There was a time when I'd have said cop, and then farmer, and now I don't know. Doctor maybe. Definitely not poet ("Fine word butter no parsnips"). Machines plant, fertilize, water and harvest our food, without which we die, so maybe it's "engineer," you know, the guy that designs and builds combines.
Yes, I really think you do know. I do not know why you asked. To get back to Here We Go Again's question, I started thinking of a few of the great success stories of today, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ross Perot, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump (he's President and he rich) and I think Warren Buffett, and they all came from solid, loving families with strong work ethics. Elon Musk, however left his violent, alcoholic father and set out alone from Johannesburg, I think it was, with nothing but a suitcase full of books. Most of our presidents have come from loving families. Bill Clinton had a difficult childhood, as I recall. I'm asking in this thread about jobs that are really critical to the larger society. Obviously every job is important to the person's own sense of self worth and his ability to pay for his children's food and shelter. We can survive as a society without advertising execs. We cannot survive without farmers, engineers, and mechanics. Also researchers at places like the Center for Disease Control are important. What do you call them? Microbiologists?
I think some are more important than others. Medical researchers are more important to society than valets, lawyers, advertising executives, and bartenders.
True. Making payroll is often a struggle for everyday, mundane businesses, and a paycheck will never be issued for a job that is not important.
Nature vs nurture. A lot of kids turn out fine in spite of their parents. And plenty of people who do horrible things had good parents. Not to discount the jobs of parents, the kids might do fine either way. But if the garbage never gets collected. you and your kids would be living in garbage. If the sewer systems didn't work, you would be living in poop. If bodies never got buried, the smell would be intolerable.
My old man cared more about booze than he did about his kids and my sis and I turned out ok. I started working at 13 to help support my need to eat and the family. I started out with nothing and after forty years I worked my way up to a comfortable level of poverty.
Your misperception, your problem. Yeah, well seeing I didn't ask you, I don't guess that matters. So does he qualify as a "great person" in your view? How about parents? Can we survive as a society without them? Not responsive. I underlined "great people" for a reason. Were that the case, it would mean I was a lousy parent, obviously... ...but they might do fine anyway.
When your car breaks down..the Mechanic is most important. When sick its the Doctor or Nurse. When accused of a crime or wronged/injured it may be a Lawyer....who is "Most Important" is situational.
The thing is, doctors can learn to collect trash and replace timing belts. Can mechanics and garbage men learn to diagnose illness and prescribe meds?
Yes, and we cannot thank lawyers, poets or advertising executives to grow the wheat or make the bread. We knead farmers and bakers. (Get it?)
Sanitation work s more indispensable than several other jobs we have mentioned. Funny that prehistoric men had no sanitation workers, at least none specializing in that, and left the Earth as they found it. They could not have survived without specialized hunters and gatherers. So I'm back to food production.
To a limited extent anyone can with a reference book, surgery would be another matter. But that wasn't the question. You asked for the most important occupation. Far more people can survive without medicine, than could without garbage control, sewer control, and the management of dead bodies. One of the rare instances where Hoosier8 and I agree, sanitation problems create plagues, rat infestations, and the rampant spread of diseases like cholera. The need for doctors comes next and there was often little they could do.
