Timeline for Is egyptology a pyramid scheme: Self-perpetuating university programs
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
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| Mar 31, 2021 at 17:59 | comment | added | Giskard | @user253751 "is it wasted" Is what wasted? If that is the only career and they can't pursue it successfully, then yes, I would argue that their years of study were wasted, unless they undertook the program fully informed, as a hobby. | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 16:01 | comment | added | Criticizing Israel not allowed | Is egyptology professorship the only career for egyptology students and is it wasted if they don't do that? | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 14:54 | answer | added | Sander Heinsalu | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 21:05 | comment | added | 1muflon1♦ | @Giskard right but the hallmark of pyramid scheme is that people make money by recruiting more people. Superstars don’t ,they make money from their performance/work. Eg for an Egyptology or any other activity to be pyramid scheme it would have to work in a way that money is earned just by recruiting others (or predominantly this way - some schemes will mask themselves by also selling some products). That joke has it right in a sense it claims that egyptologists just recruit more egyptologists to get money from their tuition who, to get compensated, recruit more egyptologists for their tuition. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 20:46 | comment | added | Giskard | @1muflon1 Personally I would prefer to exclude costly signalling when there are no other benefits the education provides. Not sure if this is possible in practice, but those are not the type of papers I am thinking of. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 20:43 | comment | added | Giskard | @1muflon1 In most pyramid schemes someone does make a lot of money, it is only the masses that lose. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 19:07 | comment | added | 1muflon1♦ | yet only very few of them become professional actors, dancers, writers etc. Here the mechanism why they do so is that being a superstar provides very high rewards so even if chance of becoming one are small as long as expected rewards are high you have incentive to try to become one. I would conjecture that Egyptology is one of the fields with high rewards for superstar scientists (e.g. book deals, but also non-monetary lots of travel to exotic places, doing interesting work). Hence, I conjecture this is what's happening here, and this is not pyramid scheme | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 19:04 | comment | added | 1muflon1♦ | I do not know enough about Egyptology or literature on exactly the things you are asking for to provide full answer, but: 1. in literature education is not just for human capital accumulation but also signal/screening e.g. Becker vs Stiglitz view. Under the signal view even getting Egyptology degree can provide useful signals for non-related fields (e.g. signal that you can do your coursework on time etc all potentially useful at almost any job). 2. There is literature on 'superstar' professions. Many people are taking dancing lessons, acting classes, writing classes - | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 18:17 | history | edited | Giskard | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 30, 2021 at 18:14 | comment | added | Giskard | @MichaelGreinecker The Bishop quote is very good :) But I find that when I pick at the foundations of economics I often get witty yet unsubstantive answers - there are half a dozen that I can tell convincingly, yet without conviction - so it leaves me wanting more. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 18:12 | comment | added | Giskard | @MichaelGreinecker Excellent question! I don't know how you would control for these kind of "opportunity costs"; if the literature exists, perhaps they thought of something smart? | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 17:02 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | What did the members of the control group with all the time they got from not getting a math degree? | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 16:58 | comment | added | Michael Greinecker | There's a tiresome young man in Bay Shore. When his fiancée cried, 'I adore The beautiful sea', He replied, 'I agree, It's pretty, but what is it for?' - Morris Bishop | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 16:22 | comment | added | Giskard | I will also link this similar question, not sure if it counts as a duplicate. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 16:13 | comment | added | Giskard | I will also link this question without further comment. | |
| Mar 30, 2021 at 16:07 | history | edited | Giskard | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 30, 2021 at 16:02 | history | asked | Giskard | CC BY-SA 4.0 |