Ladies of the woods

Merit? What an obscene notion

“Working-class students are more likely to enter college with the notion that the purpose of higher education is learning in the classrooms, and invest their time and energy accordingly...”

Why ‘pedigree’ students get the best jobs


Merit? What an obscene notion! Everyone knows what truly counts is the divine right of kings.

For, although

... the thing with the Davis-Raab approach to civil liberties is that the critique has no organising principle. Other than heady and misty invocations of Magna Carta, it does not see the need for any overall legal framework that enables the citizen to rely on their rights against state power.

For, although there can be sincere, powerful and passionate criticism of individual proposals, there is also a dislike of the legal instruments such as the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights that can check government abuse in any systemic way. Such Tory civil libertarianism wants the benefits of a libertarian approach to policy in certain (usually populist) cases without the means of placing such libertarianism on a sustainable basis.

Tories and civil liberties: the fascinating appointment of Dominic Raab

The Tides of Destiny

Last part from Jamie Salisbury, Beyond and Above

Telling other people's kids to not go to college

One advantage of living in a place (i.e. the U.S.) that has economic and social institutions that enable the country to operate near the technological frontier is not having to listen to such nonsense:

Singapore Wants Kids to Skip College

I wonder what John Rawls have to say about clamping down on attainment of education. I imagine that he would say that this is not a sign of a well organized society. Why wouldn't a society spend more time create more jobs that people actually want, instead of just telling people to "work hard" (as if the person saying it is the only one doing so). Even if it was meant to be reassurance, it's bloody rude to tell people not to send their kids to college.

Unless there are genuine education alternatives to college, to which I'm sure there are. In fact that is a subject of much debate in the U.S. But it seems to me that the tone and intent of the original... "encouragement" seem far from trying to build credible alternatives that lead to better quality of life than just telling people to work as manual laborers, of which I'm sure exclude those esteemed people giving the encouragement in the first place.

It's also stated quite clearly that there is a skill mismatch from education to the configuration of the country's economy. Well, the U.S. has a similar problem, but that's because it cannot get enough number of qualified people to do high paying work. It makes wonder whether it is the dirigism coming home to roost.  Keeping a diversified economy is a good idea, but selecting exactly what those sectors are is probably not. What is considered a diversified economy even ten years ago is probably no longer true today. Keeping to them is to maintain a static vision of the future.

Domain specific language

What if consciousness is an emergent property whose domain specific language we have yet to uncover/develop?