BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

If you can read this thank a teacher. If you can read this in English thank a soldier (Jay).

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

they don't have better rights than any other career.

the rights they do have, have mostly been earned through labour struggle, organisation, unionisation, protest, striking, political action.

you are free to do the same within your own industry, should you feel abused or exploited.

it's really pretty fucking simple. almost all of the worker rights that you do enjoy as given 'universals' in the law were EARNED on the back of particular groups organising and taking action, in specific and particular circumstances. stop shitting on people who are using their labour power to negotiate a fairer deal for themselves. too bad if your industry has horrific power imbalances between managers and engineers; it's for YOU to change. aren't you a member of any professional bodies for engineers that are supposed to look out for your best interests and rein in poor working conditions/practices?

christ don't you keep patronising jay about the disjunct between his views and reality? teachers aren't special pleading. you're just being a whiny bitch whilst doing nothing for yourself.

Does any other career have or need tenure?

Maybe its the cause of academia being so stagnant and delivering so little.

judges/magistrates, doctors, erm civil servants?

tenure doesn’t mean you are impossible to fire. a lifetime post with zero work involved is called a sinecure. tenure is just used interchangeably with long-term contract, typically by appointment. oh noes! damn those people with good contractual protection!!!

if there’s one easily identifiable theme from 10+ years of posting on bf2s, it’s that despite all the talk of ‘engineering master race’ from you and the other former posters here, nobody can hold a candle to engineers in terms of bitterness, insularity, and harbouring negative bullshit towards anyone different. it’s so amusing. the only other place i’ve seen this bunker mentality is people in law school, who have to continually advertise and animadvert about how ‘difficult’ and demanding their chosen vocation is. you poor precious things!! amazing how the ‘best jerb in the world’ produces so much unhappiness.

there’s something quite piquant in the spectacle of middle-aged engineers constantly feeling the need to state how simultaneously heroic and singularly unappreciated their role is, or feeling the need to put down others. it’s like you’re all waiting for your classic hollywood movie moment when your father finally gives you that hug.

Last edited by uziq (2019-12-26 01:53:46)

Most of them were English majors as undergrads, so it makes sense

Jay wrote:

Most of them were English majors as undergrads, so it makes sense

history and philosophy, too. i think philosophy grads score highest on the LSAT entry exams.

do you feel powerful shitting on people who go to grad school when you have an air conditioning certificate from a naval college? this is like you calling AOC dumb and ignorant when her resume (and relative background) make you look like chum.

Last edited by uziq (2019-12-26 04:21:40)

85% of academic staff are now on short-term contracts. many early career researchers in the states secure work to teach a small number of courses for a term. that involves locating to the college town to be paid for 20 hours of work a week, for two or three course units. a rotation of permanent adjuncts is the new normal. these early career researchers are expected to then take that remuneration, as well as small amounts for essay marking and administrative tasks, as well as from the almost continual grind of grant and fund applications, to then ‘fund’ and make space for research and publication — the ways to advance their career in hope of improving their chances at tenure. (i won’t even get into the punitive costs of publishing their research, when they don’t have a full-time position at an institution with a departmental budget; things are fast-changing here.)

professors who get tenure are salaried, full time, which includes being paid to do research and write books as part of said salary. they’re not grinding out teaching duties for an hourly rate, or continually negotiating for or reminding admins to collect an overdue $800 cheque for teaching unit x for one semester. yes, tenure is there to prevent political interference, and to allow the freedom of ‘disinterested’ research; but it’s also a safe haven from exhausting financial precarity.

a senior professor at a UK university will have a sort of ‘tenure’, which is essentially a permanent contract. they don’t have to worry about reapplying for their job every 12 or 24 months, like a short-term contract (which is in many ways a highly preferable option to the adjunct lifestyle described above; i mean a 2 year post is something, at least). but they are not impossible to dismiss. departments are still cut back, stripped, positions are removed or merged into others. tenured professors are still at a structural risk of losing their job. when i was last at university, there was an almost continual political/union struggle on campus, as admins attempted to abandon certain courses or shutter entire departments (including one of the top classics departments in the UK). i’m sure you’ll scoff at their plight, ‘useless academics teaching unprofitable courses’, etc etc, but it’s not like tenure is some ‘end credits’ position where they can sit back and do no work, and meanwhile look forward to their pension pot. (btw, there has just been a huge nationwide strike in higher education because their pensions are proposed to be halved...)

we are not talking at cross-purposes. you just seem to think that teachers or academics with tenure are somehow undeserving, and that it’s right that people are in a state of constant anxiety over their soon-to-be-renewed work contract, or completely non-existent contractual employment – as if this is the natural and just state-of-affairs for employment. i have no idea why you’re so ill-spirited towards these swathes of people except for petty grievance.

obviously the sense in which we are discussing 'tenure' is vastly different between the university and kindergarten context, the arguments for which are entirely different. but my principle still stands that it's quite senseless to chagrin a profession's workers for having achieved good working conditions. in the case of academics, the number of staff enjoying tenure or tenure-like privileges is vanishingly small, and what advantages they do enjoy are very hard-earned and scrabbled for. a life of indigence and luxury it is not.

again, one group of professionals’ struggle for fair pay and good working conditions is not taking anything out of your pocket. the desire to see everyone else reduced down to some leviathan-esque state of ruthless competition is the definition of being a miserly bastard.

Last edited by uziq (2019-12-26 08:31:26)

The world is just a great big onion, uncontrolled capitalism has delivered globalisation, offshoring of profits, at least 50% of the world would be happy to walk 1000 miles barefoot, swim rivers and climb barbed wire fences for a days subsistence labour here and there and people are griping they don't have a job for life where they can pursue their esoteric and trivial interests?

There are too many grad students and too few positions, bad luck. There are plenty of people with masters degrees working in kitchens and brothels, what are we supposed to do? Make it harder for them to get a foot in the door by closing it behind the people who do secure a job? That really is pulling up the ladder behind you.

A classics department might be shut? Boo hoo, I'm sure the alchemists were pissed when they had their funding cut. It wasn't a loss.
Are rich Chinese industrialists willing to pay to have their kids educated in 18th century English novels? Probably not, might as well shut the literature department now.

Western countries and cultures are breaking down, the bottom line is we shouldn't have given away our primary industries to China - then we'd have the money to maintain our social standards and pay for peripheral things like arts.

The Chinese understand the importance of primary industries and value addition, hence their cities look more like this:



And less like this:


If the sneering literati had been a bit more focused on whats actually important, and less focused on diverting tax money to the opera, their kids wouldn't now be scrambling to get unpaid internships or gig jobs. Bad luck. In the long run the market may correct itself, or more probably not.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-12-26 16:21:03)

Whatever, the west has thrown away its entire manufacturing industry, so we don't need science researchers any longer - and people are wondering why the economies are fucked and importers are the new lairds.

Can't be long before we're back to roving minstrels singing songs and reciting poems for their bed and board.

Britain and most western countries have been ruled by the liberal arts folks for decades, they've allowed short-term profit seeking.

I said decades, not more than a quarter of a century.

John Major - Major left school just before his 16th birthday in 1959 with three O-levels in History, English Language and English Literature. He later gained three more O-levels by correspondence course, in the British Constitution, Mathematics and Economics.

Tony Blair - Blair enrolled for university at St John's College, Oxford, reading Jurisprudence for three years.

Gordon Brown - Brown graduated from Edinburgh with a First-Class Honours MA degree in history in 1972, and stayed on to obtain his PhD in history

David Cameron - n October 1985, Cameron began his Bachelor of Arts course in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Brasenose College, Oxford.

Teresa May - May attended the University of Oxford, read geography at St Hugh's College, and graduated with a second class BA degree in 1977

Boris Johnson - Johnson won a scholarship to read Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in the study of the Classics, ancient literature and classical philosophy.

Not a technocrat amongst them, all liberal arts fags and most of them from your precious Oxferd. You can thank them for destroying academia and the country.
Cameron was the closest to having a useful education and he was the best of the lot, except he gave us Brexit, so dur.

Does Oxford teach selfish short-termism? I guess they must.
Anecdotally the Oxford students I met were arseholes. In intra-mural sports, and shooting sports generally, no-one cheats. Oxford cheated every single time. The best example was them not inviting anyone else to shoot for a cup they held, they just engraved 'Oxford' on it every year.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-12-26 18:24:41)

Except they're clearly shit at it. I guess they just interview better, and having the right tie has always helped.

Meanwhile the actually successful people are usually nerds.

Jeff Bezos - In 1986, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a 4.2 grade point average and Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science

etc, I could go on.

Roosevelt provoked Japan into a war then set in chain the process to nuke them.

Possibly not a great example to cherry pick.

Its not really a deep pool though is it?