Merit

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

When we’re talking about the regime of incompetency we live under, there are many causes we can adduce, all contributing to this fine mess we find ourselves in.

Yes, there is reduced competence in teaching, which echoes down the line. Yes, our corporations, largely through aiding and abetting of big government and “management doctrine stupid” have decided that individuals don’t matter. Like publishing, in the last 30 to 40 years, they convinced themselves that you could pick up anyone off the street and make them into the perfect employee. Without training or anything. Just “voila, there you are.” And they’d be perfect.

And in this, we must get to a basic, very basic understanding of how they came to believe this.

It goes to government stupid. Look, most things go to government stupid which in turn, in this century of our Lord, the 21st — but even so, let Him return! — goes back to the Marxist twaddle that passes for thought and philosophy in our institutions of purported learning.

First let’s get into the institutions that set the standards, the so called “elite” institutions. There might have been a time in which they were the most demanding, the ones with best teaching and deepest learning. I don’t know. of this miracle, I, in the twentieth and twenty first century, have seen no proof.

I do know people of merit and ability who have graduated from the Ivies and Ivies adjacent. They are, to be fair, as with every other institution, a small minority. But that equality with other institutions, explains neither the awe in which they’re held, nor the way their graduates permeate the upper echelons of our society, the ones with decision power and policy making power.

So–

Well, let’s get back to how they get to be what they are. And what type of people get in.

I was not myself, in Portugal, a graduate of the “best schools” till I got to the University, which was hard-merit when I came in. You came in via grades, which in turn were obtained by national, blind-graded exam. All anyone knew about you was a number. And the tests from one region were sent to another to be graded to avoid recognition of handwriting. (This might or might not have made any difference in that. It’s a small country, and I had relatives in the South, though my family was all — way back — in the North. Because sometimes people moved for jobs.)

Anyway, my degree was one of the less (though not by any means least) competitive, far behind medicine, engineering and law. It accepted the top half of one percent by exam results. (TBF I qualified for law. And I didn’t object to it, except at the time it didn’t exist in Porto, and I didn’t want to be sent to Coimbra, to live with an old maiden aunt I’d never met. This might have been a mistake, if I’d stayed in Portugal. As is, it wouldn’t have made any difference.) Now, it’s all different, because there are private colleges, and the children of the rich always have degrees. (Usually, weirdly, law.) Which is more or less like us.

What determined if you got into college? If you’re going “native intelligence” I’m going to laugh till I cry, and then cry some more.

Sure, that’s what I made it on, though I suspect the reason I actually made it was stubbornness and terror. Stubbornness because I’d set my mind on going to college (only one cousin didn’t) and I was willing to abuse myself endlessly to do so, including studying and reading things well beyond what my school taught, in my copious (ah!) spare time, and spending all my money on books instead of pretty clothes, and shorting sleep and health; terror because mom had decreed that all her kids would have university degrees, and I wasn’t brave enough to find out what she’d do to me if I failed.

However, once I entered college, I found out I was in a different bracket of society. I wasn’t the only one. Another girl from the village made it, same year. Though I think we were the only ones for the next ten years.

Most of the people I went to college with grew up with foreign vacations, no summer jobs (or other attempts at making money) and their families could buy and sell mine before breakfast, three times a day. And not notice. They wore designer clothes, not mom made. They had the latest electronics. And most of them already knew each other.

You see, most of them had attended one of a small set of private schools, or had EXTENSIVE tutoring through middle and high school. Because the regular, public schools simply didn’t teach you what you must learn to pass the big, bad standardized exam.

Okay, my mom had edged the bets for me. Our local school was truly, appallingly bad after elementary. She suffered through my Middle School, and me getting effortless As and learning nothing, and then she …. got a fake address by paying someone to receive and forward our mail, and sent me to school in the most expensive district of Porto (known as The Hollywood Zone because of the mansions.)

So I was already out of place in high school, but not as much, since a lot of other people did the same. Also 90% of the school was in tutoring and extra learning after school. I know, because I did some of that tutoring for extra money.

I had another ace in the hole, in that my family — male and female, except for mom — has been bookish since forever. So I had books of mythology and a lot of literature available in every corner of the family houses (but mostly stuck in the potato cellar, because cool and dry) and I had the textbooks of everyone who had attended college before me. (My more or less ten years older brother was the youngest before me, and all but one went to college, usually in STEM.) Add to that that dad read every philosophy and popular science book that he could afford, new or used, and that every book that came into a house I had access to was mine to read (Saith the Sarah) and I probably had a more extensive and rounded education than most of the tutored or private school people.

Also I had terror and stubbornness.

And the fact that there was a secret-squirrel exam defeated the connections advantage.

I assumed Portugal was different from the US. I assumed in my inimitable way that class and money made no difference, except for giving someone a better chance to learn, etc.

So it never occurred to me to put my kids in private school. Partly because we were so broke, though if we thought it was necessary we’d have done our best to arrange for it. Partly it never occurred to me, because our friends had their kids in the most expensive private school in the area, and I wasn’t impressed with the kids’ progress.

So I did what dad and mom did: make them attend the local not particularly great schools, while demanding they outperform everyone around them.

And I only found out how wrong I was when older son was applying for college in pre-med. Older son had not only amazing grades in an advanced program, but the sort of eclectic deep-knowledge I’d acquired for the same reason of a house saturated with books. And by our favorite go-to fun being museums, lectures and courses. To which must be added that having two geek parents in rarefied geek professions (I didn’t say they paid well, but writer and rocket scientist are, by definition, dream-geek jobs) meant that he’d hung out with top-performance and learning geeks from infancy on. And being one of the weird kids who makes friends with adults preferentially, he’d learned a lot by running his mouth and having someone correct him on history or math, or whatever.

He got a lot of interest from the Ivies, but was not accepted by any. By the time the results came back, this wasn’t a surprise. You see, one of the ivies had a reception, locally, for the kids of the parents who had applied. Locally understood as “Denver.”

Being idiots, and totally unaware of what we were getting into, we went. Let’s say I don’t normally dress like I’m homeless. Some of you have met me at cons, in the last few years. But in the last few years, I’ve kind of given up, partly due to strange health-related weight gain, partly because of other health issues, partly because…. well. I’m just tired.

However, this was — dear Lord — just about fifteen years ago, and I dressed business-casual, in slacks, a button down and a pullover. Dan wore slacks and a polo shirt. We looked like peasants. To be fair, we’d have looked like peasants if we’d dressed in our best. All the parents there were in expensive, possibly designer clothes, and in expensive jewelry. Their shoes probably cost more than our whole outfits.

They also had that …. air. All the moms were ladies who do lunch. All the fathers were VP of this or that. And our son was the only one who had attended a public school. We know this, because you had to give the name and school of your kid to ask questions.

Also the questions had little or nothing to do with the program. They were either virtue signaling about how “diverse” the program was, or making sure their kids would be in the right circles, by asking if professor so and so was still there and if they still held those darling study sessions for the precious sprouts with all the heads of various companies lecturing. (I might be a little disgusted still.)

So, from that time on I knew he wouldn’t be accepted. We weren’t their kind. He did pre-med in a state school and was the only one in his class to be accepted to medschool, beating the odds yet again. However, looking at the class composition, his odds were about like mine in Portugal, in a country that admits it’s not particularly meritocratic, and which still has its cultural roots in an aristocracy of birth.

This is part of the issue we have with the “higher institutions of learning” and the legacy admissions or even just admissions because “they’re the right kind, honey.”

I used to wonder why our richer friends didn’t care if their kids weren’t learning anything in their expensive private schools. Well, it was because it didn’t matter. The name of the school attended was a passport in itself. The name of the school ensured they were NOT peasants who would embarrass the school.

These schools teach all the important stuff. “Important”consists mostly of “diversity and wokeness.” To be fair, so did our public school. So does yours. Trust me on this, and check what your kids learn.

As far as I can tell, the bulk of the attendees at our best institutions of learning, and those who go on to post grad of any significance (not post grad in “studies”) are almost universally from the “good schools.” And if public schools those are public schools in the “good areas.” (Which has also distorted our real estate market, but that’s something else.)

The rest is rounded out in essays and interviews to make sure you have the right (left) credentials.

This is filled in by people who tan interesting tones because it’s an article of faith that “diversity” (of skin tan and hair color, of sexual attraction or identification and particularly (!) of having a vagina. An all-white-woman team is the most diverse there is) is our strength, even though every study in the world shows the opposite.

And this establishes the credentials and, more importantly, the connections to staff the upper echelons of everything. Yes, including your medical, technical and political reaches.

Which is how we end up with the politicians and more importantly bureaucrats we have, who might be able to find their own ass one time out of three, and the first guess doesn’t count, with carefully written instructions, two hands and a seeing eye dog.

It’s not that more competent people don’t exist, or that they can — and often do — educate themselves around the edges, and the best they can, and are often, despite total lack of credentials, the best in the world. It’s that they wouldn’t be considered for anything serious.

(And here, I must make a plea for you people to stop trash talking the kids. The kids, by and large are all right. Particularly when you consider the bilge they’re fed for sixteen years of schooling. I run into them a lot, both in my fandom and in real life. They are okay from about 30 on and with the usual exceptions. Because, you know, America’s primary, secondary and tertiary educations — with a few, shining exceptions — suck rotten, moldy eggs. But we have so many other ways to learn, from extension courses to clubs relating to “x” interest, to now youtube videos. My kids have a lot of expertise in fields it would never occur to me to think existed, like historical cooking. Or strange corners of programming.
The thing is that these specialties kids acquire are very rarely practical. Because they’ve intuited early on that they’re not “the right kind” and because learning without a diploma or certificate won’t get you hired.)

The universities down the range take their cues from the ivies. The process of admission is often the same written for state and regional level. And the SATs have been watered and “subjectified” enough (the essay will do it) to permit this process to be wholly devoid of merit. Women, for instance, are often given the “lady’s A” in all STEM courses — don’t tell me they don’t, I saw it in action — even if they cannot in fact perform. So they get the “diversity” advantage into any college. (And usually drop out of STEM in the first or second semester and into some form of arts, for which they’re heartily shamed by all right-thinking people who think humans are exchangeable.)

Also a lot of “affirmative action” lawsuits and government stupid, built on believing that people of a certain level of tan must be represented in every program at the same level they are in the population, or you have “discrimination” have got into the corportations’ heads (not to mention university graduates’ heads) the idea that humans are interchangeable widgets provided they have the same markings (external, or acquired) as someone else. A gay employee is a gay employee, whether a genius or a moron. I’m exactly the same as Occasional Cortex, because we tan at about the same level (if I ever saw the sun.) And white males are exactly the same. They tan the same and have the same genitalia, and besides they’re all “privileged.” A privilege that doesn’t translate into better education, or access to better jobs, more power, or promotions, mind you, because that would be racist.

They are privileged because people who looked vaguely like them in the past, long before they were born, had a lot of power. Not all the people who looked like them. By and large not their direct ancestors. But some people who looked like them. Maybe. (Irish and Italians look nothing alike, except to these right berks, for instance.)

Meritocracy? Tickle me and maybe I’ll laugh.

Not only is the game rigged, there is no universal, blindly graded exam that will allow you to get around the rigging should you, by a concatenation of strange circumstances be able to get around the blocks placed in your way.

Know your place, peasant.

And this is how we got where we are. A university degree is required for everything, including managing a coffee shop, and the university degrees are apportioned for characteristics that have nothing to do with your learning, ability to do the job, or even interest in the job.

Remember the left thought the rest of us would be p*ssed when they said if we were getting rid of racial preferences, we should also get rid of legacy entrance into colleges? They really have no clue what we’re p*ssed off at. But even the legacy entrance is too little to get rid of. We need a universal, blind way to compete aristocratically. You know, like the SAT used to be before it was tampered with.

Because only meritocracy and competition, red in tooth and claw (and trust me, it was. Back on the week of the exam for college entrance, there were suicides and psychotic breaks. [And I didn’t feel too good myself.]) and selecting for the best for whatever the d*mn job is, and absolute focus on the job, not virtue signaling and not “diversity is our strength” will dig us out of this hole, before civilization collapses.

Which means civilization is going to collapse, since no “elite” no matter how impaired gives up their power willingly, and though these people are as impaired as the French of the Ancien Regime who were inbred enough sometimes even an impartial observer couldn’t find THEIR *asses (and got distracted by the battle ships on their heads) they believe themselves as superior and as important as did those noblemen who would lose their heads in the coming kerfuffle.

Is a kerfuffle coming here too? Well, for sure. Because if civilization falls (temporarily. We’re too far to fall completely and forever) things get readjusted. Suddenly.

Ça Irá, eh?

Or maybe we’ll get lucky and these completely incompetent duckies can be removed for power without spiciness. Yes, it’s unlikely, but it’s what we must hope for. Because unfortunately the (real) good, competent people are made of the same flesh and blood as everyone else, and a lot of them will die in any mess. Which we can’t afford. We might have about enough to continue civilization. Maybe. And a few more who can be brought up to speed to do the job (any job) given a little time. But not a ton of spares. Without the extension in life spans, we’d already be hurting badly.

But if you shake the kaleidoscope and look around the pretty patterns formed to distract you, you’ll see that in fact every fight going on is this: the self-proclaimed elites of Marxist nincompoops are in a fight for their lives against the rest of us, who might not have the credentials, but could do their jobs with both hands tied behind our backs.

They’re bringing up new and creative ways to manipulate the system, in a game of calvinball, in the process breaking everything that still works. And we’re losing patience, and starting to panic. Which they don’t realize, because yes, they really are that stupid and divorced from reality.

Build under, build over, build around. And hang on for dear life, as all of the west bucks and writhes attempting to rid itself of its malicious, parasitic riders.

We win, they lose. But it’s going to hurt like a mother!

161 thoughts on “Merit”

  1. Many years ago, when we lived in New Jersey and my beloved worked for a civil engineering firm, we went to the office Christmas party. Once. Every woman there but me and one other based their entire conversations on, “My husband is….(insert title, usually at least Department head). The other non-conformist talked about sailing. She appeared to know a bunch about it, too.
    As an aside, the company fell apart after we moved (not because we moved!) and they got caught, ahem, “lubricating,” social relations with a mayor. (My beloved says if they were still around the company president would have one of Hunter’s “artworks,” hanging in his office).
    And they were still more honest than the other people he worked for.
    We really, really don’t miss living in New Jersey. Even if it did give him a first-class education spotting crooks…

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The best way to spot a crook in NJ is to open one’s eyes. I thought NYC led the world in corruption, until I moved to NJ. NJ could give some of the African or Asian countries a run for their money. Thank God for Illinois and Louisiana or I’d live in the most corrupt state in the union.

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    2. Interesting enough hubby never met my last boss. Worked there 12 years. There were lunch social gatherings, hubby was working, at least part of it. Didn’t make him go. Job before that hubby never met my managers or the company owners. Again, social dinners, just didn’t make him go. He did meet some co-workers from the last job because we’d run into them in Costco, or Red Robin. Now my job from ’90 – ’96, hubby went to every social gathering. He knew more of the field personnel than I did because of occasionally being assigned to the various log yards, plus the engineering logging manager was a classmate of his.

      Social gatherings outside of work were people met through scouts and now golf. Naturally “what do you do”, etc., comes up. Hubby gets the biggest kick out of peoples reaction when either of us state, nonchalantly (because it is absolutely hilarious) that I write/wrote software. Gets a double take, every single time. Doesn’t help that hubby follows up with “I know! Right!” (He is quite proud of what I do. But he has got that little devil that gets people to react.) I don’t come off as a social butterfly, or high society, but I don’t give off the geek vibe either even if I’m socially quiet (rather than talk about me, I get others talking about them). Oh, you should have seen the reactions of my youngest sister’s husband’s family and their friends. Sis and BIL are/were both computer/software engineers for big tech company. In addition he is from a moderately more high society family, or at least his siblings moved in that crowd on the east coast. Sis went to Sanford so her roommates are out of the elite class. First hit them with hubby is in timber, logging side (even if he never set foot on a logging site), not managerial. That we both started there. Then hit them with I write software. Grin. Doesn’t work here.

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  2. @ Sarah > “We might have about enough to continue civilization. Maybe. And a few more who can be brought up to speed to do the job (any job) given a little time. But not a ton of spares. Without the extension in life spans, we’d already be hurting badly.”

    If we could get enough kids out of the public system into actual education (homeschool, un-woke private & charter schools), we might generate enough “spares” to hang on.

    Bumping a link from Old Trainer a couple of days ago.
    https://barsoom.substack.com/p/how-to-kill-the-incompetocracy

    Ruling class legitimacy is built on academic prestige. That’s a fatal weakness ripe for disruption.
    …
    Since the universities don’t sell education, but credentials, we need a new system of credentialing.

    Education is the easy part. We’ve already got that covered. With the internet, it’s never been easier to learn. The accumulated knowledge of humanity is at everyone’s fingertips, for free. For a small fee, there are plenty of independent scholars willing to help guide students through whatever it is they want to learn.

    Anyone can learn as much as they want, as rapidly and thoroughly as they want to learn it, and do so for a small fraction of what a university degree costs. The problem is that there’s no proof of work. How does an autodidact reassure a potential employer or customer that they know what they’re doing? On the other hand, there are the university graduates, who possess a credential that both the graduates and their potential customers and employers know is essentially meaningless.

    There’s a market opportunity there. Listen up, Peter Thiel: whoever does this right won’t just make a lot of money, they’ll blow a hole below the waterline in the ruling class’ legitimacy.

    Many details follow. Sort of a “Better Education Seal of Approval” sort of thing.
    I don’t know if it’s feasible in today’s political world (the elites will fight it with all the legions of hell), but it’s certainly technologically possible.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. My eyes were opened to this concept back in high school when I got to attend an energy seminar put on by the coal companies in Colorado. My essay must have been good (or there were only two applicants in our rural area) because I found myself in a bus filled with exactly this kind of up-and-coming future leaders, all of whom knew each other from similar social future political leader contests including mock Summer government simulations. I was not one of them, had no luck getting into any social circle of theirs, and the minute I got back home, they vanished out of my circle.

    Later, I found Taleb’s book ‘Skin in the Game’ with a particular chapter titled ‘The Intellectual Yet Idiot’ about this exact concept. It made perfect sense, but there’s a second level below the IYI posers. These are the supercompetent people who can rewire a broken synthesizer, speak multiple languages, read Ancient Greek, rebuild clocks as a hobby, shoot the ten ring out of targets, build their own Roman armor, etc… They tend to form a strata far below the High Idiots, but are called, “I know a guy…” and only get called in when something is really, really wrong, then generally wander off after it gets fixed. We all know one or two of them, and as long as they’re around and willing to take those calls, there’s hope for the world.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. @ georgfelis > “They tend to form a strata far below the High Idiots”

      I suspect that the strata of minions between our High Idiots and the omnicompetent guys (and gals) no longer even know how to call them, and wouldn’t think of doing so if they did.

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        1. A general strike of those who really keep the world running is long overdue.

          One of these days the truckers won’t just go protest at a seat of government, they will stop delivering EVERYTHING to the big blue cities that hate them.

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        2. A general strike of those who really keep the world running is long overdue.

          One of these days the truckers won’t just go protest at a seat of government, they will stop delivering EVERYTHING to the big blue cities that hate them.

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          1. Trucking company named yellow just shut down operations. They employed 22,000 Teamsters. Supply chain issues, anyone?

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  4. I’ll grant that an all-white-women team might be the most diverse there is, but these days some of those white women will have Y chromosomes. And often penises.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I still say take all men and call them women and have them win a couple of NCAA Championships* and this nonsense will stop. Take all white men and have them compete in women’s basketball, that should do it. Liberal heads would explode. sarc

        *Worked for the soviets and east germans after all…snicker

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Well, right now Fox (I think) is running the Women’s World Soccer Cup and trying to make the US Women’s team a thing…despite their, “We’re too good to salute the flag,” shtick (not all, but most of them) and the fact they got walloped by a boy’s team a year or so ago.
          No, thank you.

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    2. I think if I were the owner of a women’s team in some sport I’d embrace the “trans-women” are real women schtick. Not because I think it is true but because it would create a winning team. True the string of assured victories would be short-lived because the other team owners would quickly be forced to recruit faux women for their teams to remain competitive.

      Imagine the outrage when Rapinoe and the other harpies gets benched because the new “women” are just so much better.

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      1. “Imagine the outrage when Rapinoe and the other harpies gets benched because the new “women” are just so much better.”

        As several right-side pundits have pointed out, Rapinoe is only supporting this NOW because her career is effectively over, she’s looking to retire, and needs a follow on grift.

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  5. Oh, lord – reminds me of the program that my daughter got nominated for, at her high school – can’t remember how and why, exactly, only that the staff (at a 90% Hispanic-attended all girls Catholic high school) were enormously chuffed that she had made the cut. It was some kind of teenage ambassador-travel-to-Europe program, for which we were never able to raise the money for, so she had to withdraw after being accepted – but one of the events was a get-to-know-the-group session where all the kids had to stand up and do a presentation … and it actually blew me away how composed and adult my daughter was, compared to most of the other kids.
    Of course, she was the child of a single parent military mother, raised mostly overseas, and had worked variously as a pool lifeguard and in serious retail.
    She went into the Marines, after graduating, and never completed more than a couple of years of junior college, and now works in real estate…
    So, yeah – not One of the Elite. In Spades.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Oh, I hear you. I hear you.

    At least in the US, there are still avenues to jump out of poverty. But it’s not easy. It’s not easy being bright in the crab bucket and it’s not easy finally escaping it either.

    The rot has been in place for decades. But it’s getting worse. In a time when anyone can start learning on their own, the over push for credentials everywhere is insane. Don’t dare get out of your lane! I’ve had to clench my teeth at parties where I’ve heard ‘betters’ say things like “we need credentials to get rid of the undesirables” and KNOW they mean the very likes of people like me.

    Good grief, before I got a degree, I thought my art could get me out of poverty. I took my portfolio around. Instead, I had people tell me to my face, I didn’t draw anything in it. I was a liar. Because only someone with a degree could draw well. What a load of hooey! But now I know it was more about getting the person with the ‘right’ connections, while skill, would be helpful, but not essential.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Grrrrrrr. One of my aviation mentors dropped out of school (and his sister with him) because a teacher announced that he had cheated on an assignment. She knew that no farm kid could do so well, so he must have cheated some how. So he never finished high school. He was a fantastic pilot, very intelligent, and one of the best applied engineers I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around. He ended up with a career in the military as a senior NCO (three war Army/Air Force vet), but never did get a diploma of any kind and distrusted schools until the day he died.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Don’t blame him for the distrust. There’s a lot of distrust with a certain type of educator. There are wonderful examples of educators who really want to launch the next generation on to higher levels of learning and technology. Then there are the bitter crab bucket gate keepers. I’ve dealt with both. The former is boon to students and society as a whole. The latter? Well they’d be better doing individual research without any involvement with students.

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  7. The problem will be, going forward, is that the elite morons don’t know they are morons.

    Back in the day when I was a teacher aide I worked with very low IQ students. Not a single one of those 50 and below IQ students didn’t know that the other kids were smarter. They at least had that much on the ball.

    But our elites really do think they are smart enough to pull off Agenda 2030, or whatever they call it now.

    They have no idea they are dumber than the peasants they are trying to convince to eat bug burgers, give up personal transportation, and allow their kid’s genders to be Affirmed.

    Zero clue. And the damage they do in their stupidity is going make things much worse.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. They have been told all their lives that they are the Bestest and Brightest because they parrot all the Correct Left-Wing Slogans. It’s an easy sell because it gets them money and power and feeds their giant egos. All they have to do is conform.
      ———————————
      I used to live on a farm. I know what bullshit smells like.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. About that good old down home manure smell, my Grandpa used to say,”Smells like money.”

        He wasn’t wrong.

        But there’s more than one way to look at it.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Have you seen the Mitch McConnell video making the rounds? What struck me was how thin and frail he looks now from when compared to only a few years ago.

      Congress is teetering on the edge of a mass drop-off. And I don’t think there’s anyone in the wings to take over after them.

      I would not be surprised if our “French Revolution” equivalent is we just ignore DC until it collapses on its own. And all the systems that depended on DC die off with them.

      Liked by 2 people

          1. I dunno… he ran the Republican confirmation machine pretty well during the Trump years. Enough that there weren’t nearly as many judicial vacancies as Biden and his handlers would have liked.

            Liked by 1 person

      2. Vichy Mitchy needs to be put out to pasture, sooner rather than later. Maybe then we can get a Republican instead of a closet Democrat. How about Marsha Blackburn for Senate Minority Leader?

        Liked by 1 person

          1. How exactly would another Democrat be worse than Vichy Mitchy? It’s not like the Republicans have a Senate majority to lose after Mitchy torpedoed three Republican candidates in the last election.
            ———————————
            Most days, I suspect that we could get a better government by picking 535 people at random. On bad days, I’m certain we’d get a better government by picking 535 people at random from lunatic asylums.

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      4. McConnell has someone in mind as his replacement, make no mistake. Failing that, there are a number of Republican Senators who are still fairly energetic, and in good health. The main issue would be which of them would have the easiest time corralling the rest of the Republican senators – i.e. leading. For example, Rand is a great firebrand. But I have a suspicion he wouldn’t be so great getting other senators to follow his lead..

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  10. A few years ago, my oldest niece, R, attended a year at a small, private college nearby. Very expensive, but she covered it with scholarships and loans. She was studying music. During that year her mother, sister (M), and I attended a concert at their performing arts center. As we went in, we got some funny looks. We dressed up a bit, but not a lot. M, always perceptive and never afraid to speak her mind said in a clear voice, “Mom! They can smell the poor on us!” I suspect your experience at the ivy event was similar.

    I had a career in the reserve forces, retiring twelve years ago, and have worked in my civilian career with the Army for about sixteen. There is still merit to be found. But it does seem that social justice forces are doing their very best to extinguish it.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I, too, went to a small private college on scholarships. Honestly, about the only way anyone non-rich can afford it is scholarships, and at least they have a wide range of them, so there was a decent income distribution when I went.

      It’s far more than twice as expensive now. I have no idea if it’s the same, but at least they are actively soliciting for scholarship donations all the time. (Annoying—I mean, I don’t have the money for their scholarship funds, heh—but at least they’re asking for that rather than whatever crazy idea they want to spend money on that doesn’t help the students.)

      Liked by 3 people

  12. Now I get it. That was me. U of Texas had a Plan II honors program for people like National Merit Scholars. I was the only public school kid in the program. Sarah is right. They don’t want us in their swimming pool.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. Relevant reading (no URLs so I don’t disturb the Monitor):

    California’s Marxist Math: The Once-Golden State Is Past the Point of No Return
    By Ward Clark | 4:45 PM on July 28, 2023 (RedState)

    07.26.2023 (American Mind)
    You Got a License for that Tyranny?
    by Glenn Ellmers

    Doctor’s Orders by Jason Blakely
    COVID-19 and the new science wars
    (Harper’s)
    Yes, it is from the Leftist POV, but still manages to hit some actual truth; it was linked by Ellmers in his post.

    Like

    1. California has gone bat-guano insane, and is about to show the world the consequences of deliberate madness.

      In very short order, the able will be fleeing in such quantities as to collapse basic services. For a time, illegals will fill the void, sort of. They are fleeing truly disastrous shitholes, and California ain’t quite there yet. But soon it will be obvious that they came thousands of miles just to land back under the same maniacs.

      Then the productive illegals go elsewhere.

      Then the CA wheels come off.

      There will be efforts to stop the outflow of portable productive folks and portable wealth. Also, demands of subsidy and bankruptcy prevention by the other 49 states. We may even see a demand to force returns, much like the Donks “fugitive slave act”.

      It may happen as early as late January 2025. I suspect Newsom will run for President as much to dodge holding that blivit when the bag bursts and the turds fall like rain.

      Anyone productive in CA better get out while the getting is good. They are going to be shearing the sheep that try to flee, and this time they won’t obey any SCOTUS orders to knock it off. They cannot. And when -that- fails, then things get spicy.

      Note, they have to win 2025, absolutely must, else their grand scheme dies of bad example “Calizuela”.

      Soon. Soon…..

      Liked by 2 people

            1. No.

              I’ve long been of the opinion that California will not be straightened out until the citizens storm the Capital, haul every last one of them out, and turn them into lamp post decorations. Believe me, if not for a till-death-do-us-part obligation I’d be long gone from this craphole in advanced training.

              Like

        3. He might… After all, he’s got access to the balance books and the like that reveal the depths of the impending disaster (which is already semi-public knowledge). If so, he’s gambling that he can get safely into the White House before the house of cards collapses. Then (according to his thinking) he’ll have a successful first term as president, and can run for a second term off of that instead of his presiding over the collapse of California.

          Like

          1. I don’t think there’s that much awareness under all that hair gel. I suspect Nuisance’s arrogance stems from a genuine (but mistaken) belief that Kalifornia is a marvel of success pointing the way to a glorious future. All those little problems will just go away when the current policies take full effect.

            Like I said yesterday, Leftroids are soooo smart they don’t need to actually know anything.

            Like

            1. Except for the minor detail that the money’s gone. California was supposed to have a large surplus this year. Suddenly, it doesn’t. Newsome can come up with excuses about why it happened and why he can claim with a straight face that it has nothing to do with him. But that doesn’t change that the state’s balances flipped this year, and flipped very badly.

              Like

                1. A 20+ billion dollar shortfall very much affects the donors, since it means that there isn’t as much money to throw at them.

                  Like

              2. Leftists can’t count, and it is a bedrock article of their faith that the government always has more money. The sentence ‘The money’s gone’ conveys no meaning to their minds.

                Like

                1. This particular one’s been all over the news – even the lefty op-ed pages – with everyone basically saying, “We had a surplus! How are we this deeply in debt!?”

                  Also, unlike DC, California can’t print it’s own money if there’s a shortfall. It has to hope that it can sell enough bonds to stay in the black.

                  Like

                2. Like the politicians in Texas who say, “There’s a surplus in the emergency fund! Let’s spend it now on social programs.” Then they scream because there’s nothing in the emergency fund when a Cat 5 hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, or something similar.

                  Like

                  1. Speaking of which……
                    https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/29/david-blackmon-alaskas-budget-problems-are-a-cautionary-tale-for-texas

                    Apparently Biden policies are working as intended for him.

                    When they actually stop working, we can say we’re winning.

                    “What has been happening in Alaska in recent years could provide a real-world example. Biden’s anti-energy policies have played a big role in leaving that state with a big budget hole, and some proposals to address the problem could place the state on a path to a California-like high-tax, slow-growth economy.”

                    Like

                    1. Look at my shocked face.

                      You mean that neither Alaskan or Texas politicians paid attention to what happened to the states who depended on Federal Timber Tax revenue? (A reminder, a natural resource, unlike oil, that is renewable. Like the oil, it isn’t like the Trees have, whoosh, just disappeared out of the territory of the states affected. Not even with all the fires.)

                      Shocking! Just shocking!

                      /sarcasm off

                      To be fair, timber revenue, it isn’t the state coffers that were drastically hurt hard, but county coffers as timber tax revenue replaces yearly property tax. But still, the example is there. Public timberland poor counties in Oregon is a reality.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. “states who depended on Federal Timber Tax revenue”

                      Remind me where in the Constitution the Federal government was given the power to take away the resources from the state and force it to beg for crumbs? The dependency is an effect, not a cause.

                      Like

                    3. Effect. True. But also state fault. Basis of the problem was that the state negotiated for the counties to take payment from Timber Sales, instead of property taxes, from Federal Government. True for private timber owners too, except private owners also pay small property tax annually. Oh, counties were thrilled, then. But No logging, no timber tax revenue. Oops. Yes, the strapped counties, those where a high percentage of the land within their county boundaries is Federal (USFS or BLM), there have been various mumbling about the problem and various solutions. Counties do get a certain percentage of revenue from other sources related to the public land (camping, wilderness, hunting, non-timber harvest licensing, national park, etc. fees), but no where near the revenue gotten from timber sales. Also state’s fault that state is limiting logging off of state lands following the federal government. If the federal government disallows drilling and shuts down existing wells on federal land in Texas and Alaska, those states have no options. Well they do. Odds of seizing the federal land back from the clutches of the federal government is low to non-existent without things going kinetic. Texas may not have a high percentage of public land in federal control, but Alaska does.

                      Like

                  2. “Let’s spend it now on social programs vote-buying schemes.”

                    Be honest, that’s where most government money goes. Buying specific votes with everybody’s taxes. Never mind that most of us would be better off if they just didn’t take the money in the first place.

                    But of course, they know how to spend your money better than you do.

                    How many government programs would you voluntarily spend your money on? I can only think of a few.

                    Liked by 1 person

      3. Already happening. I think it was about a year ago that Noisome floated the idea of an exit tax–any tangible assets sold (businesses, homes, etc.) 100% must remain in the state as new assets, or be forfeit to the state.

        I don’t remember if it passed, I thought it did, but in either case it will be implemented. Just like any tyrannical state, they MUST keep the producers in the state, at any cost.

        Like

          2. And …

            https://scocablog.com/exit-taxes-in-california-not-so-fast/

            Where this actually stands, now, mid-2023, IDK. I am not a lawyer. Nor am I a CA state resident.

            Sister’s BIL has fled the state of Oregon for Texas in light of what the CA Exit Tax. They still own the house in Oregon City, but it is not their official residence. They have their official residence in Texas (where, IDK), the Oregon “old” residence, Sun Valley Idaho residence, and I think vacation condos in Hawaii and Mexico.

            Like

            1. Good to know there is resistance. I am unlikely to have $30M in assets when I leave this dungheap of a state but, if the bastards get away with it once, they will be back trying to steal from those of us who are less than “wealthy.”

              Like

              1. If I were inclined to think about it, it appears that the CPTB are trying to avoid a class action lawsuit. Those of us with $30M, even based in CA, are few. Granted CA might have more than it’s share. (Also not someone who has to worry about this even if we lived in CA.)

                Like

      4. I’ve been saying for a while the logic of these states will force them to try and prevent people from leaving. At the very least, they can try massive social pressure. “Not doing/paying your fair share!” extended to moving out.

        Like

        1. Next thing you know, they’ll be building a wall. With guard towers and minefields.
          ———————————
          Why do so many idiots believe that our problems will be solved by the same shitheads that caused them?

          Like

  14. I just got my degree (English:Professional Writing and Rhetoric, what used to be an English: Technical and Professional Writing degree) last year. The story behind that was long and astonishing. One big, failed attempt at college in the ’90s, leading to a serious depressive cycle and trying to find work.

    (The first semester at the four-year college, when I left, I broke down badly enough to have a terrible case of the flu. Then nearly two weeks of insomnia. After the last semester I was there, I literally sat in my bedroom one morning, before I had to go register for classes and I literally couldn’t decide if I wanted to go back to school or kill myself. Both seemed like equally valid decisions in my mind.)

    Back to school in the mid-’00s, to get that Technical and Professional Writing degree, because my current job had made it clear that they wouldn’t promote anyone to a supervisory position without a college degree. And I wanted out of that job, I didn’t know anyone in the tech field that would hire me on spec, and everything I had been told was that I could do this class program in the evenings, after work.

    Except for one class. Which was only held in the Spring semester. In the middle of the day, and I couldn’t leave work and afford to live without burning out all of my vacation/sick time from work to take the class-and still be short 2/3rds of the way through. They offered an “alternative,” but it would have added another semester-maybe two-to my degree program.

    So…they promoted me at work, I had to move, I suddenly was out of the Bay Area except for the job, and I gave up going in for my college degree.

    …then COVID hit, we all went into lockdown, and my job laid me off the day after the local JC was accepting students for the next semester.

    In a desperate attempt for relevance, I managed to contact the university, my family was willing to put up the money, and I went back to school…

    …and realized that while I wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the drawer, the students I was with were crayons. Quite a few of them were chewed-on crayons Marines tried to eat for lunch. (And some of them were just plain creepy-we had one “asexual” male that kept throwing off worrying sexual predator cues.) The only “competent” teacher was one that was teaching “Media Law” (i.e. what is “fair use” and how does copyright work). The “Media Studies” teacher didn’t have a clue what the Hero’s Journey was. Or gestalt theory. Or how a three-act story structure worked. But he could tell when there was hidden racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamaphobia was there…

    The one class that was “one I had to take”? Taught by someone who literally was thrown into the program that semester, running off the incomplete notes of the last teacher who taught the class. I could have slept through the class if I wasn’t wired to the eyeballs on Pepsi and probably still passed.

    Finally. the degree was almost useless, because I lost my job (that I rolled from the internship) because the economy started to crash, nobody is hiring technical writers because ChatGPT is going to do all of that work, and right now I’m trying to get credentialed for a hedge fund startup a friend of mine is working on.

    And I was doing this at a commuter college that was trying to churn out as many students as possible. The Ivy League had to be worse. I knew a guy who went to Berkeley in the ’80s and he went back a few years ago, pre-Crow Flu. Half the students there would have flunked out of the bonehead classes he took. The school was surviving on the foreign students coming from overseas, because they pay higher fees and often are staying on campus. (Often in dorms that were nicer than his first apartment.)

    I’m just hoping that when the crash happens, I’ll be able to ride it out and find something in the wreckage.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. woof. That is rough. I ran into the playing games with impossible to obtain, yet mandatory courses. Thankfully, it merely meant I came out with one degree, not two, as always the math criteria was opposite a physics one. I’ve heard that’s an evil trick the universities are playing more and more to keep the students enrolled.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. It was rough. I’m still glad I got the degree, and I don’t owe anyone anything for it. Didn’t take out a single loan or grant.

        My “fun” experiences with mandatory classes included walking out on the first class in “cross-cultural sexuality” when the teacher-in the mid ’00s-was openly talking about how she was going to teach this class from a Marxist perspective and how Western Civilization destroyed peaceful matriarchal societies…

        (Anybody that thinks a matriarchy would be peaceful has clearly never had a Jewish mother-in-law.)

        Liked by 2 people

        1. You don’t even have to have a Jewish mother in law.

          Just running afoul of the mean girls’ table in middle school should clue you in.

          Liked by 3 people

          3. That is a corruption caused by the pressure of patriarchy and their desperate struggles to survive. The crueler they are, obviously the worse patriarchy is.

            Like

            1. …you know, when you say absolute bulls(YAY!)t like that, it’s making me respect you even less. And I didn’t respect you that much in the first place, so there isn’t a lot of margin for you to lose.

              Like

                1. I live in a territory where nominally “educated” people will throw out that idea as a mild start to how truly vile and despicable a human being I am for holding them accountable to any standards but the ones created by the octopus in their heads.

                  An absolute refusal to allow myself to be bullied is built into me somewhere.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. Coming up with that and claiming to be tongue-in-cheek are mutually exclusive positions.

                    Like

                1. 100% sarcastic.

                  Unfortunately also understand that leaving off the sarcasm tag for those who in-real-life encounter those where “is this sarcasm or they stupid serious?” who might be a bit twitchy even as they know this blog. Which both posters involved do.

                  Of coarse the reply could be continued sarcasm where the sarcasm tag was left off. This blog I lean toward additional sarcasm but I can’t tell on this reply stream now.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. The Reader read your original comment a couple of times before his mental ‘this is sarcasm’ tag went off.

                    Liked by 1 person

        2. Ahh, but you do owe your family for the degree. You said they were willing to pay.

          I don’t know if you meant it to sound that way, but it’s a hot button topic for me, so please excuse me, as I’m going to vent.

          I didn’t have family with any capital. I tried the military, but they refused me, even though the recruiter tried to get a waiver for me due to my test scores. I did get scholarships, but they weren’t enough, and didn’t cover books and fees. So I ended up having to get grants and loans.

          One thing I did do, is say if I was taking out a loan, I was a) going to get a degree with a large ROI, b) going to get a degree without much competition, c) going to finish said degree in the four years required by the scholarship, no matter how hard a load I had to take.

          Liked by 3 people

            1. Thanks. It’s frustrating to hear all the hate lately being poured on those who took out loans. Not everyone who took them out got a party. I know I sure didn’t. Tensors. TENSORS!! Oh, lord, arrays of arrays……

              Liked by 1 person

          2. My parents paid my first year of college room and board, I paid for everything else. There after I paid for everything with the help of delayed interest student loans (didn’t qualify freshman year, once next sister hit college, we qualified), working summers and working during the school year. If I ran short spring term, I could get some help from the parents via zero interest loan (forgiven as wedding present), but as little as possible. Hubby did the same for his degree. We paid off our student loans the first 10 years of our marriage. Paid out of pocket for my career change college (did get employer money for tuition/fees/books when started in on the second 4 year degree, initially, which helped, a lot, finished up on our own dime). No scholarships, no further loans. We, hubby, son, and I, got son through his college without any loans (savings and college tax free accounts drained but we got him through without touching the IRAs etc. or house *credit line, accounts). He did have some early scholarship, and occasional small grant money (“Oh. Great! Now I know you are paying for books next term.”) Neither hubby or I ran into the “these required classes are only offered this term, at the same time, restricted enrollment” but son sure did (oh howdy did he). Oh, we had classes that weren’t offered every term, but at least they were offered at least twice a year, and except one, unrestricted enrollment. For clarification. Hubby college years ’68 – ’75 (changed schools). My college years ’74 – ’79 & ’83 – ’85, ’87 – ’89 (’87 tuition VS ’74 tuition was a bit of a shock). Son’s college years ’07 – ’12 (son’s tuition was even a bigger shock).

            (*) To be fair. House credit line was suppose to be the back up safety net. That got shot down in ’09 when we got credit jacked (loan max amount set to just over the balance, we refinanced and closed it.)

            Liked by 1 person

          3. I saw enough of the upper classes when we moved from a blue collar ‘burb of Detroit (where not working for the Big 3 automakers was mildly unusual in our neighborhood) to one in another metro area. Most of the kids in school were the spawn of VPs or professionals. OTOH, this was 1960-1970, and the school system was actually good, so aside from being “poor” and the class Odd, I did OK academically. I was in one BS social studies course senior year in high school, but the indoctrination didn’t stick.

            College years were at the University of Redacted in the EE program. I had a small (lack of “financial need”, due to Dad’s moonlighting and Mom’s two part time secretarial gigs) National Merit scholarship that at least paid for the books. The big prize was a tuition waiver that I got for a high score on one of the college entry exams (ACT). State and federal politicians had a couple each, but the counties had a handful depending on population. I got mine through the county. U of R wasn’t happy, but the fees came out of my savings.

            The well-off kids “in the club” from home seemed to end up in the fraternities at U of R. I was rather allergic to such, and didn’t do much when I was admitted to the EE honor society…

            Dad had his last heart attack in November of my freshman year. Don’t recall appealing to Nat’l Merit, but the Social Security survivor’s benefit was sufficient to pay the housing expenses, and Mom gave me $50 a month. (She took a full time job, first at a professional organization, then for a consultancy that was a much easier commute and didn’t require travel. The first was a prestige job, but I expect the “you don’t fit in here” hit Mom pretty hard.) I took summer jobs, interning at Dad’s company two years, then at a big electronics outfit. It would have been a nice career, but I had California on my mind, so left the Midwest upon graduation.

            At least in EE from 1970-74, the BS courses weren’t there. When I took my MSEE courses (reimbursed by my employer after showing good grades), there wasn’t much, though the “C” language course that they said they had never showed up in the schedule. I did one quarter of Pascal and learned to hate that language with the fire of a thousand suns. C training was from a UC Berzerkly extension course and a lot of OJT work, with a fair amount of RTFM.

            You could see some of the Credentialed Class at HP. “You can tell an MIT graduate, but you can’t tell him much.” Some of the more unlikely people rose to managerial positions, forcing out more qualified people, but I think I escaped the worst of it.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I’ve mentioned that my career change resulted in multiple different jobs at multiple employers before (’83 – ’16, 6 jobs, 6 employers). VS Hubby who had one employer, one job (if moved around location to location within his area, which was a job requirement) for 35 years.

              Now little sister who worked in high tech for the same big tech company for 28 years, was always moving jobs every 18 – 24 months. Same company, same division, but she was always interviewing and changing jobs. One could compare her moving around like my job from ’90 – ’96 where technically software wise I had one continuous job (one software system) and 14 other side jobs (just never changed job titles, department, or division). Near as I can tell sister moved as jobs finished, and as new better jobs, became available. BIL, same company, did the same but less aggressively. You, RCPete, probably have a better idea on the concept with these big companies, do not stay static but make sure to make the moves (whether less aggressive like BIL, or aggressive like sis) on your terms, or the company does it for you. (This is “we don’t lay anyone off” period. Golden parachutes were the start of “oops, yes we do downsize”).

              The big differences would be how the resumes were handled post employment. My six years of juggling 1 job with 14 side jobs showed one employer, one job title, with dates employed, and list of accomplishments under that employer, no dates . Her resume shows the employer, then a list job titles with the dates employed, and the accomplishments. Her resume makes it clear when she was a programmer, a programmer lead, a manager of programmers, design, design lead, design manger, and just about any software category one could name. My resume OTOH the question often came up that “Looks like you programmed, designed, and managed projects. Which was it.” Answer: “Yes. All those.” That was the job. There was me, myself, and I. Period. Could I assign a percentage? No. For reasons programming had the higher percentage, because in the end something had to be produced, and I was the only one to get it done. Now the last job I had, the broader design aspects I had nothing to do with other than follow the direction and methods. Ditto on overall project management (OTOH there was no one doing that specifically), but did choose which item/ticket (once we actually had tickets) to work on next (unless boss needed something specific immediately). If one would ask me what part of the system I worked on, the answer would be “all of it”.

              Credentials, me: the BS Computer Science + AA programming, but no specific certificates beyond that (Woodbadge, did apply and pay to get the continuing education credits and did use in work. If only to keep my sanity because I could see what was going on and keep patience in control.)
              Credentials, sister & BIL: BS Computer Engineering, MS Business (have no idea if they got certificates beyond those).

              Like

              1. In my career, I had three (and a half) different employers. The first job was as a semiconductor process engineer (ran one diffusion process, as well as a couple of thin film deposition ones) that lasted a few months until the ’74 recession got a firm grip on the company’s buttocks. At which point, I was transferred to product engineering (wide set of responsibilities, under the umbrella of “I’m the PE for XX108Y product” (and a bunch of others). Got fed up, tried to get back to process, got stuck and hit up a headhunter.

                The next job was product/test. Interesting enough, though I went through 4(?) bosses. The bosses tended to leave the company, some intentionally, at least one slightly ahead of the bloodhounds. Boss 4.0 was a credentialed asshat, who bragged about working for The Company. Lord knows, he was stupid enough. Then the headhunter called me and asked if I wanted to talk to HP. That’s a yes. Make that hell yes. Got the job and said “have a nice life” to Boss 4.0.

                20 years later, our division was part of the split-off to Agilent technologies. I’d been a product/test engineer, with varying amounts of test software development. That makes for the half employer. Got caught up in the 2001 Dot-com bust, got a consulting gig working for a company we had dealt with at HP/Agilent, and did that for almost a year until the client went toes up. The owner was persuaded to build a new factory building, just as demand fell off the cliff. Company went bankrupt and ended up getting bought by a competitor, but I was out of the picture by then.

                Haven’t looked at my resume in ages, but I think it was a couple of pages. Never updated it for the consulting job. Haven’t had a paycheck since 2002, but we’re doing OK.

                Like

                2. When the Reader started as a test engineer at the then Medium Sized Defense Contractor, he had 9 direct supervisor changes involving 7 different supervisors (2 came around twice) in the first 21 months he was there. Made him a little skeptical about management. Fortunately the lead engineer in the section the Reader was in was a constant for most of it.

                  Liked by 1 person

          2. Honestly, all they do is prove that the Old Testament was right about women, good and bad.

            Like

          3. I went to an all girls’ school and never had much in the way of problems, but this can largely be attributed to the fact that by high school I already had a significant amount of I Don’t Care What You Think, and the fact that I’m tall enough with an RBF to actually be scary.

            I know the latter from the fact that people were unwilling to partner with me in Teen Safety (basic self-defense PE) because I “took it seriously.” And would stop my blow a fraction of an inch from people’s faces.

            Note that I also only figured this out years later. Because I Didn’t Care, and besides, there were books to read.

            Liked by 1 person

        4. My beloved took nearly 40 years to get his Accounting degree (all that time doing tax work), and he’s very proud of it. I took eight years to get my MBA, one night class at a time, no loans or scholarships for either of us. Have I used it? Mostly as an observer. But we’re both proud of the effort.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. “Why did it take so long to get the second 4 year degree? Since you already had a 4 year and 2 year degree?”

            20 classes required (took 22 for reasons), half math classes of which 5 (6 counting retaking calculus) had to be completed before any of the upper division computer science classes, at 1 class per term (including summer term) for two years (last year got two terms full time as long as classes were MWF, and last single class the last term). It takes a while taking one class a term (mine were not night classes, lunch time was flexible). Now we’d be taking the classes online. In the mid-late ’80s? What internet?

            Like

      2. Impossible to obtain but mandatory classes were why I refused to consider any UC schools, because when I was in high school in the early 90s, they were notorious for pulling those kinds of games. As it happened, the combination of scholarships I got meant it was cheaper for me to attend an out-of-state private school than a UC would have been.

        (Rule from parents: Apply to any scholarship you’re marginally qualified for. Really good advice, because that ended up covering tuition in total in a low-cost-of-living area.)

        Liked by 3 people

        2. This! I graduated from ivy-adjacent, because the local public uni tried to play games with me. In desperation, I applied to them, got in, and ended up with a massive scholarship. (Unfortunately, still didn’t cover everything, but the excess was about comparable to the public uni, which had a 10% graduation rate, while the private had a 95% graduation rate!)

          Liked by 2 people

        3. C picked UC Riverside because their upper division courses in art history included some half a dozen courses in Asian art, which she wanted to concentrate on. Then it turned out that they only actually offered one of those a year, and it was a seminar with space for only twenty students. Those huge catalogs are frauds. This was a surprise to me: I went to UC San Diego ca. 1970, and what was in the catalog was in the course schedules, back then.

          But it also became evident that art history was a major for rich girls with social connections; it wasn’t suitable for someone from a working class family of origin. But there was no warning mechanism to head people off from taking courses because they actually found the subject fascinating.

          Not that I ever worked as a mathematician. But I’m sure my degree in mathematics helped me get hired as a copy editor for scientific journals.

          Like

          1. 1970, and what was in the catalog was in the course schedules
            …………..

            Do not know when it changed, but it used to be that what was in the university school catalog was considered a contract. Not true anymore. Son ran into the not a contract problem, mid-late ’00s.

            Looking back I can see where it started to change. When I started in 1974, the term you declared your major was when that catalog “contract” started. Declare immediately. Done. But what I saw late 1980s, at least the STEM schools were working around that. You could declare your intent for that major, but the schools didn’t accept students until certain requirements were met, classes and GPA requirements. Getting those waved was a PIA. Once accepted into the STEM program, then the school catalog contract triggered.

            Another thing that has changed since the ’70s and ’80s, is how long a class is honored. Used to be once you took it, it counted (even if after 10 years, one retook because, well 10 years and not a topic retained … cough calculus 101). Now? There is a limit. If you don’t finish your degree within that limit, it is like you never took that required class. With costs the way they are, with classes limited and dang impossible to get into, students not paying attention to this get into trouble too.

            The whole system is attempted Fraud.

            Liked by 1 person

              1. Works for me. Plus restitution to students like my son, who got through without student loans (wishful thinking restitution has to stop somewhere). The institutions have to pay it out of their foundation grants (whatever that money is called). Can’t be from the backs of incoming students or tax payers.

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                1. Yep. Take it out of their endowment funds. These days even Average State U. probably has a billion-dollar endowment. The one I went to raised just under a billion 15 years ago, and it hasn’t gotten any smaller. And I can tell you that very little of it is directly paying for students’ education. (Buying fancy things, paying salaries for endowed chairs of this and that, and accruing investment value, yes; helping students actually get through school? Whyever would they bother doing that?)

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                  1. I don’t know about that – maybe women’s studies programs would be less obnoxious if we made sure they were well endowed. Perhaps some Silicon Valley philanthropist can donate some large tracts of land…

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                  2. Hm. Noticed we are getting the biannual (fall and spring) alumni fund raising calls/letters anymore (son might, but not hubby and I). Guess they got the message that we feel we’ve already paid our ransom. FYI son feels the same.

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              2. There’s a reason why if I was going to do any kind of bailout of student loans, one of the requirements would be that the school would be on the hook for future loans, not the student.

                If the school can’t be assured that it’ll get paid back-and paid back enough to cover everything-a lot of these underwater basket-weaving programs will go away because they’re too expensive…

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                1. Future student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy, AND the loan originator must hold on to the loan for several years into the repayment period. No passing the buck.

                  They’d hold schools’ feet to the fire just fine.

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                2. Eh, sticking a third party with the consequences of a contract between two other parties is contrary to our legal history, and for good reason. Is the school liable for the debt the student went into for living expenses?

                  Besides, we should cut to the essence. Schools should not be accredited if their students learn nothing over the first two years. Accrediting bodies should be forcibly dissolved if they accredit such schools.

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        4. Florida had a grant program that really helped back when I was an undergrad. Paid tuition for at least the first couple of years. And there was never any question I’d go to a state school. In fact, I went to UF because they offered the best deal on financial aid (no loans).

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          1. State college tuition tax free saving funds help a lot. (Although state of Oregon screwed up and cost us big time. “Stick it out”, “It’ll recover”, they said. Not if you are in the position of having to use the investments now the idiots.) We didn’t have this option (then) in Oregon, but sister and BIL opted to pay per credit rates as their kids grew up. Resulting in the end the credits required for their youngest, after two older siblings finished, paid for at early ’90s rate. Still must choose Washington state schools. Still doesn’t carry room and board or fees.

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            1. The fees… Fees alone at the university I got my MA degree from and worked for are now higher than tuition was at the urban commuter college I went to in 1998. And the ridiculous thing is that there isn’t a single fee proposal I’m aware of that wasn’t voted in by the students themselves.

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  15. I can’t guarantee anyone’s future including my own; but I can say that people, without exception, do not value gifts if they have never had to work to earn anything. Look at all those “spoiled rich kids”. And the “gimmedats” (over 2 years old) of all skin tones suffering from the same.

    Train your children the right way and they’ll come back to it even if led astray.

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  16. I’m definitely from a blue-collar family, but had the SAT and grades to attend Rice University in Houston, graduated 1974. It’s not a classical Ivy, but it’s about as adjacent as you can get outside of the East Coast (check the Wiki, it’s accurate enough).

    Things may be different now (they are certainly more Woke), but at that time there were a lot of “public school” undergrads on scholarship & work-study, and I never got any vibe from my elite-adjacent friends and classmates that “there is a club and you aren’t in it.”

    Obviously, that particular time and place is an outlier in the university data set, for which I am very grateful.

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    1. Yes, and my husband got a scholarship to Case-Western Reserve.
      BUT our kids made the mistake of being born male. They could get some scholarships covering maybe 10% of the cost of college.

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      1. Son got two scholarships in ’07. One private school out of state in Arizona covered 50% tuition. Not fees, or books, or room and board, or extra curriculum activity which would have been the whole reason for attending that school. No money to fly him back and forth for holidays either. The 50% tuition not covered, then, was around $30k. $10k above what the semi-local public university ran 4 years later. Plus it was a lot easier for him to come home holidays and a weekend or so (laundry time). Second scholarship, where he went (his choice, we said we’d swing the other somehow), was about 10% of the tuition, so yea. Beyond that all he qualified for was Student Parent Plus loans. A hard “hell no” at least until forced to. We managed by the skin of our teeth to avoid them. (Hubby: “Son needs loan money to pay back, so he knows the value.” Me: “Okay. Find an non Parent Plus one.” Hubby: “Well, I guess he is paying out his own money too.” Me: “Yep”.)

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          1. We still had to get son a place to live at “local” state college. While technically possible to commute from our house, it is 45 miles away. Not something recommended daily unless one has to (been there, done that, have the car wreck, don’t recommend).

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              1. We are in N. Eugene. Kid went to Oregon State (Corvallis). Hwy 99 isn’t the safest road between Eugene and Corvallis. Although to be fair, I had my accident on River Road just south of Junction City, spring ’77. (Physics of starting speed 23 MPH, spinning inertia, and sudden stop against a thick walnut tree. Neither the tree nor the car survived. Dog and I walked away shaken, because of where tree and car collided, and size of car. Car 1966 Chevy large 4-door.)

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      2. When I was in college (1970s) I remember seeing these binders in the FA office just full of information about various scholarships. I applied for and won a few. They certainly helped but the bulk of my college expenses were paid for by other means.

        I remember this one guy who went through all of those binders every year and applied for every scholarship or grant he remotely qualified for. I doubt he won even half and most were only a few hundred dollars. A few were a couple of thousand each. He once told me the largest scholarship he ever got was for being an orphan. I don’t know of he was joking or not.

        In any case, they added up to enough to pay his California resident fees (Cal State system), buy his books, let him rent a room to live in, buy food to eat, and a bus pass. He graduated summa cum something or other shortly before I did. Last I heard from him was about 1990 and he was a senior design engineer with Boeing. Had a wife and couple of kids. He did OK.

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        1. Difference of a few hundred dollars ’07 – ’12 was difference of “how do we pay for books this term”, let alone early ’70s. My entire freshman year ’74 – ’75 cost just under $2k, for everything (tuition, books, dorm room and board); a couple hundred dollars would go a long, long, way.

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          1. Flat State U went from $100/credit hour (grad school, in-state tuition) to $1200/hour between 2003 and 2009. You can’t tell me there was a change in the teaching, technology, or amenities for grad students during that time.

            College #1 back in Georgia went from $70K for all four years to $70K per year, plus expenses and books and fees, between the mid 1990s and 2019. There is NO justification for that sort of leap.

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            1. Yeah, there is — they can get people to pay it. All the justification they need.

              Colleges need their collective egos whittled down to size. Making them responsible for their failure to educate the students in practical knowledge would be a start.

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            2. @ TXRed > “There is NO justification for that sort of leap.”

              But there is a reason: free money from the government.
              And most of it went to pad the roll with more “administrators” not more teachers.

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            3. To make matters worse, few professors even teach students. Most are grad students or what is called “Adjunct” teachers. These adjunct teachers are paid very little. Sister taught a class on “using high tech in the k-12 classroom” for a year or so, gave her and some teachers continuing education credits. Pretty sure she did this through the local community college, VS the local in town University. Adjunct teachers make some sense for community college. No sense for university state or private schools. Whether the teachers are paid very little at least the university per credit costs don’t drop an iota from what the cost would be if the tenured professor actually taught the class or not.

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          2. I get that, I was just reminiscing about how it was when I was in college. A sure sign I am getting old. What the government has done to the education marketplace with guaranteed loans and other perverse incentives is a crime. A capital crime if I had the power to arrange it.

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  17. I’ve been loosely following some of the developments in AI and one of the interesting things about it has been you seem to be able to get a better model by either throwing a larger set of data at it with more processing power, or by throwing a better set of data at the same processing pile.

    ChatGPT works by throwing the entire written Internet at a 300B+ nodes (I’m seeing anywhere from 300B to 1.4T nodes) at it and $100m USD in GPU time. However, it turns out you can train a 13B node model to perform 50-80% as well, just by, instead of feeding it the entire Internet, but by feeding it more detailed and complete questions and answers. (Basically, the Orca LLM team trained the model by giving it questions and answers and the reasoning used to reach the answer.)

    Apparently if you want the LLM to be good at a specific field, the best way to do that is to train it on, wait for it, text books in that field.

    So essentially what we’re seeing in AI is both raw power and quality of education are important in the final performance of the model. In fact, what will probably become the most useful LLMs will be the smaller 13B node models that have been the most effectively trained to task.

    It’s really been fascinating how it all is playing out.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Exactly. The 13B node models are small enough you can train it yourself, and it can run on local hardware.

        I need to dig into it further, but with AMD’s Phoenix laptop APUs, and something like Framework’s configurable laptops, I think it will actually be possible to run them off of a thin and light laptop, too. (LLM, once trained are very ram hungery, but not as much compute hungry. I think with an APU laptop with a ton of ram, it may work.)

        And if that works, that also means we’re looking at open portable uncensored models, that the experienced user can tune the way they want it to be tuned.

        So yeah, AI is going to go through the decentralization cycle even faster than everything else has.

        Liked by 2 people

          1. It would probably be dodgy as heck. The 7B model needs 4GB of memory to even load. The 13B is an 8GB, and needs something like a i5-7600K to get reasonable response times.

            I think you really will need a pretty fast CPU and 32GB++ of ram to use even the 13B models effectively.

            The big thing about Phoenix is it is an 8 core 3.3-5Ghz laptop chip that can support up to 128GB of LPDDR5x-7500 for 15-30W of power usage.

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  18. Pingback: Let the backlash continue please!!! | Dio's Workshop

  19. The War on Merit dates back to the early 1980’s if not earlier. I applied for a State Bank Examiner job straight out of college in 1981 that required an exam to qualify for an interview. I got my score back and it was something like 93%. I did not get an interview. I was told if you were a woman, they added points to your score. If you were a veteran, they added even more points to your score. And if you were black, they added even more points to your score. Nothing to do with merit on banking. They clearly wanted to hire black, female veterans.

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    1. Or had been ordered to hire black female veterans. I was on a university search committee at the same time that two other positions were being filled in the department. The Chair was almost frantic by the time the last slot had a strong candidate, because HR had Strongly Suggested that hiring another male would trigger an investigation, even if he was [ethnic and religions minority]. The Chair had to prove that no female candidate had the requisite qualifications. It was the stupidest thing I’d encountered up to that point. Little did I know …

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      1. Oh boy, I have stories.
        -he math and science teacher couple where he applied for a role with a test, and she did as a lark since she was there.
        He finished first. She was offered the job. He never was contacted.
        -Some friends who managed a residential rental property that now have a judgement from the state of Iowa that there was no racism in their decision to evict a non-paying tenant. They brought statistics.
        -Slightly different, but the park service employee told to take a D primary ballot if he ever wanted a promotion.
        -The phenomenally competent CS grad student girl (works in browser security at Google, last I heard) who wanted nothing to do with the mean girls affirmative action crab bucket that was the women in CS organization.
        -the ‘minority-owned’ business that was owned by the prime contractor’s wife, so we had to direct I think it was 10% of the contract her way, since no other firm qualified. Their service techs were no-shows, and we ended up just doing that part of the work ourselves.
        -the guy who got a union work restriction ‘for his back’ so that he didn’t have to show up if he didn’t want to. Funny that those were days when his moonlight construction jobs ran long.

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    2. Oh. Sweet Heart ye of innocence. The various merit points for being female, black, native, and veteran, has been ongoing since at least the ’60s in the federal and state public timber positions. Everyone starts out equal with the degree, based on type, and experience. No test. Then they add (past tense, doubt it), for the merit points. Then veteran (should be) added the most points. Then federal one got hired on at what was called permanent temporary tech (had to take x not paid weeks off per year depending on budgeting, but minimum of 4 weeks). Could take at a minimum of a decade to get on year round permanent and you could get moved around, a lot. Huge sore point for the small town up in the canyons, at least mid-’70s, USFS/BLM were the big employers in the area. Locals were being kept out of those jobs. Now? Probably not as the big Native Casio is in a nearby town for employment. That however has a different complication in the tribe members get preference over anyone else.

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  22. While not directly related, I suspect that the reactions by much of TPTB to ‘Sound of Freedom’ are connected to the topics discussed over the last few days.

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  23. One of the many reasons they hate Donald Trump: He’s richer than most of them, but he doesn’t give a rat’s ass for their petty status games. He must be brought down!

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  24. If you got a degree even five years ago, you don’t know how bad your alma mater is now.

    Turnover, official changes, and that most of these idjits subscribe to an ideology which relies on the ability of the anointed to predict and control what other people do. They get themselves really excited about their ability to do things by wishing really hard, and then that runs into the fact that they want other people to do things, adn have pissed off those people. If one cannot convinced oneself that the goal posts were somewhere else all along, then one doubts internally the use of the whole enterprise. So intellectual theater harder.

    There may be some value still in some programs.

    Trying to make it easier for people to get useful skills training in spite of potentially crippling mental issues may not be wrong.

    However, I really do have to wonder if maybe these idiots are making it too hard to retain sanity while at a university. There’s no sense in going in for skills, if the experience also cripples you mentally to the point that you cannot use the skills.

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