5 ms·

Having a lot of professors living on the public dime and not contributing anything back is the effect of a rich (and decadent) society, not the cause.

• eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  There's a vast difference between maximizing society's total productivity and maximizing the amount of time people spend working on increasing economic output. Namely, the amount of technology used. Since most of us on Hacker News work in some form of technology, I'd say its in our economic interest not to apply terms of moral condemnation like "decadent" to forms of society that generate more demand for our skills ;-).
  • javert 12y ago
    I'm not saying that philosophy professors don't increase economic output. I'm saying they don't contribute anything at all. In general---I think there are some good ones. And I think a lot of the contribute positively through their teaching, just not their research and publications. But note that the primary focus and goal of professors at top-tier universities is research. Also, I disagree with your dichotomy between "economic output" and "society's total productivity," but that's a separate issue. Also, I'm not going to be dishonest for the sake of narrow economic interest, which is what you are asking me to do.
    • eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      >Also, I'm not going to be dishonest for the sake of narrow economic interest, which is what you are asking me to do. Actually, I was being ironic. I don't believe that "decadent" is really a genuine moral condemnation at all, instead merely meaning, "A society that doesn't suit my survivalist tastes because it is too civilized." Or at least, that's what I observe about common applications of the word "decadent".
• deleted 12y ago
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