" wrote in
:

On 22 Jul 2012 20:43:20 GMT, Han wrote:

" wrote in
m:

On 22 Jul 2012 10:59:20 GMT, Han wrote:


snip back to what you're responding to...

I don't know how to solve that. Obviously I
would not want to get blamed for somone's inabaility to get
financing because he is from a ghetto background with no track
record ...

Why? Minorities are incapable of working their way up? ...or you
just don't want the *blame*?

Wow, you did get my drift! liberal, but fiscally responsible. And
art for the sake of art is just fine, whether or not dead or almost
dead languages are involved.

Art for art's sake is fine in the open market but with tax dollars,
not so much. Where you choose to spend your money is your decision.
What art you choose, likewise.

I have absolutely no problem with some subsidies for art for art's sake.
The "some" is rather stretchable, of course. Governments of all levels
have sponsored artists and engineers to build buildings, parks, bridges,
what have you. At times they were nice, functional, pretty, whatever
good adjectives you want. Sometimes they built ridiculous things,
sometimes they built ugly and dysfunctional.

As far as students studying dead languages, or dead art, I have no
problem as long as they're paying the tab. When they borrow $100K on
their fantasy and then expect me to bail them out, I certainly do have
a problem.

When you invest in startups/entrepreneurs/venture capital firms, you
expect some duds, as well as some really good outcomes. In art I'd
expect the same. (Even to the extent that some "investments" are rigged
by the "judges".)

Universities aren't trade schools.

They aren't supposed to be infinite money sinks, either. Like
everything else, they have to provide greater benefit to society than
their cost.

Greater benefit than costs? One would hope that all investments pay off
handsomely, but I'd think that reinvestment would be the best thing that
could happen.

I retired in
large part because of the ridiculous bloated bureaucracy that required
me to spend almost all my time with requirements, certifications and
nonsense reports, rather than the research I was being paid to do.

That's what professors are paid to do, today. It really hasn't
changed in (at least) fifty years, except in magnitude.

Maybe I rose up in the ranks too far, but I have heard the complaint also
from administrative staff, and I have seen the office of the division
head expand like balloons, especially during the last 5-10 years.

But
doing away with those things needs to mean that people who commit
fraud get really serious punishment, rather than just being banned for
5 years of receiving federal funds.

We're on the same page, here! Those from E. Anglia should be
banished from all science.

I agree with the idea, just not the specifics here. As in politics, it
is really easy to focus laser-like on out of context statements.

Indeed I don't want to be blamed for denying minorities their rights.

But you don't have a problem with actually denying them their rights?

Grin. Rights here can be stretched too. How stringently do you apply
standards of performance, if perhaps the subject student has had
repeatedly bad luck in his family and/or health? I know **** happens,
and sometimes you can wipe it off and go on, and at other times you can't
get rid of the bad luck.

How to exactly balance the individual's right to help out of a
previously disadvantaged situation and the right of society for
productively using their resources, is difficult grin.

Easy. Give them help into the water and then make them swim on their
own. The problem with affirmative action is that it hurts both those
who can't make it and the ones who can, as well as those who get
displaced (by those who can't). It's a lose-lose-lose situation.

Surely true in some cases. In others, there is a lack of guidance, help,
supervision, whatever.

--
Best regards
Han
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