patrick.net

They want free money and provide no education. Trump said he will cut them off if they keep fucking kids over with high tuition.

Biden is their guy though, free tax dollars to colleges forever, keep the scam going. Forgive some debt to students to appear to be nice, but don’t cut subsidies for colleges that raised tuition costs to astronomical levels.

I too sometimes wonder why.

I think it’s a characteristic that my father had; “if the unwashed masses like someone or something, they’re wrong, because I know better than they.”

Addendum:
I think also that some academics actually envy and resent (then hate) those who succeed in the real world doing things, while they stay in the bubble, surrounded by youngsters and other envious people.

My friend’s daughter got a Phd a year ago, and got a part time teaching job, which ended.
She told me she’s finished with academia, and wants to work for a company.
“Some of my friends work at Google” she said enviously.
Of course, who knows if she can shoehorn her degree into a real job somewhere.

Academics are the people who got on the treadmill and rode it to the very end of the line and were rewarded with totally secure jobs doing work that’s easy and doesn’t take up much of their time. For fun they can do some research that confirms their biases or slams on someone or something they don’t like. They produce very little of any worth, many of whom don’t even teach their own classes or not very many and may not care how much of an education their students receive. And anything that threatens this status quo or their self-image as being wise men of letters who are to be respected and acknowledged for their dedication to the system.
Of course they don’t like a result-based criteria or a qualitative analysis of their work product. They know they don’t contribute meaningfully and often have a negative social worth, but they want their high pay and their community respect anyway.

Because they all know if the truth came out about them and what they've been doing to our children, a Patriotic mob would descend on their house in the middle of night and drag them out by their hair, and burn them alive as a warning for all who wish to overthrow and subvert our Nation.

If there is no freedom of thought then it's not academia, it's an indoctrination camp.

This is most likely the reason my kids will not be going to traditional "college". Brainwash my kid for 50K a year, nope.

It depends on field of study. Humanities are 95% SJW's/commies, so hatred for Trump is understandable. They are also the most numerous and loudest of faculty by virtue of having time for nonsense, so this is mostly what you hear. Engineering and exact sciences will have a mix of opinions, but those people usually have too little time on their hands to virtue signal. Unless they have failed in research, in which case they go into administration, and leftist virtue signaling is in job description.

There's an discussion between Camille Paglia and Peterson on this. Paglia calls them 'middlebrow hacks' and has choice words for Pomo/Poststructuralist

It's on youtube if you google.

Dbr6 says

Humanities are 95% SJW's/commies, so hatred for Trump is understandable. They are also the most numerous and loudest of faculty by virtue of having time for nonsense, so this is mostly what you hear. Engineering and exact sciences will have a mix of opinions

When I switched from liberal arts (German) to engineering (EE) I was shocked at the differences.

Liberal arts students argue forever because no one can prove anything, while
arguments between engineering students end quickly when one of them is proven
wrong. "No, that won't compile. Look."

Liberal arts students are pessimistic about getting a job, while engineering
students all happily know they will be employed.

I put that in my own screed in https://patrick.net/post/1336214/2020-10-31-readme#Universities It's kind of fun to quote myself now, since I tend to say the same things over and over.

Patrick,

The thing I find hilarious is that anyone pointing out STEM vs libarts then gets labeled as the equivalent of an academic racist, BUT some of these schools are now talking about creating differentials in the tuitions so that the STEM students will have to subsidize the liberal arts students. I actually wonder if they are seeing the pay differential between what you need to pay a STEM academic vs non-STEM. I don't know if there are standardized pay scales for public college teachers, but I can see this morphing into an ala-carte system eventually, and non-STEM faculty getting pay cuts. I think the differential is already starting to show in enrollments at colleges with strong technical programs vs the traditional "liberal arts" colleges.

Zak says

ome of these schools are now talking about creating differentials in the tuitions so that the STEM students will have to subsidize the liberal arts students.

It is already there - U of Illinois system has it to some extent. "High demand" majors pay more.

Zak says

I actually wonder if they are seeing the pay differential between what you need to pay a STEM academic vs non-STEM. I don't know if there are standardized pay scales for public college teachers, but I can see this morphing into an ala-carte system eventually, and non-STEM faculty getting pay cuts.

STEM profs get paid nearly the same than non-STEM when getting hired (may be 5K or so more), but if they bring in research grants (and nearly everyone does), their pay skyrockets, and I'd say in 10-15 years their salary is double or even more that of an average humanities prof, while having to teach twice less. Reason, of course, is that universities gobble up research grant overhead. If an engineering prof gets a $3M grant, $1M goes to school so VP for research can go to conferences in Hawaii and install a golden toilet in his office. Pay is also related to tenure discussions. Abolish tenure ---> pay engineering or computer sciences profs market salaries. For engineering, it would be >150K/year, while now they get hired at 80-90K.

Meanwhile, at UC Berkeley (salary + benefits)
Judith Butler: $343,800.00 + $57,998.00
Jeff Bokor: $220,308.00 + $24,648.00 (Bokor is EECS Department chair. Transparent California show "other pay" at + $74,045.00)

EBGuy says

Jeff Bokor: $220,308.00 + $24,648.00 (Bokor is EECS Department chair. Transparent California show "other pay" at + $74,045.00)

That is a reasonable salary for an engineer, esp if he is a Dept chair. "Other pay" is probably summer salary from his grants, as profs get paid for 9 months a year and have to find 3 months worth of salary from private/Federal grants.

Those who can't do, teach.

Yes, but one the downfalls with engineers is this. They believe they can model anything and therefore gravitate to the technocrat side of things. I regularly ate lunch in college with a group of 10 engineers. All psycho liberals with very high IQs.

theoakman says

Yes, but one the downfalls with engineers is this. They believe they can model anything and therefore gravitate to the technocrat side of things. I regularly ate lunch in college with a group of 10 engineers. All psycho liberals with very high IQs.

I don't see that here, it's a rather (un)healthy mix of political views. From people praying to a shrine of Trump in their homes all the way to shrieking anti-Trumpers.

Dbr6 says

All psycho liberals with very high IQs.

It's the standard liberal Shockley conceit that 'high IQ' means you can central plan the revolution down to its itsy bitsy street level consequences from an armchair because you are so smurf smart.

They have no concept of the puzzle pieces that make up the human species and the way they fit together, neither the variability nor the stochastics.

Because they got tenure.
Trump is keeping them from being able to buy more cheap shit from China.

A lot of them hate Republicans. Big education industrial complex has its side and ideologies of the left.

Liberals hired far Leftists.
Liberals retired.
Far Leftists only hire other far leftists.
Only Far Leftists get tenure; tenure committees, including at State U., ask political questions of any Liberal Arts tenure candidate.

Patrick says

Now and again I gently take on my Trump-hating colleagues. I point out that, however disagreeable his personality, being the first president in 40 years to not engage or escalate a war means an awful lot of people have avoided being killed. And an improved American economy meant better living conditions for those at the bottom of the heap. And then there was Trump’s potentially huge breakthrough in the Middle East peace process

Easily explained... you know when there’s a car accident and everyone mouth agape rubbernecks and slows down causing a traffic jam in disbelief. That’s been the collective world reaction for the last four years.

It’s one huge Mulligan for the US... woulda been business as usual had he gotten a second term. His presidency was a worldwide “time out”, maybe out of fear of unbridled retaliation? Maybe since Obama administration killed Osama... the terrorists are left an unfunded, disorganized mess for the time being. Maybe the US’s enemies are sitting back watching us foment a civil war and are binding their time!

Trump isn’t anti-war... he’s not a pacifist. His Twitter rhetoric and combative nature of defending his ego at all costs proves that. He loves making big threats and has done so numerous times. If North Korea hasn’t backed down that country would be a black hole right now and possibly one major US city would be nuked too if they actually had the capability. He inherited the military might of the US and swung that big military dick around the last 4 years as best he could.

He’s failed upwards his whole life... some people have extraordinary luck. It’s actually easy to win in negotiations with him... and I’ve said for years Democrats should have just kissed his ass and they could have gotten everything they wanted passed. He’s neither Republican or Democrat he’s a narcissist seeking ego boosting energy. It’s why he will shrivel up and die as soon as he’s out of the spotlight.

And the only President in history to get 11M more votes for his second term - with the massive indisputable fraud. In contrast, Obama lost 4M votes from 2008 in 2012.

Every day more unassailable proof of Chinese bribery and spying to/on politicians.

Screenshotting comments here and on twitter for posterity.

theoakman says

Yes, but one the downfalls with engineers is this. They believe they can model anything and therefore gravitate to the technocrat side of things. I regularly ate lunch in college with a group of 10 engineers. All psycho liberals with very high IQs.

I found that engineering majors at U. Michigan were rather apolitical.

Mostly they just wanted good problems to work on, and to make a lot of money upon graduation.

TrumpingTits says

proposing a program of total conscription

Hubba hubba! Get on the bus!

BoomAndBustCycle says

Trump isn’t anti-war... he’s not a pacifist. His Twitter rhetoric and combative nature of defending his ego at all costs proves that. He loves making big threats and has done so numerous times. If North Korea hasn’t backed down that country would be a black hole right now and possibly one major US city would be nuked too if they actually had the capability. He inherited the military might of the US and swung that big military dick around the last 4 years as best he could.

I don’t understand why you ask for physical evidence of voter fraud, yet spout of pure fairy tales like this.

"[T]he Trump era an unmitigated disaster"
No, the US system absorbs and mitigates, good and bad, by design, and will do the same with the upcoming Biden mitigated disaster.

TrumpingTits says

The technocracy movement proposed replacing politicians and businesspeople with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy.

This sounds so much like the "Scientific Socialism" the Soviets were always going on about.

BoomAndBustCycle says

He’s neither Republican or Democrat he’s a narcissist seeking ego boosting energy. It’s why he will shrivel up and die as soon as he’s out of the spotlight.

So who did you vote for and why?

Not expecting a cogent answer.

FuckTheMainstreamMedia says

don’t understand why you ask for physical evidence of voter fraud, yet spout of pure fairy tales like this.

So Trump never threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea back in 2017 in his UN speech?

I shouldn’t have taken him at his word he would nuke North Korea?

BoomAndBustCycle says

Trump isn’t anti-war... he’s not a pacifist. His Twitter rhetoric and combative nature of defending his ego at all costs proves that. He loves making big threats and has done so numerous times.

It’s all negotiation. For the idiots who don’t understand how this process works, it looks chaotic and undisciplined. That’s by design.
Let’s use a chess analogy. Two grandmasters are sitting at a table. They have all the time in the world to plan their next moves, and lots of advisors to help them find alternative strategies. Move and countermove. Nobody loses and nobody wins.
Trump came into that situation, sat down, and moved his knight diagonally to check Kim Jong Un’s king.
“You can’t do that!” exclaimed all the diplomats and spies, journalists and wonks.
But it seems that he did. He broke the rules to get a win. It doesn’t matter that he broke the rules. It seemed that he could do what he did, so he got away with it as a valid move. And NK was forced to respond to it.

Unfortunately, the Democrats have taken that strategy to heart, and broke the rules of the election to get a win. It doesn’t matter that they cheated. It LOOKED like they could do what they did. And appearances are all that matter.

Shaman says

He broke the rules to get a win. It doesn’t matter that he broke the rules. It seemed that he could do what he did, so he got away with it as a valid move. And NK was forced to respond to it.

Yeah, but his actions, tweets and threats have now become beyond predictable after 4 long years. He’s not a brilliant mind... and I doubt he knows the names of chess pieces let alone how to play.... but cute analogy.

Intelligence aside, Trump has become predictable. That’s doesn’t help him in any sort of future negotiations.

Ceffer says

It's the standard liberal Shockley conceit that 'high IQ' means you can central plan the revolution down to its itsy bitsy street level consequences from an armchair because you are so smurf smart.

Oh, that's not true of anybody that's worked with an evolutionary algorithm. You think you understand shit, then you are taught to make an evolutionary algorithm, and it comes up with a solution that is 1000 times better than you ever could have and did it 1000 times faster than you could have even solved the problem, terribly by the way.

The one thing learning about how an evolutionary algorithm worked, is it destroyed my conceit. It gave me a very robust belief in voting and group decision making. Competition is the core of an AI building itself up. I fear technocrats because they have no fucking idea what they are doing, the process is far more complicated than you can wrap your head around.

In the 1980's there were efforts to do optical character recognition and a lot of study into how you determine the letter "a" is indeed the letter "a". What are the properties of the letter? It's got a circle and to the right of it is a bar touching the circle. Sometimes it has a curve over it. And people thought and thought what is the abstract concept of each letter? Entire groups worked on the problem. This went on until evolutionary algorithms were put to the task in the early 1990s. By 1995 anything typed or printed was about 100% perfect with OCR. How does the algorithm work? Who the fuck knows, but it works. The AI recognizes probably 1000 more attributes than a human being could on what makes the letter "a" an "a".

In a free society, you end up with an algorithm as well solving problems. You might have 3 people solving the same problem, if society works properly, you end up with the best solution. When society is corrupted, like the USSR was, you can end up with some bureaucrat nutcase telling farmers when to plant their seeds, 300 miles away. We may go to that.

BoomAndBustCycle says

I shouldn’t have taken him at his word he would nuke North Korea?

No. This is Trump with North Korea:



Now this is Obama with North Korea:



Which one do you think is more likely to start a war? Which one tried most to make good relations and reduce tensions?

What Trump says is irrelevant. What he does is relevant. He's constantly negotiating. When he makes threats it's just part of his negotiation strategy. Trump stepped over the North/South DMZ zone into North Korea. If you did that, you'd most likely be shot. He's got balls. Most presidents are simpering cowards that would have insisted Kim Jong Un come to the United States. Trump just walked over the border and shook hands. Obama is cowering behind bullet proof glass looking though binoculars.

You think Biden is going to do anything like Trump did? How about Kamala Harris? Their job will be to escalate tensions. This allows them to sell more weaponry to Japan and to South Korea. They work for the "defense" industry, not for you.

BoomAndBustCycle says

Yeah, but his actions, tweets and threats have now become beyond predictable after 4 long years. He’s not a brilliant mind... and I doubt he knows the names of chess pieces let alone how to play.... but cute analogy.

Trump DOES have a brilliant mind. Who else could have taken on the intelligence agencies, the leadership of both parties, survive 3 years of attacks of our propaganda media, and get a massively larger number of votes in his 2nd term than his first?

They are resorting to a COUP to remove him. They had to do massive election fraud to remove him. So much election fraud, even 30% of the democratic voter base sees the election fraud.

He's been called a racist and a homophobic bigot for 4 years. Yet he got the largest number of black voters this time around, than any republican since the 1950s.

He has done what I've been trying to do for decades. He woke up 1/2 the country. He made 1/2 the country realize that our "news" is propaganda. He's showing systemic corruption in our government. 4 years ago, I thought our government was very corrupt. It is 100x worse than I realized but now at least 1/2 the country thinks the way I do because Trump was president. Things have to change.

In order to "beat" Trump, they've had to engage in blatant political censorship, deplatform people, promote propaganda ENDLESSLY. They had to show EVERY CARD they've got. Now you can see who the authoritarians are, you don't have to guess anymore. You no longer have to "suspect" the news media lies to you, you no longer have to "suspect" Big Tech works against you..

As of Today, it's NOT ALLOWED to question the validity of this very bizarre election where a senile old man that said this:

www.youtube.com/embed/WGRnhBmHYN0

Got the largest percentage of the population voting for him in all of American history. He's officially the most popular president we've ever had. Do you fucking believe that? 1/2 the country doesn't and it's probably MORE than that because people are afraid the coup may be successful. They are afraid for their job, they're afraid a Biden presidency will target them. They are afraid to stand up.

Do you know why they are doing this? It's their last stand. If Trump wins this, these assholes are going down. If Biden assumes the presidency, they're going to stick around, unfortunately, but having gotten the shit kicked out of them.

richwicks says

He's officially the most popular president we've ever had. Do you fucking believe that?

Yes, because Trump is the most disliked president in history for the far left and moderates just think he’s an asshat clown that should go away. You can’t deny hate for Trump is off the charts for close to 50% of the population. Hate drives out the vote best! Richwicks, you are arguing over a few percentage points in a few Democratic counties that pushed Biden over the top. Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes. That’s fraud on a scale that’s not mathematically possible.

As far as Trumps meeting with North Korea... it’s right up his alley. He’s a giant narcissist and Kim Kim Jong Un is a sycophant of the highest order. Narcissists and sycophants are a perfect match.

https://markchangizi.substack.com/p/some-of-the-shitty-things-about-academia?s=r&source=patrick.net

Some of the shitty things about academia
…and maybe it’s no wonder academia was so disappointing on Covid

Mark Changizi
11 hr ago
12
3
From 2018, on some of the reasons I left academia years earlier to secure more intellectual freedom. Takes on new implications after two years of failure from academia.

~~

Inspired today to list some of the shitty things about academia.

1/ Teaching a course, yet knowing that same course is available online by some super-teacher who does it better.

2/ Tenure, which, rather than incentivizing novel breakthroughs, tends to instead lead to complacency.

3/ “Grant shoppers”, professors who constantly scour proposal announcements and scheme about how they can cram their hammer into any hole. (Mixed metaphor.)

4/ Team grants, where one professor spins a bullshit story about how we dozen professors together will do groundbreaking work. The other eleven are like, “Sure, put my name on, whatever.”

5/ Giant lab fiefdoms, each determined to grow the largest.

6/ The lack of proper faculty lounges that faculty actual go to and socialize, rather than just go for lunches with the job candidate. (University College Cork actually has a proper one.)

7/ Students hope to do a PhD and come up with a heeyuge big new crazy idea. Instead they are plopped into a lab, asked to do professor’s experiment i+1.

8/ The money. The only way to have it truly rise is to leave for another university, or successfully threaten to do so.

9/ Seeing some great engineering minds incentivized to do stupid bullshit with $5 million grants, delivering a dead fish. Their effect in private enterprise could be explosive.

10/ How every professor thinks he’s / she’s the paradigm example of “multidisciplinary”, but nearly all of them are...so...not.

11/ Spending most of one’s energy and time on applying for grants. ...grants that then tie one’s creativity down.

12/ Going to conferences, and seeing the “stars” of the field, and the fawning, and they all really truly believe they are stars. But no one gives a shit outside that room.

13/ At a talk and someone casually jests about how the Republican president is a fascist, as is anyone not sufficiently far left. Everyone giggles. The three libertarians sigh to themselves.

14/ The denouncements and petitions, treating campus as a microcosm of the injustices of the world, or the world they fantasize exists.

15/ The squelching of free speech for anyone not sufficiently far left: stealing conservative newspapers, disrupting talks, forcing professors out.

16/ Professors are always traveling to exotic locations for conferences on their grant’s dime. It’s not because they’re producing anything. It’s a racket, on the government’s dime.

17/ That undergraduates pay absurd tuition for the privilege of having the best professors try their damnedest to stay as far as possible from them.

18/ That graduate students actually believe that there’s a good probability they’ll get a good job.

19/ That the idea of being outside of academia is deemed a horrible failure. (Once outside, the hypnotic appeal dissipates immediately.)

20/ That it’s no place for theorists, yet theorists are needed more than ever. Yardstick of success is largely grants, and grants are almost exclusively experiments.

21/ Seeing entire careers determined by virtue of the research of his/her mentor in grad school he / she happened into. First grant easier if on same topic. Second grant easier if on that too. Etc for 40 years.

22/ How whole swaths of biology and neuroscience professors believe in evolution, but for all practical purposes don’t, because they believe that to actually hypothesize about it amounts to “just so” stories.

23/ And how in the behavioral sciences, if you use evolution to explain anything, you are either deeply confused or fascist, or both.

I thought this was a joke at first, but it's not, and I have to agree (except that Trump should not be promoting the dangerous and ineffective vaxx):

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-was-right-about-everything-opinion-1688325?source=patrick.net

BoomAndBustCycle says

Biden won the popular vote by 7 million votes.

Irrelevant. We live in a republic. Thank God we don't live in a democracy.

BoomAndBustCycle says

richwicks says

He's officially the most popular president we've ever had. Do you fucking believe that?

Yes, because Trump is the most disliked president in history for the far left and moderates just think he’s an asshat clown that should go away. You can’t deny hate for Trump is off the charts for close to 50% of the population.

Sure I can.

There has been people working on the internet PRECISELY because we realized decades ago that our news media is propaganda and we wanted to destroy it.

Trump did some major heavy lifting. Today, CNN has less viewers at any given time than moderately popular people in a basement just spouting off. They have less than 1 million viewers at any given time, and most of those are geriatrics that don't know how to use the Internet.

Biden wasn't elected. If he was, audits wouldn't be a problem, there wouldn't be people getting involved to block them, there wouldn't have been a MAJOR overhaul of the election system that was illegal at the last second over this "pandemic". He's a CIA installed puppet. We've had puppets for a long time. The trick is two puppets run against another, and it doesn't matter who wins. This is why, for example, Mitt Romney is a RINO - he's not a RINO - he's a CIA asset, just as Obama is, just as John McCain was, just as George W. Bush is, just as John Kerry is, etc.

The American populace HATES these criminals, the midwits, they are too dumb to recognize they are just criminals. They are allowed to be open, blatant, obvious criminals PROVIDED they do the bidding of the CIA. We have a puppet as president, doesn't matter if he's senile, corrupt, or a literal pedophile - and he's all those - our DOJ will do nothing about it, and our CIA is group of criminals.

clambo says

Of course, who knows if she can shoehorn her degree into a real job somewhere.

She could probably get a gig writing Anti-Russia propaganda, some covid scare stories, end of the world climate change narratives, white entitilement tales, etc. for Yahoo!