[coldtea]

>Full disclosure: I myself studied philosophy at university. I'm proud of it, but I'd never boast about how poorly it prepared me for the job market.

You would in another society, that doesn't prioritize monetary success and the job market above all things.

[objectiveariel]

Yup, I'd be the Philosopher King in Plato's Republic. First thing I'd do is ban JavaScript programming.

[pavlov]

Under what penalty?

Such a capriciously specific command makes it sound like you'd be more of a run-of-the-mill tyrant à la Creon.

[objectiveariel]

Decapitation. That'll teach you loose coupling.

Beware: Those lacking a sense of humour will be sentenced to impalement.

Besides, I'm not like Creon. Creon was into Delphi, and I'm not into Pascal.

[coldtea]

Creon wasn't a run-of-the-mill tyrant -- he was a respected monarch who put the good of the city over moral/religious concerns.

His dispute with Antigone is about law vs personal/religious ethics, not about him being a capricious tyrant (besides in the end he relents). Her brother was a traitor.

[danielam]

"put the good of the city over moral/religious concerns"

Now there's a statement. The "good of city" is itself a moral concern.

[coldtea]

As long as the inhabitants agree on a specific course of things and have found them to help the city, the "good of the city" as concerning its government is meant as just following that.

So, "good of the city" as in "doing what the city deems good", not as in moral.

[monsieurbanana]

A society not prioritizing job market and a society where somehow not being able to get a job is a something you boast about are two different things.

[cafard]

Perhaps in Plato's circle in Athens, where we kalokagathiates live on our rents. Otherwise, doesn't one show better with simple indifference to the matter? It seems to me that boasting demonstrates an anxiety about the world's opinion.

But I do like Yeats's line in the poem prefixed to Responsibilities: "Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun."

(Full disclosure: yes, I too was a philosophy major.)

[edit: for spelling]