When you see people like Elon Musk pointing to stuff like IQ to justify their disdain for encouraging diversity, it’s hard to avoid concluding that having a black guy in charge of something more than HUD, not as a novelty but as the normal state of affairs, was just too much for them to process
[image or embed]— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:42 AM
Used to be, a well-to-do white man’s unambitious sons could count on a ‘gentleman’s C’ from the right prep school and a few properly sourced letters of recommendation for a slot at an Ivy and a following lifetime of sinecure(s). But now, there’s all this competition from outsiders — Irish Catholics, Central European immigrants’ outlandish offspring, even Jews! — what’s a white man [dry sob] to do?!?
When I was in middle school, I read (mostly mocking) variants of this sad plaint from Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt (not at his best, there), and Finley Peter Dunne. Only difference between the complaints during the first Gilded Age and our current low-rent knockoff era are that, during the original, Jared Kushner’s old man could never have gotten close enough to the Harvard board to write them a million-dollar check as an introduction.
We’re going to hit an inflection point where the older men in power/management age out (read die), and the 30+ years of women having higher educational attainment becomes suddenly visible in org charts.
And shit’ll get *weird* s a result.— Wandering Hoo (@wanderlib.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:14 AM
This is what I’m saying! A lot of powerful men are feeling that crunch. They know that what comes after them will not be what came before, & it scares them. Above all it scares them on behalf of their kids who they know can’t compete with that
[image or embed]— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:22 AM
Informed by 18 years as a divorce lawyer, I agree. There’s so much light and questionable heat on the most debated gender war issues.
Financial autonomy IS the heat, they’d love for you to take your eye off that ball, and there’s no world where it’s good advice to girls to give that up.
— Anselm (@gorobei.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 4:42 PM
Yep. And the talk on the right about the importance of trades (but never the importance of unions) & how you shouldn’t need a degree to get ahead (because your fuckup son needed five tries to fail out of college for good)
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:25 AM
The Trump team’s proposed immigration bans are another piece of the jigsaw, here:
we simply must stop all these perfidious nigerians from coming to america and becoming doctors
— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:24 AM
Nigeria and India bans are literally just “you aren’t allowed to be smarter than white kids” as policy.
[image or embed]— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 10:28 AM
bsky.app/profile/irho… Anyway, many are saying…
[image or embed]— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 10:58 AM
wonder if elon will tell him silicon valley is powered by indians on H1-Bs
— exactly like other girls (@basedranchdressing.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 1:54 PM
Elon thinks he can replace them all with AI, probably
— It’s Aunt Masha to you (@mashamasha.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 10:43 AM
who does he think is going to run the AI
— SE Gyges (@segyges.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:00 AM
the same Indians but working remotely from India for lower wages
Nukular Biskits
Good evenin’, y’all!
Why is it mostly white conservative men are the ones whining about DEI?
H.E.Wolf
@Nukular Biskits:
The answer is, of course, contained in the question. Alas.
KatKapCC
Present company on this here blog excepted, of course, but the majority of straight white men are pathetic as hell. Bunch of overgrown angry babies who think they’re better than everyone else when in actuality they are better than literally nobody.
hueyplong
@Nukular Biskits: Interesting that you could have put a period after “whining.”
H.E.Wolf
The straight white men who complain about it Don’t Ever Introspect.
Baud
They can’t take your disrespect for them away from you.
Nukular Biskits
@H.E.Wolf:
Our state auditor, little banty rooster Shad White, has been on a jihad against any and all forms of DEI for well over year now.
He regularly claims that DEI at our colleges/universities is a “waste” of taxpayer dollars. I have asked his office REPEATEDLY to provide an explanation as to how DEI programs are wasteful and, as of this post, his office has refused.
Some context here: He has his sights set on the Governor’s Mansion come 2027 and is doing his best to become the MS version of Trump.
Josie
@Baud:
Amen.
Jeffro
just glad to see all the Bluesky tweets or posts or whatever they’re called, instead of stuff from that *other * place – many thanks AL!
sab
I have yested as having a high IQ which I always assumed was because mom made us take all these tests so we learned how to take tests. Then my mostly home schooled grand–daughter aced her college aptitude tests (top 5% despite having been home/non-schooled most of those years.) So now I have to continue thinking those tests are bunk, or recognize that this bright girl is indeed as bright as we think she is.
Not a hard choice. I opt for the bright girl being as bright as her test scores say she is.
Nukular Biskits
@hueyplong:
I’m a 60 year old white guy, born/raised here in the Deep South and I’m here to tell you probably the biggest WATBs I’ve ever known were grown-ass white men.
Dan B
@Nukular Biskits: Bottom of the barrel Mississippi is likely to be run by Baby Orange Guy. What could go wrong? Lots of academics sending their CV’s to universities in blue states? Isn’t there already a brain drain and an exodus of young people?
scav
@hueyplong: And yet these titans are baffled at the declining interest of women in marriage.
Nukular Biskits
@Dan B:
Yeah, and it’s a major concern.
But the dumbasses in the state Legislature and the moron sitting in the Governor’s Mansion, Tate Reeves, keep doubling down on the culture war legislation, not to mention dumping millions of state taxpayer funds into questionable “economic development” projects for privately-owned, for-profit corporations … all to gain, at best, a couple hundred jobs with middling pay and benefits.
They truly can’t wrap their heads around people, especially college grads, leaving the state.
And my advice, as a native Mississippian, is to get the fuck while you still can. And for those contemplating moving here? Don’t. Go somewhere that values your values … that place ain’t Mississippi.
Another Scott
People who don’t like DEI are intentionally misinterpreting DEI. Case in point?:
Hmm… Being able to be on the same page as people that are different might be something important and worth encouraging!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: I tested high on standardized tests and especially IQ tests.
I always discounted it— like, okay, I’m reasonably bright, no great shakes, maybe a bit smarter than average in some ways but no big whoop.
The last 10 years have been an object lesson that perhaps I’m not that bright, but good God there are a LOT of REALLY stupid people among my fellow citizens.
That’s been a revelation.
Peke Daddy
Students will just go to university in China and work for Chinese corporations. Already happening. Other videos available on Chinese universities there.
https://youtu.be/WXpMiNpek64?si=ayOcDgc-e95kzUCt
MagdaInBlack
@Professor Bigfoot: I’ve been thinking along those lines myself lately.
scav
@Nukular Biskits: Could all be a cunning plan to compete with China on a former economic battleground. (Or Japan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, et al in turn.) The Mississippi Delta will be a description of the curated workforce.
Steve LaBonne
The good news is that the white failsonocracy can’t hang on forever. The bad news is that it looks like doing a crapload of damage on the way out.
TBone
@Baud: nominated.
John Revolta
@Professor Bigfoot: Obligatory (and more relevant by the day):
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that.”
― George Carlin
Chetan Murthy
A few years ago, someone (I forget who) wrote that Black people are experts in white fragility, b/c they constantly have to be thinking of how white people will react to anything they do. In that same sense, women are experts in male fragility, I’d think. And the thing is, for a lot of men (sure, white men, but other men often too), they never have to be experts in how other people see the world. Instead, they just go thru life with themselves as the center of the universe, they go thru life as the lead actor in the movie.
Suzanne
As I have noted before…. the push to devalue college degrees really came in earnest when women started kicking men’s asses at it.
Splitting Image
A lot of white men seem to have taken the old saying that a woman (or a minority) has to work twice as hard to be thought half as good and turned it on his head. They work half as hard and expect to be treated as though they are twice as good.
KatKapCC
@Chetan Murthy:
Indeed. For one example, this is why we don’t want men trying to chat us up on the street. I have to make a snap decision about how to respond based on the time of day, location, how many people are around, etc etc, and try to determine which option is least likely to piss him off or annoy him or end up encouraging him unintentionally. So much time spent worrying about some random man’s feelings because if I hurt them even a tiny bit, I might get screamed at, followed, assaulted, or worse.
Leto
Currently half way through Isabella Wilkerson’s Caste, and all of this fits her theory. It’s more than just racism and mediocrity. One way or another we’ll get to the other side, just don’t know how extensive the damage will be.
tobie
I noticed two days ago that my contractor neighbor now has a cybertruck in his driveway to match his wife’s Tesla sedan. He already has a pickup truck so it’s not like he needed a second work vehicle. What kind of insecurity prompts this ostentatious display of wealth?
Alce _e_ardillo
@Professor Bigfoot: Standardized IQ tests are a really bad way to test intelligence. Not only are they notoriously biased, but they measure only a small slice of “intelligence “ So naturally Elon is all up on IQ as best measure of intellect.
tobie
@Leto: that’s what my mother also asks. How deep will the damage be? But unlike you, she also adds, I’m 95band won’t be here for the cleanup. All this breaks my heart.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@tobie:
Well, the usual small penis joke aside, it’s possible he’s gonna sell the other truck.
It’s also a sign of no imagination or interests in any broad sense, like travel for example. I’ve been amazed at the number of people I’ve run across over the years who have money they literally don’t know what to do with and feel the need to spend it on something…so they buy a car. Our consumer society only enables that attitude on steroids.
Oh, and small penis.
Suzanne
@KatKapCC: Yes.
I will note that this is a major reason that disorder in public spaces, especially public transportation, is so much worse for women. We have to assume that men on public transportation may know where we live or work, or could follow us to where we’re going, or could be photographing us. I’m pretty close to zero tolerance when it comes to bad behavior on public transportation for that reason.
Martin
Yeah, I think women grabbing financial independence with both hands is a big factor in all of this.
You can’t separate capitalism and patriarchy, and it’s lost its biggest tool with the youngest generation. And it does seem like we have a cycle of billionaire men preying on working/middle class men – with things like sports betting ($50B in betting losses annually in the US), crypto, etc. which are all predominantly marketed at men as ways to get rich, which is sort of giving women a clear lane to grinding out the work to getting ahead through the traditional means.
I’m not sure we’ll see the org chart dominance, because in my experience the kinds of sociopathic behavior that is usually required to get there causes women to take their gains and get out ahead. This is why finance used to be dominated by C+ frat boys – not that they were more capable, but because they were less scrupulous.
Professor Bigfoot
@Leto: “Caste” was also a revelation to me— recognizing American “racism” as the behavior of a caste based society put a lot of round pegs into round holes.
This touches on the fragility of whiteness— consciously or subconsciously they are well aware of the privileges of whiteness— or perhaps more accurately, the penalties of non-whiteness.
tobie
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: cars, boats, and small motorized objects (toy planes, drones, etc) seem like the favorite gadgets of boys who never grew up.
Professor Bigfoot
@Alce _e_ardillo: I KNOW, RIGHT!!??!!
But again, *look at these dumb sonsabitches all around us.*
If I don’t believe they were stupid to vote as they did, then I have to believe they’re malicious.
”Never ascribe to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by stupidity,” and man, that’s the kindest possible explanation.
Chetan Murthy
@Alce _e_ardillo: haha, I remember reading once that when jewish kids started acing those tests, that’s when “extracurricular activities” started becoming important for college acceptance. And then I remember my Asian-American friend Pat telling me that, yeah, Asian-American parents knew all this, which is why he played lacrosse in high school, etc. Why they (and my parents) pushed their kids to study a musical instrument. Etc.
For sure standardized tests are biased. But when “the wrong people” study for them and do well, haha, somehow NOW we have to introduce new measures.
i also remember reading about these two high schools down in Sili Valley, that are very heavily Asian-American. It seems the kids there are really competitive, and white parents just don’t send their kids there, b/c ….. too hard, too competitive, too tough. I met a (Japanese-American) guy who sent his kids there, and he confirmed all of this.
Martin
@tobie: One consequence of the development of the leisure class is that we use consumerism to signal to one another who we are. That’s as true for Prius owners as it is for Cybertruck owners. Go hit up the parking lot of your local U/U congregation for proof of that.
The problem isn’t Cybertrucks, it’s consumerism.
Leto
@Suzanne: I don’t remember if it was here, or someplace else, but I read about how there was a tipping point within jobs, education, etc. where once that field hits about 45-49% women, the perception becomes, “that’s women’s work/feminine.” I remember your citation of higher ed statistics and it fits that pattern, hence the turning back to trade labors/no college.
@tobie: I worry about my kid, and what he’ll have to go through.
@Professor Bigfoot: yup; I already had a notion about this, but reading it is the same “round peg/round hole” aha moment.
Chris T.
As someone on this blog already noted, the opposite of DEI is HIE: Homogeneity (“whites only”), Inequity (“fuck you I got mine”), and Exclusivity (“whites only” again). But: who defines “white”? I say only albinos should qualify!
Chetan Murthy
@Leto: I learned about this in a feminist political economy class in the mid-80s at Cornell. It was pretty much well-established by that point. And also, when that tipping point occurs, not merely do men flee that job classification, but pay goes to shit.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
Exactly. The number of affluent, racially tone-deaf, self-professed progressive whites who have moved here make damn sure they’re driving the “right” cars to signal “who they are”.
One of my favs is a guy who has two EVs (a Volvo XC-40 and a Kia EV6) plus 2 e-“bikes” that easily cost $10K each. Then basically says that anybody who drives a non-EV car is worse than Hitler. The mixed metaphors of that kind abound here in “liberal” Denver.
Nukular Biskits
@scav:
Interesting you should mention that.
Nearly all of the MS Development Agency efforts and “economic incentive” packages have been focused on anywhere but the Delta area.
Odd, that.
Chris T.
@Professor Bigfoot:
OMG! So that explains my test scores!
(Being nominally smart doesn’t make one see the obvious, I guess)
Martin
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t think it is. There are all kinds of things that we push out of view because we don’t have the bandwidth to factor it into our decision-making. There are a LOT of people who have enough shit to deal with that they just don’t have the ability to take on 11 more variables for groups they aren’t a part of.
Consider 150 years ago voters would never have considered Ukraine as an electoral issue. For one, technology didn’t allow us to even know what was going on there in any kind of detailed way – news took weeks to get here. For another, there was no way for us to materially influence what was happening there for similar reasons. Ukraine was their problem, not our problem. But we’ve shrunk the world sufficiently that we’ve made it our problem and now a variable to be considered, and for a lot of people they just can’t. They don’t have the bandwidth. It’s not that they hate the Ukrainians or the Palestinians, or this or that class of people, they just can’t look beyond their own needs. And we all do this.
It’s not stupidity or malice, it’s just capacity. It’s why the Democratic Party puts out voting guides because who has time to weight the positions for every judicial candidate in your area? Or the water district? I don’t hate people impacted by the legal system, or water policy, but, like, I’ve hit my limit.
Nukular Biskits
@Chris T.:
I’m gonna so plagiarize that.
tobie
@Martin: Status-markers are not new. Nor is tribalism. But the Cybertruck and the now defunct Hummer strike me as particularly odious because of their armored vehicle appearance. They blend a dystopian vision (Trump’s idea of cities as wastelands) with a will to power. I remember when keeping up with the Jones meant you had to have a freshly painted house and a manicured lawn and garden.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Nukular Biskits:
It’s only 70% black so that can’t be….
Wait, I’ll come in again.
Sherman should have gone thru a lot more states back in the day. Oh wait, that didn’t make a difference in the long run either.
You’d think that >insert your favorite backass state here< would get tired of being the severely emotionally disturbed kid in the overcrowded classroom that is ‘Murka, but I guess not.
Raflw
When that asshole Chris Rufo said recently that he wants a lot fewer people to attend college, I cited recent data that well over 50% of recent graduates are women as the reason why.
I’m sad to see I was probably right.
Nukular Biskits
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
You’re forgetting how powerful is the urge to OwN tEh StEwPiT lIbTaRdS HYUCKHYUCKHYUCK!!!!
UncleEbeneezer
@Chetan Murthy: Absolutely. And this is a big reason behind the book bans, imo. To keep boys/white people from reading perspectives that make them actually start to (shudder) think about the well-being of marginalized groups. They know damn well that most men/white people do very little of this sort of exploration/growth but the one place where we might absorb it, even without trying to, is in multi-cultural/diverse textbooks, novels, film, music etc.
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: Just a heads up to all, Ava Duverney’s film adaptation Origin is free on Hulu right now. I hear it’s very good but very heavy. Just added it to my watchlist since I will probably watch something lighter this eve.
Martin
@tobie: Sure, it’s a shift, but it’s not a new dynamic. How many people took up smoking because it looked cool?
I think the shift in dynamic is that people now identify so strongly with political parties that it now becomes the thing to signal, which Trump and Musk have definitely tapped into. And if people will spend $100K to buy a truck that signals they’re with Trump, I don’t know why people are so shocked they’d just reflexively vote that way. It’s not like the $100K was a good financial decision in the ‘vote with your interests’ kind of way, why should we think that a free vote on a ballot wouldn’t be evaluated similarly.
Martin
@Raflw: Reducing enrollments will skew admissions even more toward women.
kindness
Trump pushes racism again. I’m not shocked other than 1/2 Americans want that. Fuck those guys (& gals).
Almost Retired
Fragile mediocre white men had a good run – otherwise defined as most of modern history. It’s over. Excellence and achievement knows no racial, national or gender boundaries. Sorry white dudes, you have to compete with everyone now. And those of us who accept that are doing quite well. Complaints about DEI by white men are a tacit admission that you can’t compete in the open market without gender and racial privilege.
scav
@Raflw: Plus, at universities and colleges, their children will have the outright likelihood of unsupervised interaction with people unlike their parents! Possibly even on a leveled-ish playing field where the abilities of such varied individuals will be possibly judged by results rather than being assumed inferior. Can’t have that. Either colleges must be made into closed bubbles or the progeny must be discouraged from attending.
Professor Bigfoot
@Martin: Perhaps… but I note, once again, that this malady- like the inability to hear Democratic messaging— seems concentrated among one demographic.
ETA: 150 years ago I would have had more rights in this country than I would have 100 years ago; because Black people had the vote and were elected to government during Reconstruction; which was in turn destroyed by fire and terror and lawfare in the institution of Jim Crow, which was in force until I, personally, was 8 years old.
karen marie
Apparently everyone (Dem electeds and MSM entities) have all decided to obey in advance.
I give up. I have to figure out how to completely wean myself from all political/news content for the foreseeable future.
I just can’t take any more.
TBone
@karen marie: so freaking frustrating, ABC. Even the judge said it was rape. A rose by any other name…
BellyCat
Anne Laurie: You get points for a ‘gentleman’s C’. LOL
BellyCat
Finally a sensible explanation for:
”A” students teach, while “B” students work for “C” students.
Chris
I think it’s pretty obvious, and was already obvious eight years ago, that the Weimar “terrible economy —-> Nazis” interpretation of what happened in Germany needs a second look big time. As, for that matter, does the “losing a world war —-> Nazis” explanation.
Everybody seems to forget that the OG fascism started in Italy, not Germany, a country that actually won World War One, almost a decade before the Great Depression.
Martin
@Professor Bigfoot: Well, let’s be fair, that Reconstruction window was a loophole in the larger system, that got closed pretty quick. It was an opportunity we were insufficiently brave to grab onto.
But I think the point stands. Cognitive/social load is a huge problem pretty much everywhere. We didn’t evolve to be this interconnected, have this much information pushed at us, have to navigate picking the right Medicare D plan just to stay alive, and all of that. And while policies have improved marginally in your and my lifetime, this load has increased by many multiples during that time which means we have to learn how to cope with all of this shit on the fly.
Sure, there are a lot of West Virginia voters that appear to not give a shit about trans people, but do any of us vote in a way that signals we give a shit about coal workers? No. We either expect them to take care of themselves or be wrapped up in some larger economic policy. We can argue for unions and worker protections, but it’s a bit late for that for them now, isn’t it? They’re just fucked and our response is more or less to point back to 2016 and say ‘that lady said she would flow money to help those workers find a new job and you voted against her’ as if that does anything to help their current situation. So when Trump says he’ll save the coal industry (something no Democrat is going to say) I think it’s at least understandable that they would vote for him, and that issue might override everything else.
I think that vote is a mistake because my opinion is that Trump will sell them out, but I don’t have proof of that. I don’t have to take that decision as proof that they’re stupid or that they hate me, when it need only indicate they have an urgent priority that I don’t share and a different opinion of what might happen from that vote. That’s at least understandable.
Kayla Rudbek
@tobie: I am very relieved that Mr. Rudbek is a fanatic cyclist, as 1) it’s easier and cheaper to fit lots of bikes into the basement as opposed to collecting cars or motorcycles 2) cycling is a great way for him to show off his fitness [if you routinely bike at least 20 miles per day, you have proven yourself to be fit and manly] 3) male competitive urges are satisfied by riding bikes with/against other hammerheads
Steve LaBonne
@Martin: All of 10,000 people still work in the WVa coal industry and most of them aren’t miners. Coal mining is both a dying industry and a highly automated one.
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: the Prius was the car to have in early 2000s Silicon Valley, even at the law firm where I worked. Maybe especially so among a bunch of IP attorneys…
bluefoot
@Chetan Murthy: yep. I said in a thread earlier today is the essence of privilege is not having to be *aware* all the time, and constantly evaluating your environment and the behavior of the people around you.
Citizen Alan
@KatKapCC: i would be offended by this, except that i’m a neurodivergent ace which, growing up in mississippi in the eighties, might as well have been gay for how people looked at me. So I grew up to have as much disdain for mediocre white boys who want everything given to them on a silver platter woman, poc, or LGBT would.
Citizen Alan
@Nukular Biskits: it gives me an oddly warm feeling to realize that I have been away from mississippi long enough to have no idea who that is more know, the names of any other likely candidates for governor who will replace the infamous “Gov. Tater.”
Citizen Alan
@sab: IQ tests are perfectly good for measuring the things they were designed to measure. It’s just the things IQ tests were designed to measure define things more likely to be known by a well-read middle class or higher white person as being a signs of intelligence than things known by intelligent members of other demographic groups. The classic example is the SAT question that requires the test taker to know what a “regata” is, which seems to be a race/class neutral question so long as you don’t give any thought to which race or class is more likely to actually attend a regatta at some point.
And I freely say that as someone with an IQ in excess of 140 and whose ability to take standardized tests paid my way through two degrees and part of a third.
Citizen Alan
@Professor Bigfoot: i freely admit that I have been fantastically lucky in my life in that (a) my brain is for some reason hardwired to take standardized tests and do well and (b) I am naturally gifted to perform certain tasks that our society thinks dserves a high salary ( mainly being able to read prior legal opinions and organize them into new legal opinions addressing new and different facts.
Nukular Biskits
@Citizen Alan:
Oh, how I envy you.
Citizen Alan
@tobie: It is so weird to me. Insecure, rich assholes buying absurdly overpriced vehicles to flaunt their wealth has been a thing as long as cars had been around. But up to now, they have all at least been aesthetically pleasing to look at. Cyber trucks look like they were designed by a fucking child. Which I suppose they were.
Anyway
@Nukular Biskits: Love your posts of your engagement with the gov and assorted electeds in MS — make them answer, make them listen!
billcinsd
@Citizen Alan: IQ tests were originally designed to determine in what areas a youngster was struggling in development. The US Army decided they would be a great way to classify recruits for various military jobs. The fact that many of the testees were illiterate and/or had never used a pencil before made a mockery of the testing, but the testers were pretty pleased.
billcinsd
@Chris: The Terrible Economy —>>> Nazis story is also not really true. The bad economy was in 1923 and had substantially been fixed by 1924. So the Nazi’s tried to coup for this but didn’t take over until the 4th year of the depression
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
Mainly because as things require more actual current knowledge, which has been happening for a few decades now those that are trying to conserve every damn thing refuse to move in any way forward. Because forward is a nasty word to them, it means they lose the last tiny bit of reality, rationality, reasonableness and humanity that they had left. They don’t see that being stupid and whinny doesn’t actually get a person anywhere any longer.
Gretchen
@tobie: I’m having trouble with the comparison of the Prius vs a cyber truck as a status marker. Prius gets excellent gas mileage- 45-50 mpg – and is remarkably reliable. 15 year old Prius’s are still running with few repairs. If you’re saying that the only reason someone drives that car is status, that’s a you problem.
in contrast, cybertrucks shed parts and rust if left out in the rain. People don’t buy those cars because they’re the best available.
frosty
@sab: My twin brother and I used to shrug off things like good SATs by saying we were just good at taking tests. And like you, we came around to the conclusion that yeah, we actually were pretty smart.
Nukular Biskits
@Anyway:
If only.
Based on my experience to date, they don’t think they should have to answer to people like me.
exbarrowboy
@Chetan Murthy: About those Sili Valley high schools, my (mostly) Caucasian kids went to Lynbrook, which was the subject of an infamous WSJ article on “white flight” that was probably where the story took root. My kids had interests in Japanese culture shaped by anime, and reported on being in a class where all the other kids were East Asian and had a head start on recognizing the characters.
Neighbors of ours, academics from Stanford, moved their kids out to expensive private schools. We would have done the same if we could have afforded to, though instead the younger kids managed to transfer to a program at the local community college. The issue wasn’t so much about competitiveness, it was that with so many pushy parents, so many kids focused on grades, there wasn’t much space for any misfits or kids who needed some attention.
Our second daughter had tested for the gifted program at her first school with a 140 plus IQ before deciding she wanted to stay with her classmates. At High School her GPA began with a zero, almost entirely because her metabolism ran maybe six hours behind and she could barely stay awake in morning lessons. She transferred to De Anza for her last two years, arranged courses so she didn’t have to be in until noon, and made a stunning turnaround.
Jay
@Gretchen:
Prius’s were the first reliable, real, affordable to the upper Middle Class hybrid.
As a result, part of their sales results were a result of “liberal” virtue signaling, just like Tesla’s before people found out that Apathied Clyde was a ketamine coked asshole*, 24/7.
*#1 descriptor of Felon Husk on The Dead Bird Site is “asshole”, and even the DOGEy’ guy’s own GROK AI agrees.
Martin
@exbarrowboy: A big problem with K-12 education in these areas is that they are 100% invested in sending kids to college, and not at all invested in kids on any other path. I fought that battle a lot advising school districts on their STEM curriculum. It brings the additional problem that how focused the school is on getting students into competitive colleges is pretty positively correlated to suicide rates. They just become burnout factories.
sab
@Martin: Agree. My oldest stepson is dyslexic and smart as a whip although barely literate but good at math. He is very happy as a machinist and making a good living.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It has, for example were is a video on who voted for Hitler. For those that a 10 minutes is unbearably long to watch; the answer is the middle class. Why? because they were feeling pressure from organized labor and large corporations.
kalakal
@Chris:
Problem was Italians didn’t think/feel they’d won. Italy was neutral until May 1915 and joined with the expectation of making significant territorial gains at the expense of Austria Hungary. 3 1/2 years and 500,000 casualties later they gained very little at Versailles ( in large part due to Wilson’s insistance on independent states based on nationality.) They had expected it to be the culmination of Italian unification with the aquisition of Dalmatia and Albania.
Instead the ‘vibe’ was that all that blood and money was for nothing and that the Western Allies had betrayed them
Reply
Another Scott
Dead thread?
@tobie: It might not be a “display of wealth”. It might be (mostly?) cynically taking advantage of EV incentives and Section 179 deductions. E.g. trucks over 6000 pounds GVWR can be written off (quickly or completely) from owed taxes.
There’s a CT that I see in our neighborhood occasionally that’s wrapped in black and has big logos for some design company. I think it’s mainly a/an (effectively) cheap and distinctive billboard for them.
I expect the new VW ID.Buzz electric “micro” bus will be snatched up by small businesses for the same reasons.
Best wishes,
Scott.
==
(Who thinks moving businesses to EVs is long past due, but the 6000 GVWR means they buy (and companies make) giant vehicles when smaller ones are much better for the world.)
Denali5
I am on my second Prius – the first, a 2006, and I bought it because it seemed like it was the right car for me- plug in to drive most of my errands, reliable, easy to drive and park. I am a little put off by being linked with owners of expensive Tesla products. They are unsafe , unsightly(trucks) and not practical.