<p>DE: in that case, I think the government should afford you the chance (but not guarantee your success) to train to be the best labour worker you can be.</p>
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Eh, I’ll just be doing it long enough to stage an International Workers’ Revolution.</p>
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Yeah, but I don’t think a philosopher king is preferable to a tyrant, so it’s not like you proved anything by bringing that up.</p>
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So we know what the state of nature is because it’s the same as the state of society? So what was the point of society? Personally, I like Rousseau’s rebuttal:
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<p>GottaHaveFaith: these days, it’s hard to get a job as a cop without a post-secondary education.</p>
<p>Your preference of class of leadership is open to debate. The idea that you can precisely determine that one class is 729 times better than another, as Plato’s Socrates did, is much less so. Nevertheless, I think there are gems of truth to be found in The Republic.</p>
<p>“So we know what the state of nature is because it’s the same as the state of society?”</p>
<p>No, we know what the state of nature is because we can observe how human actors behave in the anarchy of the international system. In regards to Rousseau’s response, I think it only affirms the validity of my example. When one gets down to it, there is no empirical goodness or badness there; it is simply determined by the victor of struggle. </p>
<p>Good luck staging a worker’s revolution in this world. Lenin has a good point; limited amelioration of peoples’ demands leads to complacency, and complacency is the enemy of revolution. As long as people can afford to feed their families and buy cheap crap from Big Box stores, there will not be a hunger for revolution. It’s part of why I think all of this talk about our country coming towards Marxism is complete and utter bovine excrement.</p>
<p>There are more law enforcement jobs than cops.</p>
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Okay, but how does that carry over to all philosophers everywhere? Or Hobbes in particular?</p>
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You painted it in a negative (not a neutral) light before. And I don’t think you’re quite getting what Rousseau was saying. Of course, you could also look at other ideas of an alleged “natural state” (all speculative ********), like Locke’s.</p>
<p>Also, you’ll note that people from different societies behave differently on the international stage. Social conditioning is so present that it’s ridiculous to generalize that to some hypothetical “natural state.” Like Rousseau said, you’re just putting civilized people in the wilderness, then.</p>
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The thing is, only 5% of humanity lives in the United States. And anyway, a good amount of the poor even here would still benefit. Especially if there’s another big crash/recession/depression.</p>
<p>Hobbes’ infallible monarchy idea is a bunch of hooey (just like the 729 times thing), but there are still valid points of his to be had.</p>
<p>Countries may have many different calculi by which they determine self-interest, but calculated self-interest is still the overriding determinant of any country’s behaviour (or at least the calculated interest of the power-giving constituency).</p>
<p>and with that, it’s been a pleasure, but the time to sleep is nigh.</p>
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But you still aren’t explaining why certain points are valid, just saying that they are.</p>
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And that’s an extension of civilized man; what are countries made up of if not civilized men? Society imbues us with hate, greed, patriotism, and deference to authority, all of which greatly affect the international landscape. In nature, however, all living things merely strive for the conditions most conducive to continued life, which is far less of a zero-sum game.</p>
<p>Past four pages are tl:dr. However, I think the line between civilized and natural is wuzzier than you gents assume. Our “natural” human instinct is still kickin’ like it was in 5,000 BCE and it hasn’t (d)evolved into something else, but I digress. You see, this is why I can’t get into the humanities…</p>
<p>I would LOVE to see you try to make a good living in THIS day and age without a Bachelor’s degree. The world is so different than our parents’ world.</p>
<p>There is a recession. There is globalization. That is what you’re forgetting. </p>
<p>You’re now competing with people from all over the world who have a better education than you (yes, U.S. education pales in comparison to other countries) who can now get at least a Master’s because it’s very cheap for them.</p>
<p>Please, I would just love for you to try to work your way up the corporate ladder when there’s a Chinese student who’s been doing the math you’re doing now since 5th grade and has top-notch grades in a top university. Please try to compete with him and the millions of other people around the world who get a better education than you every second of the day (unless you go to a U.S. college)</p>
<p>The general misconception in our society is that education == schooling, when in fact education != schooling. College is a bubble; in no way shape or form is it the real world. Anyone who claims that it is a right is an ideologue; anyone who claims that secondary education is a right is also an ideologue. Some people will benefit from it and others won’t. For those of you who argue an increase in college graduates will somehow benefit this society, I can inform you that we have had an increase. A MASS increase; yet, our society is beginning to crumble.</p>
<p>@numero1: My uncle works for Cisco as an architect and makes over $200,000 a year. He landed the job a decade ago. He doesn’t even have a degree. College is going through the exact same situation as real estate did a decade ago. I wonder what’ll happen when the bubble bursts…</p>
<p>@numero1: essentially you hold the credentials > results belief, which is beyond fallible. You failed to recognize that a ten year old can receive great schooling for almost nothing because of OpenCourseWare, iTunesU, Kahn, etc.</p>
<p>Numero1, that is just an example for the corporate world which can be disproved. If you’re an entrepreneur, it is easy to make a good living without needing a degree. </p>
<p>BUT, a degree is not a necessity in the corporate world. It is a major factor if you are going and seeking out the competitive, executive jobs right after you graduate.</p>
<p>If you work your way up, a degree is not a necessity. My mom has been with her company for twelve or so years now, started with nothing and now making over $200,000 a year and because of her industry that grows each year. My cousin is on the same track she is and she has been successful having only been with the company four years. </p>
<p>Yes, if you are looking into job prospects within the global market you have competition. Though, if you are looking regionally in companies outside of major US cities, you’ll find that many professionals don’t have degrees and are thriving. The most successful do, but it’s not a necessity for a “good living”.</p>
<p>The above posters stole the words right out of my mouth, but I would like to add that after my father retired at the end of June, he got another good-paying job a week later. No, it wasn’t because the company could pay him less than the young college graduates; he actually gets paid more than they would have been paid. It’s because there are more important credentials in some job fields than a college degree.</p>
<p>@MrSirProfRamsay</p>
<p>You’re right,; that one example is representative of the other 300,000,000 people in the United States.</p>
<p>First, let me notice that someone said that a class is 729 times more important than another. Not sure if anyone pointed this out, but 9^3=729. From an entering engineering student.</p>
<p>College should not be a right. There are people who I know to be flat out dumb that are heading to college. If not a 4 year school, it’s almost always a 2 year school. People with 70-75 averages going on to college (in NYC), and people in my hometown getting by with 2.3 cumulative GPAs thinking they will be successful in college. They won’t, unless they have a major focus shift.</p>
<p>We are all trained from an early age that you are nothing if you don’t go to college, and everyone looks down upon you (even people that didn’t GO TO COLLEGE!) if you were always supposed to go. If I didn’t go, I would have virtually my entire community (which is basically all of one ethnicity in my city) looking down upon me, even if I had some great plans as an alternative.</p>
<p>My solution would be to change the thinking, but that takes far too long and is extremely difficult to change without graduated changes.</p>
<p>^That was the logic, but Socrates’ reasoning for why this was an appropriate calculus made no sense whatsoever. regardless, it was an abstract philosophical discussion.</p>
<p>Sorry to tell you idealists here, but most people who don’t go to college don’t want to go to college; even if they did, they’ll just flunk out. Have you ever been to an inner city public school? They’re like giant day-care centers for kids until they reach 18.</p>
<p>If you really want to improve education, focus on K-12 education. Toughen standards, show students that they have to really work to pass a class. End the A for trying mentality.</p>
<p>^or they have no need for college for their careers. If you couldn’t go anywhere without a degree and you couldn’t support a family or yourselves without a college degree, then probably 75% of America would be stupid, unemployed, and living in a box. Even in this recession, the number isn’t that high.</p>