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Probably a good thing considering the decline of science and tech in the US and Western world in general. A casual visit to any major labs and observing their

Probably a good thing considering the decline of science and tech in the US and Western world in general. A casual visit to any major labs and observing their demographics makes it clear where all the talent in STEM is being created. It's better to redirect that funding towards building the next generation of scientists and engineers rather than purple haired lib arts baristas.

AIorNot 1y ago
The death of intellectualism in public discourse aside This administration’s systemic attacks on universities, science funding, national parks, national health, the CDC, NASA (science funding was gutted) and limp reactions from opposing views just accelerates the fall of the US and the decline of this country
Barrin92 1y ago
>It's better to redirect that funding towards building the next generation of scientists and engineers rather than purple haired lib arts baristas. This is never what humanities at the university of Chicago represented, as the article points out: that humanities professors are “woke” activists whose primary concern is the political indoctrination of “the youth.” Most of the Chicago faculty I spoke with saw—and defended—their disciplines in terms that were, if anything, conservative. Implicit in their impassioned defenses was the belief that the role of a humanist is to preserve knowledge, safeguard learning from the market and the tides of popular interest, and ward off coarse appeals to economic utility. A lot of the people in the humanities involved with Chicago, Nussbaum, Dewey, Rorty, Roth, are defenders of exactly the Western tradition people ostensibly want to preserve. The assault on this isn't going to strengthen tech and science, which is under attack by the exact same people for the same reasons. Scientists, medical programs, vaccine research is coming under the cleaver just like the humanities do by the same strain of anti-intellectualism. This isn't revitalizing the sciences, as if the humanities are somehow at odds with engineering, it's a decline into Americas version of some kind of oligarchic Third Worldism.
- gdulli 1y ago
  I don't think culture war catchphrases are intended to be accurately projected back onto real-life institutions. It's better for you to explain than to insult, but ignoring is probably the move.
pvankessel 1y ago
Except many STEM graduates are having a harder time finding jobs right now than liberal arts and humanities majors: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:.... For what it's worth, I have enjoyed a very successful career in data science and software engineering after taking some AP STEM courses in high school, followed by three liberal arts degrees. Many of the best engineers I've known have had similar backgrounds. A good liberal arts education teaches one how to think and learn independently. It's not a substitute for a highly-specialized education in, say, molecular biology, but it provides a really solid foundation to easily pick up more logic-derived technical skills like software development. It's also essential for an informed citizenry and functional democracy.
- LudwigNagasena 1y ago
  It’s sad that many people need to spend years on liberal arts education to learn to learn independently. Where has our society failed that 11 years of schooling and upbringing can’t provide that?
  - pvankessel 1y ago
    Oh I agree with you on that wholeheartedly. I think our society would be substantially healthier if we required civics, philosophy, economics, etc in high school. But if we're already struggling to have evolution taught in schools and we have state boards of education removing references to the slave trade and founding fathers from history curriculum (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-...), expanding liberal arts in public education is a non-starter. Hell, half the country would love to see it wiped from post-secondary education. Best I figure we can do at this point is defend the idea itself to the extent we can - for instance, in Hacker News threads where the liberal arts are being dismissed as an unnecessary lesser-than academic pursuit.
    - Jensson 1y ago
      You do realize that an engineering degree is better to learn how to learn than a typical liberal arts degree? Read academically adrift, this is well studies. In general the more difficult your degree the better it teaches you how to learn, because you are forced to learn more difficult stuff.

AIorNot 1y ago

The death of intellectualism in public discourse aside This administration’s systemic attacks on universities, science funding, national parks, national health, the CDC, NASA (science funding was gutted) and limp reactions from opposing views just accelerates the fall of the US and the decline of this country

Barrin92 1y ago

>It's better to redirect that funding towards building the next generation of scientists and engineers rather than purple haired lib arts baristas. This is never what humanities at the university of Chicago represented, as the article points out: that humanities professors are “woke” activists whose primary concern is the political indoctrination of “the youth.” Most of the Chicago faculty I spoke with saw—and defended—their disciplines in terms that were, if anything, conservative. Implicit in their impassioned defenses was the belief that the role of a humanist is to preserve knowledge, safeguard learning from the market and the tides of popular interest, and ward off coarse appeals to economic utility. A lot of the people in the humanities involved with Chicago, Nussbaum, Dewey, Rorty, Roth, are defenders of exactly the Western tradition people ostensibly want to preserve. The assault on this isn't going to strengthen tech and science, which is under attack by the exact same people for the same reasons. Scientists, medical programs, vaccine research is coming under the cleaver just like the humanities do by the same strain of anti-intellectualism. This isn't revitalizing the sciences, as if the humanities are somehow at odds with engineering, it's a decline into Americas version of some kind of oligarchic Third Worldism.

gdulli 1y ago
I don't think culture war catchphrases are intended to be accurately projected back onto real-life institutions. It's better for you to explain than to insult, but ignoring is probably the move.

pvankessel 1y ago

Except many STEM graduates are having a harder time finding jobs right now than liberal arts and humanities majors: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:.... For what it's worth, I have enjoyed a very successful career in data science and software engineering after taking some AP STEM courses in high school, followed by three liberal arts degrees. Many of the best engineers I've known have had similar backgrounds. A good liberal arts education teaches one how to think and learn independently. It's not a substitute for a highly-specialized education in, say, molecular biology, but it provides a really solid foundation to easily pick up more logic-derived technical skills like software development. It's also essential for an informed citizenry and functional democracy.

LudwigNagasena 1y ago
It’s sad that many people need to spend years on liberal arts education to learn to learn independently. Where has our society failed that 11 years of schooling and upbringing can’t provide that?
- pvankessel 1y ago
  Oh I agree with you on that wholeheartedly. I think our society would be substantially healthier if we required civics, philosophy, economics, etc in high school. But if we're already struggling to have evolution taught in schools and we have state boards of education removing references to the slave trade and founding fathers from history curriculum (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-...), expanding liberal arts in public education is a non-starter. Hell, half the country would love to see it wiped from post-secondary education. Best I figure we can do at this point is defend the idea itself to the extent we can - for instance, in Hacker News threads where the liberal arts are being dismissed as an unnecessary lesser-than academic pursuit.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    You do realize that an engineering degree is better to learn how to learn than a typical liberal arts degree? Read academically adrift, this is well studies. In general the more difficult your degree the better it teaches you how to learn, because you are forced to learn more difficult stuff.