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> What’s the ROI when you factor in having an educated population that can tell fact from fiction, engage in critical thinking, and resist fascism? That's a st
by dijit 2y ago
> What’s the ROI when you factor in having an educated population that can tell fact from fiction, engage in critical thinking, and resist fascism?
That's a strong assertion, I'm sure university level education can help give tools to people to help people understand facts, think critically etc if they study the right thing; I would be really cautious of applying that universally.
What I've seen mostly is a different kind of groupthink, where critical thinking and open, curious and honest discussion is not tolerated.
I could be wrong and my experiences are of course anecdotal. I get much more honest and genuinely curious discussion on HackerNews than from University graduates.
Yes, a better educated population is considered a net benefit for society, which was the impetus for mandatory education, evidently society considers that there are diminishing returns and those happen at around age 16 for British citizens. I would like to understand who decided that age and why.
- markleeville 2y ago> What I've seen mostly is a different kind of groupthink, where critical thinking and open, curious and honest discussion is not tolerated. In my experience it really hasn't been hard to find a home for every position at a reasonably-sized school: fraternities and clubs are all over the spectrum (often actively endorsed and sponsored by the school). Even at UC Berkeley, one of the largest organizations here is the Berkeley College Republicans — and last year I attended a Turning Point USA event officially hosted by San Francisco State University perfectly fine (even with it being the "leftist" school that established Ethnic Studies). A generalization that is worded like a sci-fi blockbuster logline doesn't seem to square with critical discussion — if anything it comes across as a redigestion of online forum posts and second-hand accounts. It's hard to say any university of a reasonable size has one monolithic culture, even within the same department.
- lapcat 2y ago> I get much more honest and genuinely curious discussion on HackerNews than from University graduates. Are HN commenters not mainly university graduates? My impression is that HN commenters are disproportionately university graduates compared to other social networks.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoYes, but it's still a selection bias of commenters in a specific field, who care enough about an old school forum to comment in a community. I can't personally imagine most of my college peers caring enough to post anything longer than a tweet. Not even because they are dumb nor lack critical thinking. They simply care a lot less about online communities compared to physical relationships, or are focused on their careers, etc. Commenters on any community are subject to the 1% rule; there are a LOT more lurkers than commenters on any given platform.
- dijit 2y agocorrelation != causation, I would be surprised if it wasn't a large mix of autodidacts, university graduates, bootcampers and people who fell in (helping out on some tech stuff at work or had to learn something to get a business bootstrapped) but became more and more curious over time. One of the virtues of the industry being extremely immature is that the gates are not fully established, so you are more likely to have a strong mix of paths to reach senior. Especially amongst devops/infra, "full stack" developers or founders. Which seems to be the usual haunt on here.
- lapcat 2y ago> I would be surprised if it wasn't a large mix of autodidacts, university graduates, bootcampers Speaking of the tech industry, autodidacts and bootcampers are not mutually exclusive with university graduates. For example, I taught myself computer programming, but I also have a Masters degree in philosophy. In any case, what exactly is your experience in discussion with university graduates exclusively, that you can compare it with Hacker News discussion? By the way, I suspect that my esteem for HN discussion is a lot lower than yours.
- graemep 2y agoI studied a bit of programming in other degrees but am mostly self taught. I have a masters in financial economics and another in business.
- 2y ago