HN asks that as discussions intensify, we get more thoughtful and substantive.
I'll do my best to follow that norm as well as to converse with you, with Paul Graham's "How to Disagree" in mind [0].
I'm not quite sure how your response fits into Paul's disagreement hierarchy with my original post in mind, but it doesn't seem to get at the meat of what I said.
I do realize universities offer philosophy degrees. They certainly aren't STEM degrees that have set career paths outside of academia, however I would say that "useless" is too strong a descriptor.
For one, I bet we could both look and find a number of successful people in the startup world that HN encompasses who have philosophy degrees and are doing interesting things within companies (eg they have successful financial careers).
Second, there could be a solid argument that philosophy teaches a useful way of thinking.
Third, if we want to move the goal posts of this discussion to universities, I could go on for quite awhile about ineffective practices and ways they set students up to fail as well. My main concern is the students. Seeing students at any level from early childhood to university and beyond taken advantage/set up to fail/screwed over/bamboozled gets me fired up.
BTW, I checked out your webpage and enjoy the Spartan nature of it. The "end of page" is a nice touch I haven't seen before.
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