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Post by borchester on Jan 8, 2023 21:35:02 GMT
We must have gone to different universities.
During the time I was at Uni I doubt that any of my lecturers wrote so much as a postcard
When was that? The mid 80s. I( have kept in touch with some of them and if they ever wrote anything other than Kilroy Was Here on a pub wall they have yet to tell me about it. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jan 8, 2023 21:53:18 GMT
The mid 80s. I( have kept in touch with some of them and if they ever wrote anything other than Kilroy Was Here on a pub wall they have yet to tell me about it. I was at one then when you were at one. Yes I can confirm from my own experience the place was a wreck. It was funny because you saw the old and the new at the same time. The grey haired professors knew their stuff and commanded my respect, but those coming into it at that time were transitioning (trendy word that!).
I must have been smarter than the guy in the video in the OP as what he says was what I thought at the time was the most probable truth.
A friend of mine who did a maths PhD admitted it made him mental. He went into teaching and got absorbed into the system, poor chap. This was when degrees were still for free, but soon after that time, one had to pay for them, and I think it was this time the system suffered from commercialism.
Commercialism is not a bad thing per se, as per Chinese universities are commercial but good because they are into the STEM areas. Our commercial system though is in itself corrupt. We buy things on our assessment of their image and image can be faked. If you hang about in one of these institutions long enough you start to speak their language. Language can brainwash the speaker of it. That's just one trap.
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Post by bancroft on Jan 9, 2023 12:51:43 GMT
When we say commercialism what do we mean, is it corporate interests funding universities?
If so raises the question of conflict of interest.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jan 9, 2023 13:18:31 GMT
When we say commercialism what do we mean, is it corporate interests funding universities? If so raises the question of conflict of interest. It's said to have mainly come about because students now pay for it. The degree has become a product. Being a product it is marketed as a product. Have a little think about how products are marketed. For example there is a huge market in health and beauty products. They will make you feel younger and give you more self confidence. What will a degree do for you in this land of marketing? Will it make you feel "revitalised", give you greater sex appeal. You see where I'm coming from here. You might like to see this for yourself. Type a name of a university into Youtube or Google and listen to one or two ads and you will see it is like this. |
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Post by bancroft on Jan 9, 2023 13:25:56 GMT
Yet isn't that due to making degrees more applicable to careers.
The ones I have concerns about is if technology company Z is funding the science department and ensures the curriculum will not look into anything that might compete with their 'leading' technology then I think that would be harmful.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jan 9, 2023 14:10:52 GMT
Yet isn't that due to making degrees more applicable to careers. The ones I have concerns about is if technology company Z is funding the science department and ensures the curriculum will not look into anything that might compete with their 'leading' technology then I think that would be harmful. The company z thing is not a problem I have ever heard cited by those critical of universities. It's what I said it was. Think how it is. Watch an advert on a health product. Does it give you scientific graphs of the effects on this and that? Absolutely not. You see the corruption is in the use of psychology to lie to people. These students are lied to and are highly likely to make the wrong decision because of the lies. Lies get them to pay up, and as for the university, this is how it survives. The devious lying to peole through sophisticated psychological means has just let rip.
A bit of theory here. In a genetic system there is this thing called the fitness function. In an ideal free market commercial system the fitness function to determine which products are fit and which will die out is how they satisfy the needs of the buyer. In our own DNA the fitness function is to do with ability to survive and reproduce. If this is absolutely rigorously applied the DNA will self-optimise over time, giving us the humans we are today, and likewise for a car, it has evolved over time to its fitness function and this is why new cars are much better than old. Now with degrees we have to decide what the fitness function is. Should it be that we determine which degrees and universities survive on the basis of their overall effects on national GDP? That would make sense, but difficult to gauge. Now the problem is when we don't just gauge on the ideal fitness function but we have other factors which mix in with it. Just one small observation here. Look at the ads for unis. They nearly all feature good looking sexy young girls. Why is this? Well it is known that the subconscious mind can bias your thinking. This bias generates more revenue for the university, but at the same time corrupts the system. It's a similar problem to why pay money in a supermarket when you can more easily shoplift.
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Post by Red Rackham on Jan 9, 2023 14:45:03 GMT
It's very simple really. The system is corrupt. I thought you might like to hear this from a British researcher. This chap is a research scientist in chemistry and he lists the common ways in which corruption in these institutions is rife. He lists them as nine distinct scams.
BvL, this is what's wrong with universities and academia... In recent years British universities have drifted way to the Left. Three-quarters of academics who were surveyed support Left-wing parties; fewer than one in five support parties of the Right. Just 9% of academics in the social sciences and humanities voted to Leave the European Union and just 7% identify as “right of centre”. It also points to how those who do deviate from the orthodoxy experience a tough time. Only 54%of academics would feel comfortable sitting next to a Leave supporter over lunch, and just 37% would feel comfortable sitting next to somebody who holds gender-critical views. unherd.com/2020/08/how-universities-shut-out-conservative-academics/This is what's wrong, universities and academia no longer believe in free speech. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jan 9, 2023 15:31:35 GMT
I've heard that this phenomenon is because of the environment. They don't discriminate over your political views per se, but what happens is in the marketing there is this primitive human feeling about being looked after by your mother. The university is your surrogate mother. The immature children who apply are scared. They might meet a mad axeman or something or other so they desire the university to keep them safe. They want to be cared for and treated fairly by the mother amongst all her other children. They want treats, they want fun, they want the circus and all, and then of course they want to be proud. It's no coincidence the left-wingers work in the "creative industries". Did you know the City of Manchester is one huge creative industry? It replaces the physical industries it is famous for. It has its own gay village which in recent times they are expanding.
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Post by see2 on Jan 9, 2023 15:38:34 GMT
It's very simple really. The system is corrupt. I thought you might like to hear this from a British researcher. This chap is a research scientist in chemistry and he lists the common ways in which corruption in these institutions is rife. He lists them as nine distinct scams.
BvL, this is what's wrong with universities and academia... In recent years British universities have drifted way to the Left. Three-quarters of academics who were surveyed support Left-wing parties; fewer than one in five support parties of the Right. Just 9% of academics in the social sciences and humanities voted to Leave the European Union and just 7% identify as “right of centre”. It also points to how those who do deviate from the orthodoxy experience a tough time. Only 54%of academics would feel comfortable sitting next to a Leave supporter over lunch, and just 37% would feel comfortable sitting next to somebody who holds gender-critical views. unherd.com/2020/08/how-universities-shut-out-conservative-academics/This is what's wrong, universities and academia no longer believe in free speech. In my experience many or most Uni students have that young naïve outlook on life where all we need to do is to fix the world. Full of right or wrong, with an ability to rationalise not yet developed. This was one of my concerns over the Social Media, where the more politically active of the Left or Right could spread their own personal bias / naivety. |
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Post by Orac on Jan 9, 2023 20:35:02 GMT
In recent years British universities have drifted way to the Left. Three-quarters of academics who were surveyed support Left-wing parties; fewer than one in five support parties of the Right. The social institution has been hijacked and redirected away from its notional or core concern. The entry point was guff branches of social science (really branches of extended Marxist theory), that allowed large numbers of talentless sub-morons, who should not even really be in a sixth form college, to become part and parcel of recognised academia. This entry point was then exploited to take over academia as a whole. We now have a near total 'lock-down' situation in which the morons make the rules for everyone and Nobel prize winning scientists are excommunicated from academia for pointing out salient facts or offering an educated opinion. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Jan 9, 2023 20:47:59 GMT
They can't be failed either. You see it is part of the metric in the marketing and league tables and whatnot. You pay your money for a degree, not to do a degree. Everyone has to be a winner.
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Post by Red Rackham on Jan 9, 2023 20:52:29 GMT
In recent years British universities have drifted way to the Left. Three-quarters of academics who were surveyed support Left-wing parties; fewer than one in five support parties of the Right. The social institution has been hijacked and redirected away from its notional or core concern. The entry point was guff branches of social science (really branches of extended Marxist theory), that allowed large numbers of talentless sub-morons, who should not even really be in a sixth form college, to become part and parcel of recognised academia. This entry point was then exploited to take over academia as a whole. We now have a near total 'lock-down' situation in which the morons make the rules for everyone and Nobel prize winning scientists are excommunicated from academia for pointing out salient facts or offering an educated opinion. When you say 'guff branches of social science' I assume you're talking about things like humanities, which in my limited experience of talking to people who have studied humanities has led me to believe that anyone, regardless of ability, can go to university. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Jan 10, 2023 10:21:10 GMT
The underlying problem with the British university system is its lack of selectivity. In the space of little more than a generation we have gone from a highly-selective system in which perhaps 10% of school-leavers attended university to one in which 50% or more do. The number of universities has expanded accordingly.
However cognitive abilities amongst would-be undergraduates have not increased, in fact there is a good case for arguing they have diminished over the last 50 years in line with the degradation of standards in the secondary school system.
In the United States it is widely recognised that an IQ of at least 115 is necessary to benefit fully from a rigorous course at a selective university but there - as in the UK - that is at least a full standard deviation higher than the median IQ.
The truth is that in the UK as well as the US a 'college education' is available to anyone who can pay for it regardless of whether or not they derive any real benefit from attending a university other than getting a deferment from entry into the labour force.
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Post by wapentake on Jan 10, 2023 10:40:55 GMT
It's very simple really. The system is corrupt. I thought you might like to hear this from a British researcher. This chap is a research scientist in chemistry and he lists the common ways in which corruption in these institutions is rife. He lists them as nine distinct scams.
BvL, this is what's wrong with universities and academia... In recent years British universities have drifted way to the Left. Three-quarters of academics who were surveyed support Left-wing parties; fewer than one in five support parties of the Right. Just 9% of academics in the social sciences and humanities voted to Leave the European Union and just 7% identify as “right of centre”. It also points to how those who do deviate from the orthodoxy experience a tough time. Only 54%of academics would feel comfortable sitting next to a Leave supporter over lunch, and just 37% would feel comfortable sitting next to somebody who holds gender-critical views. unherd.com/2020/08/how-universities-shut-out-conservative-academics/This is what's wrong, universities and academia no longer believe in free speech. What is wrong is that education is there to impart knowledge not opinions,everyone has a right to theirs but not demand it be adopted by others. Such should be the true object of the educator whether they lie to the left or right. We are sadly in a position now where such things as history are only ever seen in the negative,history is just that,the past which can be learned from but shouldn’t be used as a stick to beat the present. |
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Post by Toreador on Jan 10, 2023 10:55:51 GMT
The underlying problem with the British university system is its lack of selectivity. In the space of little more than a generation we have gone from a highly-selective system in which perhaps 10% of school-leavers attended university to one in which 50% or more do. The number of universities has expanded accordingly. However cognitive abilities amongst would-be undergraduates have not increased, in fact there is a good case for arguing they have diminished over the last 50 years in line with the degradation of standards in the secondary school system. In the United States it is widely recognised that an IQ of at least 115 is necessary to benefit fully from a rigorous course at a selective university but there - as in the UK - that is at least a full standard deviation higher than the median IQ. The truth is that in the UK as well as the US a 'college education' is available to anyone who can pay for it regardless of whether or not they derive any real benefit from attending a university other than getting a deferment from entry into the labour force. Back in the forties/fifties there were virtually just the top unis whose intake would be in the region of a minimim 145 IQ. |
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