Reader V observes:

“Almost any high-tech product can be produced outside of the First World… And low-tech products can be made anywhere. “

Today, things are not about making products any longer. That’s Fordism speaking, so let’s just let it go. The 21-st century will be about Big Data, handling information, processing data flows, quantitative methods, that kind of stuff. And people who can hop on that wave and ride it will make out like bandits. Also, people who can manipulate data, make something out of it. But there are very very few of them, which is why there is such a higher ed boom in the US.

This is why Windows 8 and equivalents are coming in so heavily. Windows 8 separates those who will handle data and those who will be excluded from any form of competency in this area. The opportunities to be a completely clueless consumer of technology who can only buy but not make, change or control are growing.

The creators of Windows 8 and Co are drawing a magic circle around themselves by schooling everybody into consuming and never daring to try to join their ranks of data handlers.

As Zygmunt Bauman has pointed out, we are arriving in a highly fluid state of modernity. People who are clinging to the desire for steady employment and permanent place of living are being left behind by the new system. This system is in the process of formation right now, but already those who want high-paying careers know that a CV showing you worked in the same place for 14 years condemns you on the job market. In my profession, people who got all of their degrees at the same place are valued very poorly. It used to be that employers looked at such CVs as a sign of a person’s stability and reliability. But that’s Fordism, it’s dead.

I don’t like Juan Cole, people. He is so uneducated and unintelligent and so deeply proud of it that it’s sad. See the following, for instance:

The Associated Press article on the Ukrainian hijacker who tried to divert a plane to Sochi on Friday is interesting for the words it does not use. . . Note that this Ukrainian, presumably an Eastern Orthodox Christian, threatened to blow up an airplane full of innocents.

Why, on God’s green Earth, is a random Ukrainian drunk presumed to be “an Eastern Orthodox Christian” (whatever that even is)? Among the few religious people in the country, many are Catholic and there is a growing number of Protestants. There are also some Jews and some Muslims. However, religious people constitute a tiny minority. It makes zero sense to presume that a Ukrainian practices any religion. And anybody who knows anything about the history of our country realizes that.

It would be very nice if Mr. Cole could stop projecting his obsession with religion onto other cultures.

My 4-year-old niece Klubnikis was getting hassled by a boy called Xavier in her daycare. She likes to dress like a princess, and his unintelligent Mommy taught him to bully girls who like princesses.

I told my sister to teach Klubnikis to beat the bully. “This will get him to fall in love with her on the spot,” I said.

A while later, Klubnikis let us know that she had taken these lessons to heart.

“I’m tired of fighting with Xavier, Mommy,” she said.

“Why are you tired?” my sister asked.

“My hands and arms hurt from hitting him,” Klubnikis explained.

The other day, my sister called me and exclaimed, “Your method worked! Now Klubnikis and Xavier are best friends and are planning to get married.”

“Duh,” I said. “How do you think I always achieved success in my personal life?”