A Good Career Advice!
Catch the change…
Jared Diamond’s book “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies” is a beautiful work that is recognized and widely read worldwide. The book discusses the formation process of differences between civilizations within the framework of climate, geography, culture, etc., with an interdisciplinary approach.
Another work that I love very much by Jared Diamond in his book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” explains the reasons for the collapse of some civilizations. This book deals with the high costs humankind had to pay due to the victories won over nature. One of the examples in the book is about the story of agriculture in Australia.
A few years ago, on a university career panel I was invited to, a good question came from the students, “What skills should we focus on for a good career in the future?” This was a critical question reflecting the anxiety of young people at the uncertainty of the future. And I started my explanations by telling this unique story from “Collapse” of Jared Diamond.
The story, as I remembered it, was like this;
# European settlers who first came to Australia thought that the climate and vegetation they encountered was the normal state of the region, and the conditions would always continue like this. They had a long-standing awareness of what to do in these lands of green plains as far as the eye could see, full of abundant water resources.
# With an approach that has been tried and succeeded in similar conditions before, they have opened fields and farms in this new geography, acting within the framework of their knowledge and skills inherited by their fathers/ancestors. They sowed, reaped, and produced abundant crops. Everything was normal until the reality of being unable to adapt to the increasingly arid climate hit their faces. But after a while, they realized that for about 20 years, the overall climate in Australia was much drier than they thought.
# These hundreds of abandoned farms, still in the vast and arid land today, stay alone as reminders of an important lesson. This event, Martin Ford, in his bestseller “The Rise Of The Robots: Technology And The Threat Of Mass Unemployment” cites this story as one of the hundreds of examples he listed to show how the idea that “some things always work that way and will work like that from now on” is being turned upside down by technology.
In my speech at the university, after telling this story, I added the following;
“Here, we will see together how any suggestions regarding technical skills will expire in a short time. The best advice I can make for you is to acquire and develop skills that will support the ability to keep up with the changes in all areas of life and change our thinking and approach to events.”
