What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education • Hacker News Board

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#71

Post by dgb23 » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #61

dgb23 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience it is very subjective and generally contextual what either side of that equation means. The term meritocracy has often been by people who have a very clear view on what contribution and reward mean and they typically assume a closed and fair system where everyone already agreed on the meaning of those terms and on the rules on how to evaluate those things on a case by case basis. To be honest I'm jus…

Under capitalism everyone decides what to reward, even the poorest people in first world countries make tons of decisions what to spend their money on, that is how we decide merit, if people decide to give you their money you have merit. We try to regulate so it doesn't get abusive but there will always be some holes, but that system is as close to an unbiased merit function we have gotten. The other good merit funct…

Both of these functions, market value and vote per person, are at least in my eyes pre-defined rules. You have to agree with them under the many circumstances where they apply.

To me the term meritocracy just seems too idealist and it assumes too much in relation to complex and varied systems like economy or politics.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#72

Post by skybrian » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 9:10 PM UTC

raincom wrote: post #65

skybrian wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "definitions have become fetishes?" What are some examples? Noticing that most words are ambiguous isn't a bug. It's a commonplace observation that you can repair and move on from. There are a zillion online debates that get started because people interpret words differently (or even adversarially) and don't clarify. It's good to be able to avoid falling into that trap. In in interactive context,…

In legal contracts, definitions are not only necessary, but also protect both parties. That's why definitions are added in contracts. There are definiendum (a term that needs to be defined) and definiens (that does the defining). Definiendum =df definiens What do these definitions do? Replace a symbol (or a string) with a sentence or set of sentences. How do these help settle disputes? Let us imagine a scenario: Some…

I recommend reading Bret Devereaux for examples of deft handling of definitional issues in history.

For example, his series on the fall of Rome [1]. It's certainly possible to get into silly disputes about what counts as the "Roman empire" and what it means for it to "fall" but he uses this as a starting point to talk about what evidence we have about actually happened. Different historians define things differently depending on their perspectives, but you just accept and deal with that.

Similarly, I could see someone wanting to talk about religion to make some definitions just to be clearer what they're talking about, but then you go on to talk about what people actually do.

[1] https://acoup.blog/category/collections/fall-of-rome/

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#73

Post by onos » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 9:15 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #45

onos wrote: post #42

The argument here is that society holds the humanities in contempt because their students aren't held to any meaningful standards --> aren't taught to do anything useful. I think that is dated, but was the sense ~10 years ago. Today, they are seen as an active threat to society by many, with their one main contribution being promotion of intersectionality / DEI / attack on freedom of speech & meritocracy.

What is meritocracy?

You point out that it’s hard to measure merit at times. OK, but you haven’t argued that means our noisy signals of merit should be ignored.

Whatever it’s flaws, here is what I like about meritocracy: it says we should honor and reward those who work hard and encourages the pursuit of merit in individuals.

In contrast, the central comment of DEI is that groups who do relatively well don’t deserve it, that their gains are ill gotten. Members of these groups who work hard should not be rewarded. In fact they deserve less than equal treatment by society.

I am confident that this latter system if followed would result in much worse outcomes, discouraging individuals to work hard. It is an ugly, negative philosophy.

We should honor the strong and hard working and successful, encourage them to share their methods with others so that they might also succeed, help the weak, and ostracize the lazy.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#74

Post by jancsika » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

bioemerl wrote: post #14

Chat GPT reveals that academia has fallen short of the trend as follows. " When you are growing and everyone trusts you, you can do no wrong, and your mistakes shrink into nothing on their own." " When you begin to shrink and your reputation sours, you can do no right, your wrongs balloon catastrophically and your rights slowly shrink into nothing like your wrongs used to" Academia I'm sure provides tons of stuff, bu…

> If I look up news, and I see CNN and MSNBC and any of those big networks, I keep scrolling until I find someone showing me the raw event with no commentary.

Here's a raw event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJuyn0WAYNI

There are a small handful of significant characteristics to notice about the raw event to prove to others you are a sentient human using actively using your music cognition.

Here's a hint: disco chord. (Another hint: the answer isn't merely, "hey, I hear the disco chord now!")

If you can hear the event and articulate it's significance, great!

But if you cannot do that with something as ineffectual as pop music, ask yourself: what could you possibly achieve with raw data and no commentary in a domain with high stakes like epidemiology (for example)?

Edit: typo, clarifications

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#75

Post by limitedsupply » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #60

limitedsupply wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I’ll bite. A very reductionist definition is “bigger contribution = bigger reward”.

In my experience it is very subjective and generally contextual what either side of that equation means. The term meritocracy has often been by people who have a very clear view on what contribution and reward mean and they typically assume a closed and fair system where everyone already agreed on the meaning of those terms and on the rules on how to evaluate those things on a case by case basis. To be honest I'm jus…

Any sufficiently complex economic system has loopholes, can be gamed, can be subjectively perceived as unfair. This in itself should not disqualify it, since all systems are imperfect.

Perhaps this system does not have a built in mechanism for empathy… that’s a stronger argument against it in my view.

Tenure or background based systems are far less desirable - wouldn’t you agree?

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#76

Post by platz » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #67

platz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even I don't trust anything coming out of any large institutions anymore Learn to differentiate between facts and editorials/opinions. Alternative media isn't very good at presenting basic facts correctly, something institutions still do well and can only spin so far. Alternative media outright lies about facts.

And what is your take on Brian Sicknick [1]? He's the officer who died following the January 6th riots. [1] All big media sites ran an identical story. He was not only killed, but he was bludgeoned to death, in the head, by a rioter wielding a fire hydrant. Quite the visceral and disturbing imagery. The problem is that it was not true, at all. Not only was he not killed by rioters - the medical examiner would later t…

media was led astray by law-enforcement officials and delay from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

After the results were finally published, the information got out and was covered on media outlets (such as the WSJ etc) ..

You're looking for perfection in an atmosphere that is genuinely a fog of war and cherry picking 1 example. the point is that statistically speaking your better off with instituitonal media over alternative media.

Institutions will still lead to the right answer over a long time scale Compared to whatever other non-institutional media you look at.

Obviously, in any case consider many sources, weight them appropriately, consider recency of the data, and synthesize knowledge according to bayesian principles.

If you still disagree, what non-institutional sources do you prefer, and what do you think their track record is compared to instituional media, and will I be able to find examples even worse for them than the one you linked.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#77

Post by dgb23 » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 11:42 PM UTC

onos wrote: post #73

dgb23 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is meritocracy?

You point out that it’s hard to measure merit at times. OK, but you haven’t argued that means our noisy signals of merit should be ignored. Whatever it’s flaws, here is what I like about meritocracy: it says we should honor and reward those who work hard and encourages the pursuit of merit in individuals. In contrast, the central comment of DEI is that groups who do relatively well don’t deserve it, that their gains…

Well said. But with the nuances you added we’ve moved away from meritocracy to a more sensible, less binary framework. You added solidarity, common sense and tough love.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#78

Post by dgb23 » Sat, Jan 14, 2023, 11:47 PM UTC

limitedsupply wrote: post #75

dgb23 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience it is very subjective and generally contextual what either side of that equation means. The term meritocracy has often been by people who have a very clear view on what contribution and reward mean and they typically assume a closed and fair system where everyone already agreed on the meaning of those terms and on the rules on how to evaluate those things on a case by case basis. To be honest I'm jus…

Any sufficiently complex economic system has loopholes, can be gamed, can be subjectively perceived as unfair. This in itself should not disqualify it, since all systems are imperfect. Perhaps this system does not have a built in mechanism for empathy… that’s a stronger argument against it in my view. Tenure or background based systems are far less desirable - wouldn’t you agree?

Less desirable for sure.

I think you hit the nail on the head with empathy. Empathy is contextual, subjective and real. It cannot be pinned down with rules, it’s too humane and powerful for that.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#79

Post by bioemerl » Sun, Jan 15, 2023, 12:31 AM UTC

bulgur wrote: post #35

bioemerl wrote: post #14

Chat GPT reveals that academia has fallen short of the trend as follows. " When you are growing and everyone trusts you, you can do no wrong, and your mistakes shrink into nothing on their own." " When you begin to shrink and your reputation sours, you can do no right, your wrongs balloon catastrophically and your rights slowly shrink into nothing like your wrongs used to" Academia I'm sure provides tons of stuff, bu…

[dead]

I think everyone and everything will be targeted by spammers, not because they are hated, but because such spammers are universal and will always target any open gap that exists.

There might be targeted attacks, but I believe that if there was drive for such attacks, they'd already be in play without Chat GPT.

Re: What ChatGPT reveals about the collapse of support for higher education

#80

Post by wizofaus » Sun, Jan 15, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #67

platz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even I don't trust anything coming out of any large institutions anymore Learn to differentiate between facts and editorials/opinions. Alternative media isn't very good at presenting basic facts correctly, something institutions still do well and can only spin so far. Alternative media outright lies about facts.

And what is your take on Brian Sicknick [1]? He's the officer who died following the January 6th riots. [1] All big media sites ran an identical story. He was not only killed, but he was bludgeoned to death, in the head, by a rioter wielding a fire hydrant. Quite the visceral and disturbing imagery. The problem is that it was not true, at all. Not only was he not killed by rioters - the medical examiner would later t…

What political gain did Pence and Trump get from honouring his death with such a ceremony though? Not saying there was none, but it's not an obviously strong motive. Seems more like a simple case of someone getting the wrong story and nobody thought to doubt/verify it even at the highest levels. FWIW I'd never heard anything about it until just now (but I'm not in the US).