People go to Academia to be taught something over four years they could learn in 6 months of self-study

brainlet has to lie on the internet to make himself seem smart and thinks anecdotal evidence = comparable to rest of society!!! AHAHAHAHAHAH!

Post a tax receipt or bank account HAHAHAHAHAH

I don't get it either. People are going to call me stupid for this, but I feel like that just proves my point. It is absolutely worthless going to college for anything other than something like being a doctor, engineer or lawyer.

But english? Philosophy? You could learn all that online, in encyclopedias, etc. The main benefit of university was that you had access to knowledge the common man didn't have. But that is no longer an issue. Everyone has access to most books and writings.

So what does college offer now? Now they have to justify wasting time and money on a degree with stuff like "it teaches you how to think" or "it makes you a more well rounded individual". These claims feel hackneyed and untrue. Most of the time it seems like academia causes people to double down into their echo chambers and not have their views challenged. We need to stop pretending that modern day academia is turning average people into philosophers. It's not.

Most people when reading this would just tell me I'm wrong, I'm dumb, I'm anti-intellectual. That I just don't "get it". But the truth is that going to university for most subjects has no worth anymore.

>self-study
That's just light reading.

Academia is populated by experts.

I can think of only one person I know who's a serious autodidact--mostly because learning anything worth learning takes a serious time commitment. They say the degree suggests you can stick with something for four years and that this is it's most useful validation, but you also (should) learn a lot.

The one guy was a CS/Math major and then lived at home for a year to learn biology. He went to grad school for more academia.

And what do you think most of those experts do? They self-study themselves.

What you learn in academia is how to think, not what to think.

6 months of self-study is how people end up believing that Zeitgeist movie

LMAO AT ALL THE LOSERS IN THIS THREAD WHOSE ONLY ARGUMENT IS "y-you wont be able to, y-you wont have the time or motivation"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

unequivocally this

MmmmmmmMMMMM! I love learning how to think like a middle-aged pedophile who constantly shoves his Liberal ideology in my face at every turn!

t. brainlet with tall-poppy syndrome

Undergrad detected
>Muh professor is SOOO smart, he has a paper hung up on his wall that tells me so.

Most people really don't have the discipline to study something on their own to the level that being in college forces you to

- you cant simulate the seminar sitting in your moldy computer chair

- you will not have access to a research library with everything written on your subject, including (most importantly current research)

- as your egotism throughout this thread makes quite clear, you cant really see the value of 2ndary scholarship until youve been slapped in the face by the unoriginality of your own "independent study" of the four or five classics you managed to learn about on wikipedia

unlike you OP I value concepts as they apply to the world and not only insofar as they feel the best when they bounce around inside my head, therefore it's more productive to me to develop my understanding of them around other people who have prior knowledge of them because the typical medium to large sized university is a pretty effective submodel of a city, i.e. a density spike in the social field. The social field is where almost all concepts would mainly apply and therefore this is where it is best to go for a complete and valuable understanding of them.

9206267
How about you do this same, then you can earn this (You)

When I hear "self-study" I just think of someone playing with the lint in their belly-button

>What you learn in academia is how to think, not what to think.

I keep hearing this but I'm not convinced. Reading on your own about logical fallacies, and skepticism, will probably teach you "how to think" better than any classroom. So please explain how college teaches an individual "how to think".

Oh, let me guess. It's not something you can actually express through writing, it's part of the "experience", you just HAVE to go through at least 4 years of a university to know how to think. Otherwise, no matter how much you do on your own, you are a hopelessly uneducated philistine.

Most people don't go to college to learn how to think, they go to get enough credits for a fucking degree to get a job. They don't care about the philosophical shit.

i agree with you entirely, user; however, i feel as though i'm doomed to be a poor NEET forever if i don't pursue a college degree. it's not about learning, anymore, it's about needing a degree so i can get a job and not die.

If they don't have the discipline or interest to study on their own, then going to college still won't help them be a well rounded individual. They will, like the vast majority of college students, cram enough for the test to pass the class to get their credits.

Most college students are not scholars, they are crammers.

You talk like university is some enlightened city of philosophers. It's more like high school 2.0 where people watch Netflix and talk about their hookups when the're not cramming for tests

You learn how to write research essays in freshman year. Colleges make you do kinds of assignments that make you acquire learning outcomes. Self-learners probably wouldn't have the discipline to do these things by themselves and even if they did, they wouldn't hear appropriate criticism if they do them incorrectly.

>guy who advocates Academia calls others brainlet

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Then they ought to be culled

i'll give you a hint: it has to do with understanding that thinking isnt just memorizing a list of """logical fallacies""" that you found on /pol/, and that skepticism is itself just an approach to experience.

when we say it teaches you how to think, we mean it teaches you not to get so pigeonholed into stupid, narrowminded views of what thinking consists in that you honestly believe you can figure it all out on your own.

it's not that "not matter how much you do on your own, you are a hopelessly uneducated philistine." it's that academia gives you the opportunity to encounter thinking that is radically not your own, that comes from another person who has spent ostensibly as much time on the text at hand as you have (your peers) and someone who has certainly spend a lifetime more on it than you have (the professor).

it shows you that a reading is basically always stupid and shortsighted on the first go around, even after extensive familiarity with "how to think." it teaches you to be "skeptical" enough not of things you encounter in the world, but of your own perception of them, which is always locally determined. it teaches you, once again, that memorizing a list of "logical fallacies" and being generally skeptical is not really thinking, and that thinking doesnt begin until you've spent at least 4 years, and probably more, repeatedly encountering and overcoming your own stupidity, mediated by other smart(er) people around you.

but you're going to shit all this out the window as things you can either "pick up," things my "liberal profs shoved down my throat," or things that dont really matter for your narrow and common-sensical understanding of what thinking about literature and philosophy consists in

that reaction is what makes you a hopelessly uneducated philistine: refusal to look beyond your own egoic, knee-jerk response to the world and the things you read.

>they wouldn't hear appropriate criticism if they do them incorrectly.

LMAO

Why do you need to go to university to hear criticism when you can contact experts through free association ???

LMAO

HE THINKS JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS AGAINST ACADEMIA THAT THEY MUST BE FROM /pol/ AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

THIS JUST SHOWS HOW MUCH BRAINWASHING YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH

KEEP SUCKING THAT ACADEMIC COCK

SENDING YOUR PROFESSOR 10s OF THOUSANDS IN MONEY TO SIT ON THEIR ASSES AND """""""TEACH""""""""" YOU SOMETHING YOU CAN LEARN AT HOME FOR FREE
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

what does free association mean in this context? what expert spends time dolling out thoughtful criticism for free? unless you mean by that that you are free to pay for the attention of experts, in which case id have to imagine some sort of institution that gathers experts into one place and sets a price for time with them. then you could have those experts teaching groups of people interested in hearing their expert criticism. i wonder what you would call that institution

>triggered

try reading past the first sentence, snowflake

and everyone knows that the only reason anti-intellectuals place so much value on logical fallacies is because of that stupid image macro that's stickied on /pol/

>So please explain how college teaches an individual "how to think".

By learning how to research and review information

>Reading on your own about logical fallacies

You mean reading the sticky on /pol/ which is obviously where you think you've found your education

>skepticism

Also a skill learned in academia

>Oh, let me guess.

How about, instead of guessing, you use real information to formulate your opinions.

You'd know this if you'd ever stepped foot in a classroom beyond middle school.

they're going to feel better than people who don't spend a ton of on education no matter what
no point in this ;_;

I DONT CARE ABOUT LOGICAL FALLACIES, IM NOT THAT POSTER

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

THAT INSTITUTION IS CALLED FREE ASSOCIATION OF HUMAN BEINGS AND INDIVIDUALS THROUGH THE VAST COMMUNICATIVE MEANS IN FRONT OF US

SUCH AS OUR DISCUSSION RIGHT NOW !!!!

>>still triggered

if you didnt care about logical fallacies then you wouldnt be so triggered by my associating /pol/ with their valorization. but really, i wasnt associating anti-academic attitudes generally with /pol/, just the valorization of "logical fallacies." you'd recognize that, were you literate.

stop being a retard please

I never claimed I could figure it all out on my own. I just claimed that university is not necessary to know "how to think" because I can expose myself to radically different sources, books and viewpoints.

And again, going to university has nothing to do with questioning your own perception. People don't need to go to college to understand that their perception is not always accurate.

>hinking doesnt begin until you've spent at least 4 years, and probably more, repeatedly encountering and overcoming your own stupidity, mediated by other smart(er) people around you.

But you are just again repeating the common theme, that it is *impossible* to know "how to think" unless you have spent 4+ years in academia for...reasons? You act as if being in college classes magically, drastically expands your mind into being a philosopher. It does not. I've been in college for 3 years and it is honestly nothing like what you are describing. People are not challenging themselves with the readings. They are not having enlightened debates. They are doing enough just to pass the class.

To people like you, you claim that university has some kind of magical property that bestows enlightened thinking, that would be impossible to pick up anywhere else. It is a complete fantasy.

Also, why do you keep putting "logical fallacies" in quotes as if it's somehow a silly concept? It's pretty clear that most college students don't take them to heart and get manipulated by them all the time.

i wasnt aware i was talking to an expert in romantic poetry. great, ill upload my research article on byron and you can give me insightful feedback on it and suggest bibliographic material and further research directions for me, freely.

HE THINKS LANGUAGE IS A MONOLITHIC CONCEPTION WHICH CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD ONE WAY

AHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA

>You talk like university is some enlightened city of philosophers.
no, I don't--I'm not sure why you think I'm exclusively or even mostly talking about the students.

WONDERFUL, I AM NOT A FAN OF BYRON VERY MUCH, I CARE NOT FOR ROMANTICISM BEYOND GOETHE

DID YOU KNOW SCHOPENHAUER WAS BORN ONE MONTH EXACTLY BEFORE BYRON????

AN INTERESTING FACT!!

You are not giving any solid reasons for how college teaches you how to think. You are just assuming that the premise of "college teaches you how to think" is so inarguably correct that anyone who denies it is a moron. And yet you do not offer a single piece of information of what good thinking entails that I could not discover on the internet.

It's all just empty words. We need to admit that in modern times academia has become a joke.

academia is fun you dumbass. of course it isnt practical - who the fuck wants to be practical?

Because most of your (meaning the defends of academia in the thread) points about why college is so great is because it exposes you to "radically different viewpoints" and "having your views challenged" by your peers.

>my opinions

Maybe you should listen to your own advice

>But you are just again repeating the common theme, that it is *impossible* to know "how to think" unless you have spent 4+ years in academia for...reasons? You act as if being in college classes magically, drastically expands your mind into being a philosopher. It does not. I've been in college for 3 years and it is honestly nothing like what you are describing. People are not challenging themselves with the readings. They are not having enlightened debates. They are doing enough just to pass the class.

that's not what im saying at all. im not saying there's anything "magical" about the process. im saying that there is something drastic about reading a difficult text for no other reason than that you expect other people to have read it by next class, thinking you have a really good handle on it, and then having the professor show you something in five minutes that is completely different and vastly more interesting than the thing you spent 3 hours wrestling with 2 sentences to come up with.

im not saying that happens EVERY TIME. im saying it does happen, and that, yes, until it's happened to you several times, and until you've *learned* from it, you dont really know how to think.

if you can create some kind of reading group that can provide that experience, more power to you. but my point is that academia provides so many of those reading groups that the experience of repeatedly having your assumptions challenged is, as you say, mind-expanding.

yes, because "reasons." these are the reasons. there is nothing magical about this.

>To people like you, you claim that university has some kind of magical property that bestows enlightened thinking, that would be impossible to pick up anywhere else. It is a complete fantasy.

no. im not claiming that at all. im claiming that there is a very real situation that academia repeatedly provides that is not easily replicated.

im putting logical fallacies in quotes because it's trumped by idiots on this website as the be-all-end-all of "debating," whereas they're not really worth thinking about outside of, well, formal logic. that's for actual fallacies of logic: half the things on that chart are legitimate rhetorical techniques that some faggot with photoshop decided he didnt like.

I don't think it's fair for you to include me in a group with other people who defend academia especially when I haven't specifically identified myself with those people. I'm not sure who you're quoting as I haven't said the words "radically different viewpoints" or "having your views challenged" anywhere in this thread.

>You are not giving any solid reasons for how college teaches you how to think.

I just did. You can't just say "no you didn't" when I very clearly did. Your posts are the best proof in this thread that you don't know how to think.

Friendly Reminder:

LMAO AT ALL THE LOSERS IN THIS THREAD WHOSE ONLY ARGUMENT IS "y-you wont be able to, y-you wont have the time or motivation"

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

HE IS SO BRAINDEAD, PATHOLOGICAL AND CONTROLLED THAT HE THINKS THE COLLEGE WAY IS THE ONLY WAY TO THINK AND THAT DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS DON'T HAVE DIFFERENT WAYS OF LEARNING

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH
THIS IS WHAT COLLEGE DOES TO YOU

IT MAKES YOU NOT ONLY STUPID BUT A DANGEROUS INDIVIDUAL WHO WON'T ALLOW GENUINE, GOOD CHANGE

No, you did not. The most substantive thing you said was "learning how to research and review information". But you don't need to go to college to learn how to do that.

>Your posts are the best proof in this thread that you don't know how to think.

Your smug tone is noted. You have no real basis for your claims that college teaches you how to think. You just presume it is an inarguable truth. So you just insult me by saying "you don't know how to think". You have no basis for your claim.

and just as a corollary to all this, im not even encouraging you to adopt the thinking of your peers, in a class room or a reading group or anywhere else! im saying that having smart people who have just spent a lot of time thinking about the same things you've been thinking about at the same time around you, having conversations with them about nothing but the thing you've been reading, and even debating furiously with them to defend your viewpoint, is valuable and teaches you "how to think" in a way that "self study" and Veeky Forums posting doesnt.

you're not advocating genuine good change, your whole program is "ahahaha" and "stop doing things i dont like and """free associate""" on Veeky Forums instead"

>you're not advocating genuine good change, your whole program is "ahahaha" and "stop doing things i dont like and """free associate""" on Veeky Forums instead"

you're not advocating genuine good change, your whole program is "ahahaha" and "stop doing things i dont like and """how to think""" in academia instead"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

why would i be advocating "genuine good change" when a. i dont even know how thats being used in this context b. the institution im defending already exists and c. the proponent in this thread of "genuine good change" (you) is an obdurate bully with nothing to contribute but ironic paraphrase and "hahahaha"

>someone asks how college teaches you how to think
>people reply "the fact you have to ask this just shows you don't know how to think"

thats bullshit circular logic and you know it

>and c. the proponent in this thread of "genuine good change" (you) is an obdurate bully with nothing to contribute but ironic paraphrase and "hahahaha"

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

THIS IS WHAT ACADEMIA DOES TO YOU

MAKES YOU WEAK AND LIMP-WRISTED!!

...

>People go

>But you don't need to go to college to learn how to do that.

Explain how your learned to research and review information on your own. Explain how you found expert criticism of your work, ideas and methodologies, indeed, any experiments you've performed, outside of academic circles.

>Your smug tone is noted.
>Oh, let me guess. It's not something you can actually express through writing, it's part of the "experience", you just HAVE to go through at least 4 years of a university to know how to think.

You started it, shit-for-brains.

>implying i didnt put that snowflake comment as part c to bait you into ignoring my objections at a and b and only replying to the lowest hanging fruit

this is what Veeky Forums does to you: makes incapable of reading things you dont know how to disagree with

It's called sci-hub and libgen, brainlet.

AHAHAHAHAHA

THAT BACK-PEDALLING

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA

Embarrassing.

fine, but: no one has even attempted to address this argument.

one guy has: but he just glossed over the reasons given and rephrased them as "magical" and "fantasy," without actually addressing the content of the argument

for people so invested in logical fallacies, you sure do like committing them

You mean those repositories of works written by academics?

>and he still doesnt address the objections

>>almost as though he doesnt know how to think his way through them

Verdict: Can't Write. Can't Think. No Discernible Talent.

I image that effective self-study would probably take twice the amount of time that learning with an instructor would.

Yes, those millions of journals written by people paid by MY taxes and those millions of journals written on writers who wrote in their free time.

Waiting for your dumbass reply, brainlet.

>PFFF academia is useless, I can get all this information on my own
>PLEASE academics, give me your papers!

lol

Wow, epic strawman.

Looks like you don't know how to think!

endowments for universities are at an all time low, and within those universities funding for the humanities are at an all time low

so you have two choices: you're interested in studying science, in which case, sure, a small amount of "YOUR taxes" paid for that research. but to really study science you need to do so in a research environment, ie a laboratory, which are usually made accessible to students at, a ha, universities.

on the other hand, you might be interested in the humanities, but then you'd have to acknowledge that most the money going to those departments are paid for by private individuals, or scholarships funded, again, by private individuals, or corporations. so in that case you're flat out wrong, and a thief.

accurate strawman, you mean

>and a thief.

AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

ACTUALLY LAUGHING AT LOUD AT THIS ACADEMIKEK

AHAHAHAH

and, not for nothing, with the exception of journals published by university presses, subject to my points in the previous post, a lot of research is published by private journals which are funded by donations and their subscribers. so again, thief.

(note, by the way, that i dont really care about being a thief or not, but you are the one who raised the point about property and ownership, and hence thievery in the negative, by the quip about "YOUR taxes.")

kek, like fucking clockwork

is anyone able to think about this argument? any one at all?

I feel that's true for a lot of people since I've had a lot of friends become more conceited. Though in my personal experience it made me a depressed wreck who doubled majored in business and philosophy and I literally cried myself to sleep the night I bought an expensive car without needing a loan contemplating if I'd become a shallow person.

defenders of academia in this thread: calm, collected, able to contribute to discussion by justly interpreting the claims of their opponents and responding with objections that add new material

detractors of academia in this thread: cretinous, immature, unable to contribute to discussion due to uncharitably and insensibly misinterpreting the claims of their opponents, reducing them to absurdity (thus committing a well-known logical fallacy, reductio ad absurdum or strawman), and responding defensively, adding nothing new to the discussion

AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

>HE FELL FOR THE CALM DISCUSSION RESULTS IN CONDUCIVE CONCLUSIONS MEME

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

>fell for the "meme" meme

Your time is coming to an end.

I will laugh with raised fists beating upon you the day your institution is brought down.

Go on, enjoy your pseudo-intellectual moment of scoffing, what is coming is a great dawn and you will be one of the victims! Go on, yell! Let your voice flutter and croak! You will be the very first of victims and the very last of those remembered.

pathetic

Yes, you are and your time shall soon come to an end.

>i know you are but what am i

stop, really. you're betraying the brutality of your earlier posts

That "HAHA" poster isn't me, friend.

I think you might be...what's it called...oh yes! Paranoid...

>fell for the identity without difference meme

You go to college for connections and for "the college experience"

Watch me connect this fist to your face!

>not an argument

but seriously, Molymeme is trash. Watch his Introduction of Philosophy for the lulz

youtu.be/t-G7D1Wbqcg

>i'll give you a hint: it has to do with understanding that thinking isnt just memorizing a list of """logical fallacies""" that you found on /pol/
>when we say it teaches you how to think, we mean it teaches you not to get so pigeonholed into stupid, narrowminded views
kek

Self study is an absolute fucking meme. John Milton, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Foucault, Buddha, Aristotle, Hegel, Goethe etc etc etc ALL had extreme levels of either formal education, or private tutors teaching formal education.

I study computer science, but without being able to take college courses, I don't think high school really set me up to be comfortable enough to confront the humanities. It could be just that I'm more mature, but at 17 I definitely wouldn't have been able to read a lot of the books I have no problem jumping into now.

> Now they have to justify wasting time and money on a degree with stuff like "it teaches you how to think" or "it makes you a more well rounded individual". These claims feel hackneyed and untrue. Most of the time it seems like academia causes people to double down into their echo chambers and not have their views challenged. We need to stop pretending that modern day academia is turning average people into philosophers. It's not.

I agree with that. I am at a state university and there is almost zero general discussion in class and most people have no intention of taking the material serious enough to actually engage with it.

It's really what you make of it though, which is sort of the problem since most people just choose a major and never look at anything outside of it and tend to get wrapped up in the principles and ideologies of their major. However I think you can actually get a decent education if you take general education requirements seriously and sample many different fields to get a broader sense of the world

Like I said earlier I found it hard to broaden my direction in self-study without any guidance, so if you use education to just get your foot in the door for multiple disciplines that would be the best way to do it in my mind.

LMAO

HE THINKS THAT THE INCREASED ACCESS TO INFORMATION VIA THE INTERNET AND LONGER LIFE EXPECTANCY DOESN'T REMOVE THIS PROBLEM OF FORMAL EDUCATION

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA

YOU COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP

ACADEMIAKEKOLDS ARE SO BAD AT MAKING ARGUMENTS

try to read adam smith, which is arguable written in a different language than english, or get through Capital 1-3 without a tutor is just fucking dumb, and you're just going to fuck it up.