[sinker]

What about the opportunity cost of studying the humanities as opposed to science or engineering? This a question for the individual. As a boy I fell in love with Orwell which led me to strongly appreciate literature.

Now a little older I realize what is actually meant by "knowledge is power." Knowledge is a lever. When you're young there's absolutely nothing you can do of any consequence because you live inside someone else's bounds. In a modern economy it's not enough to produce a bushel of corn a day to feed one person. To operate in the economy as anything more than a consumer requires levers in the form of skills, experience, education, and knowledge. Otherwise, you live off the fat of our capitalistic system as some unimportant facilitator, or entirely as a consumer.

Knowledge in the sciences and engineering effectively makes the individual more than what he's worth in just labor. You can effectively leverage our modern day infrastructure of virtually infinite water, electricity, materials, connectivity, and information to do more than what a person in the past could only accomplish with their hands and feet.

What is worthwhile in the humanities preferable to understanding the power of technology and being able to create objective value in society?