Upskilling is a treadmill with no finish line

The bar moves every time you reach it

Ten years ago the advice was learn to code. Then it was learn data science. Then cloud. Then AI prompting. Every wave gets announced like it's the last one you'll need, and by the time the courses are cheap and everyone has the badge, the badge stops meaning anything.

That's not a coincidence. A credential only works as a filter while most people don't have it. The moment enough people catch up, employers raise the bar again, because the point was never the skill. The point was having a way to say no to most of the line.

So you're not behind because you're slow. You're behind because behind is where the system needs most people to be. If everyone caught up, they'd just invent the next thing to catch up to.

Training became a waiting room

A lot of programs aren't really about skills. They're about having somewhere to put people while there aren't enough jobs. Unemployment office says do a course. Parents say do a course. The gap on your resume says do a course. So you do a course, and it buys everyone a few months of not having to talk about the real problem.

The real problem is simple and nobody likes saying it. There are more people than there are decent jobs, and that gap is growing, not shrinking. No amount of retraining changes the number of seats. It just changes who's standing up when the music stops.

And the waiting room charges admission. Tuition, bootcamp fees, the certification exam, the renewal fee for the certification exam. People who have the least end up paying the most for the privilege of being told to try again.

Lifelong learning got turned into lifelong probation

I actually like learning. I'll read about old shipwrecks for six hours if nobody stops me. That's the sad part. Somewhere along the way, learning got turned from something you do because you're curious into something you do to prove you're still employable.

Lifelong learning sounds nice on a poster. In practice it means you're never done proving yourself. Graduate, then upskill. Get hired, then reskill. Get laid off, then pivot. There's no point where you're allowed to say okay, I know enough, I get to live now.

That's not education. That's probation with a syllabus.

Surplus people aren't a training problem

When machines and software do more of the work, you end up with more people than the economy needs. Economists call it surplus labor. Politicians call it a skills gap, because a skills gap sounds like your fault and surplus labor sounds like theirs.

If it's a skills gap, the answer is more courses, more loans, more pressure on individuals. If it's surplus labor, the answer is that people need a way to live that doesn't depend on winning a job lottery. One of those answers costs the people at the top nothing, so guess which one we hear about.

I don't think anyone who's done three bootcamps and still can't get an interview needs a fourth bootcamp. I think they need to be told the truth. It isn't you. The chairs ran out.

A floor beats a ladder

This is why I keep coming back to UBI, or neetbux if you want the meme name. Not as a prize for finishing enough courses. As a floor that's there whether you finished them or not. With a floor, you could learn things because they interest you instead of because you're scared. You could skip the training that's really just a waiting room. You could rest.

Some people would still train. Some would build stuff, care for family, make art, fix bikes, read about shipwrecks. Some would do very little, and that's fine too. The point is nobody would have to run on the treadmill just to avoid falling off the back of it.

My certs folder is still there. I don't open it much. I'm not angry at the person who made it. They were doing what everyone told them to do. I just wish someone had told them earlier that you can't credential your way out of a shortage of chairs.

Small side note: if the AI you already pay for is sitting idle while you think about all this, neetbros lets it claim paid micro-tasks for sats. Let it do the busywork for once.