Which Career for You?

It is often difficult for a young person to decide what they should be doing for a career. Occupations that exist today may be gone in a few years. But though robots may take many jobs, new ones will be created. For example, how about the need for behaviorial engineers to teach robots how to behave like humans?

Here are my suggestions of important fields that I think will boom in the near and medium term future: computer security, computer forensics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, life extension technology and bio-technology generally, and life coaching. If you want a career and have an interest in any of these fields, investigate it.

VR and AI Employment

Youth unemployment is a huge problem. Even here where the overall unemployment rate is 3.8%, the rate for under 25 is over 9%. It is running something like 13% in Australia, 15% in Russia and in excess of 35% in most of southern Europe.  Even over 50% is some areas. These are official figures. I suspect real rates are higher.

It is important for young people to develop skills that will be in demand. My suggestion: anything to do with virtual reality and artificial intelligence.  While robots may take away many jobs in the near and medium future, there will be many jobs created. For example, machine behavioral engineers who will teach robots how to behave like humans.

Another important field will be computer security. In the late 70s, during the presidential term of Jimmy Carter, America was within 7 minutes of launching a nuclear strike on the USSR.  A Soviet nuclear missile launch had been “detected” and by the time it was determined to be a detection error, the clock was seven minutes of launch deadline. The launching has to occur before the enemy destroys the missiles being launched and it appeared that the Soviet ones were only seven minutes from USA soil. In 2010, 50 Minute Man missiles suddenly became invisible to monitoring. It was not known if someone had launched them or had blocked the monitoring so that they could launch them. It was not known if the system had been hacked. The missiles are launched with a short computer code. They don’t care who sends the code nor from where; they just read the code and go. These extreme examples point out the need for white hat computer hackers who can protect vital systems.

Reprogramming My Mind

The most recent posting in this series on happiness was http://gordon-feil-theology.blogspot.ca/2017/06/discovering-my-illusion.html. More on this theme below…..

I am not my behavior, and you aren’t yours.  I am awareness.  I’m not just aware, but I am aware that I am aware.  I can observe my behavior.  What I observe is that I have thoughts, and these thoughts are filtered through my addictions to trigger emotions. These emotions impel me to action. My actions become habits, and my habits become my basic behavior. 

It is a programmed process.  As such, it can be fairly automated: I become like a robot.  My emotions seem predictable when I am operating with security, pleasure or power addictions.

If I am programmed, I can be reprogrammed. If I am to be set free from my automated emotional responses, I have to be reprogrammed.  Paul says in Romans 12:2 that I should not be conformed to how this world behaves (they suffer from the same addictions), but that I should change the way I think --- have my mind transformed through a renewal.

To reprogram, I should first be aware of what I need to change.  I need to be aware of my addictions.  How can this be done? 

Since, addictions trigger separating emotions, I need to be on the lookout for them.  Whenever I feel a separating emotion, it is a red flag. It’s a warning that somewhere there lurks an addiction.

This is not just an occasional opportunity.  It’s a continual thing. Minute by minute, I have experiences that can trigger my robotic emotional responses, and minute by minute I am given the chance to find something I need to reprogram.

Every time I feel an emotion that tells me I am rejecting the here and now of my life, I need to consider what triggered it.  What was the thought, and what is the addiction that was triggered by that thought? 

Sometimes a thought can trigger a basic need which is not an addiction, such as the need to be loved. For example, if I am feeling unloved, what are the thoughts upon which I have been dwelling?  They haven’t triggered an addiction, because needing to be loved is hard-wiring, not programming. 

At times like this, it is good to remember that we can choose our emotions by choosing our thoughts.  Just because I feel unloved, it doesn’t mean that I am.  Perhaps I am just being selective in my thoughts, and need to direct my attention to better ones --- ones that will trigger better feelings.  And if I have been selective, then why?  What addiction has led me to that bias?  Some fear of being rejected?  Some other security addiction?