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honestly not quite sure how to respond to this. the obvious response to "what's 4 more?" is that it's a lot more money than zero more, and each of those last fo

honestly not quite sure how to respond to this. the obvious response to "what's 4 more?" is that it's a lot more money than zero more, and each of those last four years is going to be considerably more expensive than a year of grade school. I don't mind having my tax dollars go towards helping young people establish stable careers so they can become self-sufficient. I also don't mind paying to educate them so the can go out and help the needier members of society. I just don't think stuff like art history is a good investment of public money. I have a lot of friends who got art history degrees, which is why I use this example. they had a great time in school, but they would be hard pressed to point to any tangible benefits from the degree. most of them ended up having to pursue certifications for unrelated fields.

qualqual 7y ago
As I mentioned in a prior post (and which, as you correctly noted, did not adequately recognize the context of the thread), the cost for educating social scientists and humanists is minimal (though certainly not negligible, especially if we aspire to providing a good education rather than a bottom-of-the-barrel and grossly underfunded degree, which is currently the norm). However, I'm wondering what you consider to be tangible benefits? And to who? The benefits of a degree in social sciences or humanities are ways of thinking that can be applied in various fields of practice. Students in these programs literally learn how to think and argue effectively, especially about social issues and social systems. This goes way beyond the first year sociology class that computer science students are 'forced' to take as an elective. Techies without social science or humanities backgrounds are notoriously bad at thinking about social systems, and end up developing extremely problematic socially-embedded tools and technologies. If we consider many of the problematic tech of the past decade (intrusive surveillance tech, under-moderated social media, crispr genetic modification, etc), they were all designed without such considerations in mind, and have had detrimental effects on society. It's sad that we continue to not 'get it', that thinking properly about human experiences and systems, as informed by specialists who deal with this specifically, is crucial. This is not only true about tech fields. When social science and humanities graduates enter post-grad programs that actually recognize the value of such prior education (i.e. medical schools that accept students with bachelor or arts, which is surprisingly rare) these students actually tend to perform better. Public policy designed by social scientists and humanists also works more effectively, but instead we have huge lobbies funded by the tech industry and management firms pushing for de-regulation or regulation designed by those technocrats themselves (i.e. sidewalk labs in toronto).

qualqual 7y ago

As I mentioned in a prior post (and which, as you correctly noted, did not adequately recognize the context of the thread), the cost for educating social scientists and humanists is minimal (though certainly not negligible, especially if we aspire to providing a good education rather than a bottom-of-the-barrel and grossly underfunded degree, which is currently the norm). However, I'm wondering what you consider to be tangible benefits? And to who? The benefits of a degree in social sciences or humanities are ways of thinking that can be applied in various fields of practice. Students in these programs literally learn how to think and argue effectively, especially about social issues and social systems. This goes way beyond the first year sociology class that computer science students are 'forced' to take as an elective. Techies without social science or humanities backgrounds are notoriously bad at thinking about social systems, and end up developing extremely problematic socially-embedded tools and technologies. If we consider many of the problematic tech of the past decade (intrusive surveillance tech, under-moderated social media, crispr genetic modification, etc), they were all designed without such considerations in mind, and have had detrimental effects on society. It's sad that we continue to not 'get it', that thinking properly about human experiences and systems, as informed by specialists who deal with this specifically, is crucial. This is not only true about tech fields. When social science and humanities graduates enter post-grad programs that actually recognize the value of such prior education (i.e. medical schools that accept students with bachelor or arts, which is surprisingly rare) these students actually tend to perform better. Public policy designed by social scientists and humanists also works more effectively, but instead we have huge lobbies funded by the tech industry and management firms pushing for de-regulation or regulation designed by those technocrats themselves (i.e. sidewalk labs in toronto).