The Point of a Career

I have been reading about the Women's Day protests and the "Day Without a Woman" strike. It has gotten me thinking about the idea of careers as it relates to gender. The feminist movement has fought for years for women to be able to have careers and to be treated equally in the workplace. Equal treatment is important, and valuable. It begs the question that I don't hear asked often, being: why do women, and conversely why do men, have careers?

Before I get into the gender discussion it first comes down to single people vs married people. Single people MUST have careers because if they don't they end up kind of hungry. So for single people of both genders having a job is generally a good idea.

For married people it gets a little more complex (maybe). If the total income from a single partner's job in not sufficient for the maintenance of a family then both need to work. In this case it goes back to the need to eat. For families that have the ability (which is a blessing to be sure) to rely on a single income what is the point of the second income?

Let's ignore gender for a moment. Income 1 is necessary because eating. Income 2 is not necessary. So why? Well, if there are no kids in the picture income 2 might simply be a question of "I'm bored and need something to do". If there are kids then it becomes more questionable.

Ok, to quickly recap, if you are single, married with no kids, or married with kids and requiring a second income to eat, the reason for job/career is simple. Food. If you have enough income from a single parent and the other is free to make a choice and the choice is career it begs the question why?

Now that I think about it though I'm going to bring single people back into the discussion. Why what is the point of a career (over having a family for single people) for singles and for optional career spouses? Jobs don't have inherent value. You live, you work, you die. The organization you sweated for has no inherent meaning. Relationships is where meaning is found.

So really, to kind of shortcut all that I already wrote, you work to eat. You live to have relationships. If you give up relationships (and family) to work you are wasting your life. So women (and men) shouldn't rush into the workforce for the sake of career alone. There is no meaning there. Relationships with your spouse, your kids, your friends, your G-d... those are where the value is at. That is what changes things.

So regardless of who you are. Single, married, man, woman. A career should only exist to facilitate the building of relationships. If it doesn't do that don't bother.

Wading in the Present

It is easy for me to get distracted by a hundred different things that are not here and now. Politics, dreams, E-stop algorithms for AI. It is sometimes hard to be in the moment. Today I was walking from my car to my office and I walked slowly.

I listened to the chorus of cheerful birds singing.

I looked at the pretty clouds gliding overhead in the early morning light.

I took deep breaths of the cool infant spring air.

I felt the breeze mosey past.

I experienced the moment and it was good.

There are things that we can do to ground ourselves in the present. Things to help pull our heads out of the clouds (or our asses) and enjoy the moment. I think I will share more.

Multiculturalism Revisited

Let's start with trust. When two people are interacting and they trust each other they are able to have a productive and enjoyable interaction. When there is a lack of trust though, they must move more slowly, feeling they're way carefully until they are able to build the trust necessary to engage effectively. This can take a lot of time and effort.

As we go about our days we engage with many different people. Some we know and some we don't. For the people we know we have an idea of how much we can trust them from previous interactions. That is pretty straight forward. For the people we do not know it gets complicated.

How do we evaluate interaction risk if we do not know a person? We use heuristics. Heuristics is a fancy word for pattern recognition. When we look at a new person we compare them, using all available senses, to patterns (people types) we are familiar with. The more positively familiar they are the more we trust them and the fewer guards we put up in our interaction.

Why does this matter? Well, when an area (town, city, etc.) is populated with people who are identifiable as members of a generally trusted group things move relatively smoothly. Trust is high and good things happen. Alternatively, when there is a lot of unfamiliarity, and therefore distrust, things get cold, guarded, and generally less open.

To make this all a little more practical, a major builder of trust is when you meet someone who has the same cultural values as you. If a town is filled with people who share a common set of cultural norms the collective trust will be high. This is because people know what to expect from each other. This will be strengthened because the people within that culture will generally dress and behave in predictable ways which will help others identify these predictable behaviors.

Ok, so what happens when you have a city that has a very diverse cultural landscape? Well, the more cultural groups present the harder it is for any individual to be familiar enough with them to have an attitude of trust. Therefore it makes the entire city's social interaction to be less inviting or friendly. Guards go up because of the perceived risk.

Does this seem to be the case in real life? Well, in a survey searching for the friendliest cities in the world the top three are Burlington Vermont (1), New Orleans Louisiana (2), and Jackson Wyoming (3).

Burlington Vermont has a population of 42,000 people, and is almost 90% white. Being a small, rural, and ethnically homogeneous city it is very culturally homogeneous. So for Burlingtonites it is easy to welcome anyone with open arms. They are used to being able to trust everyone around them.

New Orleans Louisiana might seem like it breaks the pattern here. It is a lot bigger at 340,000 people and racially it is 60% black, 33% white, and 7% a bunch of other races. That doesn't look homogeneous. Well, that is true. It is racially diverse. However, racial diversity is not the same as cultural diversity. New Orleans has a very distinct and unique culture that sets it apart as unique. That strong local culture encompasses all the racial elements making it a friendly place.

Jackson Wyoming is a differently located mirror of Burlington. It's population is even lower at a hair south of 10,000 people. Being 80% white and a rural ranching community solidifies the cultural consistency. Further more being so small you get to the point where friendships and family make a much smaller percentage of the population to be strangers than most other places.

Now to the unfriendliest cities, and I'll just clump them for brevity because the coincidentally share characteristics. Oakland California (28), Tijuana Mexico (29), and Newark New Jersey (30). All three have very racially diverse populations with the largest demographic group barely breaking 50%. While racial diversity does not necessarily translate into cultural diversity in these cases it does.

Without getting into it in detail here there crime rates follow a similar pattern (New Orleans being a notable exception). The demographics of the safest communities in the country point clearly to cultural homogeneity.

Without making any value judgements of any culture, good or bad, I think it is clear from the data that cultural diversity is not good for anyone. Does that mean that I don't like outsiders and we should stop all those ferners from coming over here? No, not at all. However, it does mean that we should select people to come here who already share some aspects of our culture and who are willing to adapt to and accept the culture they are moving into.