From: iltis@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Michael Iltis)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: creating new types of jobs
Date: 29 Jul 92 02:32:20 GMT
Reply-To: iltis@math.wisc.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin Dept. of Mathematics



     In view of the difficulty of landing academic jobs, may I ask if anyone 
in all this sci.research.careers discussion 
has touched on the reasons other than economic, for creating new types of 
jobs, or for maintaining old ones, tools needed or useful for envisioning jobs, 
alternatives to the existing society/ job market? For example if 
society doesn't have the best interests of individuals at heart, perhaps 
we should ask what their best interests are, who is needy and could 
need us, or what this world is in need of. We could aim for some sort of 
general philosophical framework of discussion
counterbalanced with practical considerations. For the later, we might 
consider paying some small dues of money or time (similar to taxes?)
to allow for the creation of various specialized jobs, whether research 
oriented or administrative.  (I will place various ideas here. 
Consider them individually.)

   It seems to me we ought to ask what kind of a world do we have, how do 
we know, how can we communicate the hidden reality more effectively ( e.g.
software tools/interfaces vs. personal contact) what kind of world might we 
have in the future, or do we think we want, and how to get there if desirable, 
how to avoid if undesirable, e.g. what sort of data/literature/models 
do we have for global environmental problems/social and human rights 
problems and alternatives and how does our local human condition as 
individuals couple to our global condition.  We might weave analytic 
approaches together with human approaches 
to these questions. There is no shortage of global difficulties.

   I will mention deforestation, erosion, desertification, overpopulation,
ozone depletion, global warming, AIDS, over-reliance on antibiotics/pesticides 
etc. witness the new resistant strains of Malaria and Tuberculosis, 
United States continued and wholesale involvement in 
human rights violations as described in Noam Chomsky + E. Hermann's 
books such as the Political Economy of Human Rights vol. 1 and 2 or the
critique of the media handling of such information in the Manufacturing of 
Consent. Reliance on weapons sales and defense spending to furnish jobs is a 
poor excuse for ignoring the plight of our inner cities, our prisons, our 
educational systems, the mass destruction of bio-diversity and diversity of 
ways of human life e.g. the threat big agribusiness poses to the small farmer. 
A United Nations study some years ago gave a figure of 40,000 square miles of 
tropical rain forest disappearing each year. Tropical regions typically have a 
hundred or more times the number of species per unit area as the middle 
lattitudes, and many of those are rare endemics found in one five by five 
square mile radius and nowhere else. I've heard that populations of many 
songbirds are declining at exponential rates (3 or 4 % a year) and that the 
habitats and hence numbers of monarch butterflies that I knew from my childhood 
are disappearing. Can the network offer a few more on-line databases and
models?

    On the analytic side I would consider among other things, a 
systems science/ complex systems approach, a sort of pattern recognition 
of the problems /unknowns , modelling of ecological interrelationships
and pattern generation of alternative strategies
perhaps using information theoretic tools to maintain and inventory a kind
of germ-plasm bank of alternative job creation or other strategies.
Georege Klir desrcribes an expert (software) system framework GSPS for general 
systems problem solving.  Some intelligent user interfaces for viewing models
might be handy. 

   The "copyleft" idea and spirit of the Free Software 
Foundation and their GNU software has produced some successful alternatives
to conventional jobs and software. 

    On the human side, perhaps we should consider granting individuals more 
economic/educational autonomy and freedom in pursuing their heart's dreams. 
A sense of existing research in alternative education, of past and 
present experiments, e.g. " free schools " a la A.S. Neil or 
free-structured universities, writings of Miekeljohn, Dewey and others, 
cross-cultural differences in education, might be warranted.  In this 
impersonal world it is doubtful that society takes individuals' personal 
background, interests, abilities, needs or values into account when selecting 
from amongst faceless job applicants. The jobs offered most often require a
PHD in that field. Who looks at whether the individual has a keen interest,
a substantial amount of training in a related field.  Is training offered?
Supposing upon finishing my PHD dissertation I desire to pursue 
graduate studies in a related field. Must I receive the indentured 
servant's salary of a grad student? What about the reward structure of 
academia that pays with money but not fulfillment. The unanswered questions 
outnumber the answered. But isn't it partly the role of science to ask 
difficult questions? 

    Heinz Pagels stresses how the study of complex patterns 
made possible by the computer, reveals unexpected connections and 
overlapping components between many disciplines ( Pagels, Heinz. 1988. The 
Dreams of Reason : The Computer and the Rise of the Sciences of Complexity. 
New York: Simon and Schuster). Citing Pagels, the program for university 
reform proposed by World Bank economist Herman E. Daly and theologian 
John B. Cobb, Jr. on page 358 of their book 'For The Common Good'
suggests that the university should establish  1) a department, or some 
other structure for ongoing study of itself, 2) a department of "cosmology" 
with the idea of building up a unified picture of what the world is like, 
drawing on information generated in all the disciplines in the university. 
3) A department for the study of the social and global crisis.

  Someone who struggles to earn a PHD in the sciences while trying to keep a 
passion and talent for music, art or other creative endeavor alive, might 
have greater difficulty conforming to the schedule which institutions impose 
than someone with one fixed focus. If the instituion provides some guidance or 
nurturing where the dissertation is concerned, what about the rest of 
life, the nurturing of the artist, of the soul, the whole, the freedom to 
follow one's heart?  I'm not saying such freedom is always genuine :
the wealthy are allowed to do most anything they please but are not assured
fulfilling lives.  On the other hand perhaps society is better served if the 
institution bends more for individuals instead of the other way around. 
Thoreau once said 
"if a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he 
hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however 
measured or far away." Do our institutions make room for this? Do they 
support our inaliable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?
If those words of the founding fathers of the USA spark of excess idealism, 
what then are the implicit axioms of faith we subscribe to?  
Are they genuine, are they necessary?

   In my estimation, if this group does not serve as a direct forum for job 
searchers in other fields such as the arts or literature,
it should at least address these on a secondary basis, since frequently an
indirect approach to a problem proves more fruitful : standing back and 
asking the larger questions may shed light on our immediate and at times too
narrow preoccupations. We could look for connections in common with other
creative endeavors. 

It has sometimes been argued that it is either jobs or spotted owls. In 
fact clear-cutting ancient forests in the pacific northwest injures
the salmon industry. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves what kind of jobs 
are desirable, not just for ourselves but for our fellow humans, as well as
our wildlife neighbors.

       
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers