China

[Ulti]

10 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

What we need is a school that removes all the humanities/liberal arts crap from the curriculum and prepares someone to become an engineer in 3 years rather than 4.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-students-are-turning-away-from-college-and-toward-apprenticeships-15f3a05d

While I respectfully disagree with the liberal arts\humanities crap comment...

I've always been a proponent of " real life" education starting in high school...

vocational\ apprenticeship options as well as financial education for the masses.

Especially with the poor immigration policy this country has.

[Castanza]

1 minute ago, Ulti said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-students-are-turning-away-from-college-and-toward-apprenticeships-15f3a05d

While I respectfully disagree with the liberal arts\humanities crap comment...

I've always been a proponent of " real life" education starting in high school...

vocational\ apprenticeship options as well as financial education for the masses.

Especially with the poor immigration policy this country has.

 

Eh idk, wtf is the point of k-12 if when you get to university you have to take Eng 1&2, Political Science, Literature, some elective like physical education/health and then an additional elective like philosophy? Probably half dozen more courses you have to take that are useless towards your degree. 

 

If you don't know that by 12th grade then you shouldn't be going to college. It's a way to nickel and dime students and take away time from studying their core curriculum. Yeah, you can take AP in HS and test out of some of those courses. But in a lot of HS the AP classes are capped and not everyone can get in. that's how it was where I went. We had like 500 graduating class and maybe 75 students in the AP courses. I was lucky to get in a few and skip Eng 1 and Political Science in college. 

 

You could easily cut Higher Education timeline in half in the US. 

 

K-12 is useless IF you require the same courses when you get to college. 

[Ulti]

7 minutes ago, Castanza said:

an additional elective like philosophy?

Both Peter Thiel and George Soros got a philosophy degree in college....But I digress.....high school options \say in the 9th or 10th grade\ to start on a vocational \apprenticeship pathway\ partner up with local and national businesses... I agree that many kids don't need formal liberal arts education if they chose vocational pathway.

 

13 minutes ago, Castanza said:

wtf is the point of k-12

optionality to help chose a pathway...the military is starting to get it...

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/08/1121869407/the-armys-recruiting-is-falling-short-so-now-its-taking-a-different-approach

[boilermaker75]

1 hour ago, rkbabang said:

 

Exactly.  The US is the absolute worst country, except for all the others.  I can go on for hours about what is wrong with the US, but I'm still here and not going anywhere else.  You can pick and choose within the US as well which is one of its great advantages.  Living in NH, FL, or TX is much different from living in MA, CA, NY, or NJ.     Unless you are taking a STEM program, college is mostly BS anyway. What we need is a school that removes all the humanities/liberal arts crap from the curriculum and prepares someone to become an engineer in 3 years rather than 4.

 

 

I teach EE at a university that is probably >50% STEM. But I see value in STEM students getting exposure to communications, economics, philosophy, psychology, languages, etc., whatever is interesting to them. Build that lattice work of mental models. Where would we be if Claude Shannon had not taken a philosophy course as an undergraduate that talked about Boolean logic? Would technology be 10 years behind where we are today? 25 years? 50 years?

[Castanza]

27 minutes ago, Ulti said:

Both Peter Thiel and George Soros got a philosophy degree in college....But I digress.....high school options \say in the 9th or 10th grade\ to start on a vocational \apprenticeship pathway\ partner up with local and national businesses... I agree that many kids don't need formal liberal arts education if they chose vocational pathway.

 

optionality to help chose a pathway...the military is starting to get it...

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/08/1121869407/the-armys-recruiting-is-falling-short-so-now-its-taking-a-different-approach

 

Peter Thiel and George Soros are geniuses with IQ's probably in the 130+ range. Hardly comparable to your average student headed to college that comes from an average household with average income to pay for ridiculously expensive courses. When Thiel and Soros went to college the cost and environment were very different than today. You need to adapt the system to the environment it resides in. The US Liberal Arts system has been getting progressively worse and worse on a global scale. 

 

Making future mech engineers, programmers, accountants, or biology teachers sit through a repeat course of poly sci, literature, or phys ed improves their core skill set how? It's simply a way to rake them over the coals for more money. 

 

Liberal arts has it's place! I think k-12 should be much more rigorous than it currently is. Less focus on sports and more focus on academics would be a big plus for this country. 

[boilermaker75]

1 hour ago, Castanza said:

 

Eh idk, wtf is the point of k-12 if when you get to university you have to take Eng 1&2, Political Science, Literature, some elective like physical education/health and then an additional elective like philosophy? Probably half dozen more courses you have to take that are useless towards your degree. 

 

If you don't know that by 12th grade then you shouldn't be going to college. It's a way to nickel and dime students and take away time from studying their core curriculum. Yeah, you can take AP in HS and test out of some of those courses. But in a lot of HS the AP classes are capped and not everyone can get in. that's how it was where I went. We had like 500 graduating class and maybe 75 students in the AP courses. I was lucky to get in a few and skip Eng 1 and Political Science in college. 

 

You could easily cut Higher Education timeline in half in the US. 

 

K-12 is useless IF you require the same courses when you get to college. 

 

There was a study that showed a benefit to delaying specialization. The study was of the UK where there is a huge difference when students specialize in England and Scotland, but they essentially have a common labor market. (English start specializing in high school the Scots don’t choose their specialization until their junior year at university.) Not initially out of university, but in the end the Scots fair better.

 

O. Malamud, "Discovering One's Talent: Learning From Academic Specialization," Industrial and Labor Relations Reveiw, vol. 64, no. 2, pp. 375-405, 2011. 

[Castanza]

3 minutes ago, boilermaker75 said:

 

I teach EE at a university that is probably >50% STEM. But I see value in STEM students getting exposure to communications, economics, philosophy, psychology, languages, etc., whatever is interesting to them. Build that lattice work of mental models. Where would we be if Claude Shannon had not taken a philosophy course as an undergraduate that talked about Boolean logic? Would technology be 10 years behind where we are today? 25 years? 50 years?

 

When I was studying Geology I had to take a literature course. We spent an entire semester reading some fictional novel about Native Americans. We had a ton of papers and the professor graded extremely hard. I was in the class with a bunch of other STEM majors and everyone absolutely hated the course. It took away a ton of time from being able to study important topics like Organic Chemistry and Calc. It provided NO benefit to our future professions and simply cost us time and money. 

 

We don't make trade schools teach liberal arts on top of learning how to wire a breaker box. Why should we force STEM majors to do the same? If k-12 is to prepare you for college with the a base load knowledge and knowhow then why do we need to repeat it at the university level? Most of it seems like a way to justify the jobs of some PhD academics who studied some obscure topic and then give them value by forcing their course on students who couldn't give a damn. 

 

If you have a kid who is an all-star at math let them focus on math. They're paying for it after all. Look at med school here in the US. You have to go 4 years undergrad before going for your MD. Plenty of countries out there that don't have this requirement and graduate very proficient doctors. You can go right to med school and your studies are all geared towards your future profession. 

 

When cost is a problem you have to find ways to cut the fat. 

[rkbabang]

58 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

When I was studying Geology I had to take a literature course. We spent an entire semester reading some fictional novel about Native Americans. We had a ton of papers and the professor graded extremely hard. I was in the class with a bunch of other STEM majors and everyone absolutely hated the course. It took away a ton of time from being able to study important topics like Organic Chemistry and Calc. It provided NO benefit to our future professions and simply cost us time and money. 

 

We don't make trade schools teach liberal arts on top of learning how to wire a breaker box. Why should we force STEM majors to do the same? If k-12 is to prepare you for college with the a base load knowledge and knowhow then why do we need to repeat it at the university level? Most of it seems like a way to justify the jobs of some PhD academics who studied some obscure topic and then give them value by forcing their course on students who couldn't give a damn. 

 

If you have a kid who is an all-star at math let them focus on math. They're paying for it after all. Look at med school here in the US. You have to go 4 years undergrad before going for your MD. Plenty of countries out there that don't have this requirement and graduate very proficient doctors. You can go right to med school and your studies are all geared towards your future profession. 

 

When cost is a problem you have to find ways to cut the fat. 

I agree.  K-8 is the only thing that should be required.  Learn how to read and do basic math.  High School should be more rigorous and not be for everyone.  College should teach you your field of study for your career.  Get the bellow average students out of school and into the work force to start learning a trade at 14yrs old. This will make high school more valuable for someone who wants a general education and be knowledgeable about the world.  And removing the unnecessary fluff from a bachelors degree could give people back a year of their lives to enter the workforce as a professional and start earning/contributing a year earlier.  It also gives liberal arts professors intent on brainwashing an entire generation of young adults far less power.

 

 

[JAK]

In Shanghai at the moment. Been a bunch of times, but this is the first time since 2018, and the change in cars on the road astounded me. 
 

Firstly, the iconic VW Santana taxis seem to have been completely replaced by Roewe EVs. 

Secondly, EVs seems to be a double digit percentage of the cars on the road now. Impressive, although potentially biased in Shanghai as local license plates are costly and restricted unless EV.

 

Puzzled by affordability of car ownership here though..
 

Walked around the car park of a midrange apartment building and counted 5 Teslas, bunch of Chinese EVs, BMW, Porsche, Lexus… cars seem more high-end than an equivalent neighbourhood in Paris.

 

Is it all debt-funded status symboling? Or is it a sort of survivorship bias i.e. you don’t see the bangers, because the people who would drive a banger in the West, drive a scooter here? 

[james22]

1 hour ago, Castanza said:

...literature course.

 

A literature course today isn't even about literature.

 

If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it’s really not. It’s about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. 

 

https://www.samharris.org/blog/fighting

[Castanza]

16 minutes ago, rkbabang said:

I agree.  K-8 is the only thing that should be required.  Learn how to read and do basic math.  High School should be more rigorous and not be for everyone.  College should teach you your field of study for your career.  Get the bellow average students out of school and into the work force to start learning a trade at 14yrs old. This will make high school more valuable for someone who wants a general education and be knowledgeable about the world.  And removing the unnecessary fluff from a bachelors degree could give people back a year of their lives to enter the workforce as a professional and start earning/contributing a year earlier.  It also gives liberal arts professors intent on brainwashing an entire generation of young adults far less power.

 

 

Yup, in a world that is moving faster and faster we are lengthening the time it takes for kids to become mature adults and do "adult things." Higher education for 90% of the schools out there has just become one big daycare for immature 20 year-olds. Most kids today don't even have jobs when they are in their adolescence years. We have generations of 20 years-olds with no life experience, no work experience, mommy and daddy subsidized lifestyles, and mounds of debt with very little realistic expectations of the "real world." Instead of working through those self discovery/life challenge processes when they are 16-20 they are now doing it when they are 22-26. 

 

I was building and installing counter tops and cabinets with my dad when I was 13 on weekends. Had a small grass cutting business when I was 16. Worked a retail job on top of that 15-20hrs a week. Was a camp counselor every summer for a few weeks. Played school sports from 7th-12th grade. This wasn't anything special either! Most kids I knew had similar responsibilities in their life. Most kids today do a few volunteer things just to put on their college application and spend 80% of their time in sports trying to get a scholarship and call it a day. 

 

The US education system is creating less responsible people at older ages. It's going to be one Hell of a ride when the influencer/tiktok generation starts to have children. 

[boilermaker75]

@Castanza Similar story for me. I started with a paper route, I caddied, worked for the parks department mowing and lining baseball fields, then the street department that included riding the back of a garbage truck. If I ever had a doubt about getting a higher education, which I didn't, riding the back of the garbage truck erased it.

 

It has to start with the parents to instill a culture of hard work and grit. It is probably too late for the educational system to do it. Plus the educational system would need to be able to use discipline, which would require buy in from the parents. 

 

Edit: I would have loved to have a job like you did building cabinets counter tops. What a great skill to have learned.

Edited March 16, 2023 by boilermaker75

[Castanza]

@boilermaker75 I do see your perspective on liberal arts course and their importance. My perspective is more from a cost centric/time/efficiency basis than anything else. I do agree the humanities are important subjects of study…just difficult for me to see them fitting into higher education in its current state. 

[mcliu]

On 3/4/2023 at 9:20 PM, rohitc99 said:

+1

reminds me that old quote from churchil i think - Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others

 

Are the majority of people in more democratic countries like Mexico or India really better off than people in less democratic countries like Singapore or China?

[Dinar]

14 minutes ago, mcliu said:

Are the majority of people in more democratic countries like Mexico or India really better off than people in less democratic countries like Singapore or China?

They are clearly worse off than people in Singapore, as for China, I am not so sure.  Something about arbitrary arrests and zero rule of law is not terribly appealing....

[mcliu]

24 minutes ago, Dinar said:

They are clearly worse off than people in Singapore, as for China, I am not so sure.  Something about arbitrary arrests and zero rule of law is not terribly appealing....

Yeah but I'm talking quality of life for the majority of people..

 

Keep in mind that many parts of Mexico are run by cartels and there's a huge violent crime problem.

As for India, it's only 1/6 the GDP per capita and you need to contend with a highly discriminatory caste system.

 

If you remove the political freedom aspect, China seems to outperform Mexico/India in every metric, safety, healthcare, infrastructure, GDP per capita, life expectancy, education, maternal outcome.. 

 

 

Also saw this in today's WSJ:

Edited March 17, 2023 by mcliu

[Spekulatius]

10 hours ago, Ulti said:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-students-are-turning-away-from-college-and-toward-apprenticeships-15f3a05d

While I respectfully disagree with the liberal arts\humanities crap comment...

I've always been a proponent of " real life" education starting in high school...

vocational\ apprenticeship options as well as financial education for the masses.

Especially with the poor immigration policy this country has.

I studied Physics in Germany and never had to take a liberal art class at the University. I was supposed to know how to read and write when I started at the a University, that’s what the Abitur is for.

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

I studied Physics in Germany and never had to take a liberal art class at the University. I was supposed to know how to read and write when I started at the a University, that’s what the Abitur is for.

 

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

I studied Physics in Germany and never had to take a liberal art class at the University. I was supposed to know how to read and write when I started at the a University, that’s what the Abitur is for.

Well, that's unfortunate.  There is something to be said for core curriculum and being well-rounded.  I think physics majors should read Plato and philosophy majors should know who Emmy Noether and Paul Dirac were, as well as be familiar with Rontgen

[Jaygo]

12 hours ago, JAK said:

In Shanghai at the moment. Been a bunch of times, but this is the first time since 2018, and the change in cars on the road astounded me. 
 

Firstly, the iconic VW Santana taxis seem to have been completely replaced by Roewe EVs. 

Secondly, EVs seems to be a double digit percentage of the cars on the road now. Impressive, although potentially biased in Shanghai as local license plates are costly and restricted unless EV.

 

Puzzled by affordability of car ownership here though..
 

Walked around the car park of a midrange apartment building and counted 5 Teslas, bunch of Chinese EVs, BMW, Porsche, Lexus… cars seem more high-end than an equivalent neighbourhood in Paris.

 

Is it all debt-funded status symboling? Or is it a sort of survivorship bias i.e. you don’t see the bangers, because the people who would drive a banger in the West, drive a scooter here? 

It’s like this in Canada too. I would say most Chinese, Russian and Iranian people drive higher end cars than their neighboring native and European Canadians. 
 

it may be affluence or it could be a status thing I’m not sure. 
 

I’ve got a bit of money but couldn’t care less about my vehicle. I drive older pickups with dents and dings so when the next dent happens from my sons baseball i just say shit happens. My neighbor from tehran drives a Lamborghini suv. I don’t think he feels the same about his dents. 

[Spekulatius]

8 hours ago, Dinar said:

 

Well, that's unfortunate.  There is something to be said for core curriculum and being well-rounded.  I think physics majors should read Plato and philosophy majors should know who Emmy Noether and Paul Dirac were, as well as be familiar with Rontgen

You can do that on your own. I took many classes beyond my main subject (easy to do and didn't cost anything but the time effort). I took classes in biology, economy, operations research, marketing, public talk/presentation . I particular loved the classes in Marketing as it really opened my eyes in terms of how companies work, which lead me to investing.

 

The most important school and University will teach you is to study and research a topic on your own. Almost everything else is actually pretty fleeting.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Spekulatius

[Dinar]

14 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

When I was studying Geology I had to take a literature course. We spent an entire semester reading some fictional novel about Native Americans. We had a ton of papers and the professor graded extremely hard. I was in the class with a bunch of other STEM majors and everyone absolutely hated the course. It took away a ton of time from being able to study important topics like Organic Chemistry and Calc. It provided NO benefit to our future professions and simply cost us time and money. 

 

We don't make trade schools teach liberal arts on top of learning how to wire a breaker box. Why should we force STEM majors to do the same? If k-12 is to prepare you for college with the a base load knowledge and knowhow then why do we need to repeat it at the university level? Most of it seems like a way to justify the jobs of some PhD academics who studied some obscure topic and then give them value by forcing their course on students who couldn't give a damn. 

 

If you have a kid who is an all-star at math let them focus on math. They're paying for it after all. Look at med school here in the US. You have to go 4 years undergrad before going for your MD. Plenty of countries out there that don't have this requirement and graduate very proficient doctors. You can go right to med school and your studies are all geared towards your future profession. 

 

When cost is a problem you have to find ways to cut the fat. 

You can cut the host of college education by 80% without taking away liberal arts.  Here is how:

a) Get rid of government student loans, which will cost most universities to gut bureaucrats.  Harvard has more administrators than professors.  

b) Professors at places like Harvard/Yale/NYU teach 3 classes 12 weeks a year.  Divide the year into 3 12 week periods like at Stanford, and make professors teach 3 classes 36 weeks a year.  Voila!  50%+ cost savings

c) So suddenly tuition + room & board goes from $80K per year, to $30-40K.  Also, now with 3 12 week semesters rather than two, college can be done in 2.5 years.  So cost goes from $320K to $75-100K.

[rohitc99]

10 hours ago, mcliu said:

Are the majority of people in more democratic countries like Mexico or India really better off than people in less democratic countries like Singapore or China?

Cannot speak for Mexico, but can for India. Its tough to compare and its changing very rapidly in India. some of the indicators are changing and quality of life is improving a lot. In the next 5 years a lot of social indicators will be much better

 

Its difficult to say what is better ? having freedom, but worse economic indicators, or the other way around. The ideal would be both, but nothing is ever ideal

 

In Urban India, a lot of social and economic indicators are above world average. Its the rural areas where a lot of catch up has to happen

[james22]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

You can do that on your own.

 

This.

 

What you read outside or/after school should vastly dwarf what you read inside/during anyway.

[patience_and_focus]

On 3/16/2023 at 9:07 PM, Dinar said:

 

Well, that's unfortunate.  There is something to be said for core curriculum and being well-rounded.  I think physics majors should read Plato and philosophy majors should know who Emmy Noether and Paul Dirac were, as well as be familiar with Rontgen

+

Well rounded is squarely what Charlie has in mind when he talks about using breadth of knowledge for building mental models and applying them.

 

 

 

[patience_and_focus]

On 3/17/2023 at 5:45 AM, rohitc99 said:

Cannot speak for Mexico, but can for India. Its tough to compare and its changing very rapidly in India. some of the indicators are changing and quality of life is improving a lot. In the next 5 years a lot of social indicators will be much better

 

Its difficult to say what is better ? having freedom, but worse economic indicators, or the other way around. The ideal would be both, but nothing is ever ideal

 

In Urban India, a lot of social and economic indicators are above world average. Its the rural areas where a lot of catch up has to happen

It depends on what people want (when given a choice - autocracies don't count). Part of Western bias (in middle east) was assumption of wanting western style democratic states.

 

As for India, I have been told by numerous immigrants that people there are very independent minded in the sense that they don't like being told what to do and there is also huge diversity of language (> 25) and culture (like Europe). That is why it's like herding cats. But all in all people prefer their way / subcultures and are allowed to practice that. That is what matters.

Edited March 18, 2023 by patience_and_focus