Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[Asher]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
And it is frankly ridiculous to suggest that the reason for her failures were due to one of the joint majors of her undergrad degree.

And while I'm posting, I think you are up to 5 citations of a typing mistake as proof of Gepap not understanding computers.

Did anyone else see the point whizz by?

As has already been mentioned several times now, the whole point of bringing up Carly was she has been used in years past as an example of the utility of a philosophy degree -- apparently it taught her critical thinking and problem solving skills that prepared her for her roll in a huge technology company.

At some point along the line people realized she was a moron, and distanced themselves from her -- her philosophy degree is meaningless. Which is the true point of this.

She may or may not be called a philosopher, but in any case she obtained an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and never used it for the rest of her life. The same is true for the majority of people who take Philosophy undergraduate courses.

Why? Because they take it for personal interests. It's fine if such people take courses for personal interests at private schools like Carly did at Stanford, but it's a waste of tax payer money to fund it at public universities.

That money is best spent in tools to aid research in the public interest in other fields, such as medicine...

[Asher]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Your whole argument about the lack of value of philosophers is based on your chosen value system, which appears to value money and time-efficiency as the highest good. This makes sense, as philosophers generally do not advance those values.

But how do computer scientists decide what to work on?

In other words, what values determine the allocation of the these resources?

For the most part, I would suggest, that would be ROI.

It's not only economical like you imply.

It's providing something that gets back into society in any way - that provides us with progress or utility.

Re-reading Plato repeatedly and paying foreigners to work in our public university to do it is a waste of our money. It should not be publically subsidized if its value is so clearly personal to the single person interested in the field.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Asher

Re-reading Shakespere repeatedly and paying foreigners to work in our public university to do it is a waste of our money. It should not be publically subsidized if its value is so clearly personal to the single person interested in the field.

[Asher]

I agree with that comment too.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Asher
I agree with that comment too.

[Asher]

Shakespere belongs in high school, not university.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Asher

It's not only economical like you imply.

It's providing something that gets back into society in any way - that provides us with progress or utility.

You are anticipating what you expect my argument will be, and not answering the question.

"How do computer scientists decide what to work on?"

Are you suggesting that your boss/client sits down and says, "Hmmm. What can Asher work on today that will really get back into society and provide for progress and utility?"

Or are all the effects, both positive and negative, just by-products of a desire to maximize ROI?

[Kuciwalker]

Does it matter? The practical upshot is, the stuff he does ends up benefitting the rest of society, whereas the stuff Aggie does, doesn't.

[Asher]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
You are anticipating what you expect my argument will be, and not answering the question.

"How do computer scientists decide what to work on?"

Are you suggesting that your boss/client sits down and says, "Hmmm. What can Asher work on today that will really get back into society and provide for progress and utility?"

Yes, but not in those words. Assuming I'm in the private sector, the question is what can we do that customers would want to buy? Another name for this is the value proposition.

Assuming I'm in academia doing research, there is almost always a driving need behind most of the research. Indeed, much of the research in computer science is funded by corporations with an interest in that field.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon


You are just ignorant.

Ignore for you.

Woot woot. If only I could count on your ignore.

Seems fitting since I have likewise relegated everything you say to complete idiocy.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Agathon
Q. When Plato asserts that kinesis is the same and not the same, and he says we aren't speaking in the same way both times, what ways are we speaking in?

A. Not as obvious as it seems....

It's extremely obvious to a Software guy. It's a basic coding issue.

If you are going by lasting fame, that makes Hitler more important then Aristotle, as more people in the world know about him. And will continue to do so, as long as the majority of humanity is not "highly educated". The mainstream media/entertainment will educate them more about Hitler, then Aristotle or even that Pop Diva Ms. Spheres.

Oops. Sorry. I thought I was only 2 pages out from the end. Ignore old (probably lost) topic...

[Agathon]

Endowments are still private. Charity is private. The tax breaks are given to the whole university. And you know, given the massive government subsidy of higher education (good thing), it's not surprising that there aren't many institutions that teach philosophy without even any tax breaks... the market is taken out from under them.

Your understanding of economics is comical.

A tax break is no different from a subsidy. Instead of giving people money, they just take less away. It amuses me how the right will go on and on about taxpayers subsidizing this and that, and won't complain when the same taxpayers have to pay more tax than they would have if tax breaks weren't given to certain individuals. It makes no real difference if you earn 20,000 and the government gives you an additional 10,000 or whether you earn 30,000 and the government gives you a tax break worth 10,000 so that you pay no tax. Someone else still has to foot the bill or services will be cut.

Ignoring your stupidity about the tax breaks, the problem with private universities is that only a very few will be able to afford to offer what we need if we rely solely on charity and fee paying students. There will be a massive undersupply of the informational goods that universities supply and people want. The same goes for health care. Private health care is an inefficient disaster. You only need look at what Canada and the US spend proportionally on health care and their respective results to know that US style healthcare is risible.

I guess it's hard for you, but look at the obvious. Markets fail. Every economist worth the name knows this. When markets fail to provide things that people want and need, the state corrects for the failure by compelling people to pay for things they actually want or benefit from. That is in a nutshell why we pay taxes. If markets didn't fail miserably to provide things like health care and education, we wouldn't need the amount of taxes we have.

People who don't understand this elementary point have no business commenting on modern politics because they simply do not understand how modern societies are organized and why they are organized that way.

Independently of the broad benefits of philosophy and the humanities in general (the world would go up in flames if we let people like you run it), there is a sound reason for funding things like philosophy and history - enough people are interested in them and the market won't supply it because they are prone to failure (as are most things that provide purely informational goods - universities deal in ideas. Ever tried to sell one of those?). The same goes for most university disciplines. The fact that you don't like it is neither here nor there. Government spending is not organized according to your personal principles. Everyone pays tax. Some of that goes for things we like, some for things we don't. That's the social contract - there is really no alternative.

Your teachers should be horsewhipped for not teaching you this.

Oddly enough, I learned about this by reading a philosophy book.

[Darkstar]

You know, this is a really, really funny thread.

On a casual read through, it seems that the philosphers have proved the data monger's points, and the data mongers have proved the philosophers points.

Asher's original complaint is that modern philosophy is useless, as the students of it sit around and argue about language (and its semantics). Language and its semantics are one of the holy grails of AI (Artificial Intelligence) as well as UI (User Interface). Comp scientists want to solve the problem of understanding and defining what language is, and how it is used, so as to not only make computers everywhere directly usable by any human, but to also be able to formalize a way to "teach" computers that idea/concept/object X is (ie, what a "cat" is). In the quest for solving that problem, sitting around in a classroom and arguing what some ancient philosopher might have meant in blank X is a good model for conceptualizing the problem domain of communication and meaning (all Human to Human exchanges of information, Human to Machine, and Machine to Machine).

Now, from the filosophers... they've stated that computers have been as transformative as the Industrial Revolution and Electricty itself. If their test truly is "are computers as transformative", and then they give their own examples, well--- it's no wonder the data mongers are laughing at them.

I love Asher arguing we shouldn't be wasting money on things, when he has also acknowledged that all life is actually unimportant, and implied that the only reason to bother doing anything is for the experience itself. Isn't that the very thing he was railing against modern philosphists of doing?

As a sideline, I also wonder, how much of Carly's earlier "success" was due to her history and philosophy degrees? To argue that they were here downfall at HP would not invalidate the influence they may have played in her earlier "successes".

Well, I was laughing too hard and probably whacked my head too hard and missed a couple of steps in the arguments, but it was a very appreciated laugh.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
Your understanding of economics is comical.

I'm not even going to bother with the 's this time...

A tax break is no different from a subsidy. Instead of giving people money, they just take less away.

Have a cookie. I recognized that.

[q="kuciwalker"]The tax breaks are given to the whole university.[/q]

My response was that the university does do a lot of stuff that is useful to society, so if a little bit of the money devoted to helping them with that goes towards philosophy, oh well.

the problem with private universities is that only a very few will be able to afford to offer what we need if we rely solely on charity and fee paying students.

Oh well. So only a few will be able to afford studying philosophy for their private amusement. Just like only a few are able to afford Ferraris.

There will be a massive undersupply of the informational goods that universities supply and people want.

Nope, there will be plenty of public universities which teach all of those subjects which provide a benefit to society as well as the individual. Philosophy will, with the massive government subsidy of it removed, be brought to a proper market price. So not everyone who wants it can get it - it's the same with the aforementioned Ferrari.


The same goes for health care. Private health care is an inefficient disaster. You only need look at what Canada and the US spend proportionally on health care and their respective results to know that US style healthcare is risible.

I guess it's hard for you, but look at the obvious. Markets fail.

Yes they do. This one (education for private amusement) does not. Education for public benefit does, but philosophy isn't that.

a bunch of strawmen which are either because Aggie knows he can't face or simply doesn't comprehend my arguments

Independently of the broad benefits of philosophy and the humanities in general (the world would go up in flames if we let people like you run it),

So we're back to "Philosophy degrees do help you make decisions"?

there is a sound reason for funding things like philosophy and history - enough people are interested in them and the market won't supply it because they are prone to failure

Not anymore than the Ferrari market...

(as are most things that provide purely informational goods - universities deal in ideas. Ever tried to sell one of those?).

They're called books. Lots of people sell them for a fair amount of money.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Asher

Yes, but not in those words. Assuming I'm in the private sector, the question is what can we do that customers would want to buy? Another name for this is the value proposition.

"Want to buy" = "we can sell to them" = "we can get their money"

Nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but nothing intrinsically virtuous either. Now, selling a new generation of electronic playthings to people every year or two might be very good marketing and highly profitable for one interest group in society. I also might not be a sustainable course of action, but a destructive one that harms a society as a whole.

The market is not an ethical animal. It has no morals. It has built great civilizations and promtptly torn them down again. Blind faith in the market is like blind faith in God.

Assuming I'm in academia doing research, there is almost always a driving need behind most of the research. Indeed, much of the research in computer science is funded by corporations with an interest in that field.

Yep, corporations routinely fund driving needs - the driving needs of the shareholders to maximize the dividend by next year end...

The markets are the best way to create wealth, and the best way, in the first instance to set prices and meet demands through a flexible and responsive mechanism that regulates supply.

However, markets are a set of competing self-interests, just like individuals in a city are a set of competing self-interests.

No-one in their right mind would suggest that individual humans can seek their own self-interest without any regulation and in so doing, benefit society as a whole. That is to say, we need laws so that individuals don't harm each other.

Perhaps the biggest lie of the last 2 or 3 decades is that the market does not need government regulation, that it is self-governing and ileft to its own devices its actions will benefit society.

You simply cannot maintain a society this way.

As our Christian-based culture disintegrates, along with the moral imperatives it supplied for how we live together, people need a new and deeper understanding of how society works, and what the role and logic of ethics is in that society.

I'm pretty sure the western world has enough wealth. What we don't have is an understanding of how to share the earth's limited resources without killing each other directly or by exhausting needed resources.

And I'm pretty sure speeding up the pace of everything is not the answer.

That said, I think GePap is wrong about computers not being transformative. I just don't think Asher and Kuci have been very eloquent in their arguments. Sometimes, something is so obvious to you that you can't explain it to someone who doesn't see it. I'll give it a whirl.

The internet has begun democratizing the entire world, in a way Dubya could never dream of.

Censorship is dying. A young woman in Iran can get on the web, and find out what is happening all over the world; she can discuss issues with people all over the world and get outside perspectives on what her leaders are telling her; and she can communicate with like-minded individuals in her country.

Economics and commerce are no longer (for better and worse) the hand-maiden of the wealthy elites. Global money markets are linked in real-time. When an nation acts in a reprehensible way, for example, by negating the rule of law and nationalizing the assets of private companies, Individuals with as little as a few thousand dollars invested can vote in a global polis. Startled investors pull their money out of that nation, and the suffering is immediate. Thailand and Indonesia come to mind.

The same thing is happening with environmental policies. Markets of individuals can come together as never before and collectively demand their products are produced in sustainable ways. This changed tuna fishing; the textile / clothing budsines, and is starting to revolutionize the forest industry.

These phenomena could not have occurred without the connectivity of the worldwide web.

If a nation doesn't join the global village, your people will suffer, and they will know they are suffering despite the lies you tell them.

And if you do, you have to play fair, or you will suffer as the rest of the world judges and votes with their investments.

[source: The Lexus and The Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman]