While there is no perfect answer that will please everyone, we are being inundated with bullshit on a 24 hour basis.

Look at the US cabinet, for a start.

And "advice in any field" is a pretty meaningless concept. You need a university degree before giving plumbing advice?

Crazy idea, huh? Heck, even beauticians need to be certified.

plumbing, electrician etc.

So, why not require the same kind of education for whatever it is you're going to sell. AND INCLUDE ETHICS COURSES.

Hopefully there are some requirements for these advice degrees.

Too much power hidden behind a paywall of college, with buddy-buddy system helping to ensure who can get in and who can’t

The idea of a ‘meritocracy’ is an illusion, and the more you pretend you have one, the more likely it is that you don’t.

Backyard enthusiasts, nonunion construction workers, home cooks, people providing parenting hacks to each other, practitioners of traditional or folk medicine, and so on. Requiring certifications or degrees is a barrier to a lot of people. And would it stop at the online sharing of information? Or can people not provide knowledge IRL?

Disinformation is a huge problem. Not sure that a gold star from the state is what solves it.

Also China won't let people post about Tianamen Square or negative things about President Xi. Not really a great model.

But why make it easier for others to do the same?

All that matters in the high stakes testing at the end of high school known as Gaokao. That's it. Get a high score on that and you're made in the shade for life pretty much. You can sleep through three years of high school there (most students do, especially the boys), not go homework or piss off your tests, and it won't matter.

See, being with your friends is more important in a Chinese school than actual academic achievement. So they piss off years one and two and step year three just prepping for Gaokao. Higher the score = better acceptance chance at a "good" school. It would be the equivalent of this: Good score = Ivy League/Johns Hopkins. Bad score = going to a diploma mill.

Once in college getting a BA, it is nearly impossible to flunk out. The only real was to get expelled is by a rule violation (not academic dishonesty because that rampant in all levels of education in China), such as not being in your dorm room after lights out (which is normally a room with six to eight people, no amenities except a bunk bed with a thin mattress and a wooden board as a box spring in which they lock you into the building after lights out).

As one former student told me; "getting into an American university is easy, but it is hard to stay. Chinese universities are nearly impossible to get into and completely impossible to fail out."

Just because you have a BA in China doesn't mean you know shit or were even educated at all.

their exact example.

The hope was to bring out the best from both. Normally, it only brought out the worst of both because the two systems DO NOT and CANNOT work together.

Lawyers, and entire Administration?!

WTH, MAN?!

... for more than century, we have been inculcated with the false belief that capitalism is synonymous with free enterprise. In this context, capital is synonymous with money, and capitalism is the pursuit of, and most importantly, the control of money. "FREE" ain't got nuthin' to do with it.
Capitalism and corporatism have become incestuously intertwined, all to the detriment of society as a whole. The proponents of this diseased economic system have learned to keep the phrase, "Greed is good", to themselves, but they are still ardent devotees of the concept, and Mammon is their deity.
The pseudo-experts mentioned in the title are synonymous with the "consultants" with whom politicians surround themselves. Those who "advise" Democrats are nearly always adherents of Mammon in their personal beliefs, even though they'll couch their consultations in socially conscious – or WOKE – language, the complete misunderstanding of which is the current dagger of choice that Republicans love to use when stabbing their socially responsible opponents in the back. And it is more than a little disturbing that so much of the advice our Democratic Representatives and Senators receive tends to guide them toward always meeting conservatives in the middle, even when it's obvious that conservatives are constantly moving the middle closer to their own malign beliefs. Go figure.
Consider this suggestion: Let us rebuild the shattered trust in our system of governance by instituting laws and policies that promote and protect personal freedom. Now, personal freedom presupposes commensurate personal responsibility; can't have one without the other. To complete the circle, let each and every on of us conduct ourselves in a manner that is of the greatest benefit to those around us, in other words, society.
Oh, and keep religion totally and completely OUT of government. I'm lookin' at YOU, Christian Nationalists. Just slither back into whichever snake pit spawned you.

conflating capitalism=free enterprise=democracy, as in "the free enterprise system".

Now, I really don't know what free enterprise is. Is that when Walfart kills all the mom and pop stores, or when Bezozon kills Walfart?

In any case, capitalism has nothing at all to do with democracy. It is economic feudalism, and we are the serfs. The boss gives the orders.

I'm a college drop-out. forced to work because my family was right between the don't have enough money so you can get affordable student loans and not enough money to assure we could afford the high priced student loans.

So sure, let's only allow the rich kids or the poor kids make it to the "I'm qualified stage" to give advice. the in-betweens? Nah, exclude them.

This is such a bullshit idea. Just because it works in china (does it work? really?) doesn't mean it works everywhere.

And to sum it up from my perspective, I've hired college educated folks who couldn't manage themselves out of a paper bag. And I've hire folks with practical experience who can manage a bunch of college educated folks using a pencil and the back of that paper bag.

Seriously?

And how many of the folks currently in our shit-hole government have college degrees? Does that give them a right to administer advice?

Also 1st amendment BTW.

I agree with you. I agree that college degrees should not just be for the rich. I agree that frat networks are formed in college and they create leg-up opportunities for their frat bros, at the expense of others, for example.

But somewhere we lost the plot. We lost people who are conscious of ethical standards and now, nothing works anymore.

I don't know how to fix it, but let's start with combining education with ethics. And let's start really punishing those who grift the system instead of glorifying them.

specialising in large scale IT and Business transformation programs. BY wife does people and organisation transformation and change.- so between us we have quite a bit of the spectrum covered.

I agree the current system is geared for those who are already connected. It's not broken, it's just fixed for those who already benefit from it.

But I don't know if the information was shared by a person with a college degree.

Dumb idea. The college degree thing.

They can potentially only have colleges that teach select few approved topics with opinions dictated by the university and never have to worry about dissent.

I'm a free thought with free exchange of ideas kinda intellectual.

I like to color outside of the lines without having to worry about having my hand slapped.

We need to be more concerned about teaching people HOW to think and less inclined to demand that people think about only what's acceptable to a government run institution.

Boring and dangerous.

Self-annihilation begins with prescribed opinions.

people who were determined to reach objectives that they could not obtain playing by the rules. Notably, in government, there were just some proper way to proceed and each time the conventional wisdom was breached, something tragic and predictable followed.

We don't have guardrails in this country anymore. There are just some professions that should be required to follow strict rules. Anyone who jumps into a profession without getting some kind of proper training, including an ethics class, is going to cause damage. So, at least provide remedies for the people who become part of their learning curve.

There are also professional standards and rules for licensure, and they are already required in many professions. That includes studying professional ethics.

If someone's a psychopath*, which ~30% of the general population, a number that is supported by years of research to be factual, is predicted to be, it makes little difference whether they pass a class in ethics or not.

People need to be taught HOW TO THINK. Not what to think.

If a person cannot hold an informed ethical debate with their own thoughts and are not willing to work towards the common good based on those reasoned, ethical, compassionate decisions I could not care less about what they want to do. Because it will make little difference in the final analysis.

Because they will either become criminals and get caught or fail upwards once they they find their special tribe of psychopaths and wreak havoc together. Or they will wander aimlessly.

If a person cannot think, it's highly unlikely that they will recognize these bad actors with nefarious intent. They will then likely waste precious moments of the one life that they get by being sidetracked and perverted by all those whom they meet with nefarious intentions.

If a person cannot think, they will not be able to adequately correct course or voice strong advocacy or disagreement when necessary.

If a person can not think well enough to make informed and constructive decisions, they won't find value in the thoughts, values, and decisions of others or at least have difficulty with such.

Without the bonds of respect for each other, it becomes extremely difficult to create community.

The community that is necessary to create a safety net and support system for those unable for reasons like age, intellectual differences, psychological and physical disability, economic suppression and other random unfortunate factors that may affect their ability to think and thrive independently and to hopefully be lifted up and shielded by the world's psychopaths when necessary.

If one does not think and cannot believe that evil is a regular part of daily life, doesn't look for it or cannot recognize it by virtue of the inability to think about its existence then all of the ethics courses in the world won't help.

Guardrails, sure.

But let's not follow the model of Communist China, for goodness sake.

And by the way, it's also factual that politics is chock full of psychopaths. If you want references, let me know.

Thank you for your reply, Baitball Blogger. I hope that you enjoy the rest of your day.

*diagnosed formally or not with antisocial personality disorder