Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities • Hacker News Board

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#151

Post by jhbadger » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

thesagan wrote: post #143

jhbadger wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not the same as Stalin, but he certainly caused him. Marx was basically the founder of a secular religion and like the theistic kind, religions attract scoundrels because they see it as a way to power. Stalin himself studied to be a priest before he changed religions.

Marx wasn't the first, and he wasn't the last to argue for a community/worker owned and operated economic system. He's just the best known. He might have co-written written a manifesto, but had he not another would very likely have. It was a long time coming. But that's really besides my point. Importantly, Marx did not advocate for a totalitarian political regime. That's a big deal, because that's a defining element…

But what would Stalin be without Marx? A minor unpleasant priest in a small Georgian town? Yes, Marx wasn't the first or last promoter of socialism. And yet the followers of, for example, Charles Fourier, didn't create totalitarian systems.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#152

Post by throwawaymath » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:11 AM UTC

scythe wrote: post #109

InTheArena wrote: post #90

I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know that this is very much not in vogue with the latest group-think in college, but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. Not because you may need to do a differential or integral, but rather because it teaches you to think differen…

>I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. I agree that mathematics is underappreciated by most people who work in the humanities. But I strongly disagree that they should learn calculus. In fact, I would argue that calculus is the problem with the perception of math in the social sciences. There are plenty of types of math that could potentially be applied in sociology and its variants, p…

Statistics needs no introduction. Calculus by contrast deals with continuous changes in well-defined quantities, which are not like anything a sociologist encounters.

Calculus comprises the foundation of statistics. Without calculus you can learn to apply statistical experiments, but you can’t really understand what’s going on. That makes for brittle insight. Just because the set of all humans is strictly finite doesn’t mean the underlying continuity in statistical theory ceases to exist.

A two semester sequence of single and multivariable calculus is really not a lot to ask in return for delivering a robust understanding of statistics. It’s not like demanding knowledge of analysis, topology, and measure theory before learning rigorous probability theory.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#153

Post by kcmp » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:39 AM UTC

panic wrote: post #66

Given the current cost of rent/food/health care/raising children (especially in the US), I can understand making life decisions purely around money, but it also makes me sad. Wouldn't it be better if people could do what they feel is useful instead of fitting themselves into often-pointless jobs just because they're well-paying? Even if you think humanities research is useless, does the world really need more lawyers…

It's true though. I just got a job at a FANG company right out of college and if I wanted my own 1 bedroom apartment it would look like a repurposed motel from the 50s.

I make over six figures but can't help but feel guilty when I have to tell my parents, who are below poverty line, that I can't afford my own apartment.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#154

Post by hodgesrm » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:42 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #131

InTheArena wrote: post #90

I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know that this is very much not in vogue with the latest group-think in college, but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. Not because you may need to do a differential or integral, but rather because it teaches you to think differen…

> I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know that this is very much not in vogue with the latest group-think in college, but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus That can work. I believe that because you've just described MIT and Caltech. MIT requires everyone to take at…

In addition to the study requirements you mention the MIT Hayden Library is one of the best 'small' humanities libraries I have ever visited. I did a lot of homework there for a summer class in technical Japanese in 1990.

You can take study breaks by wandering around the stacks, which not large but amazingly well selected. Virtually every book you put your finger on is something worth reading. The Hayden Library opened up a whole world of biblical studies through the works of Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, which were sitting in the shelves a few feet away from my table. It's colored my impression of MIT ever since.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#155

Post by nradov » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:46 AM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #144

This is a matter of "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." In the long run, STEM is going to become increasingly niche, STEM is the industry that eats its young. Not too long ago, it was possible to make a lucrative career out of non-coding front-end, meaning a design focus with no javascript. Those days ended a few years ago. You can't expect your job to remain stable if you go into a…

Why would an employer pay you to contribute to Rails when so many others are willing to do it for free? In the end it's just another framework; it works well enough but not really superior to the numerous alternatives.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#156

Post by c3534l » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:52 AM UTC

Maybe the humanities need to change and that's the problem, but looking at those graphs in the article it seems that the answer is "it's the economy, stupid." When I was in High School we were all told that it didn't matter what you majored in so long as you got into a good college. Maybe kids now just have a little reality built into them, that jobs don't come free with a college education, that it's possible to take on more student debt than you can afford with your job opportunities. And maybe what's happening is just that fewer kids are getting duped into digging themselves into debt expecting they'll have a career at the end of it because they followed their passion like everyone told them was how you get successful.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#157

Post by Latteland » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:53 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #93

groby_b wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you even have a degree: People like you. People who parrot the same sound bites you do. That's what is making our universities hostile.

You know this isn’t a rational argument at all right? You’re literally defending a baseless assertion with “no, you!”.

You do come across as having a negative attitude toward women and minorities because you are saying they only got in because someone let them in, they are expected to be lesser.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#158

Post by cncrnd » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 4:57 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #140

cncrnd wrote: post #120

Honestly, the majority of humanities students I've interacted with have been uninspired and unmotivated. I took a good deal of humanities classes and more often than not comments were uninformed and presentations poor quality. And what do you expect? These students come in at 18 years old, straight out of high school. You put them in college and they want to do the least work possible. And since it's all papers, ther…

I taught an engineering course for one semester at a Big Ten university with a prestigious engineering school, many years ago. And I also work with young engineers who have recently graduated from college. I'm not sure that all of my students and / or colleagues cared very much about the actual subject matter that they were studying, e.g., the math and theory. There was a conventional wisdom shared amongst students,…

I agree that most engineering students don't care much either, but they generally have to put more work in and leave with some practical skills as well as a nice signing bonus + job at the end of the program. Humanities majors can just end up lost, no better off than after high school, and spending their 20s 'exploring.'

Take this with a grain of salt, I recently graduated so these are just my thoughts. Maybe in 10 years when I'm 30 I will say it's better to spend your 20s exploring. But probably not :)

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#159

Post by nradov » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 5:22 AM UTC

notafraudster wrote: post #19

coldtea wrote: post #10

> Back in 2013, I wrote a few blog post arguing that the media was hyperventilating about a "crisis" in the humanities, when, in fact, the long term trends were not especially alarming. I made two claims them: 1. The biggest drop in humanities degrees relative to other degrees in the last 50 years happened between 1970 and 1985, and were steady from 1985 to 2011; as a proportion of the population, humanities majors e…

Is this a point you'd like to elaborate on? Without accusing you of anything, when I read a one sentence dismissal of humanities/social sciences, what I tend to think is that this is someone who thinks "post-modernism is bullshit", "third wave feminism is bad", "intersectionality isn't real", "everything is cultural marxism", "safe spaces", etc. and who is appealing to Jordan Peterson as an expert on everything. If w…

OK I'll bite. In what sense is post-modernism not bullshit? What has it ever done to actually increase practical human knowledge, improve standards of living, or create a better society?

Humanities and social sciences in general have created a lot of value, but post-modernism appears to be uniquely worthless due to never actually making any progress. Just a lot of empty pontificating and spinning in circles.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#160

Post by AmericanChopper » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 5:27 AM UTC

Latteland wrote: post #157

AmericanChopper wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know this isn’t a rational argument at all right? You’re literally defending a baseless assertion with “no, you!”.

You do come across as having a negative attitude toward women and minorities because you are saying they only got in because someone let them in, they are expected to be lesser.

I’m not saying that at all. But that is exactly the message affirmative action sends to applicants. In general they are both sexist and racist, even to those they supposedly benefit.

What I said was that even with systemic advantages put in place encouraging women and minorities (excluding Asians of course, because for some reason they don’t count) to join stem courses, they still show a statistically significant preference to do other majors.

If you think I have a negative attitude towards any group, it’s not because of anything I’ve said. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s probably just the reaction you have to people when you can’t engage in rational discussion on this topic.