Universities exist to teach teenagers basic literacy skills, and maybe a few technical skills in the STEM degrees. They're mostly just high-school English teachers with a few more qualifications and better writing skills and more dedication (which what it really takes to get the qualifications).
When have they been worth putting any faith in? Back when they were all theology schools? Back when the elite academic establishment drove Ignaz Semmelweis to an early grave for daring to suggest doctors wash their hands? The days of the "Invisible College" (why couldn't the enlightenment happen in a real college?)? The days of Freud?
I'm honestly insulted on behalf of all my friends who studied engineering and medicine and worked 40 hours a week for 4 to 7 years to get their degrees - many of whom (including myself) were adults when they started studying. Not to mention the many hard working researchers I've met, dedicating their entire lives to furthering human knowledge for way less money than they'd make in the corporate world. And here's some guy on the web dismissing all of that as "a few technical skills for teenagers".
Yes, there are some soft degrees out there, and universities have many problems, like all institutions. And I met my fair share of lazy tenured professors amongst the good ones. But come on, if you've got to dismiss people like this to make a point, there's something wrong with the way you're going about it.
Oh OK, yes STEM (for the most part) is pretty good. Now there are valid criticisms of the way it is done (much of the best criticism coming from within STEM schools) but nothing is perfect.
To be clear, I'm not complaining about the technical courses (some of which can be very good), almost every sane person trusts scientists on questions about science. It's that once you step outside the stuff that makes clear, empirical predictions a lot of it is pretty soft and always has been (since fields which don't make predictions are never wrong so they never really learn anything).
When have they been worth putting any faith in? Back when they were all theology schools? Back when the elite academic establishment drove Ignaz Semmelweis to an early grave for daring to suggest doctors wash their hands? The days of the "Invisible College" (why couldn't the enlightenment happen in a real college?)? The days of Freud?