fitzpatrick

Good morning everyone, Nancy Folbre is visiting my school's Econ department today, and I was wondering if anyone had any good questions that I could bring up during her presentation as I'm unfamiliar with her work. If anyone else happens to be somehwat familiar and has a good and relevant challenge to present, please let me know and I'll report back what happens! Link is below. Best, fitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Folbre

Hey everybody, I am in a quandary: I was accepted with (grad teaching assistant) funding into an economics PhD program that begins in about a month, but through my experience with an econometrics class over the summer session and its conflicting with my understanding of (Austrian) economics and history, I am having serious doubts about entering the program, though it is counted as one of the 5 "heterodox" econ programs in the country. About me: I'm 30 and haven't settled on a career path, changing several times after graduating from a "top-20" university with honors, majoring in anthropology. I went from working in film to education to a survival job at a credit union in order to establish in-state residency for going back to school. I recognize that I probably latched on to going into econ without doing enough research about the realities of the field -- or more properly, I did a good amount of research without fully appreciating my ideological divergence from that reality. It's crunchtime now, and econometrics is making me want to pluck out my eyeballs. I have the grad level econometric theory class on dock for the fall semester, and I'm dreading the idea of learning "applied" and "empirical" methods that lack a real correlation with reality and historical context. I also feel like this program is a preparation for career that may not be available if/when I finish it due to the student debt bubble, and then I'll have what is really a limited set of impractical skills, 5 years of opportunity cost, and worst, not having built a stronger foundation to weather the coming economic storms. Alternatively I had also considered going back to school for engineering, which would require a second bachelors (unless I went to the non-ABET accredited LEAP program at Boston University), to gain skills that would offer me job security as well as skills applicable to entrepreneurial pursuits (which I think/fear may be my real passion). I lack experience in either of these avenues, but was encouraged (after taking a 7-hour aptitude test) to strongly consider engineering. Can anyone out there offer some practical advice? I'm open to considering any valid opinion. Thanks and kind regards to you all, Fitz PS. Also for what it's worth, I destroyed the GRE (96th %ile Verbal, 83rd %-ile Quant, 98th %-ile Writing), and attribute a good deal of it to studying the trivium method, logical fallacies, and philosophy in my spare time.

Forgot about these other questions... I first listened to Stef on an interview he did with Gnostic Media, and his on-point assessments just kept striking me as a perspective I needed to hear about more topics. I listened to On Truth (blew me away) after a few videos and am starting to listen to the podcasts as well. Interests and intentions... learning and understanding the valid psychological and philosophical concepts presented here so that I can free and decondition myself and everyone open to meaningful conversation with me, to heal my own mental/emotional scars to the point they are strengths, to see clearly enough to communicate these insights through writing, music, and video essay; and to get my bearings personally as I navigate changing careers, personal relationships, self-doubt, and the rebuilding of true self-esteem

Mishelle - Thanks very much for your welcome! An LED torch sounds great to me. The origins of my lost self-trust are tough to pinpoint... I think it was a mix of gradual erosion, absorption of fears/thought habits of people around me, and experiences of having unfounded confidence exposed. Since the first time is probably reflected in the many, here's an example, which I can expand on: I grew up playing basketball year round, enduring many maniacal coaches and parental politics. By the time I was 14, I started to get verbal/mentally ganged up on by 5-6 guys on my school's basketball team. I was the designated butt of whatever joke happened to come up, regardless of if it applied to me in any realistic way. Our team only took about 2 months off a year, so this happened consistently about 5 days a week. The coach was just as bad, and singled me out (he even admitted to it). The only way I knew how to fight back was on the court, which I did. Eventually I transferred, fought silently through another (universally agreed) asshole coach, and barely got played until the playoffs of my senior year when the team really needed me. We won our conference and lost the next round at districts. As soon as the game was over, I immediately felt the confusion of why the hell I put myself through everything I did for all of those years. I guess I had been fully stuck in sports mythology, and this self-identification which I chose to let dominate such a huge amount of my life was just a painful, ego-filled waste of time. Thanks NumberSix! I've been actively refocusing myself onto that perspective. I feel like I have gained some, and the process of uprooting my deepest illusions doubtless will continue. Thanks man. Here's an attempt at a picture: church every Sunday (which I grew to be comfortable with, and was even an altar boy); more arguments with theology teachers in Catholic school; learning to get straight A's with minimal calculated effort (and minimal motivation to really LEARN outside of school); staying out of trouble (obeying so long as I wasn't inconvenienced); lifelong, year-round basketball training and playing; and your general small town/big family/ethnic history "we are special" mentality and way of relating to the world. It certainly all came from my parents and family, the dominant culture they grew up in, and my desire for acceptance in the locality which I hadn't travelled to see much outside of. A local once told me my rust-belt hometown was a great place to be at the end of the world, because everything happens there 20 years late. Not exactly a population of people who break convention - the brain drain effect at work. I have long sought the truth, and have been willing to endure the uncomfortable. But the red pill has a slow time-release when you don't know how to start looking for the truth, how to recognize it, or how to systematically and logically understand it. It's often outside of people's (including my past) lexicon, especially in the days before the internet. And those psychological triggers unfortunately can linger if you don't really root them out. You're absolutely right, though. Thanks for your advice and recommendations, Nathan! I'm checking out that link right now. That's a great metaphor, too - I've come to really appreciate how important the right bearings and accurate measurements are.

Ah, where shall I begin... I dove head first into Stefan' videos about a week and a half ago. Something clicked. I'm here to learn because I'm at a(nother) crossroads in life, unable to continue cycling through my same patterns of dysfunction anymore and having difficulty determining what direction to go in. I went from an anxious overachiever in my youth to a depressed, directionless and drifting divorcee' all before the tender age of 27. I got lost in the rabbit hole while trying to decondition myself from my Catholic, nationalistic, athletic, and tribal indoctrinations of my youth. Mr. Molyneux's rational, humbling, and personally applicable insight is helping me to see through my missteps without constantly beating up on myself. I finally feel a step closer to the self-trust that I can barely remember what it feels like to have. Thanks for your support, and I will do my best to return it. fitzpatrick