Live data from Hacker News

The Academic Bubble

alternativeright.com

11–20 of 35 posts

Re: The Academic Bubble

#11

Did nobody notice the other articles linked at the bottom of this one? For example: "Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education" I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things. Despite what the 'log…

Indeed, it seems that whoever is running this site is willing to entertain or provide a platform for some highly toxic beliefs (i.e. racism).

Re: The Academic Bubble

#12
post #11

Did nobody notice the other articles linked at the bottom of this one? For example: "Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education" I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things. Despite what the 'log…

Indeed, it seems that whoever is running this site is willing to entertain or provide a platform for some highly toxic beliefs (i.e. racism).

Yes, to put it as inanely as possible. More importantly, they're willing to pander to certain "safe" beliefs in order to lure people in, by expressing things in a way that appeals to would-be intellectuals, using their terminology, and their commonplaces, to persuade them of not only highly toxic but fallacious conclusions.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#13
In paragraph 2 he seems to imply that the curriculum isn't broad enough, lamenting the loss of "useless" classes, but then in paragraph 4 he seems to claim it's too broad and that new classes are useless, as evidenced from his claim that no one is making money off of Statistics or Machine Learning, and his implication that someone who didn't start their own company would have been better off as a police officer.

He seems to imply that perhaps grading is not as strict as it used to be, referring to some higher education as "virtuous slacking", but doesn't provide any supporting information to make such a claim.

He calls higher education a status symbol, referencing the increasing prices, mentioning that many take out loans for higher education, briefly going out of his way to mention government. He reinforces with a claim that people go to college because others do, rather than because they've simultaneously converged on the idea that it's a good investment. He doesn't provide any evidence that higher education is actually viewed as a status symbol.

More significantly, though, the author doesn't propose or imply any solution for the system as a whole, or even one of his pain points. The article is vacuous and unfocused. What I've learned from this article: The author doesn't like the current state of higher education, and his mother had to walk uphill both ways to get to school.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#14

Did nobody notice the other articles linked at the bottom of this one? For example: "Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education" I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things. Despite what the 'log…

That article you linked to was not written by Scott Locklin, in case you haven't noticed. Does the fact that an article is hosted at a crypto-racist website invalidate its thesis? Rhetorical. By the way, weeks ago Locklin's post on nanotech was upvoted to the upper stratosphere here on HN.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#15
post #3

Oh. Another "the next bubble is in academe" post. How interesting. It even has the same graph as all others. Fascinating. Excuse my completely non-constructive comment, but am I the only one who thinks this topic has been dissected enough?

The blog chatter leading up to the housing crisis was exactly the same. The fact that people are just starting to talk about this within the last year means it will be another 5-7 years before anything happens.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#16
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it seems that whoever is running this site is willing to entertain or provide a platform for some highly toxic beliefs (i.e. racism).

Yes, to put it as inanely as possible. More importantly, they're willing to pander to certain "safe" beliefs in order to lure people in, by expressing things in a way that appeals to would-be intellectuals, using their terminology, and their commonplaces, to persuade them of not only highly toxic but fallacious conclusions.

It might be an idea to data mine submissions to HN to try to uncover if there are any special interest or extremist groups trying to gain leverage in this way by posting articles with relatively plausible titles.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#17

Did nobody notice the other articles linked at the bottom of this one? For example: "Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education" I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things. Despite what the 'log…

That article you linked to was not written by Scott Locklin, in case you haven't noticed. Does the fact that an article is hosted at a crypto-racist website invalidate its thesis? Rhetorical. By the way, weeks ago Locklin's post on nanotech was upvoted to the upper stratosphere here on HN.

That particular article may not have been written by Scott Locklin, but a quick browse of his other works on the same site validates ahoyhere's point.

Regarding the nanotech article: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/09/scott... I was wondering myself why that article got so many upvotes.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#18

Did nobody notice the other articles linked at the bottom of this one? For example: "Black Children Do Not Need a Western-style Education" I, for one, would like to see a little bit more criticism of things being posted to HN, and their sources. Because once people know the HN push-button issues, unquestioning readers can be easily lured down the path to thinking and believing very nasty things. Despite what the 'log…

That article you linked to was not written by Scott Locklin, in case you haven't noticed. Does the fact that an article is hosted at a crypto-racist website invalidate its thesis? Rhetorical. By the way, weeks ago Locklin's post on nanotech was upvoted to the upper stratosphere here on HN.

That's not "crypto" anything. You can't spell out "I'm racist" any more clearly than "But the real black is not on television, and you pull your purse closer when you see him..."

Or, by the direct author (and not the one wholly quoted), "It is clear that the few who purchased Black slaves in their day made a lamentable choice." -- and he doesn't mean that, oh, I don't know, slavery is immoral. He means it was a lamentable choice because the goods were bad apples that now will spoil the bunch.

Does this article's presence on the same site invalidate the thesis of another article? No. But does it put everything argued into question? Yes. Because there's no such thing as "the facts." You cannot ever have all the facts. The map is not the territory.

Therefore, you must the consider the motives of anyone who presents "facts" to you -- because they had to pick and choose, and could not represent all facts (map, territory), and why did they pick the ones they picked?

Dry-humping the idea of pure logic doesn't work in a non-platonic world where you can never, ever have all the facts. Context matters. Source matters. Motive, intent, and background matter -- a lot.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article you linked to was not written by Scott Locklin, in case you haven't noticed. Does the fact that an article is hosted at a crypto-racist website invalidate its thesis? Rhetorical. By the way, weeks ago Locklin's post on nanotech was upvoted to the upper stratosphere here on HN.

That particular article may not have been written by Scott Locklin, but a quick browse of his other works on the same site validates ahoyhere's point. Regarding the nanotech article: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/09/scott... I was wondering myself why that article got so many upvotes.

"That particular article may not have been written by Scott Locklin, but a quick browse of his other works on the same site validates ahoyhere's point."

Oh, really? The burden of proof lies on your shoulders. More to the point: citation needed.

Re: The Academic Bubble

#20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That particular article may not have been written by Scott Locklin, but a quick browse of his other works on the same site validates ahoyhere's point. Regarding the nanotech article: http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2010/09/scott... I was wondering myself why that article got so many upvotes.

"That particular article may not have been written by Scott Locklin, but a quick browse of his other works on the same site validates ahoyhere's point." Oh, really? The burden of proof lies on your shoulders. More to the point: citation needed .

Considering he gave you 100% of the means you required to investigate it yourself, one can only come to the conclusion that you are a troll, not interested in truth, but only in gaining attention.
Post reply on HN