Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Educated Fools

newrepublic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 281 posts

Re: Educated Fools

#71

Post by hogFeast »

wangii wrote: post #20

as Chinese lives in uk, they had been my questions for a long time: why did you guys voted for david cameron, barack obama, (any politician, really) at all? had they ever struggled to pay their bills? do they really feel your pain?

Hahaha, has Xi Jingping felt yours? The guy is a billionaire who literally doesn't live in the same world as anyone he rules over.

Thank god that people vote for people like Cameron and Obama. Both are examples of politics working. Competent, middle-of-road types, not ideological, willing to compromise, intelligent...the aim of politics is to further the aims of the people (both were democratically elected) and do so with competent leadership. They are both examples of processes built up over centuries working (even Trump is, in terms of personal values he is disgusting...but this is a democratic choice of the people, and seeing the checks and balances of the American system jumping into action is very reassuring).

Politics isn't a suffering competition where we all get really angry about the bad things that happened to us, and compete to see who has suffered the most grief. A politics built on jealousy, pain, and suffering is no politics at all (for references, Chinese history is the perfect example of this...Mao achieved something that Hitler never could, he convinced ordinary people to murder their neighbours in cold blood, how? Jealousy, pain, and suffering...works every time).

Re: Educated Fools

#72

Post by allovernow »

salt-licker wrote: post #15

Great article that exposes many college-educated blind spots, in particular that education is not a panacea for inequality. But the proposed solution of more democratic workplaces — somehow convincing capital-holders that investing in human labor rather than automation is in their own self-interest — feels like swimming against the tide of history. Meritocracy is a dangerous ideal for humanity to continue to hold so…

>Meritocracy is a dangerous ideal for humanity to continue to hold so dearly. IQ is partially genetic, and with a low ceiling

How can you possibly allocate resources efficiently if you don't consider whether those you are allocating to are competent? What do you propose? Derisk with massive government bureaucracy?

Re: Educated Fools

#73

Post by jayd16 »

Despegar wrote: post #66
jayd16 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue social safety nets that Dems do push for (such as healthcare) do benefit the labor class.

Huh? A few years ago Obama/Biden were considering what to do about the "entitlement crisis". The famed Simpson-Bowles commission (unsurprisingly they suggested cuts to Medicare and Social Security) [1]. Only Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (who waffled on M4A, and subsequently faded in the polls) are trying to expand the social safety net. Meanwhile the DNC is trying to do whatever it can to protect their class i…

You're going to blame Obama/Biden for things they didn't do that never made it out of a bipartisan committee? And this was the same year they passed Obamacare.

Re: Educated Fools

#74

Post by vegetablepotpie »

commandlinefan wrote: post #25
salt-licker wrote: post #15

Great article that exposes many college-educated blind spots, in particular that education is not a panacea for inequality. But the proposed solution of more democratic workplaces — somehow convincing capital-holders that investing in human labor rather than automation is in their own self-interest — feels like swimming against the tide of history. Meritocracy is a dangerous ideal for humanity to continue to hold so…

> nobody’s brain will hold a candle to AI Nobody can outrun a car, either, but cars haven’t made humans obsolete. Instead, we use them as tools to accomplish our goals: just as we will with AI.

But cars have made horses obsolete. Although horses aren’t extinct, owning one is more of a hobby in the western world.

AI is cognitive automation. Not only will blue collar jobs be replaced, but so to will white collar jobs as well. We’re approaching the point where capital alone (without labor) will be able to generate wealth in more general cases. When that happens, employing people will be a hobby. When that happens, humans will need other ways to make income than with their labor.

Re: Educated Fools

#75

Post by harimau777 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #49
harimau777 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those jobs tend not to pay as well as jobs that require a career focused college degree (e.g. business, engineering, computer science, and even teaching).

There are plenty of college degrees that pay no more, or considerably less, than several of those jobs.

Sure, but those are generally degrees which are well known for having poor employment prospects (philosophy, art, history, etc.). Doesn't that just change the advice from "go to college" to "go to college in one of the majors with a track record or leading to a good career"?

Re: Educated Fools

#76

Post by recuter »

jayd16 wrote: post #70
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. How is this a question? How many high school grads have you interviewed and thought you could spin them up to the usefulness of a graduate from nothing in a reasonable amount of time/effort? Education is expensive, sure. We can talk about that... but useful? It seems obviously useful to me.

Wow.

Re: Educated Fools

#77

Post by harimau777 »

sandoooo wrote: post #51
harimau777 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that everyone shouldn't have to work the sorts of jobs that require a degree. However, as long as college is the most effective way to a better job, I think that people are going to keep preferring to go to college. Hmm, it's a good point that having a four year head start would help balance things. However, I think in the long run things would probably workout in the favor of the person that went to…

A barista is never going to make as much money as a CS major, but not everybody wants to spend all their time coding, and not everybody will be good enough at it to get paid. Lots of people want to be baristas and are capable of getting paid for making coffee, though, and society still needs baristas.

I agree, but in many locations society doesn't pay baristas enough to own a house, pursue their hobbies, and raise a family.

Re: Educated Fools

#78

Post by hogFeast »

The UK is a good example of this...the Labour Party went from solidly working class with good connections to voters to a party of the wealthy, metro elite with no connection to voters.

You can point to individual factors of circumstance (an ill-conceived 2015 leadership election) or big structural issues (rising inequality). But the end result is the same: no empathy, no interest. It is funny the article talks about race...did everyone just suddenly become a racist overnight? Or did they just decide they don't like being talked down to? Which is more likely (bearing in mind that the people talking down do like to talk about race a hell of a lot).

The left will get nowhere by trying to "learn to talk" to these awful poor people (sarcasm). They don't care. Not interested. Give the working class their voice back (Blair and Clinton did just fine). Go back to suburbia, find another job in which you are way overpaid for incompetence, and stop talking. Btw, Trump has done this...he is the worst candidate, the worst president...and still the Dems can't muster anything up...how is this incompetence even possible?

Just generally, as someone who falls firmly into the category of metro elite...I have never understood why other rich people feel the need to always tell poor people what they want. Politics is to help those people but it has gone from helping them to telling them what they should think, how they should live, etc. Is it any wonder that doesn't win votes?

Re: Educated Fools

#79

Post by rayiner »

analog31 wrote: post #37
toasterlovin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Democratic Party is driving a wedge between itself, FWIW. The talking points around political correctness could not be better designed to alienate working and middle class white people.

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

> Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem.

> So what does this group look like? Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country.

(I should caveat this by saying I’m in the apparently 18% of Asians who doesn’t think political correctness is a problem. But there is a huge class/education divide.)

Re: Educated Fools

#80

Post by jdc »

dluan wrote: post #36
petermcneeley wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years eh. I think one might argue that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Shhh we're busy reinventing Marx as a new idea for the pundit brained technocrats. We need people like Elon and Andrew Yang to tweet it to us before it can be considered cool again.

eh.. not _all_ analysis of class conflict is Marxist
Post reply on HN