Requiem of Unemployment

13 Years ago I went into the Navy Nuclear Power program. Not really because it was a job I wanted, but because it was a job I wanted to have had. It was a career decision, and one I'm still glad I made. Being able to say I operated nuclear reactors on submarines was something I wanted to have on my resume, but also it was a place I could aways go up from. It wasn't something I fully understood when I made the decision, but I knew college degrees where getting more expensive and much cheaper. The right answer for my generation always was the college degree. Without a college degree you can not expect anything more then a service job. Student loan programs allowed anyone who could do the homework and memorize short-term text book data to get the punch cards of success. It wasn't exactly a thought out decision at the time, but at 18 it was a chance to bring in an income instead of debt. To get an interesting resume item, to experience something interesting, and learn the appreciation of freedom you just can know until you've spent a 7 1/2 month deployment on a submarine. I always had libertarianism leanings, so maybe it was a very sadistic choice. A fan of all the standard libertarian literature (Huxley, Orwell, Chomsky) and had a pretty clear understanding of NWO Empire I was working for. It was communism, the police state, military disciple, all the worst of totalitarianism with 100 men living in 300 feet of submarine (the vast majority of which is engine room and nuclear compartment) 800+ feet under-the-water for months at a time. Of course I hated it, most do. I didn't really completely understand how much I would hate it, but I figured I could handle it, and after that everything is roses. I signed up for 6 years, 2191 days, and I started counting it down from the very day I started. A 2 year crash course in nuclear engineering and 4 years work experience on a boat it was an intelligent career move. I got to do very interesting (though actually incredibly boring) work and have marketable skills without working up a big debt (though I later worked up a huge debt anyway with an abandoned attempt for an MBA from University of Phoenix Online [I now know that it would have been worthless for more then a few reasons]). I knew the Navy would be the embodiment of the worst of Huxley and Orwell's dreams, I grew up knowing Star Wars by heart. The Empire are the bad guys. Yeah, there are plenty of reasons we are better, but life on a submarine is about as close as anyone can get to the Star Wars Empire, or as the totalitarians would think the United Federation of Planets.



Somehow I knew quitting my job when everyone else knew the opposite was also the right thing to do. It wasn't an easy decision, and it proved to be a difficult question in interviews. It was also a difficult question with family. Everyone knew college was the right choice, everyone knew a secure job was the right choice, but for some reason I tend to value the experience over the common knowledge. If you know something without thinking, common knowledge, then someone's not thinking. So I have a tendency to explore it, for the value of the experience, or least in hindsight it seems so. I was very successful in the Navy. In those six years I made it to First Class (E-6), but I'd be damned if I ever got scored highly on military bearing. In that world sometimes the correct balance of rebellion and submission was just wearing white socks and being really good at your job anyway. I did what I needed to make it though and by the end I was happy with the experience. I got to see the world (our Universe), learn that most of the military (our Storm Troopers/Federation) are pretty good guys after all, and learn a valuable skill set.

This time I learned what is like to be unemployed during the greatest economic depression. Economic Darwinism is the greatest sin of Capitalism. Those who can't afford to live, don't. Those who aren't productive enough for capital masters are nubs (non-useful bodies) and don't deserve the air they breath until they've earned their way. It's a nice system, unless you're a nub. Slavery seems nice, if you're the master. However, in hindsight we now know it's not even a very efficient method of labor organization. Today we're all a number. Our degrees of freedom are measured in dollars earned and those without get no freedom at all. But much like how the military can denounce totalitarian communism while practicing it, we praise our freedoms while denying economic freedom to anyone who a capital master will not employ. Most of these liberty intrusions seem simple enough, why not give up a little Liberty for economic security? Because it's not a very efficient system. Authoritarian models always amplify the errors of the leaders, distributed-chaotic models have inherent error correction.

I knew there was some reason I had to make the choices I made, but I can't always explain why at the time. Sometimes it is only through hindsight that I can see why the experience is worth the trial. I trust to my intuition, if it seems wrong at any point, it is because it was a lesson I needed. I survived the trials of unemployment and came out the other side better for the experience. What short-term losses in monetary freedom I incurred, was a fair trade off for the increased potential I now have with a new start in a smaller company. Corporate loyalties are often sold cheaply. We've all became little more then prostitutes, selling body and soul to highest bidder. Character being of little consequence. I know that is something that must change, but change comes from grass-roots personal choices. When America is most terrified of the economic terrorists, is the time to learn not to fear, the time to take risks. Now I have an opportunity to be an economic player again. I've fixed and operated nuclear reactors, I've fixed and installed state of the art medical equipment in every state (ok, not Hawaii), I was at the Foxconn suicide factory to provide technical support for the initial iPhone manufacturing, and now I'm going to be this region's only expert on the Cadillac of Laser Dicers. I'm not deployed for months at a time, I'm not traveling all over the country. I have an opportunity to really make a name for myself in a small company with a domination on a narrow aspect in semiconductor manufacture, and the experience to know why I make the decisions I do.