Yes everything you say is correct. In particular I like your comment about signalling which is spot on. I would say this would be the main reason anyone bothe

Yes everything you say is correct. In particular I like your comment about signalling which is spot on. I would say this would be the main reason anyone bothers to do an arts degree these days. Ultimately, these are in fact the evolutionarily designed QA processes which have actually worked reasonably well up until now. But we've reached the point where they are clearly holding us back. Being able to socialise with a certain class may well have reliably indicated competence or excellence in a field in the past. The rigours of specialisation almost entirely wipe out that correlation. We've got millions of people being produced out of universities that actually can't do anything. And it's not just in arts that this is a problem - how many posts are we seeing here on HN from people saying they've done a computer science degree but can't code for shit? That the upper echelons of academe are in fact SO incredibly status orientated suggests that what many of the best academics are actually doing revolves more around signalling procedures than actually making a real contribution of knowledge. and while I accept that this seems like an extreme conclusion - I've seen it time and time again. Many of the academics who have achieved the most status outside the academic community actually have reputations for not doing very much at all. It's certainly not all - but so many more than most of you would initially guess.