Fuck Israel
you’re mad at john major, a meek prime minister notable for doing nothing except holding a fey hand on the tiller of a sputtering thatcherite engine, and hold him personally responsible for the world’s short-termism ... because he studied a humanities course at university.Dilbert_X wrote:
Except they're clearly shit at it. I guess they just interview better, and having the right tie has always helped.
Meanwhile the actually successful people are usually nerds.
Jeff Bezos - In 1986, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a 4.2 grade point average and Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science
etc, I could go on.
but you think JEFF BEZOS, a man who has destroyed multiple industries and reduced the standard of living for tens of thousands of employees, creating a global empire of underemployment, exploitation, inhumane warehouse conditions, and UNSUSTAINABLE business practices, selling things AT A LOSS and delivering toothpicks via airmail around the world, the environment be damned, all for the sake of his own immense self-enrichment ... you think he’s doing a swell job, because he has a BSc on his resumé?
funny how the arts graduates are all selfish psychopaths, and yet your ‘truly successful people’ from tech all seem to become unaccountable oligarchs with penchants for tech-libertarianism and tax evasion. ayn rand in their jacket pocket and a paranoiac doomsday-prepper mentality. i guess not paying any taxes is fine when the world’s governments are all being ran by rubes from law school!!!!
meanwhile the most polluting and destructive industries on the planet are fossil fuels and big industry with entrenched financial interests, unresponsive to the urgent need for change because they don't want to upset their economic and political stranglehold on the world economy. but i guess the oilmen at BP can't be short-termist because they're all eggheads from imperial college. how are you going to blame that one on the contemptibles who read Homer at college?
you truly are a fucking idiot.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-27 01:49:28)
I blame the government for allowing, more likely encouraging, it all to happen.
All those classics scholars can only look backwards, they can't look forwards and anticipate the future let alone create it.
They subscribe to stupid academic theories which are patently rubbish but still they let them loose on the world.
"Globalism, yeah, Friedman said debt would make us all rich, lets do it!"
The people who can change the world get on and do it. If the 'educated classes' create the conditions for them to go nuts whose fault is it?
But picking the one example, it really is a succession of Oxferd humanities grads who have destroyed the UK academic sector, that was absolutely within their control and thats what they've actively gone and done. There's no-one else to blame.
They'd probably have learned more playing conkers at a state-run primary school than they ever learned at university - morons.
All those classics scholars can only look backwards, they can't look forwards and anticipate the future let alone create it.
They subscribe to stupid academic theories which are patently rubbish but still they let them loose on the world.
"Globalism, yeah, Friedman said debt would make us all rich, lets do it!"
The people who can change the world get on and do it. If the 'educated classes' create the conditions for them to go nuts whose fault is it?
But picking the one example, it really is a succession of Oxferd humanities grads who have destroyed the UK academic sector, that was absolutely within their control and thats what they've actively gone and done. There's no-one else to blame.
They'd probably have learned more playing conkers at a state-run primary school than they ever learned at university - morons.
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-12-27 03:27:51)
Fuck Israel
i doubt the balliol PPE set went to a 'primary school', dilbert. are you even from the UK?
great analysis, there, a bunch of moronic generalisations and stereotypes. 'stupid academic theories', 'only looking backwards', 'the educated classes'.
christ it's worse than jay parroting national review bylines. how does one even engage with a bunch of daily mail tropes?
great analysis, there, a bunch of moronic generalisations and stereotypes. 'stupid academic theories', 'only looking backwards', 'the educated classes'.
christ it's worse than jay parroting national review bylines. how does one even engage with a bunch of daily mail tropes?
yes, it's true, if someone was interested in cicero or napoleon when they were 20 years old and studying for a degree, for the rest of their working lives they are only capable of looking backwards. every business leader in the FTSE 100 with a humanities background got there by quoting latin poets in their interview and flashing their family signet ring.
really can't argue with that. you utter crank.
also, i’m confused as to how you’re accusing a bunch of economists following friedman as being classics scholars’ fault. why are you lumping economists in with backwards-looking, recondite humanities people? that’s rather trying to have it both ways, don’t you think? economists are much closer to maths, stats and pretending at science than the arts. nobody in the humanities is building models.
how long until you mention the jews' or evangelicals' hand in this great decline narrative?
really can't argue with that. you utter crank.
also, i’m confused as to how you’re accusing a bunch of economists following friedman as being classics scholars’ fault. why are you lumping economists in with backwards-looking, recondite humanities people? that’s rather trying to have it both ways, don’t you think? economists are much closer to maths, stats and pretending at science than the arts. nobody in the humanities is building models.
how long until you mention the jews' or evangelicals' hand in this great decline narrative?
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-27 04:24:39)
Its up to governments to govern. We've had a remarkably venal bunch of self-interested shitbags in for the last twenty years who've ruined they country by wholly failing to govern in the interests of the country or the people.
Is it no coincidence they share one background?
Or you explain why the cream of the literati have deliberately set out to annihilate tertiary education and the future of young people in Britain.
Since you ask, any moment now Johnson will start babbling about "Britain's unique judeo-christian heritage" mark my words.
Is it no coincidence they share one background?
Or you explain why the cream of the literati have deliberately set out to annihilate tertiary education and the future of young people in Britain.
Since you ask, any moment now Johnson will start babbling about "Britain's unique judeo-christian heritage" mark my words.
Fuck Israel
who sold out the economy and deregulated everything? it's funny you omit the MAIN architects of neoliberalism, those who designed the entire system that is now failing: thatcher, reagan, et al. no, for some reason you start your list of the 'main suspects' at john major, a prime minister noteworthy for doing nothing of note. thatcher had a chemistry degree. that's a bit inconvenient, isn't it? you moron.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-27 08:48:23)
Who would have thought that people interested in politics and society, who end up studying history, politics and sociology, pursue careers in politics more often ( & more succesfully) than those who hold STEM degrees?
dilbert likes the narrative of STEM being the underappreciated underdogs/master race. that way, anything that goes wrong can be blamed on the other group who are obviously responsible, and anything that goes right in history can be attributed to the unnoticed STEM heroes. anything that contradicts this view can be explained away with a bit of dialectic.
We've had 20 years of no govt, even Thatcher would have put the brakes on at some point, and I'm doubtful Thatcher or Reagan would have allowed the uncontrolled immigration which led directly to Brexit.uziq wrote:
who sold out the economy and deregulated everything? it's funny you omit the MAIN architects of neoliberalism, those who designed the entire system that is now failing: thatcher, reagan, et al. no, for some reason you start your list of the 'main suspects' at john major, a prime minister noteworthy for doing nothing of note. thatcher had a chemistry degree. that's a bit inconvenient, isn't it? you moron.
Who would have thought that people who studied thousands of years of history in such great detail would be so thoroughly myopic, selfish and short-termist?Larssen wrote:
Who would have thought that people interested in politics and society, who end up studying history, politics and sociology, pursue careers in politics more often ( & more succesfully) than those who hold STEM degrees?
Oh look, another corrupt Oxferdian who fucked up tertiary education - Two-Brain Willetts.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 … deregulateIn his spring speech to the vice-chancellors' conference, the higher education minister, David Willetts, said that the government's ambition was to make the new higher education framework "as de-regulatory as we can". In the continuing absence of a white paper, it is not possible to make a proper judgment. But a close reading of the speech and other official responses to last autumn's Browne report may offer some clues.
There can be little doubt that the overall thrust is to increase competition. Most direct funding for teaching will disappear, so that students will literally be purchasers of courses through a fee that will approximate to the cost of provision. Institutions will compete on the fees charged, as well as on quality and availability. Some institutions may be able to increase their numbers at the expense of others. New providers – FE colleges, private companies, even, in the longer run, schools – will enter the market. There will be much greater information for students at institution, subject and course levels. The implication is that the existing barriers to price competition, recruiting extra students and market entry will be removed or loosened up, with a reduction in regulation, bureaucracy and state control.
That worked out great eh?
David Willets - Willetts was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Willetts graduated with a first class degree.
I think I've worked out who gave Thatcher all that bad advice on deregulation.
Like it or not there's a clear pattern here, highly educated liberal arts Oxonians fucking up the country.Having served as Nigel Lawson's private researcher, Willetts took charge of the Treasury monetary policy division at 26 before moving over to Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit at 28. Aged 31, he subsequently took over the Centre for Policy Studies.
Do they wager Indian skulls in the Bullingdon Club on who can do the most damage to the British economy?
Someone else explain it.
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-12-27 13:56:54)
Fuck Israel
As for Thatcher
And people running chemical companies aren't so stupid, they can spot a nut when they see one.
Roberts did not only study chemistry as she only intended to be a chemist for a short period of time, already thinking about law and politics.
Seems Thatcher never really intended to be a chemist, probably easier to get into Oxford as a mediocre student in Chemistry than on one of the more 'prestigious' courses.In 1948 she applied for a job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated".
And people running chemical companies aren't so stupid, they can spot a nut when they see one.
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-12-27 14:08:50)
Fuck Israel
ah, yes, the highly sophisticated 'no true scotsman' argument. so any science graduate who does bad was obviously a bad science graduate, an intruder in your midst. but a humanities graduate who goes through life being a dumb-ass or ideologue is a superlative example of a humanities graduate. see what i mean about dialectic? it's very fucking convenient, isn't it?Dilbert_X wrote:
As for ThatcherRoberts did not only study chemistry as she only intended to be a chemist for a short period of time, already thinking about law and politics.Seems Thatcher never really intended to be a chemist, probably easier to get into Oxford as a mediocre student in Chemistry than on one of the more 'prestigious' courses.In 1948 she applied for a job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated".
And people running chemical companies aren't so stupid, they can spot a nut when they see one.
it doesn't matter if she got a job as a chemist: you're inferring from people's undergraduate reading and studies their entire life-pattern of behaviour! the vast majority of people do not find work directly relating to their field of study -- STEM graduates included. we've been through this before, multiple times.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-27 22:46:38)
Yes but why is it all the evil-doers in govt over the last 20 years are Oxonians with liberal arts degrees? Willetts especially?
You'd think they'd know that Zeus will smite them with a thunderbolt.
You'd think they'd know that Zeus will smite them with a thunderbolt.
Fuck Israel
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +644|3990
I read a post recently on pro-China subreddit that linked to a study regarding western leadership in the last half century. The study was probably complete bullshit but it's take was relevant to you two.
The study argued that the reason leadership in the west has been lousy lately was because privileged people with skills would instead go into business to make money and influence the government from there. The people actually involved in the gears of the government machine were the privileged losers of the upper classes. The argument from the Chinese poster was that since finance and business in China is subordinate to the state, privileged people with skills will instead enter government service. That's why they have had more stable political leadership in the post-Cold War era.
The study argued that the reason leadership in the west has been lousy lately was because privileged people with skills would instead go into business to make money and influence the government from there. The people actually involved in the gears of the government machine were the privileged losers of the upper classes. The argument from the Chinese poster was that since finance and business in China is subordinate to the state, privileged people with skills will instead enter government service. That's why they have had more stable political leadership in the post-Cold War era.
also how ignorant does this make you look you think that PPE graduates are the ‘cream of the literati’. nobody in the arts/culture respects PPE. it’s pseudo-scientific and full of careerist politicians. it would be more akin to people who go to georgetown law or the ones at harvard-yale obviously only there for political connections. PPE might be the engine room of power and ‘establishment’ connections, but it’s not the cream of the literary scene or any intellectual powerhouse. trinity college cambridge or oriel college oxford are far more famous for ‘literary’ connections, in terms of arts patronage and famous philosophers. the general reputation for people doing PPE is that they’re a bit dim, generally public school and connected, and intending to go on to public office. see also the oxford union power struggle. none of this has anything to do with the ‘humanities’ or the ‘literati’.Dilbert_X wrote:
Or you explain why the cream of the literati have deliberately set out to annihilate tertiary education and the future of young people in Britain.
i’m sure david cameron and co. had to submit a few desultory essays on ‘great books’ or ‘famous thinkers’ as part of their degree, which is massively focused on politics and economics. but to call him a ‘literati’ is a bit like suggesting Jay could be the NYT book critic because he wrote a book report at naval college.
you’re slurring the details a little to achieve your black-and-white picture of the world. PPE is more like a business school or law school degree, an LLB or some such, than a hardcore training in philosophy.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-28 02:31:07)
once again, you haven’t defended at all your arbitrary 20 years limit, when 30 years ago the woman in power, who is still reviled today for decimating manufacturing/industry (a continual complaint of yours) and deregulating everything to the bankers, did a fucking science degree! i guess this is proof of your ‘scientific training’: fadge the stats and doctor the data! if we just tighten up the data collection period, there we go ... fake news! she was barely a chemist anyway!!!Dilbert_X wrote:
Yes but why is it all the evil-doers in govt over the last 20 years are Oxonians with liberal arts degrees? Willetts especially?
You'd think they'd know that Zeus will smite them with a thunderbolt.
very smart reference lol!!! you do know that the greek pantheon is probably studied only at private school, as well as all that rote memorisation of patchy latin. nobody is studying zeus on a PPE degree, nor a classics degree for that matter.
i’m not going to defend the absurd power inequality in the UK. it is a travesty that so many people come from Eton and oxford and feel born to rule. but ‘humanities’ is not the common denominator in their fecklessness. you are clueless. do you really think david willets sat down and read the canon and serious philosophy on a PPE degree? it’s all political philosophy, isaiah berlin and milton friedman, not pure disinterested contemplation. the whole degree is LITERALLY a training for civil service, just as their public school before it was notionally a boy’s education and discipline for the same. this is hardly the arts and culture sector. christ.
doing PPE at oxford is like bright french youth who go to ÉNA. now in france nobody would confuse that lot with the ENS. why are you so conflating the ‘literati’ with PPE? get a clue.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-28 02:34:19)
there's probably something sociologically true about that. there's a lot of dynamics at play in the UK that make it quite a different picture to china, though.SuperJail Warden wrote:
I read a post recently on pro-China subreddit that linked to a study regarding western leadership in the last half century. The study was probably complete bullshit but it's take was relevant to you two.
The study argued that the reason leadership in the west has been lousy lately was because privileged people with skills would instead go into business to make money and influence the government from there. The people actually involved in the gears of the government machine were the privileged losers of the upper classes. The argument from the Chinese poster was that since finance and business in China is subordinate to the state, privileged people with skills will instead enter government service. That's why they have had more stable political leadership in the post-Cold War era.
primogeniture is probably the fundamental condition for things being the way they are. there's an almost routine deployment of people from the ruling classes towards the military, public office, formerly scholars/clergy (though this is waning), the City, etc. a lot of mediocrity is fast-tracked into positions of high authority (again, the common denominator is not that they were exposed to the humanities, whatever that means when you're talking about PPE types ...)
for a certain slice of british society, grubbing for power or going into trade/finance is seen as slightly vulgar and beneath one's station. people like johnson and rees-mogg might cultivate the image, especially abroad, of being all very posh, but actually they are relative arrivistes, parvenus, and so are happy to rip everyone off in their way. they don't have any moral code and yet you get people like dilbert holding them up as some 'elite literati', as if they're the most cultivated people in the lands. they're not. these are people hungry for money and riches, much closer to trump in this day and age than some noble serving his country.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-28 02:51:32)
OK but between one failed chemist on the one hand, and dozens of Oxonian nits doing - can we agree on 'non-STEM' then? - the political class has delivered an absolute shit-fuck to the country.
Presumably the 'Philosophy' part of PPE must have covered something, yet it seems to have delivered a bunch of scumbags who care nothing for their country or fellow man.
Maybe the Chinese are right, the competent people go off to make millions in industry or the city, the dross go into politics for a miserable stipend - (but usually a fat board position at the end of it.)
Presumably the 'Philosophy' part of PPE must have covered something, yet it seems to have delivered a bunch of scumbags who care nothing for their country or fellow man.
Maybe the Chinese are right, the competent people go off to make millions in industry or the city, the dross go into politics for a miserable stipend - (but usually a fat board position at the end of it.)
Fuck Israel
as i said, the philosophy part of PPE is about political philosophy, precisely studying the architects of our current shit fuck. they're not reading descartes and schiller. everything is funnelled towards the end of 'governance'. i'm never going to sit here and defend the PPE lot, they are one of the most widely excoriated bunch in all of UK society, after all. just don't really think it's accurate to represent them being 'educated in great books' or humanities scholars. they're not. the course, as larssen said, is completely unsurprisingly full of the sort of person who becomes interested with politics and power at a very young age, i.e. someone who is privileged or a budding psychopath.
if you can quibble and say maggie wasn't a real chemist because she failed a job interview after finishing her chemistry degree, i think i can politely inform you that the PPE cohort is not the fucking 'literati'.
like this is literally not what PPE students do, nothing even close to it. your argument gets a bit diffuse when you cherry-pick and elide the details so much.Who would have thought that people who studied thousands of years of history in such great detail would be so thoroughly myopic, selfish and short-termist?
if you can quibble and say maggie wasn't a real chemist because she failed a job interview after finishing her chemistry degree, i think i can politely inform you that the PPE cohort is not the fucking 'literati'.
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-28 03:11:01)
and as for that, i'd say your failed chemist rather let the horses out of the stable. to even talk about national politics and political self-determination when the bankers and markets run the show is almost wishful thinking. if there's been one continual lesson over the last 20-30 years of globalisation and successive waves of privatisation, it's that national governments are perhaps a lot weaker than their constitutions' would like to admit. it's been the central quandary of an enervated Left in europe, as well as to a lesser degree in america. how do you reassert control? how do you tax the tax evaders, without causing capital flight? you'd have thought the scientist-in-chief would have thought this through when she was on the podium.Dilbert_X wrote:
OK but between one failed chemist on the one hand, and dozens of Oxonian nits doing - can we agree on 'non-STEM' then? - the political class has delivered an absolute shit-fuck to the country.
Ugh, this seems to be internal propaganda aimed at the Chinese citizenry if anything. In a way I feel this line of argument actually reflects the insecurity of some Chinese versus the Western world. There's a subset that spends an awful lot of time trying to discredit democracy and western governance.SuperJail Warden wrote:
I read a post recently on pro-China subreddit that linked to a study regarding western leadership in the last half century. The study was probably complete bullshit but it's take was relevant to you two.
The study argued that the reason leadership in the west has been lousy lately was because privileged people with skills would instead go into business to make money and influence the government from there. The people actually involved in the gears of the government machine were the privileged losers of the upper classes. The argument from the Chinese poster was that since finance and business in China is subordinate to the state, privileged people with skills will instead enter government service. That's why they have had more stable political leadership in the post-Cold War era.
Having gone from a politics oriented career track & background into business I really haven't found this to be even remotely true. It's not like those who go for management positions at the F500 are more intelligent/competent than the people who opt for a diplomatic service career.
Last edited by Larssen (2019-12-28 04:05:35)
So what exactly do these morons study, if they don't study much politics in political studies, or much philosophy in philosophyuziq wrote:
like this is literally not what PPE students do, nothing even close to it. your argument gets a bit diffuse when you cherry-pick and elide the details so much.
You'd think that esteemed establishments with reputations like Oxferd and the LSE would have put together a reasonable syllabus, does this mean they're not all they're cracked up to be?
Fuck Israel
In my experience there's a great big difference between the people who build companies and those who weasel themselves onto boards via their golf club contacts.Larssen wrote:
Having gone from a politics oriented career track & background into business I really haven't found this to be even remotely true. It's not like those who go for management positions at the F500 are more intelligent/competent than the people who opt for a diplomatic service career.
Fuck Israel