Comment by rightnutwingjob
1 day ago
> An electrical engineer who has helped design robots. An organic chemist who, during the pandemic, worked on COVID-19 drugs. An education researcher, a sociologist, several political scientists, economists, physicians, and medical researchers.
Diverse? Over-educated university graduates is possibly the least diverse set of thinkers one could hope to find.
> Dozens of them come from the academic world, and more than half have a Ph.D. or M.D.
Lord help up. This is going to be demonstration of hubris and an exercise in arrogance.
Whatever it is going to be it will hardly be worse than what we had for past 14 years of SNS / Vučić dictatorship.
It's always funny to me when people say "overeducated", as if knowing things is only good up to a point. If you know too much, you suddenly turn bad.
When people use the term, it is obviously not a reference to just "knowing things" but rather 1) the distinct socialization one gets in academia that leaves one rather divorced from the real world (and I say that as an academic), and 2) hyperspecialization to the point one loses the big picture, a problem in education today.
I knew one or two profs like that when I was studying, but the vast majority of people in academia are just regular people with families and interests outside of academia. It's kinda disheartening to see the anti-intellectual bent this discussion has taken.
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I definitely agree existing in a particular silo gives you a narrow view of the world, but I've never understood the idea that the silo of academia is somehow worse or less representative of the broader world than small town living or being in the military or any of the other silos many people exist in. The real world almost by definition is made up of the combination of all the things people do and the environments in which they exist.
Obviously being a truck driver is different than being a physics professor. But I'm not sure there is much of a coherent argument supporting the idea that the former exists in the real world while the latter does not.
People use the term to manage their cognitive dissonance. They do not want to put the work in to become educated, and do not want to admit that this puts them at distinct disadvantage in many ways that matter.
> distinct socialization one gets in academia that leaves one rather divorced from the real world
It is absurd claim. Academia is part of real world. It is not an isolated island cut off from everything else.
It is no more divorced from real world then any other group of people. No more divorced then rural farmer are divorced from it, businessmen are divorced from it, sports fans are divorced from it. They are all having limits of understanding other groups.
Tech workers as likely more divorced from average person even.
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Yes, this was, obviously, my intended usage.
Not the wet lettuce straw man usage posited by the other comment.
A Jack of all trades is a master of none, but better than a master of one because he has broad, intersectional knowledge. Academia is designed for specialization and the more you specialize in something the more you lose the forest for the trees.
Everything looks like a nail if you are a hammer and all that.
https://www.oglaf.com/labyrinth/
While the extreme "master of one" exists, most academics I know have cross-cutting interests.
We also shouldn't forget that the vast majority of politicians today are lawyers by education. To whatever degree your assumption holds, it is true of the status quo today as well. Even in that case, having a more diverse set of "masters of one" would be an improvement.
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Academic credentials and knowledge have very little correlation. A master electrician knows things. So does an airline pilot in charge of hundreds of lives. Yet neither has letters after their name.
Aren’t the letters after their names essentially signifying their level of understanding on a subject?
Just like “Master” before electrician or “Captain” or “PIC” for airline pilots.
Yeah, there's plenty of high-profile academic politicians in Europe with debatable legacies including Thatcher and Merkel. Time will tell.
A quick search suggests the economists associated with this movement are fairly 'mainstream' institutionalists of the type that's popular with government these days in the west. I don't think there will be big changes soon beyond dealing with corruption/nepotism.
Later on, I imagine they will push for faster EU integration on possibly slightly worse terms. Serbia may become marginally less independent in terms of fiscal policy at least and the markets might become even more exposed/beholden to foreign capital. This process has been in motion for years now and I don't expect the student movement to care - the upsides are broadly popular with younger people globally. Personally, I think it is deeply ironic that in the age of tariffs and huge government spending by the superpowers, small countries like Serbia are still signing up to be bound by the 'free market' consensus which is rapidly disintegrating globally.
Thatcher was a scientist, but no more an academic than most politicians.
She had a honors bachelors degree. An Oxford MA is awarded three years later on application, and is not an earned master’s degree. Unusually for a politician, it was a science degree (chemistry), and she worked in a lab at school and after school briefly, but she got a law degree later, which is a typical politician thing.
If that bachelor’s degree was in humanities, like almost all elected officials, no one would refer to her as an academic.
In contrast, Merkel earned a PhD, and some of these newly elected Serbian reps are long-time professors.
There are more ardent second amendment supporters among tenured professors in US universities than you think.
it is the only amendment there is in the USA, all others are just for show. fourth amendment gotta be the biggest joke at this point that it even “exists” on paper so-to-speak. 2A holds it together though to make us feel like we are “free” :)
Still beats the alternative of corrupt career politicians.
Alternative? The corrupt career politicians in the US mostly hold JDs.
> Still beats the alternative of corrupt career politicians.
Are you sure? After the covid and position of the scientific community on it's origin it is evident that most scientist are ready to do the exact things that corrupt career politicians are doing, but for free, purely for the love of the game.
Average professional politician is a psychopath fighting for power no matter what.
At least these guys might be honest about their hubris and arrogance and won't smile to you while slaughtering your future or robbing your family.
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Why are russian bots always so easy to spot?