There is probably no better indicator of the intellectual decline of our culture than the status of our dictionaries and encyclopedias. The latter have completely disappeared in physical form. Their position has been taken by Wikipedia, which is constantly updated in an attempt to soil our heritage and misinform us about current events. Yet, even… Continue reading Idiocracy Rising: Dictionary Definitions
I’m not convinced of the idea of intelligence being a multi-faceted phenomenon. Normally, people with a high level of mathematical ability also have a high level of linguistic ability, for instance. I am not aware of any example to the contrary and whenever I hear someone say that they are “not good at maths” I… Continue reading High Verbal Intelligence Makes You Stupid
There is a rather curious development going on in large parts of the Western world. As far as I know, in countries like the United States, England, Germany, Sweden, and probably a few others, the teaching profession is seemingly the exclusive reserve for the absolutely dumbest students. I recall reading studies of the average IQ… Continue reading Our Dumbest Shall Educate Our Kids!
What sometimes baffles me is how little people seem to care about anything. No matter where you look, they are only half-assing it. Phoning it in is absolutely an art form in public administration, industry, education, and everywhere else. When was the last time you had a craftsman come who did not cut some corners?… Continue reading A Lot of People Don’t Make Any Effort (Particularly in Higher Education)
It is all-too-easy to bash non-technical degrees. That is not to say that there is no bullshit in technical degrees. (There is, but that would be a story for another post.) What I want to take aim at is the one fundamental weakness of the former. It is a fundamentally flawed understanding of the scientific… Continue reading The Biggest Problem of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Occasionally, people ask me for career advice, either my opinion on particular fields or on how they should approach choosing a career. The focus is generally on what kind of degree to choose. In this post, I present a brief summary of the problem. A general issue is that people are almost myopically focused on… Continue reading A Quick Guide to Picking a University Degree
Earlier this year I made a few fundamental changes to my lifestyle, which, among others, freed up significant chunks of time. This made it possible for me to read a lot more books, but the more books I read, the more I think that I am frequently only wasting my time with them. A case… Continue reading Review: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
I recently had a coaching call with a teenager who wanted my input on the subjects he considered studying. As so often, his teachers told him nonsense along the lines of any degree being a good degree. He was even told that the university would not matter that much because “a first is a first”.… Continue reading How Academic Unemployment is Covered Up
That universities have been bending the rules for women is well known. Just look at how the SAT has been changed to improve the results of women, or take into account that admissions procedures for many competitive degree programmes, such as medicine, give women a leg up in the interview to make up for their… Continue reading Oxford University is bending the rules for women
The big promise of widening access to higher education in the 1970s was that people would get better jobs and make a lot more money. The leftist politicians who pushed for weakening standards to make sure that Tyrone and Jamal can get their B.A. in B.S., however, seem to have not realized that the number… Continue reading King’s College London’s Talent Bank proves that higher education is a bubble
