Why Are So Many Young Men Giving Up on College?(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
Why Are So Many Young Men Giving Up on College?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/young-men-college-decline-gender-gap-higher-education/620066/
277 comments
I would say that there may be more opportunities in the blue collar world, as opposed to the white collar professional world, at least for the demographic that is "abandoning" college
Conversely, there are less blue collar, uncredentialed jobs that are typically taken by women that pay well. Construction, plumbing, and extraction all remain low credential, while nursing, care industries, and education all require more credentials than they did before.
Why can't women be in construction, plumbing or extraction? There are extraction jobs going unfilled that start at $800/day. They're long days and hard work, but none of them require you to bench 450lbs.
Isn't it more that this is a cultural issue rather than there just aren't blue collar jobs for women because they're women?
Isn't it more that this is a cultural issue rather than there just aren't blue collar jobs for women because they're women?
Lots of people talking upper body strength, but the real reason is because all of these are on site, some on the road, in situations with poor recourse for harassment.
You're right that there's a cultural fix, but it's big.
You're right that there's a cultural fix, but it's big.
> There are extraction jobs going unfilled that start at $800/day. They're long days and hard work, but none of them require you to bench 450lbs.
Have you ever seen the work done on an oil drilling rig? Its a bit "upper body strength" intense. Some jobs will always end up categorized as the most intense upper body strength job; if not oil drill rig hand, it'll be drywall laborer or something else. And those jobs are too intense for most men, with the result that the supply is low and pay is very high AND the fraction of women strong enough to play along with the strongest guys in the world is essentially zero.
And its politically unacceptable to point out that WRT some physical characteristics like upper body strength, the graphs of male and female strength very nearly do not overlap.
Also there is intense societal/cultural pressure for women to be day care workers or whatever where 100% of women qualify at the skill of diaper changing.
I think the closest analogy of "only the very top physical condition making tons of money" that apply to women bodies would be female clothing model. Women models at the physical peak of perfection, think like top 1% supermodels, actually make FAR more than oil rig hands make.
Top 1% physical strength men only make $1000/day on oil rigs. The highest paid female model Kendall Jenner supposedly pulled in $22.5M/year in 2018. I don't think the problem is male sexism when women of similar physical quality to the men are making 10 times as much as the men...
Have you ever seen the work done on an oil drilling rig? Its a bit "upper body strength" intense. Some jobs will always end up categorized as the most intense upper body strength job; if not oil drill rig hand, it'll be drywall laborer or something else. And those jobs are too intense for most men, with the result that the supply is low and pay is very high AND the fraction of women strong enough to play along with the strongest guys in the world is essentially zero.
And its politically unacceptable to point out that WRT some physical characteristics like upper body strength, the graphs of male and female strength very nearly do not overlap.
Also there is intense societal/cultural pressure for women to be day care workers or whatever where 100% of women qualify at the skill of diaper changing.
I think the closest analogy of "only the very top physical condition making tons of money" that apply to women bodies would be female clothing model. Women models at the physical peak of perfection, think like top 1% supermodels, actually make FAR more than oil rig hands make.
Top 1% physical strength men only make $1000/day on oil rigs. The highest paid female model Kendall Jenner supposedly pulled in $22.5M/year in 2018. I don't think the problem is male sexism when women of similar physical quality to the men are making 10 times as much as the men...
One nit: You're not comparing the top 1% of physical strength men to the top 1% of physically attractive women. You're comparing them to the top 1% of models. That's not apples to apples.
From what I’ve seen - I wouldn’t want to be a woman in those environments. Culturally, these professions are way behind the times. Female mechanics drop out pretty fast from what I’ve seen due to the unwelcoming culture. Not every profession is like SV tech.
I will say that it also will really depend on the type of lady. Very few women are built like men are. You might be taking for granted just how much more physically strong men are on average. Just consider height for instance - average height of a woman in US is 5’4”. You’re in the 1% once you get past 5’9” as a woman (yet half of all men are taller than 99% of women). While there will be women who can do these jobs that have been built around a mans body - they won’t be very common until the profession is overhauled to accommodate different bodies better.
I will say that it also will really depend on the type of lady. Very few women are built like men are. You might be taking for granted just how much more physically strong men are on average. Just consider height for instance - average height of a woman in US is 5’4”. You’re in the 1% once you get past 5’9” as a woman (yet half of all men are taller than 99% of women). While there will be women who can do these jobs that have been built around a mans body - they won’t be very common until the profession is overhauled to accommodate different bodies better.
As they say in the article when addressing this exact point, that is emphatically not the case in the United States. There are approximately half the number of manufacturing jobs in the US that there were in the early 70s, and as a share of all jobs it's down even more.
The framing on this makes your head spin... "Abandoning college"
Hard to imagine that language being used with other demographics.
Hard to imagine that language being used with other demographics.
50 years of being told you're unwelcome will do that to you...
Could you elaborate on that? I am not personally aware of young men being unwelcome in a higher learning setting.
Boys are virtually despised through primary and secondary school.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/articles/20...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/articles/20...
Inclusion efforts for women have nothing to do with exclusion of men.
This isn't exactly true. In a laudable attempt to help lift girls up from a young age, we've (likely inadvertently in most cases) neglected, or worse vilified, boys' learning needs.
This isn't exactly true. In a laudable attempt to help lift girls up from a young age, we've (likely inadvertently in most cases) neglected, or worse vilified, boys' learning needs.
Not sure of the OP’s sensation but when an institution creates highly visible programs supporting every single group except one, then it is a form of exclusion (albeit a negative form vs a positive form of exclusion). You could say that such policies are necessary or justified to redress historical inequalities. This is the traditional justification for such policies. Such an argument starts to break down over when those inequalities are less noticeable.
I don't know if this has changed, but when I was an undergrad in math, all the summer REUs were for women and minorities. I applied to many all the same but never got to do any summer research, which definitely worked against me when applying for grad school. This wouldn't have pushed me out of college I suppose, but it made continuing beyond more difficult.
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I remember the professors during my college orientation extolling the virtues of how Liberal Arts would mold us into superior citizens, able to think critically and holistically in a way we normally couldn't.
Now I know some of this is just hype, but there was a sincere sense that the 'uneducated' were lesser people that weren't as capable of rational and enlightened thought. My actual college experience was informative, but I don't particularly feel like my two semesters of Rhetoric made me a sharp critical thinker.... because it was just slightly more difficult high-school English.
College is sold as essential, when in reality it is not for everyone. And, not having a college degree shouldn't be a de-facto deficiency.
Now I know some of this is just hype, but there was a sincere sense that the 'uneducated' were lesser people that weren't as capable of rational and enlightened thought. My actual college experience was informative, but I don't particularly feel like my two semesters of Rhetoric made me a sharp critical thinker.... because it was just slightly more difficult high-school English.
College is sold as essential, when in reality it is not for everyone. And, not having a college degree shouldn't be a de-facto deficiency.
I literally could not get past the 6 to 4 ratio used in the first sentence. Why would you not use 3 to 2? Made me suspect that the rest of the article was similarly ill considered and I moved on.
I think Makes it cognitively easier to translate into "60 vs 40 percent".
It probably does. But if that was the intent, why not just say 60-40?
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My take:
First, depends on definition of "College" and "University" that differs from country to country.
But overall, value of University education to improve your employability and skillset I think is being questioned by both employers and employees.
1. Some "Blue Collar" skills may withstand the test of automation better than many "White Collar" skills - e.g. I anticipate needing an electrician, contractor, plumber for the next few decades; but hopefully accountant, lawyer, travel agent etc less and less.
2. For "White Collar" skills, well... I went to ComSci university and it's not that it brought no value - but given the time, money, effort and commitment, it was very very low value proposition. I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning. (note I wasn't the one going to university for some "Party / Social Experience" - I found many better, more flexible methods than that:).
Not going to university is not necessarily the same thing as not wanting to learn and educate and acquire skills. And there is a whole spectrum today between free online education (random Youtube videos, manuals, free university courses etc), bootcamps, practically oriented post-secondary education, and then university.
Bottom line: I have two young kids, I want them to succeed, and I want them to be educated - and I don't know if traditional university is something I will encourage them to consider 10 years from now.
I honestly don't know however how that translates into a gender gap discussed in the article though; and article doesn't really provide a satisfying answer either :-/
First, depends on definition of "College" and "University" that differs from country to country.
But overall, value of University education to improve your employability and skillset I think is being questioned by both employers and employees.
1. Some "Blue Collar" skills may withstand the test of automation better than many "White Collar" skills - e.g. I anticipate needing an electrician, contractor, plumber for the next few decades; but hopefully accountant, lawyer, travel agent etc less and less.
2. For "White Collar" skills, well... I went to ComSci university and it's not that it brought no value - but given the time, money, effort and commitment, it was very very low value proposition. I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning. (note I wasn't the one going to university for some "Party / Social Experience" - I found many better, more flexible methods than that:).
Not going to university is not necessarily the same thing as not wanting to learn and educate and acquire skills. And there is a whole spectrum today between free online education (random Youtube videos, manuals, free university courses etc), bootcamps, practically oriented post-secondary education, and then university.
Bottom line: I have two young kids, I want them to succeed, and I want them to be educated - and I don't know if traditional university is something I will encourage them to consider 10 years from now.
I honestly don't know however how that translates into a gender gap discussed in the article though; and article doesn't really provide a satisfying answer either :-/
>I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery
Arguably this was the most valuable learning I did as it's the most applicable to my current job. :)
Arguably this was the most valuable learning I did as it's the most applicable to my current job. :)
It’s also one of the most transferable skills you can have. Most everywhere you work will have a bureaucracy to navigate and checkboxes to figure out how to check.
I'm surprised to hear about comp sci students who feel their experience was low value, especially on this website, where you presumably work in the industry.
While I picked up very few resume bullet point skills from college, I tend to find that having a comp sci background raises my game. Training in algorithms, complexity, plt and networking has given me a solid footing through my career that lets me tackle the hardest parts of the job. Stack overflow and youtube mostly help with the easy stuff.
While I picked up very few resume bullet point skills from college, I tend to find that having a comp sci background raises my game. Training in algorithms, complexity, plt and networking has given me a solid footing through my career that lets me tackle the hardest parts of the job. Stack overflow and youtube mostly help with the easy stuff.
Not sure if "ComSci" refers to "Computer Science" or "Communication Science".
yeah I'm very thankful I got to be in college for CS. I can't imagine learning all the deep weeds in algo, network and security in a bootcamp or youtube - way too shallow and unstructured. like how could you possibly learn all the things I learned but in 10% of the time
My take here is that it is too easy to look back on what was learned in college and what you use today in comparison to it's source and conclude you've picked up way more on the job and use comparatively little from the formal education. Therefore the value is low.
Could you likely have learned everything that you got from your degree on your own while cutting out some of the less practical parts? Almost definitely. Would the person who isn't looking back with 20/20 hindsight know what to cut? I think that is less likely. Would a person without the formal structure of a degree actually gone out and learned all those same things with the same commitment? Some might be able to, but I suspect most would lose interest.
Sure your career might have ended up never touching a single networking component that you learned about in school. But maybe you loved that part and if left to your own devices would have forsaken other parts of the education to just deep dive on it. Would that be fine? Maybe. Or maybe you quite like working in the role that you find yourself in. A role that you might have shut the door to very early on without some structure.
So I think a mix of hindsight and overestimating a person's ability to just stick with a rigorous learning process that can take months and months (or years) without the benefits of peers, teachers, structure, and accountability leads to this belief.
I should mention though that as we are speaking about "value", the ROI on college in America is pretty rough. Even with all those benefits laid out, it is hard to make it too rosey in the face of a hundred thousand dollars of potential debt. Extra so due to the fact that you can acquire a portion of that debt and not even come out the other side with a degree.
Could you likely have learned everything that you got from your degree on your own while cutting out some of the less practical parts? Almost definitely. Would the person who isn't looking back with 20/20 hindsight know what to cut? I think that is less likely. Would a person without the formal structure of a degree actually gone out and learned all those same things with the same commitment? Some might be able to, but I suspect most would lose interest.
Sure your career might have ended up never touching a single networking component that you learned about in school. But maybe you loved that part and if left to your own devices would have forsaken other parts of the education to just deep dive on it. Would that be fine? Maybe. Or maybe you quite like working in the role that you find yourself in. A role that you might have shut the door to very early on without some structure.
So I think a mix of hindsight and overestimating a person's ability to just stick with a rigorous learning process that can take months and months (or years) without the benefits of peers, teachers, structure, and accountability leads to this belief.
I should mention though that as we are speaking about "value", the ROI on college in America is pretty rough. Even with all those benefits laid out, it is hard to make it too rosey in the face of a hundred thousand dollars of potential debt. Extra so due to the fact that you can acquire a portion of that debt and not even come out the other side with a degree.
I took classes in CompSci, Math, and Linguistics; the first two being major, and the latter being a minor.
Most of the CompSci classes I took were completly useless. The only exceptions being Operating Systems and Compilers. Most of the CS classes I took were complete jokes.
In contrast, every Math and Ling class I took was very educational.
Most of the CompSci classes I took were completly useless. The only exceptions being Operating Systems and Compilers. Most of the CS classes I took were complete jokes.
In contrast, every Math and Ling class I took was very educational.
Can you share some examples of classes you found useless?
I'm not OP but I am 16 years post graduation and here's the classes I found useless over the last 16 years:
It had a different title but was "provide helpdesk support for Excel 2003 to businesspeople". What are the exact keystrokes required to change a background color of a cell or create a pivot table in Excel 2003, such that you could explain it over the phone to a non-technical person. Yeah... I get it... some of us grads would end up on a help desk and learning how to read a manual and explain parts of it to completely untrained people is a skill, and why not Excel? But I found it quite useless.
We had some intro to programming classes that presumed to teach non-programmers how to program in the sense of decompose and arrange a problem then re-encode it using an alternative language (assembly, C++, lisp/scheme...). By increasing the workload it operated as a filter not a learning experience. If you already had the knack and had been screwing around with BASIC and home computers since you were 6, it was an easy 'A' low labor class and if you entered the program without programming experience you would drown in the workload and flunk. Pointless. If you want an English degree they do not start the curriculum assuming someone who has never seen written language could get a degree, much like if you enter the math degree path they assume you can already count from 1 to 10 and do not falsely advertise that someone who can not count to ten at entry can later graduate the program. Just put in a pre-req that to enter the CS degree path you must already have written at least one successful piece of code and skip the "how to program" intro class.
Hey cobol programmers made bank on the Y2K thing, lets offer two semesters of cobol. Yeah, I took that because I already knew C++ and thought it would be fun to learn cobol. It was fun and interesting to poke around on an AS/400, but it was quite useless.
Assembly programming on a motorola 68hc11 microcontroller... The teacher didn't seem to know if he was teaching "lets learn how to program" or "assembly techniques and strategies in general" or "lets just memorize the programmers model of the 68hc11 processor so at least you know one typical machine model and learning your second will be easier". The first part was useless to me, the second was shortchanged and not enough, and the latter part was useless both then and now.
It had a different title but was "provide helpdesk support for Excel 2003 to businesspeople". What are the exact keystrokes required to change a background color of a cell or create a pivot table in Excel 2003, such that you could explain it over the phone to a non-technical person. Yeah... I get it... some of us grads would end up on a help desk and learning how to read a manual and explain parts of it to completely untrained people is a skill, and why not Excel? But I found it quite useless.
We had some intro to programming classes that presumed to teach non-programmers how to program in the sense of decompose and arrange a problem then re-encode it using an alternative language (assembly, C++, lisp/scheme...). By increasing the workload it operated as a filter not a learning experience. If you already had the knack and had been screwing around with BASIC and home computers since you were 6, it was an easy 'A' low labor class and if you entered the program without programming experience you would drown in the workload and flunk. Pointless. If you want an English degree they do not start the curriculum assuming someone who has never seen written language could get a degree, much like if you enter the math degree path they assume you can already count from 1 to 10 and do not falsely advertise that someone who can not count to ten at entry can later graduate the program. Just put in a pre-req that to enter the CS degree path you must already have written at least one successful piece of code and skip the "how to program" intro class.
Hey cobol programmers made bank on the Y2K thing, lets offer two semesters of cobol. Yeah, I took that because I already knew C++ and thought it would be fun to learn cobol. It was fun and interesting to poke around on an AS/400, but it was quite useless.
Assembly programming on a motorola 68hc11 microcontroller... The teacher didn't seem to know if he was teaching "lets learn how to program" or "assembly techniques and strategies in general" or "lets just memorize the programmers model of the 68hc11 processor so at least you know one typical machine model and learning your second will be easier". The first part was useless to me, the second was shortchanged and not enough, and the latter part was useless both then and now.
This definitely helps me understand people such as you who say so much of their education was useless, as those classes do sound bad. I can also understand how other people can disagree with the general statement "a lot of education of useless" without seeing this explanation, as none of my CS classes came even close to being that bad (Though I have taken a few useless gen ed / other classes).
For reference, I graduated very recently. Could be an important factor or it could just be a difference in schools.
For reference, I graduated very recently. Could be an important factor or it could just be a difference in schools.
>>I'm surprised to hear about comp sci students who feel their experience was low value
I guess I could be more explicit; I meant to say that, for 5 years of my life invested, for X amount of money invested, for the effort and work and given my inherent and specific desire to learn, it was an extremely inefficient method of learning. All throughout my years, I always had the feeling that learning was not the primary priority for most of the students, teaching was not the primary priority for most of the professors, and instilling knowledge was not the primary priority for most of the staff.
They tell me that this changes post-grad; I cannot speak for that. But I've attended University of Manitoba and University of Toronto, and that was my personal experience. It is shared by several of my best friends who are also in the IT industry (I was a sysadmin, one is Java developer, one is a VMWare architect - all boring Enterprise Stuff compared to HN interests, but still a good cross section)
I enjoyed all the learning and knowledge that I gained in university and put high value on it! I think we agree on that 100%.
But I guess what I'm calling for is a reform (which I think is very much happening:) to increase the efficiency and focus on that learning and knowledge.
I guess I could be more explicit; I meant to say that, for 5 years of my life invested, for X amount of money invested, for the effort and work and given my inherent and specific desire to learn, it was an extremely inefficient method of learning. All throughout my years, I always had the feeling that learning was not the primary priority for most of the students, teaching was not the primary priority for most of the professors, and instilling knowledge was not the primary priority for most of the staff.
They tell me that this changes post-grad; I cannot speak for that. But I've attended University of Manitoba and University of Toronto, and that was my personal experience. It is shared by several of my best friends who are also in the IT industry (I was a sysadmin, one is Java developer, one is a VMWare architect - all boring Enterprise Stuff compared to HN interests, but still a good cross section)
I enjoyed all the learning and knowledge that I gained in university and put high value on it! I think we agree on that 100%.
But I guess what I'm calling for is a reform (which I think is very much happening:) to increase the efficiency and focus on that learning and knowledge.
In your 2nd point you state "I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning.", I also felt this way. However, now I would make an argument that it actually gets you ready for the real world. Being a programmer is a lot more than just programming skills. To be successful you need to be able to talk to business people, go through red tape and processes, it is highly unlikely you will just "code".
Education shows you can work under many different individuals and satisfy their requirements and processes. You know how to jump over hoops and deal with a bureaucratic process. There is value in that.
Education shows you can work under many different individuals and satisfy their requirements and processes. You know how to jump over hoops and deal with a bureaucratic process. There is value in that.
I would agree with your general point that communication, understanding process & procedure, etc are useful skills for IT.
But that's not what I am talking about. And again, my overall problem with my university experience was inefficiency, which I can only ascribe to lack of care / focus as to actual education.
It's not like admin / bureaucracy existed and were paid/incentivized to teach me how to get around them and instill valuable theoretical or practical skills :). It was school of hard knocks, slow and painful and self-guided and frankly hateful; and I don't have to PAY to obtain that self-taught experience - I can be PAID to obtain it :). Or at least, I can pay to obtain it more efficiently, intuitively, with both better understanding and practical tips.
What you describe in the last sentence is a gate, and I to this day (20 years later) resent investing so much time, money and energy for a simple gate - sure "there's value in that", but it feels like Stockholm syndrome / rationalization of sunk cost trying to justify it; there are better, and let me say it again, more efficient ways to satisfy same goal.
Everybody's experience differs; there are people who enjoyed university and found it a rewarding experience. For myself, much as I love learning and CompSci, as much as I've thrived in IT and still enjoy learning, inasmuch as I now guide and coach my teams on precisely how to communicate to non-IT, look at goals, understand process etc - it was ultimately an extremely inefficient experience.
Nowadays, I take classes from vendors, community colleges, online, private instructors in IT and music and photography and whatever... short and long, surface and deep, and I love it all. "Here's money, give me KNOWLEDGE". Whereas, my personal university experience was far different.
But that's not what I am talking about. And again, my overall problem with my university experience was inefficiency, which I can only ascribe to lack of care / focus as to actual education.
It's not like admin / bureaucracy existed and were paid/incentivized to teach me how to get around them and instill valuable theoretical or practical skills :). It was school of hard knocks, slow and painful and self-guided and frankly hateful; and I don't have to PAY to obtain that self-taught experience - I can be PAID to obtain it :). Or at least, I can pay to obtain it more efficiently, intuitively, with both better understanding and practical tips.
What you describe in the last sentence is a gate, and I to this day (20 years later) resent investing so much time, money and energy for a simple gate - sure "there's value in that", but it feels like Stockholm syndrome / rationalization of sunk cost trying to justify it; there are better, and let me say it again, more efficient ways to satisfy same goal.
Everybody's experience differs; there are people who enjoyed university and found it a rewarding experience. For myself, much as I love learning and CompSci, as much as I've thrived in IT and still enjoy learning, inasmuch as I now guide and coach my teams on precisely how to communicate to non-IT, look at goals, understand process etc - it was ultimately an extremely inefficient experience.
Nowadays, I take classes from vendors, community colleges, online, private instructors in IT and music and photography and whatever... short and long, surface and deep, and I love it all. "Here's money, give me KNOWLEDGE". Whereas, my personal university experience was far different.
> I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery
I tried going back to school recently, hitting a complete brick wall at every step as a “non-traditional non traditional” applicant. Based on my experience with that I’m convinced out higher education system in the US is nothing except those two things.
I tried going back to school recently, hitting a complete brick wall at every step as a “non-traditional non traditional” applicant. Based on my experience with that I’m convinced out higher education system in the US is nothing except those two things.
I'd argue it's still worthwhile for degrees like Computer Science if only because HR like candidates to have a degree. (Although this is slowly eroding and may change in the next decade or so)
But the value of less directly applicable degrees like the humanities, social sciences and arts has decreased a lot.
I think in the past simply having been to University, irrespective of the major, was a strong signal. Nowadays graduates are a dime-a-dozen so you'd better have a major that brings real value to your employer.
Plus a lot of the younger generations may have older family members who graduated from college yet have little to show for it.
But the value of less directly applicable degrees like the humanities, social sciences and arts has decreased a lot.
I think in the past simply having been to University, irrespective of the major, was a strong signal. Nowadays graduates are a dime-a-dozen so you'd better have a major that brings real value to your employer.
Plus a lot of the younger generations may have older family members who graduated from college yet have little to show for it.
I’m torn on CS degrees, because while a vast majority of what makes up the curriculum is made accessible to anyone with access to modern technology, but there are some bits of field that seem to require either a real world scenario or academic setting to learn.
But yeah, I don’t think most degrees don’t provide much value in terms of employment. Even a large chunk of the oh so coveted STEM (notably the S) are probably a crapshoot.
But yeah, I don’t think most degrees don’t provide much value in terms of employment. Even a large chunk of the oh so coveted STEM (notably the S) are probably a crapshoot.
I did Physics and turned out okay (I work in Data Science now) but a lot of that seemed like good fortune.
I think the future for CS education could definitely be online courses - the Nand2Tetris course has stuck with me more than anything I did at University, for example. And Prof. Roughgarden's Algorithms courses were similarly high quality.
Really I think once online courses work out how to solve the credential problem and actually get taken seriously by employers, the college bubble could burst.
I think the future for CS education could definitely be online courses - the Nand2Tetris course has stuck with me more than anything I did at University, for example. And Prof. Roughgarden's Algorithms courses were similarly high quality.
Really I think once online courses work out how to solve the credential problem and actually get taken seriously by employers, the college bubble could burst.
One of my personal questions around CS education is topics like HPC.
Lets say I want to learn how to work on HPC problems. There's only really two ways tats going to happen. Working in an industry role on those sort of problems (which won't happen unless you already have that sort of background) or learning in in an academic setting (i.e. a University program)
I don't think self teaching via online courses or otherwise are realistic in this scenario because I as an individual don't have access to either the infrastructure or problem-sets at the sort of scale to work on this thing.
Lets say I want to learn how to work on HPC problems. There's only really two ways tats going to happen. Working in an industry role on those sort of problems (which won't happen unless you already have that sort of background) or learning in in an academic setting (i.e. a University program)
I don't think self teaching via online courses or otherwise are realistic in this scenario because I as an individual don't have access to either the infrastructure or problem-sets at the sort of scale to work on this thing.
> I spent more time satisfying bureaucratic obligations and navigating the needlessly complex machinery than actually learning.
You'd be surprised how much more valuable the skillset of navigating bureaucracy is to the skillset that a million websites are trying to teach you for free.
You'd be surprised how much more valuable the skillset of navigating bureaucracy is to the skillset that a million websites are trying to teach you for free.
Oh I agree; but see my sibling comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543015
In short: it's not like university sets out to TEACH you how to navigate bureaucracy, and it's not like they necessarily succeed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28543015
In short: it's not like university sets out to TEACH you how to navigate bureaucracy, and it's not like they necessarily succeed.
to me, universities havve to be very very cheap to be worth it, since most of bachelor level knowledge is now free on the internet. universities will still have value as children's first serious research institution, and personally I see that as a very good reason to send my future kids there. if they dont like it, no problem the financial hit should be minor; not to mention they will get to grow as a person in a somewhat professional setting.
universities can't keep charing exorbitant fees to give out a piece of irrelevant paper
universities can't keep charing exorbitant fees to give out a piece of irrelevant paper
> since most of bachelor level knowledge is now free on the internet.
Most of the knowledge is out there sure, but the knowledge is hardly what’s important here.
Most well-paid white collar professions still require that credentials (and even poorly laid white-collar professions on that note)
I could spend a lifetime reading about engineering and following program curriculum to a point, but it’s unlikely I’d ever be hired in most engineering fields.
Most of the knowledge is out there sure, but the knowledge is hardly what’s important here.
Most well-paid white collar professions still require that credentials (and even poorly laid white-collar professions on that note)
I could spend a lifetime reading about engineering and following program curriculum to a point, but it’s unlikely I’d ever be hired in most engineering fields.
> universities can't keep charing exorbitant fees to give out a piece of irrelevant paper
You've completely misunderstood the point of university and the piece of paper. The reasons to go to University ranked:
1. To signal to employers that you are the type of person who can solve difficult challenges with minimal oversight
2. To build your network
3. To learn
4. Social events
The piece of paper is far from irrelevant, it's your signal to employers that you're a successful person. MOOCs and bootcamps can't replace that. Employers don't like apprenticeships because once they're over the employees leave for greener pastures. Even if they confirm you're self trained via leetcode or whatever they still can't be sure that you're able to do the other stuff that a job entails.
You've completely misunderstood the point of university and the piece of paper. The reasons to go to University ranked:
1. To signal to employers that you are the type of person who can solve difficult challenges with minimal oversight
2. To build your network
3. To learn
4. Social events
The piece of paper is far from irrelevant, it's your signal to employers that you're a successful person. MOOCs and bootcamps can't replace that. Employers don't like apprenticeships because once they're over the employees leave for greener pastures. Even if they confirm you're self trained via leetcode or whatever they still can't be sure that you're able to do the other stuff that a job entails.
The problem is that there are a lot more "successful people" with a degree nowadays, but not that much more demand. Thus the value of nearly all degrees is lower now than decades ago. Only ones with difficult entry (like medicine) really hold their value. Even CS degree is fairly useless without hobby projects or working experience.
Many university programs exist simply to make money, or in European publicly funded institutions because of arbitrary government targets for raising education level in general population. Nothing to do with actual demand or applicable skills in workforce.
Many university programs exist simply to make money, or in European publicly funded institutions because of arbitrary government targets for raising education level in general population. Nothing to do with actual demand or applicable skills in workforce.
> Many university programs exist simply to make money
Absolutely agree, but that doesn't change the fact that employers demand diplomas. It's exceedingly difficult to break into a white collar industry without one. Employers largely don't care about what universities teach, or why they exist, they just want to be sure that the candidate has experience overcoming adversity.
Absolutely agree, but that doesn't change the fact that employers demand diplomas. It's exceedingly difficult to break into a white collar industry without one. Employers largely don't care about what universities teach, or why they exist, they just want to be sure that the candidate has experience overcoming adversity.
> You've completely misunderstood the point of university and the piece of paper
no I didn't. I have a degree and a nice job; my point was more and more will reject university because that'd do nothing for them - they wouldn't get hired just because they've done their degree, or they can't bear the cost. universities do provide a good environment as you (and me) pointed out, but I don't think that is acceptable for most people with the price tag currently going in the US
no I didn't. I have a degree and a nice job; my point was more and more will reject university because that'd do nothing for them - they wouldn't get hired just because they've done their degree, or they can't bear the cost. universities do provide a good environment as you (and me) pointed out, but I don't think that is acceptable for most people with the price tag currently going in the US
> universities havve to be very very cheap to be worth it, since most of bachelor level knowledge is now free on the internet
Gaining knowledge is not the point of going to university. Getting the diploma is. Sure, having the diploma doesn't automatically mean you'll get a job, but not having a diploma does pretty much mean you'll automatically not get certain jobs.
Gaining knowledge is not the point of going to university. Getting the diploma is. Sure, having the diploma doesn't automatically mean you'll get a job, but not having a diploma does pretty much mean you'll automatically not get certain jobs.
> irrelevant paper
Their only purpose is authoritarian filtering.
Will this applicant unquestioningly jump thru arbitrary crazy and irrelevant hoops with no talking back about about the local dogma and complete subservience to their masters opinions? Do they owe a lot of school loans so they'll unquestioningly do anything for money? In some bad corporate environments, that is strongly desired for the individual contributors.
Their only purpose is authoritarian filtering.
Will this applicant unquestioningly jump thru arbitrary crazy and irrelevant hoops with no talking back about about the local dogma and complete subservience to their masters opinions? Do they owe a lot of school loans so they'll unquestioningly do anything for money? In some bad corporate environments, that is strongly desired for the individual contributors.
The Computer Science experience in university is just so different compared to the other engineering disciplines. The incoming students have such widely different starting points in terms of skill, ability, and familiarity. In my class I had people who could basically program as a full time job. A security guru who embodied the 'hackerman' stereotype. And of course, people who had literally only made "hello world" websites in Netscape Composer. I personally had done some programming in BASIC and Java but was by no means comfortable with OOP.
It is so difficult to design a curriculum that accommodates such a wide range of experience. One of my professors told me that he shares the same challenges as some of the Arts teachers. Because, they too, get students who run the gamut from amateur to masters-level. And some of those painters or musicians are better than the professors themselves.
One of the ways to accommodate this is to teach a lot more about theory. Things you would not learn if you had taught yourself. The upside is that you are more likely to teach all the students something new. The downside is some of the students think the theoretical stuff is not valuable because they won't get to apply it very often. I for instance, know about Big-O but in practical terms I know I shouldn't nest loops and let some standard library implement a nlog(n) sort for me.
It is so difficult to design a curriculum that accommodates such a wide range of experience. One of my professors told me that he shares the same challenges as some of the Arts teachers. Because, they too, get students who run the gamut from amateur to masters-level. And some of those painters or musicians are better than the professors themselves.
One of the ways to accommodate this is to teach a lot more about theory. Things you would not learn if you had taught yourself. The upside is that you are more likely to teach all the students something new. The downside is some of the students think the theoretical stuff is not valuable because they won't get to apply it very often. I for instance, know about Big-O but in practical terms I know I shouldn't nest loops and let some standard library implement a nlog(n) sort for me.
Maybe they're just doing the ROI math and deciding it isn't worth it.
I recently read The Case Against Education. It's very interesting, even if you don't buy the conclusion. From the book:
> The Good Student, by definition, fits the profile of a typical B.A. who did not continue on to graduate or professional school. Now let’s define three more ability archetypes: the Excellent Student, the Fair Student, and the Poor Student. The Excellent Student fits the profile of the typical master’s degree holder. The Fair Student fits the profile of the typical high school graduate who does not try college. The Poor Student fits the profile of the typical high school dropout. Ideally, to repeat, “fits the profile” is all-inclusive, covering cognitive ability, character, background, and every other trait. In terms of measured cognitive ability, Excellent Students are around the 82nd percentile, Good Students the 73rd, Fair Students the 41st, and Poor Students the 24th.
> Results closely match common sense. High school is lucrative for all four archetypes. Even Poor Students can reasonably expect the resources they invest in high school to out-perform high-yield bonds. College, in contrast, is a solid deal only for Excellent and Good Students. Largely owing to their high failure rate, Fair Students who start college should foresee a low 2.3% return on their investment. For Poor Students, it’s a paltry 1%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education
> The Good Student, by definition, fits the profile of a typical B.A. who did not continue on to graduate or professional school. Now let’s define three more ability archetypes: the Excellent Student, the Fair Student, and the Poor Student. The Excellent Student fits the profile of the typical master’s degree holder. The Fair Student fits the profile of the typical high school graduate who does not try college. The Poor Student fits the profile of the typical high school dropout. Ideally, to repeat, “fits the profile” is all-inclusive, covering cognitive ability, character, background, and every other trait. In terms of measured cognitive ability, Excellent Students are around the 82nd percentile, Good Students the 73rd, Fair Students the 41st, and Poor Students the 24th.
> Results closely match common sense. High school is lucrative for all four archetypes. Even Poor Students can reasonably expect the resources they invest in high school to out-perform high-yield bonds. College, in contrast, is a solid deal only for Excellent and Good Students. Largely owing to their high failure rate, Fair Students who start college should foresee a low 2.3% return on their investment. For Poor Students, it’s a paltry 1%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education
> The few neighborhoods where Black and white boys grew up to have similar adult outcomes were low-poverty areas that also had high levels of “father presence.”
Call me surprised. That's the result of racist drug policies intended to go specifically after Black men (and hippies): https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...
The biggest problem - and one that the author conveniently and completely ignores - is that the US justice and incarceration system is set up for biblical an-eye-for-an-eye revenge with ludicrous sentencing ("three strikes", decades for nonviolent drug offenses, people getting summarily executed by police regularly, ...) and not, like in Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation.
Also, people in the US receive no education during their prison stay that helps them to gain useful employment after their release, they start with significant debts from the prison system and often enough from loan sharks, there is no meaningful assistance system to help them gain housing and jobs after being released, and forget about physical and mental healthcare - often, people will leave prison in a way worse state than when they entered: malnourishment, denial of healthcare, trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
And finally: When employers and even landlords are allowed to do routine comprehensive background checks and everything about a person's history is up for a google grab "thanks" to public record laws, it is no surprise that arrests for low level shit like petty theft or smoking weed sets up people for a life in poverty.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: if the US wants to fix their society, the process has to start with their attitude towards criminals, criminality and healthcare.
Call me surprised. That's the result of racist drug policies intended to go specifically after Black men (and hippies): https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-...
The biggest problem - and one that the author conveniently and completely ignores - is that the US justice and incarceration system is set up for biblical an-eye-for-an-eye revenge with ludicrous sentencing ("three strikes", decades for nonviolent drug offenses, people getting summarily executed by police regularly, ...) and not, like in Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation.
Also, people in the US receive no education during their prison stay that helps them to gain useful employment after their release, they start with significant debts from the prison system and often enough from loan sharks, there is no meaningful assistance system to help them gain housing and jobs after being released, and forget about physical and mental healthcare - often, people will leave prison in a way worse state than when they entered: malnourishment, denial of healthcare, trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
And finally: When employers and even landlords are allowed to do routine comprehensive background checks and everything about a person's history is up for a google grab "thanks" to public record laws, it is no surprise that arrests for low level shit like petty theft or smoking weed sets up people for a life in poverty.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: if the US wants to fix their society, the process has to start with their attitude towards criminals, criminality and healthcare.
Well said. I wish our government leadership had the courage to emphasize rehabilitation for criminals, rather than just punishment.
> US justice and incarceration system is set up for biblical an-eye-for-an-eye revenge with ludicrous sentencing
Apart from financial crimes and financial restitution, there is little literal "eye for an eye" punishment, not to include capital punishment with which I disagree. Capital punishment is reserved for the most heinous of cases, though I think from a moral perspective we should stop it, since it involves state authorization to execute a citizen, and does not enable us to fix a wrongful execution if it already happens. The Innocence Project [1] has been able to overturn some wrongful convictions but I am not sure if that is possible after an execution. If we kill someone we cannot make restitution to that person.
If you'd like to make that claim there is literal eye for an eye, please provide well sourced examples of convicted criminals having the violent crimes they enacted on victims (shootings/stabbing) perpetrated back on them
> "three strikes"
Here are the states with 3 strikes laws, and dates of enactment
I hope you are not claiming that these states implemented these laws for racist reasons. Is that your claim?
> decades for nonviolent drug offenses
Did you miss a qualifier on that, by selling a dealer amount of drugs the penalties increased also? The last I saw the amount for cocaine was around 180 grams. Are you saying that someone with 180 grams is doing this for personal use?
There is a mistake in serious hard drug distribution, that delivery/supplying large amounts of people with drugs does not involve death. Due to the mistakes in cutting heroin/coke for example with fetanyl, people can regularly die from hot batches. A good example of that is the recent deaths of Fuquan Johnson and Enrico Colangeli [3]
> people getting summarily executed by police regularly
Please provide evidence of regular summary executions by police where the criminal did not have a gun, or use deadly force against the officer, where the officer has not been arrested and charged with a murder.
> Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation
European prisons vary greatly. With fairly liberal prisons in Nordic countries, and a mixed bag elsewhere.
> trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
I agree completely that we need to improve prison conditions. I don't think a sentence should involve assaults/sex assaults by other criminals, and I think the govt which is enforcing the sentence, also has a duty to protect the criminal, and to make restitution to the victims of crime, if it happens under the government's care.
[1] https://innocenceproject.org/all-cases/
[2] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/three-strikes...
[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9960699/Comedian-Ka...
Apart from financial crimes and financial restitution, there is little literal "eye for an eye" punishment, not to include capital punishment with which I disagree. Capital punishment is reserved for the most heinous of cases, though I think from a moral perspective we should stop it, since it involves state authorization to execute a citizen, and does not enable us to fix a wrongful execution if it already happens. The Innocence Project [1] has been able to overturn some wrongful convictions but I am not sure if that is possible after an execution. If we kill someone we cannot make restitution to that person.
If you'd like to make that claim there is literal eye for an eye, please provide well sourced examples of convicted criminals having the violent crimes they enacted on victims (shootings/stabbing) perpetrated back on them
> "three strikes"
Here are the states with 3 strikes laws, and dates of enactment
Arkansas (since 1995);
Arizona (since 2005);
California (since 1994);
Colorado (since 1994);
Connecticut (since 1994);
Delaware (since 1973);
Florida (since 1995);
Georgia (since 1994);
Indiana (since 1994);
Kansas (since 1994);
Louisiana (since 1994);
Maryland (since 1975 but amended in 1994);
Massachusetts (since 2012);
Montana (since 1995);
Nevada (since 1995);
New Jersey (since 1995);
New Mexico (since 1994);
New York (since 1797);
North Carolina (since 1994);
North Dakota (since 1995);
Pennsylvania (since 1995);
South Carolina (since 1995);
Tennessee (since 1994);
Texas (since 1952);
Utah (since 1995);
Vermont (since 1995);
Virginia (since 1994);
Washington (since 1993); and
Wisconsin (since 1994).
I hope you are not claiming that these states implemented these laws for racist reasons. Is that your claim?
> decades for nonviolent drug offenses
Did you miss a qualifier on that, by selling a dealer amount of drugs the penalties increased also? The last I saw the amount for cocaine was around 180 grams. Are you saying that someone with 180 grams is doing this for personal use?
There is a mistake in serious hard drug distribution, that delivery/supplying large amounts of people with drugs does not involve death. Due to the mistakes in cutting heroin/coke for example with fetanyl, people can regularly die from hot batches. A good example of that is the recent deaths of Fuquan Johnson and Enrico Colangeli [3]
> people getting summarily executed by police regularly
Please provide evidence of regular summary executions by police where the criminal did not have a gun, or use deadly force against the officer, where the officer has not been arrested and charged with a murder.
> Europe, for real, measurable rehabilitation
European prisons vary greatly. With fairly liberal prisons in Nordic countries, and a mixed bag elsewhere.
> trauma from assaults both by fellow inmates and officers...
I agree completely that we need to improve prison conditions. I don't think a sentence should involve assaults/sex assaults by other criminals, and I think the govt which is enforcing the sentence, also has a duty to protect the criminal, and to make restitution to the victims of crime, if it happens under the government's care.
[1] https://innocenceproject.org/all-cases/
[2] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/three-strikes...
[3] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9960699/Comedian-Ka...
I hope you are not claiming that these states implemented these laws for racist reasons. Is that your claim?
In USA, 1.1% of blacks are incarcerated, compared to 0.02% of whites. [0] Obviously the average black person does not commit 55 times the amount of crime of the average white person. Is this system something other than racist?
[0] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/10/30/prisoners_in_20...
In USA, 1.1% of blacks are incarcerated, compared to 0.02% of whites. [0] Obviously the average black person does not commit 55 times the amount of crime of the average white person. Is this system something other than racist?
[0] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/10/30/prisoners_in_20...
10 times more men than women are in prison. Is this system something other than sexist?
The men-women multiplier shouldn't be 10 (or 20, or whatever), so yes that is sexist. However, men's violence does seem to physically hurt people more often, and some studies suggest that young men are more prone to risky behavior than young women, so the existence of a multiplier itself isn't necessarily sexist. No similar statistical backing for a black-white multiplier exists.
I can't say I'm shocked to see a conservative argument that relies on ignoring the difference between 10 and 55. Innumerate sophist says what?
I can't say I'm shocked to see a conservative argument that relies on ignoring the difference between 10 and 55. Innumerate sophist says what?
Perhaps college abandoned them.
Yeah, the verbiage used here is kind of weird. Like ... you can abandon a kitten on the side of the road. But if you're not going to college, you're not abandoning something that needs you as a steward to watch over it and keep it safe. Why are men electing to not go to college? That's better.
Of course your statement is interesting because I have a story to go with it. I went to a publicly funded university starting back in 2003. I had zero problem getting in. Meanwhile, I know a family friend who went to the same university after I had graduated. I want to say around 2011. He had some problems getting it. It wasn't grades or ability to pay. They wanted to try and get more out of state students because they could charge them more. So they sat on their hands until they got as many out of state students as they were going to get for that year. And after that when they still had some spots open they gave the green flag for the family friend. Kind of feels like college was threatening to do the abandoning in this particular instance.
Of course your statement is interesting because I have a story to go with it. I went to a publicly funded university starting back in 2003. I had zero problem getting in. Meanwhile, I know a family friend who went to the same university after I had graduated. I want to say around 2011. He had some problems getting it. It wasn't grades or ability to pay. They wanted to try and get more out of state students because they could charge them more. So they sat on their hands until they got as many out of state students as they were going to get for that year. And after that when they still had some spots open they gave the green flag for the family friend. Kind of feels like college was threatening to do the abandoning in this particular instance.
I have no idea what the situation is like in the United States, but in Canada, this "abandoning" (ahem) is a direct function of eroding performance of boys that starts right in elementary school and continues right through high school. This leads to obviously fewer male university students. The trend is clear and has been going on for two decades.
Pointing this out, especially in terms of arguing that targeted interventions for boys may be in order or that the education system in some way may be suboptimal for them, is an absolute political no go zone though. It's not a discussion that can currently be had.
Pointing this out, especially in terms of arguing that targeted interventions for boys may be in order or that the education system in some way may be suboptimal for them, is an absolute political no go zone though. It's not a discussion that can currently be had.
The educational system is suboptimal for everyone. A optimal one would customize the experience for every student.
Creating a seperate education system for each sex would likely create more problems than it solves.
Creating a seperate education system for each sex would likely create more problems than it solves.
[deleted]
It really shouldn't be that hard. Where I grew up there were four same-sex only schools. Two for boys, two for girls.
Sure, and that probably creates difficulties for men and women to understand each other.
I think it gave them a chance to understand themselves better. I went to the co-ed school, but my friends from all of the same-sex schools all expressed the benefit of not having to worry about the other sex during school time.
I will say I greatly enjoyed my time at all boys catholic school. Much more focus and camaraderie throughout the entire grade instead of the drama that ensues when you have couples holding hands in the hallway.
edit: Note I did 2 years of high school at catholic and 2 years at public.
edit: Note I did 2 years of high school at catholic and 2 years at public.
How would we generate the identical cog factory workers that 1921 requires if we customize education?
The problem with education in the USA is its even more backwards focused than what happens with military strategy. "Better education" in the USA means optimizing for your great grandparents experience. If thats the opposite of modern reality, well, too bad, it'll filter for kids that are flexible and open minded, which ironically is pretty useful in the modern world.
The problem with education in the USA is its even more backwards focused than what happens with military strategy. "Better education" in the USA means optimizing for your great grandparents experience. If thats the opposite of modern reality, well, too bad, it'll filter for kids that are flexible and open minded, which ironically is pretty useful in the modern world.
Canadian here. Is it a no-go zone? Because discussing targeted measures to help underperforming groups is very widespread and those programs exist. They also tend to be maligned and denounced with arguments like railing against equality of outcomes, vs equality of opportunity. I also can't help but notice that these arguments are usually made by the exact same people as the ones who complain about boys falling behind.
That is to say, I don't see Pierre Poilievre types advocating for things like TDSB's Afrocentric Alternative Schools.
That is to say, I don't see Pierre Poilievre types advocating for things like TDSB's Afrocentric Alternative Schools.
I can't get into too much detail because I've been historically involved in this research and I'd rather not have my identity public on HN.
I do have to say that I was more than a little surprised that this would be such a controversial subject given the rather obvious patterns observed. But it very much was, and it still is.
Frankly, this experience was not positive for me, since it showed me how politically charged these things are, something which makes no sense to me. I mean, even your comment strays off right into who-is-making-the-argument, rather than whether it might be a problem that half of the school kids are falling further and further behind. I know that if I had boys entering school, this would concern me, but it's hardly even acknowledged.
I do have to say that I was more than a little surprised that this would be such a controversial subject given the rather obvious patterns observed. But it very much was, and it still is.
Frankly, this experience was not positive for me, since it showed me how politically charged these things are, something which makes no sense to me. I mean, even your comment strays off right into who-is-making-the-argument, rather than whether it might be a problem that half of the school kids are falling further and further behind. I know that if I had boys entering school, this would concern me, but it's hardly even acknowledged.
I don't know you, nor your views, but consider that the reason this happens is that the people pushing this are acting in complete bad faith. They are not interested in using objective measures to help struggling groups succeed, they are merely using this fact to reinforce and promote their reactionary politics. Solving the problem will weaken these groups and their views which is why actually doing anything is out of the question.
As you can see from the rest of the replies to your comment, it is merely a convenient launchpad for advocating incel-derived views of men's "rights", white supremacy etc. Maybe you don't see anything odd about this, but the reactions you're seeing in the real world happen because normal people don't want to be seen advocating for these views.
I worry far, far more about boys falling into black hole of cynicism and victimhood. I've seen it happen to adult friends of mine and it's tragic.
As you can see from the rest of the replies to your comment, it is merely a convenient launchpad for advocating incel-derived views of men's "rights", white supremacy etc. Maybe you don't see anything odd about this, but the reactions you're seeing in the real world happen because normal people don't want to be seen advocating for these views.
I worry far, far more about boys falling into black hole of cynicism and victimhood. I've seen it happen to adult friends of mine and it's tragic.
I saw neither incel nor white supremacy in any of the replies to lordgroff's top-level comment. Are you sure you're not projecting?
It seems they were deleted. There were comments going several levels deep about how this is as a result of the vilification of white males, how colleges are full of days celebrating everyone but whites, how it's totally understandable why white supremacist groups have taken "it's ok to be white" as their slogan, etc, etc. Lots of pretty standard right-wing dreg.
And here we see the cost of privilege discourse.
Once a particular identity is designated as "privileged", it becomes untenable in political circles to acknowledge problems that uniquely face them, or propose solutions to those problems which can't be acknowledged.
Once a particular identity is designated as "privileged", it becomes untenable in political circles to acknowledge problems that uniquely face them, or propose solutions to those problems which can't be acknowledged.
...which is why young male suicide goes absolutely unaddressed.
It impacts predominately young white men.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017...
It impacts predominately young white men.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017...
We can't discuss difference between genders and how important it is that we recognize it because of crucial key differences.
It's going to be part of our downfall if it hasn't already started happening.
It's going to be part of our downfall if it hasn't already started happening.
Here is your chance to talk about it, these discussions are permitted on HN. How do we know it's really happening and what can we do about it? Let me throw out a few takes to stir things up.
- Maybe girls are naturally better at sitting still, and have always had an advantage in learning spelling and times tables that was not revealed until recently because the system was biased against them.
- Maybe a change in amounts of permitted physical activity has negatively impacted the ability to focus in anyone with a natural propensity to exercise, showing up in hyperactive kids and of course anyone with a lot of testosterone... or prenatal testosterone exposure, or whatever makes boys more likely to run around the playground hitting each other with sticks (I'm not an endocrinologist if you can't tell), in their systems.
- Maybe all we accomplished in the 1980s was replacing sexism type A with sexism type B.
- Maybe the performance gap is due to some kind of measurement error, like not comparing the performance of boys and girls at the same task. Maybe boys, due to (I'm just making stuff up here) being pushed towards math and science even if they don't want to do it, end up in more difficult classes and get lower grades in spite of equal ability.
The only thing I really know is that there's not an IQ difference between genders and the innate capacity of both groups, preferences, attention span, etc. notwithstanding, is about equal.
- Maybe girls are naturally better at sitting still, and have always had an advantage in learning spelling and times tables that was not revealed until recently because the system was biased against them.
- Maybe a change in amounts of permitted physical activity has negatively impacted the ability to focus in anyone with a natural propensity to exercise, showing up in hyperactive kids and of course anyone with a lot of testosterone... or prenatal testosterone exposure, or whatever makes boys more likely to run around the playground hitting each other with sticks (I'm not an endocrinologist if you can't tell), in their systems.
- Maybe all we accomplished in the 1980s was replacing sexism type A with sexism type B.
- Maybe the performance gap is due to some kind of measurement error, like not comparing the performance of boys and girls at the same task. Maybe boys, due to (I'm just making stuff up here) being pushed towards math and science even if they don't want to do it, end up in more difficult classes and get lower grades in spite of equal ability.
The only thing I really know is that there's not an IQ difference between genders and the innate capacity of both groups, preferences, attention span, etc. notwithstanding, is about equal.
There is a relevant iq difference in the distribution pattern. Not the average
I guess that inspires another take:
- Suppose performance in the school system has an upper limit slightly above average, but no lower limit. Then anything that increases the variance of one group, whether innate ability or environmental effects, will show up as a fall in the group's average, because the growth in the high end of the curve is disproportionately not being measured, while the growth in the low end is.
- Suppose performance in the school system has an upper limit slightly above average, but no lower limit. Then anything that increases the variance of one group, whether innate ability or environmental effects, will show up as a fall in the group's average, because the growth in the high end of the curve is disproportionately not being measured, while the growth in the low end is.
Grade inflation ('A's becoming more common, 'D's less common etc) would also show up as boys performing relatively worse over time in this scenario.
"The only thing I really know is that there's not an IQ difference between genders and the innate capacity of both groups, preferences, attention span, etc. notwithstanding, is about equal."
This doesn't seem to be completely true. The averages are nearly identical, but the variability is quite different. Most studies will show that males have a wider bell curve than females on nearly every task (Math, Reading Comprehension, etc.).
This doesn't seem to be completely true. The averages are nearly identical, but the variability is quite different. Most studies will show that males have a wider bell curve than females on nearly every task (Math, Reading Comprehension, etc.).
Having this kind discussion would be good even through it is likely to tread ground that people might not want to think about.
One researched explanation is gender bias in how teachers grade student performance. Studies done over standardized test has demonstrated gains for boys when grading is done gender-blind. There has also been studies done that looked at the gender of the teacher which shown favoritism towards the teachers own gender. One explanation for that is that empathy is easier along race and gender lines which then impact grading to be more harsher towards the out group.
The one thing I would not look too much at is hormones of either girls or boys as it has a long history of being abused, over valued and miss-interpreted. Estrogens does not cause girls to become emotional unstable nor does testosterone cause boys to be become wild beasts. The biggest effect they have generally is to regulate behavior towards social status, which if its not obvious has a big dose of culture attached to it.
One researched explanation is gender bias in how teachers grade student performance. Studies done over standardized test has demonstrated gains for boys when grading is done gender-blind. There has also been studies done that looked at the gender of the teacher which shown favoritism towards the teachers own gender. One explanation for that is that empathy is easier along race and gender lines which then impact grading to be more harsher towards the out group.
The one thing I would not look too much at is hormones of either girls or boys as it has a long history of being abused, over valued and miss-interpreted. Estrogens does not cause girls to become emotional unstable nor does testosterone cause boys to be become wild beasts. The biggest effect they have generally is to regulate behavior towards social status, which if its not obvious has a big dose of culture attached to it.
[deleted]
Colleges and Universities have been used as research churns, using professors, graduates and undergraduates to further influence research through a combination of tuition, good-will, and the promise of a paper after 4 years of hard work that says you can do what you spend 4 years doing. Combined with the ever-increasing costs of college education with ever-decreasing return on investment (have fun getting a job involving the gender studies doctorate (or any other vague, wishywashy, non-practical education) you got that's functionally useless)
You can get the exact same level of education online for 90% of the courses that universities offer. Trades are a different story when there's practical skills to learn however but is the exception to the norm.
Why would men spend the time going to college if it's been ensured that they're going to be in debt for the rest of their life due to the inflated ego of these institutions, thinking they can charge so much for degrees that really have no practical value. But then again, why blame the institution if there's thousands of people still lining up willingly?
You can get the exact same level of education online for 90% of the courses that universities offer. Trades are a different story when there's practical skills to learn however but is the exception to the norm.
Why would men spend the time going to college if it's been ensured that they're going to be in debt for the rest of their life due to the inflated ego of these institutions, thinking they can charge so much for degrees that really have no practical value. But then again, why blame the institution if there's thousands of people still lining up willingly?
It's interesting to consider whether we are entering a period of time in which young men will "fail" at a higher rate than young women, but we will maintain early-age support structures that prioritize women over men because men continue to dominate in late-age power structures.
There is a large online network of communities that have dedicated themselves to making outcasts out of boys for their own ends. Sometimes it's for clear ends (like Bannon's work on Gamergate) and sometimes it's an intuitive growth instinct. Places like ZH need attention and they're not going to get it if boys grow up to go college. They need them angry, cynical and isolated.
I think HN is one outpost of this network. Imagine a 12-16 year old happening upon HN and becoming a regular. Do you see this person coming away with a positive view of higher education and being encouraged to pursue it? Or are they more likely to develop a cynical, contrarian view?
I think HN is one outpost of this network. Imagine a 12-16 year old happening upon HN and becoming a regular. Do you see this person coming away with a positive view of higher education and being encouraged to pursue it? Or are they more likely to develop a cynical, contrarian view?
> Imagine a 12-16 year old happening upon HN and becoming a regular. Do you see this person coming away with a positive view of higher education and being encouraged to pursue it? Or are they more likely to develop a cynical, contrarian view?
This precise thing happened to me years ago, and yes I did develop a cynical/contrarian view about it. I still went to school, but in net think I benefitted from not taking it too seriously.
But I don't think HN made me an outcast; I was on here because I was already an outcast and it was a place where there were other people into similar things that I was. I feel the same way about your broader point; I think the cynicism/isolation comes first (even if the internet might reinforce it).
This precise thing happened to me years ago, and yes I did develop a cynical/contrarian view about it. I still went to school, but in net think I benefitted from not taking it too seriously.
But I don't think HN made me an outcast; I was on here because I was already an outcast and it was a place where there were other people into similar things that I was. I feel the same way about your broader point; I think the cynicism/isolation comes first (even if the internet might reinforce it).
Chicken or egg thing going on there though wouldn't you say? Are these networks accelerating and finding ways to verbalize emotions/thoughts these boys already have due to a social environment they find themselves in and are unhappy with?
This could be true if it weren't for the data showing that boys aren't just underperforming in college, the division begins far earlier in primary school.
It isn't that these boys don't have a positive view of higher education, it's that they don't have a positive view of any education. And this view is based on their lived experience.
It isn't that these boys don't have a positive view of higher education, it's that they don't have a positive view of any education. And this view is based on their lived experience.
Previously on HN:
A generation of American men give up on college (wsj.com): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436836
Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment. Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work (nytimes.com): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472274
A generation of American men give up on college (wsj.com): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436836
Men Fall Behind in College Enrollment. Women Still Play Catch-Up at Work (nytimes.com): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28472274
I believe that in the western world, specially in the countries that have free (or subsidized) universities there has been a lot of societal pressure that makes young people want to go to college but no idea why or for what.
Now, one of the smartest decisions I made was going for the sort of equivalent of a trade school in my country, it's not a replacement of college but an alternative for what I believe americans call High School, so three years from fifteen to eighteen years old and I truly believe that the rest of the world would benefit massively from such a concept. I also believe we should stop viewing the preparation for university as universal and provide young people with a trade from the beginning.
(edit) thanks martzy13 for your comment about vocational schools, I didn't know about them
(edit) thanks martzy13 for your comment about vocational schools, I didn't know about them
Can you please tell us more about your career trajectory?
I wouldn’t normally expect someone who went to trade school from 15-18 to be so proficient in a foreign language(English) like you.
I wouldn’t normally expect someone who went to trade school from 15-18 to be so proficient in a foreign language(English) like you.
Sure! First of all, thanks for saying I am proficient in english, it's something I am a bit insecure and always try to hide that english is a second language to me. I also must clarify that I am extremely fortunate to have parents that were both polyglots so language learning was kind of a given in my household, specially english. Right now, I am working in my second year in a big consultancy firm doing nearshore web development for a big healthcare provider in the US. Although right now I am working as a tester, my school taught us how to do (nearly) fullstack development, so I have been rotating duties in my work, ranging from normal, run of the mill web dev to backend in nodeJS and a bit of cosmosDB. I did learn a lot of stuff for myself before going to trade school but I did learn the basics of working in a development team while doing my third year thesis, which simulates the design, production and release of a real world, fullstack application with an actual use case.
To be clear, that's an option in America as well. They're usually called a "Joint Vocational School" or a "Career Center", and they offer a variety of options.
For example the one I went to had:
* Public Safety to learn firefighting and Emergency Medical Services
* HVAC to learn a heating and cooling
* Building trades to learn electrical, carpentry, plumbing
* Software development
* Medical Assisting (a pre-nursing route)
* Cosmetology for hair stylists and makeup artists
* Engineering and Precision Machining Technologies
There are plenty of other options at that specific career center as well.
A lot of my peers 'looked down' on this choice, as they viewed the "college path" as the only option to be successful in America, and considered this an inferior education.
For example the one I went to had:
* Public Safety to learn firefighting and Emergency Medical Services
* HVAC to learn a heating and cooling
* Building trades to learn electrical, carpentry, plumbing
* Software development
* Medical Assisting (a pre-nursing route)
* Cosmetology for hair stylists and makeup artists
* Engineering and Precision Machining Technologies
There are plenty of other options at that specific career center as well.
A lot of my peers 'looked down' on this choice, as they viewed the "college path" as the only option to be successful in America, and considered this an inferior education.
> To be clear, that's an option in America as well.
Sort of. You're talking about college age, while the GP was talking about high school age.
edit: I'm wrong, this was for high school students. I did go to high school in America but I never knew about this.
Sort of. You're talking about college age, while the GP was talking about high school age.
edit: I'm wrong, this was for high school students. I did go to high school in America but I never knew about this.
Thanks for catching that. My mistake - I meant to clarify. This is in replacement of the last two years of High School.
So you take your Junior and Senior high school years at a Career Center or JVS.
So you take your Junior and Senior high school years at a Career Center or JVS.
Huh. I'm not sure if we just didn't have that or what, but this is the first I'm hearing about it. Thanks for pointing that out!
Well, it might be an Ohio specific thing, now that I’m looking into it more.
https://www.ohiohighered.org/students/find-a-career/career-t...
Under the section on Ohio > School districts may combine resources to form a fourth type of school district, the joint vocational school district, which focuses on a technical skills–based curriculum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_district
https://www.ohiohighered.org/students/find-a-career/career-t...
Under the section on Ohio > School districts may combine resources to form a fourth type of school district, the joint vocational school district, which focuses on a technical skills–based curriculum.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_district
Yep. And, quite honestly, I think a large proportion of women going to college/university are going because they have been told to go, not because they believe it will help them reach any particular goals. Where are all of these university educated women ending up? Swathes of them end up in mediocre jobs like call centre operators or bullshit jobs at big finance companies and the like. It's a million miles from academia. Did they really all need 3 years of full-time education?
I think the numbers of men going to university is just closer to what is a sensible proportion.
I think the numbers of men going to university is just closer to what is a sensible proportion.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, this is very frequent in my country where, about two thirds of the women I know do some kind of university career without actual job prospects because of some preconceived notion that it will give them an employment as soon they graduate. Most of them started around 2019 and now face an uncertain future because of the economical consequences of the pandemic affecting their parents, which are almost always their main source of economical support. The widespread rejection of regular, "not educated" jobs (I think you could say blue collar?) is creating this university diploma inflation effect that will probably pop in the next five to ten years
I also do believe that one of the main things that allow people to get into university is the support of middle class parents who wish their sons achieve anything in higher educaction because of a preconceived notion about the relationship between employability and a university diploma.
I also do believe that one of the main things that allow people to get into university is the support of middle class parents who wish their sons achieve anything in higher educaction because of a preconceived notion about the relationship between employability and a university diploma.
> Did they really all need 3 years of full-time education?
Higher ed has become extremely top heavy with administration, and those people DO need the women to take those classes.
Consider: The more women whom graduate with K-12 degrees, the better of a job the executives and administrators at my state U system have done. They get incredibly high salaries, in fact. The problem is they've done such a great job that they produce twice as many qualified educated K-12 young teachers as the statewide market can absorb. So my favorite Denny's restaurant waitress has a K-12 education degree and is making more money off tips at Dennys than her competitors whom got a job in public schools, where the average career length is only 6 years so they're already onto their second careers, selling real estate or working with her at Dennys. But having a K12 education degree doesn't make her a better waitress, it just makes her poorer.
The microeconomic solution to her problem is if only the top 50% in her graduating class get hired, she should have worked harder to be in the ever shrinking fraction of successfully people. The macroeconomic solution is to stop sending two times too many girls to K12 degree granting schools, which will kill the careers of the executive management at those schools so thats sure as hell never happening.
So its the usual American thing where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The president of our stateside uni system gets a payraise from $700K to $750K because he did such a great job producing more K12 diplomas. Meanwhile the poor girl is worse off than her mother, financially, because she has enormous loans to get a vocational job ticket for a job field she never worked in.
Higher ed has become extremely top heavy with administration, and those people DO need the women to take those classes.
Consider: The more women whom graduate with K-12 degrees, the better of a job the executives and administrators at my state U system have done. They get incredibly high salaries, in fact. The problem is they've done such a great job that they produce twice as many qualified educated K-12 young teachers as the statewide market can absorb. So my favorite Denny's restaurant waitress has a K-12 education degree and is making more money off tips at Dennys than her competitors whom got a job in public schools, where the average career length is only 6 years so they're already onto their second careers, selling real estate or working with her at Dennys. But having a K12 education degree doesn't make her a better waitress, it just makes her poorer.
The microeconomic solution to her problem is if only the top 50% in her graduating class get hired, she should have worked harder to be in the ever shrinking fraction of successfully people. The macroeconomic solution is to stop sending two times too many girls to K12 degree granting schools, which will kill the careers of the executive management at those schools so thats sure as hell never happening.
So its the usual American thing where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The president of our stateside uni system gets a payraise from $700K to $750K because he did such a great job producing more K12 diplomas. Meanwhile the poor girl is worse off than her mother, financially, because she has enormous loans to get a vocational job ticket for a job field she never worked in.
The title gives you one impression, but in the article you find that college attendance for men is higher than it was 10 years ago - it is just that attendance for women has grown even more.
Is that merely a result of population growth?
No, there are not only more people attending college, but also a higher percentage of people - different source so the date range differs, but per NCES [0] in the year 2000 the percent males/females in college was 33/38, and in 2018 it was 38/44
[0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_cpb.pdf
[0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_cpb.pdf
Maybe it's the result of telling 2+ generations of boys that "males", especially "white males" (predominant in Canada) are the root of all problems in society and the world, coupled with ever-present emphasis and promotion of girls (most recently manifested in Trudeau's absurd references to "she-cession" and "she-covery").
I’m curious - who is saying this? Have an example? Seems like an exaggeration. I’m sure it’s happened in some isolated cases, but I’m skeptical that this is a prevailing attitude
gjsman-1000(4)
2 out of 4 are arguing against the trope and the first link is blogspam.
Is this actually happening though? I thought it was mostly just Twitter and subsequently the media feeling the need to write shocking stories. I have never had or heard someone tell me that it's bad to be white.
gjsman-1000(2)
Every educational system that's worth it's salt here where I live in Canada is going full-bore on the whole "critical race theory" and how "white people have oppressed every other culture for centuries"
Trust me, it's happening.
Trust me, it's happening.
Can you provide links on what the materials look like?
This kind of generalizing is a slap in the face of many nations that are predominantly white but have never colonized any country.
My comment got flagged - and that's fine, but I'd like to hear an explanation.
Mine is as follows. Historically, the colonization was the domain of countries with access to sea, especially a long coast line - starting with Vikings. Among European countries, the colonization was done mainly by the Brits, Spain, Portugal, France, the predecessors of the modern Netherlands and Belgium.
Other European countries either didn't have access to sea, or had it but for various reasons weren't interested in colonization - for example because they were focused on land wars with their neighbors. You won't find many German or Austrian colonies. And you can talk to the Swiss how white people are guilty of colonialism, but you won't find any understanding there. Some with the whole Eastern Europe.
I understand this simplistic point of view ("white people invaded the whole world") seems attractive to some, but it's false, unjust and racist. If you say, "Several European countries colonized a significant portion of the world" - this is accurate, true, and definitely not racist. But it seems people don't care about facts or being precise anymore: it's all about emotion and fitting one's limited set of views.
===
EDIT: To people who flag and downvote: I'm a very open-minded person. I don't want to live in my bubble. So please, talk to me. Explain why I'm wrong - or at least why you disagree. HN is a discussion forum, let's use this opportunity to actually transmit some useful information. To me, downvoting and flagging says, "I disagree but I can't find any counter-arguments".
Mine is as follows. Historically, the colonization was the domain of countries with access to sea, especially a long coast line - starting with Vikings. Among European countries, the colonization was done mainly by the Brits, Spain, Portugal, France, the predecessors of the modern Netherlands and Belgium.
Other European countries either didn't have access to sea, or had it but for various reasons weren't interested in colonization - for example because they were focused on land wars with their neighbors. You won't find many German or Austrian colonies. And you can talk to the Swiss how white people are guilty of colonialism, but you won't find any understanding there. Some with the whole Eastern Europe.
I understand this simplistic point of view ("white people invaded the whole world") seems attractive to some, but it's false, unjust and racist. If you say, "Several European countries colonized a significant portion of the world" - this is accurate, true, and definitely not racist. But it seems people don't care about facts or being precise anymore: it's all about emotion and fitting one's limited set of views.
===
EDIT: To people who flag and downvote: I'm a very open-minded person. I don't want to live in my bubble. So please, talk to me. Explain why I'm wrong - or at least why you disagree. HN is a discussion forum, let's use this opportunity to actually transmit some useful information. To me, downvoting and flagging says, "I disagree but I can't find any counter-arguments".
Oh yes. It's literally to the point that even saying "it's okay to be white" is considered alt-right and white supremacist.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white
It's not?
Case in point.
It is okay to be who you are. It doesn't matter your race or nationality, your sex or gender or creed. It's okay to be white. It's okay to be black. It's okay to be Asian. It's okay to be First Nations, Native, Indigenous. It's okay to be male or female or intersexed or trans. It's okay to be Catholic or Protestant or Sunni or Shia or Jewish or Orthodox or Baha'i or Zoroastrian or Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist or Shinto or any other creed.
For all people everywhere, it is emphatically okay to exist.
If you disagree with that, then I think you need to re-examine who is engaging in supremacist politics.
It is okay to be who you are. It doesn't matter your race or nationality, your sex or gender or creed. It's okay to be white. It's okay to be black. It's okay to be Asian. It's okay to be First Nations, Native, Indigenous. It's okay to be male or female or intersexed or trans. It's okay to be Catholic or Protestant or Sunni or Shia or Jewish or Orthodox or Baha'i or Zoroastrian or Buddhist or Hindu or Taoist or Shinto or any other creed.
For all people everywhere, it is emphatically okay to exist.
If you disagree with that, then I think you need to re-examine who is engaging in supremacist politics.
[deleted]
I was around on the internet when this was happening, so I can tell you the real story. Some people went around posting those signs, printed at home on A4 paper, around college campuses during a time when social justice issues were at a fever pitch in popular culture. Some very sensitive-to-social-justice-issues and sensitive-to-potential-indicators-of-people-being-insensitive-to-social-issues people saw them and became upset on Twitter. I think the signs usually got taken down, but that's what usually happens to signs.
Some people took this as a sign that an evil fifth column was going around trying to win an invisible cultural battle by putting up signs that had no racist content but that implied that someone around town would be willing to put up a racist sign if they had had the chance and the chutzpah.
Other people took this as a sign that the evil first through fourth columns were in such active pursuit of dissenters that they would get mad on Twitter and take down meticulously inkjetted pieces of A4 paper if they so much as implied that dissent was an option.
Few reasonable people took this as a sign that it was, literally, not "OK" to be a white person (what does that even mean? if it's not okay how are they supposed to stop?), but because taking down a sign can be taken to mean that the janitor disagrees with what those cultural mercenaries at Kinko's printed on it, that take got passed around a lot.
Some people took this as a sign that an evil fifth column was going around trying to win an invisible cultural battle by putting up signs that had no racist content but that implied that someone around town would be willing to put up a racist sign if they had had the chance and the chutzpah.
Other people took this as a sign that the evil first through fourth columns were in such active pursuit of dissenters that they would get mad on Twitter and take down meticulously inkjetted pieces of A4 paper if they so much as implied that dissent was an option.
Few reasonable people took this as a sign that it was, literally, not "OK" to be a white person (what does that even mean? if it's not okay how are they supposed to stop?), but because taking down a sign can be taken to mean that the janitor disagrees with what those cultural mercenaries at Kinko's printed on it, that take got passed around a lot.
I believe the popularity of the sign lies in its ambiguity. You see, the mainstream discourse never went as far as to say "it is not OK to be white." It was hinted at, in a more or less subtle way, through the "white privilege" (some corporations actually have obligatory trainings on this) and in thousands of indirect ways making white people guilty of the skin they were born in.
So for some people the message of that poster was infuriating. You can't openly disagree with the literal meaning, but on the other hand, many people do it internally. They believe that white people as the descendants of slave owners should inherit the collective guilt of their great forefathers (even if it was a family of a third wave of immigrants from Europe that never owned any slaves). The very fact we are even discussing that is telling in itself.
So for some people the message of that poster was infuriating. You can't openly disagree with the literal meaning, but on the other hand, many people do it internally. They believe that white people as the descendants of slave owners should inherit the collective guilt of their great forefathers (even if it was a family of a third wave of immigrants from Europe that never owned any slaves). The very fact we are even discussing that is telling in itself.
It definitely is ok to be white. It’s not ok to be a white supremacist, though.
Not everything has to be black and white and divisive.
Not everything has to be black and white and divisive.
"White" is meaningless, isn't it? At best it's a judgement about skin pigmentation.
When any phrase is used exclusively by alt-right groups as a way to dogwhistle and provoke, it makes sense to label it as something that alt-righters use.
No one is seriously arguing that devoid on the context and who pushes that specific phrasing, that it's "not ok to be white"
You have to intentionally disingenuous to seriously believe that.
No one is seriously arguing that devoid on the context and who pushes that specific phrasing, that it's "not ok to be white"
You have to intentionally disingenuous to seriously believe that.
There is only one reason someone from one of those subreddits would say that line, and it's to get HN arguing about whether or not it should be taken literally, or as in indication that someone from one of those subreddits is in the room.
When that phrase is used to troll people into freaking out at an innocuous phrase, and they do so, that's on them.
stnmtn(6)
If you are provoked by something as innocuous as "It's OK to be white" you really need to re-examine your commitment to tribalism and dedication to going out of your way to find things to be offended by on the Internet. (Or attached to telephone poles.)
Which was clearly the goal of this experiment, to show how quickly and vehemently people over react to anything that seems to deviate slightly from their personal ideology, no matter how slight.
Which was clearly the goal of this experiment, to show how quickly and vehemently people over react to anything that seems to deviate slightly from their personal ideology, no matter how slight.
I think you're dodging my main message. Of course it's ok to be white, I said that very very clearly in my comment I think, right?
The thing is, you have to see who is using and spreading that message. When it's alt-right people, you can assume malicious intent when they use it.
If someone who is not clearly alt-right says it, I wouldn't even think twice as that's literally meaningless, but you have to acknowledge how they are trying to use it as a dogwhistle
The thing is, you have to see who is using and spreading that message. When it's alt-right people, you can assume malicious intent when they use it.
If someone who is not clearly alt-right says it, I wouldn't even think twice as that's literally meaningless, but you have to acknowledge how they are trying to use it as a dogwhistle
> The Guardian columnist Jason Wilson argued that the slogan It's okay to be white was devised by white supremacists in order to stoke overreaction from the left, sow confusion, embed a racist agenda in the mainstream media, and ultimately invite a backlash against anti-racist activism."
Well, looks like they were very successful then.
Well, looks like they were very successful then.
PSA: If you say it isn't okay to be a race and you attack everyone who says it is okay to be a race, you are not "anti-racist"
Even though the issues you mention are real, you failed to provide a casual link between the two phenomena in question. "They are telling me I'm responsible for inequality in today's society so I won't go to college"? I'm not buying it.
Why would you go to a place that is increasingly expensive, people are increasingly open about how there are alternatives to college, and your professors and other students look down on you for being white and successful?
Here we seem to have identified some factors beyond the boring old "CRT has destroyed education" bullshit. Students who are already "successful" have no need of college whatever their race or gender. College is ridiculously expensive, especially when compared to what was available in e.g. 1970.
They may perceive the "you're the problem" message as originating from colleges, or being especially strong there. They may not want to spend four years in an environment like that.
Acknowledging a possible privileged position is not being called "the root of all problems in society and the world".
scohesc(1)
eplanit(1)
Privilege is primarily about money, not race. If you want to help poor people, then tax the rich more regardless of race and underprivileged minorities will benefit naturally more.
All this obsession with race is just a way for the elites to urn attention away from actual solutions which would hurt their profits.
All this obsession with race is just a way for the elites to urn attention away from actual solutions which would hurt their profits.
> Privilege is primarily about money, not race.
In the United State our history makes it absolutely about race too. The legacy of slavery and racial segregation didn't magically disappear in 1965. The limited amount I know about Canadian history is that something similar could be said about the treatment of First Nations.
In the United State our history makes it absolutely about race too. The legacy of slavery and racial segregation didn't magically disappear in 1965. The limited amount I know about Canadian history is that something similar could be said about the treatment of First Nations.
Of course discrimination has greatly affected wealth distribution in the past. Still, I believe wealth re-distribution through Scandinavian style welfare state is the answer, not lectures about white-privilege and minority quotas. These days simply being white doesn't make you privileged if you were born into poor family, and being black doesn't automatically make you underprivileged if your parents happen to be wealthy.
There are privileges that come from race completely independent of wealth. Henry Gates Jr. getting arrested for "breaking in" to his own home while black is an anecdotal example of the kind of thing I'm talking about but it is shown in the data on policing and race too.
If you agree the US has a history of slavery and racial segregation, of course it will still offer privileges to white people because that's historically how the system was setup. When do you think that stopped affecting black people?
If you agree the US has a history of slavery and racial segregation, of course it will still offer privileges to white people because that's historically how the system was setup. When do you think that stopped affecting black people?
[deleted]
"Hey Whitey! Check your privilege!"
You're right, there's no insult intended when people say that. Apparently whiteys have thin skin too!
You're right, there's no insult intended when people say that. Apparently whiteys have thin skin too!
Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Not sure why the downvotes here. This is an objectively true fact. And worse is that it’s not limited to white males. Nobody cares about our young black men either. 1/5 die of homicide while we reduce our police presence as if they are the most pressing problem.
At least a white male stands a good chance of not being born into a high crime area they have virtually no chance of escaping.
We suck at diagnosing and solving the real problems.
At least a white male stands a good chance of not being born into a high crime area they have virtually no chance of escaping.
We suck at diagnosing and solving the real problems.
And the college gap is most pronounced amongst Black men and Black women, by an absurd ratio, so its fascinating to read a bunch of, presumably, majority CS degree holders who likely aren't Black or Latino talk about how white men have it worst for college enrollment
Very true. Again - nobody really seems to care about black males despite the avalanche of hashtags.
I think the issue isn't so much declaring exactly one group as the ones who have it worst, but to be driven by empirical data about how various groups perform. I believe college enrollment per capita goes something like:
white women > black women > white men > black men
(not sure where all the other racial groups fall).
So a simplistic calculation like "women are less privileged and black people are less privileged therefor we should help black women the most when it comes to college admissions" does not address the real world disparities that exist.
white women > black women > white men > black men
(not sure where all the other racial groups fall).
So a simplistic calculation like "women are less privileged and black people are less privileged therefor we should help black women the most when it comes to college admissions" does not address the real world disparities that exist.
First, I don't think it's been going on for 2+ generations.
Second, who is saying "white males" are the root of all problems? I mean, it's objectively true since we've predominately been in positions of power (European & new world) for the greater part of history. That said, I'm sure women can mess things up equally as bad if they were in the same positions of power.
Third, there's still an under-representation of women in STEM. Whether that's because a chicken-and-egg problem with visibility (or that women, on average, just don't want those jobs) is yet to be seen.
Second, who is saying "white males" are the root of all problems? I mean, it's objectively true since we've predominately been in positions of power (European & new world) for the greater part of history. That said, I'm sure women can mess things up equally as bad if they were in the same positions of power.
Third, there's still an under-representation of women in STEM. Whether that's because a chicken-and-egg problem with visibility (or that women, on average, just don't want those jobs) is yet to be seen.
> Second, who is saying "white males" are the root of all problems? I mean, it's objectively true since we've predominately been in positions of power....
So... you then. You are an example of who is saying what you are saying.
So... you then. You are an example of who is saying what you are saying.
>it's objectively true since we've predominately been in positions of power (European & new world) for the greater part of history
Excuse me? That's ridiculously eurocentric and only contributes to "visibility problems" you seem to care about. It may have been somewhat true for a few hundred years, but there are many cultures that stood millenia without any european influence whatsoever. And in the very near future, asian countries will surpass the west in terms of influence, as it has been for a long time.
Excuse me? That's ridiculously eurocentric and only contributes to "visibility problems" you seem to care about. It may have been somewhat true for a few hundred years, but there are many cultures that stood millenia without any european influence whatsoever. And in the very near future, asian countries will surpass the west in terms of influence, as it has been for a long time.
Men, yes. White, no. Looking at the most extreme form of 'problems' a society can have, 4 of the 10 most deadly genocides were in Asia, 3 were in Africa, 2 in Europe/Russia, 1 in the Middle East.
All of humanity has the capacity to both oppress and murder en masse.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/genocides.htm
All of humanity has the capacity to both oppress and murder en masse.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/genocides.htm
Under representation of women in STEM very much depends on what field we're taking about. CS? Sure. But what about, say, dentistry or medicine? At about the beginning of the millennium, the sex ratios equaled out at medical and dental schools, and every year since then, fewer and fewer men study in these fields compared to women.
> for the greater part of history
Wow, you certainly have a shallow view of history.
> Third, there's still an under-representation of women in STEM.
And there is an under representation of men on college campuses.
Why is one of those worth worrying about and not the other? Or are both cause for serious concern?
Wow, you certainly have a shallow view of history.
> Third, there's still an under-representation of women in STEM.
And there is an under representation of men on college campuses.
Why is one of those worth worrying about and not the other? Or are both cause for serious concern?
[deleted]
Edit: actually, you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, and have ignored our repeated requests to stop. As I explained to you before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25934337), that's the line at which we ban accounts (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), so I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
---
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28539299.
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, such as race and gender flamewar. I realize it's not always easy to post about this topics without being inflammatory, but the subthread we got here is an example of exactly what we don't want on HN, and this was pretty predictable from the way your comment ratcheted up the inflammation.
I think this is an instructive case - if you look at the parent subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28539299) without this flamewar, it's clear that it's much better. Not that every comment is good or flamebait-free, but the discussion is more substantive and (not coincidentally) on topic.
---
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28539299.
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, such as race and gender flamewar. I realize it's not always easy to post about this topics without being inflammatory, but the subthread we got here is an example of exactly what we don't want on HN, and this was pretty predictable from the way your comment ratcheted up the inflammation.
I think this is an instructive case - if you look at the parent subthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28539299) without this flamewar, it's clear that it's much better. Not that every comment is good or flamebait-free, but the discussion is more substantive and (not coincidentally) on topic.
Have you considered banning accounts that post racist trash like this instead of banning and censoring people who rightly call it out? You’re currently stewarding a white supremacist community and I have no idea how you sleep at night.
This thread needs a lot more attention on it. Not only does it demonstrate how racist and sexist this community is, it shows nicely how complicit you personally are in allowing this to happen.
Compare your response to this racist comment to this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28542045
This thread needs a lot more attention on it. Not only does it demonstrate how racist and sexist this community is, it shows nicely how complicit you personally are in allowing this to happen.
Compare your response to this racist comment to this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28542045
People with strong ideological commitments always think the mods are stewarding their enemies, especially when they happen to run across a case of us banning someone who they agree with ideologically. The assumption is that we must have banned that account for secret ideological reasons. Actually I banned it because it broke the site guidelines egregiously, has a pattern of doing so, and has ignored previous requests to stop. I also offered to unban it if the account holder wants to commit to following the rules in the future.
If you think this is evidence of ideological bias, that's a misinterpretation—you're drawing a signal from the data (or rather, from one random observation) that doesn't exist. This is a classic cognitive bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor..., https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since mods get this sort of attack nearly every day for years, you can understand that after a while we get a little desensitized to it—especially because the attacks are so contradictory. The other side thinks that we're secretly stewarding HN in your favor. Lots of examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 and I could give you hundreds more.
I think your characterization of this community is wildly inaccurate, for similar reasons. Yes, HN gets comments of all sorts—to expect anything else from an open internet community with millions of members is unrealistic. To act like the worst of the comments, or the ones that you happen to disagree with the most, characterize the community as a whole is a big non sequitur, driven by the same cognitive biases (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at [email protected]. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
That said, you're right that I missed something- I missed the pattern of behavior in the GP's comment history. That was a mistake.
If you think this is evidence of ideological bias, that's a misinterpretation—you're drawing a signal from the data (or rather, from one random observation) that doesn't exist. This is a classic cognitive bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor..., https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Since mods get this sort of attack nearly every day for years, you can understand that after a while we get a little desensitized to it—especially because the attacks are so contradictory. The other side thinks that we're secretly stewarding HN in your favor. Lots of examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26148870 and I could give you hundreds more.
I think your characterization of this community is wildly inaccurate, for similar reasons. Yes, HN gets comments of all sorts—to expect anything else from an open internet community with millions of members is unrealistic. To act like the worst of the comments, or the ones that you happen to disagree with the most, characterize the community as a whole is a big non sequitur, driven by the same cognitive biases (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at [email protected]. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
That said, you're right that I missed something- I missed the pattern of behavior in the GP's comment history. That was a mistake.
I strongly disagree. It’s well known that this is one of the only technology sites that will allow racist and sexist comments. I’m not alone in seeing this. Remember ShitHackerNewsSays and #hnwatch? You need to clean up your house before lecturing anyone who’s rightfully upset that you and the site owners allow this site to be a haven for hate speech.
If anyone doubts this, take a scroll through here:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
If anyone doubts this, take a scroll through here:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
> It’s we’ll known that this is one of the only technology sites that will allow racist and sexist comments.
Even, for the sake of argument, assuming that that is true it doesn't prove the ideological moderation bias you are claiming, it is consistent with HN being one of the few sites which does not actively suppress such content and those who post it for ideological reasons.
Tangentially, this reminds me that HN needs a dedicated meta-forum and a policy of moving meta-commentary that is off-topic out of other threads and into the meta-forum.
Even, for the sake of argument, assuming that that is true it doesn't prove the ideological moderation bias you are claiming, it is consistent with HN being one of the few sites which does not actively suppress such content and those who post it for ideological reasons.
Tangentially, this reminds me that HN needs a dedicated meta-forum and a policy of moving meta-commentary that is off-topic out of other threads and into the meta-forum.
If HN allows racist content, they are responsible for it. It's absolutely within their power to ban people for regularly complaining about BLM or "critical race theory". They just don't. Whether that's because HN mods are racist themselves or for some other reason, it doesn't matter because the outcome is the same. It even flies in the face of their so called reasoning because no intelligent conversation will arise from such a comment, yet they're left up anyway.
People can even predict the racist reactions this "community" will have:
https://twitter.com/cybertillie/status/1438073023500849156
People can even predict the racist reactions this "community" will have:
https://twitter.com/cybertillie/status/1438073023500849156
The absence of physical labour, of meaningful work, and learning to work with your hands, are aspects of childhood development completely abandoned over the past half-century. Kids are now confined in comparison, where primarily-seated quiet busywork and one-way non-socratic lecture is the norm, where anxiety and depression are afflicting over one third of all children, it seems absurd to me we keep doubling down on this educational direction.
Expect to get flagged for this. Skimmed Youtube titles for Jordan Peterson.
Jordan Peterson - Why Men Are Bailing Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH16ympCb7Q
Jordan Peterson - Why Men Are Bailing Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH16ympCb7Q
>Men are also less likely to be fixtures of boys’ elementary-school experience; about 75 percent of public-school teachers are female.
>The pivot point is in adolescence, and the foundation is laid in the early grades.
I'm not saying this is the cause, but it may contribute to poor schooling results of some boys. I really didn't do well in school until in the 5th grade when I had a male teacher who I saw as something of a role model.
>The pivot point is in adolescence, and the foundation is laid in the early grades.
I'm not saying this is the cause, but it may contribute to poor schooling results of some boys. I really didn't do well in school until in the 5th grade when I had a male teacher who I saw as something of a role model.
I wonder if it wouldn't help if colleges/universities fissioned into more specialized institutions. By building gigantic clumps of education a single approach or philosophy drives too much of the bus.
A sample set of new schools.
. Work oriented, basically four year versions of junior college. Teaches EE, nursing, CSc, accounting, etc. Higher quality (and cheaper) than current for-profit versions.
. Research institutions. STEM masters and up.
. 'Soft' disciplines. Not just history, cultural anthropology, and the like but also the newfangled xxx studies, diversity equity stuff, etc.
. Traditional old school 'classical' college. Essentially the classwork from Harvard in 1900. You don't need too many of these.
. Highly specialized schools like Berklee although there was a time when music was learned the old-fashioned way, at bordellos.
What we probably don't need is a world where most of the state-funded institutions are huge lumbering megaschools.
A sample set of new schools.
. Work oriented, basically four year versions of junior college. Teaches EE, nursing, CSc, accounting, etc. Higher quality (and cheaper) than current for-profit versions.
. Research institutions. STEM masters and up.
. 'Soft' disciplines. Not just history, cultural anthropology, and the like but also the newfangled xxx studies, diversity equity stuff, etc.
. Traditional old school 'classical' college. Essentially the classwork from Harvard in 1900. You don't need too many of these.
. Highly specialized schools like Berklee although there was a time when music was learned the old-fashioned way, at bordellos.
What we probably don't need is a world where most of the state-funded institutions are huge lumbering megaschools.
School, and education and general have become too fixated on selection bias.
Employers don’t train and schools don’t ensure people have necessary skills. Neither institution has any skin in the game.
Furthermore things are becoming more zero-sum with respect to employment opportunities.
Employers don’t train and schools don’t ensure people have necessary skills. Neither institution has any skin in the game.
Furthermore things are becoming more zero-sum with respect to employment opportunities.
> “Historically, men have been more likely to drop out of school to work in hot economies, whether it’s in the factories of World War II or the fracking mines of the Dakotas,”
In WWII were men really dropping out of school to work in factories or were they dropping out to join the military? I thought that American factories during WWII were largely staffed by women and men who weren’t eligible to fight.
Also, I don’t think that guy knows what fracking is.
In WWII were men really dropping out of school to work in factories or were they dropping out to join the military? I thought that American factories during WWII were largely staffed by women and men who weren’t eligible to fight.
Also, I don’t think that guy knows what fracking is.
Yeah, that's kind of a strange statement, almost talking-out-of-ass quality research, and this is The Atlantic
We only drafted a small portion of the working age, male population compared to other countries. The vast majority of working-age men were still in the workforce. Less than 1/5th of those registered were conscripted, the target rate of the War Manpower Commission.
Furthermore Executive Order 9279 closed voluntary enlistment for working age men aged 18-38 to prevent factory labor shortages:
>After the effective date of this Order no male person who has attained the eighteenth anniversary and has not attained the thirty-eighth anniversary of the day of his birth shall be inducted into the enlisted personnel of the armed forces
Furthermore Executive Order 9279 closed voluntary enlistment for working age men aged 18-38 to prevent factory labor shortages:
>After the effective date of this Order no male person who has attained the eighteenth anniversary and has not attained the thirty-eighth anniversary of the day of his birth shall be inducted into the enlisted personnel of the armed forces
You can make a better living as a tradesperson:
1. Start earning money right away as an apprentice. No massive student debt.
2. Live outside of high-COL cities.
3. Skills valuable everywhere, instead of specific industries (eg. finance jobs only in certain cities).
4. Optimise/minimise your own taxes.
5. Housing is our single biggest expense in life, so build it yourself and save.
6. Easy to hire employees and start a medium-sized business if you want.
Maybe men are just 'smarter' and have realised this?
1. Start earning money right away as an apprentice. No massive student debt.
2. Live outside of high-COL cities.
3. Skills valuable everywhere, instead of specific industries (eg. finance jobs only in certain cities).
4. Optimise/minimise your own taxes.
5. Housing is our single biggest expense in life, so build it yourself and save.
6. Easy to hire employees and start a medium-sized business if you want.
Maybe men are just 'smarter' and have realised this?
Colleges are propaganda machines at this point. Men just don't like to be told they are the root all evil.
Also... who thinks gender studies are real?
Also... who thinks gender studies are real?
The article touches on a lot of issues but one I find interesting is: why does it matter?
It provides the following answers, which seem weak to me:
It provides the following answers, which seem weak to me:
1. "[historian and economics professor at Harvard]: 'I worry they’ll come to severely regret their choice if they realize the best jobs require a degree they never got.'"
2. "...further delays in marriage and childbirth may ensue. That would further reduce U.S. fertility rates, which worries some commentators, albeit not all."
3. "The most severe implications, I suspect, will be cultural and political. The U.S. electorate is already polarized .... Those divisions seem likely to worsen"
It's gonna lead to bad times when men start seeing education as effeminate.
It's not just US thing, similar widening gender gap can be seen also here in Finland (probably rest of Europe as well), despite us having free education.
As far as I can see, many master's degrees are not worth today it even if you pay no tuition fees. Many blue-collar jobs like plumbing pay better nowadays than your average humanities, social sciences etc job, with equal or better job security and only 3 years of studying instead of 8. So, avoiding higher education can be the rational choice.
In addition, there are major flaws in how students are handled nowadays. Teachers simply have no authority to punish bad behavior, and it seems restless boys suffer the most from this in educational outcomes. The system is increasingly designed only for kids who enjoy school and perform well even without supervision.
Personally I had no trouble with school, but I'm still not convinced that CS degree was the right choice instead of plumbing or something similar. The job market sucks for everyone except senior software devs.
As far as I can see, many master's degrees are not worth today it even if you pay no tuition fees. Many blue-collar jobs like plumbing pay better nowadays than your average humanities, social sciences etc job, with equal or better job security and only 3 years of studying instead of 8. So, avoiding higher education can be the rational choice.
In addition, there are major flaws in how students are handled nowadays. Teachers simply have no authority to punish bad behavior, and it seems restless boys suffer the most from this in educational outcomes. The system is increasingly designed only for kids who enjoy school and perform well even without supervision.
Personally I had no trouble with school, but I'm still not convinced that CS degree was the right choice instead of plumbing or something similar. The job market sucks for everyone except senior software devs.
Outcomes don't matter as much as expectations WRT planning and higher ed is all about planning far in the future. There's no "just in time" higher education economic model LOL.
In my state, where $20/hr buys you a pretty nice lifestyle, union building trades ALL pay $30 to low forties per hour and are essentially sausagefests WRT being "boys future jobs" and these jobs pay you around half pay to learn as an apprentice for a couple years, and require absolutely no college or student loans. A "journeyman" experience level "girls future jobs" such as day care worker, which is 99% female employment, pays $13.64/hr average in my state at that experience level and absolutely requires either a K12 ed degree (we produce twice as many degree holders as we have jobs, so optimistically the "bottom half" of degreed teachers end up as bartenders, day care, real estate saleswomen, etc). There is an associates degree program in early childhood education at my local tech school so young women can pay about $10K plus room and board and food, to eventually get a job that might eventually pay as much as $25K/year.
Like I wrote, most kids plans fall apart upon contact with reality much like the famous military aphorism about military plans not surviving contact with the enemy. However, the situation boils down to boys "know" they can get a great high paying career in the manly manual labor fields without a degree, whereas women "know" they need a degree and immense levels of debt to make less than McDonalds is willing to pay them, although at least their job is to literally hug babies all day. Maybe half the boys can't actually work construction due to drug use or weakness or just plain old laziness, but when they were planning they "knew" they could get those jobs. Whereas women know that even to change diapers for less than fast food pay, they "knew" they need a degree to compete.
The real story is very low paying, very low functioning jobs defined as "for women", require degrees and the supply/demand curve is such that they get away with it and the women hired will show up with expensive degrees and lifetime debt. Men's jobs that don't require degrees do not get away with demanding degrees.
In my state, where $20/hr buys you a pretty nice lifestyle, union building trades ALL pay $30 to low forties per hour and are essentially sausagefests WRT being "boys future jobs" and these jobs pay you around half pay to learn as an apprentice for a couple years, and require absolutely no college or student loans. A "journeyman" experience level "girls future jobs" such as day care worker, which is 99% female employment, pays $13.64/hr average in my state at that experience level and absolutely requires either a K12 ed degree (we produce twice as many degree holders as we have jobs, so optimistically the "bottom half" of degreed teachers end up as bartenders, day care, real estate saleswomen, etc). There is an associates degree program in early childhood education at my local tech school so young women can pay about $10K plus room and board and food, to eventually get a job that might eventually pay as much as $25K/year.
Like I wrote, most kids plans fall apart upon contact with reality much like the famous military aphorism about military plans not surviving contact with the enemy. However, the situation boils down to boys "know" they can get a great high paying career in the manly manual labor fields without a degree, whereas women "know" they need a degree and immense levels of debt to make less than McDonalds is willing to pay them, although at least their job is to literally hug babies all day. Maybe half the boys can't actually work construction due to drug use or weakness or just plain old laziness, but when they were planning they "knew" they could get those jobs. Whereas women know that even to change diapers for less than fast food pay, they "knew" they need a degree to compete.
The real story is very low paying, very low functioning jobs defined as "for women", require degrees and the supply/demand curve is such that they get away with it and the women hired will show up with expensive degrees and lifetime debt. Men's jobs that don't require degrees do not get away with demanding degrees.
The Bell Curve dictates that only about 15% of humans should go through higher education.
But our society decided force everybody into HE with various "incentives". And now everything is distorted.
Young men know this is all bullshit, so they drop out.
Young women don't drop out. They stay and consume Xanax, Prosac and are financed by sugar daddies and/or only fans.
Summary of the points therein:
* Men accounted for 70% of the 1.5m decline in college enrollment last year * Women have outpaced men in bachelor attainment since the 80s
* Women have been told to get college degrees in order to secure independence and freedom for decades
* Men were 57% of college enrolled students in 1970 but since Title XI passed barring gender discrimination, the rates have been getting more lopsided for women
* Girls outperform boys generally in high school and elementary long before college
* Blaming "the feminist dogma of the education system and the inherently distracting presence of girls in classrooms" is dubious
* A better explanation is that up to the 1970s, men could secure middle-class wages on blue-collar work, but afterwards, that labor demand dried up and these types of men are adrift, and marry less since they also don't attend church anymore, and so live 'haphazard' lives detached from traditional responsibilities
* This has the effect that young boys don't have stable male role models, as men are more likely to be incarcerated, and aren't present enough in early schooling as teachers or as fathers in low-income areas
* The college gender gap is also occuring in "France, Slovenia, Mexico, and Brazil".
* Perhaps a blend of biological and cultural differences are at play
* This will have broad implications for marriage rates, delayed marriage, delayed childbirth
* This may have the cultural implication that education be seen as a identified with effeminacy, barring more men still
* "The pivot point is in adolescence, and the foundation is laid in the early grades.” This gender gap is an economic story, a cultural story, a criminal-justice story, and a family-structure story that begins to unfold in elementary school. The attention-grabbing statistic that barely 40 percent of college grads are men seems to cry out for an immediate policy response. But rather than dial up male attendance one college-admissions department at a time, policy makers should think about the social forces that make the statistic inevitable."
* Men accounted for 70% of the 1.5m decline in college enrollment last year * Women have outpaced men in bachelor attainment since the 80s
* Women have been told to get college degrees in order to secure independence and freedom for decades
* Men were 57% of college enrolled students in 1970 but since Title XI passed barring gender discrimination, the rates have been getting more lopsided for women
* Girls outperform boys generally in high school and elementary long before college
* Blaming "the feminist dogma of the education system and the inherently distracting presence of girls in classrooms" is dubious
* A better explanation is that up to the 1970s, men could secure middle-class wages on blue-collar work, but afterwards, that labor demand dried up and these types of men are adrift, and marry less since they also don't attend church anymore, and so live 'haphazard' lives detached from traditional responsibilities
* This has the effect that young boys don't have stable male role models, as men are more likely to be incarcerated, and aren't present enough in early schooling as teachers or as fathers in low-income areas
* The college gender gap is also occuring in "France, Slovenia, Mexico, and Brazil".
* Perhaps a blend of biological and cultural differences are at play
* This will have broad implications for marriage rates, delayed marriage, delayed childbirth
* This may have the cultural implication that education be seen as a identified with effeminacy, barring more men still
* "The pivot point is in adolescence, and the foundation is laid in the early grades.” This gender gap is an economic story, a cultural story, a criminal-justice story, and a family-structure story that begins to unfold in elementary school. The attention-grabbing statistic that barely 40 percent of college grads are men seems to cry out for an immediate policy response. But rather than dial up male attendance one college-admissions department at a time, policy makers should think about the social forces that make the statistic inevitable."
One thought: If you're a male, not an athlete, and not an academic star, you're going to be on the hook for your entire college costs. You'll be eligible for few (if any) scholarships, low-interest loans, grants, etc.
No idea if there's actual causation there, but given the high cost of college (compared to previous generations), it's certainly a consideration.
No idea if there's actual causation there, but given the high cost of college (compared to previous generations), it's certainly a consideration.
I'm surrounded by this, and I can't help but feel like I'm part of the cause for people I'm close to. About the time I was beginning my CS degree I got a job doing tech support at a web hosting company. Within one semester the skills I'd gained on the job had far outpaced my university classes as far as providing me with real world problem solving abilities. Debugging shared webhosting servers was a far better learning exercise than writing sudoku solvers.
Maybe it's not true at other universities, but at the two universities I attended it takes literal years for the majority of students to understand how to take the skills they're learning in a CS degree and solve real world problems. So, I dropped out. And you all know the story, now I write code and makes lots of money, woohoo. Now my father and father in law, both highly educated and financially successful people, look at me and wonder why they did so much schooling and worked so hard when uneducated programmers are making more than they made in their whole career. They're vocally questioning the value of higher education to people around them.
Where it gets messy though is that I have family members and friends that have completely or partially used my situation as justification to ditch education, and none of them have gone anywhere as of yet. I've tried to teach some of them programming but I've given up on that, because the motivation and drive they need to teach themselves is the primary determining factor of their success (in my opinion), and I can't change that. I know I'm far from special in this community of overachievers, but whatever it took for me to get myself in this position isn't exactly common among the general populace, and it took me years of watching my friends and family members trying to mimic my path to appreciate that. So now I just tell them to go to college.
Maybe it's not true at other universities, but at the two universities I attended it takes literal years for the majority of students to understand how to take the skills they're learning in a CS degree and solve real world problems. So, I dropped out. And you all know the story, now I write code and makes lots of money, woohoo. Now my father and father in law, both highly educated and financially successful people, look at me and wonder why they did so much schooling and worked so hard when uneducated programmers are making more than they made in their whole career. They're vocally questioning the value of higher education to people around them.
Where it gets messy though is that I have family members and friends that have completely or partially used my situation as justification to ditch education, and none of them have gone anywhere as of yet. I've tried to teach some of them programming but I've given up on that, because the motivation and drive they need to teach themselves is the primary determining factor of their success (in my opinion), and I can't change that. I know I'm far from special in this community of overachievers, but whatever it took for me to get myself in this position isn't exactly common among the general populace, and it took me years of watching my friends and family members trying to mimic my path to appreciate that. So now I just tell them to go to college.
We have a student debt crisis. This means, categorically, many degrees proper are bad investments. To pass on a bad investment is smart. There exist good degrees but not everyone is fit for them. We could easily frame this as young women victimized by universities selling frivolous degrees at astonishing prices.
I speak not of education or the humanities in abstract but rather the degree proper; the piece of paper. An expensive document should be understood as a certification with concrete numerical price that can be compared to its effect on your earnings.
My advice to my daughter, who is working actively to become an artist, is very clear; stay far from college.
I speak not of education or the humanities in abstract but rather the degree proper; the piece of paper. An expensive document should be understood as a certification with concrete numerical price that can be compared to its effect on your earnings.
My advice to my daughter, who is working actively to become an artist, is very clear; stay far from college.
You said it better than I could. To pass on bad investments is smart, modern day universities charge an arm and a leg, and a bachelor's degree is not very useful.
Lawyers, Doctors, require at least 6-7 years of 10k-50k Per Year. That's a lot of dough. When you involve that much dough... greed, scams, and predatory behavior are inextricably bound. Greed and education should never mix, I think it's contradictory. Community colleges are where the real education happens, imo
"We could easily frame this as young women victimized by universities selling frivolous degrees at astonishing prices."
It's not just young women, it's young people bro
Lawyers, Doctors, require at least 6-7 years of 10k-50k Per Year. That's a lot of dough. When you involve that much dough... greed, scams, and predatory behavior are inextricably bound. Greed and education should never mix, I think it's contradictory. Community colleges are where the real education happens, imo
"We could easily frame this as young women victimized by universities selling frivolous degrees at astonishing prices."
It's not just young women, it's young people bro
Simply they do not desire to become like the people they see in it, or the ones they see graduating.
> “That’s why we need both parties to offer a positive vision of college and a positive vision of masculinity. If male identity is seen, by some, as being at odds with education, that’s a problem for the whole country.”
The question should be, how did college repel young men? That's pretty obvious in the last decade and 90% of it barely merits an article.
However, the conseqeunce is likely a milennial middle class baby bust that is just building momentum as this cohort of women who graduated into professional careers ages out of child bearing years and the scramble for donors intensifies. Men who don't graduate are in effect mostly ineligible as partners for women who do, then other factors like poor fitness levels, choice paralysis, unsecured debt, housing bubbles, and lately a virus of political polarization are reducing the likelihood of durable matches for all involved.
I'd be less concerned with maintaining retroactive continuity on the college narrative and asking what is to be done, and instead, being prepared for handling the consequent bust this dynamic has set us all up for.
> “That’s why we need both parties to offer a positive vision of college and a positive vision of masculinity. If male identity is seen, by some, as being at odds with education, that’s a problem for the whole country.”
The question should be, how did college repel young men? That's pretty obvious in the last decade and 90% of it barely merits an article.
However, the conseqeunce is likely a milennial middle class baby bust that is just building momentum as this cohort of women who graduated into professional careers ages out of child bearing years and the scramble for donors intensifies. Men who don't graduate are in effect mostly ineligible as partners for women who do, then other factors like poor fitness levels, choice paralysis, unsecured debt, housing bubbles, and lately a virus of political polarization are reducing the likelihood of durable matches for all involved.
I'd be less concerned with maintaining retroactive continuity on the college narrative and asking what is to be done, and instead, being prepared for handling the consequent bust this dynamic has set us all up for.
The article that this article reports on was discussed here:
A generation of American men give up on college - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436836 - Sept 2021 (776 comments)
A generation of American men give up on college - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28436836 - Sept 2021 (776 comments)
It is simple. Girls outperform boys in every subject up until high school. This isn't seen a problem, boys are just lazy. But in high school boys starts to outperform girls in math. This is treated as a huge problem and lots of resources has been spent and girls only programs has been created to try to get girls to outperform boys in high school maths as well.
Do people really think that this doesn't affect boys view of the education system? They see this, take the hint that they aren't welcome and go do other things in life instead.
And the worst thing is that getting boys to learn more in school is trivial. Instead of a mostly female curriculum why not focus on reading action books, learning about the inner workings of bombs and guns, looking at how a car engine works and similar? Put that in the curriculum and you will have the boys attention and they will learn lots of chemistry, physics, reading etc. But that will never happen as long as women are designing the curriculum.
Edit: Clarified the second sentence so it doesn't look like I actually believe boys are lazy.
Do people really think that this doesn't affect boys view of the education system? They see this, take the hint that they aren't welcome and go do other things in life instead.
And the worst thing is that getting boys to learn more in school is trivial. Instead of a mostly female curriculum why not focus on reading action books, learning about the inner workings of bombs and guns, looking at how a car engine works and similar? Put that in the curriculum and you will have the boys attention and they will learn lots of chemistry, physics, reading etc. But that will never happen as long as women are designing the curriculum.
Edit: Clarified the second sentence so it doesn't look like I actually believe boys are lazy.
Maybe it's also the garbage you need to do to get in like all those extracurricular activities which are pure bogus crap. In the old days you could get in by your high school qualifications alone. Now you can't tell two students apart due to grade inflation.