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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: 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