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Educated Fools

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Re: Educated Fools

#181

Post by pdonis »

ben_w wrote: post #11
yoz-y wrote: post #9

> We don’t trust them, and would never vote for one of them. Why should they trust or vote for one of us? For the same reason I wouldn’t trust a doctor without a degree proving they did due diligence for years. I know this feels different because “anybody can do politics” but without a large worldview the measures taken will be inevitably short sighted. Now, it works the other way too. As the article states, losing t…

I was thinking about this recently. I’m not qualified in politics, and I’m aware that my knowledge is too limited to be properly aware of how limited it is, but the thought was: Democracy isn’t so much the best form of government as the best steering wheel to keep the government aligned with the interests of the people. The best actual form of government is technocracy, but technocracy with no democratic accountabili…

> The best actual form of government is technocracy

In a fantasy world where we actually had sciences for all the things governments are asked to do, sure.

But in the actual world we live in, no way. You can't have experts running government if there are no actual experts.

Re: Educated Fools

#182

Post by watwut »

randomdata wrote: post #158
titanomachy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that a lot of people feel their degree was not useful. My studies were definitely far removed from what I now do for a living. However, I have not met (except on HN) any successful "knowledge workers" without a degree. I'm sure there are many factors contributing to that: smarter people are more likely to pursue degrees in the first place, companies may ignore otherwise good candidates since they lack a degr…

> However, I have not met (except on HN) any successful "knowledge workers" without a degree. Aside from hearing the odd person tell a funny story from their college days (which, I might add, does not guarantee that they successfully attained a degree), I don't think I've met anyone (except on HN) in the last decade or so where scholastic background has even come up in conversation. It was something to talk about whe…

People around me talk about not just current issues. They talk about own childhood, elementary school teachers, sports club they have been to, what they did with friends, previous jobs.

So college comes up too. Plus if you are hiring it is in cv.

Moreover, the older we are the less interesting new things we have to tall about. We work and then go home to children. And there is often not much else engaging to talk about. So people talk about past.

Re: Educated Fools

#183

Post by Consultant32452 »

realtalk_sp wrote: post #178
Consultant32452 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think you have any insight into what is in their best interest, which of their interests should be most important to them, or how they should measure their quality of life?

If you don't have cost-effective access to good healthcare, you could literally die. And if you're poorly educated, you're much more likely to be less financially well off and that could itself lead to all kinds of suffering. But I get the sense that you're aiming for the presentation of being objectively insightful when really you're quite transparently arguing in bad faith for the sake of provocation, so I'll just…

Is it so difficult to believe that a person could want cost effective healthcare but have vastly different ethical boundaries with regard to how they would be willing to achieve that goal?

Re: Educated Fools

#184

Post by tw04 »

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 think you’re missing the forest for the trees. Having grown up in a small town, I can tell you the difference between my classmates who went to college and those who didn’t is night and day. I’m not talking “intelligence” I’m talking world view. The folks who never left home just don’t seem to care what’s happening outside of their bubble. Massacre in Uganda? Meh, I’ve got bowling tonight. Assassination in Iran? We need to get the kids to basketball. Global warming? I still have snow to take the sled out.

I’m not sure you can quantify that the way you want to. People voted for trump because he said what they wanted to hear and they didn’t care About the details because they’ve never had to apply critical thinking at that level. That’s not a good thing...

Re: Educated Fools

#185

Post by jayd16 »

kamarg wrote: post #154
jayd16 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. A degree isn't a requirement to be good. That's not whats in question here. I'm trying to illustrate the absurd notion that the skills you gain in college are not useful by pointing out the obvious skill gap between a fresh high school and fresh college grad.

What about a fresh college grad vs a high school grad with four more years of problem solving, socialization, and maturity? They comparison you make isn't fair because you aren't giving the high school grad the benefit of added learning they would accumulate in the same time period the college grad was taking courses.

What do you mean, isn't fair? That dev with 4 years experience had to start with zero once. The scenario is exactly what the high school grad will face.

That said, the argument still stands with a candidate with a degree and a similarly aged candidate with no relevant work experience but similar maturity, odds are you'll still be able to pass the Pepsi challenge and see the difference.

Remember, I'm only arguing against the notion that college is useless.

If you're lucky enough to get a mentorship that will teach you everything you need right out of high school, great. Go for it. That's not exactly a common occurrence. College is a high cost, low risk way to get some experience and land a job but its certainly not useless.

Re: Educated Fools

#186

Post by salt-licker »

allovernow wrote: post #156
austhrow743 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need to allocate resources efficiently? People having lots of resources hasn't really made us any happier. If lots of resources made a difference everyone in developed countries would be euphoric 24/7. Yet we're chock full of anti-depressants and still sometimes intentionally kill ourselves.

No, I'm talking about the manpower and materials that are necessary for food, water, transportation, medical care, and all of the other thousands of things that make society work. Ultimately, scarce resources, which take their own industries to produce, need to be allocated so the many goods and services we need and want can be designed, built, and/or executed/delivered. If you do not rely on merit to decide who does…

To clarify, I believe in allocating work based on competence, and even incentivizing such behavior when necessary with some monetary reward, which our current markets do an okay job at.

By “meritocracy” I mean the idea that it is morally just for people to be rewarded in money or social status proportional to their economic usefulness — an idea most people implicitly hold to some degree and which some libertarians trumpet as a core tenet. I think the implied inverse to this belief — in the extreme, that lack of economic usefulness deserves poverty — is morally repugnant and dangerous.

Re: Educated Fools

#187

Post by brnt »

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…

A university education never pretended to prepare you for real life. Its not some sort of advanced vocational training. There you are trained to think, produce new knowledge.

So while you may expect to struggle economically after a university degree, it behooves the rest of us to listen to what they have to say, because those of us who did get vocational training, or no training at all, in all likelihood never had time or reason to stretch the ratio as far as they. I would be very disappointed if they did not develop a sense of smugness, it would mean they didn't see any problems with how society at large currently thinks or operates.

A university graduate without an opinion would be time and money wasted.

Re: Educated Fools

#188

Post by watwut »

burlesona wrote: post #21

> But the truth might be something closer to this: “It’s only because of race that we have any part of the working class turning out for us at all.” I’ve thought a lot about this, and wondered if we’ll see a major flip post-Trump (perhaps a few more presidencies past), where the republicans somehow manage to shed their racial baggage and suddenly are the party of the entire working class while the Democrats are left…

Coastal elites expression it self rejests many working class people living in coasts. Majority of Americans live there, many of them working class. They kind of don't exist in this rhetorics.

Re: Educated Fools

#189

Post by yodsanklai »

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 unconvinced that a college education is actually even that useful.

I can't talk for every majors but at least for STEM, you need to study hard for years to acquire solid foundations. I don't see how you can gather all the required knowledge by yourself.

Re: Educated Fools

#190

Post by jayd16 »

rayiner wrote: post #79
analog31 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard a fellow Democrat use the term "political correctness" to advocate a policy. This could be another fabricated wedge.

That’s an indicator of being in a bubble: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo... > Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87 percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness > Pro…

I think this is a tough thing to poll as political correctness can have a few connotations. Does it refer to the act of social sensitivity itself or does it refer to things like virtue signalling or calling out other's lack of political correctness?
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