Smart-people traps
tinygigantic.com
tinygigantic.com
isn't that true though?
But acting like it's true gives you an excuse for not doing anything. And then instead of just having the power elite fuck you over, you're fucking yourself over too.
but a counter-point - having a market means people with more money fuck over people with no money.
You wouldn't be working in the porn industry, perchance?
He does seem to base his thesis exclusively on conspiracies of cause (intentional, active plots) and leaves out the subtler but more broadly effective conspiracies of effect (think of the combination of bad education, bad social programming and predatory practices that create and perpetuate the poor as a social class).
I do agree with you that 'conspiracies of effect' exist, and in fact I think they are more common than conspiracies designed by people. A good example is lies told to children; that can't work unless the vast majority of adults won't spoil it by telling the truth to kids they meet. However, there is no secret leadership organizing the thing; there are no people behind a curtain; there is no smoke-filled room; it's just a nasty tradition with no secret group of conspirators causing it.
In other words given the human mind's capacity for self-delusion, it's not impossible for people to participate in these anarchic leaderless conspiracies without being consciously aware of it.
Unraveling that conundrum might actually get us close to a description of social behaviour that could be considered science.;
Presumptuous, condescending, self-aggrandizing and manipulative all at the same time.
Sounds like someone's never worked much in the non-professions.
and higher education (in the US at least) teaches only critical thinking
Right. If by "teaches only" you mean, "doesn't teach the least amount of"
Life in most corporations, professional or otherwise, seems to be pretty soul-sucking. Orwell described the "beetle-like" type of person, in 1984, who would, with "swift scuttling movements", tend to "flourish best under the dominion of the Party". Indeed such a type of person is most likely to succeed in large private-sector hierarchies, and the corporate grind involves submitting one's future to the whims of beetle-like masters.
Grad school in engineering, computer science, (and I assume in math and science too) usually requires that you make something, so I don't think there is a sole emphasis on critical thinking. From the point of view of "making something users want", perhaps the missing part is reliable judgment of whether people want it, rather than depending on citation counts.
Seriously, is the only worthwhile thing for an intelligent person to start a company that somehow involves blogging, RSS, and AJAX?
Two?
The point is one should not get into the "Professions" because they think they have the smarts to do it but for something more, something like "satisfying the soul" or for pure joy...
Fall into your own trap much?