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Educated Fools

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Re: Educated Fools

#141

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bumby wrote: post #61
analog31 wrote: post #13

In my view, education has begun to act like wealth, because education is a form of wealth, and the productivity divide between wealth and work is increasing. Still, I'm skeptical of the whole idea, because it just seems too convenient for Republicans to drive a wedge between the Democratic party and the working class based on a perceived social division rather than real policy: We took away your unions and safety net…

> education has begun to act like wealth, because education is a form of wealth, and the productivity divide between wealth and work is increasing You might be interested in reading “The Meritocracy Trap” which discusses how elitism, particularly in regards to education and hyper-competitive productivity, drives inequality. The idea is that this is ultimately worse for both the non-elites who can no longer compete an…

  No satisfaction
  Only quiet despair
  For those unbending heroes
  Trapped in Darwin's nightmare.
  Competition...
  -- DeGarmo & Key

Re: Educated Fools

#142

Post by AnimalMuppet »

wangii wrote: post #41
dluan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy isn't just David Cameron and Obama, when you go to vote for them, you also cast votes on local precinct leaders, local referendums, and local positions like school board and sheriff. In some places, you might even know those people personally.

correct me if I was wrong: the turn out ratio in local elections is very low, to the degree i feel meaningless.

Turnout in local elections is very low. That doesn't make you meaningless. If you vote in local elections, it makes you more meaningful, because your vote has more influence.

Re: Educated Fools

#143

Post by xvilka »

overgard wrote: post #43

I totally agree with the article, but to me the saddest part of all of this is I'm unconvinced that a college education is actually even that useful. (I say that with a four year CS degree). Most majors, to be blunt, are pretty useless in terms of real world skills. The argument is "they teach you how to think". I don't know how you would even measure that, but it doesn't seem that true, especially since colleges are…

It's not a problem solving education, otherwise it would have looked something like TRIZ[1] but with a broader application spectrum. While it certainly gives some fundamental reasoning skills it lacks more sceptical, inquisitive approach. So many subjects are still represented in a dogmatic fashion. Adding aforementioned TRIZ, more skepticism and empiricism, teaching about cognitive[2] and statistical[3] biases would produce a better impact for the whole life.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_(statistics)

Re: Educated Fools

#144

Post by epicgiga »

overgard wrote: post #43

I totally agree with the article, but to me the saddest part of all of this is I'm unconvinced that a college education is actually even that useful. (I say that with a four year CS degree). Most majors, to be blunt, are pretty useless in terms of real world skills. The argument is "they teach you how to think". I don't know how you would even measure that, but it doesn't seem that true, especially since colleges are…

I'd go further, and say that at this point, college is a self serving regime that needs to be overthrown.

I've no problem with dedicated medical schools and law schools etc, but there's something about the university system that is deeply corrupt and self absorbed.

We should break them up, have the schools be separate schools, and have separate certification centers and competition in certificates (which would plug it all back into the real world).

The fact they set their own exams is a big part of the rot. It's not different to one of us setting our own driving test.

Re: Educated Fools

#145

Post by sangnoir »

acbart wrote: post #52
overgard wrote: post #43

I totally agree with the article, but to me the saddest part of all of this is I'm unconvinced that a college education is actually even that useful. (I say that with a four year CS degree). Most majors, to be blunt, are pretty useless in terms of real world skills. The argument is "they teach you how to think". I don't know how you would even measure that, but it doesn't seem that true, especially since colleges are…

I'm a university professor in CS. I don't teach people how to problem-solve, and I have never known what other people are talking about when they claim they teach that in their courses. I teach fundamental skills, and then I put my students in front of lots of problems. In an ideal world, they transfer that experience to new problems. My most important role is providing the motivation and structure to go tackle assig…

> My most important role is providing the motivation and structure to go tackle assignments that might be similar to the ones they tackle later on in their careers.

Thank you for distilling the essence of what I feel when I hear people say college education is not necessary. I suspect those individuals are no longer college-aged and have matured. Sure, a 19 year old could self-study online instead of going to college - but what 19 year-old has the discipline and motivation to do so consistently for 3-4 years? Granted - I don't believe that college it should cost six figures, but the structure provided is very helpful.

Re: Educated Fools

#146

Post by IIAOPSW »

I'm going to break slightly with the authors opinion here and say we do solve every problem with "be more like us" but that doesn't always mean college. Other solutions involve "why don't you just move", better mass transit / fewer cars, some form of retraining (not college per se) etc. There's a whole basket of diverging "elite" values such that even if they stopped telling people to go to college tomorrow they would still be despised by the working class.

Maybe I am being one of those dastardly, snobbish, grating coastal elites. But if you don't like me and my solutions, what else is there? There is literally nothing I could suggest to help the lower class which can't be construed as "just be more like me".

Re: Educated Fools

#147

Post by amanaplanacanal »

cleandreams wrote: post #82

I grew up in the author's city in the midst of long term economic abandonment and decline. It was terrifying, to be honest. I think the spread of this across the industrialized Midwest elected Trump. I have had many arguments with fellow liberals about the globalized economy. In a nutshell, I don't believe in it, if the result is an alienated wasteland where the old working class economy used to be. We, the elite (I…

If we had not exported manufacturing to the far east, we would have automated the jobs away instead. I don't see an obvious way around this problem.

Re: Educated Fools

#148

Post by yborg »

cleandreams wrote: post #82

I grew up in the author's city in the midst of long term economic abandonment and decline. It was terrifying, to be honest. I think the spread of this across the industrialized Midwest elected Trump. I have had many arguments with fellow liberals about the globalized economy. In a nutshell, I don't believe in it, if the result is an alienated wasteland where the old working class economy used to be. We, the elite (I…

>implementing outsourcing

Exactly, this seemed completely missing from the hand-wringing about how what's wrong with the Democratic party is that it is just too elitist for the working classes now. There is in fact a lot of truth to that, but it is the economic policy, or lack thereof, of both parties has allowed capital, controlled by very few, to flow unimpeded overseas. If you want to retain a middle-class economic base, you have to take measures to incentivize capital to remain in the country.

My own employer is aggressively moving to shift all of it's technical knowledge work to India; companies like Accenture and IBM now employ more people there than in the US. There will soon be as little Knowledge Economy work in the US as there is old Industrial Economy work. Where will all of these college (or Denmark-style vocationally trained) end up working? Wal-Mart. Sell the people out twice and you will end up with some kind of revolt. You're not going to convince anybody at that point that it's the grad school gap that's killing America and that we should have a Ph.D. For All program to solve it.

Re: Educated Fools

#149

Post by jariel »

In Germany, like most places where 'University is free' - they generally have strict rules on the numbers that can attend, so those with proper Uni degrees hover around 25%. (FYI in America and Canada 'post secondary' can mean something broader).

But they have something called 'Mittelstand' or middle industry - vast numbers of mid-sized firms that employ zillions of people, in particular, the take take in apprentices as part of the education program. Millions of kids pour into these programs wherein they learn one of a myriad of highly specialised trade skills. Said skills are highly relevant to industry, and point right at employment.

There's nothing wrong with a History major, but maybe they're only good for people who really do want to do that, because the debt and cost to society of people who just want to 'tick the Uni' box is too much.

But consider the major social impact of training and employment: Dignity and a Respected Role in Society. This to me is the oft overlooked element. These people do something useful, material, gainful, often have unions (with board representation), they can pay for themselves and other people respect them as having an important role to play in society.

Obviously, this system institutionalises class to some degree. The ranks of those going on to higher ed are full of upper/upper-middle class kids, but, at least there's 'something with integrity for everyone'.

If Republicans were smart, they'd pursue this path because it's better for business, but I don't believe their leadership is forward thinking enough. The Democrats could play this angle too, however, it just doesn't have enough 'purity' and doesn't play the progressive angle hard enough.

It might be possible to start doing these things on the state level, or to elected a leader that starts to think in these terms coming from a different angle. We can only hope.

Re: Educated Fools

#150

Post by sangnoir »

cleandreams wrote: post #82

I grew up in the author's city in the midst of long term economic abandonment and decline. It was terrifying, to be honest. I think the spread of this across the industrialized Midwest elected Trump. I have had many arguments with fellow liberals about the globalized economy. In a nutshell, I don't believe in it, if the result is an alienated wasteland where the old working class economy used to be. We, the elite (I…

> Cheap consumer goods from China are not worth this price.

How about the multitude of America products/software/services that are exported around the globe? Globalization is not a one-way street: a good chunk of the American economic growth is due to exports ("How's your 401k doing?")

> The result may well be the destruction of our democracy.

Who could have predicted unfettered/crony capitalism could work against democracy; after all, profits, political power and human dignity are completely unrelated to each other, right?

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