This is why I believe this time is different - a basic income is needed or else the populace will be like serfs with little mobility from their trade. In other words, a caste system.

Only because the teacher was built-in to the job, so to speak. I've taking up farming the last several years and have found it to be worlds more difficult than anything I've encountered in the tech industry. However, my father and grandfather have been working alongside me and are able to share their wisdom. I'm the seventh generation to work the land we own, and my family farmed elsewhere before that, so the knowledge amassed and passed down over the years is staggering.

Though the software industry has gone much the same way, in my opinion. While it may not be your father passing down the knowledge, you have all of the world's programmers at your quick and easy disposal through the very machines you are working with. That is just as powerful as what farmers have always had available, and probably why we're watching formal education devalue, if anything, especially as other industries try to copy the model. In fact, I think that may even further emphasize that all roads eventually lead to mediocracy over the long term.

My point about occupational mobility is more about as an employee. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it easier to obtain work as a farmhand than as a software engineer, in terms of credentials and experience required?

There will be a definite decrease in occupational mobility if everyone had to train for years, paying for an education or not, just to be considered entry level.

There will be a definite decrease in social mobility if this kind of training is required for even mediocre paying jobs. At least as an engineer I can work for a few years, save money, and try to break out later.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it easier to obtain work as a farmhand than as a software engineer, in terms of credentials and experience required?

You're going to have trouble finding a engineer's salary (it's possible) on the farm without tons of experience and a proven track record, but you are right that "green" employees are often hired for little pay with hopes of making them good at the job.

Farming is interesting is that it is highly constrained by time. When the crop is ready to come off, it must come off now. You cannot wait for six months to find the best employee like you often see in other fields. Most farmers would rather have the highly trained people – I think I hear about farm talent shortages more than I hear about tech talent shortages – but in the absence of talent, you have to hire somebody, else the work isn't going to get done at all.

Because of the time constraints, you're often left hiring anybody you can find and hope their lower pay makes up for the mistakes they will inevitably make. Engineering firms, on the other hand, would rather wait for someone who isn't going to make those mistakes. They tend to have that choice, farmers do not. If we had more skilled farmhands, so that farmers could actually be picky, I expect it would become far more difficult to find a job on the farm without skills though.

I see what you are saying though. I will note that educational requirements usually indicate that you have too many people competing for the same job. You'd need a PhD in agriculture to get a labouring job on the farm too if everyone wanted to be a farmer. Most people believe it is a horrible job though, so they run as far away as they can from it.