From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: Professional registration
Organization: The World
	<C00753.Mp0@ddsw1.mcs.com> <1992Dec29.154555.8466@news.eng.convex.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 18:57:54 GMT


From: gardner@convex.com (Steve Gardner)
>In article <C00753.Mp0@ddsw1.mcs.com> karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger) writes:
>>How about those of us who are damn tired of "colleges" where an education
>>takes a back seat to the whims and desires of some corporate sponsor who
>>happens to be in someone's back pocket (or front pocket for that matter)?
>	Please give a concrete example. 

Having personally spent over a decade in academia, including being
"front line" on such projects Karl alludes to, I can assure you this
is a valid complaint. The motivation of course is money, though it is
unclear (to me) whether or not the result is profitable (sort of like
selling one's soul for the quick fix and denying the ultimate effect.)

>	The problem that we see is not limited to academia however.
>	All of your observations above describe a situation where process 
>	is a substitute for thought. People cling to outmoded ways of doing
>	things because they fear change.  People have a quasi-religious
>	belief that if they just do things according to the prescribed 
>	ritual then everything will be all right. Even when this 
>	ritualistic behavior leads to bad consequences people don't 
>	feel as much anxiety because they can kid themselves by
>	saying "What else could I do? I did everything that I was supposed
>	to." IBM is in the toilet now because it couln't let go of the idea 
>	that mainframes were its bread and butter.  All the time they were
>	going down the path to doom, all the people making all the bad
>	decisions were checking all the right boxes and doing all the
>	prescribed rituals of office life.  Guess what, it didn't work.

This is certainly true, but academia's ONLY claim to value is that
they have some higher purpose. Agreed that mistakes are made, but
oftentimes these behaviors in academia go way beyond anything that can
be tossed off as a "mistake".

The worst ones come about as a result of something resembling
racketeering: collusion between individuals within the institution and
the vendor, in exchange for specific favors to the individual,
sometimes wholely outside the realm of the academic context, sometimes
not.

Those of you over 30-ish: Remember when we were kids and there was
this strong belief that what they said in commercials on TV had to be
(basically) true because there was somehow this great watchdog that
would make sure it was true? Remember how that kind of thing fell
apart over the years to the point that even saying this sounds
laughably naive today?

Well, I contend that a similar effect has been going on in academia
over the past decade or two, there are no watchdogs, and some pretty
sleazy things go on and there is absolutely no one to counter these
things. The rats are guarding the cheese.

(The rest goes off on a tangent relative to anything I have to say.)

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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