uziq
Member
+492|3652

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

an MA from oxford or cambridge (or glasgow or any other ancient) doesn't mean diddly squat.
Exactly
nobody treats anyone with respect because of this? you're not getting a job claiming you have a 'postgraduate qualification' because of an MA from oxford. a postgraduate degree from those institutions which use such nomenclature are called MSt's, MSci's, MLitt's, MPhil's, etc. not MA. and they are intensive, respected courses.

are you really this dense? why do you keep raging against a meaningless honorific? the free kick-up MAs aren't treated as postgraduate-level accolades in the world of work resumés, dilbert. JFC. you're really tilting at windmills.

"oxford's reputation and pedigree is really called into question. their ability to produce world-leading graduate scholars and postgraduate researchers is highly tarnished by this antique practice of awarding a decorative MA to alumni". you SERIOUSLY need to get your head checked!

let alone extrapolate to a situation they have not rote learned.
you clearly just have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about. how the hell do you get a humanities degree by 'rote learning'? i tried to explain to you before, in gentle terms for a simpleton, that studying history and literature isn't about 'finding out the one correct meaning and reporting it in the exam'. you are thick as mince, it's actually fucking hilarious.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-27 05:18:27)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
I have a MA in Special Education. Raise your hands if you are in the MA gang 🙋🧑‍🎓
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3652


notice the journalists talk about ... background ... privilege ... class ... private schools ... networking ... the union ...

they don't mention ... the undergraduate courses studied or how 'worthy' humanities degrees are.

mind blown!
Cybargs
Moderated
+2,285|6916
its the communist propaganda that they teach at those woke elite ivory tower universities that the conservative elite somehow keep sending their children to.
https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png
uziq
Member
+492|3652
we do have a major problem where about 3.4% of the population occupy all the prominent roles in society, most notably butchering senior offices of government, mainly because they confuse the Parliament with their boarding school hierarchies and popularity contests and treat it all as a bit of a joke rather than the running of a state consequent to 70 million people.

but if you suggest doing anything to target the taxes or privileges of such a tiny, entrenched minority ... dilbert claims you're being selfish, a socialist, or, confusingly, both at the same time.

so what can you do? replacing boris quoting classics with nitwits of a similar social background who studied science clearly isn't the answer. the last chancellor was an eton->cambridge PhD in a non-humanities field.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-28 07:03:11)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3919
That reminds me of how bitter the student loan debacle must be for those less affluent conservatives who were convinced to not go to college because they were afraid of drag queen story hour.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6972|PNW

"Affluent conservatives" are laughing all the way to the bank.
Larssen
Member
+99|2087

uziq wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvPZwA6KKkw

notice the journalists talk about ... background ... privilege ... class ... private schools ... networking ... the union ...

they don't mention ... the undergraduate courses studied or how 'worthy' humanities degrees are.

mind blown!
That closing reply by the union is pretty significant and wasn't at all addressed in the video. I also see it as a far too surface level analysis of how political networking .. works. The time at your uni debate society doesn't mean much - you haven't even started at that point.

Granted there was/is an inherent bias in the establishment in favour of graduates from certain universities, oxford being the first among them, so those graduates will have a headstart finding the right jobs/positions/pathways to (political or other) power. Yet, that still is just the start.

All this would've been much more interesting if the filmmaker started at the conservative and liberal parties themselves. What is the membership like? Who are drawn to become politically active? What people end up at party meetings, who ends up putting themselves on the ballot & why? & then tracing those questions to the respective backgrounds. Jumping from the current and former prime ministers straight to their universities where they were undergraduate students really skips over some 20+ relevant years of development and tells you really nothing of what the actually important networks were. Student film project 4/10.

Add.; Bercow, probably one of the most gifted orators in recent memory, never even went to oxford or the union either.

Last edited by Larssen (2022-10-28 08:45:35)

Cybargs
Moderated
+2,285|6916

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

"Affluent conservatives" are laughing all the way to the bank.
basically russian oligarchs/statesmen that mock the west for being the gay yet their kids are in london going to uni and partying with the gays.
https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png
uziq
Member
+492|3652
at my uni one girl who was the daughter of abramovich either took a helicopter to campus for each lecture or had an armoured convoy.

at the same time, next to my uni campus was a gigantic rich estate (wentworth-virginia water area). a russian oligarch who betrayed putin was found dead in his bathroom there. boris berezovsky or something (i’m away from home and cba to google it).

oligarch money went so deep into london. we were a useful client for arab/russky/chinese capital. but don’t mention tightening tax rules to the little dweeb dilbert. SOCIALISM!!!!

the guy literally argued at one point that sanctioning all the russian oligarchs would seriously damage the UK exchequer's tax income. LMAO.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-28 22:23:57)

uziq
Member
+492|3652

Larssen wrote:

uziq wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvPZwA6KKkw

notice the journalists talk about ... background ... privilege ... class ... private schools ... networking ... the union ...

they don't mention ... the undergraduate courses studied or how 'worthy' humanities degrees are.

mind blown!
That closing reply by the union is pretty significant and wasn't at all addressed in the video. I also see it as a far too surface level analysis of how political networking .. works. The time at your uni debate society doesn't mean much - you haven't even started at that point.

Granted there was/is an inherent bias in the establishment in favour of graduates from certain universities, oxford being the first among them, so those graduates will have a headstart finding the right jobs/positions/pathways to (political or other) power. Yet, that still is just the start.

All this would've been much more interesting if the filmmaker started at the conservative and liberal parties themselves. What is the membership like? Who are drawn to become politically active? What people end up at party meetings, who ends up putting themselves on the ballot & why? & then tracing those questions to the respective backgrounds. Jumping from the current and former prime ministers straight to their universities where they were undergraduate students really skips over some 20+ relevant years of development and tells you really nothing of what the actually important networks were. Student film project 4/10.

Add.; Bercow, probably one of the most gifted orators in recent memory, never even went to oxford or the union either.
unfortunately you’re just plain wrong. i know: in the real world joining a student union and being a debate king wouldn’t mean much.

unfortunately in the UK, being an oxford union star is a fast track into SPAD land, shadowing an MP at westminster, and being nominated by the party apparatus for a ‘safe seat’. it’s just how it works. i wish it wasn’t thus; but it is.

also, the 'film maker' has already done videos on the make-up of the conservative party (not sure what liberals have to do with it: they've been irrelevant since the cameron days). i posted one here before; newbie commented on it. they've already done that video!

the fact you’re taken in by bercow whilst simultaneously ‘rubbishing’ my talk about westminster says it all. duped by a foreign tourist’s idea of a parliamentarian. all so very performative. yea, he rolled his r’s in the speaker’s chair and made a capital performance of the role. a verrrrry fine fellow. order! order! orrrr-dah!

but he was also repeatedly referred to the parliamentary admin for being a bully and an abuser. and he’s used his ‘victorian speaker’ vibe for a few lucrative book/tv deals. it was all a bit of a dramatic performance, methinks. certainly nobody from his background normally talks and emotes in that way. an entertaining showman but ultimately a fraud. so lel: please think a little more critically or do kindly stop telling me how UK politics works. thx.

Larssen wrote:

Grantede there was/is an inherent bias in the establishment in favour of graduates from certain universities, oxford being the first among them
‘graduates from certain unis’. UK PMs since the second world war:

Oxford
None
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
None
Oxford
None
Oxford
Edinburgh
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford
Oxford

(the ‘none’s aren’t salt of the earth janitors btw: they’re people who were so posh that they skipped the terribly tedious business of university altogether, and went to places like sandhurst to become officers. churchill didn’t go to uni … but then he was born in a literal palace.)

LMAO this condescending, patrician tone. almost every single PM in the 20th century went to private school (<5% of the general population) and oxford. this sort of skewed representation doesn’t even exist in the US presidency or upper echelons. biden went to delaware ffs. it’s like the UK having a PM from de montfort. you are (sadly) just plain wrong here, and your ‘there there’ tone is badly misjudged. 95% of all UK prime ministers in the 20th century have been products of the elite boarding school —> oxford pipeline. not even a single premier from cambridge.  it really is that bad. please drop your embarrassing tone.

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-28 22:41:35)

Larssen
Member
+99|2087
Uzique as you may have noticed with that big, editor, 'I read books for a living' brain, my mentioning of Bercow was in reference to his speaking ability. Not to his competency. Nor to his personality. Though I'm surprised by your dislike of the man as I reckon you and him both share certain, ahem, qualities.

I see and have taken note of the fact that almost all of your post war prime ministers studied at oxford. Yet many people do and many thousands graduate each year. The pathway isn't exactly as simple as debate union > downing street. I didn't say that it doesn't matter, but that there are some decades of steps we're skipping over, here.
uziq
Member
+492|3652
bercow took elocution lessons. he put conscious effort into constructing a public persona that escaped and obfuscated his class origins. as i said, it was a bit of a music hall act, and everyone went along with it because it was entertaining ... that is, until serial accusations of him being a bully to his office staff turned up. not so charming.

the speaker is a ceremonial role with zero actual clout. the current speaker, lindsay hoyle, is a working class guy too. but the speaker doesn't make budgets; the speaker doesn't devise policy; the speaker doesn't respond to covid pandemics; the speaker is essentially a court jester, there for colour and traditional flavour.

are you really making an argument that parliament and power in britain are 'inclusive' because the guy sitting in the chair shouting 'ORDAAAAH!' didn't go to oxford? yes, we realise, oxford doesn't have a monopoly on public speaking ability or rhetoric. brits can be pretty sardonic and witty without passing through the radcliffe camera.

the graph i posted earlier says it all: particularly in conservative governments, all the positions of power are overwhelmingly sourced from a tiny slice of the population. 60-90% privately educated cabinet ministers when the privately educated only compose about 5% of the population. that's insane. and the PM role itself is even worse: a single university! you almost wouldn't think that we have 20–30 venerable institutions that are all world-ranking (and which are equally capable of producing good public speakers).

The pathway isn't exactly as simple as debate union > downing street.
20 prime ministers have been to eton, one single tiny school from a giant populace. there have only been 56 prime ministers in the history of the modern united kingdom. let that sink in: almost half of all prime ministers in history went to a single school, which for most of its history only enrolled a few hundred students in total.

30 prime ministers went to oxford (and 14 at cambridge). that's the majority of all prime ministers of all time, going to two universities. 13 prime ministers went to christ church, oxford, a single college. (christ church is known as the particularly 'aristo' and old money one where little lords get despatched to by mater and pater).

rishi sunak went to winchester, another equally prestigious school. winchester produces prime ministers too. the same school produced an old wykhamist prime minister in henry addington, viscount sidmouth ... who was prime minister in 1801. these schools have had a stranglehold on british public life for centuries. the pathway isn't 'exactly' thus, but it really is an extremely, extremely strong trend: expensive public school -> oxford, incl. participation in student politics -> SPADland/westminster. if there's a formula to becoming prime minister, that is surely the closest thing to a winning one. and it IS a bubble: those 'decades' in between are spent inside the same networks and same high politics. boarding school -> oxford quads and debating society -> work in westminster -> seat in the commons -> PM. it's basically the same hermetic environment and the same culture throughout (david cameron frequently phoned his oxford tutor, vernon bogdanor, for advice!).

the 'defense' from the union spokesman that its presidents go on to careers in many pursuits is classic nonaccountability. check the list of the presidents of the oxford union from mid-century to the present. there's an incredibly high preponderance of politicians. it is widely seen as a proof of political 'credibility'. the british party political machines keep an eye on bright young things from the oxford union et cetera. politically ambitious students go out of their way to secure positions at the union.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/a … -rees-mogg
'A nursery of the Commons’

i'm nonplussed about the claim that i 'resemble john bercow'. i don't recognise anything of myself in him. is he the only verbose englishman you've ever met, or something? call me will self next!

Last edited by uziq (2022-10-29 02:08:40)

Larssen
Member
+99|2087
I meant his behaviour. Though I suppose mean-spiritedly bullying your perceived lessers is a fundamental facet of English culture as well. You've been having a daily go at poor Dilbert for almost twenty years!
uziq
Member
+492|3652
dilbert is a goddamn freakazoid and i will continue irradiating him with prose. like a nasty mould patch.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6972|PNW

There are like 20 years of dilbert ranting about the teeming brown masses and crazy stuff of that nature to refer to every time you start to think he needs a break from constant scrutiny.

I have no idea where uzi gets the energy (or rainman focus) to keep up with it all.
uziq
Member
+492|3652
i get paid to shitpost here. freelance life baby!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6306|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

notice the journalists talk about ... background ... privilege ... class ... private schools ... networking ... the union ...

they don't mention ... the undergraduate courses studied or how 'worthy' humanities degrees are.

mind blown!
Because the journalists all the did the same courses?
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6306|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

the guy literally argued at one point that sanctioning all the russian oligarchs would seriously damage the UK exchequer's tax income. LMAO.
Don't think I said that, bearing in mind I know the oligarchs don't pay tax, I'm sure I would have said it would crimp the money flow into Britain as a whole - and there's no question they've pumped in a lot of very useful billions.
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6306|eXtreme to the maX

Larssen wrote:

That closing reply by the union is pretty significant and wasn't at all addressed in the video. I also see it as a far too surface level analysis of how political networking .. works. The time at your uni debate society doesn't mean much - you haven't even started at that point.

Granted there was/is an inherent bias in the establishment in favour of graduates from certain universities, oxford being the first among them, so those graduates will have a headstart finding the right jobs/positions/pathways to (political or other) power. Yet, that still is just the start.

All this would've been much more interesting if the filmmaker started at the conservative and liberal parties themselves. What is the membership like? Who are drawn to become politically active? What people end up at party meetings, who ends up putting themselves on the ballot & why? & then tracing those questions to the respective backgrounds. Jumping from the current and former prime ministers straight to their universities where they were undergraduate students really skips over some 20+ relevant years of development and tells you really nothing of what the actually important networks were. Student film project 4/10.
Its a closed shop and an 'old boys' network., the 'wrong' people, and women, just don't get an invite to all the networking events which happen post-Oxford.

The people have never studied anything worthwhile or taxing so have never expanded their minds or their networks.

Have you ever even watched parliament? It looks like a food-fight in a public school half the time.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3652

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

the guy literally argued at one point that sanctioning all the russian oligarchs would seriously damage the UK exchequer's tax income. LMAO.
Don't think I said that, bearing in mind I know the oligarchs don't pay tax, I'm sure I would have said it would crimp the money flow into Britain as a whole - and there's no question they've pumped in a lot of very useful billions.
which we could easily regain by closing the non-domicile loophole abused by so many british people. that’s several billion right there.

or tax private schools. another several billion.

or how about that windfall tax? shell oil just reported record quarterly profits. nearly £10bn in a few months. due to government subsidies and tax exemptions, they paid effectively ZERO tax on their north sea operations. we’re giving the stuff away. and yet the end consumer is still facing 2-3x their regular energy bill this quarter. even though the price of european gas has been constantly falling since mid-summer.

none of these would be hard to devise or implement. it’s just a matter of political werewithal. but for some reason you don’t like those proposals. /shrug
uziq
Member
+492|3652

Dilbert_X wrote:

Larssen wrote:

That closing reply by the union is pretty significant and wasn't at all addressed in the video. I also see it as a far too surface level analysis of how political networking .. works. The time at your uni debate society doesn't mean much - you haven't even started at that point.

Granted there was/is an inherent bias in the establishment in favour of graduates from certain universities, oxford being the first among them, so those graduates will have a headstart finding the right jobs/positions/pathways to (political or other) power. Yet, that still is just the start.

All this would've been much more interesting if the filmmaker started at the conservative and liberal parties themselves. What is the membership like? Who are drawn to become politically active? What people end up at party meetings, who ends up putting themselves on the ballot & why? & then tracing those questions to the respective backgrounds. Jumping from the current and former prime ministers straight to their universities where they were undergraduate students really skips over some 20+ relevant years of development and tells you really nothing of what the actually important networks were. Student film project 4/10.
Its a closed shop and an 'old boys' network., the 'wrong' people, and women, just don't get an invite to all the networking events which happen post-Oxford.

The people have never studied anything worthwhile or taxing so have never expanded their minds or their networks.

Have you ever even watched parliament? It looks like a food-fight in a public school half the time.
i really don’t know why you have to denigrate the subjects when the problem is people skipping through university as a privileged rite of passage. they don’t apply themselves; they’re not scholars or motivated by intellectual passions. why do you have to invalidate an entire discipline composed of actual, serious scholars? it’s an inane projection on your part.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6306|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

which we could easily regain by closing the non-domicile loophole abused by so many british people. that’s several billion right there.

or tax private schools. another several billion.

or how about that windfall tax? shell oil just reported record quarterly profits. nearly £10bn in a few months. due to government subsidies and tax exemptions, they paid effectively ZERO tax on their north sea operations. we’re giving the stuff away. and yet the end consumer is still facing 2-3x their regular energy bill this quarter. even though the price of european gas has been constantly falling since mid-summer.

none of these would be hard to devise or implement. it’s just a matter of political werewithal. but for some reason you don’t like those proposals. /shrug
Nope, never said any of that either.
Either you enjoy making things up or your recall is failing.
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6306|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

i really don’t know why you have to denigrate the subjects when the problem is people skipping through university as a privileged rite of passage. they don’t apply themselves; they’re not scholars or motivated by intellectual passions. why do you have to invalidate an entire discipline composed of actual, serious scholars? it’s an inane projection on your part.
Well really its the same as if driving examiners said "Look, you're not going to be a driving examiner yourself, just give me fifty quid and you can have your licence no questions asked"

It brings the whole system into question doesn't it?
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+492|3652

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

which we could easily regain by closing the non-domicile loophole abused by so many british people. that’s several billion right there.

or tax private schools. another several billion.

or how about that windfall tax? shell oil just reported record quarterly profits. nearly £10bn in a few months. due to government subsidies and tax exemptions, they paid effectively ZERO tax on their north sea operations. we’re giving the stuff away. and yet the end consumer is still facing 2-3x their regular energy bill this quarter. even though the price of european gas has been constantly falling since mid-summer.

none of these would be hard to devise or implement. it’s just a matter of political werewithal. but for some reason you don’t like those proposals. /shrug
Nope, never said any of that either.
Either you enjoy making things up or your recall is failing.
i suggested a windfall tax weeks ago when it was in the news cycle and you said ‘hmm, that would be unfair on the poor oil companies and hard to devise’.

the next week the EU leveraged a fucking windfall tax.

the departing tory in charge of climate, who presided over the last COP conference, alok sharma, said two days ago that we need to discuss windfall taxes as an equitable and fair solution to our present woes. lol. a dyed-in-the-wool, big business tory.

maybe your brain is like ‘swiss cheese’ and you can’t remember things.

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