Harvard Diploma for Sale

I appreciate the author's point, but it's not like selling the diploma prevents him from saying he went to Harvard, nor does it allow the purchaser to claim that they did themselves..

He wants attention, but he has nothing to say. He starts out <i>&quot;The third decade of the twenty-first century is going to be a wild ride. There will be bad with the good — standard procedure here on Earth—but the pandemic and its concurrent demons have unwittingly provoked a backlash of human ingenuity that’s cracked through the ossified strata of work, technology, and more.&quot;</i> Then he doesn&#x27;t have anything to say about that important subject.<p>We could use some perspective on what&#x27;s likely to happen next. It&#x27;s not coming from that source.

I have to admit that I only skimmed this, but the core message seems to be it&#x27;s a publicity stunt to publish the message that you should do work you truly enjoy and find rewarding, and not keep putting off to another day the chance to find personal satisfaction in your career.<p>And that perhaps one&#x27;s gross yearly income is not the ultimate and best measure of personal success.

&gt; They don’t leave because, at the end of the day, they can’t allow themselves to risk their acquired prestige, which is another way of saying: they can’t risk losing external validation, the driving force of the prestige industrial complex.<p>Or they need to maintain their income to continue their lifestyle.<p>I am not particularly passionate about my job as a sysadmin. I don&#x27;t hate it, but it would be nice to just spend all day skateboarding or playing Starcraft.<p>But, I have aging parents to take care of. Housing prices have skyrocketed around me. This is what I need to do to maintain a certain level of security, and indeed luxury, for myself and my close family.<p>And this isn&#x27;t weird.<p>Go back 3-5 generations to when half of the population was employed in agriculture. Was everyone passionate about cows? Potatoes?<p>The reality is, I have a better shot at following my passion by trying to get into FAANG and working there for 10-20 years so that I can then pursue the things that I am personally passionate about.

Meta HN question: How does something with 5 points, 1 comment and was posted an hour ago make it to the front page? Just curious.

Um, or you could just craft and enjoy a great life and not tell anyone about it.

How noble to vocally discard a thing you can&#x27;t actually lose.

&gt; And once you’ve realized this, the diploma starts to resemble Monopoly money. You have to start evaluating people on a case-by-case basis, instead of using the degree as a reliable proxy.<p>I’ve found this to be true of job titles, too.

I&#x27;ll bid if it comes with a guarantee that the author can never say he went to Harvard again.

There is an emotional truth here- to free yourself of your credential by recasting it as someone else&#x27;s-<p>Yes, on one level that&#x27;s fraud, and selling prestige fraud is a grift.<p>But inclusion and amplification rely on the same emotional operation of using one&#x27;s platform and assets to jump start a story for others. So in the most generous telling there is some credit here for the intent.<p>But only some.<p>Whatever one thinks of Harvard, whatever one thinks of the prestige industrial complex, the actual proposal here is not a transaction any responsible person should participate in on either side. And if I were the issuer, if I were Harvard, I would revoke this credential.<p>And then we would see the true weight of this prestige proof in the eyes of its former holder.