According to the WSJ

Some of it is ok, mainly the first part talking about the true merits of getting a BA, but proposing a certification exam as a solution is kind of a bad idea. Imagine all the testing books and courses engineered for the test that would spring up over night.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Quote :

"For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time By CHARLES MURRAY August 13, 2008; Page A17 Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal: First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA." You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place. Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes. Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses. The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree. The model is the CPA exam that qualifies certified public accountants. The same test is used nationwide. It is thorough -- four sections, timed, totaling 14 hours. A passing score indicates authentic competence (the pass rate is below 50%). Actual scores are reported in addition to pass/fail, so that employers can assess where the applicant falls in the distribution of accounting competence. You may have learned accounting at an anonymous online university, but your CPA score gives you a way to show employers you're a stronger applicant than someone from an Ivy League school. The merits of a CPA-like certification exam apply to any college major for which the BA is now used as a job qualification. To name just some of them: criminal justice, social work, public administration and the many separate majors under the headings of business, computer science and education. Such majors accounted for almost two-thirds of the bachelor's degrees conferred in 2005. For that matter, certification tests can be used for purely academic disciplines. Why not present graduate schools with certifications in microbiology or economics -- and who cares if the applicants passed the exam after studying in the local public library? Certification tests need not undermine the incentives to get a traditional liberal-arts education. If professional and graduate schools want students who have acquired one, all they need do is require certification scores in the appropriate disciplines. Students facing such requirements are likely to get a much better liberal education than even our most elite schools require now. Certification tests will not get rid of the problems associated with differences in intellectual ability: People with high intellectual ability will still have an edge. Graduates of prestigious colleges will still, on average, have higher certification scores than people who have taken online courses -- just because prestigious colleges attract intellectually talented applicants. But that's irrelevant to the larger issue. Under a certification system, four years is not required, residence is not required, expensive tuitions are not required, and a degree is not required. Equal educational opportunity means, among other things, creating a society in which it's what you know that makes the difference. Substituting certifications for degrees would be a big step in that direction. The incentives are right. Certification tests would provide all employers with valuable, trustworthy information about job applicants. They would benefit young people who cannot or do not want to attend a traditional four-year college. They would be welcomed by the growing post-secondary online educational industry, which cannot offer the halo effect of a BA from a traditional college, but can realistically promise their students good training for a certification test -- as good as they are likely to get at a traditional college, for a lot less money and in a lot less time. Certification tests would disadvantage just one set of people: Students who have gotten into well-known traditional schools, but who are coasting through their years in college and would score poorly on a certification test. Disadvantaging them is an outcome devoutly to be wished. No technical barriers stand in the way of evolving toward a system where certification tests would replace the BA. Hundreds of certification tests already exist, for everything from building code inspectors to advanced medical specialties. The problem is a shortage of tests that are nationally accepted, like the CPA exam. But when so many of the players would benefit, a market opportunity exists. If a high-profile testing company such as the Educational Testing Service were to reach a strategic decision to create definitive certification tests, it could coordinate with major employers, professional groups and nontraditional universities to make its tests the gold standard. A handful of key decisions could produce a tipping effect. Imagine if Microsoft announced it would henceforth require scores on a certain battery of certification tests from all of its programming applicants. Scores on that battery would acquire instant credibility for programming job applicants throughout the industry. An educational world based on certification tests would be a better place in many ways, but the overarching benefit is that the line between college and noncollege competencies would be blurred. Hardly any jobs would still have the BA as a requirement for a shot at being hired. Opportunities would be wider and fairer, and the stigma of not having a BA would diminish. Most important in an increasingly class-riven America: The demonstration of competency in business administration or European history would, appropriately, take on similarities to the demonstration of competency in cooking or welding. Our obsession with the BA has created a two-tiered entry to adulthood, anointing some for admission to the club and labeling the rest as second-best. Here's the reality: Everyone in every occupation starts as an apprentice. Those who are good enough become journeymen. The best become master craftsmen. This is as true of business executives and history professors as of chefs and welders. Getting rid of the BA and replacing it with evidence of competence -- treating post-secondary education as apprenticeships for everyone -- is one way to help us to recognize that common bond."

[Edited on August 20, 2008 at 7:59 PM. Reason : a]

8/20/2008 7:58:31 PM

But where does nailing easy psychology majors fit into this?

8/20/2008 8:06:34 PM

Undergrad is the new high school, FYI

8/20/2008 8:10:47 PM

why anyone would want to spend their time and money on a BA is beyond me.

i mean, i enjoy the liberal arts as much as the next guy, but come on... writing an undergrad thesis on "Social Stratigraphic Analyses of the Late Antiquity" is not going to prepare you for any kind of meaningful job.

that's what *minors* are for.

8/20/2008 8:13:59 PM

Quote :

"Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses."

Is not this what accreditation is for?? I could have gotten a "degree" online 4 years ago and be done by now. That doesn't mean it would carry any weight with employers

8/20/2008 8:21:51 PM

I got a History BS with my science BS... If you aren't going to teach or write then most BA's are BS (har). The classes are a joke for the most part, even at the senior levels.

It's pretty sad that to get a decent job nowadays you have to have a bachelor's. 4 years working in a field >>>>>> than some irrelevant BA.

8/20/2008 8:23:03 PM

Tards, all of you. You learn more at college than books...maybe not if post on a message board all day/night.

8/20/2008 8:51:10 PM

I know right. All those clubs are so productive and meaningful. And being in an environment surrounded by thousands of people around your age and mostly similar to yourself is an incredible enriching diversity experience. They said that in the promotional stuff.

[Edited on August 20, 2008 at 9:03 PM. Reason : ]

8/20/2008 9:02:59 PM

Someone writes this same article every six months, it seems.

8/20/2008 9:20:21 PM

last 2 i remember were from WSJ

8/20/2008 9:22:12 PM

so, I take it this guy has no problem w/ BS degrees then, right?

8/20/2008 9:27:21 PM

^apparently.

^^ wsj is slowly but surely going to shit ever since newscorp bought them. whodathunkit

^6 you get a BS in history? why? i mean, why BS? that seems counterproductive. its not like thats going to get you a science or tech job, unless you have other experience/skills unrelated to your BS.




[Edited on August 20, 2008 at 9:46 PM. Reason : ]

8/20/2008 9:44:32 PM

I think what hes saying here that the only knowledge worth knowing is knowledge that can be used for economic gain. I doubt anyone would like to see our universities operate like DeVry.

8/20/2008 10:29:32 PM

^^ Wow, another arrogant fucking engineer acting as if the only field that matters is engineering. Who do you think engineers, well, engineer for? Everyone else, dumbass.

Way to go against the grain.

And a few things:

1. Some of you should never use the term "liberal arts." You have absolutely no understanding of what it means or what study in the area entails. This intellectual vacuum renders you incapable of grasping even fundamental concepts such as how knowledge is obtained.

2. Any degree amounts to what you make of it--from real learning in your studies to achieving a successful career.

3.

Are Liberal Arts Degrees Worth Anything?
by Jim Pollock

Quote :

"For everyone who says that a liberal arts degree doesn't prepare you for anything, you'll find someone else who claims that it prepares you for everything. Who's right? Well, both, to some extent. The one thing that's pretty much certain is that right out of the gate, a liberal arts grad will tend to pull a smaller starting salary than his or her friends who majored in business or a technical field. Here are the numbers for expected starting salaries for various majors, as reported in the National Association of Colleges and Employers Fall 2005 Salary Survey: Liberal arts/general studies: $32,457 English: $32,237 History: $31,727 Psychology: $29,861 Meanwhile, their former college roommates are living the high life with salaries such as the following, also as reported by the Salary Survey: Engineering: $49,636 Computer sciences: $49,110 Business: $41,233 Given the evidence, why would anyone in their right mind opt for the liberal arts degree? I could tell you, sincerely, that it's not all about the money. But it might be better to lean on another [cliché]: If you do what you love, the money will follow. In the interest of full disclosure, I majored in liberal arts. And I'm a big fan of liberal arts education. I'm now in a business role, but I don't regret my undergraduate decision for a second. In fact, my broad education provides the foundations for just about everything I'm any good at in my work. Sure, it took me a few more years to get on a solid long-term track, but I needed to bounce around a little to find what I really liked to do. Liberal arts and 'life skills' I gained more life skills from my fine arts classes than anything else I studied in school. In a painting or sculpture class, you put your own, unique vision on the line and have to explain your vision to your peers. It's an order of magnitude more daunting than grinding through a finance exam--I know, I've done both. And it's the same in the corporate world. You can craft a solution on an existing model, or you can create something entirely unique. In some ways, the numbers bear that out. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, a number of lucrative jobs are compatible with a 'less than specialized' liberal arts major. Here are the mean annual salaries at a few: Management: $87,090 Real estate: $75,330 Business and finance: $57,120 As a point of reference, workers in architecture and engineering occupations pulled in a mean annual salary of $63,060. This is not to say that a liberal arts education is the key to riches, just that it's not necessarily going to hold you back if you eventually choose to pursue a path in one of these lucrative fields. Making a bet on yourself An analogy can be made to the stock market. A degree in a field such as engineering is like a blue-chip stock--an employer knows exactly what to expect, and the payoff tends to be positive and steady. A liberal arts degree is more like a growth stock. Long-term expectations are strong, but you are assuming some risk, in the form of starting a little lower on the ladder. In short, you are betting on yourself and your abilities. For a high salary, or whatever professional goals you pursue, you need to create your own opportunities. Taking the longer view, by far the more important single variable in lifetime expected salary is simply that you continue your education past high school, no matter what you decide to study. Up through graduate school, each level of educational attainment boosts your expected earnings, pretty much regardless of field. So knowing that, why not study something you're interested in? The trump card: Back to school The professional world is so fluid, so rapidly changing, that overspecialization can sometimes put up walls rather than open doors. That's the great thing about going back to school after you've been in the workforce a while. More than ever, it pays to try a few different things, or even keep reinventing yourself throughout your career. A lot of attention is paid to starting salaries, but what matters most to your quality of life is your success and satisfaction 10, 20, 30 years down the line. Institutions of higher education recognize this new reality, and increasingly flexible programs enable professionals to gain the additional training they need, on terms most compatible with their lifestyles. Is that it? I held back on the squishy-soft stuff earlier, but I'll close by saying what I value most about my own liberal arts education is nothing short of getting the most out of life. I look forward to transcontinental flights for the time I'll have to conquer books I [haven't] had the chance to read. When I'm planning business trips, I research the shows at local museums and try to sneak a visit between meetings. Sure, I'd enjoy those things anyhow, but the appreciation I gained during college is something I'd never have had the time to pursue otherwise."

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elearning/?article=liberalarts

[Edited on August 20, 2008 at 10:50 PM. Reason : .]

8/20/2008 10:49:17 PM

hooksaw calling anyone arrogant is hilarious

8/20/2008 10:57:58 PM

^ I'm calling you that, jackoff. What's your degree in again?

8/20/2008 11:02:25 PM

Do the best you can with what you're given.

8/21/2008 12:02:38 AM

^ Basically, yeah.

hooksaw, we don't want you campaigning for the cause

k thx,
CHASS majors

Quote :

"hooksaw calling anyone arrogant is hilarious"

hey look, I agree with a troll for once

[Edited on August 21, 2008 at 12:13 AM. Reason : .]

8/21/2008 12:12:49 AM

^ You don't speak for anyone at CHASS. Are you speaking on behalf of your multiple personalities?

In any event, (1) nobody cares what you think. And (2) what do you base your position on? The fact that you don't like some guy on the Internet you've never met?

Just STFU, okay?

8/21/2008 12:44:19 AM

The answer is and always shall be: "study what you love."

8/21/2008 1:50:34 AM

I guess you can make the case for BA's, in some cases, not being worth all that much by themselves. It's sure as hell better than nothing at all, though. I also suspect that many people that do get BA's end up doing some kind of graduate school.

8/21/2008 2:58:58 AM

Some of you obviously don't know what the fuck you're talking about. One can get a BA in chemistry, for example, at State and many other colleges--is chemistry no longer considered a viable degree? State and other colleges also offer BAs in economics, physics, and Spanish (teacher education), to name a few--are these degrees worthless?

Al Gore, BA in government (cum laude) - US representative, senator, vice president, Nobel laureate, and Academy Award winner, among other accolades. I don't see some of you assholes ragging about Gore's education.

8/21/2008 3:19:37 AM

I would think when people are talking about worthless BA's, they're referring to like...Women's Studies, shit like that.

8/21/2008 3:23:58 AM

^ Understood--but those people need to make that distinction. Some here could obviously learn a thing or two about effective communication.

But assholes such as schmoe seem to have lumped all BAs in together. I mean, he's not even taking into account that the same argument could easily be made that many BS degrees don't amount to much either. Furthermore, schmoe and his ilk aren't even considering the fact that there are many BS fields of study in which a BA is also offered that has almost exactly the same degree-completion requirements.

In any event, schmoe never misses an opportunity to rag on "liberal arts," and this just strikes me as odd coming a liberal loon like him. And he has no real understanding of what he's talking about--frankly, I'm sick of it.

8/21/2008 3:41:28 AM

Quote :

"Management: $87,090 Real estate: $75,330 Business and finance: $57,120 As a point of reference, workers in architecture and engineering occupations pulled in a mean annual salary of $63,060. This is not to say that a liberal arts education is the key to riches, just that it's not necessarily going to hold you back if you eventually choose to pursue a path in one of these lucrative fields."

Not that it matters in the scope of this discussion, but Im not sure where that article got their numbers but they are WAY off. Im assuming that is maybe because they lumped "architecture" into engineering. Architects are very important but it is not engineering. But there is no way $63,000 is a mean salary in engineering just based on the starting salaries myself and my close friends in ME got starting out last year. In fact im pretty sure while I was still in college, the mean salary for an engineer was over $100,000 in the United States.


[Edited on August 21, 2008 at 7:38 AM. Reason : ]

8/21/2008 7:36:35 AM

Quote :

"You don't speak for anyone at CHASS."

Nor do you, so maybe you'll figure that out sometime before jumping down someone's throat when they say anything against liberal arts majors.

Quote :

"In any event, (1) nobody cares what you think."

I really doubt anyone cares what you think about this, either.

Quote :

"And (2) what do you base your position on? The fact that you don't like some guy on the Internet you've never met?"

No, it's the fact that you waste no time trying to be as arrogant as humanly possible in every thread you post in. You could just post an opinion without calling anyone names or automatically saying "OH WELL OBVIOUSLY NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK." People have different opinions than you, and you then feel the need to belittle them: joe_shmoe has an opinion, so be it. It's not helping any cause you might take up if you decide to go off the deep end while replying to someone who has a different opinion. That's why it's funny if you call someone arrogant: you're so arrogant yourself that you can't have a simple argument without adding a bunch of verbal diarrhea (that ASSUMES the other person is a nimrod who knows nothing) into the mix.

I don't know when you'll figure out that being older doesn't mean you're smarter than everyone else.

[Edited on August 21, 2008 at 9:34 AM. Reason : probably never]

8/21/2008 9:21:43 AM

8/21/2008 9:40:47 AM

Quote :

"Tards, all of you. You learn more in the real world than college...maybe not if post on a message board all day/night. "

8/21/2008 10:11:44 AM

Quote :

"The answer is and always shall be: "study what you love.""

Especially when that means you make less than $20K/yr and can't pay back your $30K in student loans.

8/21/2008 10:13:20 AM

Quote :

"is chemistry no longer considered a viable degree? "

Pretty much unless you want to spend five years in a bullshit commercial lab making $24K/year. Then you realize you should have done Chem-E or gotten your Ph.D. Sometimes the lab work is a good stepping stone to grad school but it certainly can end up as a near dead end job.

8/21/2008 10:20:55 AM

Quote :

"Especially when that means you make less than $20K/yr and can't pay back your $30K in student loans. "

University is not necessarily a job training program nor should it be. Hope this helps.

8/21/2008 11:03:10 AM

if you have the money to blow on college for your own entertainment, you probably dont really need to worry about student loans.

8/21/2008 11:22:22 AM

Wait, so their solution is to make some sort of standardized test more important?

I guess it figures the WSJ would want potential employees sorted as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Never mind the documented harmful effects of such sorting.

8/21/2008 11:45:45 AM

8/21/2008 11:48:12 AM

Quote :

"University is not necessarily a job training program nor should it be. Hope this helps."

Right but the point here is a lot of people view it as such, and are surprised to learn they are making the same they would have been had they just gotten a job right out of high school.

8/21/2008 1:12:38 PM

yep, liberal arts majors tend to be extremely susceptible to this short-sightedness.

My belief is that this is why so many of them are socialists.

Quote :

" If you do what you love, the money will follow."

That's a pile of horse shit. not everyone's passions will be economically viable. You have to sometimes choose between financial independence and following your dreams. Sometimes it works out, but sometimes it doesn't. Either way, it's a conscious choice, and if it doesn't work out, you have no one to blame but yourself.

[Edited on August 21, 2008 at 2:14 PM. Reason : af]

8/21/2008 2:13:44 PM

Quote :

"My belief is that this is why so many of them are socialists."

If capitalism ain't working well for you, it's rational to look for an alternative. Self interest.

Anyways, I'll point out that many humanities professors make decent dough.

Quote :

"Either way, it's a conscious choice, and if it doesn't work out, you have no one to blame but yourself."

And society.

8/21/2008 2:21:59 PM

i guess capitalism rewards meeting the needs and desires of society.

socialism rewards meeting the needs and desires of yourself.

8/21/2008 2:33:00 PM

Quote :

"hooksaw calling anyone arrogant is hilarious"

In this case, he's right.

Every so often there's this wave of people (mostly engineers) who come through and talk about how useless everyone else's major is. My favorite was when Smoker4 said, in seriousness, that everyone should be required to major in some kind of engineering and minor in whatever they actually wanted to take, because only engineering could possibly teach you problem-solving skills.

I don't know if it's engineering school propaganda, if you guys are just bitter that your classes were hard for you, or whatever, but the engineering supremacists are arrogant.

8/21/2008 2:35:57 PM

Let's get this straight.

The folks believe in greed and self-interest are helping everyone.

The folks who believe in community and equality are purely benefiting themselves.

So it's Backwards Day, basically.

8/21/2008 2:36:55 PM

In capitalism people decide what they want and what they need and businesses provide it. If society demands cars they get cars. If society demands reality tv, they get reality tv. If society demands better gas milage, they'll get better gas mileage.

In socialism the governement somehow decides what is best for society. If someone wants to make a living building shit sculptures, the government will pay them and give them healthcare by taking money away from people who provide products and services of worth and value.

The end result is society rewards serving the people and socialism rewards serving yourself.


You could argue that in a perfect world everyone would do what they love and that theres going to be that one person who reaaaaaly fucking loves being a janitor. And people who reaaaaaly love putting up with stress and no rewards (aside from the benefit to the glorious society).

8/21/2008 3:01:10 PM

Quote :

"In capitalism people decide what they want and what they need and businesses provide it."

Ah, if only it were so simple. No, under capitalism, folks with money decide what they want and get it. Folks without cash decide what they want but nobody provides it because they can't pay. That's a key distinction. If everyone got an equal say and businesses tried to provide for all as efficiently as possible, that would be technocracy.

Quote :

"You could argue that in a perfect world everyone would do what they love and that theres going to be that one person who reaaaaaly fucking loves being a janitor."

Or you could use technology to automate such unpleasant work. Before that's possible, divide up disliked tasks evenly. Basic socialism.

Quote :

"And people who reaaaaaly love putting up with stress and no rewards (aside from the benefit to the glorious society)."

Yeah, because janitors have it so good under capitalism. The current system doesn't get people to do horrible work by offering great rewards. Instead, it relies on economic coercion. Clean toilets or starve. Without a lower class to exploit, we might develop self-cleaning toilets.

[Edited on August 21, 2008 at 3:21 PM. Reason : meow]

8/21/2008 3:16:41 PM

Quote :

"You don't speak for anyone at CHASS. Are you speaking on behalf of your multiple personalities? "

what's funny, is I actually DID speak for people at CHASS. For one year, I was a representative on the CHASS council -- as well as vice-president, then later president, of one of the CHASS-related academic student clubs. this was due to my involvement in CHASS whilst getting a minor in Religious Studies.

I think liberal arts are a very valuable course of study. I don't think theres anything WRONG with pursuing a degree in a liberal arts field. i do think you're going to have far more competition to distinguish yourself, and most people will have to go on to graduate degrees to really succeed in their chosen field -- as opposed to just winding up being a programmer at Amazon Dot Com, or a marketing person for some advertising consultant.

Because statistically speaking, people with just a BA tend to be underemployed than compared to their BS counterparts. that's just a fact.

what I don't understand is why someone would want to get a BS in History, or a BA in Chemistry. that just seems counterproductive. the BS requirements would take away from the core history, while getting a BA in a pure science is truly getting a crippled degree.

but i'll admit that -- generally speaking -- once you're out of school for 5 years or so, your 5 years of progressive experience is going to be more important to a prospective employer than the particulars of your degree and where your degree is from.

still, it's important to remember that many jobs DO have baseline degree requirements, and pay scales are also often determined by the type and level of your degree.

8/21/2008 3:40:27 PM

^ Well, goddammit!!!1 A reasonable post! Are you trying to mess with my head, man?!

In any event, it's far from this pithy and dismissive statement:

Quote :

"why anyone would want to spend their time and money on a BA is beyond me."

Good job, schmoe.

And special thanks to you, Grumpy. I realize that we aren't going to be taking warm showers together, but you've proved to me that you aren't disagreeing with me just for the hell of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM

8/21/2008 4:22:57 PM

Quote :

"Ah, if only it were so simple. No, under capitalism, folks with money decide what they want and get it. Folks without cash decide what they want but nobody provides it because they can't pay. That's a key distinction. If everyone got an equal say and businesses tried to provide for all as efficiently as possible, that would be technocracy. "

People who have money are those who can best provide for society. If you have no useful skills you aren't useful to society. You can either learn something new or get out. You dont equalize people by giving them money, you equalize them through education. You talk about how people with money decide what they want, but its not coincidence that those are the people with education. They look for other educated people to help run their empires and pay top dollar for that brainpower. Unskilled workers have no say and rightly so. However, I fully support access to low cost public education. I really dont mind the money from my taxes going to higher education. It benefits an individual by giving him useful skills and benefits society by adding skilled labor to the workforce. If someone doesn't take that opportunity when its presented, then I cant say i care about their plight.

Quote :

"Or you could use technology to automate such unpleasant work. "

This is happening and will continue to happen today. As jobs become cheaper to automate they will disapear.

Quote :

"Before that's possible, divide up disliked tasks evenly. Basic socialism"

See thats bullshit. People work hard to educate themselves so they dont have to do that stuff. To penalize people for that is wrong.

Quote :

"Yeah, because janitors have it so good under capitalism. The current system doesn't get people to do horrible work by offering great rewards. Instead, it relies on economic coercion. "

Doctors go through tons of shit all for the benefit of society. And most of the bullshit they put up with is government meddling.

Quote :

"Clean toilets or starve. Without a lower class to exploit, we might develop self-cleaning toilets."

The options should be clean toilets, educate yourself, or starve. Once that class educates itself out of cleaning toilets it will make self cleaning toilets economically feasable. Hell, they might invent it themselves.

8/21/2008 4:42:15 PM

Quote :

"People who have money are those who can best provide for society."

How so? Only in that their pieces of paper and bank accounts can compel actually productive people to work.

Quote :

"If you have no useful skills you aren't useful to society."

Who defines what's useful? (Yes, that's right, people with money and/or guns.)

Quote :

"Unskilled workers have no say and rightly so."

Not according to my morality. Yours may differ.

Quote :

"This is happening and will continue to happen today. As jobs become cheaper to automate they will disapear."

Indeed. The machines already do the vast majority of physical work. We should use this vast productive capacity to benefit everyone equally. Instead, we have rule by politicians and corporations.

Quote :

"People work hard to educate themselves so they dont have to do that stuff."

If humans have to clean toilets, we should all do it. Your hierarchies disgust me.

8/21/2008 5:05:00 PM

Quote :

"How so? Only in that their pieces of paper and bank accounts can compel actually productive people to work. "

Right. People dont work for nothing. And people wont learn new skills unless theres a long term benefit. By increasing your personal education you increase your value in the market. You can then invest that money in yourself or you can take your own ideas and start a new company. Then you pay educated people to help you work that idea and make more money.

Quote :

"Who defines what's useful? (Yes, that's right, people with money and/or guns.)"

Useful skills provide products or services that other people want.

Quote :

"Not according to my morality. Yours may differ."

As long as they have the opportunity to earn their say, I'm fine with it.

Quote :

"Indeed. The machines already do the vast majority of physical work. We should use this vast productive capacity to benefit everyone equally. Instead, we have rule by politicians and corporations."

It benefits those who can afford it. Trade is a mutually beneficial arangement. One person gets a product they want the other gets costs+profits they can use to better themselves. If you force one side to engage in a trade that doesn't benefit them then theres no reason for them to continue to engage in trade. Then you end up with one person without the thing they wanted and one person with the capability, but not the desire to make it. You can always force him to make it but thats called facism.

Quote :

"If humans have to clean toilets, we should all do it. Your hierarchies disgust me. "

Some people can do better things with their time than clean toilets. Would you have the guy who can cure cancer clean spend his time cleaning toilets because its "more fair" ?

8/21/2008 5:37:14 PM

Quote :

"As long as they have the opportunity to earn their say, I'm fine with it."

I don't believing in earning. People need food, shelter, health care, and so on. Society should be arranged to provide these equally to all. Notions of earning and worth are unnecessary and harmful superstition.

Quote :

"Would you have the guy who can cure cancer clean spend his time cleaning toilets because its "more fair" ?"

Yes. Note that this is exactly what happens in Ursula K. Le Guin's fictional anarchist society. The brilliant physicist spends some of his time doing grunt work.

8/21/2008 5:50:49 PM

Quote :

"Some people can do better things with their time than clean toilets. Would you have the guy who can cure cancer clean spend his time cleaning toilets because its "more fair" ?"

We will once again conclude here that in a perfect free-market society where resources are efficiently allocated, that no, that person will not clean the toilets he/she uses with no cynicism towards the one that does.

But what does reality really look like? Consider an office of people getting paid $40k per year. Those people probably have someone else clean their toilets. That person who does the cleaning certainly gets paid a competitively low salary, but how much did the cleaning contractors cost? How much did the transportation to that office cost? And who optimized the frequency of cleaning to maximize profit for the company?

Surely, if an office worker did the cleaning, that would save on transportation costs. Not only that, but with a direct correlation between the cleaning and the receiving of the cleaning by that one employee makes the feedback chain more efficient (you didn't get all the brown off this one!), and even possibly isolates any germ propagation pathways (is this not the evolutionary point of cleaning?) to the office. Furthermore, there would be an open bidding for doing the action, and I'm sure there would be more than one person willing to take a few minutes after lunch to break out the plunger if the price was right.

The fact that this is not being done shows that this isn't just a matter of economics, but of pride as well.

Quote :

"Yes. Note that this is exactly what happens in Ursula K. Le Guin's fictional anarchist society. The brilliant physicist spends some of his time doing grunt work."

So you're not only recommending this arbitrary way of allocating work, but a complete transition to anarchy... yay!

8/21/2008 6:13:05 PM

Quote :

"So you're not only recommending this arbitrary way of allocating work, but a complete transition to anarchy... yay!"

You bet. I've been advocating anarchy for some time now.

Genderless technocratic transhuman anarchy.

8/21/2008 6:20:47 PM