Dunno. Certainly things must be far from perfect, but the academic environment intrinsically holds some qualities that industry lacks for research and innovation. And companies are also prone to corruption, intrigues, nepotism, as well as any other institution.
Interesting video actually. I thought this was going to be a bitter conspiracy theory thread, but I believe he is telling the truth.
I did not get my PhD at a nice place like Harvard or wherever but now I'm interacting with people who did and it's pretty clear they have all sorts of connections I don't, so it rings true.
>good discussion
Discussion is irrelevant if the people doing the discussing are egocentric, dunning-krueger plebs aka plebbitors. You have to go back.
What do you mean? The meetings aren't secret. Me being invited or not doesn't change that fact. Unless you're talking Skull&Bones and Bohemian Club type meetings then sure, yes, they're secret. But they're not academia.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I was just joking but since you replied let me tell you that you missed the point. Nothing is stopping a group of professors and their inner circle from meeting and discussing ideas together without broadcasting that to everyone. That certainly happens and those that are privy to that have an easier time than those that aren't.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's possible that Weinstein was maliciously excluded from these meetings, but it's also possible that he, by virtue of his narcicissm etc. managed to ostracize himself which he is either oblivious to or dishonest about.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>he is either oblivious to or dishonest about.
You literally think everyone is as petty and stupid as you are. You cant tell if someone is vastly more intelligent than you or simply "crafty with trickery". It would be sad if you had the ability to understand your error but you dont...so it would be like having sympathy for a falling pinecone.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Oh hey Eric
2 years ago
Anonymous
No, dunce, you admitted without knowing it that you yourself knows you are cant see the difference but subconsiously....because your ego would be so wounded if it saw itself in the mirror.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Based schizo projector
2 years ago
Anonymous
If you were to follow Eric long enough, you would realize his tripping over his own narcissism is actually far more likely than being excluded for scientific reasons. His bafflingly awful handling of the Tim Dillon issue with Rogan is an exemplar case of this.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Projection: The Post
Who are you really screaming at buddy? Is it your boss from work? Did he make you feel small in front of everyone? Did he scream so loud you almost wizzed yourself? Come on, it's ok, he's not here, you can tell me what hurt your lil feefees today.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>by virtue of his narcicissm etc. managed to ostracize himself which he is either oblivious to or dishonest about.
He does not strike me as particularly narcissistic, like, in the video, where the guy interviewing him calls people "buttholes," he doesn't agree, he pushes back and explains the economic situation. The whole video is basically about economics and the dishonesty involved in the pyramid scam that is the University and the sort of cut-throat behavior that emerges.
It's even worse than, say, a typical large corporation where, say you have 7 vice presidents in charge of widgets, and only 1 gets promoted to president of widgets one day. The 6 other guys will still have a career. At the end of the day, the N grad students that Prof. XYZ takes through to the PhD, not all of them will find even a community college teaching position, because there are not enough such positions.
It is actually a problem for the whole University, esp. undergraduate education, where the focus is on pretending "education is a good in itself" (true) but also "this good in itself will help your career, because in this, the best of all possible worlds, doing what is good matters."
There are very few courses where you actually discuss universities from a critical point of view, it is a sacred cow.
Like, as I posted above, I researched a fair bit about what a University is, it is a corporation. I have had faculty, PhD students, etc. look at me like I was "schizo" for saying that, even though for my alma mater it is literally in the act incorporating the UNiversity, where some acts of incorporation are not as clear, but there is no particular word for incorporation.
For example,
"The King establishes The Master and Scholars of the University of Bozos, and grants to them the capacity to have a common seal, and to make by-laws" is def. a grant of corporation.
It is identical with
"The King Establishes &c. a body politic."
Or "The King Constitutions &c. a corporation"
2 years ago
Anonymous
Eric doesn't strike you are narcissistic? That's like saying the sun doesn't strike you as luminous. Fricking FANS of Eric decry his narcissism.
I think you might have a hard on for this guy and can't see some of his faults. Eric is not only narcissistic, but he is a rare case where the narcissism is so extensive, he is unaware of the reputational damage it does to him.
He doesn't know he's acting the fool because he's incapable of perceiving himself the fool.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Fricking FANS of Eric decry his narcissism.
Well, I am not a fanboy of many academics (Timothy Leary is an exception), and I think that use of psychology terms like "narcissism" is over-rated. To be an academic you're going to be a bit arrogant, one philosophy prof. I had decades ago said. You're going to assert X, and if someone says "no, you're wrong," you're going to stand up for yourself, to some degree. This is true even in the sciences.
>He doesn't know he's acting the fool because he's incapable of perceiving himself the fool
This is a criticism that is very easy to make but I cannot for the life of me imagine how you would prove it. He's not a fool, in the video above he makes an economic criticism of the University that I have heard made by several faculty at my university. But they still supervise grad students because...it's the job.
Maybe he says lots of other cracked out nonsense, but this video is fairly reasonable. No one likes feeling socially excluded, that is basic humanity, and he was socially excluded, and then he realized that it was systemic, and that it is partly for economic reasons.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I've watched hours of his content, and he doesn't strike me as narcissistic at all. He seems humble enough, he's good at promoting dialogue with his guests, and he tends to view the world with nuanced shades instead of demonizing his opponents. Where is this supposed narcissism? The fact that he's speaking and he's controversial? Sometimes, you have to speak up, especially if you stand for anything. The willingness to decry all dissent against a sterile system as "narcissism" speaks volumes about our "Last Man" society.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Where is this supposed narcissism?
I don't see it either, tho I've not watched much of his stuff. He is obviously smart enough to "do the work" so to a certain personality type, the reason he was shunned MUST be because he's schizo/narcissistic/etc.
It couldn't be a structural problem with universities, economics, etc. It couldn't be a contingent problem with people who have gotten into the higher positions in Universities.
It's almost like the Soviet attitude toward a certain sort of criticism: it was 'sluggish schizophrenia,' not that the Soviet state had problems.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Also, I'm realizing that using a lot of words to say very little of anything is a habit with you. Dear god make a fricking point.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Also, I'm realizing that using a lot of words to say very little of anything is a habit with you. Dear god make a fricking point.
I made a point, I don't think you understand it---what you're saying is often a defense mechanism.
I mean, could I edit it down if I were writing something serious? Sure, but I am just shooting the shit here, man.
I reread what I wrote, you are just trying to gaslight me, or you are quasi-literate, that's my position. Now you can accuse me of trying to gaslight you 😉
2 years ago
Anonymous
>The meetings aren't secret
Sure they are. There are no published criteria for who gets into any graduate program, except some of the professional ones at some state schools where they just use a computer program to admit the majority of candidates, e.g. LSAT * 0.5 + GPA * 0.5, take the top 200 candidates or whatever for a state law school (not Yale, Harvard, etc.)
The faculty meetings where they decide who is going to be accepted to grad programs are definitely not public. It is a big "black box."
The most powerful institution in Society, the University, is completely unaccountable in terms of how it decides who gets into grad programs, who gets tenure, etc. etc. It also has very little to do with quality of scholarship, esp now that there are (1) equity admissions and (2) political discrimination, tho this is more a factor in the humanities, e.g. in philosophy.
See "Ideological Diversity, Hostility, and Discrimination in Philosophy" (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/223236574.pdf)
This paper focuses more on the graduate/conference world, but it is even worse in undergrad---you will have, in an ethics course, for example, some sanctimonious homosexual "assistant professor" give someone a 74 because he quotes Max Stirner and says 'ethics are a spook' (and let's presume he defends his thesis) because he is a butthurt sanctimonious homosexual who thinks "we're all smart, be kind," even though his IQ is room temperature. Many such cases.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>not public
Doesn't mean they're secret.
I know and agree with all the rest, but something not being open for the public doesn't make it secret. Secret meetings are meetings nobody knows about, and mostly which produce results that aren't made public.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Doesn't mean they're secret.
"late 14c., "that which is hidden from human understanding;" early 15c., "that which is hidden from general knowledge;" from Latin secretum "secrecy; a mystery; a thing hidden; secret conversation," also "retirement, solitude," noun from secretus "set apart, withdrawn; hidden, concealed, private." This is a past-participle adjective from secernere "to set apart, part, divide; exclude," from se- "without, apart," properly "on one's own" (see se-) + cernere "to separate" (from PIE root *krei- "to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish")."
>Secret meetings are meetings nobody knows about
This is obviously ridiculous, because if "nobody knows about" the meetings, how can "nobody" attend a meeting?
You might disagree, but I am comfortable calling them 'secret' in the sense that obviously the lack of inviting certain persons is intentional, the idea is to "keep the meeting a secret from that horrible schizo who isn't "one of us."" It's a basic human tribal impulse, and one view of higher education is that higher ed exists to destroy those base instincts---of course, to the secret meeters, that is just "schizo talk," they got bills to pay.
>Be ugly (literal) wart hog >Also be autistic >Demand that nobody supervise your PhD thesis >Faculty is then vaguely aware of that wart-ridden autist who is probably so socially awkward that he can't even handle having a PhD supervisor >Never get invited anywhere because people are hardly aware of your existence >Find out about a seminar that's being held >Decide to attend said seminar >Make eye contact with the speaker at one point >INITIATE: Paranoid delusion mode >50 years later: Recount those paranoid delusions on a podcast about love, the meaning of life, Joe Rogan, and how they relate to simulations.
This. Show me an accomplished non schizo non narcissist talking about these things, then Ill listen. Weinstein seems to be complaining about gatekeeping when people like him are the reason gatekeeping exists.
He's not any more schizo than your garden variety string theorist.
The whole thing can be understood as just israeli infighting which is very believable.
>Weinstein seems to be complaining about gatekeeping when people like him are the reason gatekeeping exists.
Sabin's papers on the inflation of the universe was rejected for not having "woke implications" in it.
German here. There is a section "relevance to sex, gender, and diversity" in DFG (German research society) grant proposals that you just have to fill out with any bullshit you can come up with. I'm currently in aerospace and we have to do this as well. I guess what she did was just ignore it instead of writing "we're including candidates of diverse backgrounds in the hiring process" or something. Yes, it's still absolutely insane to require a sentence like that, but it's not like she had to really argue that her research furthers the woke agenda.
I still think her move was a valuable display of the shittery going on in academia right now.
If I count >PhD in physics, currently PostDoc in aerospace engineering
It's all a scam. People genuinely interested in science or producing actual results are scarce. Grant farming is real. Your tax money is wasted on useless conferences where professors go on vacation, and idiotic projects. The people checking grants are pants-on-head moronic (vaguely say your project is sustainable, everybody profits for years to come, use machine learning and/or quantum computing, and they'll approve). Publications cost several thousand dollars for open access (i.e., publishers putting a fricking PDF on their website). Sexocraty exists. PhD students are drained of all aspirations they have. Almost nothing of value is produced except for some power performers.
>Weinstein seems to be complaining about gatekeeping when people like him are the reason gatekeeping exists.
This is, like, jaundiced as frick. So, to understand the University, you have to read Plato, and Plato, through Socrates (whether or not Socrates is his IRONIC interlocutor, or stating Plato's beliefs we do not know), says that the kallipolis (beautiful corporation/city) requires a class of "guardians" who get to do a couple of things:
(1) Censor stories, to modify the affect of the subjects of their educational system
(2) Lie to people ("lies are like drugs.")
So, that is the "gatekeeping" function, and it is wholly incompatible with science.
What's the scientific account of corporations, and how is it distinct from the scientific account of religion? Invisible immortal bodies that "exist because people agree they exist." So if people agree God exists, God exists? And dissenters are what, narcissistic schizos who aren't "with the program"? Frick off.
Schizos will never understand. It'll always be "my voice is getting censored WAHHHHH" because they mentally cannot comprehend what it's like not to be them.
Schizos like winestain and yourself must be censored, but not because there's some conspiracy out to get you, but simply because people don't want to waste the time to listen to your ramblings. Believe it or not people have lives, and if we had to sit and sift through every schizo paper on the planet because they asked us to then nothing would get done, ever.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Schizos like winestain and yourself must be censored, but not because there's some conspiracy out to get you, but simply because people don't want to waste the time to listen to your ramblings. Believe it or not people have lives, and if we had to sit and sift through every schizo paper on the planet because they asked us to then nothing would get done, ever.
The issue is that what is "getting done" is you getting paid. There's nothing wrong with this, it's not an objection on moral grounds to your behavior, it is that, as Weinstein says, it's simply not the bill of goods sold to undergrads, or when a public University asks the state for funding. They are not saying "we run a parallel structure to keep the schizos who end up being admitted from gumming up the works."
It's simply clique behavior----as Frank Zappa said, the real world is like highschool, but the adult have more money.
I also figured out this was how it went early on in my undergrad career---the first epistemology course I took was taught by a guy who was published in both mathematics and philosophy, like, actual math, not "hurr, durr, I did a symbolic logic!"
I could understand exactly what he was saying, because I am intelligent. The "non schizos" in the dept treated him like he was a moron, and he never got tenure.
What people like you are unwilling to accept is that every railroad has a conductor, and railroads are run to MAKE MONEY, not to DISCOVER TRUTH. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the shameless dishonesty.
The truth is universities dont exist, I've never seen anything invisible, tho I've heard about lots of invisible things.
But the goal is to get tenure and get paid---I had a number of faculty explain this to me, because I can see it both ways. The most honest explanation I got was from an old Chemistry prof, emeritus.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>I could understand exactly what he was saying, because I am intelligent. The "non schizos" in the dept treated him like he was a moron, and he never got tenure.
I remember a colloquim, I think the speaker was David Chalmers, a philosopher some ppl think is decent, iirc it was some pop thing about "the matrix"--basically he got a free trip to the West Coast out of it.
The aforesaid "schizo" prof shot his hand up during Q&A, and Chalmers went right for him, not knowing what he was. He proceeded to state that he thought there were certain problems with what Chalmers had said, and that perhaps he needed to consider X Y and Z. You could feel the other faculty in the department rolling their eyes at him, like 'we just brought this dude to our house for a party and you are going to shit on him?'
I wish I could remember what he actually said.
2 years ago
Anonymous
(cont'd)
He was a bit of a "schizo" in his early days in grad school, he had an alternative view of Van der Waals forces. His advisor said to him "well, you might even be right, but Prof X's view is the prevailing view. You're not here to swim upstream, are you? You're here to publish, to get your PhD, then to get tenure somewhere and build a life for yourself."
So, really, the "parallel structure" is the economic structure that undergrads and everyone is told the University is beyond. So, again, it is the dishonesty.
"We are a clique of people who dont actually care what's true or false, and it is easier for us to push eachother along if we agree to assert X, isntead of tolerating schizos who are "not team players." It's basically the behavior that emerges in all large corporations. Being right isnt as important as being able to assert dominance and continue being paid. If the corporation is large enough, esp. if it is subsidized by the state, you dont even need to worry about profitability.
Derrida, in his address to Columbia's Grad School on its 100th Anniversary, in Mochlos, says that the notion of "university responsibility" is really not that well studied. To whom is the University responsible?
It's sort of like how lawyers behave, which is no surprise becauyse the UNiversity is a legal institution, not a scientific one---there is no scientific account of how universities exist, except maybe soft science like social psych/sociology, same for religion. Anyway, lawyers argue for the sake of making money. A lawyer who thought his job was to "get at the truth of the case" would be a bad lawyer. His job is to make money for himself, which means he has to win for his client, so he can then get more clients and repeat. That's all it is. YOu don't need to dress it up as gatekeeping against some catastrophe, it's that there are finite placements, and you want them to be filled with people like yourself.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>A lawyer who thought his job was to "get at the truth of the case" would be a bad lawyer. His job is to make money for himself,
partially wrong. A lawyers ethos is to subjectively argue in defense of his client, because the prosecution will also subjectively argue against him, disregarding the truth. This is an adversarial legal system. If you want to go deeper, there basically isn't right and wrong, there is no objective truth, everyone should be allowed to defend themselves no matter how guilty they may appear.
2 years ago
Anonymous
NTA but a lawyer's job is to present all evidence that supports his client, to provide a favorable interpretation of events that is at least plausible and consistent with the facts of the case, to guard the client against self-incrimination and manipulation, and, if all else fails, to argue some mitigating circumstances. Naturally, this is a one-sided and biased presentation, but it stems from the understanding that you can't put a single party in charge of curating the evidence and presenting an unbiased narrative, as that would require weighing contradictory pieces of information against each other, effectively putting that party in the position of the judge while also circumventing the jury. This doesn't imply "no objective truth", and the expectation is that the lawyer is acting in good faith and presenting relevant information that needs to be considered while making a judgment. The normalization of lawyers being licensed scam artists who intentionally engineer as much of a fabrication as they could possibly get away with is a vulgar and pathological Americanism.
2 years ago
Anonymous
You may genuinely be fricking moronic enough to believe in the ideological justification for how, in theory, the platonic ideal of a lawyer is supposed to work as having some relevance to reality
But that's not the reality, the reality is it's the lawyer's job to fight the case, to get you off if he's defending you whether or not you did the crime, a defense attorney who just conceded the case any time they knew their client was guilty would be universally regarded as a shitty lawyer, prosecutors at least in theory are supposed to have some concern for objective truth and not convict someone they know is innocent but even that goes out the window with the least political concern.
This isn't Americanism, it's any type of common-law system
2 years ago
Anonymous
>a defense attorney who just conceded the case any time they knew their client was guilty
I think that law sort of looks like this when you dont recognisze that guilt is a feeling/value, not a fact.
Legal systems evolve out of a world where conflicts were adjudicated by force.
Even a jaywalking ticket, you could, tho it would prob. not be what you want to do, if you want to, say, ever have another iced cream cone or whatever you get off on, fight with the constable until dead, or restrained, and then fight in the jail, and then fight in court with the bailiff, etc. etc.
"But they didnt take my fists, so I knocked down the sentry" (Whiskey in the Jar)
The basic form of trial is combat. Arrest/service of process is an act of war, because you have to detain someone, even if only for a moment, to serve them. Or it is because you are imposing service on them, or imposing consequences in fact. Any time you force something in fact against an individual, that is an act of war in some sense.
>This isn't Americanism, it's any type of common-law system
How much history of the common law system do you know, e.g. Anglo-Saxon feuds, etc? What we have now is focused on "guilt" rather than God/Nature will give the battle to the party whom he finds innocent, not in fact, but in law.
Innocent/guilty are values, not facts. You can cut someone's head off and be completely innocent of murder, under a variety of circumstances, facts do not create guilt/innocence in the common law, there is mens rea &c &c
2 years ago
Anonymous
Objective truth is not the same as innocent/guilty.
Determining whether someone is innocent or guilty may have nuance in the interpretation of the statutes, what the degree of the crime is, whether to prove intent or not, etc.
This is different from the objective truth of the facts of the case which is almost always relevant to the verdict.
But the job of a lawyer is absolutely not to convince a jury of the desired verdict while respecting objective truth. If a client straight up admits to the defense attorney he did the crime, yet the evidence against him can easily be concealed and misrepresented to convince the jury he did not do the crime, this has nothing to do with a subjective argument of guilt vs innocence; it is directly the lawyer's job to conceal objective truth and replace it with falsehood in the minds of his audience.
In the US at least, the lawyer would be legally prevented from ever even sharing the objective truth of such an admission with anyone else.
Trial by combat really doesn't have anything to do with the modern legal system, as it has been repeatedly found as incompatible with the constitutional law that has formed the foundations of society for the last two centuries.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Trial by combat really doesn't have anything to do with the modern legal system, as it has been repeatedly found as incompatible with the constitutional law that has formed the foundations of society for the last two centuries.
This just means that the money-changers took over and dont want people abating debt notes by combat. And ultimately, combat is still involved, when process is served, that's combat.
War is contention by force, so any time you are forcing someone to accept something, or forcing them to "respond or suffer default," that is an act of war, IMO.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>ThE mOnEy ChAnGeRs
No, relying on brute force instead of evidence to settle disputes is for savages, simple as.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Trial by combat does not settle disputes by brute force, it leaves the decision up to the divine judgment of the Gods, who are by definition more capable of sound and unbiased judgment than mortals. Trial by combat is the most honest method of settling legal disputes.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Trial by combat does not settle disputes by brute force, it leaves the decision up to the divine judgment of the Gods, who are by definition more capable of sound and unbiased judgment than mortals. Trial by combat is the most honest method of settling legal disputes.
Also, even if you dont have a trial by combat, you still have enforcement by combat, so le reddit 'we use our words, not force" doesn't mean anything.
Trial by verbal arguments/jury is simply a way for ppl to get others to fight for them, while claiming 'we've evolved beyond fighting!'
basically, the bailiff is the judgment creditor's "hand."
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Objective truth is not the same as innocent/guilty.
Well, I am presuming you are saying there is some objective state "innocent" or "guilty" rather than it is a contingent phenomena. Even if a statute prescribes X as conditions for guilt, there's no reason to think those are objectively true.
I guess you can look at it by asking "is it objective that the speed limit is 50mph in Nevada" (or wherever)
It's objective in the sense you can look at a book and it says what the speed limit is, but is it objective that states exist? It's objective the land exists, you can dig it, but can you dig a state, or is it like an artificial well you get trapped in and drown?
2 years ago
Anonymous
The objective truth of the case is separate from its subjective interpretation as innocent/guilty.
Speed is an objectively measurable quantity. If the sign on the road says 55mph, and you were traveling at 70mph, the objective truth is that you were going faster than the speed limit.
Whether that leads to being guilty of the offense of speeding is certainly up to the subjective interpretation of the courts and legislature.
Say you're a lawyer, public defense attorney, and you are given a client who is charged with murder. He tells you that he did it, he disposed of the gun, there is no video or eyewitness evidence and he assures you he has an alibi of people who will swear he was somewhere else at the time of the crime.
The objective truth of the case is that he pulled the trigger on the gun and caused the victim's death (although you can't be 100% certain based on his word, the objective truth doesn't depend on your belief).
Now, whether he is tried of first, or second, or third degree murder, or manslaughter, whether he is found guilty or innocent, whether he is even tried at all, these are all subjective interpretations but the key fact that is used in any such determinations hinges on the objective truth: did he or did he not pull the trigger and cause the person's death?
As a lawyer your job is to conceal or misrepresent this objective truth, not just to dress it up or present it in a way that guides the jury to a more favorable verdict for your client. If you fail to do this it will hurt your job, if you refuse to do this you will lose your job and probably be unemployable after quitting a public defender position, if you actually share the fact of the objective truth with ANYONE you will lose your license to practice law and will face criminal prosecution for violating attorney client privilege.
2 years ago
Anonymous
As a lawyer *in a Republican, adversarial system, your job is to conceal or misrepresent this objective truth, not just to dress it up or present it in a way that guides the jury to a more favorable verdict for your client.
Perhaps in an ideal, platonic (i.e. non-adversarial) system - whatever this system would look like - the lawyers would be genuine truth-seekers.
No, dunce, you admitted without knowing it that you yourself knows you are cant see the difference but subconsiously....because your ego would be so wounded if it saw itself in the mirror.
Cry harder
2 years ago
Anonymous
>You may genuinely be fricking moronic enough to believe in the ideological justification for how, in theory, the platonic ideal of a lawyer is supposed to work as having some relevance to reality
No, I actually have zero faith that the monstrous system your likes represent bears any resemblence to the way it is advertised or "supposed" to work. You need to be violently culled.
2 years ago
Anonymous
why do you think im a lawyer lmao
2 years ago
Anonymous
I don't think you're a lawyer. I think you represent the typical mentality of a rotten civilization that keeps spawnin such travesties. Imagine defending the "job" of one side trying to scam a jury into acquitting dangerous criminals, and the other side trying to scam a jury into sentencing the innocent. Imagine defending anything on the pretext that it is just a "job". Imagine thinking the concept of a "job" is anything but subhuman insanity in and of itself.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>You need to be violently culled.
"CADE
I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.
DICK
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
CADE
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since. How now! who's there?" (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/2henryvi.4.2.html)
2 years ago
Anonymous
>The normalization of lawyers being licensed scam artists who intentionally engineer as much of a fabrication as they could possibly get away with is a vulgar and pathological Americanism.
I have never seen law, tho I have heard about it. I think that is the general sense in which normal ppl think lawyers are scammers.
We all agree about some basic norms of conduct (if we are not, like nutters) but it is well beyond that point with law once industrialism starts going and law is turned into a sort of mechanized system for "managing" everything from urban development to who can sell drugs, etc. etc.
Like, it is 100% scam that it is a "law" that you cant grow cannabis or coca, or distill. I don't care what "justification" you have about "muh public safety," that itself is just a scam in my view, plus lawyers have an apparent (and I would say real) conflict of interest vis a vis every law: if it were not a law (say law were a fixed set of rules dictated by God in the bible, for example, a natural law POV of a sort) then lawyers would make a LOT less money.
Also, what is money? A scam. Numismatic, so says Aristotle, comes from the Greek Nomos, meaning "law" in the sense of agreement. There is no natural money. There might be a natural ratio between goods, e.g. 1 pair of shoes to 3 loaves of bread to 1 pound of meat or something, but that is not money, that is exchange.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>If you want to go deeper, there basically isn't right and wrong, there is no objective truth, everyone should be allowed to defend themselves no matter how guilty they may appear.
It's not that there's no objective truth, it is that if you are "thinking like a lawyer," you are not trying to decide who is right---I go a bit further than John Hasnas in https://repository.law.wisc.edu/s/uwlaw/media/302098 and give an economic account: lawyers are all in it for the money. They rarely work for free, partly because they CANT and partly because they WONT.
Also, you cannot refuse clients because you think they are guilty, tho if you KNOW htey are guilty, it might impact how they defend you, so there is a duty to the client regardless of the objective reality. That doesnt mean there is no objective reality, only that if I am guilty, a lawyer still has to take up the case. But, again, this is partly just so that the system can appear "universal" when it is a quasi-feudal cult that is less honest than any feudal polity.
2 years ago
Anonymous
bottom is only true for public defenders who in that case have the job of negotiating a plea deal for leniency.
a private lawyer most definitely can tell a client to frick off if they are clearly guilty and not worth the hassle of defending
2 years ago
Anonymous
>a private lawyer most definitely can tell a client to frick off if they are clearly guilty and not worth the hassle of defending
Well, they may, but I do not believe it is ethical. IMO a lawyer is like a public toilet, if it is unoccupied, it must allow the next ass to use it, it doesnt get to pick and choose, tho I understand lawyers would work very hard to have this sort of ethics derailed.
IMO this is true of all monopoly guilds like law, medicine, engineering, architecture, etc. If you cannot do for yourself, those whom the state has given the power to do for you have to do it for you unless they are otherwise occupied.
So a lawyer could refuse for lack of time, but not for subjective reasons/personal feelings.
We have a local traffic lawyer who is very vocal on twitter about the sort of people she "would not defend," which is increasing common. I sort of wonder about complaining about the ethics to her regulator, because people thinking that way, and perhaps talking privately, is one thing, but to air those sentiments publicly, IMO, brings the administration of justice into disrepute.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Many grad students are in debt---even if they are being paid to do their grad school so that part of their education is net zero, they are still in debt for their undergrad, often times.
So, what is their motivation in getting a PhD? It is to get a job, to pay off their student debt. I mean, we're not idiots, right? And we don't want some schizo in the room who thinks this is about schizophrenic bullshit like "truth", "justice," "the american way."
Money money, money money money.
And that is without going into how many academics rely on their positions to get laid/married---many of them are pretty ugly.
2 years ago
Anonymous
"The idea is we're going to sneak food to the children we want to survive."
So it also has a eugenic element. "Whoa, we dont want some schizo getting tenure and corrupting the youth, and making it more difficult for us to feed the kids who are like us!"
But at bottom, everyone who believes in invisible things, that's schizophrenia---universities and other institutions exist as copes for actual schizos who lack insight into their condition. I thought for a long time they were really smart enough to understand invisible things dont exist, but, nope. They're high functioning schizos. So it's more that they dont want anyone who isn't a schizo getting into the room and going "here is this device constructed to help these high functioning schizophrenics reproduce. Is that a good idea? Sure they can make rockets and ray guns, but did we ever say we needed these things?"
2 years ago
Anonymous
He's also making a basic quantitative argument.
System reached "steady state" in the 1970s. Before that, you had profs who would have 20 "children" get their PhDs, all become professors. By the 1970s, we have more than enough PhDs, but, as in every corporation, you never want your department to have less budget, which means if you produced 4 PhDs last year, you produce 4 this year, or within reason. You certainly don't go 'well, what's the point in producing children who won't survive?'
But, of course, you are not going to start off your PhD program by telling all of the students "many of you will never get tenure, you are basically wasting time here while I get paid to waste your time."
And people tend to want their children to be like them---so they run a parallel institution to ensure that the children they "really want to succeed" do succeed, and the others, well, there will be some bizzare shorthand, like "that's a schizo" to justify the moronic economic situation that Universities perpetuate, writ large across society, but it even applies to the "nursery for profs," grad school. It's like a game of musical chairs that you get people to play, without telling them "hey, there isn't going to be a chair for everyone afterward!"
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yep, and it's even worse than that.
PhD students are used as cheap labor. What should have happened, Weinstein says, is that there should be a few elite institutions that produce PhDs who then go to universities that do teaching'/research w/o producing more PhDs. But this would upend the economic model, etc. etc.
His argument is far more about economics than your moronic "its about keeping schizos from wasting our time."
Everything is just a phase, including Academia.
The problem with credit and citation is that everything is true under that criteria. And, unfortunately, israelites like credit--when it suits them.
God, I love my posts. Narcissism. Takes one to know one.
I studied this fairly extensively because I was disciplined for my University---the equivalent of Title IX in USA.
Universitas is a Latin word for Corporation. So already, the University is a legal institution. It is not just a "community of scholars," except insofar as community is another term for corporation. And it is.
"Cavendish CJKB said that the commonalty (Comminalty) of London, which was perpetual and of antiquity, which was a distinct thing (un groz a p' luy), part of this community, could not make a community of itself within the community without a special charter of the king, because it belonged to the king and no other to make a community (come), so that this fraternity which was made of themselves by a craft (un art') of whitawyers could not by the law be adjudged a body to have freehold estate by purchase nor by devise, becuase if so, they would have an action against others as a community, and would answer to the suit of another as a community, and this could not be without a special charter of the king." (49 Edw. 3 Lib. Ass. 8 fol. 320b-321b)
So community = corporation = university.
Degrees are akin to shares (places for life) in the Corporation. Depending on the Charter/Act of Incorporation, the shareholders have various privileges, for example, my alma mater's graduates are able to run for positions in the senate, and to vote for those positions.
So the problem is much more systemic than just having idiot people in the institution. The university is a medieval apparatus where the #1 degree is Divinity/Theology. Then Law, then medicine. So the top two degrees are not even "muh science," and the capacity for a faculty tard to cash his paycheque is not a "scientific" act but a legal act.
He just pandering to the smart le woke crowd, who can't see that if they were smart as they think they are they would have made it. But it's not them but the society that's keeping you down, never take responsibility for your own actions and success.
>But it's not them but the society that's keeping you down, never take responsibility for your own actions and success.
There is some truth to what you're saying---basically it is "you against the weather," with everyone else being a "weather pattern." You can't control the weather, but you can adapt to it and "play the game." The whole video is about this.
Like, the metaphor used is "dance." Imagine a dance-class where the instructor purposefully stepped on the feet of the people he thought were "not good dancers." Of course, he is stepping on their feet, so of ocurse they can't dance.
Eric is an unethical grifter. Once admired him, then followed him on Twitter long enough to see his entire MO. He will find some issue, make a brain dead obvious take on it, then get angry about it.
He's like a guy that runs around looking for a riot about to start, pushes his way to the front, and yells "come on guys! we're mad as hell, right!"
People think Eric is a well-connected scientist, when in fact he is an embarassment shunned by most everyone. His only friend is the narcissist physicist/podcaster Brian Keating who just stares glassy-eyed at chat while Eric is talking.
>"come on guys! we're mad as hell, right!"
He warched his brother, who is gifted himself, have his career destroyed...and by the institution he knew wasnt as gifted itself as people think it is. Peterson's career was torched at the same time. Its news.
You do not understand what "grifter" is. You missed a step somewhere in your pseudo-psycholanalysis of him...go back, literally.
Oh...and dont get me started on the failing of the CDC and Surgein General...that fuasco was moronic (for those of us that saw WHY it was....we're not "namecalling". WE are experts evaluating the performance of other experts, which you are not.)
CDC? Surgeon General? wtf do they have to do with Eric Weinstein?
I called Eric a grifter because he is. He exchanges controversy on an issue for eyeballs on his platforms. I will admit that much of his grifting is in the past tense, with The Portal ending and his "volunteering" for VC firms supporting Clubhouse also ending with that platform's failure.
I generally hate podcasts/"personalities" because they are all grifters in some sense, the question isnt if they've got hte gospel, the question is if they're entertaining and make you go "hmmm..."
I did manage to slog through most of the podcast above (a testament to it having SOME quality, most get the heave-ho after 30 seconds to 3 minutes) and his basic point is fairly non-narcissistic, it is about the University and its economic structure.
Wouldn't a narcissist just play the game in order to get narcissistic rewards? Or is your view he failed to play the game, so he decided to "let the cat out of the bag" because he is butthurt?
It is a fairly common theme amongst honest faculty, who will tell their undergrads and grad students "this wont get you a job." This is especially true in the humanities---I did an honors degree in my discipline, had more than two advisors suggest that I would do better to go to law school, not for lack of academic merit, but just because I wanted to have a family, and law school was a much surer thing for income than PhD/tenure.
Also you can start by stop listening to Lex Fridman. I have never seen a dumber, obtuser person be put forth as some kind of intellect. His dad his a big shot scientist, so he gets a lot based on his coat tails.
But dear god, that content...listening to Lex is like hearing a half-awake frat boy describe his english paper, saying such vapid empty nonsense with an air of emotional depth or meaning. He's worse than Eric, I'd venture.
I remember a few years ago slamming this demon about his grotesque physical appearance, then he immediately made a video where he was walking for exercise. then quit it shortly after, lol.
It's simple, who wants to see the world through the eyes of old crusty people and THEIR findings. It is INTERESTING but not to the point that I MUST learn their shit.
That MUST part by the way, exists silently in the heads of those in academia.
>That MUST part by the way, exists silently in the heads of those in academia.
Think of academia more like a braking system and it starts to make sense. The bullshit mythology about it being a system for making progress, etc. etc.
It is about (1) moroning advancement by restricting access to certain materials to university graduates and (2) social engineering the use of those materials.
This is esp. true in pharmacy, medicine, law, etc, tho I think law is maybe difficult to define "advancement" or "progress" in.
Universities dont select the best. You don't want the "best" railroad conductor, you want one who applies the brakes conservatively, to avoid "derailment" of the feudal university system and its beneficiaries w/ monopoly degrees, and the Government bureaucrats that support them.
>You don't want the "best" railroad conductor, you want one who applies the brakes conservatively, to avoid "derailment"
I guess this could be clearer. What I mean is that if you have a choice between someone hot-dogging it and almost derailing but making better time, and someone who is a bit slower but never risks derailment, you pick the second guy even if the first guy is never actually going to derail.
And this doesn't address the ethical possibility that some trains OUGHT to be derailed.
I remember as a kid, first day of school and the rest of my time in education. RIDICULE of free thought and expression.
Disgusting place.
Can education be a nice place? I've not seen anything good in my life. I've never went to private schools or prestigous collages or universities but I can only assume it is very much the same oppressive atmosphere but with snobbery.
I imagine a quaint place of learning can exist. I like to think so anyway.
I remember my first day of public school. I had gone to a decent preschool where we always had a corps of parents around, volunteering, "parent participation" it was called.
This made the preschool teacher seem more like "another mom" or an aunt/cousin, rather than a bureaucrat.
Then I got to public school. We had already learned things like anatomy, some mathematics, the alphabet, etc. etc.
I remember how for OVER TWO HOURS on the first day our task was to take a piece of paper and draw two eyes on it, then fold it and tape it, to make a "paper snail."
I mutinied right then and there. I got put in a school in the rich part of town, and there at least the kindergarten teacher could play guitar.
I wish I could be 100% cynical about school/education, but I can't, just, like 95%. And then I have to ask myself, is it that the 5% of decent educators only seemed decent because they were helping avoid or undo the damage of the 95% morons, or without any formal education would I not have done much better.
I had a prof at university who was very supportive, one of the 5% and when I told him where I went to highschool, he was like "what the frick, man, from how confident you are I thought you went to X" where X is basically the most expensive private school in my City.
Empirically, given how successful I was in highschool working as a computer programmer, I am pretty confident that most UNiversity is bullshit, it is, as I said, a braking/social engineering system, NOT a system for ensuring everyone can have a job, progress in tech, etc. etc.
what does he say
it is corrupt system of secret meetings and intrigues
Dunno. Certainly things must be far from perfect, but the academic environment intrinsically holds some qualities that industry lacks for research and innovation. And companies are also prone to corruption, intrigues, nepotism, as well as any other institution.
Interesting video actually. I thought this was going to be a bitter conspiracy theory thread, but I believe he is telling the truth.
I did not get my PhD at a nice place like Harvard or wherever but now I'm interacting with people who did and it's pretty clear they have all sorts of connections I don't, so it rings true.
Academia is certainly very political and cliquish.
I know it’s r*ddit, but this is unironically a good thread about the problem.
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/tjerj0/why_are_scholars_such_snitches/
That reddit thread sounds like it's talking about the humanities
All hail the israeli revolutionary that found corruption and vows to end it if you make him your leader
you contributed nothing except disruption
>good discussion
Discussion is irrelevant if the people doing the discussing are egocentric, dunning-krueger plebs aka plebbitors. You have to go back.
Doesn't matter if I agree with everyone in the thread, I'm not going on reddit
The meetings aren't secret. The rest is true.
You just didn't get invited
What do you mean? The meetings aren't secret. Me being invited or not doesn't change that fact. Unless you're talking Skull&Bones and Bohemian Club type meetings then sure, yes, they're secret. But they're not academia.
I was just joking but since you replied let me tell you that you missed the point. Nothing is stopping a group of professors and their inner circle from meeting and discussing ideas together without broadcasting that to everyone. That certainly happens and those that are privy to that have an easier time than those that aren't.
It's possible that Weinstein was maliciously excluded from these meetings, but it's also possible that he, by virtue of his narcicissm etc. managed to ostracize himself which he is either oblivious to or dishonest about.
>he is either oblivious to or dishonest about.
You literally think everyone is as petty and stupid as you are. You cant tell if someone is vastly more intelligent than you or simply "crafty with trickery". It would be sad if you had the ability to understand your error but you dont...so it would be like having sympathy for a falling pinecone.
Oh hey Eric
No, dunce, you admitted without knowing it that you yourself knows you are cant see the difference but subconsiously....because your ego would be so wounded if it saw itself in the mirror.
Based schizo projector
If you were to follow Eric long enough, you would realize his tripping over his own narcissism is actually far more likely than being excluded for scientific reasons. His bafflingly awful handling of the Tim Dillon issue with Rogan is an exemplar case of this.
Projection: The Post
Who are you really screaming at buddy? Is it your boss from work? Did he make you feel small in front of everyone? Did he scream so loud you almost wizzed yourself? Come on, it's ok, he's not here, you can tell me what hurt your lil feefees today.
>by virtue of his narcicissm etc. managed to ostracize himself which he is either oblivious to or dishonest about.
He does not strike me as particularly narcissistic, like, in the video, where the guy interviewing him calls people "buttholes," he doesn't agree, he pushes back and explains the economic situation. The whole video is basically about economics and the dishonesty involved in the pyramid scam that is the University and the sort of cut-throat behavior that emerges.
It's even worse than, say, a typical large corporation where, say you have 7 vice presidents in charge of widgets, and only 1 gets promoted to president of widgets one day. The 6 other guys will still have a career. At the end of the day, the N grad students that Prof. XYZ takes through to the PhD, not all of them will find even a community college teaching position, because there are not enough such positions.
It is actually a problem for the whole University, esp. undergraduate education, where the focus is on pretending "education is a good in itself" (true) but also "this good in itself will help your career, because in this, the best of all possible worlds, doing what is good matters."
There are very few courses where you actually discuss universities from a critical point of view, it is a sacred cow.
Like, as I posted above, I researched a fair bit about what a University is, it is a corporation. I have had faculty, PhD students, etc. look at me like I was "schizo" for saying that, even though for my alma mater it is literally in the act incorporating the UNiversity, where some acts of incorporation are not as clear, but there is no particular word for incorporation.
For example,
"The King establishes The Master and Scholars of the University of Bozos, and grants to them the capacity to have a common seal, and to make by-laws" is def. a grant of corporation.
It is identical with
"The King Establishes &c. a body politic."
Or "The King Constitutions &c. a corporation"
Eric doesn't strike you are narcissistic? That's like saying the sun doesn't strike you as luminous. Fricking FANS of Eric decry his narcissism.
I think you might have a hard on for this guy and can't see some of his faults. Eric is not only narcissistic, but he is a rare case where the narcissism is so extensive, he is unaware of the reputational damage it does to him.
He doesn't know he's acting the fool because he's incapable of perceiving himself the fool.
>Fricking FANS of Eric decry his narcissism.
Well, I am not a fanboy of many academics (Timothy Leary is an exception), and I think that use of psychology terms like "narcissism" is over-rated. To be an academic you're going to be a bit arrogant, one philosophy prof. I had decades ago said. You're going to assert X, and if someone says "no, you're wrong," you're going to stand up for yourself, to some degree. This is true even in the sciences.
>He doesn't know he's acting the fool because he's incapable of perceiving himself the fool
This is a criticism that is very easy to make but I cannot for the life of me imagine how you would prove it. He's not a fool, in the video above he makes an economic criticism of the University that I have heard made by several faculty at my university. But they still supervise grad students because...it's the job.
Maybe he says lots of other cracked out nonsense, but this video is fairly reasonable. No one likes feeling socially excluded, that is basic humanity, and he was socially excluded, and then he realized that it was systemic, and that it is partly for economic reasons.
I've watched hours of his content, and he doesn't strike me as narcissistic at all. He seems humble enough, he's good at promoting dialogue with his guests, and he tends to view the world with nuanced shades instead of demonizing his opponents. Where is this supposed narcissism? The fact that he's speaking and he's controversial? Sometimes, you have to speak up, especially if you stand for anything. The willingness to decry all dissent against a sterile system as "narcissism" speaks volumes about our "Last Man" society.
>Where is this supposed narcissism?
I don't see it either, tho I've not watched much of his stuff. He is obviously smart enough to "do the work" so to a certain personality type, the reason he was shunned MUST be because he's schizo/narcissistic/etc.
It couldn't be a structural problem with universities, economics, etc. It couldn't be a contingent problem with people who have gotten into the higher positions in Universities.
It's almost like the Soviet attitude toward a certain sort of criticism: it was 'sluggish schizophrenia,' not that the Soviet state had problems.
Also, I'm realizing that using a lot of words to say very little of anything is a habit with you. Dear god make a fricking point.
>Also, I'm realizing that using a lot of words to say very little of anything is a habit with you. Dear god make a fricking point.
I made a point, I don't think you understand it---what you're saying is often a defense mechanism.
I mean, could I edit it down if I were writing something serious? Sure, but I am just shooting the shit here, man.
I reread what I wrote, you are just trying to gaslight me, or you are quasi-literate, that's my position. Now you can accuse me of trying to gaslight you 😉
>The meetings aren't secret
Sure they are. There are no published criteria for who gets into any graduate program, except some of the professional ones at some state schools where they just use a computer program to admit the majority of candidates, e.g. LSAT * 0.5 + GPA * 0.5, take the top 200 candidates or whatever for a state law school (not Yale, Harvard, etc.)
The faculty meetings where they decide who is going to be accepted to grad programs are definitely not public. It is a big "black box."
The most powerful institution in Society, the University, is completely unaccountable in terms of how it decides who gets into grad programs, who gets tenure, etc. etc. It also has very little to do with quality of scholarship, esp now that there are (1) equity admissions and (2) political discrimination, tho this is more a factor in the humanities, e.g. in philosophy.
See "Ideological Diversity, Hostility, and Discrimination in Philosophy" (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/223236574.pdf)
This paper focuses more on the graduate/conference world, but it is even worse in undergrad---you will have, in an ethics course, for example, some sanctimonious homosexual "assistant professor" give someone a 74 because he quotes Max Stirner and says 'ethics are a spook' (and let's presume he defends his thesis) because he is a butthurt sanctimonious homosexual who thinks "we're all smart, be kind," even though his IQ is room temperature. Many such cases.
>not public
Doesn't mean they're secret.
I know and agree with all the rest, but something not being open for the public doesn't make it secret. Secret meetings are meetings nobody knows about, and mostly which produce results that aren't made public.
>Doesn't mean they're secret.
"late 14c., "that which is hidden from human understanding;" early 15c., "that which is hidden from general knowledge;" from Latin secretum "secrecy; a mystery; a thing hidden; secret conversation," also "retirement, solitude," noun from secretus "set apart, withdrawn; hidden, concealed, private." This is a past-participle adjective from secernere "to set apart, part, divide; exclude," from se- "without, apart," properly "on one's own" (see se-) + cernere "to separate" (from PIE root *krei- "to sieve," thus "discriminate, distinguish")."
>Secret meetings are meetings nobody knows about
This is obviously ridiculous, because if "nobody knows about" the meetings, how can "nobody" attend a meeting?
You might disagree, but I am comfortable calling them 'secret' in the sense that obviously the lack of inviting certain persons is intentional, the idea is to "keep the meeting a secret from that horrible schizo who isn't "one of us."" It's a basic human tribal impulse, and one view of higher education is that higher ed exists to destroy those base instincts---of course, to the secret meeters, that is just "schizo talk," they got bills to pay.
>Be ugly (literal) wart hog
>Also be autistic
>Demand that nobody supervise your PhD thesis
>Faculty is then vaguely aware of that wart-ridden autist who is probably so socially awkward that he can't even handle having a PhD supervisor
>Never get invited anywhere because people are hardly aware of your existence
>Find out about a seminar that's being held
>Decide to attend said seminar
>Make eye contact with the speaker at one point
>INITIATE: Paranoid delusion mode
>50 years later: Recount those paranoid delusions on a podcast about love, the meaning of life, Joe Rogan, and how they relate to simulations.
>ugly
>autistic
>socially awkward
>paranoid delusions
Could you make your antisemitism any more obvious?
kek good greentext
Very interesting
Is it something bad? If so, yes.
>Is it something bad? If so, yes.
He's a schizo. His theories are nonsense, I wouldn't let him within 100 meters of an academic institution.
This. Show me an accomplished non schizo non narcissist talking about these things, then Ill listen. Weinstein seems to be complaining about gatekeeping when people like him are the reason gatekeeping exists.
He's not any more schizo than your garden variety string theorist.
The whole thing can be understood as just israeli infighting which is very believable.
>Weinstein seems to be complaining about gatekeeping when people like him are the reason gatekeeping exists.
Sabin's papers on the inflation of the universe was rejected for not having "woke implications" in it.
He was right. You are wrong.
>Sabin's papers on the inflation of the universe was rejected for not having "woke implications" in it.
source, this didn't happen
She deleted right after. Very sad. I checked it. Saw it myself before she deleted it.
He told them. Now we have the example A. He Was Right, SIR.
https://rmx.news/commentary/how-woke-gatekeepers-control-western-education/
German here. There is a section "relevance to sex, gender, and diversity" in DFG (German research society) grant proposals that you just have to fill out with any bullshit you can come up with. I'm currently in aerospace and we have to do this as well. I guess what she did was just ignore it instead of writing "we're including candidates of diverse backgrounds in the hiring process" or something. Yes, it's still absolutely insane to require a sentence like that, but it's not like she had to really argue that her research furthers the woke agenda.
I still think her move was a valuable display of the shittery going on in academia right now.
If I count
>PhD in physics, currently PostDoc in aerospace engineering
It's all a scam. People genuinely interested in science or producing actual results are scarce. Grant farming is real. Your tax money is wasted on useless conferences where professors go on vacation, and idiotic projects. The people checking grants are pants-on-head moronic (vaguely say your project is sustainable, everybody profits for years to come, use machine learning and/or quantum computing, and they'll approve). Publications cost several thousand dollars for open access (i.e., publishers putting a fricking PDF on their website). Sexocraty exists. PhD students are drained of all aspirations they have. Almost nothing of value is produced except for some power performers.
>Weinstein seems to be complaining about gatekeeping when people like him are the reason gatekeeping exists.
This is, like, jaundiced as frick. So, to understand the University, you have to read Plato, and Plato, through Socrates (whether or not Socrates is his IRONIC interlocutor, or stating Plato's beliefs we do not know), says that the kallipolis (beautiful corporation/city) requires a class of "guardians" who get to do a couple of things:
(1) Censor stories, to modify the affect of the subjects of their educational system
(2) Lie to people ("lies are like drugs.")
So, that is the "gatekeeping" function, and it is wholly incompatible with science.
What's the scientific account of corporations, and how is it distinct from the scientific account of religion? Invisible immortal bodies that "exist because people agree they exist." So if people agree God exists, God exists? And dissenters are what, narcissistic schizos who aren't "with the program"? Frick off.
Schizos will never understand. It'll always be "my voice is getting censored WAHHHHH" because they mentally cannot comprehend what it's like not to be them.
Schizos like winestain and yourself must be censored, but not because there's some conspiracy out to get you, but simply because people don't want to waste the time to listen to your ramblings. Believe it or not people have lives, and if we had to sit and sift through every schizo paper on the planet because they asked us to then nothing would get done, ever.
>Schizos like winestain and yourself must be censored, but not because there's some conspiracy out to get you, but simply because people don't want to waste the time to listen to your ramblings. Believe it or not people have lives, and if we had to sit and sift through every schizo paper on the planet because they asked us to then nothing would get done, ever.
The issue is that what is "getting done" is you getting paid. There's nothing wrong with this, it's not an objection on moral grounds to your behavior, it is that, as Weinstein says, it's simply not the bill of goods sold to undergrads, or when a public University asks the state for funding. They are not saying "we run a parallel structure to keep the schizos who end up being admitted from gumming up the works."
It's simply clique behavior----as Frank Zappa said, the real world is like highschool, but the adult have more money.
I also figured out this was how it went early on in my undergrad career---the first epistemology course I took was taught by a guy who was published in both mathematics and philosophy, like, actual math, not "hurr, durr, I did a symbolic logic!"
I could understand exactly what he was saying, because I am intelligent. The "non schizos" in the dept treated him like he was a moron, and he never got tenure.
What people like you are unwilling to accept is that every railroad has a conductor, and railroads are run to MAKE MONEY, not to DISCOVER TRUTH. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the shameless dishonesty.
The truth is universities dont exist, I've never seen anything invisible, tho I've heard about lots of invisible things.
But the goal is to get tenure and get paid---I had a number of faculty explain this to me, because I can see it both ways. The most honest explanation I got was from an old Chemistry prof, emeritus.
>I could understand exactly what he was saying, because I am intelligent. The "non schizos" in the dept treated him like he was a moron, and he never got tenure.
I remember a colloquim, I think the speaker was David Chalmers, a philosopher some ppl think is decent, iirc it was some pop thing about "the matrix"--basically he got a free trip to the West Coast out of it.
The aforesaid "schizo" prof shot his hand up during Q&A, and Chalmers went right for him, not knowing what he was. He proceeded to state that he thought there were certain problems with what Chalmers had said, and that perhaps he needed to consider X Y and Z. You could feel the other faculty in the department rolling their eyes at him, like 'we just brought this dude to our house for a party and you are going to shit on him?'
I wish I could remember what he actually said.
(cont'd)
He was a bit of a "schizo" in his early days in grad school, he had an alternative view of Van der Waals forces. His advisor said to him "well, you might even be right, but Prof X's view is the prevailing view. You're not here to swim upstream, are you? You're here to publish, to get your PhD, then to get tenure somewhere and build a life for yourself."
So, really, the "parallel structure" is the economic structure that undergrads and everyone is told the University is beyond. So, again, it is the dishonesty.
"We are a clique of people who dont actually care what's true or false, and it is easier for us to push eachother along if we agree to assert X, isntead of tolerating schizos who are "not team players." It's basically the behavior that emerges in all large corporations. Being right isnt as important as being able to assert dominance and continue being paid. If the corporation is large enough, esp. if it is subsidized by the state, you dont even need to worry about profitability.
Derrida, in his address to Columbia's Grad School on its 100th Anniversary, in Mochlos, says that the notion of "university responsibility" is really not that well studied. To whom is the University responsible?
It's sort of like how lawyers behave, which is no surprise becauyse the UNiversity is a legal institution, not a scientific one---there is no scientific account of how universities exist, except maybe soft science like social psych/sociology, same for religion. Anyway, lawyers argue for the sake of making money. A lawyer who thought his job was to "get at the truth of the case" would be a bad lawyer. His job is to make money for himself, which means he has to win for his client, so he can then get more clients and repeat. That's all it is. YOu don't need to dress it up as gatekeeping against some catastrophe, it's that there are finite placements, and you want them to be filled with people like yourself.
>A lawyer who thought his job was to "get at the truth of the case" would be a bad lawyer. His job is to make money for himself,
partially wrong. A lawyers ethos is to subjectively argue in defense of his client, because the prosecution will also subjectively argue against him, disregarding the truth. This is an adversarial legal system. If you want to go deeper, there basically isn't right and wrong, there is no objective truth, everyone should be allowed to defend themselves no matter how guilty they may appear.
NTA but a lawyer's job is to present all evidence that supports his client, to provide a favorable interpretation of events that is at least plausible and consistent with the facts of the case, to guard the client against self-incrimination and manipulation, and, if all else fails, to argue some mitigating circumstances. Naturally, this is a one-sided and biased presentation, but it stems from the understanding that you can't put a single party in charge of curating the evidence and presenting an unbiased narrative, as that would require weighing contradictory pieces of information against each other, effectively putting that party in the position of the judge while also circumventing the jury. This doesn't imply "no objective truth", and the expectation is that the lawyer is acting in good faith and presenting relevant information that needs to be considered while making a judgment. The normalization of lawyers being licensed scam artists who intentionally engineer as much of a fabrication as they could possibly get away with is a vulgar and pathological Americanism.
You may genuinely be fricking moronic enough to believe in the ideological justification for how, in theory, the platonic ideal of a lawyer is supposed to work as having some relevance to reality
But that's not the reality, the reality is it's the lawyer's job to fight the case, to get you off if he's defending you whether or not you did the crime, a defense attorney who just conceded the case any time they knew their client was guilty would be universally regarded as a shitty lawyer, prosecutors at least in theory are supposed to have some concern for objective truth and not convict someone they know is innocent but even that goes out the window with the least political concern.
This isn't Americanism, it's any type of common-law system
>a defense attorney who just conceded the case any time they knew their client was guilty
I think that law sort of looks like this when you dont recognisze that guilt is a feeling/value, not a fact.
Legal systems evolve out of a world where conflicts were adjudicated by force.
Even a jaywalking ticket, you could, tho it would prob. not be what you want to do, if you want to, say, ever have another iced cream cone or whatever you get off on, fight with the constable until dead, or restrained, and then fight in the jail, and then fight in court with the bailiff, etc. etc.
"But they didnt take my fists, so I knocked down the sentry" (Whiskey in the Jar)
The basic form of trial is combat. Arrest/service of process is an act of war, because you have to detain someone, even if only for a moment, to serve them. Or it is because you are imposing service on them, or imposing consequences in fact. Any time you force something in fact against an individual, that is an act of war in some sense.
>This isn't Americanism, it's any type of common-law system
How much history of the common law system do you know, e.g. Anglo-Saxon feuds, etc? What we have now is focused on "guilt" rather than God/Nature will give the battle to the party whom he finds innocent, not in fact, but in law.
Innocent/guilty are values, not facts. You can cut someone's head off and be completely innocent of murder, under a variety of circumstances, facts do not create guilt/innocence in the common law, there is mens rea &c &c
Objective truth is not the same as innocent/guilty.
Determining whether someone is innocent or guilty may have nuance in the interpretation of the statutes, what the degree of the crime is, whether to prove intent or not, etc.
This is different from the objective truth of the facts of the case which is almost always relevant to the verdict.
But the job of a lawyer is absolutely not to convince a jury of the desired verdict while respecting objective truth. If a client straight up admits to the defense attorney he did the crime, yet the evidence against him can easily be concealed and misrepresented to convince the jury he did not do the crime, this has nothing to do with a subjective argument of guilt vs innocence; it is directly the lawyer's job to conceal objective truth and replace it with falsehood in the minds of his audience.
In the US at least, the lawyer would be legally prevented from ever even sharing the objective truth of such an admission with anyone else.
Trial by combat really doesn't have anything to do with the modern legal system, as it has been repeatedly found as incompatible with the constitutional law that has formed the foundations of society for the last two centuries.
>Trial by combat really doesn't have anything to do with the modern legal system, as it has been repeatedly found as incompatible with the constitutional law that has formed the foundations of society for the last two centuries.
This just means that the money-changers took over and dont want people abating debt notes by combat. And ultimately, combat is still involved, when process is served, that's combat.
War is contention by force, so any time you are forcing someone to accept something, or forcing them to "respond or suffer default," that is an act of war, IMO.
>ThE mOnEy ChAnGeRs
No, relying on brute force instead of evidence to settle disputes is for savages, simple as.
Trial by combat does not settle disputes by brute force, it leaves the decision up to the divine judgment of the Gods, who are by definition more capable of sound and unbiased judgment than mortals. Trial by combat is the most honest method of settling legal disputes.
>Trial by combat does not settle disputes by brute force, it leaves the decision up to the divine judgment of the Gods, who are by definition more capable of sound and unbiased judgment than mortals. Trial by combat is the most honest method of settling legal disputes.
Also, even if you dont have a trial by combat, you still have enforcement by combat, so le reddit 'we use our words, not force" doesn't mean anything.
Trial by verbal arguments/jury is simply a way for ppl to get others to fight for them, while claiming 'we've evolved beyond fighting!'
basically, the bailiff is the judgment creditor's "hand."
>Objective truth is not the same as innocent/guilty.
Well, I am presuming you are saying there is some objective state "innocent" or "guilty" rather than it is a contingent phenomena. Even if a statute prescribes X as conditions for guilt, there's no reason to think those are objectively true.
I guess you can look at it by asking "is it objective that the speed limit is 50mph in Nevada" (or wherever)
It's objective in the sense you can look at a book and it says what the speed limit is, but is it objective that states exist? It's objective the land exists, you can dig it, but can you dig a state, or is it like an artificial well you get trapped in and drown?
The objective truth of the case is separate from its subjective interpretation as innocent/guilty.
Speed is an objectively measurable quantity. If the sign on the road says 55mph, and you were traveling at 70mph, the objective truth is that you were going faster than the speed limit.
Whether that leads to being guilty of the offense of speeding is certainly up to the subjective interpretation of the courts and legislature.
Say you're a lawyer, public defense attorney, and you are given a client who is charged with murder. He tells you that he did it, he disposed of the gun, there is no video or eyewitness evidence and he assures you he has an alibi of people who will swear he was somewhere else at the time of the crime.
The objective truth of the case is that he pulled the trigger on the gun and caused the victim's death (although you can't be 100% certain based on his word, the objective truth doesn't depend on your belief).
Now, whether he is tried of first, or second, or third degree murder, or manslaughter, whether he is found guilty or innocent, whether he is even tried at all, these are all subjective interpretations but the key fact that is used in any such determinations hinges on the objective truth: did he or did he not pull the trigger and cause the person's death?
As a lawyer your job is to conceal or misrepresent this objective truth, not just to dress it up or present it in a way that guides the jury to a more favorable verdict for your client. If you fail to do this it will hurt your job, if you refuse to do this you will lose your job and probably be unemployable after quitting a public defender position, if you actually share the fact of the objective truth with ANYONE you will lose your license to practice law and will face criminal prosecution for violating attorney client privilege.
As a lawyer *in a Republican, adversarial system, your job is to conceal or misrepresent this objective truth, not just to dress it up or present it in a way that guides the jury to a more favorable verdict for your client.
Perhaps in an ideal, platonic (i.e. non-adversarial) system - whatever this system would look like - the lawyers would be genuine truth-seekers.
Cry harder
>You may genuinely be fricking moronic enough to believe in the ideological justification for how, in theory, the platonic ideal of a lawyer is supposed to work as having some relevance to reality
No, I actually have zero faith that the monstrous system your likes represent bears any resemblence to the way it is advertised or "supposed" to work. You need to be violently culled.
why do you think im a lawyer lmao
I don't think you're a lawyer. I think you represent the typical mentality of a rotten civilization that keeps spawnin such travesties. Imagine defending the "job" of one side trying to scam a jury into acquitting dangerous criminals, and the other side trying to scam a jury into sentencing the innocent. Imagine defending anything on the pretext that it is just a "job". Imagine thinking the concept of a "job" is anything but subhuman insanity in and of itself.
>You need to be violently culled.
"CADE
I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.
DICK
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
CADE
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since. How now! who's there?" (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/2henryvi.4.2.html)
>The normalization of lawyers being licensed scam artists who intentionally engineer as much of a fabrication as they could possibly get away with is a vulgar and pathological Americanism.
I have never seen law, tho I have heard about it. I think that is the general sense in which normal ppl think lawyers are scammers.
We all agree about some basic norms of conduct (if we are not, like nutters) but it is well beyond that point with law once industrialism starts going and law is turned into a sort of mechanized system for "managing" everything from urban development to who can sell drugs, etc. etc.
Like, it is 100% scam that it is a "law" that you cant grow cannabis or coca, or distill. I don't care what "justification" you have about "muh public safety," that itself is just a scam in my view, plus lawyers have an apparent (and I would say real) conflict of interest vis a vis every law: if it were not a law (say law were a fixed set of rules dictated by God in the bible, for example, a natural law POV of a sort) then lawyers would make a LOT less money.
Also, what is money? A scam. Numismatic, so says Aristotle, comes from the Greek Nomos, meaning "law" in the sense of agreement. There is no natural money. There might be a natural ratio between goods, e.g. 1 pair of shoes to 3 loaves of bread to 1 pound of meat or something, but that is not money, that is exchange.
>If you want to go deeper, there basically isn't right and wrong, there is no objective truth, everyone should be allowed to defend themselves no matter how guilty they may appear.
It's not that there's no objective truth, it is that if you are "thinking like a lawyer," you are not trying to decide who is right---I go a bit further than John Hasnas in https://repository.law.wisc.edu/s/uwlaw/media/302098 and give an economic account: lawyers are all in it for the money. They rarely work for free, partly because they CANT and partly because they WONT.
Also, you cannot refuse clients because you think they are guilty, tho if you KNOW htey are guilty, it might impact how they defend you, so there is a duty to the client regardless of the objective reality. That doesnt mean there is no objective reality, only that if I am guilty, a lawyer still has to take up the case. But, again, this is partly just so that the system can appear "universal" when it is a quasi-feudal cult that is less honest than any feudal polity.
bottom is only true for public defenders who in that case have the job of negotiating a plea deal for leniency.
a private lawyer most definitely can tell a client to frick off if they are clearly guilty and not worth the hassle of defending
>a private lawyer most definitely can tell a client to frick off if they are clearly guilty and not worth the hassle of defending
Well, they may, but I do not believe it is ethical. IMO a lawyer is like a public toilet, if it is unoccupied, it must allow the next ass to use it, it doesnt get to pick and choose, tho I understand lawyers would work very hard to have this sort of ethics derailed.
IMO this is true of all monopoly guilds like law, medicine, engineering, architecture, etc. If you cannot do for yourself, those whom the state has given the power to do for you have to do it for you unless they are otherwise occupied.
So a lawyer could refuse for lack of time, but not for subjective reasons/personal feelings.
We have a local traffic lawyer who is very vocal on twitter about the sort of people she "would not defend," which is increasing common. I sort of wonder about complaining about the ethics to her regulator, because people thinking that way, and perhaps talking privately, is one thing, but to air those sentiments publicly, IMO, brings the administration of justice into disrepute.
Many grad students are in debt---even if they are being paid to do their grad school so that part of their education is net zero, they are still in debt for their undergrad, often times.
So, what is their motivation in getting a PhD? It is to get a job, to pay off their student debt. I mean, we're not idiots, right? And we don't want some schizo in the room who thinks this is about schizophrenic bullshit like "truth", "justice," "the american way."
Money money, money money money.
And that is without going into how many academics rely on their positions to get laid/married---many of them are pretty ugly.
"The idea is we're going to sneak food to the children we want to survive."
So it also has a eugenic element. "Whoa, we dont want some schizo getting tenure and corrupting the youth, and making it more difficult for us to feed the kids who are like us!"
But at bottom, everyone who believes in invisible things, that's schizophrenia---universities and other institutions exist as copes for actual schizos who lack insight into their condition. I thought for a long time they were really smart enough to understand invisible things dont exist, but, nope. They're high functioning schizos. So it's more that they dont want anyone who isn't a schizo getting into the room and going "here is this device constructed to help these high functioning schizophrenics reproduce. Is that a good idea? Sure they can make rockets and ray guns, but did we ever say we needed these things?"
He's also making a basic quantitative argument.
System reached "steady state" in the 1970s. Before that, you had profs who would have 20 "children" get their PhDs, all become professors. By the 1970s, we have more than enough PhDs, but, as in every corporation, you never want your department to have less budget, which means if you produced 4 PhDs last year, you produce 4 this year, or within reason. You certainly don't go 'well, what's the point in producing children who won't survive?'
But, of course, you are not going to start off your PhD program by telling all of the students "many of you will never get tenure, you are basically wasting time here while I get paid to waste your time."
And people tend to want their children to be like them---so they run a parallel institution to ensure that the children they "really want to succeed" do succeed, and the others, well, there will be some bizzare shorthand, like "that's a schizo" to justify the moronic economic situation that Universities perpetuate, writ large across society, but it even applies to the "nursery for profs," grad school. It's like a game of musical chairs that you get people to play, without telling them "hey, there isn't going to be a chair for everyone afterward!"
Yep, and it's even worse than that.
PhD students are used as cheap labor. What should have happened, Weinstein says, is that there should be a few elite institutions that produce PhDs who then go to universities that do teaching'/research w/o producing more PhDs. But this would upend the economic model, etc. etc.
His argument is far more about economics than your moronic "its about keeping schizos from wasting our time."
Are you actually saying anything of tangible substance? Dear lord, shut the ever loving frick up.
>Are you actually saying anything of tangible substance? Dear lord, shut the ever loving frick up.
Why dont you shut up, ya poof?
I think he's right but also whining because no one takes his shitty schizo theory of everything seriously.
Youre a dunce. Go to class and stop posting.
You people....man, this board has gone down hill.....
im sorry eric
Choke more on his israeli balls Black person
Everything is just a phase, including Academia.
The problem with credit and citation is that everything is true under that criteria. And, unfortunately, israelites like credit--when it suits them.
God, I love my posts. Narcissism. Takes one to know one.
>4chon.me
lol. lmao even.
I want to rip all those disgusting warts off his face with a pair of pliers
also, anything that comes out of this pussy's maw is pure cope.
Who cares what wart face man says? Academia is garbage and so is he.
He is absolutely correct.
I studied this fairly extensively because I was disciplined for my University---the equivalent of Title IX in USA.
Universitas is a Latin word for Corporation. So already, the University is a legal institution. It is not just a "community of scholars," except insofar as community is another term for corporation. And it is.
"Cavendish CJKB said that the commonalty (Comminalty) of London, which was perpetual and of antiquity, which was a distinct thing (un groz a p' luy), part of this community, could not make a community of itself within the community without a special charter of the king, because it belonged to the king and no other to make a community (come), so that this fraternity which was made of themselves by a craft (un art') of whitawyers could not by the law be adjudged a body to have freehold estate by purchase nor by devise, becuase if so, they would have an action against others as a community, and would answer to the suit of another as a community, and this could not be without a special charter of the king." (49 Edw. 3 Lib. Ass. 8 fol. 320b-321b)
So community = corporation = university.
Degrees are akin to shares (places for life) in the Corporation. Depending on the Charter/Act of Incorporation, the shareholders have various privileges, for example, my alma mater's graduates are able to run for positions in the senate, and to vote for those positions.
So the problem is much more systemic than just having idiot people in the institution. The university is a medieval apparatus where the #1 degree is Divinity/Theology. Then Law, then medicine. So the top two degrees are not even "muh science," and the capacity for a faculty tard to cash his paycheque is not a "scientific" act but a legal act.
Thank frick I'm not subject to a king lmao, this is merely semantics
>Thank frick I'm not subject to a king lmao, this is merely semantics
It's the same thing, corporations are grants of the state/king. Only the state can make a corporation (a university).
He just pandering to the smart le woke crowd, who can't see that if they were smart as they think they are they would have made it. But it's not them but the society that's keeping you down, never take responsibility for your own actions and success.
>But it's not them but the society that's keeping you down, never take responsibility for your own actions and success.
There is some truth to what you're saying---basically it is "you against the weather," with everyone else being a "weather pattern." You can't control the weather, but you can adapt to it and "play the game." The whole video is about this.
Like, the metaphor used is "dance." Imagine a dance-class where the instructor purposefully stepped on the feet of the people he thought were "not good dancers." Of course, he is stepping on their feet, so of ocurse they can't dance.
>~~*Weinstein*~~
>Jews have taken over the academia
>Also israelites say academia is useless
Eric is an unethical grifter. Once admired him, then followed him on Twitter long enough to see his entire MO. He will find some issue, make a brain dead obvious take on it, then get angry about it.
He's like a guy that runs around looking for a riot about to start, pushes his way to the front, and yells "come on guys! we're mad as hell, right!"
People think Eric is a well-connected scientist, when in fact he is an embarassment shunned by most everyone. His only friend is the narcissist physicist/podcaster Brian Keating who just stares glassy-eyed at chat while Eric is talking.
Eric W is not worth your time.
>"come on guys! we're mad as hell, right!"
He warched his brother, who is gifted himself, have his career destroyed...and by the institution he knew wasnt as gifted itself as people think it is. Peterson's career was torched at the same time. Its news.
You do not understand what "grifter" is. You missed a step somewhere in your pseudo-psycholanalysis of him...go back, literally.
Oh...and dont get me started on the failing of the CDC and Surgein General...that fuasco was moronic (for those of us that saw WHY it was....we're not "namecalling". WE are experts evaluating the performance of other experts, which you are not.)
CDC? Surgeon General? wtf do they have to do with Eric Weinstein?
I called Eric a grifter because he is. He exchanges controversy on an issue for eyeballs on his platforms. I will admit that much of his grifting is in the past tense, with The Portal ending and his "volunteering" for VC firms supporting Clubhouse also ending with that platform's failure.
>Eric is an unethical grifter
I generally hate podcasts/"personalities" because they are all grifters in some sense, the question isnt if they've got hte gospel, the question is if they're entertaining and make you go "hmmm..."
I did manage to slog through most of the podcast above (a testament to it having SOME quality, most get the heave-ho after 30 seconds to 3 minutes) and his basic point is fairly non-narcissistic, it is about the University and its economic structure.
Wouldn't a narcissist just play the game in order to get narcissistic rewards? Or is your view he failed to play the game, so he decided to "let the cat out of the bag" because he is butthurt?
It is a fairly common theme amongst honest faculty, who will tell their undergrads and grad students "this wont get you a job." This is especially true in the humanities---I did an honors degree in my discipline, had more than two advisors suggest that I would do better to go to law school, not for lack of academic merit, but just because I wanted to have a family, and law school was a much surer thing for income than PhD/tenure.
Also you can start by stop listening to Lex Fridman. I have never seen a dumber, obtuser person be put forth as some kind of intellect. His dad his a big shot scientist, so he gets a lot based on his coat tails.
But dear god, that content...listening to Lex is like hearing a half-awake frat boy describe his english paper, saying such vapid empty nonsense with an air of emotional depth or meaning. He's worse than Eric, I'd venture.
I remember a few years ago slamming this demon about his grotesque physical appearance, then he immediately made a video where he was walking for exercise. then quit it shortly after, lol.
gatekeeping isn't always bad.
If it's bad, it's true.
It's simple, who wants to see the world through the eyes of old crusty people and THEIR findings. It is INTERESTING but not to the point that I MUST learn their shit.
That MUST part by the way, exists silently in the heads of those in academia.
>That MUST part by the way, exists silently in the heads of those in academia.
Think of academia more like a braking system and it starts to make sense. The bullshit mythology about it being a system for making progress, etc. etc.
It is about (1) moroning advancement by restricting access to certain materials to university graduates and (2) social engineering the use of those materials.
This is esp. true in pharmacy, medicine, law, etc, tho I think law is maybe difficult to define "advancement" or "progress" in.
Universities dont select the best. You don't want the "best" railroad conductor, you want one who applies the brakes conservatively, to avoid "derailment" of the feudal university system and its beneficiaries w/ monopoly degrees, and the Government bureaucrats that support them.
>You don't want the "best" railroad conductor, you want one who applies the brakes conservatively, to avoid "derailment"
I guess this could be clearer. What I mean is that if you have a choice between someone hot-dogging it and almost derailing but making better time, and someone who is a bit slower but never risks derailment, you pick the second guy even if the first guy is never actually going to derail.
And this doesn't address the ethical possibility that some trains OUGHT to be derailed.
I remember as a kid, first day of school and the rest of my time in education. RIDICULE of free thought and expression.
Disgusting place.
Can education be a nice place? I've not seen anything good in my life. I've never went to private schools or prestigous collages or universities but I can only assume it is very much the same oppressive atmosphere but with snobbery.
I imagine a quaint place of learning can exist. I like to think so anyway.
I remember my first day of public school. I had gone to a decent preschool where we always had a corps of parents around, volunteering, "parent participation" it was called.
This made the preschool teacher seem more like "another mom" or an aunt/cousin, rather than a bureaucrat.
Then I got to public school. We had already learned things like anatomy, some mathematics, the alphabet, etc. etc.
I remember how for OVER TWO HOURS on the first day our task was to take a piece of paper and draw two eyes on it, then fold it and tape it, to make a "paper snail."
I mutinied right then and there. I got put in a school in the rich part of town, and there at least the kindergarten teacher could play guitar.
I wish I could be 100% cynical about school/education, but I can't, just, like 95%. And then I have to ask myself, is it that the 5% of decent educators only seemed decent because they were helping avoid or undo the damage of the 95% morons, or without any formal education would I not have done much better.
I had a prof at university who was very supportive, one of the 5% and when I told him where I went to highschool, he was like "what the frick, man, from how confident you are I thought you went to X" where X is basically the most expensive private school in my City.
Empirically, given how successful I was in highschool working as a computer programmer, I am pretty confident that most UNiversity is bullshit, it is, as I said, a braking/social engineering system, NOT a system for ensuring everyone can have a job, progress in tech, etc. etc.
Michael Crichton said it better a long time ago. Watch his interview with Charlie Rose