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mrbluze writes:
"An interesting blog post by Charles Hugh Smith on Why Banks Are Doomed: Technology and Risk.:
The funny thing about technology is that those threatened by fundamental improvements in technology attempt to harness it to save their industry from extinction. For example, overpriced colleges now charge thousands of dollars for nearly costless massively open online courses (MOOCs) because they retain a monopoly on accreditation (diplomas). Once students are accredited directly--an advancement enabled by technology--colleges' monopoly disappears and so does their raison d'etre.
The same is true of banks. Now that accounting and risk assessment are automated, and borrowers and owners of capital can exchange funds in transparent digital marketplaces, there is no need for banks. But according to banks, only they have the expertise to create riskless debt.
...
One last happy thought: technology cannot be put back in the bottle. The financial/banking sector wants to use technology to increase its middleman skim, but the technology that is already out of the bottle will dismantle the sector as a function of what technology enables: faster, better, cheaper, with greater transparency, fairness and the proper distribution of risk.
There may well be a place for credit unions and community banks in the spectrum of exchanges, but these localized, decentralized enterprises would be unable to amass dangerous concentrations of risk and political influence in a truly transparent and decentralized system of exchanges.
It's still early days, but can new electronic currencies such as Bitcoin become mainstream without the assent of governments?"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Monday February 24 2014, @11:48AM
While I think there are better ways to accomplish education... and many people squander their college years... What would you suggest here? Eliminate higher education? Sure, my "real world" education is worth 100x my college degree. (and cost 1/100th as much to obtain) But if I had not gone to college, I would have never been put in the position to obtain my real education in the field.
In the 90's it was all about go to an alternative trade school instead of a college filled with useless classes and wasted money. But those are so myopicly focused on just getting a few skills to get kids employed, that they totally skip on actually educating. You have tons of kids entering the workforce with skills that will be useless in a few years, rather than professionals that have the tools to learn new things.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Interesting) by starcraftsicko on Monday February 24 2014, @12:58PM
So which college is it that turns out these professionals you speak of instead of this other trash? Is there some special class? Does joining a fraternity make the difference? Special drugs? Casual sex? Parties? On credit?
I don't want to understate the value of formal education, but I don't think 'accredited colleges' have some magic answer that makes 'professionals with the tools'. You may be such a professional - I may even be one - but I don't think we can really say "because college".
Absent something definitive, I find the description of 'college' as an artificial monopoly on imaginary goods (accredited diplomas) to be spot on. You must have your ticket to board the middle class train, but that doesn't make it justice.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday February 24 2014, @02:06PM
I agree, this is pretty much true when one looks at what is actually taught in college these days. (or any "days").
The principal purpose of college is to serve as a sieve. To sift from the masses those with the natural talent and intelligence to manage civilization and society, and promote them into such positions in life.
This latter part, the promotion bit, is done mostly via good-old-boy-ism, with employers valuing the possession of a degree, (any degree) as a marker for someone who can be trusted to keep civilization on track, to preserve what we have built up over centuries. The employers view their role in this process as simple self interest, but it works nevertheless.
It's not what you learn in college, it's that you learned. You stuck it out. You finished what you started, and maybe even excelled at it. Any knowledge you picked up is a bonus.
College doesn't make people smart, or knowledgeable. It finds people who are, and who can manage their own lives while actually providing direction to society.
Just about every civilization on earth that ever rose beyond a simple agrarian level developed some of a sieve to find the people most capable.
Our current model is far from efficient, and far from the best, but I doubt you can consider it unjust. Its adaptive, self tuning, relatively unbiased (finally), conforms to the needs of society over time. Its too expensive, too rigid, wasteful, and a host of other undesirable things.
It's a sorting operation. It's a wheat from chaff sieve. And largely, the participants (students) themselves do the sorting, by making their own choices. When faced with the realities and requirements of being rocket scientists, most people choose something else. And civilization (and those who ride on rockets) are better off for it.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Monday February 24 2014, @02:49PM
Umm... I bet the girls that didn't get promoted by the good-old-boy-ism of the system can consider it unjust. And I'd agree with them. I suppose they should be grateful they are even allowed to vote.(sarcasm)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 24 2014, @03:26PM
Good-old-boy-ism means only hiring those with degrees, and freezing out the highschool graduate from pharmaceutical research, engineering jobs, etc.
That women were given short shrift is not a problem of the college/university system. Its a problem of society in general.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 2) by dmc on Monday February 24 2014, @03:35PM
Sorry, I guess I watched too much Dukes of Hazard when I was a kid, with the Good ol' Boys rad orange car with a confederate flag painted on it. I'm pretty sure Good-old-boy-ism has a long history of including racism against blacks, and sexism against women.
(Score: 2) by WildWombat on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:32AM
I have a huge problem with your whole post and the mindset that created it.
The point of college should be to learn. Looking at it as just a way to show that you're wheat and not chaff is a huge problem. People learn just enough to pass and exam before they forget it all. They take useless courses just because they're easier in order to get the credits they need. They don't care about the actual learning, because the reason they're there isn't to learn, its to be declared wheat so they've got a shot at a middle class life. This is the attitude of the majority of people attending college, and it shows. They largely don't care about the actual learning.
And since you're basically required to get a degree to have that shot at a middle class life the gatekeepers to the sieve can charge exorbitant amounts, which they do. This burdens a significant portion of our society with crippling debt. Do our doctors and nurses and lawyers actually need their schooling? Of course. But far too many jobs require a degree that actually don't need one and that doesn't do society any good.
All of the above also completely leaves out that a significant portion of society is excluded from passing through your sieve because they don't have the funds to do so. So you mark them as 'chaff' and excluded from having any real say in our society. Excluding a large portion of your society from participating and having a real stake and say in society is NOT the way to make it stronger.
That whole outlook that if you don't have a degree you're the 'chaff' of society is terribly elitist and morally repugnant. Aren't plumbers helping maintain civilization? Aren't carpenters? Is everyone without a degree really so useless?
Cheers,
-WW
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:40AM
It may be morally repugnant, to you, but lets be realistic. You don't want someone who had trouble passing high school, and flunked out of college as a freshman operating on you or your child.
All of that easy to talk, but hard to walk egalitarianism quickly falls by the wayside in the real world.
Besides, I believe your indignation is based on built in bias that you don't even realize you exhibit, namely, that someone not qualified to be an engineer, a surgeon, or a nuclear physicist is somehow useless. You seem to think farming is some how less useful to society than microbiology. You sound like being a great engine mechanic is a failure compared to someone than writing operating systems.
Selection for career paths is necessary. Might not be the way you think the world should be run, but let me clue you to a little secret: All men are not created equal !!! I know, right, who knew? My buddy Shaq was astounded to learn this.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 2) by WildWombat on Tuesday February 25 2014, @04:41AM
--"You don't want someone who had trouble passing high school, and flunked out of college as a freshman operating on you or your child."
I specifically wrote that doctors need their schooling.
--"Besides, I believe your indignation is based on built in bias that you don't even realize you exhibit, namely, that someone not qualified to be an engineer, a surgeon, or a nuclear physicist is somehow useless. You seem to think farming is some how less useful to society than microbiology. You sound like being a great engine mechanic is a failure compared to someone than writing operating systems."
I don't understand how you could get that from what I wrote. Your post was the one denigrating farmers and mechanics and everyone else lacking a college diploma as 'chaff.' I was arguing that they're not chaff, that they're vital to society.
--"Selection for career paths is necessary. Might not be the way you think the world should be run, but let me clue you to a little secret: All men are not created equal !!! I know, right, who knew? My buddy Shaq was astounded to learn this."
Selection for careers is necessary. My comment was that with the exception of some professions such as doctors, college shouldn't be that selector. It makes ineligible the many bright and qualified people who can't afford college. It forces everyone who wants a shot at those jobs that don't require specialized schooling to attend four years of college and spend an exorbitant amount of money to do so. They must do so not because what they'll learn there is necessary for the job but solely to make themselves look better than some of the other people also applying for the job. That doesn't benefit society.
Your tone and sarcasm also seem to indicate that the complete misinterpretation and twisting of the words I wrote into something the complete opposite of what was meant was purposeful. Bad form frojack.
Cheers,
-WW
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 24 2014, @02:59PM
So which college is it that turns out these professionals you speak of instead of this other trash? Is there some special class? Does joining a fraternity make the difference? Special drugs? Casual sex? Parties? On credit?
Think of accredation as a standard, not a product. Some email clients are better than others but they should all talk SMTP. Just as some universities are better than others they must all meet some basic minimum requirements.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by monster on Monday February 24 2014, @01:01PM
I would suggest treating education as what it is: An investment towards the common good, and not some business that must give profits. If that means public funding, so be it (no, it doesn't mean communism).
It was not so much ago that millionaires of their time like Carnegie, Mellon and others knew that a good, affordable education system was also in their own good, not only because a cultured worker may perform his job better and be able to easily adapt to many tasks but also because they were able to remember being of a lower class and working hard to improve, unlike the new uberriches who, like the old world nobility, were born rich, were schooled among other rich people, took some classes and developed connections with other rich in some Ivy League college and afterwards went to work in their parents' or friends' corporations (take that, meritocracy!).
A good, affordable education system does wonders for upward social mobility. It's not only about education, it's about what kind of society we want.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Nobuddy on Monday February 24 2014, @11:34PM
I disagree. When i went in to IT, there were no IT degrees.
none. anywhere.
You could be an EE, or a degree in mathematics, or business... And maybe have a digital/computer systems focus. Maybe... schools that has such were rare as hen's teeth.
So, to enter the field, you had to be self taught. I argue that NOTHING better prepares you for keeping your skills up to date than having to learn them on your own. Through the years I saw degrees form, and people start arriving with these degrees. And they knew nothing- if I was lucky. Most were so mal-informed and outdated that they were a negative overall benefit compared to hiring someone who knew nothing. And as I sit here teaching a recent grad how to be a sysadmin, I argue that this has not changed one iota in the 20 years interim. I'd rather teach some gamer kid how to do this job. At least he is more likely to shut up about what he has already learned and actually pay attention to what he's being taught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @12:51AM
This seems odd to me, since the first Computer Science degree in the US was offered in 1962... so does that mean you got your degree before that? Are you really over 70?
(Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:43PM
Not all that odd, when you consider that a computer science degree has about as much to do with IT as an Astronomy degree has to do with crafting telescope optics.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @09:39PM
Said by someone who clearly didn't study computer science in the '70s and '80s, before "IT" became all about networking PCs, setting up e-mail, file servers, printers, and antivirus. Back then, you had to understand both computing theory and how machines actually worked.
Before Token Ring, Banyan Vines and Ethernet changed the face of business computing, "IT" as we know it today didn't exist - so of course there were no degrees in the field.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25 2014, @11:11PM
A computer science degree has a hell of a lot more to do with IT than EE, mathematics, or business do. Funny how you left out that option.
(Score: 1) by Nobuddy on Wednesday February 26 2014, @09:27PM
That was no more applicable than an EE or mathematics degree. It was just an EE focused on digital design.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @10:39PM
> It was just an EE focused on digital design.
Uh, yeah, digital circuits... those things computers are made out of?
Face it, the only "IT" that existed before minicomputers came along involved men in white coats plugging patch cords into panels, reading off blinkenlights, threading magnetic tapes etc. It's just stupid to say there "were no IT degrees then." Information Technology IS computers.