Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Diane abbot and the value of abstract thought-philosophy and entertainment" video.

  1. Life without abstract thought is elevating quantity over quality. It's like eating just mashed potato for the rest of your life. You survive, but are starved. You are malnourished even though you're not hungry. And it actually limits your usefulness to boot. Creative thinking and problem solving is abstract thought. We wouldn't have got to where we are now without it. And it doesn't stop things going wrong, but we'd be far worse off without it. And life without thinking is like cutting with a dull knife. You'll probably get cut instead of the stuff you're trying to cut.
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  2. Why not? Imagine your family says about you when you reach 70, why be concerned about him? You've no use any more. You're just an inconvenience now. That kind of thinking often brings about uncomfortable results like the Liverpool Protocol. (Google it.) And even monkeys have conceptions of fairness. Go figure.
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  3. Not really. Universities are not just factories for stuffing facts into people's heads, it's also a network. University makes finding talent more efficient, because it locates what is needed all in one place, and provides relatively easy access to it. How any subject is taught in universities is efficient, including the contacts you make going into the field. And sadly, fame and talent aren't always together. Talent is a fuzzy concept at the best of times, because especially in the creative arts, talent might not be recognised until after you're dead. Even worse, those called talented and get recognised as such while alive may fall out of fashion. So talent is fine, but university is more about keeping the practice of creative expression alive and functioning within a capitalist society. Capitalism destroys what it considers useless. So quality isn't a driving motivation under capitalism, but what return one can get. That's precarious for something that is more about creative quality than quantity of wealth it produces. Talent doesn't guarantee a living sadly. Luck does play a part. I mean, the talents of someone like Pablo Escobar and Al Capone didn't need university to flourish, but imagine if they hadn't really needed to embark on a life of crime to get access to wealth, power, and influence? These people were talented, but their talents were misplaced. (In fact, the idea that evil is a force, energy, and expression misplaced is one that has intrigued me. The existence talented people doing bad things is very human.) in human societies a lot of things float to the top. Whether those things are good or bad, is a matter of their legacy, and impact in their field. I mean, poop floats to the top, but gold does not. Who's really to say?
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  4. The style and personality of the teaching plays a huge part in how well what you been exposed to sticks. Communication is a skill, and to combine that with pedagogy, is an assault course for the instructor too, because your students are an audience too. They often are there because they have to be, but the best instructors can make them want to be there, and want to learn deeply, and not just pass the exam. For example, I remember my Equity and Trusts lecturer with a smile, because Law is a very dry, fact-driven subject, but she bought the stories behind the legal principles to life by dint of her personality. She was enthusiastic, and I respond well to that. And I remember her decades later. How something is taught is as important as what is taught IMO.
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  5. And you broke your own rule. Lol.
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