US 2024 Presidential Election

[Agema]

Like what? Lecture planning, test grading, one-on-one instruction, administrative tasks? The parts that cannot be automated could be given additional emphasis.

They could, but I think what will actually happen is the same "race to the bottom" of anything else - because education is after all a business.

AI generates a lecture, deliver it as asynchronous online (i.e. a recording) rather than live. All you need is a staff member to give it quick once over to check mistakes. In theory, the staff time could be then dedicated to more small group, interactive teaching... but it probably won't, when the course can be delivered so much more cheaply with the same handful of perfunctory tutorials as there was under the old live lecture delivery. This probably won't be such a big deal at the high prestige universities as they tend to be awash with money, but the middle and lower level ones might be readily gutted of staff.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this. Convicted sexual abuser Donald Trump promised to "protect women" so that their "lives will be happy, beautiful, and their lives will be great again" and they "will no longer be thinking about abortion".

Trump repeats claims that women will 'no longer be thinking about abortion' if he becomes president

Donald Trump said in a rally Monday that he will be a "protector" of women and repeated a claim that they "will no longer be thinking about abortion" if he wins.

abcnews.go.com

Don't worry, women! The man who bragged about "grabbing them by the pussy" will protect you from... things!

 

[Gergar12]

They could, but I think what will actually happen is the same "race to the bottom" of anything else - because education is after all a business.

AI generates a lecture, deliver it as asynchronous online (i.e. a recording) rather than live. All you need is a staff member to give it quick once over to check mistakes. In theory, the staff time could be then dedicated to more small group, interactive teaching... but it probably won't, when the course can be delivered so much more cheaply with the same handful of perfunctory tutorials as there was under the old live lecture delivery. This probably won't be such a big deal at the high prestige universities as they tend to be awash with money, but the middle and lower level ones might be readily gutted of staff.

There is already a high education recession in many liberal arts colleges and states with them in the northeast because they don't even bother to teach you how to use ERPs, data analysis software/tools, programming (or do it poorly), high-level statistics, professional writing, and so on.

I had to drop a class in business statistics because my group fell apart. Had I had ChatGPT 4; I wouldn't have needed it, granted, it was for a finance major, so no love was lost there; They are ruining the world right now with their narrow analysis.

I had to self-teach myself SQL off of Youtube, and Python when I could have gotten it in my economics classes who didn't bother doing tutorials. This was at a large public research university.

 

[Worgen]

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Then you revolt. What you don't do is complain about a job that pays at a minimum of 80K to 200K and wants 120K to 300K AND no port modernization/automation.

Maybe if their employer didn't keep threatening to replace them with robots they wouldn't constantly be demanding more money and preventing their employer from modernizing.

It's not a good idea to threaten people to try to keep wages low when your business is still entirely dependent on those same people. If you knew that your employer wanted to replace you with a robot and destroy your livelihood wouldn't you try to prevent that, or fleece your employer for as much money as possible in the meantime? It's called making them pay the dickhead tax.

Edit: That's not going to get most Americans on your side. Most Americans make less than $41,000. The median full-time salary is 59K, and many Americans don't make that.

Most Americans aren't handling extremely large and dangerous machinery and most Americans don't have the ability to grind the US economy to a halt if they want.

 

[Satinavian]

Good. A job that can be performed by a machine without a loss in quality absolutely should be performed by a machine. Why should a human toil away at a work that is simple enough that an automaton could do it?

The main issue is that it moves capital flow away from work. So in the whole economy less money is earned by working and more money is earned by ownership of stuff, either machines or IP. This will only make inequality more pronounced and also make society more stratified.

Sure, policy could counter that and make automation a win-win for all. But in the more capitalist countries that just does not happen.

 

[Agema]

I had to self-teach myself SQL off of Youtube, and Python when I could have gotten it in my economics classes who didn't bother doing tutorials. This was at a large public research university.

They generally wouldn't teach software coding for an undergraduate research degree. It would be done at postgraduate level: as part of the research project if it were required, or through optional development programmes that the student could take up as they desired.

Attempting to fit in a module to teach coding would necessarily involve the removal of other material that, all in all, would be a great deal more valuable in an undergraduate degree. Courses are however increasingly incorporating AI into their teaching and the design of their assignments.

 

[Kwak]

 

[Thaluikhain]

There’s an elephant in the room (no pun) size point there though. How the hell are we able to take care of illegals, who often don’t have even an American level education (which isn’t saying much as it is) when we can’t even take care of our own law abiding citizens?

Won't, rather than can't.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Won't, rather than can't.

Basically semantics, as both sides are guilty in their own way as is typical.

https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_immigration_to_taxpayers.pdf

What does the establishment stand to gain by exacerbating the problem is what needs to be exposed. Enabling a larger burden to fall upon the average citizen isn’t helping anything, regardless of whether they won’t or can’t do better, and the media sweeping things under the rug or downplaying them like they do with so many of our country’s problems understandably only furthers the frustrations and resentment.

 

[Silvanus]

Basically semantics, as both sides are guilty in their own way as is typical.

It's not semantics at all. As soon as you recognise that its 'won't' rather than 'can't', then the false dichotomy disappears. There is no reason to make these groups compete for favour. One having something does not prevent the other having something, when resources exist and are plentiful enough for both to have it.

In short: the ones depriving American citizens of basic living standards are corporatists and policymakers, not immigrants. The latter are scapegoated.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Basically semantics, as both sides are guilty in their own way as is typical.

Well, yes, based on the assumption that both groups will continue to be guilty. Which, ok, they will. But if they wanted, either of them could fix the problems, and so if they want more immigration, they could have it without it being a big deal.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

It's not semantics at all. As soon as you recognise that its 'won't' rather than 'can't', then the false dichotomy disappears. There is no reason to make these groups compete for favour. One having something does not prevent the other having something, when resources exist and are plentiful enough for both to have it.

In short: the ones depriving American citizens of basic living standards are corporatists and policymakers, not immigrants. The latter are scapegoated.

They treat it as such though, and that’s what my next statement was for. But the answer basically always boils down to “what’s in it for me?” first before considering how it affects anyone else.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Basically semantics, as both sides are guilty in their own way as is typical.

https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/the_cost_of_illegal_immigration_to_taxpayers.pdf

What does the establishment stand to gain by exacerbating the problem is what needs to be exposed. Enabling a larger burden to fall upon the average citizen isn’t helping anything, regardless of whether they won’t or can’t do better, and the media sweeping things under the rug or downplaying them like they do with so many of our country’s problems understandably only furthers the frustrations and resentment.

They gain a higher percentage of households to do shitty labor for not enough wages, which is a problem that isn't fixed by spending huge amounts of money trying to enforce a very wide border, because the problem is structural in two ways: the economy stops functioning the way they want if the labor costs were high enough to temp Americans to do the work, and even if that weren't the case, we just don't have enough warm bodies who are qualified to do the work without immigration



Springfield is actually a good example of this: a dying, decaying town with plenty of open jobs and a native population that couldn't or wasn't willing and able to fill them, being revitalized by immigrants. Sure, they're legal immigrants, but the GOP doesn't care and treats them as a threat anyway, and I don't care because I want the US's immigration policy to revert to pre-Chinese exclusion act days.

It's the fact that our entire economic system is hilariously fragile and increasingly reliant of an impoverished underclass that needs fixed

 

[Silvanus]

They treat it as such though, and that’s what my next statement was for. But the answer basically always boils down to “what’s in it for me?” first before considering how it affects anyone else.

Policymakers like to treat public spending as a hugely restrictive either/or between (what should be) basic necessities-- Rachel Reeves is doing something similar in the UK at the moment, arguing that the government really has no choice but to cut child benefits and pensioner support. Mostly this is to deflect from their unwillingness to look at more equitable sources of income, and to absolve themselves of blame for harmful or unpopular decisions.

Big swathes of right-wing media also treat it this way. In their case it's so they can disguise their regressive social views with economics.

And finally we have a big chunk of the public, who're mostly just imagining that a national economy works just like personal budgeting.

 

[Gergar12]

They generally wouldn't teach software coding for an undergraduate research degree. It would be done at postgraduate level: as part of the research project if it were required, or through optional development programmes that the student could take up as they desired.

Attempting to fit in a module to teach coding would necessarily involve the removal of other material that, all in all, would be a great deal more valuable in an undergraduate degree. Courses are however increasingly incorporating AI into their teaching and the design of their assignments.

Then how come my business degree was able to teach me MS Excel? Surely you could add an economics optional Python class or a data science SQL class to an economics major with no prerequisites.

It's funny they keep pushing R, and very few companies use R. And the ones that do need master's degrees.

 

[Gergar12]

Where are Jake Sullivan and the de-escalation people?

Also, for Fucks sake, do it after the elections!!! If the Democrats lose this election over Brent Crude, and Trump wins, you can bet the next Dem presidential administration will ax Israel aid.

 

[Agema]

Then how come my business degree was able to teach me MS Excel? Surely you could add an economics optional Python class or a data science SQL class to an economics major with no prerequisites.

There's a substantial difference between knowing how to use basic office or typical subject-related software packages (e.g. SPSS or GraphPad Prism) effectively and learning a whole coding language.

Many universities do have systems to support students doing optional, voluntary modules: most I have seen are students doing additional language modules, but others are available. However, these would be taken up at the students' initiative and expected to be done in their own time around their core course.

 

[tippy2k2]

Also, for Fucks sake, do it after the elections!!! If the Democrats lose this election over Brent Crude, and Trump wins, you can bet the next Dem presidential administration will ax Israel aid.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Also, for Fucks sake, do it after the elections!!! If the Democrats lose this election over Brent Crude, and Trump wins, you can bet the next Dem presidential administration will ax Israel aid.

Trump keeps promising that if he wins, there'll be now more Dem administrations, ever. Now, he doesn't have the power to guarantee they can't win in the future, but he has the power to rig things against them even moreso.