81–90 of 103 posts
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The universe doesn't owe you K-12 education, and neither does society, but society has decided it is worth the expense to have a populace that knows how to read, write, and do arithmetic- skills that most people simply did not have two hundred years ago.
It's wrong to think that without publicly-subsidized education, most people would not get any education.
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That is correct. For example, if you want to study engineering you have to have certain math skills. Otherwise university won't let you in, no matter how much you pay. Oh, free college no. But tuition is something like $700 annual in germany/france. There is no housing or anything.
this is all and good for something like engineering where it is possible and maybe desirable to set some reasonable, objective standards. What about something like political sciences? Almost all of the upper-level public servants in a country like France come from the same school (ecole sciences-po)... Doesn't this become dangerous? Who gets to be the gatekeeper?
Basically you can apply to any university and they will let you in. Sometimes you need maths, but mostly it is open. If you don't score 50 out of 60 credits in your first year you're out. You fail a class if your grades are too low, which is more frequent than would happen in usa.
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Well the entrance tests for Faculty of Philosophy that my close friend attended have been in the form of interview and they mostly asked about what authors did you read, what were they trying to say and such. It's actually not that complicated for people invested in some area (of science, politics, culture) to spot good candidates when you give them a chance. Sadly, the quality of education in Czech Republic have deg…
This sounds like a mess. So If I've read the 'wrong authors' (say, bastiat for a right-wing critique of the government and bourdieu for a left-wing critique), I'm basically hosed in the interview. Can't have any radical changers in the public service, now can we... "the quality of education in Czech Republic have degraded significantly in capitalism... so that the university gets maximum state support." I wouldn't th…
Good grief, I always forget how misleading the WSJ is. "Gov'ment causes those poor helpless colleges to overcharge." Bullshit. The growth in the cost of college is tied to big fat administrator salaries. It is control fraud pure and simple. To paraphrase, the best way to rob a college is to run one.
You're not really refuting the article's point, and you're not making a very good argument that school administrators are committing control fraud. Where is the evidence for control fraud? The article makes a good point, IMO. Schools can pay "big fat administrator salaries" because students have practically unlimited access to money via student loans. Give everybody a 10% raise, and tell students to take out 10% more…
It is not just giving your deans a big loan to buy a house and the forgiving it. It includes paying yourself excessively.
If someone is stealing from you, the answer is not to make them share the risk.
He has the facts right but, to get published in the WSJ, he can't point at the real issue. It is same problems we have the with banks. These institutions have tons of hidden subsidies. They always will. Subsidized industries behave differently from non-subsidized ones in general but the WSJ approved solution is to pretend that it is possible to remove the subsidy.
For public goods (utilities, parts of finance, education), you have to have government intervention and deal with the side-effects. That means regulation and rules about what you do with the money.
I don't think the author would disagree when I say that the administrator are stealing from the taxpayers. But what is 'bullshit' is saying that we just have to accept it. When people are stealing from you, you deal with it head on. If they were employees, you would fire them.
I don't have a great answer for colleges but you need to at least let the administrators know that they are acting immorally. It is not the loan process that is immoral -- it is the people who are running the colleges.
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He's actually doing it the right way: looking at lots of empirical evidence and forming the right abstractions from it. That's how science is done, and it's how philosophy should be done. You are free to present contradictory evidence and conclusions if you think he's made a mistake. He's not talking about evidence limited to his personal, one-on-one interactions. He's talking about all the evidence available to us,…
It is better to take cognizance of how things really are rather than how you really, really wish them to be. Where you start in life matters. It squares with the things I've observed in my own life; hardworking people who spend every waking hour working for the betterment of their friends and family are nevertheless constantly battered by mischance and bad fortune. I've learned to differentiate the good luck that I p…
Whoa there - why do you call what I've written "simplistic"?
But it's cute you two believe you have any grasp of epistemology, rhetoric, or logic.
And of course, that is the point. None of these things were earned.
That wasn't my point. Let me put it another way: it is not valid to apply the concept of "earn" as you do, in a situation where no choice exists. You can't say that a person has earned his brain, nor can you say that he hasn't. I've already explained why. This is not some minor epistemological issue that I'm going to simply let pass.
But it's cute you two believe you have any grasp of epistemology, rhetoric, or logic.
Please stop with the insults.
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I really, really wish all objectivists had been born (actually) underprivileged.
I'm calling you out. Attacking the arguer instead of the argument is a logical fallacy. What you're actually implying, which wouldn't be a logical fallacy, is that my view is subjective, because of the circumstances of my (middle class) upbringing. I don't think that argument holds water. The subjectivity or not of things is probably too big of a discussion to really tackle on hacker news, though.
b) The statement was made to draw attention to what I perceive as weakness in your argument.
c) Notwithstanding the points made by others in the comments below, it should be said that I completely understand how and why people are objectivists. If, as I proposed, all (or even most (or even a significant number of)) objectivists had been born underprivileged, I think that I might be more inclined to agree with it.
d) > If you want to see what happens to an economic sector as the government becomes more invasive, look at the finance sector, which is the most controlled sector in the US, or look at the "federal telecom bureaus" (AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon).
In the finance sector, people broke the rules or rushed to fill in spaces where the rules were rolled back. Then things went really bad.
In the telecoms, they are breaking the rules but not being held accountable by the government.
In both cases, the fact that they are not following the rules is the actual problem. I'm not sure how this supports your claim.
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It's wrong to think that without publicly-subsidized education, most people would not get any education.
But will all people who can be educated get education?
This is boil-the-ocean, god's-eye-view thinking. Moral ideals cooked up in this style are unreal and utterly unachievable as practical goals.
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This sounds like a mess. So If I've read the 'wrong authors' (say, bastiat for a right-wing critique of the government and bourdieu for a left-wing critique), I'm basically hosed in the interview. Can't have any radical changers in the public service, now can we... "the quality of education in Czech Republic have degraded significantly in capitalism... so that the university gets maximum state support." I wouldn't th…
I don't understand: there's nothing stopping you from reading what you want.
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this is all and good for something like engineering where it is possible and maybe desirable to set some reasonable, objective standards. What about something like political sciences? Almost all of the upper-level public servants in a country like France come from the same school (ecole sciences-po)... Doesn't this become dangerous? Who gets to be the gatekeeper?
This question I can only answer for holland, where I live. Basically you can apply to any university and they will let you in. Sometimes you need maths, but mostly it is open. If you don't score 50 out of 60 credits in your first year you're out. You fail a class if your grades are too low, which is more frequent than would happen in usa.