Nursing , Social workers, Teachers to mention the first three from my own experience.
Back in the day, it was different.
Why have we changed?
In the three examples you quote; it was because the fields became more complex, and it became necessary to know more in order to perform those jobs effectively.
I don't think that's true - at least for nurses. The guy I work for has a daughter studying a nursing degree at the same institution at which we both work. She says the university part of the course is almost entirely shite, and is hanging on for the training she gets in regular stints in hospital. Knowing what I know about the institution, I'm inclined to believe her. This doesn't answer the question of why HE institutions were able to make a successful grab for a bunch of training that previously worked well without 'degree course' involvement. If I had to guess I'd say vanity was probably part of it on all sides. But no-one liked talking about sin upthread so I'll be quiet - maybe someone with a social science degree will pop up to explain
I thought Brexit was intended to allow for more free trade, not less. By what mechanism would it force the UK to make more things for domestically rather than just buying them in from elsewhere?
That's like saying electing Trump was intended to bring manufacturing jobs back to the rust belt.
The thing you have to appreciate about Brexit is that it is an ideological project run by people who think that endangering the Northern Ireland peace process by renouncing an international treaty they just signed in order to facilitate a trade deal with the US when the front runner for President is a Democrat of Irish Catholic ancestry is a good idea.
And that is not the most egregious of their stupidities.
Fundamentally you seem to be assuming that Brexit is a project that makes sense on any terms other than cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
In order to get free trade you have to make a trade deal. Otherwise countries can and do put up tariffs. The EU is among other things a large free trade area: leaving it means we are no longer part of that free trade area and so our ability to trade with the EU, who constitute our main trading partners, will be impeded. There are other countries we could make that up with, but they're further away, and all the experienced UK trade negotiators were until recently employed by the EU and are now for that reason considered ideologically suspect.
I actually don’t give a shit. The whole thrust of my argument was directed against the baseless assertion upthread that academic achievement is not associated with either kindness or empathy.
Underachievement as you and I both know is relative ( speaking as an underachiever in my profession as opposed to how the world might see me).
So you make an anecdotal, not very far from baseless, refutation? Education has fuck all to do with empathy. Every CEO and high level manager of pretty much every company destroying the environment, stripping resources, destroying the ecology of other nations, using enslaved/child/forced labour, etc.in the last 50 years at least will have been educated. Johnson and Trump are educated, Bojo in the"finest" the land has to offer.
Education is a tool, like a hammer. And like a hammer, it can be used to build things or to smash them.
Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
What Dafyd said. The only way to bring back manufacturing would be to reduce the quality of living in Britain to a point where Indian children are donating their money to feed and free British workers. Or raise the cost of goods to the point where no one save the 1% can afford them.
In my experience ( such as it is) intellectual ability is very frequently connected to both empathy and kindness. Some of the nastiest people I’ve ever met have been as dumb as dogshit. And their stupidity was often used as a get out of jail free card.
I've met nasty people across the spectrum of intelligence and education. The difference was how many people the nastiness affected and the resources to avoid repercussions.
Whenever someone gets too hung up on the superiority of the formally educated, I begin to be curious as to how well they'd be evaluated against Dunning-Kruger...
Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
What Dafyd said. The only way to bring back manufacturing would be to reduce the quality of living in Britain to a point where Indian children are donating their money to feed and free British workers. Or raise the cost of goods to the point where no one save the 1% can afford them.
Interesting. We used to be able to make things without either of those being true, so what is it about modern life that you think has changed? Workers demanding too high a wage? Cost of materials?
Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
What Dafyd said. The only way to bring back manufacturing would be to reduce the quality of living in Britain to a point where Indian children are donating their money to feed and free British workers. Or raise the cost of goods to the point where no one save the 1% can afford them.
Interesting. We used to be able to make things without either of those being true, so what is it about modern life that you think has changed? Workers demanding too high a wage? Cost of materials?
Decreased transport costs are a biggie. Increasing size of ships, reduced crews paid less and with worse conditions as they're recruited from all over the world.
The UK certainly can build things, but it can only do so with automation, which doesn't have the same large workforce requirements.
Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
What Dafyd said. The only way to bring back manufacturing would be to reduce the quality of living in Britain to a point where Indian children are donating their money to feed and free British workers. Or raise the cost of goods to the point where no one save the 1% can afford them.
Interesting. We used to be able to make things without either of those being true, so what is it about modern life that you think has changed? Workers demanding too high a wage? Cost of materials?
The cost of living in the UK is significantly higher that it was in the days of British manufacturing. The cost of goods has gone way down and the profir margins are tight. Somebody has to bear the trimming and it is the worker who does.
Workers for Foxconn, who manufacture iPhones, Nokia phones, Xboxes, etc. make £.75 to £1.5 and hour. How many British worker do you think would settle for that?
"But" I hear your think, "What about other manufacturing?" Why do you think manufacturing was moved overseas? Lower cost of manufacturing. And, other than high-end low volume or bespoke goods, there is no way to bridge the existing gap without impoverishing most of the country.
The 1% is working to reduce the middle income bracket, so your approach would help them at least.
Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that [rebuild our manufacturing industry], both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere [snip
Still interested to know if you had a mechanism in mind to explain how Brexit would do this.
Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that [rebuild our manufacturing industry], both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere [snip
Still interested to know if you had a mechanism in mind to explain how Brexit would do this.
High tariffs on trade from other countries making manufacturing at home a more viable prospect.
Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
What Dafyd said. The only way to bring back manufacturing would be to reduce the quality of living in Britain to a point where Indian children are donating their money to feed and free British workers. Or raise the cost of goods to the point where no one save the 1% can afford them.
Interesting. We used to be able to make things without either of those being true, so what is it about modern life that you think has changed? Workers demanding too high a wage? Cost of materials?
The cost of living in the UK is significantly higher that it was in the days of British manufacturing. The cost of goods has gone way down and the profir margins are tight. Somebody has to bear the trimming and it is the worker who does.
Workers for Foxconn, who manufacture iPhones, Nokia phones, Xboxes, etc. make £.75 to £1.5 and hour. How many British worker do you think would settle for that?
"But" I hear your think, "What about other manufacturing?" Why do you think manufacturing was moved overseas? Lower cost of manufacturing. And, other than high-end low volume or bespoke goods, there is no way to bridge the existing gap without impoverishing most of the country.
Which brings us full circle, back to the question of what to do with those who don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way. If they can’t get the skilled high-end jobs that are here and it’s not viable to bring back the unskilled low-end manufacturing, mining, etc jobs that would have suited them then what’s left? Just shove them all on welfare and forget about them?
Rebuilding our manufacturing industry might be a potential starting point.
I’m inclined to agree with you there. Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that, both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere and by allowing government to offer significant subsidies to UK manufacturing businesses to give them the competitive edge they need to succeed.
What Dafyd said.
Huh? What has what I said got to do with it?
The main problems with British manufacturing are a) lack of political will to support it; and b) lack of political will to set up tariffs on imports that are cheap because manufactured under sweatshop conditions. (I suppose that last depends on a political reliance on cheap manufactured goods to keep the economy going and the population happy.)
Now I think I disagree with Marvin that being in the EU was an obstacle to supporting our manufacture. There is some talk that membership of the EU partly contributes to a, by putting barriers on how we can support manufacturing, but the limits the EU imposes on its members are much weaker than we said, and if we'd been prepared to spend our diplomatic capital sensibly we could have done something about it. The same applies to b.
Maybe Brexit will offer an opportunity to do just that [rebuild our manufacturing industry], both by forcing us to make more things for ourselves rather than just buying them in from elsewhere [snip
Still interested to know if you had a mechanism in mind to explain how Brexit would do this.
High tariffs on trade from other countries making manufacturing at home a more viable prospect.
So the idea would be to raise prices at home. I guess that will be possible once you're out of all the EU arrangements, but Brexit doesn't require you to put up high tariffs (as your "forcing" seems to imply) does it?
Which brings us full circle, back to the question of what to do with those who don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way. If they can’t get the skilled high-end jobs that are here and it’s not viable to bring back the unskilled low-end manufacturing, mining, etc jobs that would have suited them then what’s left? Just shove them all on welfare and forget about them?
“don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way”
Don’t they - or is it that we choose to design jobs that cause that problem ? To take an office based example, getting a job as an administrator can be difficult nowadays - by which I mean someone who types up other people’s work, minutes meetings, organises diaries and files stuff. This is not because those tasks are not needed, but because other workers are being asked to undertake those tasks themselves.
So you spend however long training a doctor, and then have them spend a significant portion of their day doing admin that used to be done by someone else. This is supposed to be a cost saving - but also then people really are unhappy about waiting lists.
This is an example from my work context, because I am familiar with it - but I think it has been happening all over the place.
Support workers work 60 to 90 hours weeks because they are not paid enough to live off a 35-40 hour week. But two people could have that job, working sane hours and not wrecking their health, if you paid both workers a decent wage.
Which brings us full circle, back to the question of what to do with those who don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way. If they can’t get the skilled high-end jobs that are here and it’s not viable to bring back the unskilled low-end manufacturing, mining, etc jobs that would have suited them then what’s left? Just shove them all on welfare and forget about them?
“don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way”
Don’t they - or is it that we choose to design jobs that cause that problem ? To take an office based example, getting a job as an administrator can be difficult nowadays - by which I mean someone who types up other people’s work, minutes meetings, organises diaries and files stuff. This is not because those tasks are not needed, but because other workers are being asked to undertake those tasks themselves.
So you spend however long training a doctor, and then have them spend a significant portion of their day doing admin that used to be done by someone else. This is supposed to be a cost saving - but also then people really are unhappy about waiting lists.
This is an example from my work context, because I am familiar with it - but I think it has been happening all over the place.
Support workers work 60 to 90 hours weeks because they are not paid enough to live off a 35-40 hour week. But two people could have that job, working sane hours and not wrecking their health, if you paid both workers a decent wage.
This (the folding in to other jobs of ones that now no longer exist) is a huge problem. It's obviously bad for those whose jobs have gone away, but it sucks too for the people who are allegedly capable to doing those tasks in a spare minute, "because the technology is so good." Half the time the tech is actually shit, and even when it is good, nobody has time enough to learn how to use it properly--and so you get IT people swamped explaining ordinary things to people whose lives have been geared to nursing or teaching or whatsit, and informal IT people (that'd be me, then) running around helping colleagues with this stuff because IT is swamped. And after six months, they pitch the half-learned tech in favor of something else..
IME, the tech is rubbish well more than half the time. It is designed by people seeking to maximise profit by minimising what the customer can do without help and additional pieces and decided on by people who have no functional clue as to the practical use of the tech advised by people who don't want to change and it has to integrate with systems that are either ancient or being decided upon in the same way bu by a completely different team.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
I appreciate the tie in but the Brexit tangent is getting a bit large. Just a reminder that Brexit-focused discussions already have a separate thread.
Seriously, how would you define academic underachievers?
Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it.
My grandad was "just sent down the mine", because his family was too poor to pay for him to continue his education. He was the bonesetter for his shift and also a talented artist and woodcarver. Nowadays he would have trained as an osteopath or maybe even a doctor.
My dad went to grammar school and then teaching college, because his family couldn't afford for him to go to university. He did get a degree eventually - studying part-time through the OU.
I went to university straight out of school, in the halcyon days before tuition fees and while it was still possible to live on a maintenance grant.
My niece decided not to go to university because her family couldn't afford to help support her and she was worried about student debt. She's just been made redundant because of Covid.
Probably all of us could be described as "underachievers" - even me, with a degree and three postgraduate diplomas to my name. I only got 9 O levels at the age of 16 instead of 10.
Seriously, how would you define academic underachievers?
Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it.
My grandad was "just sent down the mine", because his family was too poor to pay for him to continue his education. He was the bonesetter for his shift and also a talented artist and woodcarver. Nowadays he would have trained as an osteopath or maybe even a doctor.
My dad went to grammar school and then teaching college, because his family couldn't afford for him to go to university. He did get a degree eventually - studying part-time through the OU.
I went to university straight out of school, in the halcyon days before tuition fees and while it was still possible to live on a maintenance grant.
My niece decided not to go to university because her family couldn't afford to help support her and she was worried about student debt. She's just been made redundant because of Covid.
Probably all of us could be described as "underachievers" - even me, with a degree and three postgraduate diplomas to my name. I only got 9 O levels at the age of 16 instead of 10.
Your grandad was an overachiever because he achieved over what he was (formally) educated for.
You haven't in my view, described any underachiver in your examples. Save possibly your niece.
An academic underachiever would be someone whose career underachieved their education, whose marks underachieved their ability or whose level of education was under their ability. The last with the caveat that the education was available to them situationally and financially.
Maybe this was discussed before--sorry, I was not able to read everything on the thread. I am wondering if there wasn't a transitional period in the education system that may have weakened it.
What I mean was prior to the 60s the American Education System by and large taught a common thread. Let's call it America First. We could do no wrong. Our history was skewed to Manifest Destiny. Then came the Vietnam War which showed us we were doing wrong. Followed by a revision of our history. Think Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. What we had assumed to be true was not.
I am not even going to get into New Math except to say the old formulations changed.
Then we can get into scientific debates.
When Trump came out with his Make America Great Again, people glommed on to it because he was wanting to go back to the "Old Ways" which also included the racist bigotry of the 50s. It is no wonder why much of the older generations wanted to reclaim what they had learned. I also think this is why there is so much resistance to the outcome of this past election.
Not too long ago someone pointed out that it seems about every 500 years there is a great cultural Teutonic change that we are going through now. Who knows what the final outcome will be.
I actually don’t give a shit. The whole thrust of my argument was directed against the baseless assertion upthread that academic achievement is not associated with either kindness or empathy.
Underachievement as you and I both know is relative ( speaking as an underachiever in my profession as opposed to how the world might see me).
So you make an anecdotal, not very far from baseless, refutation? Education has fuck all to do with empathy. Every CEO and high level manager of pretty much every company destroying the environment, stripping resources, destroying the ecology of other nations, using enslaved/child/forced labour, etc.in the last 50 years at least will have been educated. Johnson and Trump are educated, Bojo in the"finest" the land has to offer.
Education is a tool, like a hammer. And like a hammer, it can be used to build things or to smash them.
Dunno that either Trump or Johnson are “educated”. The latter has had a highly expensive education which appears to have taught him nothing. The former probably cheated his way through his schooling.
And to back to my original comments ; it was intellectual ability not “education “ to which I referred.
I actually don’t give a shit. The whole thrust of my argument was directed against the baseless assertion upthread that academic achievement is not associated with either kindness or empathy.
Underachievement as you and I both know is relative ( speaking as an underachiever in my profession as opposed to how the world might see me).
So you make an anecdotal, not very far from baseless, refutation? Education has fuck all to do with empathy. Every CEO and high level manager of pretty much every company destroying the environment, stripping resources, destroying the ecology of other nations, using enslaved/child/forced labour, etc.in the last 50 years at least will have been educated. Johnson and Trump are educated, Bojo in the"finest" the land has to offer.
Education is a tool, like a hammer. And like a hammer, it can be used to build things or to smash them.
Dunno that either Trump or Johnson are “educated”. The latter has had a highly expensive education which appears to have taught him nothing. The former probably cheated his way through his schooling.
And to back to my original comments ; it was intellectual ability not “education “ to which I referred.
Doesn't change the argument though. Intellectual ability has fuck all to do with empathy. Conflating the two is snobbery, ignorance or a lack of intellectual...rigour.
I actually don’t give a shit. The whole thrust of my argument was directed against the baseless assertion upthread that academic achievement is not associated with either kindness or empathy.
Underachievement as you and I both know is relative ( speaking as an underachiever in my profession as opposed to how the world might see me).
So you make an anecdotal, not very far from baseless, refutation? Education has fuck all to do with empathy. Every CEO and high level manager of pretty much every company destroying the environment, stripping resources, destroying the ecology of other nations, using enslaved/child/forced labour, etc.in the last 50 years at least will have been educated. Johnson and Trump are educated, Bojo in the"finest" the land has to offer.
Education is a tool, like a hammer. And like a hammer, it can be used to build things or to smash them.
Dunno that either Trump or Johnson are “educated”. The latter has had a highly expensive education which appears to have taught him nothing. The former probably cheated his way through his schooling.
And to back to my original comments ; it was intellectual ability not “education “ to which I referred.
Doesn't change the argument though. Intellectual ability has fuck all to do with empathy. Conflating the two is snobbery, ignorance or a lack of intellectual...rigour.
And if I did somehow end up in a race with Usain Bolt, he’d be well within his rights to say “you did your best, bless you” when I finally crossed the line. Frankly such a level of acceptance would be more than I’d deserve - especially if my participation in the race was denying a lane to someone who would actually deserve to be there.
If he were still there. Could he have been in the showers by the time you crossed? I'd never make it that far, the ambulance would have been called by the time I made it to the first curve in the track.
I have heard reports that at least some school students today are being taught curriculum designed to make them internet savvy. To be able to assess the quality of the mass of 'information' available.
Earlier generations did not have the benefit of such a curriculum. I suspect that many current students don't either, only some.
And yes, it's arguable that education should have been equipping folk with critical thinking skills anyway, before the internet made it easier for every nutter and his pet armadillo to get an audience based on a skill in manipulating algorithms rather than on the quality of information. It just didn't used to be quite so important.
The other point to make is that people have been misled by all sorts of misinformation for centuries. The problem is not new, it's just (like lots of other things) globalised in a way it didn't used to be.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
orfeo
I have a feeling that the ability to think critically for oneself is an outcome of a successful education. Another way of looking at it is that by means of a successful education we learn how to learn.
There’s a sense behind these thoughts that we become less prone to the consequences of credulity. I think the trouble is that a lot of people don’t get too far down that road because they lack an innate ability for that level of abstraction.
We use terms like shrewd or wise to apply to people who can see when deceptiveness or misleading are going on. Do we have a good BS detector?
I think there are now very good reasons to find educational means to help equip young people with good BS detectors. Personally I think my BS detector was indeed helped by formal education. Also by recognising that manipulation via propaganda or advertising was real. But my dad described me as a born, questioning, nonconformist! Reckoned it was in his genes and I’d inherited it! So maybe that got me off to a good start.
I have a feeling that the ability to think critically for oneself is an outcome of a successful education. Another way of looking at it is that by means of a successful education we learn how to learn.
Completely agree. Although some governments and others seem to think that it's all about reading, writing and arithmetic. Or "job skills". Which doesn't usually seem to be defined in a way that involves the skill of thinking/learning.
I've tried to train students in BS detection. The most effective way I've found involved grabbing current examples and walking them through the analysis via Socratic questions. Unfortunately, the best source of that nowadays is found in politics, which means that you're bound to offend half the class simply by the example you select. It was easier when it was mostly advertising.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I have a feeling that the ability to think critically for oneself is an outcome of a successful education. Another way of looking at it is that by means of a successful education we learn how to learn.
Completely agree. Although some governments and others seem to think that it's all about reading, writing and arithmetic. Or "job skills". Which doesn't usually seem to be defined in a way that involves the skill of thinking/learning.
Yes, critical thinking is (officially, at least) part of the (English and Welsh) national curriculum. Not sure how much it's being taught, after Gove reorganised the curriculum back to the 1850s or whatever "golden age" he was aiming for. 😠
@lilbuddha: so in your view, an underachiever is someone who doesn't take full advantage of the education available to them? In that case I must disagree with you: I could have achieved more if I'd worked harder at my studies, and I think my niece made the right decision (not to go to university) with the information available to her at the time. She wasn't to know that half the businesses in her area were about to go bankrupt... and she does of course have the option of doing further studies part-time, if she can get funding. Education you can't afford to access might just as well be unavailable, for all the good it is to you.
I have a feeling that the ability to think critically for oneself is an outcome of a successful education. Another way of looking at it is that by means of a successful education we learn how to learn.
Completely agree. Although some governments and others seem to think that it's all about reading, writing and arithmetic. Or "job skills". Which doesn't usually seem to be defined in a way that involves the skill of thinking/learning.
Yes, critical thinking is (officially, at least) part of the (English and Welsh) national curriculum. Not sure how much it's being taught, after Gove reorganised the curriculum back to the 1850s or whatever "golden age" he was aiming for. 😠
@lilbuddha: so in your view, an underachiever is someone who doesn't take full advantage of the education available to them? In that case I must disagree with you: I could have achieved more if I'd worked harder at my studies, and I think my niece made the right decision (not to go to university) with the information available to her at the time. She wasn't to know that half the businesses in her area were about to go bankrupt... and she does of course have the option of doing further studies part-time, if she can get funding. Education you can't afford to access might just as well be unavailable, for all the good it is to you.
My paragraph on that was short, so the miscommunication is at least partly my fault. There are more variables than my paragraph delved into. The main point is that none of the people in your first example (at least with the information given) are underachievers.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
I've found out people were atheists after years of knowing them because they did not feel the need to say anything about it. It is kinda the responsibility of Christians* to proselytise and many do not, so why is there this myth about atheists when they don't have any sort of mandate.
*Unless one is more towards the universalist side.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
I've found out people were atheists after years of knowing them because they did not feel the need to say anything about it. It is kinda the responsibility of Christians* to proselytise and many do not, so why is there this myth about atheists when they don't have any sort of mandate.
*Unless one is more towards the universalist side.
1. People like Dawkins and Hitchens
2. When atheists do evangelize, they are (in my experience and from what I've read I'm not alone) pushy and rude and dismissive and all-around assholes, so they are more likely to be remembered.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
I've found out people were atheists after years of knowing them because they did not feel the need to say anything about it. It is kinda the responsibility of Christians* to proselytise and many do not, so why is there this myth about atheists when they don't have any sort of mandate.
*Unless one is more towards the universalist side.
1. People like Dawkins and Hitchens
All atheists are alike is even more stupid than all Christians are alike.
2. When atheists do evangelize, they are (in my experience and from what I've read I'm not alone) pushy and rude and dismissive and all-around assholes, so they are more likely to be remembered.
Even though I think Christians who believe that non-Christians will go to Hell should evangelise,* that doesn't stop many of them from being arseholes about it. And yet I think it is unfair, and frankly ignorant and probably stupid, to paint all Christians with that same brush.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
I've found out people were atheists after years of knowing them because they did not feel the need to say anything about it. It is kinda the responsibility of Christians* to proselytise and many do not, so why is there this myth about atheists when they don't have any sort of mandate.
*Unless one is more towards the universalist side.
1. People like Dawkins and Hitchens
All atheists are alike is even more stupid than all Christians are alike.
2. When atheists do evangelize, they are (in my experience and from what I've read I'm not alone) pushy and rude and dismissive and all-around assholes, so they are more likely to be remembered.
Even though I think Christians who believe that non-Christians will go to Hell should evangelise,* that doesn't stop many of them from being arseholes about it. And yet I think it is unfair, and frankly ignorant and probably stupid, to paint all Christians with that same brush.
*to be consistent with their beliefs
You ask why people think atheists proselytize. I give reasons. Unable to dispute reasons, you attack me for being stupid for giving them. And this is why atheists leave a bad taste in some people's mouth. QED.
I suspect that most of us want our children both to think for themselves and to adopt our own religious value-system. With varying degrees of emphasis on each half of that potential conflict.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
How would you know that? If they’re not proselytizing, how likely are you to even know that they’re atheists?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
I've found out people were atheists after years of knowing them because they did not feel the need to say anything about it. It is kinda the responsibility of Christians* to proselytise and many do not, so why is there this myth about atheists when they don't have any sort of mandate.
*Unless one is more towards the universalist side.
1. People like Dawkins and Hitchens
All atheists are alike is even more stupid than all Christians are alike.
2. When atheists do evangelize, they are (in my experience and from what I've read I'm not alone) pushy and rude and dismissive and all-around assholes, so they are more likely to be remembered.
Even though I think Christians who believe that non-Christians will go to Hell should evangelise,* that doesn't stop many of them from being arseholes about it. And yet I think it is unfair, and frankly ignorant and probably stupid, to paint all Christians with that same brush.
*to be consistent with their beliefs
You ask why people think atheists proselytize. I give reasons. Unable to dispute reasons, you attack me for being stupid for giving them. And this is why atheists leave a bad taste in some people's mouth. QED.
I don't need to dispute them. You mention two atheists as if they represent all atheists. That is not a good reason, anymore than it is a good reason to think all Christians are dangerous nutjobs because of David Koresh and Jim Jones. That would be stupid as well.
I did not attack you, I labelled the ideas as stupid. Because they are. Yes, I could have been more polite, but I would be communicating the same thing.
And what does anything I say have to do with what people think about atheists?
You mention two atheists as if they represent all atheists.
No, I did not. I mentioned two atheists as examples of people that stand out in people's minds as examples of obnoxious atheists.
That is not a good reason, anymore than it is a good reason to think all Christians are dangerous nutjobs because of David Koresh and Jim Jones. That would be stupid as well.
I didn't say I was giving good reasons. Just reasons.
I did not attack you, I labelled the ideas as stupid. Because they are. Yes, I could have been more polite, but I would be communicating the same thing.
Well that's something at least. I accept your apology such as it is.
And what does anything I say have to do with what people think about atheists?
You asked "why is this myth about atheists [etc]". Or would you like to walk that back also?
Comments
I don't think that's true - at least for nurses. The guy I work for has a daughter studying a nursing degree at the same institution at which we both work. She says the university part of the course is almost entirely shite, and is hanging on for the training she gets in regular stints in hospital. Knowing what I know about the institution, I'm inclined to believe her. This doesn't answer the question of why HE institutions were able to make a successful grab for a bunch of training that previously worked well without 'degree course' involvement. If I had to guess I'd say vanity was probably part of it on all sides. But no-one liked talking about sin upthread so I'll be quiet - maybe someone with a social science degree will pop up to explain
The thing you have to appreciate about Brexit is that it is an ideological project run by people who think that endangering the Northern Ireland peace process by renouncing an international treaty they just signed in order to facilitate a trade deal with the US when the front runner for President is a Democrat of Irish Catholic ancestry is a good idea.
And that is not the most egregious of their stupidities.
Fundamentally you seem to be assuming that Brexit is a project that makes sense on any terms other than cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
In order to get free trade you have to make a trade deal. Otherwise countries can and do put up tariffs. The EU is among other things a large free trade area: leaving it means we are no longer part of that free trade area and so our ability to trade with the EU, who constitute our main trading partners, will be impeded. There are other countries we could make that up with, but they're further away, and all the experienced UK trade negotiators were until recently employed by the EU and are now for that reason considered ideologically suspect.
Education is a tool, like a hammer. And like a hammer, it can be used to build things or to smash them.
Because not seeming to care what happens to a People Not Like Me will continue to lead to a divided society.
And for all that academia is a fabulous calling, it is not exactly feeding our nation.
Whenever someone gets too hung up on the superiority of the formally educated, I begin to be curious as to how well they'd be evaluated against Dunning-Kruger...
Interesting. We used to be able to make things without either of those being true, so what is it about modern life that you think has changed? Workers demanding too high a wage? Cost of materials?
Decreased transport costs are a biggie. Increasing size of ships, reduced crews paid less and with worse conditions as they're recruited from all over the world.
The UK certainly can build things, but it can only do so with automation, which doesn't have the same large workforce requirements.
Workers for Foxconn, who manufacture iPhones, Nokia phones, Xboxes, etc. make £.75 to £1.5 and hour. How many British worker do you think would settle for that?
"But" I hear your think, "What about other manufacturing?" Why do you think manufacturing was moved overseas? Lower cost of manufacturing. And, other than high-end low volume or bespoke goods, there is no way to bridge the existing gap without impoverishing most of the country.
The 1% is working to reduce the middle income bracket, so your approach would help them at least.
High tariffs on trade from other countries making manufacturing at home a more viable prospect.
Which brings us full circle, back to the question of what to do with those who don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way. If they can’t get the skilled high-end jobs that are here and it’s not viable to bring back the unskilled low-end manufacturing, mining, etc jobs that would have suited them then what’s left? Just shove them all on welfare and forget about them?
The main problems with British manufacturing are a) lack of political will to support it; and b) lack of political will to set up tariffs on imports that are cheap because manufactured under sweatshop conditions. (I suppose that last depends on a political reliance on cheap manufactured goods to keep the economy going and the population happy.)
Now I think I disagree with Marvin that being in the EU was an obstacle to supporting our manufacture. There is some talk that membership of the EU partly contributes to a, by putting barriers on how we can support manufacturing, but the limits the EU imposes on its members are much weaker than we said, and if we'd been prepared to spend our diplomatic capital sensibly we could have done something about it. The same applies to b.
They concentrate on high value manufacturing, and even then outsource the lower level components to the eastern half of the EU.
“don’t have the skills or ability to contribute in any other way”
Don’t they - or is it that we choose to design jobs that cause that problem ? To take an office based example, getting a job as an administrator can be difficult nowadays - by which I mean someone who types up other people’s work, minutes meetings, organises diaries and files stuff. This is not because those tasks are not needed, but because other workers are being asked to undertake those tasks themselves.
So you spend however long training a doctor, and then have them spend a significant portion of their day doing admin that used to be done by someone else. This is supposed to be a cost saving - but also then people really are unhappy about waiting lists.
This is an example from my work context, because I am familiar with it - but I think it has been happening all over the place.
Support workers work 60 to 90 hours weeks because they are not paid enough to live off a 35-40 hour week. But two people could have that job, working sane hours and not wrecking their health, if you paid both workers a decent wage.
This (the folding in to other jobs of ones that now no longer exist) is a huge problem. It's obviously bad for those whose jobs have gone away, but it sucks too for the people who are allegedly capable to doing those tasks in a spare minute, "because the technology is so good." Half the time the tech is actually shit, and even when it is good, nobody has time enough to learn how to use it properly--and so you get IT people swamped explaining ordinary things to people whose lives have been geared to nursing or teaching or whatsit, and informal IT people (that'd be me, then) running around helping colleagues with this stuff because IT is swamped. And after six months, they pitch the half-learned tech in favor of something else..
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it.
My grandad was "just sent down the mine", because his family was too poor to pay for him to continue his education. He was the bonesetter for his shift and also a talented artist and woodcarver. Nowadays he would have trained as an osteopath or maybe even a doctor.
My dad went to grammar school and then teaching college, because his family couldn't afford for him to go to university. He did get a degree eventually - studying part-time through the OU.
I went to university straight out of school, in the halcyon days before tuition fees and while it was still possible to live on a maintenance grant.
My niece decided not to go to university because her family couldn't afford to help support her and she was worried about student debt. She's just been made redundant because of Covid.
Probably all of us could be described as "underachievers" - even me, with a degree and three postgraduate diplomas to my name. I only got 9 O levels at the age of 16 instead of 10.
Your grandad was an overachiever because he achieved over what he was (formally) educated for.
You haven't in my view, described any underachiver in your examples. Save possibly your niece.
An academic underachiever would be someone whose career underachieved their education, whose marks underachieved their ability or whose level of education was under their ability. The last with the caveat that the education was available to them situationally and financially.
What I mean was prior to the 60s the American Education System by and large taught a common thread. Let's call it America First. We could do no wrong. Our history was skewed to Manifest Destiny. Then came the Vietnam War which showed us we were doing wrong. Followed by a revision of our history. Think Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. What we had assumed to be true was not.
I am not even going to get into New Math except to say the old formulations changed.
Then we can get into scientific debates.
When Trump came out with his Make America Great Again, people glommed on to it because he was wanting to go back to the "Old Ways" which also included the racist bigotry of the 50s. It is no wonder why much of the older generations wanted to reclaim what they had learned. I also think this is why there is so much resistance to the outcome of this past election.
Not too long ago someone pointed out that it seems about every 500 years there is a great cultural Teutonic change that we are going through now. Who knows what the final outcome will be.
No. It's those damned Germans...
Dunno that either Trump or Johnson are “educated”. The latter has had a highly expensive education which appears to have taught him nothing. The former probably cheated his way through his schooling.
And to back to my original comments ; it was intellectual ability not “education “ to which I referred.
Well, it certainly didn’t teach him to agree with your political opinions. I wouldn’t say that’s the same as teaching him nothing though.
*chuckle*
If he were still there. Could he have been in the showers by the time you crossed? I'd never make it that far, the ambulance would have been called by the time I made it to the first curve in the track.
Earlier generations did not have the benefit of such a curriculum. I suspect that many current students don't either, only some.
And yes, it's arguable that education should have been equipping folk with critical thinking skills anyway, before the internet made it easier for every nutter and his pet armadillo to get an audience based on a skill in manipulating algorithms rather than on the quality of information. It just didn't used to be quite so important.
The other point to make is that people have been misled by all sorts of misinformation for centuries. The problem is not new, it's just (like lots of other things) globalised in a way it didn't used to be.
I have a feeling that the ability to think critically for oneself is an outcome of a successful education. Another way of looking at it is that by means of a successful education we learn how to learn.
There’s a sense behind these thoughts that we become less prone to the consequences of credulity. I think the trouble is that a lot of people don’t get too far down that road because they lack an innate ability for that level of abstraction.
We use terms like shrewd or wise to apply to people who can see when deceptiveness or misleading are going on. Do we have a good BS detector?
I think there are now very good reasons to find educational means to help equip young people with good BS detectors. Personally I think my BS detector was indeed helped by formal education. Also by recognising that manipulation via propaganda or advertising was real. But my dad described me as a born, questioning, nonconformist! Reckoned it was in his genes and I’d inherited it! So maybe that got me off to a good start.
Completely agree. Although some governments and others seem to think that it's all about reading, writing and arithmetic. Or "job skills". Which doesn't usually seem to be defined in a way that involves the skill of thinking/learning.
Yes, critical thinking is (officially, at least) part of the (English and Welsh) national curriculum. Not sure how much it's being taught, after Gove reorganised the curriculum back to the 1850s or whatever "golden age" he was aiming for. 😠
@lilbuddha: so in your view, an underachiever is someone who doesn't take full advantage of the education available to them? In that case I must disagree with you: I could have achieved more if I'd worked harder at my studies, and I think my niece made the right decision (not to go to university) with the information available to her at the time. She wasn't to know that half the businesses in her area were about to go bankrupt... and she does of course have the option of doing further studies part-time, if she can get funding. Education you can't afford to access might just as well be unavailable, for all the good it is to you.
I honestly have no idea why you felt the need to throw the adjective "religious" into there. Unless you're proudly declaring that atheists are better off because they lack conflict.
How many atheists have you known who haven't proselytized for their views?
True enough. Most of the atheists I know just live their lives pretty much ignoring that some people believe in God.
*Unless one is more towards the universalist side.
1. People like Dawkins and Hitchens
2. When atheists do evangelize, they are (in my experience and from what I've read I'm not alone) pushy and rude and dismissive and all-around assholes, so they are more likely to be remembered.
*to be consistent with their beliefs
You ask why people think atheists proselytize. I give reasons. Unable to dispute reasons, you attack me for being stupid for giving them. And this is why atheists leave a bad taste in some people's mouth. QED.
I did not attack you, I labelled the ideas as stupid. Because they are. Yes, I could have been more polite, but I would be communicating the same thing.
And what does anything I say have to do with what people think about atheists?
No, I did not. I mentioned two atheists as examples of people that stand out in people's minds as examples of obnoxious atheists.
I didn't say I was giving good reasons. Just reasons.
Well that's something at least. I accept your apology such as it is.
You asked "why is this myth about atheists [etc]". Or would you like to walk that back also?