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Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

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

#211

Post by CuriouslyC »

mlevental wrote: post #204
Moodles wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hold on a sec because the discussion glossed over this. Are we all just accepting that it's normal for it to be harder for you to get a job because of your skin and gender? That's pretty outrageous and sad.

are you serious.... welcome to the world for literally every era other than hopefully 100 years from now for black people and women

The thing about reverse discrimination that makes it particularly egregious is that on some level people view it as more socially acceptable than traditional discrimination. Discrimination based on superficial characteristics is always, and equally wrong in all cases. Furthermore, reverse discrimination actually perpetuates the very rift that its proponents decry.

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

#212

Post by Agathos »

gowld wrote: post #122
realitygrill wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard didn't have an engineering department until a few years ago (might be year 5 or 6 now).

You're off by over 150 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_John_A._Paulson_School... Harvard invented one of the first computers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Mark_I What you might be misremembering is that > In February 2007, the Harvard Corporation and Overseers voted for the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences to change its name to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

realitygrill is probably thinking about the new SEAS campus that mxwsn mentioned. I think they started planning the campus around the time of that renaming.

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

#213

Post by silveroriole »

Moodles wrote: post #192
UncleMeat wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a marxist social scientist does not mean that you support a communist political system. It means that you use class as a lens to analyze your data.

Hah, it's interesting to see my comment cause some controversy on HN :-) I'm not saying social scientists are pro-Stalian or other suggested nonsense in some comments. I'm merely saying that, compared to every other subject, it is shocking to me that such a high proportion identity as Marxist as it is a relatively extreme political belief. It seems analogous to a high proportion of biologists being creationist. In fa…

Maybe the idea that a high proportion of social scientists end up describing themselves as Marxist should make you reconsider your view of Marx, rather than dismiss the social scientists as equivalent to creationists?

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

#214

Post by maxxxxx »

intended wrote: post #188

This is going to accelerate. Indians/Chinese live in a world exactly like this - where all degrees MUST be STEM or you are a useless waste/burden to society. I dont know what America is doing, but people left my country specifically because there was a better life and more vibrant educational culture in the States. But ever since no child left behind, and the collapse of jobs which support a wide form of intellectual…

Agreed. It seems pretty unhealthy long term if we have a society with only lawyers, engineers and MBAs.

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

#215

Post by AlexCoventry »

seibelj wrote: post #62
schoen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sed ubi tum id faciens illo pretio habites?

“But where then will you have those doing... something something...” In 10 years it has left me, but a few hours with Wheelock and I’m sure I’d get it back!

What is Wheelock?

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

#216

Post by mlevental »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #211
mlevental wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you serious.... welcome to the world for literally every era other than hopefully 100 years from now for black people and women

The thing about reverse discrimination that makes it particularly egregious is that on some level people view it as more socially acceptable than traditional discrimination. Discrimination based on superficial characteristics is always, and equally wrong in all cases. Furthermore, reverse discrimination actually perpetuates the very rift that its proponents decry.

>socially acceptable

what you fail to realize is that this is manifestly a contradiction: by definition if it were more socially acceptable to discriminate against "white males" then white males would be the marginalized class. that's why claims like this are farcical; of course more people are fine discriminating against black people and women!

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

#217

Post by vinceguidry »

reducesuffering wrote: post #168
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…

You might want to take a look at the tech stacks, where they've been and where they're going, of the world's most lucrative and innovative companies before you decry that Rails really did do it right instead of js.

I could care less what the big companies are doing, eventually the world will move on from them and they will no longer define the course of society, or even our little sector of it.

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

#218

Post by strainer »

klodolph wrote: post #6

It would be interesting to see the graph of degrees in these majors as a percentage of the entire population, rather than as a percentage of total degrees.

I think its essential context to the 'of degrees' graphs. By population there was a large dip from 1975-85, mostly in English degrees. A recovery and relative stability since 1990. I notice this info was included in the authors previous blog post. Its also here:

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/blog/posts/373/career-value-...

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

#219

Post by jobobgo »

silveroriole wrote: post #213
Moodles wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, it's interesting to see my comment cause some controversy on HN :-) I'm not saying social scientists are pro-Stalian or other suggested nonsense in some comments. I'm merely saying that, compared to every other subject, it is shocking to me that such a high proportion identity as Marxist as it is a relatively extreme political belief. It seems analogous to a high proportion of biologists being creationist. In fa…

Maybe the idea that a high proportion of social scientists end up describing themselves as Marxist should make you reconsider your view of Marx, rather than dismiss the social scientists as equivalent to creationists?

This is a fallacy of majority.

Most people also believed the Earth to be the center of the universe.

Marx got the labor theory of production wrong. He blames the capitalists for unjustly acquiring the "means of production" and uses that as an excuse for violently stealing and murdering those people.

He would literally insist that you must have stolen for someone because you have a successful 1-man blog earning lots of money.

His argument is that it is nit the capitalist (blog writer) that is responsible for profit.... but the ISP, computer manufacturing factory workers, etc.

And from there would support stealing what you earn because you must have exploited somebody to gain wealth.

Pure evil class hatred

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

#220

Post by analog31 »

cncrnd wrote: post #158
analog31 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

I think there are a couple things happening here. First, "everybody graduates." There has to be a path to graduation for everybody, or the parents, donors, and policy makers get quite annoyed. For this reason, there have to be "fluff" majors at every college.

Second, engineering has always had a public mission that is not shared by the humanities. Employability, and providing a minimal level of skill, are the purpose of engineering. Engineering says: "We will make you employable in spite of yourselves."

The humanities have not adopted that mission, and say: "You will make yourself employable if you take full advantage of what we offer here." You end up with a mixture of students, some are working barely hard enough to graduate, and a few are turning themselves into the next generation of thinkers.

Of course every field wants to sell itself as a gateway to employment: The world still needs "critical thinkers" and all that.

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