8 ms·

It's really easy to be agains't utilitarian trends in higher education when: 1) your parents have money 2) you are lucky/skilled enough to make a living off a

by dataker 11y ago

It's really easy to be agains't utilitarian trends in higher education when: 1) your parents have money 2) you are lucky/skilled enough to make a living off a Humanities degree Most people are not like that and a Humanities degree is a terrible choice. There's no self-discovery when your own survival is at stake.

coldtea 11y ago
Maybe we should fix the "education is expensive and people have no money" things also then? Instead of taking them as granted and designing education around them? Education is quite cheap in Europe for example -- to the point of a few thousand dollars per year or less plus living expenses (which can be near zero if you live with your parents as lots do).
- Kurtz79 11y ago
  Actually in some countries is to the point of "free", or even "getting paid".
- gaius 11y ago
  A good start would be massive taxes on super-rich authors such as JK Rowling in order to fund arts education then. Why should ordinary workers be taxed more?
  - gambiting 11y ago
    But.....why? Purely on the basis that she has a lot of money? You go to work to exchange some of your time for money - government takes certain % of your money as taxes. Then you go and spend that money in exchange for a good Rowling produces, because, well - you both want that. You want to have that physical product and certain mental pleasures that come with it, she wants to get money for it. So the question is - why should she pay higher % in taxes than you or me on that money she makes?
    - Fargren 11y ago
      Well, money has diminishing returns. $100 dollars has a lot less effect in Rowling's life than in mine, and it can be a life-changing amount of money to those truly destitute. If you want to maximize the utility of those dolars, at least in the short term, it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most.
      - gambiting 11y ago
        " it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most." - And we already do. If they pay the same percentage as you or me, they already pay an order of magnitude(or several) more than I do. My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? The only argument I'm seeing currently is "because they have lots so it makes sense to take from them". That's from Robin Hood I guess?
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? Among other reasons: because it is government and the legal system which makes amassing and maintaining large fortunes possible; being poor without organized society is easy to achieve, being rich is a possible only with the order imposed on society through law. Therefore, it makes sense for the rich to be taxed not merely proportionately to their wealth, but disproportionately so.
        douche 11y ago
        You can be rich in the absence of law and organized society, too. You just have to be rich enough to hire/inspire the goons to keep the peasants cowed.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        What you said is "you can be rich without law and organized society, if you can manage to establish yourself as the government". Which is true in a sense -- though then you've organized society around your interest, and established yourself as the arbiter of law -- but not really an argument against the rich bearing disproportionately the cost for government.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Why should ordinary workers be taxed more? Obviously they shouldn't. Besides more writers are just as poor or even more than "ordinary workers" (and most of them are also ordinary workers, and do writing as a side-job).
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Taxes are usually on income, not based on bank balance. Being 'super-rich' has little to do with it. Its the cash flow that matters. I only mention it, because I was caught (in the USA) in a bind when I had a stock option and had to pay AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax), one of those things designed to hurt the rich. But I didn't have any money - just those options. And they had a lock-out (I couldn't sell them). To accomplish 'massive taxes on super-rich' you'd have to create a bank-balance tax (like a property tax). And the rich would just invest in stuff then (real estate etc). Its not simple to design taxes.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >And the rich would just invest in stuff then (real estate etc). Which you could also tax -- property taxes.
  - cruise02 11y ago
    J.K. Rowling pays her tax. http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012...
- moonchrome 11y ago
  And yet Europe is plagued with youth unemployment issues - diplomas that lead nowhere still have a huge opportunity cost even when there is no tuition
  - gambiting 11y ago
    Sure, but at least where I come from you have 0 debt if you spend 4 years studying philosophy or classical art(you also have 0 debt if you study Medicine for 10 years - it's all 100% free for students). There are people in US who are left in debt for decades after doing that.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Only Europe has that even for very labor-focused, pragmatic diplomas -- not just humanities.
    - moonchrome 11y ago
      After talking to a people from local colleges my impression is that >50% (being very conservative) of the people who graduate from these places see their degree as a rite of passage in to a secure office job and have the impression that their degree will somehow magically guarantee (I guess based on previous generations) They have no practical skills or affinity for the profession they are trying to enter (I've heard more than a few say they would prefer working in IT after getting a "CS degree" because "programming is hard and boring"). IMO the problem comes from "government programs to fill demand from IT sector" and the converting college to high school 2.0 When I went to college you actually had to pass entrance exams and people avoided technical colleges like plague if they actually weren't interested in them - this is still true for top colleges in EU - but the trend of pushing college as a ticket to a comfy office job obviously doesn't result in a bunch of highly skilled professionals (reduced standards to allow greater number of graduates) and gives you a bunch of people who have high expectations and no practical skills - so you get angry kids on the streets.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >When I went to college you actually had to pass entrance exams and people avoided technical colleges like plague if they actually weren't interested in them - this is still true for top colleges in EU - but the trend of pushing college as a ticket to a comfy office job obviously doesn't result in a bunch of highly skilled professionals (reduced standards to allow greater number of graduates) and gives you a bunch of people who have high expectations and no practical skills - so you get angry kids on the streets. I see where you're coming from, but don't share the moral condemnation. Why shouldn't they be angry? Wanting to be merely decent/half-good at a job and make a living is fine by me -- and it's the way it has worked before (which is why the expected it to hold for them too). If only the top deserved jobs, then either we'd need the whole population to have top skills (not really doable even if possible), or just give jobs to a 10% or so. Besides, it's not most jobs are for anything really useful in the grand scheme of things. If you leave out some vital services, most of it is empty bureaucracy, redundant services, etc.
RUG3Y 11y ago
3) You make your living in the education system selling liberal arts degrees to kids who will graduate to wait tables and pay debt for 20 years.
meow_mix 11y ago
I don't think she's saying that humanities should replace the ability to live off a skill, she's saying that the two can live together
panglott 11y ago
She's not talking about humanities majors. She's talking about liberal arts educations. You can get an engineering degree at a liberal arts college, they just make you take some philosophy/arts/&c. courses also. There is enormous value in this, because people are humans, not merely workers. Liberal arts colleges should do a better job in getting their students technical skills also, though.
- hgh 11y ago
  There is definitely still room on liberal arts side of most engineering degrees regardless the institution. In my engineering degree (University of Toronto), we had about 4 free electives and humanities courses over the whole degree. I believe there would have been a lot more value in having more free electives whereby students could take more courses in the humanities (or for those not so inclined, whatever other topics that interested them).
- 1971genocide 11y ago
  Of'course humans are just not workers , but if you want to eat you need to sell something of value to buy your food from the farmers - and they most often then not really do not care about your humanities nonsense.
  - panglott 11y ago
    Teachers, lawyers, and lots of other professions where you need to communicate effectively with other people provide lots of value. Many people fail to starve and even get rich this way.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    The 1971 genocide you commemorate in your username might not have occurred if your culture was a bit more invested in that 'humanities nonsense.'
    - 1971genocide 11y ago
      ad hominem attack much ? Sure - you should have told the British to stay the fuck away from the Indian subcontinent.
anigbrowl 11y ago
What good is our society if survival is so difficult that we can't afford to spend a few years cultivating ourselves? I'm well into economics but you're describing a society where we invest a great deal of effort in the manufacture of better sticks with which to beat ourselves.

by dataker 11y ago

coldtea 11y ago

Maybe we should fix the "education is expensive and people have no money" things also then? Instead of taking them as granted and designing education around them? Education is quite cheap in Europe for example -- to the point of a few thousand dollars per year or less plus living expenses (which can be near zero if you live with your parents as lots do).

Kurtz79 11y ago
Actually in some countries is to the point of "free", or even "getting paid".
gaius 11y ago
A good start would be massive taxes on super-rich authors such as JK Rowling in order to fund arts education then. Why should ordinary workers be taxed more?
- gambiting 11y ago
  But.....why? Purely on the basis that she has a lot of money? You go to work to exchange some of your time for money - government takes certain % of your money as taxes. Then you go and spend that money in exchange for a good Rowling produces, because, well - you both want that. You want to have that physical product and certain mental pleasures that come with it, she wants to get money for it. So the question is - why should she pay higher % in taxes than you or me on that money she makes?
  - Fargren 11y ago
    Well, money has diminishing returns. $100 dollars has a lot less effect in Rowling's life than in mine, and it can be a life-changing amount of money to those truly destitute. If you want to maximize the utility of those dolars, at least in the short term, it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most.
    - gambiting 11y ago
      " it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most." - And we already do. If they pay the same percentage as you or me, they already pay an order of magnitude(or several) more than I do. My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? The only argument I'm seeing currently is "because they have lots so it makes sense to take from them". That's from Robin Hood I guess?
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? Among other reasons: because it is government and the legal system which makes amassing and maintaining large fortunes possible; being poor without organized society is easy to achieve, being rich is a possible only with the order imposed on society through law. Therefore, it makes sense for the rich to be taxed not merely proportionately to their wealth, but disproportionately so.
        douche 11y ago
        You can be rich in the absence of law and organized society, too. You just have to be rich enough to hire/inspire the goons to keep the peasants cowed.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        What you said is "you can be rich without law and organized society, if you can manage to establish yourself as the government". Which is true in a sense -- though then you've organized society around your interest, and established yourself as the arbiter of law -- but not really an argument against the rich bearing disproportionately the cost for government.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Why should ordinary workers be taxed more? Obviously they shouldn't. Besides more writers are just as poor or even more than "ordinary workers" (and most of them are also ordinary workers, and do writing as a side-job).
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Taxes are usually on income, not based on bank balance. Being 'super-rich' has little to do with it. Its the cash flow that matters. I only mention it, because I was caught (in the USA) in a bind when I had a stock option and had to pay AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax), one of those things designed to hurt the rich. But I didn't have any money - just those options. And they had a lock-out (I couldn't sell them). To accomplish 'massive taxes on super-rich' you'd have to create a bank-balance tax (like a property tax). And the rich would just invest in stuff then (real estate etc). Its not simple to design taxes.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >And the rich would just invest in stuff then (real estate etc). Which you could also tax -- property taxes.
- cruise02 11y ago
  J.K. Rowling pays her tax. http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012...
moonchrome 11y ago
And yet Europe is plagued with youth unemployment issues - diplomas that lead nowhere still have a huge opportunity cost even when there is no tuition
- gambiting 11y ago
  Sure, but at least where I come from you have 0 debt if you spend 4 years studying philosophy or classical art(you also have 0 debt if you study Medicine for 10 years - it's all 100% free for students). There are people in US who are left in debt for decades after doing that.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Only Europe has that even for very labor-focused, pragmatic diplomas -- not just humanities.
  - moonchrome 11y ago
    After talking to a people from local colleges my impression is that >50% (being very conservative) of the people who graduate from these places see their degree as a rite of passage in to a secure office job and have the impression that their degree will somehow magically guarantee (I guess based on previous generations) They have no practical skills or affinity for the profession they are trying to enter (I've heard more than a few say they would prefer working in IT after getting a "CS degree" because "programming is hard and boring"). IMO the problem comes from "government programs to fill demand from IT sector" and the converting college to high school 2.0 When I went to college you actually had to pass entrance exams and people avoided technical colleges like plague if they actually weren't interested in them - this is still true for top colleges in EU - but the trend of pushing college as a ticket to a comfy office job obviously doesn't result in a bunch of highly skilled professionals (reduced standards to allow greater number of graduates) and gives you a bunch of people who have high expectations and no practical skills - so you get angry kids on the streets.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >When I went to college you actually had to pass entrance exams and people avoided technical colleges like plague if they actually weren't interested in them - this is still true for top colleges in EU - but the trend of pushing college as a ticket to a comfy office job obviously doesn't result in a bunch of highly skilled professionals (reduced standards to allow greater number of graduates) and gives you a bunch of people who have high expectations and no practical skills - so you get angry kids on the streets. I see where you're coming from, but don't share the moral condemnation. Why shouldn't they be angry? Wanting to be merely decent/half-good at a job and make a living is fine by me -- and it's the way it has worked before (which is why the expected it to hold for them too). If only the top deserved jobs, then either we'd need the whole population to have top skills (not really doable even if possible), or just give jobs to a 10% or so. Besides, it's not most jobs are for anything really useful in the grand scheme of things. If you leave out some vital services, most of it is empty bureaucracy, redundant services, etc.

RUG3Y 11y ago

3) You make your living in the education system selling liberal arts degrees to kids who will graduate to wait tables and pay debt for 20 years.

meow_mix 11y ago

I don't think she's saying that humanities should replace the ability to live off a skill, she's saying that the two can live together

panglott 11y ago

She's not talking about humanities majors. She's talking about liberal arts educations. You can get an engineering degree at a liberal arts college, they just make you take some philosophy/arts/&c. courses also. There is enormous value in this, because people are humans, not merely workers. Liberal arts colleges should do a better job in getting their students technical skills also, though.

hgh 11y ago
There is definitely still room on liberal arts side of most engineering degrees regardless the institution. In my engineering degree (University of Toronto), we had about 4 free electives and humanities courses over the whole degree. I believe there would have been a lot more value in having more free electives whereby students could take more courses in the humanities (or for those not so inclined, whatever other topics that interested them).
1971genocide 11y ago
Of'course humans are just not workers , but if you want to eat you need to sell something of value to buy your food from the farmers - and they most often then not really do not care about your humanities nonsense.
- panglott 11y ago
  Teachers, lawyers, and lots of other professions where you need to communicate effectively with other people provide lots of value. Many people fail to starve and even get rich this way.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  The 1971 genocide you commemorate in your username might not have occurred if your culture was a bit more invested in that 'humanities nonsense.'
  - 1971genocide 11y ago
    ad hominem attack much ? Sure - you should have told the British to stay the fuck away from the Indian subcontinent.

anigbrowl 11y ago

What good is our society if survival is so difficult that we can't afford to spend a few years cultivating ourselves? I'm well into economics but you're describing a society where we invest a great deal of effort in the manufacture of better sticks with which to beat ourselves.