Is it good policy to give financial aid to liberal arts majors?

[Odin]

Liberal arts courses have becore dumbed down lately because of the decline of the manufacturing sector, people who would normally take a blue collar job are having trouble finding these jobs and so are going to get a college education, hoping to escape the fate of McJobdom. Most of these people can't do science and engineering stuff, if they did they wouldn't be in the "people who would normally work blue collar jobs" catagory in the first place. The academic standards have been lowered so these "Average Joe" people can get a degree, leading to an overabundance of unneccessary BA degrees compares to how many are really needed, hence the "do you want fries with that" joke about job prospects of the average person with a BA, only the creme of the BA crop will actually be able put thier degree to good use in the workforce, or as a springboard to a graduate degree, and become historians, political anylists, philosphers, anthropologists, writers, etc.

[Kuciwalker]

Liberal arts courses have becore dumbed down lately because of the decline of the manufacturing sector, people who would normally take a blue collar job are having trouble finding these jobs and so are going to get a college education, hoping to escape the fate of McJobdom.

...

That's some of the most convoluted logic I've ever seen.

[Whaleboy]

What I don't like doing is the typical dance of discourse most people engage in for stupid debates. It's just a waste of time, get the ideas out there and let people do what they want with them. A lot of ideas and good arguments get lost in the maze of polite, academic discourse.

BS, you make yourself out to be some kind of campaigner for common sense, but the only person in this thread who convolutes the argument, deliberaly misunderstands and attempts to use red herrings everywhere is you! You say you dont like the "dance of discourse" where in reality you dont practice what you preach.

The only person making a song and dance in this thread is you, which is a shame, because the rest of us are getting something out of it.

Is your hypocrisy deliberate or a sign of a deeply insecure person?

[Asher]

I'm not sure what you're on about. Yet another red herring it seems like.

I start talking about "Classics" being specific to a time period and then you start talking about "the method" and how it's not integral to the time period. It's nonsense. Without the timeperiod, it's not "Classics".

The song and the dance is coming from you, I really don't know what you're trying to do except dance around. And I'll note that you've thrown many ad hominems, usually in the same post where you say that's what I'm doing. Good for a smile, but gets old.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by TCO

Don't bother. I've really read and discussed it a lot at a very sophisticated level. It would be painful to me. But if you can get Micheal Mann in here. And have him actually engage. That would be awesome.

I didn't mean that kind of argument. I meant arguments about when it is justifiable to trust authorities when you don't know yourself. The dumb answer is "never", but that is impractical.

This is the position most of us are in regarding climate change. I have no desire to wade through acres of stats because it's not that interesting to me on its own, we employ meterologists to think about it for us.

It would be more useful in this case to argue about the limits of justified credibility in authorities than to actually argue the case, I think.

[Cyclotron]

This thread has not made progress in any direction for around six pages. It has transcended time and achieved timeless immortality.

[Agathon]

So say we all...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

liberal arts are really the only majors who need financial aid, since if you didnt get any, it would take you over a decade to pay off your loans.

all the harder subjects allow you to pay off your loans much quicker, so its worth the investment, and a student doesnt need as much financial aid.

[Pekka]

What scientists know are principles doing research and study, and that includes that everyone has bias. This is another reason why we have different methodologies. I'm sure librul arists also know this but it seems to me they don't always stand behind this very basic principle, that we are all human including me.

This, if anything is basis for pragmatical thinking. When it comes to leading, well, in technology driven world it becomes increasingly important that any kind of leader has the technical background, as in the leader has to be able to make assesements that are based on reality and should be able to do most jobs in that organization, to effectively lead and be updated and show direction. You just can't be any kind of project manager unless you know stuff. In ever growing complexity of operations in higher level, you have to be able to know what's going on in other levels.

Now, you need people with business orientation and that mindset as well. You need to be well rounded. But librul artists rarely can do the technical stuff. They can sometimes, but we are talking about individuals here. Beyond simple mathematics, it's usually wasted time with these people. Why? Because it was their choice not to bother with this stuff, unless you have great talent, which of course some of them have, you can not comprehend it. It requires discipline to sit down and study that stuff and unless you're 100% into it, you'll be out at some point.

It's discipline. But I know it's easier to just crack a book that's about high concepts, interesting thoughts, human development and all that stuff. When it gets 100% technical and you don't get it, it's frustrating. In technical fields, it's usually required that in order for you to handle your area, you can't have grey areas in your knowledge. Everything is interconnected. In librul arts, it's not so demanding in this regard for you to do something.

Furthermore it gets to a point where librulists over analyze things, like in this thread. Is there a right answer to this, I'm as right as everyone else etc... in science, yes, there are right and wrong answers. If you're wrong, you input value is 0. Might be even negative.

If you can't put a value to it, then you are doing something wrong, or then the thing can't be put into numbers easily. It's not our fault that we can put our stuff into numbers, evaluate it and make progress. It also is a telling sign that while some of the stuff librulists do is very valuable even though it can't be measured in numbers (not money necessarily), some of it is utter crap.

The mindset where you think that you can't put numbers to anything really, because who is to say what is important etc... that's just crap. We can put numbers in it, you should try to do that as well.

[Cyclotron]

Pekka's continued existence is a threat to human progress and development.

Or, to satisfy his number fetish: Earth 1, Pekka 0

[Pekka]

And how do you justify your statement? What are those numbers based upon?

Oh that's right, it requires reserach to do that....

[Cyclotron]

What are your numbers based on? On what basis do you say that if you can't put a numeric value on it, you're doing something wrong? Care to show us your research?

[Pekka]

My numbers? Where did I put numbers? I didnt.

I ALSO said that you can't put numbers to everything, like in my last post? And that some of it was still valuable?

My point was, just because we can't put numbers into everything doesnt' mean that the thing is valuable, or can't be put into numbers if we really wanted to.

[RGBVideo]

Pekka's continued existence is a threat to human progress and development.

Or, to satisfy his number fetish: Earth 1, Pekka 0

So let's see: You didn't have anything to say, but wanted to have the last comment and retorted with an useless spam post to make you feel marginally better. Too bad that since the information value of your spam is 0, that post does nothing but wastes the time of everyone reading these forums.

Your input value is negative

[Pekka]

Oh ****! I actually did put numbers and VJ just proved me wrong with them!