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I had a similar argument this morning with friends. Italy has a strong humanities imprinting in its society and school programs, and math/physics are usually ta

I had a similar argument this morning with friends. Italy has a strong humanities imprinting in its society and school programs, and math/physics are usually taught in a horrible way, with the end result that people saying "I can't do math ahahah" are quite a common thing amongst the non stem people. However, if you say "I don't know shit about Dante" you'll be seen as ignorant (rightfully so, imho). I don't think the guilt is on the people saying they can't understand math, because they probably are right in that they have troubles with simple maths. The school system still lays on the fascist philosopher Gentile. However, I don't think that stem is inherently less apt at creating citizens than humanities. For some things required today to be a decent citizen, a bit of stem knowledge is required, let alone if you want do dwelve into politics choices. Most engineers I know are pro nuclear. Amongst non engineers, this support is way less present. If I try to talk to someone about digital privacy, chances are nobody is gonna be interested about it except for a few stem people. And yet these are all things that are actual topics in the public discourse. Stem stem stem isn't inherently bad in itself. It's bad if you go stem stem stem and you think you are superior, but I don't think it's bad in itself. I think I've mad a bunch of different arguments and some might be a bit hard to understand, feel free to ask for clarifications

te_chris 2y ago
I agree, studying STEM doesn't exclude becoming a balanced person. Politcians tinkering with the education system and killing humanities and arts departments because they don't make coders makes it harder to create a balanced society. The irony of LLMs is that the sorts of modes of thinking taught by art and the humanities are going to be more valuable as we need to evaluate and work with AI and agents. Science and engineering will remain valuable too! But that isn't what's being questioned by these midwit business graduates we call leaders.
gus_massa 2y ago
One of the problems is that people may have a very shallow knowdledge of Dante (or whoever is the most famous writter in their country) and still claim they know the subject. What is the question about Dante equivalent to "*Solve x+y=10, x-y=4." ?

te_chris 2y ago

I agree, studying STEM doesn't exclude becoming a balanced person. Politcians tinkering with the education system and killing humanities and arts departments because they don't make coders makes it harder to create a balanced society. The irony of LLMs is that the sorts of modes of thinking taught by art and the humanities are going to be more valuable as we need to evaluate and work with AI and agents. Science and engineering will remain valuable too! But that isn't what's being questioned by these midwit business graduates we call leaders.

gus_massa 2y ago

One of the problems is that people may have a very shallow knowdledge of Dante (or whoever is the most famous writter in their country) and still claim they know the subject. What is the question about Dante equivalent to "*Solve x+y=10, x-y=4." ?