Education is overrated.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

Correlation, not causation, but still:


There's obviously a lot of room to debate the objective value of education in the various countries around the world.
But there's little denying that, regardless of how valuable an education really is to being a productive/fulfilled individual, employers put a lot of stock into it:

“Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”
“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”
“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”
“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”
“Just so… yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”
“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”
“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or… another?”
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”
Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
“So power is a mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d feel sad about it.”
“I will take that as high praise.”

[Jalpha]

Both of my graduate degrees turned out to be complete trash from a supposed prestigious university for stem shit. From what I've seen in other graduate programs who's classes I've sat in on though, some programs seem like they might be amazing. Chemical engineering and mechanical engineering especially have some really neat math and prototyping research, though I'm sure it's going to vary depending on where you look. Side note, you can typically just walk into classes and sit through the entire semester that way. Most professors, if they notice, (smaller classes make this unavoidable) usually take it as a compliment.

My bachelor degrees were way more satisfying, from an extremely cheap, tiny state school. I got more hands on experience with lab equipment there in the first semester than the undergrad students at my graduate university do in all 5 years. And lab experience like that with incredibly expensive equipment is probably the main thing you can't experience when teaching yourself a topic.

Financially ruined though, so fuck it.

I wanted to highlight this because there are some very important points raised. You have to be really careful where you study, do your research and get the opinion of potential employers. I've been burnt myself.

The other point is how so many degrees in the sciences result in a crippling financial burden. If you are interested in science you will likely never direct your own research. If you ever reach a point where you are educated enough to make a breakthrough, your hard work will belong to somebody else. You won't ever be the person directing the company profiting from your discoveries.

I'm not going to say education is useless, just overrated. Sure you need it to a certain extent but lets be realistic here...

How many people actually work in a field related to their degree these days? I'm not so good at finding graphs to illustrate my point. It's interesting though.

Also Colsie bro, you display a lot of narcissistic traits and I show schizoid traits. We both seem to be doing just fine in life regardless. Just wanted to let you know you're wasting your life.

[Granger]

I'm not sure that higher education can or should be expected to make up the shortfall for poor parenting.

While you might have a point with parents not being optimal in the first place I still don't see a point in what good they left over being destroyed by an education system that is worse than it could be.

This follows through to industry, where I will use the perfect example of capitalistic overcomplication, inefficiency and waste for the purpose of making money.

I can agree with that, but not with

Solar panels. Perfectly acceptable for home applications if you can stomach their needless complexity, inefficiency and questionable net energy returns. I won't go too much into the carbon footprint of their manufacture or the other pollution which results as well.

as, when you actually factor in all externalities* of energy production, PV panels are superior (by all monetary and environmental metrics) to any kind of fossil power generation. A point could be made about nuclear but this technology is no longer monetarily feasible (given that noone wants to finance such plants anymore in the 'free' worl - or factor in the cleanup of the resulting mess) and as the ones proposing such reactors do it only as long as they're built far away from where they themselves live...

Only realworld problem is electrical storage to even the disparity between peak production and consumption, but this is not a technology problem but an allocation one. Should we put what we spend on military (for even a year) into that field we could build the needed solutions (given that we keep the monetary leeches out of the loop).

There are much more simple ways of generating higher efficiency solar energy with less waste but a lot of solar farms are installing hectares of solar panels instead.

Should your statement be proveable: why isn't it done?
Feel free to do a kickstarter and pull an Elon Musk on solar energy.

Another time I'll make a thread on the rise of narcissism within society and how the result is a bunch of mindless idiots having lunches and playing social games instead of getting any work done.

Sounds like you're describing leaders.

* keep in mind that this list contains invading peaceful foreign countries (including the collateral damaging of the civillians living there) to keep the spice flowing

[Jalpha]

Solar thermal power with base efficiencies of around 40% versus 17-23% for PV. Keep in mind the technology is pretty underdeveloped versus PV as well. Also much less complex manufacturing and material requirements. Tony Stark could build one in a cave. Maybe not the turbine, you'd have to ask him.

As for a kickstarter I'm schitzoid so apathy toward everything. You would want a narcissist for that.

I can actually agree pretty easily that schooling could and maybe even should make up the shortfall for poor parenting, especially taking into account the growing disinterest many parents show toward the raising of their own children. I won't argue with you on that one.

However if the state is raising the children instead of the parents what right do the parents have to call themselves parents.

Yes, narcissists often become leaders when they are also sociopathic. The sociopaths like narcissists in middle management because they are easy to control versus say schitzoids or autists. Thing is when having a conversation schitzoids and autists don't bother with fluff they just get right to the point while the narcissists are busy being full of self importance and metaphorically sucking each other off. Not terribly efficient.

Sorry for the lack of quotes but foruming is a cow on a tablet.

[borka]

Don't do as i did, do as i say

Go to school show that you're able to run with the pack (society)

Join the education system as long as they let you

The more papers you'll get the better as it is an increase in value of your person in society
(It's not you who you are but whats written on the papers)

There's not many places left to run and they're getting less - so don't even think of going lone wolf

[MagicManICT]

I generalised. Most people who value money more than anything are shallow and boring.

you live in a car, how many extremely rich people do you meet on a regular basis in order to make this judgement?

I worked in an office with the Koch brothers as a temp. I read the biographies of the likes of Steve Jobs, Howard Hughes, and others. I've worked with other wealthy people... their lives are contrite and inane, just like the rest of ours. At best, you see how to make yourself as comfortable as possible through life, at worst, you see "how not to fuck your life up, but at least not show the public about it until you're dead." (One local top family is soooo screwed up, it makes The Godfather look like a 1950s family sitcom.)

@Granger: Moore's movie "Where to Invade Next" should be a must watch for all in America that think this nation is so perfect... but then they're the ones most likely to ignore it. The one thing I hate about him is he is pretty much preaching to the choir. He's gotten some social converts, but he doesn't speak to the right at all.

[Granger]

The one thing I hate about him is he is pretty much preaching to the choir. He's gotten some social converts, but he doesn't speak to the right at all.

Doesn't make sense anyway as the right is faith based, thus rational arguments are evil as these threaten their belief.
The left sadly is busy copying this bad idea.

[Dakkan]

The other point is how so many degrees in the sciences result in a crippling financial burden. If you are interested in science you will likely never direct your own research. If you ever reach a point where you are educated enough to make a breakthrough, your hard work will belong to somebody else. You won't ever be the person directing the company profiting from your discoveries.

Depending on your field of interest, you absolutely could fund and perform your own research. It's shocking what you can buy online in terms of second hand equipment and reagents, especially if you have the initiative to repair stuff.

And doing traditional research is very different from commercializing it. You bring up photovoltaics kindof randomly, but they're a great example of this. There are extremely high efficiency photovoltaic systems that have been designed in primary research, but they're not able to be scaled up on a commercial level. Eventally someone will figure it out though, and that person deserves the credit for figuring it out. Specialized bioreactors are also an example here. The biology is not the discovery, but the method of mass producing a particular bone shape is, for instance.

[shubla]

About the education things. If your parents are well educated, then you are likely to be well educated as well. But if they are not educated, you are more likely to not be educated either.

The other point is how so many degrees in the sciences result in a crippling financial burden. If you are interested in science you will likely never direct your own research. If you ever reach a point where you are educated enough to make a breakthrough, your hard work will belong to somebody else. You won't ever be the person directing the company profiting from your discoveries.

I am pretty sure that no researcher thinks that he can make himself/herself rich by researching, but they do it because they want to. People can be very stubborn. I know one guy who was offered a well-paying job from google, but he refused and applied to KTH to make SAT-solvers, with most likely much, much less salary.

[qoonpooka]

About the education things. If your parents are well educated, then you are likely to be well educated as well. But if they are not educated, you are more likely to not be educated either.

The other point is how so many degrees in the sciences result in a crippling financial burden. If you are interested in science you will likely never direct your own research. If you ever reach a point where you are educated enough to make a breakthrough, your hard work will belong to somebody else. You won't ever be the person directing the company profiting from your discoveries.

I am pretty sure that no researcher thinks that he can make himself/herself rich by researching, but they do it because they want to. People can be very stubborn. I know one guy who was offered a well-paying job from google, but he refused and applied to KTH to make SAT-solvers, with most likely much, much less salary.

Finishing my PhD, can basically confirm this. Engineers might be the exception, but in basically all cases, the Master's is where the earning potential is. PhD is about personal achievement, or making a contribution to the sum body of human knowledge.