The Case Against Education

“My best guess says signaling accounts for 80% of education’s return”, Bryan Caplan

Maybe I was wrong believing that current universities are in major trouble, because their quality of research and most notably education is dropping from a low level to a dismal one. As the argument goes: that narcissistic wokeists took over universities — in a follow up of post modern destruction of clear and reasonable thinking — and joining those who never had interest in teaching anyways. Now, as they mostly succeeded, universities are so broken that their value proposition for society and companies drops towards zero.

Richard Feynman. One of the extraordinary scientists
of the 20th century who was also an outstanding teacher

I do not disagree with this assessment in principle, but if Bryan Caplan is right with his signalling theory, quality of education was never a big issue to start with. Signalling is, according to his assessment, about 80% of a degree of most kinds. Now, if this is true, then it does not make a substantial difference if wokesters damaged education even further and thus push the signaling proportion to 90% or 95%. The educational value was barely a given beforehand either.

“Frankly, most econ professors practice a variant of the old Soviet adage, 'We pretend to teach, they pretend to learn.'”, ibid

Actually the opposite could be true: now you do not only signal that you make it into and through college, you also signal that you have the “right” values and believe in the enlightened religion. 

A practice we thought we removed during enlightenment as it were. But who cares?

Well. Reality might care. 

As physics will put an end to airy ideas of a de-materialised economy and energy transition — as if materials and laws of physics would not count any more, since we got the iPhone, the same must be true for signaling on a larger scale. If the signaling theory is true, we waste extraordinary amounts of resources into nonsense, which clearly cannot be sustained indefinitely. At one point in time, reality catches you. We currently observe who the “green” energy bubble is bursting — largely because of massive incompetence by those who drove it (NGOs, research centres, politicians), we are stuck in stagnation as far as building and maintenance of old fashioned infrastructure goes and we loose ourselves in idiotic political disputes that solve no real world problem.

Biology and medicine will simply not work much longer in any reasonable way, should we decide not to know what a woman is. Not to mention, that at one point in time the majority of women will realise that decades of hard earned rights are chopped away in benefit of radical fringe and honestly, stupid ideas. And don't get me started on indigenous and alternative mathematics and physics.

In practical terms: either corporations will call the bluff and will not hire candidates especially with degrees from (elite) universities any longer, but people who actually know what they are doing, or other nations where the king still wears clothes will overtake us. Overtake us in terms of economic prosperity, human rights and living standards. And fast.