment rate* among the richest countries is projected to flat-line, rather than fall, before 2018. As a result, the global Millennial generation could be uniquely scarred by the economic downturn. Research by Lisa Kahn has showed that people graduating into a recession have typically faced a lifetime of lower wages.”
How can having an education, or at least a greater ability to think more critically, make us happier? Not necessarily because it lands us better jobs or careers.
But because it allows us to make sense of our daily grind of life – turning situations of banality and self-absorbed irritation in this dense segmented urban space into opportunities to make sense of the world and to wonder about those around you. The dozens in your ATM or taxi queue, the hundreds squeezing on the bus and train, the thousands in the university. What are their probably backgrounds? Their stories? What sides of their personality or life do we not see? How did we all land up in this situation?
“Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”
What’s important to note here is that when we talk about the impact of certain phenomena or things on society, it is not enough to say that they’re inherently bad or good. But rather the question is: why is it likely to make a negative impact given the way our brains are seemingly wired (e.g. the need to stay focused on pay attention in order to store more information in our long term memory), or given how the internet today is filled with distractions (e.g. hyperlinks, browser tabs, adverts, messages, updates on social media, email alerts).
In other words, we need to closely examine both the nature of the impacted group (i.e. the biological makeup of your average human in a developed society) and the nature of the impacting agent (i.e. the internet as it has developed till today).
And also, is it really enough to just stay the internet is bad – full stop? Hardly. Notice how the video ends with a qualification to concede that the internet does have its benefits but it is just that we need to moderate our use of it and factor in more down time in our daily lives.
GOSH. Even while typing that post I got distracted by 3 news articles, 2 videos and 1 Facebook alert.
The origin of May Day is indissolubly bound up with the struggle for the shorter workday – a demand of major political significance for the working class. This struggle is manifest almost from the beginning of the factory system in the United States.
Although the demand for higher wages appears to be the most prevalent cause for the early strikes in this country, the question of shorter hours and the right to organize were always kept in the foreground when workers formulated their demands against the bosses and the government. As exploitation was becoming intensified and workers were feeling more and more the strain of inhumanly long working hours, the demand for an appreciable reduction of hours became more pronounced.
The continual fight for worker’s social, economic and political rights continues till this day in more than 80 countries around the world that celebrate International Workers Day. While what exactly constitutes the working class is not always clear – it is apparent in most nations that the employed, the subordinates, the man on the ground need a voice.
See protests videos and pictures from around the world that underscore the global nature of this ongoing fight. Whether it is a march against austerity measures, rising costs of living or stagnant wages – workers and unions continue to make known to governments and corporations that the current economic and political system continues to disproportionately disadvantage their class.
At home, the usual top-down message from PM Lee that reaffirmed the tripartite system had to compete for airtime with ground-up rally organized by Gilbert Goh of transitioning.org that protested the white paper and the government’s plans to let in more immigrants.
For anyone out there still attempting global development or poverty-related essays, do intentionally go above and beyond your notes to keep abreast of current developments.
