Opposites may have been the wrong word here. But STEM expresses a concept which arts are very much not part of. > I think the question is more about the merits

Opposites may have been the wrong word here. But STEM expresses a concept which arts are very much not part of. > I think the question is more about the merits of STEAM as “the goal” versus “STEM”. Neither of these is a goal, they're words. Words enter the lexicon because they're useful. There was never hacker news post saying: "hey guys, we should have a word that encompasses all the in demand technical subjects" someone used it and others picked it up because it expressed something they wanted to express. STEAM is a perfectly well formed concept, and if people had any interest in expressing it then it would probably already be a word. Now, maybe people do have a need for this concept (I very much doubt it, but maybe) in which case I would expect to see it take off in usage. But trying to forward a goal by telling people they should change their use of language in some way is an inherently destructive process. For example, imagine a child asks you which subjects in school they should focus on, easy you say: "STEAMHLHGFS..." we've included everything in this acronym, and now there's no way for you to actually express anything to this child that provides the least bit of focus.