• Bunnylux@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    To those who believe that learning is its own end, like me, I don’t see any problems with this.

      • aesopjah@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        that’s low key why universal basic income would be good. it’s somewhat important to have people like that who just want to preserve and teach history and they shouldn’t necessarily be forced to find an industrialized application for that in order to have a decent life.

        • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I don’t think UBI helps with this much. This might be controversial to hear, but UBI solves different problems related to fulfilling needs and doesn’t solve problems with incentives inherently. So if studying history is on par with doing no work at all, then a history major will only be able to afford the new ground floor of our society.

          What would probably be better is to fix our grant systems and provide destinations for studying history. So UBI allows anyone to study it but grants still encourage people to do so and gives them a destination to work towards.

          • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            2000 year from now, they’ll still be studying empty tombs in Egypt. except the “grave robbers” that took everything were the archeologists of today, instead of the archaeologists of the 7th century.

          • Ginger666@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Explain to me like im not a communist:

            How does ubi work? Do you get it in addition to your normal income?

            • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Depends how you think of it. What UBI is saying is that no one can make less than X money per year. The concepts differ on implementation though. For instance, the UBI could be paid out through reverse tax brackets where how much income you’re paid is diminished as you go up in income.

              A different concept is that the UBI is slowly increased for everyone every year. Then a tax is levied on companies to pay into this system and they would (probably) lower primary salaries in accordance as the UBI increased to cover it.

              The UBI would need other measures though. For instance if you’re thinking “isn’t this just welfare with extra steps?” It would be unless we seek to balance wealth inequality with the UBI. Raising the UBI too far would mean that incentives to seek specialized labor would be too low and those jobs stop being filled.

              UBI does however simplify a lot. We wouldn’t need to assess homeless or low income people for welfare really. Same with unemployment. The messy paperwork goes away once you know that you have guaranteed income.

        • Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com
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          9 months ago

          If you’re teaching history, that’s already provided for cuz you can paid for teaching. UBI would just enable the case of a person learning things without then teaching those things to others or doing anything of value with the knowledge.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      I don’t see a problem with it if the person can afford it.

      But if you’re a young person starting with nothing, starting your life in tremendous debt that won’t increase your earnings is going to be rough. It doesn’t make you a bad person or anything, but if you went and got a a job and read about Egypt in the library, you might be a much happier, less stressed person in 5-10 years.

  • steeznson@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    This isn’t one of those pyramid schemes you’ve heard about. We use a different model - the trapezoid!

    • Skeezix@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      There’s a joke in the industry:

      Q: Whats the first thing an egyptology major says when he graduates?

      A: You want fries with that?

      • steeznson@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Back when I was a philosophy grad student there was a joke going around:

        The head of the chemisty department goes to the dean and asks for money to buy some new lab equipment. The dean shakes his head and goes, “No, you are asking too much here. Why can’t you be more like the physics department? All they ask for in their budget is pencil and rubbers… or better yet the philosophy department - all they ask for is pencils!”

        • Skeezix@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Lol, a society economic system with absolutely no respect for knowledge or humanity anything that offers no immediate shareholder value.

  • Supercritical@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.

    A phrase that would bounce around when I was in grad school.

    • wintermutehal@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I find this phrase rather demeaning. I am a damn good Instructional Designer, but I would eventually like to teach this to others.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        As someone who fakes their way through life and can’t teach, it’s also demeaning to me. I don’t know what I’m doing, can’t really do it, and certainly shouldn’t be teaching anyone else.

      • MrClayman@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I also find it demeaning. I can do so much, but I CHOOSE to teach.

        Maybe I shouldn’t teach anymore.

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      The saying sucks because it implies that they tried doing something in the private field and failed into teaching. Most teachers went directly into teaching, so they succeeded.

      • mcmoor
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        9 months ago

        Well you don’t need to be good at teaching to be a teacher

        • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You could say that about many jobs, especially ones that don’t offer competitive wages. I have had quite a few different jobs and there are always people that have no business holding the role they do.

    • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah that’s so out of context that it speaks to the intelligence of students repeating it. It came from the old trades and people retiring into teaching after they literally couldn’t do it anymore, not that they weren’t once capable. Very similar to the “Bad apples” quote.

  • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Hey that’s what I did with philosophy. It’s great to adjunct for three universities and get no health care. Definitely worth it!!

    • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Maybe philosophy is so needlessly wordy and impenetrable because it’s just people that weren’t smart enough to see it as a dead end trained enough to make it seem esoteric and meaningful, to keep their heads just above water and their hands on books instead of chef knives.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Maybe philosophy is so needlessly wordy and impenetrable because it’s just people that weren’t smart enough to see it as a dead end

        Quite a few philosophy undergrounds go on to law, business, and marketing, because the underlying concepts tie so well together. Lots of philosophy grad CEOs and heads of Law Firms. Some of the richest people in the country majored in philosophy.

        Egyptology is significantly more niche. But it should be noted that we used to have a significant amount of money going towards archeological research. That’s money state governments and private institutions have pulled back fairly recently.

        We get to play this game with a lot of niche professions. There’s a huge demand from back in, say, the 80s or 90s and then a huge structural shift to stop doing astrological research or civil engineering or sociology or education or whatever. All the money gets dumped into state subsidies for bitcoin miners. And then we call the folks who matriculated through those real professions “stupid” while smugly insisting the future is in digitally jerking ourselves off.

        • Rusty Shackleford@programming.dev
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          9 months ago

          While there are massive important fallacies to explore in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of “moral objectivism” in Atlas Shrugged, I did agree with the her implication when she wrote how John Galt, Francisco D’Anconia, and Ragnar Daneskjold (the most “capable” men in her fictional world) double-majored in Philosophy and Physics.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            John Galt, Francisco D’Anconia, and Ragnar Daneskjold (the most “capable” men in her fictional world) double-majored in Philosophy and Physics.

            I mean, I was referring to real people not AnCap Fanfiction people.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Chef here. We don’t want philosophy majors playing with our knives or fire, thanks. The alcoholics, potheads, and methheads are enough to contend with without someone that really over thinks things.

      • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        As somebody with a PhD in the subject, there’s some truth to this. Ever read Derrida or Deleuze? Some of thise continental guys are especially full of shit.

        I still love the subject, though. When else do you get to just think about the big topics and work through fun arguments about them? We’d all be poorer if nobody did that.

        • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          “If those people believed half of what they wrote, they’d have shot themselves years ago.” My dad, who may have been more of a philosopher than he realized.

        • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Naw, all that matters is making money. Don’t bother thinking about big, important things. Just know your place, keep your head down, and crank out $$$.

    • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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      9 months ago

      I just learned to code after studying philosophy. It’s all truth preservation. Super successful software engineer now.

  • wjrii@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Tangentially, shout out to Dominic Perry’s History of Egypt podcast. Great stuff, very engaging without forgetting that history is an evolving and ever-incomplete field of study, and that things other than battles happened in the ancient world.

    • Gork@lemm.eeOP
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      9 months ago

      It took me way too long (into my adult years) to figure out that an Egyptologist is an archaeologist who specializes in ancient Egyptian cultural artifacts.

    • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      yeah yeah, farming and business and carpentry and sanctimonious politicians pissing everyone off. Just dull shit until it erupts into a war.

  • Ilflish@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    I’m not really sure how much empathy I have for this. I’m aware in the US you don’t pick a major until a year in but even when you don’t people, were ready to invest in subjects they knew would leave them with few job opportunities. They thought it was cool and wanted to go to university. Finding a job was a future problem. I was not and won’t be anti-arts and humanities but they are just as popular, if not more so then many other subjects in universities and 90% of them know that it’s a difficult field to find any work in

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Don’t pick a major until a year in? That definitely wasn’t the norm when I was in university (albeit that’s a long time ago).

  • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 months ago

    A friend got a degree in Egyptology, only to realize that after she’d sunk in the time to get a master’s on the advice of her professors, that they were ensuring their livelihood by overselling the job prospects.
    After a few years of low level museum jobs, she got her doctorate and became an Egyptology professor. Her hope is to one day become an Egyptologist, but I think she’s already in a gilded academic cage and doesn’t realize it.

  • RatBin@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    That’s how the lure you in. They start with basic things like piramid, than they show you these symbols of power and immortality and promise a +2 on you ka which can be good fo D&D campaigns, and to enjoy a safe passage to the other plan of existance, when they finally get you to the secret room of the feather and the scale and that’s when you know it’s too late to get back

    • force@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Useless, if you believe that whatever generates monetary value in capitalism is what defines usefulness. To many people who don’t dedicate their life to money, rather people who find value in knowledge or culture or something, it’s very useful.

      And to answer your question, there are employers for everything. Just not enough to make but a select few types of degrees have demand that meets the supply…

      • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Its not about money, its about usefulness to society. If society does not need it, its useless.

        • force@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          What is “usefulness to society”? Why do you think you get to say what is and isn’t useful to society? You think that history, archeology, anthropology, etc. are useless?

          • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Its plain to see that its useless. The guy can’t get a job and if it was useful, he’d be able to.

            • force@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              insisting that capitalism is actually effective at determining the true value/usefulness of things to humanity shows that you haven’t surpassed a 5th grade level understanding of capitalism

              looking at your comment history i’m actually pretty sure you’re just 15 or something and have never had what you think of as a “useful” job…