The Stem-Ification of Society • Hacker News Board

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#11

Post by bnj » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 5:17 PM UTC

mixedmath wrote: post #10

incomingpain wrote: post #4

>As a student and proponent of humanities education The STEM movement intentionally excludes humanities and socials on purpose. I understand being upset there's a movement excluding your field and then asserting its a problem. Seemingly the author doesn't understand the purpose behind STEM. >The new logic of a post-Marxian techno-capitalism is an economic process which transforms life processes — in this case interac…

> The STEM movement intentionally excludes humanities and socials on purpose. Could you say more?

Not OP, but STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math; so on its face it does not include social sciences or humanities

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#12

Post by psunavy03 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

> Some schools, like Cornell University and MIT, have created colleges of computing which allows students to remain hyper-focused on the field of computer science without having to take courses outside of these colleges.

News flash, this has been A Thing for over 20 years. I remember being distinctly nonplused showing up to my freshman orientation pre-9/11 as a prospective aerospace engineering student at a Big Ten university. The staff essentially went "don't worry about your general education electives; we have them all picked out for you already." They basically took engineering courses and shoe-horned them into what were supposed to be the "broadening" courses in the degree program.

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#13

Post by ThrowawayTestr » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

dingnuts wrote: post #9

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because being a criminal is seen as a bad thing in Asia.

as opposed to..?

As opposed to the west where they're a protected class.

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#14

Post by nerdjon » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 5:25 PM UTC

I feel like I missed the point the author was trying to make in the article? At first I thought they agreed that there is a problem with STEM schools not having many of the humanities classes (and non tech classes).

But then they said they reject that idea.

So what am I missing about the article?

Regarding Stem school not having the non tech classes. Personally I think that's a good thing. We went through Elementary, Middle, and High School for a general education, to learn how to learn, and to hopefully find what we are interested in. So being forced to take even less "useless" classes in college is likely a good thing to me.

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#15

Post by tzs » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

> Some schools, like Cornell University and MIT, have created colleges of computing which allows students to remain hyper-focused on the field of computer science without having to take courses outside of these colleges

Is that actually true at MIT? As far as I can tell from their website undergraduate students of computing at MIT are still subject to MIT's General Institute Requirements [1]. That includes a Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) requirement [2].

The HASS requirement includes both a breadth requirement (at least one class from each of arts, humanities, and social sciences) and a depth requirement (3 or 4 classes from one particular field in one of those categories). Here's a list of the fields you can use for the depth requirement [3].

[1] https://registrar.mit.edu/registration-academics/academic-re...

[2] https://registrar.mit.edu/registration-academics/academic-re...

[3] https://registrar.mit.edu/registration-academics/academic-re...

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#16

Post by phainopepla2 » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 5:59 PM UTC

dingnuts wrote: post #8

incomingpain wrote: post #4

>As a student and proponent of humanities education The STEM movement intentionally excludes humanities and socials on purpose. I understand being upset there's a movement excluding your field and then asserting its a problem. Seemingly the author doesn't understand the purpose behind STEM. >The new logic of a post-Marxian techno-capitalism is an economic process which transforms life processes — in this case interac…

>Lets be realistic though, we're past the marxist peak. It's time for Marxism to become a religion. Move out of the politics field and operate probably pretty successfully as a religion. it already is a religion, essentially, isn't it? it's just an atheist one -- aka, an ideology. Is there really any difference between a religion and an ideology that claims to explain every detail of the world, other than a deity? I…

> even the term Late Stage Capitalism comes directly from Marx

The term comes from Werner Sombart, several decades after Marx's death

Re: The Stem-Ification of Society

#17

Post by wakawaka28 » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 6:53 AM UTC

wumeow wrote: post #5

incomingpain wrote: post #4

>As a student and proponent of humanities education The STEM movement intentionally excludes humanities and socials on purpose. I understand being upset there's a movement excluding your field and then asserting its a problem. Seemingly the author doesn't understand the purpose behind STEM. >The new logic of a post-Marxian techno-capitalism is an economic process which transforms life processes — in this case interac…

>> In China, I was able to leave my computer at my table in a cafe without fear of it being taken because I knew every square inch of that cafe was in the view of cameras. > China's state surveillance and massacres of dissidents is not something to be prideful about. East Asian countries tend to be low-crime anyway even without blanket surveillance.

>East Asian countries tend to be low-crime anyway even without blanket surveillance.

Lol! You might be right about certain types of crime but overall I don't think this is true. There is also something to be said about crime that is sanctioned by or enabled by state officials.