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Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Education does correlate with a more successful job and it also correlates with a better functioning society. I believe that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that there is some causal relationship (note: this does not say that higher education leads to a successful job, but rather says that higher education increases the chances of you getting a more successful job).

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No, because you can be educated in any topic up to and including the history of the Kardashians. This in no way contributes to a better functioning society. Your entire premise that education = more intelligence is completely wrong. Would you argue a person educated by extremists correlates with a better functioning society?

The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge to creating something of value for others. It's not enough to learn a topic, you must actually apply it make a difference.

It is unclear to me if you are being obtuse on purpose or on accident. But I want to reiterate that trolling is not allowed on HN and it is presumed that you are going to take arguments on good faith. So I will answer as if you aren't being needlessly obtuse.

We're talking about institutional education, not gaining more information. So in this discussion we're not talking about people spending their money to become more informed on Kardashians. We're talking about them going to school. As far as I'm aware, there's no school that teaches the history of the Kardashians.

This hardly seems like responding in good faith.

At any rate, I believe the poster you responded to was using hyperbole to equate "history of the Kardashians" with some degree that he or she deems "equally as useless."

I was suggesting that they weren't responding in good faith. Which in this instance was the creation of straw man.

Stop being a pedant.

Instead of the usual "basket weaving" as an example of a useless field of study, he used "history of the Kardashians."

Yes, this is called a straw man argument. People don't like them on hacker news. Please stop defending people making arguments like this.

It was obviously a good faith response, and if you look at what people do versus what their degree is in, it's obvious that college education for many students might as well be studying the Kardashians. I think literally none of my relatives use their post-secondary education, except for a lawyer (who doesn't use his undergrad degree) and a guy who presumably went to culinary school. And a retired college professor, I guess.

> Education does not equate to a successful job

> The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge

To apply knowledge, you have to first acquire it. How do you propose to do so without education?

GP's point seems currently the improvement of society is not guaranteed by a degree because either it's based on knowledge that is not applicable to improving society or their job applies that knowledge to something net negative to extract value.

the point is a degree in a subject where there is no money to be made is a WASTE of money. A degree is not inherently worth the time & money spent earning it if you can't make a career with it. You'll also have student loans to pay for. Don't bother saying "free college" is the issue either. There's no such thing. Somebody is paying for that "free" college in the form of higher taxes.

Education in my opinion would be a bargain compared to insane levels of military spending, gas and oil subsidies, bank bailouts, etc. This is selfish though. One, I have to pay for my kids education some day, and two, I think it's overall a good thing for our species (depending on the quality).

Eventually we'll look back at college (including trades) education being free like we look now on elementary education being free.

I don't have kids and I'm happy to pay for your kids to go to school. I don't want to live in a country full of idiots. It's also selfish though. Because smarter kids result in better medicine, better inventions, etc.

This is a superbly short sighted and harmful perspective.

Education conveys benefits besides merely financial: a technician might receive no financial benefit from knowing about DNA, nuclear fission and distance to Mars. However, these people make life choices informed by their general knowledge, they vote on policy, they act when Covid-19 is in the news.

If we take your perspective far enough, we will have a society of idiot savants that are clueless outside if their narrow speciality.

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