ggm 6 hours ago

A very strange take. The author might be surprised to learn that the overwhelming majority of degrees are awarded to people with little or no interest in all these "I dont like it so it's wrong" things.

Defining who is and is not a member of the "degree class" feels to me like an exercise in "othering" but I'm probably committing a sin using that term of art. Mind you people who say othering probably don't believe in sin...

  • maga_2020 4 hours ago

    original poster here.

    I read this site as a 'permabear' for financial news. A contrarian. Meaning that they help to filter out what's bushtit in a bullish sentiment. But I would not use them to guide me for what to invest into -- as according to them, anything but gold or silver, is a 'so so'.

    I think they apply this 'permabear' lens onto the main-stream anything, especially mainstream advisory.

    So that's the context.

    With regards to the specific article, I would say it fits my 'Confirmation bias'. That is through my career I had not seen an effective link between the quality of academic credentials and ability to predict future.

    An economics PhD or CS PhD (or masters) did not particularly make a person being able to analyze current conditions to predict future outcomes any more than a lay man with a lesser university degree.

    Just thinking outload here the, diminishing reliance of a average layman on credentialed expertise, seems to be real.

    This indicates a combination of 'experts' being intentionally used to promote some money making or policy making idea. Resulting in these experts being viewed as false prophets or health advisors, or military/foreign policy advisors. Essentially resulting in general public loosing trust in 'expert opinions'. That's what the article is reflecting, providing some current examples.

    ---

    Not mentioned in the article, in the field of computer programming, this may indicate that an advanced degree in computer science may not result in significantly differentiating 'practical' expertise in typical programming jobs with AI or without AI help. This is my particular experience too.

    One could only project that view into many fields where evaluating critical impact of a particular decision or a prediction is not practically possible. So subsequent grading of an 'expert opinion' becomes an exercise in one side arguing for an 'F' and other side for a 'B+'

    • ggm 4 hours ago

      I'm wondering if you would acquiesce to surgery by somebody with vibe and no degree. Or want to take heart drugs designed by an acolyte of RFK jnr, rather than somebody a current pharma would hire. Overwhelmingly these structural roles demand formalisms acquired through tertiary study.

      If you just mean fintech and politics... I guess it's arguable common sense is more valuable but again, the $b hedgefunds pay for quants who did advanced maths and stats and can prove their assertions. We're not talking vibe. Functional programmers in Haskell get jobs in banks.

    • techpineapple 4 hours ago

      Wait, but is any of what he says true? Inflation is up, and it seem to early to tell most of the macroeconomic stuff.

      He makes this very shallow argument that the degrees class was al binary pro free trade, but that’s not true, there’s a wide swath of perspectives, and most I’ve read said that the US has been shafted on trade but a straategic set of tariffs and not random fluctuations and false start would be the solution.

      Can you name one person doing finance in the Trump Administration that doesn’t have an advanced degree? Trump has a degree in Economics for cry in out loud! Stephen Miller went to Duke, Scott Bessent went to Yale.

  • biglyburrito 6 hours ago

    "Zero Hedge (or ZeroHedge) is a far-right libertarian financial blog and news aggregator....

    Over time, Zero Hedge expanded into non-financial political content, including conspiracy theories and fringe rhetoric,and has advanced radical right, alt-right, and pro-Russia positions. Zero Hedge's non-financial commentary has led to multiple site bans by global social media platforms, although a 2019 Facebook ban and a 2020 Twitter ban were later reversed."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge