Major Complaints Thread (3 Viewers)

Fucking seanad though. The state of it. Can't even vote if you have a degree from the wrong university.

I find the whole philosophical side of it fascinating tbh. Trigger warning: Don't have a degree, cant vote in this thing.

Like the same debates roll out across twitter/social media on each lap of the seanad - elitist, undemocratic etc etc. I kinda think that if people object these tropes should have to be dug into. Like does it suggest a person has zero faith in third level education as a step up in life, a value?

There is also the valid argument that the peope who get degrees are people who can afford to get degrees. I'd like to very conveniently ignore that because my curiousity is on the societal value of education, the meritocratic side of things. I'm not really argueing with you, I just think its a good one for sitting about pretending your are plato in an imaginary hemi circular mini ampitheatre.
 
I find the whole philosophical side of it fascinating tbh. Trigger warning: Don't have a degree, cant vote in this thing.

Like the same debates roll out across twitter/social media on each lap of the seanad - elitist, undemocratic etc etc. I kinda think that if people object these tropes should have to be dug into. Like does it suggest a person has zero faith in third level education as a step up in life, a value?

There is also the valid argument that the peope who get degrees are people who can afford to get degrees. I'd like to very conveniently ignore that because my curiousity is on the societal value of education, the meritocratic side of things. I'm not really argueing with you, I just think its a good one for sitting about pretending your are plato in an imaginary hemi circular mini ampitheatre.
Great post.

I'd argue that in order for third level education to be any kind of philosophical step up in life or giver of value, i.e. instilling a wisdom for use in voting for the ostensibly more abstract "upper" house of parliament, it has to be treated as education should be treated but
UNDER NEOLIBERALISM
Irish universities increasingly treat it as a business with students as customers and degrees as product.

I don't know enough to say whether the Seanad should definitely be abolished or not but I suspect it should be.
 
Great post.

I'd argue that in order for third level education to be any kind of philosophical step up in life or giver of value, i.e. instilling a wisdom for use in voting for the ostensibly more abstract "upper" house of parliament, it has to be treated as education should be treated but
UNDER NEOLIBERALISM
Irish universities increasingly treat it as a business with students as customers and degrees as product.

I don't know enough to say whether the Seanad should definitely be abolished or not but I suspect it should be.

force.jpg
 
The other thing about the Seanad is that aside from the university panels, the other panels are 'supposed' to be made up of 'experts' or at least people with experience in the fields of those panels.
Instead of these, we get careerist politician gombeens on them that usually know nothing about the field of the panel they get elected on, but just get elected on a party basis.
 
JUST ANOTHER BOX TO TICK ON YOUR WAY TO A GOOD JOB


I was getting a bit anti degree / third level education at one point (which I think was slightly to do with the I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member logic).

But then I ended up working in a field doing computer science type stuff with clever people who never did any formal education in computer science, and this changed my mind.

It's not that the only way to enlightenment for coding or whatever is via a computer science degree, that's definitely not true. But having a degree helps get you an understanding of concepts, it makes learning stuff on the job later easier. And, I'll go further. The people in management, let's say with PhDs in chemistry or whatever, they regularly don't understand basic computer science concepts that a first / second year com sci undergrad would understand. They have a higher degree, and they are not interested, yet they make major decisions.

So, it ends up with this type of scenario:

> Oh yeaaah, that's a nice colour car!

Uh huh. But, like, there's some fairly major issues with those engines, also the only fuel it runs on is this one specific extremely expensive proprietary secret.

> But, dang, that paint job? Do you see it? It's... doing this shimmering job in the sun, watch... have a look!

No, yeah, I see the shimmering. It's nice. But the engines though, they...

> SO YOU'RE ON BOARD! Thanks for the consultation :)

No, No. I'm not. I'm not on board, I'm the opposite. The engines blow up, and go on fire. Driving them is misery and..

> Oh you! You're always the same with your weird picky choices. This car is new... it's sparkly. It's Enterprise grade. They've taken care of those issues, I'm sure. We need new cars, we need the latest ones, you can tell these are the latest because of the shimmering. Look. Have you seen it?

And so on. People with higher degrees in subjects are much less prone to falling for the PR / sales patter (when it's related to that subject).

Meh. So, now I'm more siding with the do the third level education, it helps. Even if it's not related to your work, I still think it helps. Just don't do it in the US and mortgage your future away, it's not worth that.
 
One more complaint, seeing as I'm complaining.

The other thing that fucks me off a bit about doing computery type stuff is the: Oh you technical people, you just understand this stuff! It's easy for you, you take care of that!

No one just understands that stuff. I learned it, and it was miserable. I spent hours and hours, staring at it, for months, years, went to college for it, obsessively going over it, and going back over it, reading more books, because you're always wrong, and if you're not wrong you're doing it in a shitty way.

So you have these two extremes, you have the people that know about what colour shimmery paint they like and therefore understand cars.

And there's the people tell you it's very easy, they obviously couldn't do it since they aren't technical, but it IS easy, and since you're technical you know this and will have it finished by 4-ish.
 
One more complaint, seeing as I'm complaining.

The other thing that fucks me off a bit about doing computery type stuff is the: Oh you technical people, you just understand this stuff! It's easy for you, you take care of that!

No one just understands that stuff. I learned it, and it was miserable. I spent hours and hours, staring at it, for months, years, went to college for it, obsessively going over it, and going back over it, reading more books, because you're always wrong, and if you're not wrong you're doing it in a shitty way.

So you have these two extremes, you have the people that know about what colour shimmery paint they like and therefore understand cars.

And there's the people tell you it's very easy, they obviously couldn't do it since they aren't technical, but it IS easy, and since you're technical you know this and will have it finished by 4-ish.
For what it's worth, I sympathize. I don't know what is worse, the idea that the "the arts" aren't technical or the idea that they're only for smug pricks looking down on the riff-raff who don't spend all day reading Derrida.

I am in favour of university education, but for its own sake, and most of the university world isn't on board with this. There's plenty of non-practical reasons to learn "practical" skills.
 

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