Let me set the record striaght. Somewhere aong the way, we picked up the rotten notion that being a ditch digger is abominable and being an attorney is admirable. Here is the truth, all:

Generally speaking, timid souls opt for higher education. They have been over-protected since birth and forever feel to avoid the dynamics of human life. They earn more by avoiding best the fray, and are able to convince most of their children to live similar lives.

On the other hand, there are the poor. The losers. The kids who hate sitting at the foot of refined cowards who tow the line they are required to. These wonders choose to find the easiest way out of every bind, and this short-term success pattern leads to all of life's joys. Early addictions, overwhelming debts and the desire to go off and live life on their own undefined terms, only.

If I had a son, and if he came to me and asked whether he should become a ditch digger or an attorney, the advice I'd give him is to look to the future.

If people are sustained and benefitted by the flow of paperwork, copied forms and regulations, then by all means, become an attorney.

On the other hand, until water's replacement is found, it would be best to serve humanity by the displacement of soils that occupy the future site of a subterranean pipe.

Our world is made liveable by the grunts. Those who sweat then spend. Thinking about which Corporations to enrich each weekend has proven to be the most efficient for the greatest number, so far.

A hand shovel is of greater worth than a paper shredder.

Soon, robots will replace our wives and girlfriends. Until that day, of cource it's best to keep a dozen business cards close to the heart in any bar. But then, after you learn that she is as phony as you, does it really matter?

The undertaker cares nothing about the occupation of his next client, after the bill has been paid.

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/macro-economics/inflation-macro-economics/9-major-effects-of-inflation-explained/31091/

Excavater companies use super high tech and are some of the most profitable in the construction industry.

CAT is a Dow component, and must be more than profitable since the IRS just raided their offices. When will that finally happen to LDS Inc's headquarters?

I spend a lot of time with lawyers in conducting our businesses.

If i were a young guy considering careers, i would unquestionably be a "ditch digger" over attorney.

I used to work with a guy who was fond of saying: "The finest philosophers I ever met were ditch diggers."

Forgot to add: the wealthiest guy I know used to hoe weeds around oil well when we were both in high school.

He sold part...just *part*...of one of his companies...for 117 million bucks.

SonOfLaban Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is the truth, all:
> Generally speaking, timid souls opt for higher
> education. They have been over-protected since
> birth and forever feel to avoid the dynamics of
> human life. They earn more by avoiding best the
> fray, and are able to convince most of their
> children to live similar lives.

There is absolutely nothing "wrong" with being a "ditch-digger," or doing any other kind of work. I don't care what your job is, if you do it well and treat your fellow workers honestly and fairly, you're aces in my book.

The paragraph of yours above, however, is complete bullshit.
It's not any kind of "truth."

Each morning, before the sun rises, I walk in order to feel alive. On the walk I meet a few others who have found this delight called darkness. A few assertive mothers are out sweeping the dust and leaves from their hut-fronts. Smart commuters enjoy zero traffic and the air is cool and breezy, still.

If it's not raining, the man who plants my rice is out there bending over, as he has for decades, putting the strand into the soaked soil for hours, before he is able to watch the birds come to steal the promising young fruit of hsi toil.

He works barefoot and owns no gloves, sunglasses or vehicle. He has never complained. I cannot help but feel deep respect for him, every year.

Yet I live in a world where he will remain unknown while the most disgusting men will make headlines and know fame.

Billionaires are made by their look and sound, yet this farmer, the guy who fills my stomach each day reaps little more than his daily bread.

Is it wrong of me to distort his finances by bringing him a windfall that would only go to feed and clothe his newest baby?

Or should I keep it, and die with an extra zero in the sum total of my own worth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A6FHYTXbPY

Help him out. The extra zero doesn't matter.

I've always felt blue collar. Late in the game I went white collar - lawyer and all. Part of me wanted to show the pretentious cocksuckers I could play their game and kick their ass.

You make a lot of good points in your post. There are many timid souls. The highly educated (formal education) and wealthy often think they are more than their fellow man. I was shocked when I first started working in a law office - the attorneys treated the secretaries like they were invisible, they'd walk past the doorman without a "good morning." It was mind blowing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2017 12:27AM by thingsithink.

It was always blue collar for me, from the military to the manufacturing plants. I had social anxiety all along, and I wondered why I didn't get along with management. My bosses were always telling me to be more aggressive, but that was one of the reasons I worked in factories. I didn't have ambition. I did have intellectual curiosity, and I read hundreds and hundreds of books. I put myself through a two year college while working full time. It took me three years to finish my Associate in Arts. Then I studied writing at Sacramento State, but didn't finish a degree. I also completed night courses to be an electrician. That boosted my wages considerably.

I suppose I'm one of those ditch digger philosophers, heh heh.

I find myself purchasing college textbooks at a fraction of the cost on eBay. Yes, I understand that what they contain is changed and upgraded every year, but it makes me feel smart to reap the side notes and clever highlighting of some student who memorized then forgot what I'll learn real fresh, tomorrow.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Introduction-to-Forensic-Psychology-Issues-and-Arrigo-Bruce-A-0120643502-/302242697654?hash=item465f1191b6:g:il4AAOSwB09YO9EU

Nicola Tesla worked out the details of AC power, the technology that industrialized society, while digging ditches for Thomas Edison. He gave the patents to George Westinghouse and died penniless (tax man cleaned him out).

> Generally speaking, timid souls opt for higher
> education. They have been over-protected since
> birth and forever feel to avoid the dynamics of
> human life.

I've never heard it expressed that way, but I have to agree with ificouldhietokolob that this is just not so. getting an education is not for the faint of heart. It's very difficult to pass all the tests. "timid souls" are capable people who are unemployed or underemployed for long periods of time.

I wouldn't stereotype anyone.

Formal education was easy for me (and many others) and there are lots of reasons people are underemployed for a long time. Like you, I also disagree with the points in the quote.

Life is complicated and assumptions like these are oversimplifications based on too little information.

Well said, both of you. :)

I would never lead you astray. If I've penned something, it is almost certainly legit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKHpwASCghI

SonOfLaban Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would never lead you astray.

You wouldn't lead me anywhere...I won't let you. :)

I like digging ditches if they are my own ditches and I get to use a backhoe.

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like digging ditches if they are my own ditches
> and I get to use a backhoe.

Dave, you are digging a trench. The backhoe strikes a metallic object. You stop, and go check. There are golden plates with rings. What do you do?

a) Repent then and there
b) have the plates assayed
c) place the find on eBay
d) fast and pray
e) share the find with another
f) attempt to translate the forms inscribed on the plates
g) google many terms to see how often this happens
h) fear that others will doubt you
i) re-bury the plates, after thinking it over
j) other __________________

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozShSbKS2N0

I side with the ditchdiggers....I was one...with a friggin shovel too....before I went farming...and more shoveling. Honest manual labor is valued....but not as much as it should be

A lot of that post resonated with me, and here has been my experience.

1)College Educated then worked in finance. Hated it. I figured out how the whole system worked I saw if for what it was. A monstrous grab of real production by the "creditor" class. There's a reason why Einsten said, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it." There's a reason why usury at various times was illegal. People figured out how bad they were getting ripped off.

2)Then I became an electrician then worked my way into an engineering position through a series of events. Being part of something which produces something real and useable is much more gratifying.

Looking back at it now, college thought me how to write well. It also gave me practice juggling multiple tasks. The part which I still find idiotic is learning by forced memorization, and regurgitation on tests. Working in the trades taught me how to think methodically. Thinking in terms of causality is a big part of building which branches into all other areas.

You are right some of the best intellectuals I have had conversations with are in the trades.

It takes all talents to keep the world progressing. Why create division and encourage stereotypes? Many of us have had collars of both blue and white...

Many most? white collars take more than a fair share of the pie, because they can, because they buy the laws which allow them to do so.

I assume that they have at least a peripheral awareness of how that works, even if it causes no loss of sleep.

I work for a company full of pink and light blue collars collars doing the heavy lifting, while the white collars rake in the profits generated by the heavy lifters. Some of the largest bills I've paid are to other white collars in Washington, DC, where vast clumps of pink and light blue and deep blue profit are used to keep those colors unchanged.

It's corrupt; it's white-collar theft, because the ultimate beneficiaries of those vast clumps write our laws. Those same white collars are elected by pink and light blue collars, who until this year, couldn't tell me the name of the VP of the US, those who would treat me with disdain for not knowing either the casts or story lines of the latest, greatest night-time soap stars.

...I think of them as voluntary JongUn-ites.

I think of myself as being a ditch digger, one who often digs my own ditch. Those can be some very heavy shovels.

My own pink/light blue collar is provided by those wearing collars of the deepest red. I lose sleep over those red collars, apt to be imprisoned or gunned down in the square, should they gather and cry out at the theft of their labors.

My collar is quite heavy.

Pass the shovel.

My sons were thinking of getting into computer science out of high school and asked me what i thought...my response was...boys in this life a computer produces nothing of value...it doesnt produce anything...sooner or later someone is going to have to get dirty if our society is to survive and thrive...being a farmer with an IQ of 157 i chose the work of toil sweat grease and dirt because theres satisfaction in doing any job you enjoy...or that produces a benefit for someone..mostly i staid with the hard way cuz i was gonna show my old man it could be done the hard way too...nothing easy for me boy...now life is winding down im happy to report my net worth is four times what my phd white shirt clean hands old man died with...he sure hated to admit a guy with just high school but was class valadictorian could bust his ass and amount to something...he never did...he just couldnt say those words...$&@@ him eh Don...theres no shame in manual labor...there is shame in worshipping occupations that produce so little of benefit yet are reimbursed so well...i wont mention names...you know who you are...i always said...farming is a lot of fun when its done...while its being done...not so much...ask Ron...he knows the story...my old man hated what he did but got paid well for it...i liked the old lease riders philosophy...he said im 72 years old and never worked a day in my life...i was a bit shocked and asked him how that was...his reply...when you do what you love every day...it aint work...i liked that guys outlook

I'm certain that there were more than a few computer scientists involved in the development of modern farm equipment, without whom the levels of efficiency we now see in food production would be impossible. Computer scientists help feed people too. I'll repeat it: It takes all talents to keep the world progressing.

I agree with your point, and that's a good example.

I have 3 older brothers. The oldest is a programmer and the other two fix cars. The two occupations were completely different animals until cars were computerized. My blue-collar brothers' work has shifted in the direction of the programmer, but not vice versa.

There was some bitter fighting between the white- and blue-collar camps over the "right" way to make a living. It was needless because they more similar than they know -- they're all fucking retarded. I'm much younger and lucky to have escaped most of that nonsense.

*they're more similar

Computers enabled us to land on the moon.
Computers enable us to decode the human genome.
Computers make our cars safer, our roads safer (you do know they run the stoplights, right?).

Computers enable us to do millions of things that make our lives better and safer and more enjoyable and healthier. None of that has any value? Really?

Of course, they don't do anything on their own, we have to make them and program them...

I find the "black or white" position of many of the posters here fascinating (and more than a bit frustrating). 'Blue-collar' jobs aren't disgusting and below you if you do a 'white-collar' job. 'White-collar' jobs aren't evil and of no value if you do a 'blue-collar' job. Too many examples of a 'class divide' that I don't think actually exist, and shouldn't if it does.

Q: What do you call a smiling, courteous person at a meeting of the Utah Bar Association?
A: The caterer.

I prefer to work in the white collar world, and moon light in the blue collar world. It's how I get peace, and make a damn good living.

There were all sorts of careers in my family. Father owned a business, brother was a dentist, other brother became partner with my Dad. Sister was an executive in Chicago. Mom was a homemaker. We lived by Detroit so some nephews and niece worked as welders while the others worked "the line". One son of mine will get his MBA, My daughter works for a studio in LA and my other son works in a plant. Everyone enjoys what they do and makes a good living.

I agree and disagree SonofLabon...

I grew up very poor, the child of refugees. I was never overprotected and never had the luxury of avoiding hardships of life. My father was a truck driver all his life; my mother a maid. I became an attorney without their help because they had no resources to help.

What you're saying here are over-generalizations. I've never looked down upon ditch diggers or hard working people.

I actually agree with Mike Roe of Dirty Jobs who says there are way too many good jobs that go unfilled because society has lost an understanding of what good jobs are and many don't gain the skills to work in areas that keep the world going.

I agree with Sen Marco Rubio in this respect too. The loss of trade schools and apprenticeships and the way society has falsely communicated that anything less than a university degree is not a good choice has been disastrous to the well being of so many people. The economy and the world depend on hundreds of thousands of jobs that require labor.

I am one of those feminists whose sick of feminism because when I look out at the buildings, the skyscrapers, the roads, the electrical grids, the plumbing, the airplanes, I see the physical labor of mainly men that keeps the world going and it makes me sick how its taken for granted and devalued. (Yes, I know a few women work these jobs too, but only a tiny few.) I get sick of hearing about male privilege and sick of the lack of appreciation for the fact that none of the women I know wants to go on a construction site to build the foundation of the office buildings some of us work in, or spread dark tar on the roads, or climb the scaffolding or any of the many dangerous jobs out there. (Yes, women do other dangerous jobs like giving birth, and labor long and hard at many other jobs too. And we need to appreciate the physical labor and pain all these jobs cause both men and women.)

So, I agree that being a lawyer is not more admirable than being a ditch digger. The problem is that as anyone whose been a ditch digger knows your body eventually breaks down. My father's body broke down much earlier than it should have by driving a truck all his life (problems with his spine, circulation, etc). That's why people try to give their kids a better life when they can so their jobs don't physically disable them in mid-life.

It's not always about thinking that higher education makes you superior but most people know the body has limitations and hard labor can mean loss of employment when your body is exhausted.

So, yes, being a ditch digger is an admirable job. But its important for your own well-being to also have the means to transition to something else when you're no longer 30 years old. Some hard labor jobs are better for young muscular testosterone filled men and not so much when you're 45 and your body aches. An attorney can still be going strong at their office at 75.

The best advice I ever heard on this issue was from my friend's dad who served in WWII and became an electrical engineer and part time math teacher as well. He said it's important to have both a university education and a trade. Maybe today with the way student loans are eating up kid's futures and universities are wasting their time indoctrinating them in social justice, the university degree might only be valuable in science and technology. I don't know. But education has definitely become a mess since they stopped teaching trades and kids have been left scrambling to figure out how to obtain job skills.