When an economist reads The Onion

This isn't a movie review. So sue me.

The other day I was happily listening to the third lecture from a class at Berkley (which I am not paying for since they post that stuff online for free) about the Psychology of Buddhism when I saw on the facebook that my buddy James had posted a link to a lecture about education. I was quickly into that and I had to laugh when the lecturer himself, addressing the audience, said "You people are weird. Unlike most of the world, you people go to lectures about education for FUN!"

And I remembered that I'm the kid who used to read the dictionary for amusement (words are cool!) and was grounded FROM the library. These days I'm excited when the TEDTalks link of the day shows up on my facebook feed. I am a NERD.

I blame my mother. I was home-schooled for most of my life so I never learned that learning sucks. It was something fun to do between chores and playing Uno with my little sister. When I got to college I discovered that I LOVED lectures (not so many of those in home-schooling. Well, not educational ones, anyway. Ha!) You can learn cool stuff by just sitting there and listening? AMAZING! Whoever invented this was a genius! Then the Internet came along and now I can sit around in my underwear (as opposed to the pyjamas I used to wear in college) and learn stuff.

So, because this is my blog and I can do what I want, I am gonna offer some reviews/summaries of some of my current favorite lectures. If you are part of the majority of society who dislikes lectures, thank you for reading - class is dismissed. The brains here are gonna get their party on. =)

**** Intermission ****

Okay. Let's get started. The most recent lecture (and the one for which this blog is titled,) is called "The Case Against Education" and it's by a big honking libertarian economist named Bryan Caplan. He's funny. Here's the link:

http://www.fee.org/media/the-case-against-education/

Now, he didn't just come out and say that he got his ideas after reading this article in The Onion

http://www.theonion.com/articles/us-government-to-discontinue-longterm-lowyield-inv,751/

but I like to think he didn't have to. =) His main premise is that the educational system in the U.S. contains and appalling amount of wasted time and money spent learning things with little or no practical value. He maintains that the majority of our higher education functions simply as a signal to others that we are an acceptable, conformist, work-oriented person in the hopes that someone will give us a job. Mr. Caplan says that it would be a better investment if the government would stop spending so much time forcing folks to sit in school learning arbitrary stuff with no practical value. This would free up folks to get jobs and actually start learning something useful.

There's a longish Q&A section at the end of this lecture (it clocks at about 1 hour 15 min) where people raise all sorts of objections. Mr. Caplan is pretty dismissive of their concerns but he's an economist and isn't so into feelings. One comment I did really like, though, was right at the very end. Someone must have said that a Liberal Arts education is good for you (I don't know what they actually said since you can't hear the questions.) Mr. Caplan said that he loved opera and high culture but a lot of folks don't. If you force everyone in the U.S. to attend the opera on the grounds that it is good for them all you will do is cause a lot of unneeded suffering.

I am an opera singer and I think this is funny because it is true. =)

Anyway, I enjoyed this lecture 'cause it made me think, was based on actual math, and got me all rant-y and fired up about our educational system. It also showed me that I'm not very libertarian. Nice to have extremes to contrast oneself against.

**** 10 min break ****

Moving on. My next lecture is from the TED series and is about political apathy. Here's the link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html

For those who don't know, TED started out as a conference in 1984 which brought folks from Technology, Entertainment, and Design (thus TED) fields together to discuss fun stuff. It has evolved into a place which supports the COOLEST THINGS EVER and I can spend hours listening to folks on their website.

Anyway this lecture is a nice little 7 minutes and presents Mr Meslin's 7 reasons why folks don't get involved with local, state, or national issues. Well, he didn't say state because he's Canadian but I don't think that makes any of this invalid. It just makes it polite. =) I really liked this lecture and I'm not gonna explain it any more than I have because you have already spent more than 7 minutes reading this ginormous posting of mine so it shouldn't be a problem popping over to TED for a bit. Go ahead and do that. I can wait. =)

***************

And we're back. To finish up I'm gonna recommend a BBC miniseries that I had in my Netflix queue as "unknown" for years and then took it off 'cause someone posted the whole 4 hours of it on YouTube. We live in a beautiful world. Here's the link:

http://youtu.be/UcYBSXgtmKQ

It's called "Century of Self" and it's about how the concepts of Sigmund Freud changed America. I find it fascinating. It challenged all the beliefs I held as established and made me look at materialism, advertising, and my relationship to it. It is well made and a fun way to spend 4 hours. Heads up, though, when they get to the '70's with all the hippies doing scream therapy and hot tubing together there is a bit of naked going on. It's made in England so they don't freak out about that sort of thing as much. Just an FYI.

Oh. So this ended up being a movie review after all. Huh.

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And, that's it for today. Remember to read your syllabus and be prepared for a pop quiz. =)