skwosh

The project started a few years ago adapting generating functions to Complex waveshaping, with the waveforms correspond to certain constructions in optics, celestial dynamics, etc.

This has since been extended with an algebraic/modular approach to building more complex textures and rhythms. So the aim is to create totally novel sounds, but the traditional waveforms tend to pop-up from time to time!

Relatively speaking...

Cultural optimism is likely to follow periods of growth and abundance, like buying a property in the 1970s for $5K and selling it in the 2000s for $2M. The last couple of decades have seen a reversal of this effect, so I don't think it's unreasonable that more people are feeling pessimistic about the future and their place in it.

I agree of course - a society with at least some understanding of statistics, logic, anthropology (of media), etc is essential to a healthy democracy.

It would be great to see political/cultural literacy taken more seriously, but the trend as you point out has been in the opposite direction (and has been/will be for some time).

Being burdened with debt and not having the choice to pursue further education are the real problems, and can hopefully be solved in a way other than restricting access to those fields.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in this thread... it's pretty cynical (but not uncommon) to suggest that one's primary value to society is what they contribute economically (or otherwise validated economically).

I'm lucky that the situation is a bit more optimistic here in Australia...

> I never said arts/humanities are useless.

>> inability to pick a useless major

I agree with the sentiment though, that (in general) an Arts degree (or whatever) alone it's not enough to sustain a career.

I just think it's an important part of a balanced education, and that overall society is better off having more engagement with the arts, language, history, philosophy, cosmology, theoretical physics, category theory, linguistics, anthropology, etc.

As I said elsewhere, prioritising vocational education is fine to some extent, but to do so by crippling participation in the Arts by making those qualifications prohibitively expensive (by not providing loans) is a mistake.

It is a luxury of sorts, but not in the frivolous sense. As I see it, it's not so much a problem of optimising higher education for career payoff, but restructuring/regulating education to make it more accessible (both to encourage participation in a wider range of subjects, and to facilitate career change).

Yes, those things are also wrong. As are decreasing socioeconomic mobility, racially & religiously motivated violence, lack of code hygiene and unit testing, etc...

If you read my and other responses in this thread, the arts/humanities are far from useless (they just have a less direct economic effect).

Historically important art/music has often been ignored, ridiculed, censored, etc. To suggest that it only has social/cultural value if it appeals to a popular/paying audience is overly simplistic.

I'm not saying there's no overlap between capitalism and art in general, but if they're perfectly aligned then we miss the challenging, obscure, alternative, upsetting, disruptive, etc.

If I was designing policy?

Really all I'm talking about is not defunding/sidelining Arts etc "because it's not financially viable".

The idea is really to provide a well rounded education, (giving students a broader perspective on the world, a stronger vocabulary for expressing ideas, etc), as opposed to a purely career focused one. I think it would be detrimental to culture and society in general if everyone was groomed from high-school to only ever consider the safe, paved, career footpath.

This may take the form of allowing for more electives in vocational courses, encouragement to take double degrees, or eliminating barriers for later study (letting people change their minds, or even just reskilling when the robots take over).

What I was meant by "subsidisation" is just the "somewhat" free education that exists in some places today, but has been more prevalent/widespread in the past. And while prioritising vocational degrees is fine to some extent, crippling participation in the Arts by making those qualifications prohibitively expensive (by not providing loans) is a bad idea imo.

Sure, through the lens of "smart investing", an arts degree is a shitty investment, and therefore shouldn't be funded. I just think that's a bit reductive, and that the value provided by those programs can be hard to quantify.

I agree that many students probably gain nothing at all from studying arts, but many do, and become better people, professionals, politicians, etc.

Studying these fields (or communicating with people who have (even watching documentaries)) helps to understand and contextualise the world, and to articulate those (often complex and abstract) ideas.

Of course, many people come away with nothing, and many with only the most superficial understanding, but an educational climate with less participation in the arts, humanities, theoretical sciences, etc would suffer a net reduction in cultural capital, political discourse, etc.

[*] IMO.

Part of the problem here is that the terms/interest is so crippling that they can't take out another $160K debt to "pivot" into something more financially practical.

Further, I think having the availability/flexibility of studying multiple degrees can be immensely useful/rewarding. Particularly as industries get more advanced/sophisticated (and others get automated/downscaled), I wouldn't be surprised if there's a cultural shift towards continuous reeducation (at least, as much is financially practical/possible).

You could say that about anything though, and I'm sure many in engineering do (about everything from design patterns to category theory...).

The value added by quality in-person tuition shouldn't be underrated though, not to mention access to equipment, studios, and like minds...

Working and communicating in person is a hugely effective catalyst for productivity, creative evolution, etc. Artistic and scientific development is often accelerated by human interaction, which is why art movements and scientific advancements tend to cluster around communities (vs individuals).

Emphasis on "usually"...

As far as evidence goes, more experiential - I've studied visual and sonic arts at a few different universities/colleges (in Australia). Generally, not many found financial success in their chosen field.

There seems to be a strong sentiment in this thread that the only value provided by education is the contribution to career (e.g. that loans should only be provided for financially viable courses, that studying arts is as useful to one's career as studying finger painting, etc).

This just seems so wrong.

Optimising for vocational training means you're effectively tuning out the abstract arts and sciences and... oh, the humanities. These fields don't usually/directly translate into a financial success, but they broaden our perspective and deepen our experience. And in doing so provide the tools and language to more effectively analyse and engage with human culture.

And to a certain extent, "true" art is antithetical to capitalism, in a similar way that "true" journalism is antithetical to surveillance (honesty/transparency vs main-stream popularity), and I'd argue equally as important. For that reason these fields absolutely should be subsidised, otherwise art becomes about marketing, journalism becomes about propaganda, and science becomes about start-ups...