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There is absolutely pressure to go to college, but there is hardly pressure to follow passions. If there was, then the two would be in conflict. The pressure

by lame88 7y ago

There is absolutely pressure to go to college, but there is hardly pressure to follow passions. If there was, then the two would be in conflict. The pressure is: don't follow your passions, go to college, major in STEM or "something useful". What has that resulted in? An inflation of watered-down STEM-lite degrees not just from the standard degree factories but accredited state research universities, that provide none of the benefits of a liberal arts education and still leaving one poorly trained to produce. I am willing to bet that given a population of philosophy majors and a population of engineering majors, if you gave them an equivalent year of quality mentorship in programming, the philosophy majors would perform better. Because philosophy heavily emphasizes critical and abstract thinking. Better yet they might be able to really think about the consequences of the systems they build, whereas the tech industry mostly seems to have no problem and no concerns about building a global surveillance apparatus. Engineers learn how to do now the stuff that is relevant now. As a software engineer I am constantly battling with abstraction, and I constantly feel held back by my limited understanding of math, science, and philosophy. The cost of college is an issue of its own and it's irrelevant to choice of major. School is the one place where we have an institutionalized system to study and progress the liberal arts as a whole, which teach us how we got here, what we value, and how we ought to live. One episode of The Wire should be sufficient demonstration of the need for our understanding of sociology to improve, among other things. Discouraging any of the liberal arts due to the overwhelming cost of college exacerbates our problems and risks turning universities into trade schools, directionless and with all the volatility of economic cycle.

luckylion 7y ago
> Because philosophy heavily emphasizes critical and abstract thinking. I've taken a few classes in philosophy (it was my major for a while), and I can't tell if this is super different in the US vs Europe or you're just making stuff up, but this is just not what I saw. Yes, logic is part of philosophy, and everybody needs to take that class, but it's not heavily emphasized for the majority of students. Being able to write summaries and essays is, and learning the lingo, and reading (and hopefully understanding, or being able to pretend so well enough) the classics. > Better yet they might be able to really think about the consequences of the systems they build, whereas the tech industry mostly seems to have no problem and no concerns about building a global surveillance apparatus. Please don't. Studying in the humanities doesn't make you a better person, and it doesn't make you consider ethics in everything you do either. > School is the one place where we have an institutionalized system to study and progress the liberal arts as a whole Except not everybody agrees that is what life is all about, what's best for society, the country, humanity or whatever you choose. Somebody has to do the actual work, you know? Sure, we can all become philosophers and then starve to death, or we can make sure that we have enough people that know how to grow food. When it comes down to it, yeah, with all of my ethics training, I very much prefer people that know how to grow food over people that will explain that the ethical thing to do is to feed them first, because only they can lead progress and advance the liberal arts. But then again, I always had a thing for utilitarianism and was highly suspicious of the bourgeois elitism in intellectual circles.
- lame88 7y ago
  Oh, and STEM is different? Let me try: math and physics aren't about understanding quantity and the universe; they are about memorizing equations and pretending you know them just in time for the test. Computer science is about more about copying and pasting code and getting away with it. What you're describing - where gaming the system is the norm - is entirely valid, and a problem with education institutions as a whole, but it's completely independent of the subject matter. I don't understand your last paragraph at all. Not everybody agrees, so therefore liberal arts education is invalid? Or not everybody agrees, so let's give up? These are defeatist attitudes to take in either case. Implicit in your argument, as a response to this whole thread, is that not "somebody has to do the work", which I have never argued against; you're saying "nobody should do anything but the work". Meaning STEM, or whatever BigCo is hiring for right now. We continue to have huge problems globally that either have nothing to do with technology or are directly caused by technology, that need to be solved with entirely different skillsets. People perform better when they are motivated, and money is a poor motivator after a certain point. You make a very poor assumption that someone studies one of these subjects and their skills and experiences just go into this void, and/or that I'm advocating that people major in something and strictly do that for the rest of their lives. If you want to do the hands-on work and major in Hands-On Working, then do it. But don't discourage others from doing what they want and are good at during the narrow window of their lives when society supports them to do it.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > Oh, and STEM is different? You're making claims about philosophy, I'm not making claims about STEM - I don't know what you're trying to accomplish. > Not everybody agrees, so therefore liberal arts education is invalid? No. Not everybody agrees, thereforce "liberal arts advances humanity" isn't agreed upon and shouldn't guide us. Let's agree upon it first. > you're saying "nobody should do anything but the work" No. I'm saying "please contribute". And by "contribute" I mean "do something that all/most/many consider to be of value". If we start defining "contributing" to mean something that the individual believes to be valuable, then it's just random. Build houses, grow roses, torture people, whatever, as long as you feel like it's a good idea, you're contributing. > But don't discourage others from doing what they want I'd never dream of doing that. I'm just saying: if you want to do what you want, please pay for it yourself. Don't make me give you part of my money to indulge in your personal pleasures.

by lame88 7y ago

luckylion 7y ago

> Because philosophy heavily emphasizes critical and abstract thinking. I've taken a few classes in philosophy (it was my major for a while), and I can't tell if this is super different in the US vs Europe or you're just making stuff up, but this is just not what I saw. Yes, logic is part of philosophy, and everybody needs to take that class, but it's not heavily emphasized for the majority of students. Being able to write summaries and essays is, and learning the lingo, and reading (and hopefully understanding, or being able to pretend so well enough) the classics. > Better yet they might be able to really think about the consequences of the systems they build, whereas the tech industry mostly seems to have no problem and no concerns about building a global surveillance apparatus. Please don't. Studying in the humanities doesn't make you a better person, and it doesn't make you consider ethics in everything you do either. > School is the one place where we have an institutionalized system to study and progress the liberal arts as a whole Except not everybody agrees that is what life is all about, what's best for society, the country, humanity or whatever you choose. Somebody has to do the actual work, you know? Sure, we can all become philosophers and then starve to death, or we can make sure that we have enough people that know how to grow food. When it comes down to it, yeah, with all of my ethics training, I very much prefer people that know how to grow food over people that will explain that the ethical thing to do is to feed them first, because only they can lead progress and advance the liberal arts. But then again, I always had a thing for utilitarianism and was highly suspicious of the bourgeois elitism in intellectual circles.

lame88 7y ago
Oh, and STEM is different? Let me try: math and physics aren't about understanding quantity and the universe; they are about memorizing equations and pretending you know them just in time for the test. Computer science is about more about copying and pasting code and getting away with it. What you're describing - where gaming the system is the norm - is entirely valid, and a problem with education institutions as a whole, but it's completely independent of the subject matter. I don't understand your last paragraph at all. Not everybody agrees, so therefore liberal arts education is invalid? Or not everybody agrees, so let's give up? These are defeatist attitudes to take in either case. Implicit in your argument, as a response to this whole thread, is that not "somebody has to do the work", which I have never argued against; you're saying "nobody should do anything but the work". Meaning STEM, or whatever BigCo is hiring for right now. We continue to have huge problems globally that either have nothing to do with technology or are directly caused by technology, that need to be solved with entirely different skillsets. People perform better when they are motivated, and money is a poor motivator after a certain point. You make a very poor assumption that someone studies one of these subjects and their skills and experiences just go into this void, and/or that I'm advocating that people major in something and strictly do that for the rest of their lives. If you want to do the hands-on work and major in Hands-On Working, then do it. But don't discourage others from doing what they want and are good at during the narrow window of their lives when society supports them to do it.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Oh, and STEM is different? You're making claims about philosophy, I'm not making claims about STEM - I don't know what you're trying to accomplish. > Not everybody agrees, so therefore liberal arts education is invalid? No. Not everybody agrees, thereforce "liberal arts advances humanity" isn't agreed upon and shouldn't guide us. Let's agree upon it first. > you're saying "nobody should do anything but the work" No. I'm saying "please contribute". And by "contribute" I mean "do something that all/most/many consider to be of value". If we start defining "contributing" to mean something that the individual believes to be valuable, then it's just random. Build houses, grow roses, torture people, whatever, as long as you feel like it's a good idea, you're contributing. > But don't discourage others from doing what they want I'd never dream of doing that. I'm just saying: if you want to do what you want, please pay for it yourself. Don't make me give you part of my money to indulge in your personal pleasures.