6 ms·

The true value of a liberal arts degree is learning how to not to be totally cringe.

by J_Shelby_J 3y ago

ipython 3y ago
I have been struggling for a long time to identify what you just so succinctly described in one sentence. Thank you.
lencastre 3y ago
Reads like unpopular opinion but actually it’s like a hard pill to swallow
FFP999 3y ago
I think it was summed up well by an ad (yeah yeah I know) I saw for some university's continuing ed program: "The sciences teach you how to clone extinct dinosaurs. The liberal arts tell you why that might be a bad idea." [adjacent to graphic of T. rex pursing scientists]
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Which field will tell you that it's actually a perfectly fine idea, as long as you take correct precautions, and that taking them is literally what makes engineering a profession? Jurassic Park wasn't a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie, it was a "don't be an idiot" movie with a dinosaur theme.
  - jay_kyburz 3y ago
    Yes it was. It was "Life finds a way"; or things are more complicated than you think; or you are not as smart as you think you are. It was "Don't play with fire because there is always some idiot out there waiting to sneak past your recruiting team and blow everything up."
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      John Hammond was the villain in Jurassic Park, much moreso than Dennis Nedry. The theme was "Don't do risky, dangerous things while cutting every corner imaginable to save money (bonus: while constantly claiming you've spared no expense)." That's the "don't be an idiot" part.
      - gknoy 3y ago
        I feel like trying to make Hammond's greed/foolishness into the main point of the novel is a disservice to the rest of the story. He's not some rare supervillain, he's only a bit more greedy than most people would be in his situation, because on the whole we tend to discount risks. The "don't do this" aspect of cloning / genetic resurrection hits so hard precisely because that greed is entwined enough with human nature that any person rich enough to be a Hammond, probably is going to also have the ego to think that their idea is more safe than it is, or the greed to think they can get away without the proper precautions -- thereby dooming the project in a similar way.
        jay_kyburz 3y ago
        I believe this is why Nuclear is so popular here on HN. The risks are downplayed and the consequences are underestimated.
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        > any person rich enough to be a Hammond, probably is going to also have the ego to think that their idea is more safe than it is, or the greed to think they can get away without the proper precautions -- thereby dooming the project in a similar way. 1. "Rich therefore ego" is a popular meme. It's also bullshit. 2. Real world doesn't work that way. Society exists, regulations exist, licensed professions get involved here. Jurassic Park is the tail-end worst possible scenario, and even there, few people get eaten, big fucking deal. The danger didn't come from cloning, the danger came from greed and negligence. In the movie, dinosaurs were involved. In real life equivalent, roller coasters were involved. Some people died because of greed of others, of course it's bad, but no one is going on about "hubris" and "life finds a way" because some dumb idiot managed to blind-walk themselves into operating dangerous hardware without usual safeguards noticing.
  - calamari4065 3y ago
    > Jurassic Park wasn't a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie, it was a "don't be an idiot" movie with a dinosaur theme. This is why we have people building torment nexuses and genuinely thinking they're doing nothing wrong. Jurassic Park was a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie. They were very clear and explicit about it. The characters had multiple conversations about it. It was the central plot. The moral of the movie was "nature is indifferent to the hubris of man". Not that hubris is the downfall of man, but that the universe does not care about you, your intentions, or your actions. If you clone dinosaurs, they will escape at some point and they will kill and torment people. Did you watch the movie? Did you miss the entire "life finds a way" scene? You're taking "this is a torment nexus, please don't build it" and reading it as "torment nexus is fine, it's dumb men who are the problem" You are the problem.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
      I love that this is precisely the point. I sincerely wish more people were forced to actually take a class on all the ways hubris messes up, and all the ways people explain they just need to build the torment nexus carefully, paired with all the media about people who say the exact same thing and it blows up in their faces the exact same way. But of course the whole point of hubris is that they’ll see all the examples and think it’ll be different for them because they’ve learned from previous mistakes. It’s brilliant!
      - calamari4065 3y ago
        Man it'd sure be cool if great thinkers had been writing about hubris since the dawn of history or something. But alas, we'll just have to move forward with the torment nexus
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        They were also writing a lot about deities and heroes who were constantly drunk in between of casually murdering or raping people. Some of those themes survived to this day. Doesn't mean we should be basing our behavior on them. They also believed a lot of things we know today to be just wrong, despite their writings making it seem to be right. Again, some discernment and critical thinking is required. Skills presumably taught in liberal arts curriculum, which makes me think that people arguing for libart education in this thread didn't actually get any, judging by lack of aforementioned skills.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    >Jurassic Park wasn't a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie I am absolutely certain Jurassic park was suggesting it wasn't the best idea.
  - FFP999 3y ago
    Who was talking about Jurassic Park?
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      The ad, and thus I assumed you too. The ad was obviously referencing Jurassic Park, because the only reason this take would resonate with people is because they know it from a movie they grew up watching. To their credit, the text said, per your quote, "The liberal arts tell you why that might be a bad idea". That "might" there is what makes it a thoughtful take, instead of a dumb one that many seem to be harboring.
- CM30 3y ago
  As someone who did study a liberal arts esque degree (philosophy in this case), it definitely didn't make me consider a real life Jurassic Park a bad idea, or question a lot of science and tech and their possible uses. Heck, you could probably justify most possible moral beliefs via consequentialism, deontology, etc if you wanted to.
isk517 3y ago
The 'Introduction to Philosophy' and 'Philosophy of Science Fiction' elective course I had to take as part of my engineering program may not have done much to develop my career but I think have definitely helped me (or at least set the ground work) develop as a person.
Kalium 3y ago
On the contrary, they generally teach people to be an entirely different kind of cringe.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  Can you elaborate? Do you have specific examples in mind?
  - Kalium 3y ago
    It's been my experience that spending a lot of time with cautionary tales spun mostly out of imagination teaches people that the consequences of things can be predicted in the same way one might predict the course of a story. This is demonstrably an inaccurate assessment of human ability to consistently predict the future. Stories tend to adhere to specific patterns that make them comprehensible. Reality is under no such obligations. The issue arises when people try to shape the future and one another in ways that depend on these faulty predictions. Before long, you wind up with people who essentially believe that Cambridge Analytica was easily predictable from the invention of TCP/IP and thus that they (or we) are responsible for averting it. That false assurance is cringe, and it seems to come about in no small part from confusing the conformity of narrative fiction for messy reality.
    - cratermoon 3y ago
      Okay but what are some cringe examples you know?
      - JamesBarney 3y ago
        I think he's purposefully leaving out examples because the way liberal arts majors are cringe are usually ways that can start flame wars.
        cratermoon 3y ago
        But we're on HN, we can discuss our differences with reason and logic. Surely there are examples worthy of examination and critique.

The true value of a liberal arts degree is learning how to not to be totally cringe.

ipython 3y ago

I have been struggling for a long time to identify what you just so succinctly described in one sentence. Thank you.

lencastre 3y ago

Reads like unpopular opinion but actually it’s like a hard pill to swallow

FFP999 3y ago

I think it was summed up well by an ad (yeah yeah I know) I saw for some university's continuing ed program: "The sciences teach you how to clone extinct dinosaurs. The liberal arts tell you why that might be a bad idea." [adjacent to graphic of T. rex pursing scientists]

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Which field will tell you that it's actually a perfectly fine idea, as long as you take correct precautions, and that taking them is literally what makes engineering a profession? Jurassic Park wasn't a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie, it was a "don't be an idiot" movie with a dinosaur theme.
- jay_kyburz 3y ago
  Yes it was. It was "Life finds a way"; or things are more complicated than you think; or you are not as smart as you think you are. It was "Don't play with fire because there is always some idiot out there waiting to sneak past your recruiting team and blow everything up."
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    John Hammond was the villain in Jurassic Park, much moreso than Dennis Nedry. The theme was "Don't do risky, dangerous things while cutting every corner imaginable to save money (bonus: while constantly claiming you've spared no expense)." That's the "don't be an idiot" part.
    - gknoy 3y ago
      I feel like trying to make Hammond's greed/foolishness into the main point of the novel is a disservice to the rest of the story. He's not some rare supervillain, he's only a bit more greedy than most people would be in his situation, because on the whole we tend to discount risks. The "don't do this" aspect of cloning / genetic resurrection hits so hard precisely because that greed is entwined enough with human nature that any person rich enough to be a Hammond, probably is going to also have the ego to think that their idea is more safe than it is, or the greed to think they can get away without the proper precautions -- thereby dooming the project in a similar way.
      - jay_kyburz 3y ago
        I believe this is why Nuclear is so popular here on HN. The risks are downplayed and the consequences are underestimated.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        > any person rich enough to be a Hammond, probably is going to also have the ego to think that their idea is more safe than it is, or the greed to think they can get away without the proper precautions -- thereby dooming the project in a similar way. 1. "Rich therefore ego" is a popular meme. It's also bullshit. 2. Real world doesn't work that way. Society exists, regulations exist, licensed professions get involved here. Jurassic Park is the tail-end worst possible scenario, and even there, few people get eaten, big fucking deal. The danger didn't come from cloning, the danger came from greed and negligence. In the movie, dinosaurs were involved. In real life equivalent, roller coasters were involved. Some people died because of greed of others, of course it's bad, but no one is going on about "hubris" and "life finds a way" because some dumb idiot managed to blind-walk themselves into operating dangerous hardware without usual safeguards noticing.
- calamari4065 3y ago
  > Jurassic Park wasn't a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie, it was a "don't be an idiot" movie with a dinosaur theme. This is why we have people building torment nexuses and genuinely thinking they're doing nothing wrong. Jurassic Park was a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie. They were very clear and explicit about it. The characters had multiple conversations about it. It was the central plot. The moral of the movie was "nature is indifferent to the hubris of man". Not that hubris is the downfall of man, but that the universe does not care about you, your intentions, or your actions. If you clone dinosaurs, they will escape at some point and they will kill and torment people. Did you watch the movie? Did you miss the entire "life finds a way" scene? You're taking "this is a torment nexus, please don't build it" and reading it as "torment nexus is fine, it's dumb men who are the problem" You are the problem.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
    I love that this is precisely the point. I sincerely wish more people were forced to actually take a class on all the ways hubris messes up, and all the ways people explain they just need to build the torment nexus carefully, paired with all the media about people who say the exact same thing and it blows up in their faces the exact same way. But of course the whole point of hubris is that they’ll see all the examples and think it’ll be different for them because they’ve learned from previous mistakes. It’s brilliant!
    - calamari4065 3y ago
      Man it'd sure be cool if great thinkers had been writing about hubris since the dawn of history or something. But alas, we'll just have to move forward with the torment nexus
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        They were also writing a lot about deities and heroes who were constantly drunk in between of casually murdering or raping people. Some of those themes survived to this day. Doesn't mean we should be basing our behavior on them. They also believed a lot of things we know today to be just wrong, despite their writings making it seem to be right. Again, some discernment and critical thinking is required. Skills presumably taught in liberal arts curriculum, which makes me think that people arguing for libart education in this thread didn't actually get any, judging by lack of aforementioned skills.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  >Jurassic Park wasn't a "don't clone dinosaurs" movie I am absolutely certain Jurassic park was suggesting it wasn't the best idea.
- FFP999 3y ago
  Who was talking about Jurassic Park?
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    The ad, and thus I assumed you too. The ad was obviously referencing Jurassic Park, because the only reason this take would resonate with people is because they know it from a movie they grew up watching. To their credit, the text said, per your quote, "The liberal arts tell you why that might be a bad idea". That "might" there is what makes it a thoughtful take, instead of a dumb one that many seem to be harboring.
CM30 3y ago
As someone who did study a liberal arts esque degree (philosophy in this case), it definitely didn't make me consider a real life Jurassic Park a bad idea, or question a lot of science and tech and their possible uses. Heck, you could probably justify most possible moral beliefs via consequentialism, deontology, etc if you wanted to.

isk517 3y ago

The 'Introduction to Philosophy' and 'Philosophy of Science Fiction' elective course I had to take as part of my engineering program may not have done much to develop my career but I think have definitely helped me (or at least set the ground work) develop as a person.

Kalium 3y ago

On the contrary, they generally teach people to be an entirely different kind of cringe.

cratermoon 3y ago
Can you elaborate? Do you have specific examples in mind?
- Kalium 3y ago
  It's been my experience that spending a lot of time with cautionary tales spun mostly out of imagination teaches people that the consequences of things can be predicted in the same way one might predict the course of a story. This is demonstrably an inaccurate assessment of human ability to consistently predict the future. Stories tend to adhere to specific patterns that make them comprehensible. Reality is under no such obligations. The issue arises when people try to shape the future and one another in ways that depend on these faulty predictions. Before long, you wind up with people who essentially believe that Cambridge Analytica was easily predictable from the invention of TCP/IP and thus that they (or we) are responsible for averting it. That false assurance is cringe, and it seems to come about in no small part from confusing the conformity of narrative fiction for messy reality.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    Okay but what are some cringe examples you know?
    - JamesBarney 3y ago
      I think he's purposefully leaving out examples because the way liberal arts majors are cringe are usually ways that can start flame wars.
      - cratermoon 3y ago
        But we're on HN, we can discuss our differences with reason and logic. Surely there are examples worthy of examination and critique.