There's a weird misconception about an authority that the degree gives you. Like, you will watch some YouTube video and the comments will be like "he's not historian, how can he talk about this stuff", but, do they know how the things are in universities? Most of the people in my group in uni are fucking retards. There's like 1 guy who actually knows something. the rest don't even try. Recently I had to teach a guy what ethernet cable is and where to put it(computer science degree). You really would be more safe trusting an autist on YouTube who has a true passion for the subject, than an official graduate in the subject.
>>16291287>authorityI get what you're saying but you should choose a better word.
The easier it is to get a degree, the dumber you seem for not having one.If their field of study was specialized enough in the subject they're discussing, it may be valuable to have gotten it. If it's just a business degree then it adds nothing and removes nothing.Since it's either neutral or positive for the discussion, with the only downside being possible unwarranted self importance, I don't see why it would ever come up outside of "I wrote my thesis about thin exact topic, here's my research."
>>16291287That's only in America where a B is considered a bad grade and even Chad can study a few hours a week and get passing grades on every subject.In my shithole of the world turd world country state university, only about 10% of the students are awarded a passing grade in all STEM subjects belonging to a physics, math or engineering degree.Only people with a brain make it to the end of an undergraduate degree, and even then, most end up graduating at like 30 years old with a 3/10 GPA.
>>16291287>software specialist doesn't know hardwareWho gives a shit? Do you also want a psychiatrist to be a surgeon? Or expect an architect to dig ditches and paint walls?Like it or not, ridiculous degree of specialization to the point where you lack even basic common knowledge in other areas is the meta.That's the winning strategy in life.
>>16291287Not a new discovery OP. Most academics are just smart enough to be professors in their respective fields. The vast majority of them are not necessarily as intelligent as a lot of people that are not employed or underemployed but could hold their job.. Being employed is always a game of ass kissing and politics more than it's the merit of your work unless you publish something absolutely phenomenal (which is obviously very rare). In mathematics this has become increasingly rare because you basically have to collaborate with people to publish anything of very non-trivial meaning unless you work in an extremely niche field. In the latter case, you will make more breakthroughs but you probably won't get much recognition outside of a small selection of people. I've noticed this with programming as well, most of the most passionate programmers I know work at grocery stores while people who just went into it for money have all the big names on their belt. Not to say there's never an exception, but sadly the status or passion of your achievements is often not tied to your status in the private or public sectors. This is especially true today with how everything is about nepotism and dick sucking.
>>16291287You're only right about something if you're allowed to be right.
>>16291287School (and by extension college) is less about educating children and more about indoctrinating the masses and preventing anything resembling resistance or dissatisfaction. A critical thinker is someone who can effect change, something that you want to avoid if your life is already going as well as possible.Notice how colleges always prioritize "work readiness" over actual knowledge; how many college graduates do you think would take a course they'd find interesting if it wasn't a requirement and provided no credits?
>>16292411>average college graduate
>>16291650>Do you also want a psychiatrist to be a surgeon? Or expect an architect to dig ditches and paint walls?Consider this: A psychiatrist with surgical knowledge might do a better job of spotting a patient with a brain tumor manifesting as a psychiatric illness. An architect who knows geology might design structures that are more energy-efficient or earthquake-proof by selecting the ideal part of a lot to put various structural elements on or in.
The more qualifications you accrue, the more this becomes obvious. I have a PhD in engineering and it’s so painfully apparent that absolutely nobody knows what the fuck they are talking about with regard to any topic.
>>16293049>A psychiatrist with surgical knowledge might do a better job of spotting a patient with a brain tumor manifesting as a psychiatric illness.Sure, and a doctor who dedicated 50 years of his life to get 10 specs will probably be a better doctor than one who didn't. This doesn't mean you expect every specialist to do this.
>>16293078that's ok, nobody with academic qualifications does any important work
>>16291323There is no better word, because pointing at a college degree and saying you know what you're talking about because you have it is an appeal to authority.
>>16291287The weid misconception is that you've never worked a real job where educated retards get filtered.
>>16294391
>>16291650>ethernet is hardwareNo. Ethernet is not hardware. Ethernet is a collection of standards produced by IEEE. It's a data link layer protocol, not a physical one. A "software specialist" today absolutely needs to know what ethernet is. A computer science major absolutely needs to know what ethernet is.Your analogy doesn't hold. Networking is a fundament of computer science, and networking protocols define how data flows between systems. I expect anybody with a CS degree to understand this, just as I expect both a psychiatrist and a surgeon to understand what blood vessels are and what their function is, as I also expect a city planner to know what a highway is and what its function is. But I don't expect a city planner to know the tensile strength of different types of reinforcing steel used in freeway overpasses.
>>16295679> psychiatrist>surgeon>city plannerThese all sound like pre-defined positions within a higher scheme of things.What is the role of a psychiatrist? What about a city planner? How does one know what that job entails; why is that job even there? A surgeon seems obvious, the guy that actually cuts you open to solve issues. But would that make him unable to advise on the usage of drugs? Would that make him incapable of making informed decisions in the election of a mayor? Where do these titles come from, what is there significance? I still, to this day, have not been able to figure out, nor have I been answered about what these titles signify, or under what schema. What is a degree? A degree of what? What is a University supposed to do? Could I not just study on my own? Supposedly, there are good colleges and bad colleges, but how would one determine a good one from a bad one? What's the end goal? Especially considering that self-study is the best way to understand something, and practice is the best way to learn how to do it, what exactly IS college?
>>16295800I did a lot of research on my own. Supposedly, Universities started out after the dark ages under Charlemagne who was hell-bent on enabling literacy for the common man. He helped to establish Oxford, which still stands today as the oldest university, and there was taught the liberal arts (the Trivium and the Quadrivium, which are available for free online), as well as the writings of Plato and Aristotle. All of this was for the purposes of educating the common man and to increase the quality of life for all. He was supposedly blessed by the pope at the time as a holy warrior, which I thought was quite badass.But anyway, how has university or college changed since then? All I hear is "that's what everybody does" and "that's what you do to get a job" which doesn't mean fuckall nor jackshit. I once heard that there were job programs for batchelor-degree holders to get people employed, but then I later on hear Biology majors having difficulty getting a job with a Masters degree. So, when I speak to people working at a university, I'm told that I need to pay a very large fee for tuition and that I will be rewarded points or "credits" that "go towards a degree" in some chosen field. They seem to sell degree programs that seem to only have value as a social signal to get a job at some big company. But wait, a trade school is where you go to get a job. To become a carpenter or a plumber or a welder. So what, then, is a university?+100 internets to anyone who can answer this question for me because I still have none.
>>16291287yo stfuno one wants to be a plumber or mow the lawn for a livingthis anti college shit is exhaustingguess what the dumbest people I know didn't graduate college, shocker right?
>>16295809answer these questions, please>>16295800>>16295802
>>16291287Motivated amateurs are in my experience much more interesting and holistic(?) learners. I can't speak to upper division stuff yet but many of my peers are struggling to grok the simple math associated with first year chemistry.
There are some very specialized fields. These usually require a grad degree as it is very hard to self-teach and nothing is intuitive. My field is a fair bit like this and most employers are moving towards relevant PhD required.
>>16295809I don't want to fix YOUR stuff but I'd gladly take it.
>>16295802Carl the Great died in 814, centuries before Oxford. And Bologna had the world's oldest university, the University of Bologna, founded in 1088.
>>16296552I stand corrected on those points. But the big picture question: What is a university? Is still unanswered. Would you be able to answer that question?
>>16296646I found another guy who said that etymologically university translates roughly "universal theory" where people are attempting to develop a comprehensive theory of all things (the universe). It would stand to reason that going to these autists for advisory would be the best option for quality advisory. But is this the case of modern universities? Is that really what they do in there? Honestly, it seems like it started off great, went to good, and now is just a hype wave.
>>16294410>There is no better word, because pointing at a college degree and saying you know what you're talking about because you have it is an appeal to authority.Then find a better verb. Because the authority you've described isn't given by a degree, it's taken (or assumed) by a degree holder.
>>16296653>it's taken (or assumed) by a degree holder.It's issued by an institution.
It's not academia, it's the retarded rebellious students using it as a social weapon for street cred and sex they wouldn't usually get. Oh. And money.
>>16296657define academia, please.
>>16296663Use Google fag I ain't your dictionary.
>>16296656Whatever authority a degree confers is issued by and for an institution. No other legal or even social authority is granted by that degree.
>>16291287There are only three real degrees. Doctor, lawyer, engineer. That’s it. And the only reason the schooling for those exists is to make proof you meet the bare minimum standards to not fuck up. Any other degree is fluff bourgeois shit.
>>16296665Well, I went on google and found a Wikipedia article about the definition of "academy". Apparently it dates back to Plato's Academy, but has since then taken on different forms. It generally represents a sacred place for learning, and there are dedicated academies for particular goals, such as the police academy and the air force academy. And nowhere on there did I get where anon post #16296657 meant by his use of the term "academia"What do YOU mean, anon?
>>16296679>Doctor, lawyer, engineer>playwright, playwright, calculatorNone of those degrees are real or particularly useful
>>16296670>No other...social authority is granted by that degree.oh if only that were true
>>16296679This makes sense. But since when did we as a nation agree to have the universities decide the bare minimum requirements? It seems to me like there would be 2 best places to learn medicine: a hospital and a library. The library would have the written word of past medical discoveries and a hospital would have first-hand experience of modern problems and the bleeding edge of medical capabilities. Where does the University come in? Maybe a standardized testing agency to test for bare minimum requirement would work. But still. What is a university?
>>16296687If you or your neighbors ascribe any sort of social authority to a degree, that's y'all's fault and has nothing to do with what a degree means in real life.
>>16296691>experts believe...>scientists say...>sources claim...
>>16296692If your neighbors, friends, or family are seduced by politcal jargon, that's their fault. You can't blame a degree (essentially a reference letter) for the abuse of some imaginary authority ascribed to that degree by yourselves.
We're hitting levels of clown world that shouldn't even be possible
>>16296698>You can't blame a degree...for the abuseI can and I will, along with negligence and incompetency.
>>16296704True. You can also carve out your own genitalia and submit it as art to a museum. The fact that you can do something doesn't mean that what you did is helpful or logical.
>>16296712>The fact that you can do something doesn't mean that what you did is helpful or logical.If institutions aren't held accountable for quacks, charlatans, extortionists, and liars there will always be a constant flow of them.
>>16296728There will always be a constant flow of quacks quacking in your face whether or not they have degrees and whether or not the institutions that gave them their degrees are held accountable. Why are you trying so hard to shirk your own responsibility?
>>16296745>Why are you trying so hard to shirk your own responsibility?You're the one saying that institutions passing out pieces of paper shouldn't be held accountable for what people do with the social authority those papers endow.
>>16296748I'm saying that whatever social authority you and your neighbors, family, and friends have submitted yourselves to has nothing to do with a degree, which is simply a reference letter from one institution to another.
>>16296754>I'm saying that whatever social authority you and your neighbors, family, and friends have submitted yourselves to has nothing to do with a degreeWhich is something a shyster afraid of being regulated would say.
>>16296774A shyster afraid of being regulated would also say exactly what you just said. You'd be better off simply taking responsibility for your own actions.
>>16296785>no u!stellar reasoning
>>16296795No reasoning has passed between us.
>>16291287It is possible to rigorously teach yourself about advanced topics with no external structure, guidance, assessment, or the pressure of failure having consequences. But it's rare for people to actually do this, and it's hard to distinguish that person from someone who's just watched some videos and read some popsci articles and considers that "doing their own research". Especially if you aren't knowledgable about the topic yourself.A relevant degree from a university with a decent reputation lets you assume a certain baseline level of "probably knows that they're talking about".
