The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree • Hacker News Board

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#41

Post by CoreDumpling » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 3:39 AM UTC

eavc wrote: post #14

As someone with a philosophy degree and many years of formal training in classical music, I give this piece a hearty thumbs up. While the author clearly values the liberal arts (um, it's McSweeney's), there's something to be said for actually getting things done in the world. A lot, actually. What the author is parodying is less the degree itself but more the miles wide and inches deep approach to education and life…

As someone with a computer science degree and several years working experience in software development, I feel an urge to play devil's advocate here.

In terms of "getting things done in the world," how is making iPhone fart apps any more of a contribution than, say, publishing a screed in a tabloid? I'm trying not to set up a straw man here, so I'm deliberately choosing lowest common denominator activities.

I don't think it's fair for us technical folk to rest on our laurels simply because we have mastery over some very specific kind of knowledge that has a great deal of useful applications. We have to get out there and get real things done, too.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#42

Post by _delirium » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 4:39 AM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #27

hga wrote: post #2

The less polite original title: " The Only Thing That Can Stop This Asteroid Is Your Liberal Arts Degree ". Unfair since plenty of those with liberal arts degrees contribute to society in a way we geeks value, but still amusing.

There are a fair number of geeks who were liberal arts majors in their earlier years. It's not a crippling setback. In fact it can be an asset when you need to communicate densely abstract technical topics to those of a decidedly nontechnical background. I've met a fair number of philosophy and language majors who are programmers, web designers or system administrators. And a number of them have much greater mental f…

Some "technical" content comes from those backgrounds as well, which sometimes turns out to be useful. I'm in AI, and people sometimes run into pitfalls that a stronger background in some other area would've let them see much further ahead of time. Sometimes a solution that seems like it might work is one that you'd immediately spot holes in (or at least likely points of difficulty) if you were familiar with philosophical logic, or semantics of language, or something else of that sort.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#43

Post by _delirium » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 4:42 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #32

Tichy wrote: post #21

The irony is that usually there are no asteroids headed for earth, so it is debatable how useful the astronauts and nuclear warhead constructors are.

Keep in mind we seldom really need them, but, when we do, we need them really, really bad.

Unfortunately, if it turns out that we do end up needing them, I think the bottleneck field might be political science...

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#44

Post by evgen » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 4:44 AM UTC

sketerpot wrote: post #20

philwelch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone I love is alive and healthy today because of science. I myself am alive and healthy today because of science.

Hell, you can even start pointing at particular bits of science. For example, there would be mass famine without the Haber-Bosch process for ammonia synthesis.

Of course, without this process producing a lot of available nitrogen to use in making explosives during the first half of the 20th century we would probably also have avoided two world wars. Occasional famines and a lower upper-limit on human population or millions dead from guns and bombs... interesting set of choices.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#45

Post by jfornear » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 5:30 AM UTC

williamjames wrote: post #31

The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. In classical antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education prope…

The modern liberal arts student avoids math and science like the plague.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#46

Post by piguy314 » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 6:41 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #5

Do we really need physicists? What have they done apart from give us ever increasing ways of destroying ourselves. Has quantum theory brought happiness to the world? Love? Peace? Has it helped you feel more connected to your neighbours, to the person on the bus or tube? Has it had any meaningful positive effect at all on the human condition? Or is it and its ilk of science degrees merely a relentless march to the day…

How about cheap, nearly unlimited electricity (nuclear), medical scanning devices that use radio isotopes, radiation therapy to treat cancer, or a variety of other technologies based on the early work of physicists.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#47

Post by piguy314 » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 6:42 AM UTC

evgen wrote: post #44

sketerpot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, you can even start pointing at particular bits of science. For example, there would be mass famine without the Haber-Bosch process for ammonia synthesis.

Of course, without this process producing a lot of available nitrogen to use in making explosives during the first half of the 20th century we would probably also have avoided two world wars. Occasional famines and a lower upper-limit on human population or millions dead from guns and bombs... interesting set of choices.

Eh this is the classic guns kill people vs. people kill people argument. Not having guns or bombs isn't going to stop a war. Some of the bloodiest wars in history were fought using swords and spears.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#48

Post by AmericanOP » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 6:55 AM UTC

jfornear wrote: post #45

williamjames wrote: post #31

The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. In classical antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education prope…

The modern liberal arts student avoids math and science like the plague.

In practice, the belief that a liberal arts education has equal value to a BS degree is anti-science.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#49

Post by jquery » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 7:16 AM UTC

williamjames wrote: post #31

The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. In classical antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education prope…

There's something to this. Modern society taxes (enslaves) the high earners (specialists) in favor of mostly giveaways to the middle and lower middle class (liberal arts majors) and to the very rich (bailouts).

*note: originally I was writing this as a joke but it stopped feeling like one halfway through.

Re: The only thing that can stop this asteroid is your liberal arts degree

#50

Post by Tichy » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 7:46 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #37

DrSprout wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, by most accounts we did fine without them for 200,000 years.

We did just fine without them for a good couple dozen million years. It's just that we won't be able to do without them forever ;-) In fact, I like to tall my son the dinosaurs only died because they had neither rockets nor nukes.

You realize that Armageddon was just a Hollywood movie, right? :-) I am not sure if the same thing would be feasible in the real world, with current technology.

Nor am I convinced that we will eventually be able to escape our dieing sun, but I keep my fingers crossed.