On Oct 30, 3:02*pm, Hawke wrote:
went to school with who are idiots. So college graduates know well a
degree doesn't guarantee anything.

In my experience that is, perhaps not total, but certainly a
significant amount of B.S. From my own prospective I have actually
hear an individual state that "I went to collage and you have only a 4
year education". Later events demonstrated that the implied advantage
was not quite correct as the 4 year guy went on to be a
multi-millionaire while the guy with the collage education now is
supported by his wife.

While I'm sure that happens on occasion I'm think what happens the
majority of the time is that the college educated person gets a higher
paying job and earns more over the course of his life than the guy
without one. So if you play the odds you get a degree, if you're capable
of it. That doesn't mean you get ahead it just means your chances are a
lot better.

Or, have you ever been around any consulting projects, say USAID,
W.B., UN? Every one of them demand a collage degree but rarely do they
demand experience in the actual project requirements. I've seen a
bloke with a Doctorate in *"Library Sciences" *work for years on
various projects such as transmigration, cross cultural training and
work of that type without a clue about the work. We had a project that
initialed certifying how much jungle was cleared in support of a
transmigration project. Towe blokes with Master's degrees were made
Project manager and assistant. When it came time to certify the first
month's clearance they didn't know how, didn't have a clue. And these
people's resumes were submitted and accepted as part of our original
tender.

Sounds to me like you had the wrong people doing the wrong jobs. Maybe
it was cronyism that was the problem. I know I wouldn't expect computer
science graduates to do very well being assigned the job of building a
bridge. But I bet they would be smarter and more knowledgeable people
than the construction workers were.

We also hear the uneducated chiming in on how stupid people they know
with degrees are. But then the uneducated are always telling us how
getting a college degree is not very important. We hear words from them
like, we never got no degree and we done just fine, from them all the time.

Not from me. I haven't said a word about the worth of a degree. After
all I got one myself. But I sometimes shudder to remember how much I
thought I knew as apposed to how little I actually knew when I
graduated.

I think what is more important is how much more did you know coming out
of college than you did when you went in.

But that's not really the point. I'm talking about who one chooses to
listen to or take advice from. My view is that when you want to know the
truth about something or the facts you go to someone who is an expert, a
professional, someone who has a credential, someone who actually knows
what they are talking about. You don't go to a layman, the common man,
or the man in the street. That's my view.

You are not saying what you originally said. If I remember correctly
you referenced a collage graduate as an expert and this was what I was
protesting about.

I don't think I ever said that having a college degree conveyed the
level of expert on someone. What I meant to say was that compared to
someone with no college; someone with a degree would be seen as an
expert. Take someone with a degree in psychology. Compare what he knows
to someone with no college. When it comes to psychology if you compared
the two I'd say in that comparison the guy with the degree in psych
would be an expert. He wouldn't be considered an expert compared to
someone with a Ph.D. in psychology and 20 years of practice. But to a
layman he would be.

I agree with you with the exception that the degree does not always,
in fact I suspect rather infrequently, means that one is an expert. To
use your own analogy who would you prefer tell you what club you
should use for this shot? The 8th grade caddy or the non-golfer with
the degree in aerodynamics?

In fact I suspect that knowledge depends more on an individual's
desire to learn rather than a diploma. Henry Ford was apprentice
machinist, not a degreed engineer; Walter Chrisler was a machinist,
Neither of the two originators of APPLE had degrees; Bill Gates was a
collage drop-out; Samuel Colt was indentured to a farm.

You're bringing up specifics here and some of them from long ago. Back
in Ford's day almost no one had college degrees. Sam Colt didn't live in
the modern era. Bill Gates got rich by selling someone else's operating
system to business and Steve Jobs was in the ground floor of the
computer's invention. I don't think you can learn much from the
experience of people whose life experiences are like no one else's.

Relating that to Limbaugh is simple. He is the ordinary man, the
uneducated, the layman. I'm not being negative. I'm simply describing
him accurately. There is simply no area in which Limbaugh has any
specific expertise beyond what any ordinary person has.

I didn't even know who Limbaugh is but looked him up on the Wiki and
apparently he is some sort of talk show MC. Which hardly qualifies him
for anything.

I know. That's my point. Even though he has no qualifications he has
millions of people who follow his every word. I think that's nuts. Now
if he was an expert in anything that would be different. But he's not.



According to my view of going to professionals, experts, or the
educated, that lets out Limbaugh. But that's my way of doing things.
Clearly, lots of people don't do it my way. Instead they take the word
of someone who has no particular training or expertise on just about any
subject. I'm saying I think that is a stupid way of doing things and
that the people who do that are themselves stupid. That's how it looks
to me.

Hawke

I can only agree that people seem to have a penchant for listening to
those who say what they want to hear. Obama's school history is a
perfect example - the "Moslem School" that he attended. The name of
the school, which has been published, translates to "National School
Number 4". In fact the school's name, Sekolah Dasar Negeri 04, is
indicative of a non-religious school as a Moslem religious school
would be refereed to as a "Madressa", not a "Sekolah".

But people hear what they want to hear.

I'd change that slightly to a lot of people hear what they want to hear.
Because there are plenty of people in the world who are capable of
objectivity. Just because most are not doesn't mean that applies to
everyone. The problem arises when the people who hear what they want to
hear meet the people who hear what really is there. There's going to be
conflict because those who hear what they want to aren't going to like
being told they are not hearing what really is.

Hawke