I think that is exactly it. One rarely sees explicitly woke institutions grow to prominence, but often see them take over institutions. Conquest's second law in action.
Yes, Brennan and Magness' work is great, and your review was really good too! The behaviors are exactly as you point out, and when you think of what could be done with those resources... well that's a whole other essay boiling away, coming soon :)
🗨 The people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, while those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and eventually are eliminated entirely.
Or Robert Conquest's 3rd law of politics, for that matter 😉 ↓↓
🗨 The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.
It was awesome! :) A big help too; there are so many ways to go with this sort of thing that it gets all over the place, especially with multiple people looking at it. Your helping the focus was great.
Congratulations to you and the missus, and the little missives.
Good topic, along with the pattern of adjuncts and exponential lending. I did a little piece on student debt that I think was before your time at 3P. I'll link it, just in case you need a little more fuel for the fire--and who doesn't, with what you're burning through? https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/reinventing-education
Your PDF report you link to in your post has some great information. Crazy that they'd rather hire overpriced DEI commissars than full-time professors. Almost like they're in the business of cult-like indoctrination instead of education.
Funny that the woke never seem to ask, if America's institutions are so deeply and systemically white supremacist, why do the leaders of those institutions dump such an inordinate amount of money and resources on signaling their commitment to DEI? And when exactly did MLK, Malcolm X, or Marcus Garvey -- i.e., men who contended with actual white supremacists -- get paid big money to design curricula for elite universities like the DEI grifters do? I guess real white supremacist societies have a tendency not to feed the DEI gravy train.
I know, right?! The logic of the whole process is so insane. If these institutions are so evil, those hired as DEI admins must just be collaborators working to obscure the harms done to their own people.
I the institutions are not white supremacism machines, then the DEI admins are just there as political or ideological officers. Which, you know what, fine, that's a thing. Catholic schools hire priests to tend to the flock, whatever. The difference is they don't ask and receive tax dollars from people who don't agree with them to do it. If someone wants to found a private Woke U., go for it, but tax payers shouldn't have to pay to spread a religion they don't agree with.
Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that article before, but the theme is pretty well known. I have had papers rejected by reviewers on the grounds of "I don't like the conclusion", and I have seen published papers that apparently got accepted on the reverse. When you have such a strong monoculture with no practical feedback (theories in papers don't have to work to succeed) it is a super breeding ground for confirmation bias. See the Sokal debacle. (And the related follow ups whose name I can't remember, but one involved examining the genitals of 10,000 dogs at a dog park over a few weeks while studying rape culture in dog parks, and won an award.)
I think Dutton is right, academia will utterly collapse. Another reason for this is the "elite" institutions are essentially private capital management firms (their endowment funds) with education being tiny hobby business (I forget who brought that to my attention).
Since the results are entirely divorced from the market, they can engage in any amount of dog junk examination and it's no matter to them.
That naturally leads to a lot of people having wasted huge amounts of time and resources and ending up with nothing to show for it, but here we are.
The future of education is going to be results-based and fragmented. Thank God.
You should see about going onto Dutton's show, I'm sure the conversation will be hilarious and informative.
I really hope you and Dutton are right. I have about 9 years before my oldest gets to college age, and while I think she would do really well in a classical education environment, the modern monster wearing its face would be awful for her. I definitely agree though that the current trajectory just isn't sustainable, with businesses actively looking for other alternatives to the college filter, but I fear that the schools are so heavily funded by the state (and their endowments as you rightly point out) that they will be lagging heavily in correcting their ways. It might take decades before they really turn themselves around, and even then only long after a new pseudo religious mania grips political discourse.
I will check Dutton out. I have seen his name a bit now that you mention it, but I haven't been listening to pod casts much in the past 2 years, a casualty of no longer having a morning commute :) Thanks for the tip!
I'm going to be offering to pay (assuming thing play out in the markets, which means the USD collapses, and anything tangible moons in purchasing power compared to GAE fluffed "assets") my spawn to complete the Trivium, along with a completion bonus for having proved competency of it with a proctor.
Part of that goes directly to them, part of that goes into a fund they can access when they reach a certain age.
Any other education will be similar (e.g. why not pay them to learn to weld, chemistry, code, etc.?). All this is now online, much of it for free.
IMO, you're going to pay for the education one way or another, why not pay it to them, and make it results-based?
Also: Fuck these fucking pompous pseudointellectual poofs, they've proven they're not fit for purpose.
Aye, I plan to be doing a lot of home schooling of my kids. I was personally very lucky to have two parents very interested in both education (both being teachers, literally in one case and next best in the other) and wide readers with many interests. One reason I am trying to pick up as many different practical skills as I can, besides just liking it, is so I can teach my girls lots of different things. Want to try welding? Dad's got some steel angle iron he wants to make into a shelf, so let's fire up the flux welder. Want to program something? Let's get Netlogo going and learn some interactive system dynamics in the process. What's virtue ethics you ask? Well, you didn't but we have a long drive to grandma's ahead of us, so strap in... Etc. Quality time and actual education can go hand in hand, and they sure as hell aren't getting either in school. Then when they get older to start researching things themselves they can teach me new things, knowing there is a lot to learn.
I'm going to step right up to the cliff edge here, but I kinda have to... Probably the most important thing you can do is educate them about, and convince them to let you help them in mate selection. ESPECIALLY for women.
Mike Rowe (the Dirty Jobs TV guy) has a scholarship foundation for vocational learning for "blue collar" jobs. There are probably links there to other similar stuff.
Joel Kotkin's demographic-economic research indicates that globalist financiers digital capitalists are intent on imposing neo-feudalism on the working classes.
"Wokeism" is a fake religion, using the power of advertising, intended to control the masses under neo-feudalism.
Here you are: half a dozen years back, the intrepid hoaxer-threesome Peter Boghossian & Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay penned their series of hilarious articles, incl the ‘notorious’ Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at the Dog Park 🤸
Impressive that you and your co-authors are doing some serious work to fight-back against these trends.
I don't know enough about the market structure of your universities, but if these universities are inflating their costs significantly then there should be room for some competition? I know it isn't easy to set up universities and there are a whole load of forces against it, but perhaps this has to be the way? The new university at Austin is an example perhaps?
You hit pretty much both points: starting new uni's is hard, and competition isn't strong for other reasons. So much of the value of the degree is the name recognition of the school, and students want to go to schools they have heard of, so it is hard to crack into the industry just by having a good program. The other issue of price is that almost no one pays the sticker price, both because of "financial aid" driven price discrimination that is the envy of every industry, and "free" student loans from the government. Price sensitivity is thus extremely low, a bill that shows up in the distant future when you also are supposed to have gotten an amazingly high paid job where you work in a meaningful and fulfilling job saving the world. The fact most get a below national median salary in a grey cubicle farm comes as a bit of a shock to most students.
I am hopeful about the University at Austin. I think the only real answer to all this mess is to get the government out of universities entirely, and just have lots of different schools competing over a mix of ideology and practical job training at various price points. I don't have a real problem if someone wants to go to Catholic school or Woke school or whatever, so long as my tax dollars are not paying for it.
Government is doing the dirty work (indoctrination) for global finance and "woke" corporations.
Taking the (corrupt) government out of education is necessary, but the vacuum created will just be filled with education directly funded and controlled by corporations.
The underlying "sense making system" is broken on multiple levels.
DEI and all the other "woke" stuff (postmodern neomarxism) is just a GRIFT.
RACE-GRIFTER-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX
VICTIM-NARRATIVE-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX
GRIEVANCE-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX
I think that is exactly it. One rarely sees explicitly woke institutions grow to prominence, but often see them take over institutions. Conquest's second law in action.
Yes, Brennan and Magness' work is great, and your review was really good too! The behaviors are exactly as you point out, and when you think of what could be done with those resources... well that's a whole other essay boiling away, coming soon :)
I will give a +1 to Parr's review of Brennan and Magness, with the caveat that I did not read the book.
Cue Jerry Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy ↓↓
🗨 The people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, while those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and eventually are eliminated entirely.
Or Robert Conquest's 3rd law of politics, for that matter 😉 ↓↓
🗨 The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.
It was awesome! :) A big help too; there are so many ways to go with this sort of thing that it gets all over the place, especially with multiple people looking at it. Your helping the focus was great.
Congratulations to you and the missus, and the little missives.
Good topic, along with the pattern of adjuncts and exponential lending. I did a little piece on student debt that I think was before your time at 3P. I'll link it, just in case you need a little more fuel for the fire--and who doesn't, with what you're burning through? https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/reinventing-education
Your PDF report you link to in your post has some great information. Crazy that they'd rather hire overpriced DEI commissars than full-time professors. Almost like they're in the business of cult-like indoctrination instead of education.
Funny that the woke never seem to ask, if America's institutions are so deeply and systemically white supremacist, why do the leaders of those institutions dump such an inordinate amount of money and resources on signaling their commitment to DEI? And when exactly did MLK, Malcolm X, or Marcus Garvey -- i.e., men who contended with actual white supremacists -- get paid big money to design curricula for elite universities like the DEI grifters do? I guess real white supremacist societies have a tendency not to feed the DEI gravy train.
I know, right?! The logic of the whole process is so insane. If these institutions are so evil, those hired as DEI admins must just be collaborators working to obscure the harms done to their own people.
I the institutions are not white supremacism machines, then the DEI admins are just there as political or ideological officers. Which, you know what, fine, that's a thing. Catholic schools hire priests to tend to the flock, whatever. The difference is they don't ask and receive tax dollars from people who don't agree with them to do it. If someone wants to found a private Woke U., go for it, but tax payers shouldn't have to pay to spread a religion they don't agree with.
"but tax payers shouldn't have to pay to spread a religion they don't agree with."
Hey, that's in the Constitution!
Pournelle's and Conquest's laws strike me as quite decent attempts at answer 😉
You'll probably want to read this, even if you may not enjoy it...
It’s Official: Leftist Researchers Lie. That’s Why Universities Are Doomed - EDWARD DUTTON
https://www.unz.com/article/its-official-leftist-researchers-lie-thats-why-universities-are-doomed/
Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that article before, but the theme is pretty well known. I have had papers rejected by reviewers on the grounds of "I don't like the conclusion", and I have seen published papers that apparently got accepted on the reverse. When you have such a strong monoculture with no practical feedback (theories in papers don't have to work to succeed) it is a super breeding ground for confirmation bias. See the Sokal debacle. (And the related follow ups whose name I can't remember, but one involved examining the genitals of 10,000 dogs at a dog park over a few weeks while studying rape culture in dog parks, and won an award.)
I think Dutton is right, academia will utterly collapse. Another reason for this is the "elite" institutions are essentially private capital management firms (their endowment funds) with education being tiny hobby business (I forget who brought that to my attention).
Since the results are entirely divorced from the market, they can engage in any amount of dog junk examination and it's no matter to them.
That naturally leads to a lot of people having wasted huge amounts of time and resources and ending up with nothing to show for it, but here we are.
The future of education is going to be results-based and fragmented. Thank God.
You should see about going onto Dutton's show, I'm sure the conversation will be hilarious and informative.
I really hope you and Dutton are right. I have about 9 years before my oldest gets to college age, and while I think she would do really well in a classical education environment, the modern monster wearing its face would be awful for her. I definitely agree though that the current trajectory just isn't sustainable, with businesses actively looking for other alternatives to the college filter, but I fear that the schools are so heavily funded by the state (and their endowments as you rightly point out) that they will be lagging heavily in correcting their ways. It might take decades before they really turn themselves around, and even then only long after a new pseudo religious mania grips political discourse.
I will check Dutton out. I have seen his name a bit now that you mention it, but I haven't been listening to pod casts much in the past 2 years, a casualty of no longer having a morning commute :) Thanks for the tip!
I'm going to be offering to pay (assuming thing play out in the markets, which means the USD collapses, and anything tangible moons in purchasing power compared to GAE fluffed "assets") my spawn to complete the Trivium, along with a completion bonus for having proved competency of it with a proctor.
Part of that goes directly to them, part of that goes into a fund they can access when they reach a certain age.
Any other education will be similar (e.g. why not pay them to learn to weld, chemistry, code, etc.?). All this is now online, much of it for free.
IMO, you're going to pay for the education one way or another, why not pay it to them, and make it results-based?
Also: Fuck these fucking pompous pseudointellectual poofs, they've proven they're not fit for purpose.
Aye, I plan to be doing a lot of home schooling of my kids. I was personally very lucky to have two parents very interested in both education (both being teachers, literally in one case and next best in the other) and wide readers with many interests. One reason I am trying to pick up as many different practical skills as I can, besides just liking it, is so I can teach my girls lots of different things. Want to try welding? Dad's got some steel angle iron he wants to make into a shelf, so let's fire up the flux welder. Want to program something? Let's get Netlogo going and learn some interactive system dynamics in the process. What's virtue ethics you ask? Well, you didn't but we have a long drive to grandma's ahead of us, so strap in... Etc. Quality time and actual education can go hand in hand, and they sure as hell aren't getting either in school. Then when they get older to start researching things themselves they can teach me new things, knowing there is a lot to learn.
I'm going to step right up to the cliff edge here, but I kinda have to... Probably the most important thing you can do is educate them about, and convince them to let you help them in mate selection. ESPECIALLY for women.
Mike Rowe (the Dirty Jobs TV guy) has a scholarship foundation for vocational learning for "blue collar" jobs. There are probably links there to other similar stuff.
Joel Kotkin's demographic-economic research indicates that globalist financiers digital capitalists are intent on imposing neo-feudalism on the working classes.
"Wokeism" is a fake religion, using the power of advertising, intended to control the masses under neo-feudalism.
I envy your proximity to Bryan Caplan in this regard. Seems like a nice role model for home schooling.
💬 whose name I can't remember
Here you are: half a dozen years back, the intrepid hoaxer-threesome Peter Boghossian & Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsay penned their series of hilarious articles, incl the ‘notorious’ Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at the Dog Park 🤸
That's what it was! Thank you!
Excellent!
Thank you, madam!
Impressive that you and your co-authors are doing some serious work to fight-back against these trends.
I don't know enough about the market structure of your universities, but if these universities are inflating their costs significantly then there should be room for some competition? I know it isn't easy to set up universities and there are a whole load of forces against it, but perhaps this has to be the way? The new university at Austin is an example perhaps?
You hit pretty much both points: starting new uni's is hard, and competition isn't strong for other reasons. So much of the value of the degree is the name recognition of the school, and students want to go to schools they have heard of, so it is hard to crack into the industry just by having a good program. The other issue of price is that almost no one pays the sticker price, both because of "financial aid" driven price discrimination that is the envy of every industry, and "free" student loans from the government. Price sensitivity is thus extremely low, a bill that shows up in the distant future when you also are supposed to have gotten an amazingly high paid job where you work in a meaningful and fulfilling job saving the world. The fact most get a below national median salary in a grey cubicle farm comes as a bit of a shock to most students.
I am hopeful about the University at Austin. I think the only real answer to all this mess is to get the government out of universities entirely, and just have lots of different schools competing over a mix of ideology and practical job training at various price points. I don't have a real problem if someone wants to go to Catholic school or Woke school or whatever, so long as my tax dollars are not paying for it.
Government is doing the dirty work (indoctrination) for global finance and "woke" corporations.
Taking the (corrupt) government out of education is necessary, but the vacuum created will just be filled with education directly funded and controlled by corporations.
The underlying "sense making system" is broken on multiple levels.
yet another example of gross "woke" corruption:
MORE BIDEN WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION, FREE SPEECH SCANDAL, PRESS CENSORSHIP.
disinformationchronicle. substack. com /p/new-emails-biden-white-house-behind
disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/new-emails-biden-white-house-behind
(BMJ = British Medical Journal)
Nice work, dude!
Congrats on your new house, happy for you.
Thank you! There's a lot of fixing to do, but I suppose I didn't have other big plans for the next 4-5 months :D
(actually I do, but with luck I can outsource much of the work)