Category: ideas

We isolate them together, seal them off, protect them from the larger world. It’s not like this in other cultures. So why is that? – Aeon

Meritocracy begins with the idea that people have to be measured on a scale of human value. So when we have decided that meritocracy is the way into higher education — or in particular into government, via higher education — it becomes an essential problem, because participation is then premised on the idea of achievement on a hierarchy of values which you may or may not have subscribed to in the first place. – Chronicle of Higher Education

When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well. – Human Parts

“Many people were likely stunned to read recently the announcement by Microsoft that AI was proving to be better at reading X-rays than trained radiologists. Most newspaper readers don’t realize how much of their daily paper is now written by AI. That wasn’t supposed to happen; robots were supposed to supplant manual labor jobs, not professional brainwork. Yet here we are: AI is quickly gobbling up entire professions—and those jobs will never come back.” – Scientific American

There’s a recognition that education — the value, the price, the product — has fundamentally shifted. The value of education has been substantially degraded. There’s the education certification and then there’s the experience part of college. The experience part of it is down to zero, and the education part has been dramatically reduced. You get a degree that, over time, will be reduced in value as we realize it’s not the same to be a graduate of a liberal-arts college if you never went to campus. You can see already how students and their parents are responding. – New York Magazine

Already, the University of Michigan anticipates losses of $400 million to $1 billion this year across its three campuses. California’s university system suffered $558 million in costs due to the coronavirus in March alone. Meanwhile, the number of students pursuing a college degree could be the smallest in two decades. – New York Magazine

Science is evidence-based. History is evidence. So why can’t we apply scientific method to history? Because historical record is a very messy business. – Aeon

Most kinds of longing can be settled in one way or another, if not necessarily to the satisfaction of the yearner. Nostalgia can only be lived in or abandoned: it is yearning distilled to its essence, yearning not really for its own sake but because there is nothing else to be done. – The Walrus

“Anger is epistemically valuable not just for the individual, but also for those around them. When co-opted skilfully by just causes, anger enables victims to identify similarities in their lived experiences, overcoming the superficial differences that drive them apart.” – Aeon

Dreams shroud the waking world, dazzling and disturbing it with mystery, perplexity, novelty, anxiety, terror, hope, and possibility. – Cultural Weekly