Law degrees "useless" (2 Viewers)

[Nebuchanezzar]

I'll be happy when the law students are out of the library all together. But the new law building does look rather groovy, it almost doesn't fit in with the rest of the university with it's ugly brick skyscrapers though.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Re: New UNSW Law building

I'll be happy when the law students are out of the library all together. But the new law building does look rather groovy, it almost doesn't fit in with the rest of the university with it's ugly brick skyscrapers though.

You're welcome to the old thing.

Just don't come trespassing in our lovely new building, we will shoot on sight

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: New UNSW Law building

How happy I am that someone actually agree's with me. If there was ever a useless degree, or faculty at university, it's the faculty of law and their degrees.

Anyway, is the Heffron building having stuff added to it for the Faculty of Commerce & Economics, or are they getting a whole new building near it? Also, is the little addition to the horrendous applied science building a little shopping mall thing (like Matthew's arcade), or it part of the Commerce & Economics addition. I probably should already know these things, but I don't venture down that end of the unversity all that often.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Re: New UNSW Law building

How happy I am that someone actually agree's with me. If there was ever a useless degree, or faculty at university, it's the faculty of law and their degrees.

My, how persuassive your comments are

 

[Frigid]

Re: New UNSW Law building

How happy I am that someone actually agree's with me. If there was ever a useless degree, or faculty at university, it's the faculty of law and their degrees.

so you believe in the 'usefulness' of rote-learnt commerce? don't you realise that the FCE is just a PR-factory?

 

[erawamai]

Re: New UNSW Law building

How happy I am that someone actually agree's with me. If there was ever a useless degree, or faculty at university, it's the faculty of law and their degrees.

Says the spoon fed commerce student.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: New UNSW Law building

My, how persuassive your comments are

Well, if you wish we could enter into a beloved internet deabte. I'm sure it would be much more entertaining and watched then those garbagey debates they have with the law students at the roundhouse every now and then. What was the one a few weeks ago? "The trivial nature of classroom chatter whilst the world has so many social issues"? How about "the uselessness of a law degree in a world that will soon crumble beneath a lack of oil", or perhaps "the end of our world as we know it: Global warming". I'm quite sure they'd be much more intellectual, informative and useful then some law debate.

Says the spoon fed commerce student.

Do your research law student, I'm a Science student. A useful student.

so you believe in the 'usefulness' of rote-learnt commerce? don't you realise that the FCE is just a PR-factory?

I don't know enough about commerce and economics to comment on it, but I certainly wouldn't say that their degrees are less useful then a law degree.

 

[erawamai]

Re: New UNSW Law building

Well, if you wish we could enter into a beloved internet deabte. I'm sure it would be much more entertaining and watched then those garbagey debates they have with the law students at the roundhouse every now and then.

Who is 'they'?

Did you mean 'than'?

Is your first sentence a question?

What was the one a few weeks ago? "The trivial nature of classroom chatter whilst the world has so many social issues"? How about "the uselessness of a law degree in a world that will soon crumble beneath a lack of oil", or perhaps "the end of our world as we know it: Global warming". I'm quite sure they'd be much more intellectual, informative and useful then some law debate.

What? Who is having these debates? Law students or some other group of people?

*Science student gets overly excited and cannot clearly express what he is talking about*

Do your research law student, I'm a Science student.

It shows. While many science students I know have the ability to clearly express themselves when required to write more than 3 sentences, I guess you are not one of them.

A useful hint is that trolling works best when what you say can be understood. When you get to that stage I'm sure no one will be here to actually waste too much of their time listening to a self important round house visiting science student who thinks he can land blows on law students when he doesn't know how to use syntax, question marks or the difference between 'then' and 'than'.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: New UNSW Law building

Now now, it only shows your weakness when you start picking on typos and grammar errors when you could, and should be retaliating with some sort of defense for your law buddies. As for your questions and comments;

Who is 'they'?

they = the university. I probably should have said 'that the university has', but what I originally said works well for most part. Of course, the egotistical law student wants to exhibit the "useful" skills that they've picked up along the line of their cruddy, self indulgent and ultimately pointless degree can continue to point out useless flaws, I'll just move on.

Did you mean 'than'?

Yes I did mean 'than'.

Is your first sentence a question?

No, it was a suggestion. I'm going to say that suggestions can be either comments or questions based on context. Within this context, I'm rather sure that not having a question mark was perfectly okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no english God (it probably shows).

What? Who is having these debates? Law students or some other group of people?

In concern of the debates, I was reading the scrolling ticker at the Anzac Parade bus stop last week, and it was being advertised. It was also advertised (correct me if I'm wrong) in the Source magazine. Of course, I'm sure you already knew and you were merely trying to once again show your law prowness. Well done, it didn't work.

*Science student gets overly excited and cannot clearly express what he is talking about*

Yes. Yes indeed.

A useful hint is that trolling works best when what you say can be understood. When you get to that stage I'm sure no one will be here to actually waste too much of their time listening to a self important round house visiting science student

No-one was trolling. In fact, if anyone was trolling it would be you for attempting to attack commerce students, Frigid for doing the same and Moonlight Sonata for taking my comments to seriously as they were. Obviously the law students have some kind of psychological problem when someone insults their faculty, as they automatically jump into hyper-defense mode to try to get the science student to stop attacking their ever so important degree.

I don't visit the roundhouse much either, there's simply not enough time whilst attempting to do an involved, interesting and genuinely rewarding degree. I don't know if the faculty of law offers such a course, I'm going to take a guess that they don't.

Here's hoping that the moderators don't delete this post in some attempt at defending the faculty of law from one or two critics of their institution.

 

[wheredanton]

Re: New UNSW Law building

ONE important skill that law students do learn is English expression. Being a future teacher somewhere within the education system will mean that one day you too will learn to construct sentences without basic expression flaws. I think it's pretty clear you haven’t gone anywhere near mastering the art of question marks and basic ELLA test grammar.

I'm rather sure that not having a question mark was perfectly okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no english God (it probably shows).

I think it is self evident from the previous fellow’s post that no one was ever attempting to correct you on the point of being an 'English God'. You should also be corrected, there was a need for a question mark.

 

[Frigid]

Re: New UNSW Law building

i am interested to hear the reasons why Nebuchanezzar thinks law degrees are 'useless'.

perhaps that's because we're not working out how to find alternative sources of renewable energy? or cutting back global warming (shall we slay all the cows first)?

perhaps, i should point out that law is so deeply entrenched in society that you are controlled by the law without realising it.

international treaties to give effect to carbon credit trading? law.
voluntary student unionism? law.
civil liberties to allow you to express your disdain for our studies? yup, law.

i may be accused of bigotry, but that's only because i'm speaking to an ignorant.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Re: New UNSW Law building

He's just trying to rile us up. Whatever reason he has for doing this (envy, sadism, bitterness, etc) is irrelevant.

If he wants to propound ludicrous assertions without any justification then he's just making himself out to be a fool.

Law is the backbone of society and the most important pillar of civilisation. The tasks carried out by legal practitioners are essential (and one of the most essential) functions of society and allow people to protect their rights and interests and to exist in as much social harmony as practicality allows. I would recommend that the complainer read some Rousseau or Hobbes, and probably the writings of Chief Justices Dixon and Gleeson, not to mention Justice Kirby.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: New UNSW Law building

He's just trying to rile us up. Whatever reason he has for doing this (envy, sadism, bitterness, etc) is irrelevant.

If he wants to propound ludicrous assertions without any justification then he's just making himself out to be a fool.

Law is the backbone of society and the most important pillar of civilisation. The tasks carried out by legal practitioners are essential (and one of the most essential) functions of society and allow people to protect their rights and interests and to exist in as much social harmony as practicality allows. I would recommend that the complainer read some Rousseau or Hobbes, and probably the writings of Chief Justices Dixon and Gleeson, not to mention Justice Kirby.

Indeed, the idea of law in a society has provided me, and the current era with a great society to live in, it's provided me with a decent country and it has given me the freedom to express myself. Yet it's provided me with a Prime Minister who has a clouded view of reality and an international economic idealism (I couldn't think of the appropriate word) that favours a little extra flow of money over conservation of resources. Most importantly, it has provided a group of students who believe that a piece of paper that says they know a little about history and the fundamentals of society is more important then a piece of paper that says that a student has a bit of knowledge of how the world works, and how to make it a better place and more appropriately, how to increase the longevity of the human race through various means (biomedical science, earth and environmental science, chemistry).

My beef remains in the idea that law students, and society worldwide actually favours these students who contribute little to society whose work won't mean anything in the next few hundred years, much like the work of the equivelent of law students in the middle ages has contributed little to our world now. No, it was the thinkers who developed new technologies which allowed us to progress onward, not the self-important, deluded view of legal scholars who developed a few outlandish theories about new forms of capital punishment and the burning of witches. Not only that, but the work that a few intelligent, foward thinking people did do (allowing freedom of speech for instance) isn't something that required a new and intelligent idea, once again it was just common sense. Anyone from any age could have, and probably did think that freedom of speech, trials by jury or even the idea of a court system were a fabulous idea, and I can assure you (with little evidence other than common sense) that it wasn't a single self righteous law student who contributed to that change.

It may be the "backbone" of society at this time in your eyes, however to the unclouded view of anyone who hasn't done a worthless degree (once again, it doesn't take a genius to think up of the things that law grad's have done) it is technology, science, education, medicine & engineering that have contributed a vast deal more in tandem to the way the world works than a law, philosophy, religion or arts student.

As for social harmony, I think that it doesn't really exist. Without a few men and women in uniform who lock people up for doing outrageous things, the world would be thrown into chaos. It seems to me that a few ideas that are nothing more (once again) then common sense have been thrown together under the guise of law, and given the utmost priority in a society that favours debating about the differences between government owned companies and private companies, rather then, for instance; global warming, pollution or alternative energies (of which I believe there is none. Solve that one law students).

The intellectual group of law graduates are good at what they do, yet what they do is worthless, pointless and pathetic in comparison to what a science, medical or engineering group does, and has done for the world. Without a new law, the world may be hiccuped for a few yearss, without the development of a new field of science, the world won't go anywhere forever.

international treaties to give effect to carbon credit trading? law.
voluntary student unionism? law.
civil liberties to allow you to express your disdain for our studies? yup, law.

Voluntary Student Unionism! Oh god, thank god for that! I simply love doing the equivilent of throwing my 250 bucks down the toilet for a few services which I sparingly use. If the union movement which is starting to grow it's roots when it begins in a university is so strong, then it wouldn't need my money to keep it alive. From what I heard from that lady on Sunrise last year (who was the leader of a union at USyd I believe), it seems that the whole opposition to VSU is simply that without everyone's money, it will die. If student unionism reflected the ideas, needs and wants of the general student, then by golly it wouldn't need to force people to pay them money in the first place.

What do I get? Cheap food which I don't eat? A gym which I don't get a chance to visit? A magazine that contains utter crap week in and week out? Big deal. I'd much rather see those fees going toward my train fares, more books in the library or perhaps a new Applied Science building, it's so horrendously ugly.

i am interested to hear the reasons why Nebuchanezzar thinks law degrees are 'useless'.

perhaps that's because we're not working out how to find alternative sources of renewable energy? or cutting back global warming (shall we slay all the cows first)?

Yes, that is correct. Btter yet, we could start by killing off all the law students to cut the food demand a bit. After all, it was probably the equivelent of a law student (I doubt it was a science student) that came up with the "fantastic" idea of capital punishment anyway. What a foward thinking, superb and beneificial move that was.

It's not my intention to justify the killing of law students worldwide though, take that into consideration.

 

[melsc]

Re: New UNSW Law building

^ You sound like the lawyer who was leaving my classroom when we were comming in for torts who made a comment about how our class didn't look like what he thought a law class should just because the majority of the people in our class including me don't fit the stereotype. I think you are unfairly stereotyping us a fair bit and really saying that lawyers don't contribute to society is wrong and unfair. We aren't all evil you know

 

[Frigid]

Re: New UNSW Law building

so they're useless in your 'unclouded' eyes because they do not contribute to "knowledge of how the world works, and how to make it a better place and more appropriately, how to increase the longevity of the human race"?

if i must argue on your terms, i can also say that science and engineering creates the very mischief you proudly state science and engineering aims to cure. we're not the one to build coal-fired power stations, tasmanian dams and nuclear bombs. certainly, were it not for technology, the gap between the rich and the poor countries would not be so great. and certainly, just because you may understand the 'world' better than I doesn't mean you'll change the world for better than I.

you loathe law because you see bad laws and law-makers - shall i be a bigot and loathe science because i see wicked science? don't so be fucking self-righteous.

i shall leave you with perhaps one of my favourite quotes:

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Re: New UNSW Law building

Indeed, the idea of law in a society has provided me, and the current era with a great society to live in, it's provided me with a decent country and it has given me the freedom to express myself.

Yes.

Yet it's provided me with a Prime Minister who has a clouded view of reality and an international economic idealism (I couldn't think of the appropriate word) that favours a little extra flow of money over conservation of resources.

Law did not provide you with John Howard. There are many factors that led to John Howard coming to power. To blame the law as responsible for John Howard becoming Prime Minister is just as silly as blaming the weather.

Rather it is the case that the rules of one area of our particular system of law provided the electorate with a choice of who to vote for within a two party system. The public then chose John Howard.

Most importantly, it has provided a group of students who believe that a piece of paper that says they know a little about history and the fundamentals of society is more important then a piece of paper that says that a student has a bit of knowledge of how the world works, and how to make it a better place and more appropriately, how to increase the longevity of the human race through various means (biomedical science, earth and environmental science, chemistry).

You have obfuscated the argument and your statements above constitute a straw man fallacy.

You original argument was "Law degrees are useless." Now your assertion is "Science degrees are more useful than law degrees." We never said law degrees were "superior", rather that they were not useless.

My beef remains in the idea that law students, and society worldwide actually favours these students who contribute little to society whose work won't mean anything in the next few hundred years, much like the work of the equivelent of law students in the middle ages has contributed little to our world now.

Your argument is predicated upon a false assumption: day-to-day harmony is not important. The law allows for people to interact and live together as a society. Simply because science works towards ultimate long-term goals for human kind does not mean that the maintenance and safeguarding of the personal and social lives of human beings should be ignored. There is little point to having all this scientific progress if we cannot live together as a species. In a similar vein, without law science would have no capacity to work because there would be no institutions to develop and advance that field.

No, it was the thinkers who developed new technologies which allowed us to progress onward, not the self-important, deluded view of legal scholars who developed a few outlandish theories about new forms of capital punishment and the burning of witches.

The "thinkers?" You do realise that many of the most important thinkers of all time were philosophers, jurists, and legal theorists don't you? The concept of how a country should be governed and run is one of the most important dilemmas of mankind's existence. Honestly, so many great thinkers are rolling over in their graves at your crude comments.

I would add that law is a step beyond science because science is fundamentally about "what is". Law is about "what things ought to be". That is, normative claims. Science can never account for this. The discipline of science cannot account, nor provide for, morality and the question "How should I live my life?"

Not only that, but the work that a few intelligent, foward thinking people did do (allowing freedom of speech for instance) isn't something that required a new and intelligent idea, once again it was just common sense. Anyone from any age could have, and probably did think that freedom of speech, trials by jury or even the idea of a court system were a fabulous idea, and I can assure you (with little evidence other than common sense) that it wasn't a single self righteous law student who contributed to that change.

Legal scholars, practitioners and judges contributed to mould the system of law we have today. And I hate to tell you this, but they were once students too.

It may be the "backbone" of society at this time in your eyes, however to the unclouded view of anyone who hasn't done a worthless degree (once again, it doesn't take a genius to think up of the things that law grad's have done) it is technology, science, education, medicine & engineering that have contributed a vast deal more in tandem to the way the world works than a law, philosophy, religion or arts student.

These are assertions without justifications.

I'm not sure why you hate law students so much. It is rather illogical (and thus unscientific) of you to do so. I think that you need to divorce your emotional disdain for law students from your arguments. You will find that there is very little point or substance to what you are arguing.

As for social harmony, I think that it doesn't really exist. Without a few men and women in uniform who lock people up for doing outrageous things, the world would be thrown into chaos. It seems to me that a few ideas that are nothing more (once again) then common sense have been thrown together under the guise of law, and given the utmost priority in a society that favours debating about the differences between government owned companies and private companies, rather then, for instance; global warming, pollution or alternative energies (of which I believe there is none. Solve that one law students).

"A few ideas just thrown together under the guise of law"? My god man, do yourself a favour, put down that chemistry book and try reading a history book. It might enlighten your view of just how humankind has developed.

The intellectual group of law graduates are good at what they do, yet what they do is worthless, pointless and pathetic in comparison to what a science, medical or engineering group does, and has done for the world. Without a new law, the world may be hiccuped for a few yearss, without the development of a new field of science, the world won't go anywhere forever.

Again, your whole argument is predicated upon a faulty premise: that how human beings can live together is not important. It is extremely important. Without rules and laws we would never have advanced from caves. Without law we would not have a system under which we can live together in freedom and pursue our desires and interests in as much safety as practicality allows.

Science is merely the hands of humankind. Law and philosophy are the brain, the guiding force. That is to say that the study of "what is" is namely a tool for humans to use to achieve "what ought to be".

Yes, that is correct. Btter yet, we could start by killing off all the law students to cut the food demand a bit. After all, it was probably the equivelent of a law student (I doubt it was a science student) that came up with the "fantastic" idea of capital punishment anyway. What a foward thinking, superb and beneificial move that was.

It's not my intention to justify the killing of law students worldwide though, take that into consideration.

This is just becoming a farce. I'm going to split this thread into another one and move it somewhere more appropriate.

 

[melsc]

Re: New UNSW Law building

Of course, the egotistical law student wants to exhibit the "useful" skills that they've picked up along the line of their cruddy, self indulgent and ultimately pointless degree can continue to point out useless flaws

I don't think it is fair to comment on the use of something you haven't studied.
I didn't realise how much law and the study of law extends to other diciplines the other day. I was sitting in Psych and the lecturer started talking about inductive and deductive arguments, something I realised I had been learning about a week ago in a law class, I never would have thought my law studies would have helped in pyschology until we started analysing arguments.

We don't just sit there and memorise case names, legislation and latin phrases, theres so much more to the study of law and a lot of it is looking at how law differs from community standards.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

Re: New UNSW Law building

Strange the way that quote didn't include the word science. Co-incidence, or pure egotism?

I think you are unfairly stereotyping us a fair bit and really saying that lawyers don't contribute to society is wrong and unfair. We aren't all evil you know

I really don't think I was stereotyping law students, I was merely saying that when you compare what science has accomplished to what law has accomplished, I think most of the human race would "rule in favour" (or whatever figures of speech you L.L.B's use) of the field of science.

we're not the one to build coal-fired power stations, tasmanian dams and nuclear bombs. certainly, were it not for technology, the gap between the rich and the poor countries would not be so great. and certainly, just because you may understand the 'world' better than I doesn't mean you'll change the world for better than I.

It may be immature, but may I suggest to you that you leave our humble country if you don't like coal power stations, dams for water and weapons for security. In fact, if memory serves me right it was law graduates who said that we should keep coal power stations running and not sign the Kyoto protocol. Nice decision making there from our great leader, who funnily enough is a law graduate. Science and engineering are working in tandem to come up with better technologies than coal power plants, but it doesn't look like there are too many other sources of energy that are efficient and cheap enough to run. Yes, the word cheap is in there, and it saddens me that the world has become something where we favour the price of something over conservation of our species, but that is now impossible to change. Nuclear power is a solution, but I'm willing to bet that not a whole lot of people would be happy with a nuclear power plant powering Australia. Once again, our law leaders are happy to sell it to China though...go figure.

certainly, were it not for technology, the gap between the rich and the poor countries would not be so great.

I don't think either of use are familiar with all the sources of the world poverty gap, but once again I'll shift a bit of the blame to the world of law. If our leaders cut the poorer countries debt to western countries, then those countries would have a little more money to operate from. I'll also shift some of the blame to current world economics, because it's the primary reason why the poverty gap is so great.

you loathe law because you see bad laws and law-makers - shall i be a bigot and loathe science because i see wicked science? don't so be fucking self-righteous.

I loathe law because the field of law, as a collective group is self righteous, over-rated and over-respected. I, as a representative of science (and I'm sure that there are countless others out there who'll agree with me) believe that science deserves what law has somehow acheived.

I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes that works just as well for the field of law as it does for the state of the world right now.

Only after the last tree has been cut down;
Only after the last fish has been caught;
Only after the last river has been poisoned;
Only then will we realize that money cannot be eaten.

Edit: I posted this after Frigid's post. I may respond to the other mini essay's later. It would be nice though if we stopped arguing about whose posts are worded better and which small contradictions occured that make no difference to the general argument, and instead continued the debate of which is more useful for society, which seems the be the way that this thread is leaning toward.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Moved somewhere more suitable.

I believe the relevant legal maxim is, "De minimis non curat lex". (The law does not concern itself with trifles.)

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

I heartily disagree, throughout history the law associates itself with irrelevant, idiotic matters. Not only that, but when presented with the more important matters for which it exists, it gives a rapist 5 extra years for a crime as heinous as their first which garnered a sentence of 15 years. They may not be the exact terms, but you get the picture. What exactly are they teaching you that warrants such a short prison sentence.