Humanities in the Machine - Blain Smith

@koronkebitch I don't really think humanities is the cure (Peter Thiel was a philosophy major...) but I do agree that I wish that my computer science degree hadn't been so demanding of my courseload. I was considering a history minor in undergrad but my last 3 years of undergrad were basically all math + CS because I was a double major. But the courseload for the CS major was ridiculous in comparison: I was taking 3 CS classes for every 1 math class.

@maxsnew @koronkebitch well in my first year I was reading joint CS & Philo, & Maths. These subjects were my major and minor subjects. But really major, minor, & tertiary. My second year was CS & Maths as Major and Minor. My subject choices meant I could choose either for my honours years, as I had the prerequisites.

More so my subject choices also meant that I had a rich basic education of these related subjects *prior* to specialising. Giving me a broad overview of them all.

There are foundational subjects that we, as Science majors, should take. We need complimentary subjects that enrich our thinking, and the complement here (for science) is the Humanities (ethics, classics, philosophy). CS Majors specialise wayto early as our subject is broad mixing engineering and hard/social sciences.

Forgetting Humanities means forgetting what it means to be human and thus how to be divine. There is a a reason why the meme is: science tells you how to clone Dinosaurs; Humanities tells you why it’s a bad idea.

@jfdm @maxsnew @koronkebitch I took music production before going into CS. I got a little flak for going into it instead of doing something "useful" right away, but I do not regret it at all, for reasons outlined here.

Also, I had so many great conversations with English and Art majors in grad school that really helped open up my mind to other ways of thinking. It got me reading things I may not have otherwise read. And frankly, the English majors got a handle on the CS stuff better than the CS folks got a handle on literary criticism!