No, but Einstein did. So did Newton, and Dawkins, and Dennett, and Darwin.
I'm not arguing that Universities are perfect. I'm here to change them. I'm
in favor of criticism of universities weaknesses. I love competition. I think
classes ARE pretty boring right now, and I want to change that. Louder,
Richard! Get the message out! I'm going to be looking for a job in a few years
and I need a CRISIS so I can have free reign in redesigning stuff.
>>Perhaps some good things happen at traditional universities as well,
>>but we must learn from their failures and perverse incentives and
>>create better ways.
>
> Good things do sometimes happen at universities because universities have
>stood out as a centralized place for gaining knowledge, meeting like-minded
>people, etc. But, education does not need to cost so much, have a centralized
>location, or get regulated by a government sponsor.
So why not try to change the institutions that already exist?
> Universities provide a great example of dependence on the verb "to
>be". The
>authoritarian structure rests on the notion that the professor IS a PhD, the
>student IS an undergraduate, etc.
Oh, absolutely. Total agreement.
>But, just like on an internet mailing list like CoV, ideas that do not
>correspond with >objective reality get wiped out by ideas that do.
You know, I think this is a hypothesis worth of further investigation. If
you would
just stop insisting that the Objectivists have cornered the market on
rationality and
all logical objtctive thinking eventually reduces to the application of
three axioms
I think we would have lots less to argue about. It isn't the essence of
your posts
that I disagree with...it's the dogged defense of the structure and your
insistence
that everybody use your axioms and definitions. Funny, isn't it, that in
this post
you point out how institutionalization of structure leads to stagnation?
If everybody became Objectivist, wouldn't it be your moral duty to oppose them,
just to ensure that they had some competition and kept moving forward?
No tribes, no labels. Objectivists ARE logical. To resist Objectivism IS
irrational.
To be or not to be...
It's the LABEL, the TRIBE, the STRUCTURE, the AXIOMS which are the weakness
Pancritical means critical of EVERYTHING.
>For instance, let's say you have cancer. Suppose a team of
>doctors who have "proper" credentials from the FDA, and AMA, offered a
>cure that
>didn't work that well, while another team--a group of self-educated
>privately-funded researchers offered not just a cure, but a way to clone body
>parts to make you better, stronger, faster. Who would you turn to for help?
There is a hospital in South America where secret Incan medicine ignored by
the "establishment" is used to cure cancer and improve vitality. However,
becuase
the research is subsidized by no government agenct the treatments are still very
expensive. For $10,000 you can recieve treatments which give you a 98%
resistance
to cancer (statistically) and you will also be helping to move the independent
groups' research forward. Eventually we hope, through further work, to reduce
to price low enough that everyone can benifit from this new technology. Until
then, you can improve you own health at the same time that you help these
agressive scientist in their quest for a universal cure.
Make that check out to REED GARRETT KONSLER...
Reed
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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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