Autodidact: The Unnecessary Leper

Economics Political Theory
21

I assure you, this thread has next-to-nothing or very little to do w/ my own autodidactic tendencies. I don’t pretent to be anything special and don’t intend to prove my incompetence to anyone! [:$]

Even though these PhD’s are so brilliant, what good are most of them? Most of them are very socialistic. So how can they be so smart and yet be so wrong? In fact, I see them as liabilities as opposed to assets. What does it matter if a guy is full of eloquent oratory if he espouses lies? Do you see the socialistic bias in our presently prevalent form of formalized education? Why do you suppose this is the case? It’s my opinion that the greatness of these minds that the universities and colleges house are almost directly proportionate to the greatness of our suppression.

I agree that face-to-face engagement with similarly minded people can be good, but I think it’s diminished when those face-to-faces are a direct result of coercive policies that enable it to be brought about. Nothing wrong with a guy that knows a lot of stuff trying to sell what he knows, but when he relies on coercive actions to bring about a consumer, that coercive action is philosophized and incorporated into the smart guy’s disseminations, varying in accordance with things such as the subject being taught and the objectivity of the smart guy. Before long, you find that since these things habitually occur under a coercive state, society begins to see this corecion as a neccessity or as an effector of all legitimate, respectable knowledge.

A PhD might or might not possess knowledge that can be productively employed by himself or another. I submit that employers that exist w/o coercive powers have more specialized needs. The demands of their customers aren’t the same as some foggy notion of what ‘society’ wants, as is commonly attributed to the nearly unassailable efforts of the esteemed professors. The employer needs to qualify applicants on the basis of real-world practicalities and not, as I said before, some abstract, unquantifiable goodness. Those qualifications neccessary in order to effect the most profit for the employer are usually far removed from that of professorial qualities or claimed qualities, at least as it relates to the professors current level of compensation.

I think the employer would be much better served to emphasize test scores as opposed to degrees. It allows the employer to more clearly define what his needs are. He can then match those needs objectively via the testing process. Whether you’re a PhD or a 1st grade dropout, if you score 95% and the other guy scores 85%, then you are more educated for WHAT HE’S LOOKING FOR. Of course, tests and credentials are only part of the qualifying process. But those are the things I’m looking at.

BTW, I in no way blame anyone that pursues formalized education. It’s probably the best course of action, considering present circumstances. But for me, for whatever reason, I abhor it so much. I’d rather quaff a jug diarrhea that was pulled out of a public toilet. Well, maybe not. [:P]

22

Most PhDs are intelligent, and most* have very good reasons for being socialists. If you think you can prove all their views “wrong” with of some things you’ve read on a message board, blog, or even the entirety of mises.org you’ve got another thing coming. Their arguments are often complex and nuanced. If you approach their positions with the attitude of “their wrong”, you’ll never learn anything.

Where autodidacts shine is in computer science. The Internet has freed computer education from the traditional university system, and many (most?) innovators in computer science are not research professors. Its also easier to find more merit-based employment in computer science, since one can do things like contribute to open-source projects to prove themselves to employers.

I tend to teach myself because I have an extreme bias towards global versus sequential learning. That makes attending most classes pretty worthless for me. After I’ve gotten an understanding of a subject I can typically draw the same conclusions as are taught formally. But I am in the minority here; for most people I believe the classroom is a better environment.

  • Its also very easy for intelligent people to convince themselves they are correct, especially when they are emotionally attached to certain viewpoints. There aren’t many incentives which reward self-honesty in fields of study far-removed from the real world.
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Thing is, I got a 3.0 in high school and a 1460 on the SAT. What that proved (correctly) was that I was a lazy slacker in high school, but that I was smart. The University of Wisconsin took a chance on me, and I’m doing really well here, since I’ve gotten my crap together. But the University of Michigan didn’t, because even though my SAT scores were significantly higher than their average student’s, they probably didn’t want some smart underachiever wasting space in their school when they could have a kid who was perhaps not quite as intelligent, but would work really hard to do well. Grades may not be a great measure of intelligence or of time well spent, but they certainly show work ethic and an ability to perform in the way that’s asked of you.

If anything, the low quality of much of the time spent learning in college would be an asset to potential employers. A job isn’t always the most interesting and exciting thing in the world, and a prospective employer would likely want to see that a candidate was willing to get the job done when necessary, regardless of how interesting the work was. To be perfectly honest, I’d be really worried about hiring someone who was used to only doing what they found interesting, and not adhering to a set of guidelines which were often arbitrary and frustrating.

But about PhD’s being useless, I’d point out that pretty much anyone you think is an important philosopher was a professor at a university somewhere, unless you think Ayn Rand and Stefan Molyneux are important philosophers, in which case you’d probably better reconsider the quality of your self-education. And I promise you, professors at good universities are not stupid. They’ve heard all the arguments you have; it’s their job. If they disagree, it’s for a reason, and it’s not as simple as “They’re evil collectivists!” But for what it’s worth, I don’t know any philosophy professors who are socialists; the closest are the egalitarians, but they’re not stupid, they just think differently about certain things.

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Value is subjective. For me to determine one’s value or a things value, how does it assist this valuation process if the thing being valuated is coercive? Why would a socialist professor eschew a free market valuating his worth?

BTW, I live in the real world, not just on message boards. So, once again, I don’t kid myself and think that I can out-professor a professor. I also read diverse views. I own the Communist Manifesto for pete’s sake! [:)]

25

No, the taxpayers took a chance on you. Shouldn’t you be taking your own chances?

I don’t think PhD’s or professors are useless. I think that in their current capacity, most would prove to be overcompensated if the compensators weren’t of the coerced variety, e.g., taxpayers, etc.

26

Socialism is a ridicule collection of fallacies and outright lies. If somebody is a PhD and a commie, then that shows that PhDs tend to be clueless, not that communism is a sound doctrine. You seem to have got it backwards…

Also, a free society doesn’t need ‘formal’ education. Formal education is mostly a statist tool - universities are a place for the ‘elites’ (oligarchies really) to meet and make their statist plans. Technological innovation comes from free enterprise, not from ‘academics’.

27

The taxpayers didn’t take a chance on me. They didn’t have a choice in the matter. I would prefer if they did, and the best programs were in private universities. But public spending tends to crowd out private provision of goods, and so if I wanted the education that I’m getting, I didn’t have an option. It was either let someone else spend taxpayer money that had already been taken, or use it myself in a way that would make me happier than any other alternative. The choice wasn’t a very difficult one, to be honest.

I would point out that anyone getting into philosophy for the money needs to have her head examined. You live in poverty for your entire youthful life, and unless you’re extremely talented, you’ll never make as much money as you could have in almost any other profession.

Oh, and some of the most prominent anarcho-capitalist thinkers working today teach at public universities (Randall Holcombe and Bruce Benson - Florida State University; Hans-Hermann Hoppe - University of Nevada, Los Vegas; Roderick Long - Auburn University; David Beito - University of Alabama; Alexander Tabarrok and Bryan Caplan - George Mason University). If you think being a student at a state university is problematic, what about working at one? Heck, the Ludwig von Mises Institute itself used to be housed in the business department at Auburn University until 1998 when it finally built its own campus!

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Like I said, I don’t blame anyone for going to public schools or teaching at public schools. Sometimes infiltration is the best way to dismantle an empire. Just don’t get too comfortable eating the master’s cheese. lol

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Mmm…cheese…

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So, Donny, the state is not so bad after all ? It can provide quality education ?

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Well sure, it can provide quality education. I’d seriously doubt that it provides it efficiently, but as far as the product itself goes, I’m pretty satisfied.

32

So I guess a doctor employed in Canada or Europe must provide a bad service, because they are employed by the state?

Certainly, such services would be more efficient under a system geared towards free enterprise, but there are many talented and intelligent individuals employed by the state.

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Donny, have you read any of John Taylor Gatto’s work? If so, what do you think? Thanks!

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Actually, I haven’t read Gatto’s work. But I was talking about university level education when I said I thought the state was doing a pretty good job; I didn’t mean to include primary education in that assessment, and as far as I’m aware, Gatto’s work focuses on lower levels of education. Given that I was utterly clueless when I arrived at college, I’ll be the last to stand up in defense of my early education, especially since my high school was among the highest ranked among public high schools in my state.

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Well, I’m glad that public education is a quality product provided by our friendly politicians. They are doing a pretty good job.

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Again, the claim that a university education is useful and of high quality doesn’t imply anything about whether it should be publicly provided, or about whether its provision is being efficiently administered. I would suspect that public funding breeds a lot of waste and excess, and I’m not sure how strong the case is for having state-run universities at all.

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In a democracy, education could easily be expressed as a public good, so economists could argue for state funding on those grounds. However, its rather obvious (especially regarding Bryan Caplan’s critiques) that nearly any amount of education wouldn’t actually let democracy make rational decisions, so I’d say the benefit to democratic processes is dubious (although that doesn’t mean non-existent). Also, the current state-funded education system doesn’t actually concentrate on the areas which would aid in democracy, namely economics, history, political science, and foreign affairs. That isn’t really surprising to me, given the incentives that government operates under. But to those ignorant of public choice and Austrian economics, the idea that we need an educated electorate probably justifies state funding.

I am sure education would be vastly more effecient without state funding. I could write a book on how my university could become more effecient alone. In addition, a market in education would likely produce much more collaboration between universities, vastly reducing redundant waste.

A lot of the waste goes on behind the scenes. Talk to people who work in the supportive departments (such as IT) for state universities and you’ll hear some amusing (or sad) stories.

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I have. All I will say is that it explains a hell of a lot.

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Donny,

The claim that public education is of high quality is hard for me to accept. You’ve rightly pointed out that

So, since the majority of the universities are public, there’s no standard to comapre them against. How do you know they are good ?
What kind of ‘economics’ is taught in public universities anyway ? Are you saying that the majority of teachers are libertarians ? I confess I didn’t poll them, but I suspect that 90% of them are keynesians/social-democrats/fascists/etc. So what kind of ‘quality education’ can these people provide ? What they call ‘education’ I call propaganda.

40

Private universities are like public universities because they are over-regulated. There’s no standard to compare public and private universities to.