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I'll risk making this a partisan issue and say the anti-intellectual and anti-science bent seems increasingly prevalent among Republicans like Mike Parson and t

I'll risk making this a partisan issue and say the anti-intellectual and anti-science bent seems increasingly prevalent among Republicans like Mike Parson and their constituencies. One of the most shocking statistics I've seen recently is the Pew poll which shows that in the space of 2 years Republican attitudes about higher education saw a 20-point swing such that that most Republican voters now believe college is net detrimental to society. To me the attacks on journalism, technology and science feel like part of a larger trend, especially given the COVID denialism we've seen. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education-2/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-gro...

leephillips 5y ago
I don’t observe that to be generally true. Each party has its favorite science facts to deny. Republicans tend to invent controversies in climate science and evolution in order to misstate the types of uncertainties that exist in those fields. Democrats, increasingly, like to deny the basic reality of embryonic development and sex in humans, that can be found in any basic biology textbook.
indig0g0 5y ago
As an immigrant from a country where we generally believe that science made the US what it is, it's unbelievable the stance the Republican party has taken with regards to science. To the extent that under Trump, there was an overt push to "take science out of the EPA". How is that even acceptable in a country like this?
anovikov 5y ago
I consider myself a liberal, and i agree with the point that college is net detrimental to society. It makes people waste their best years, teaches them mainly, useless stuff, barely breaks even in terms of lifetime earnings, and makes people bitter because they feel they are not valued by society the way they believe they should. This world needs a lot more new plumbers than new liberal arts majors. It is the society's fault that people feel compelled to go to college having little chance to make anything out of it.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Worth noting that Ivy League costing hundreds of thousands is quite different from college too. Also, the major matters heavily. In something like computer science, you may be able to get by fine without a degree, but good luck becoming a doctor or lawyer with an online education.
- drzaiusapelord 5y ago
  I can find a competent plumber trivially. Hiring white collar jobs are much harder, especially specialized tech work. I think the anti-college popularity ties directly to the incredible cost of it in the USA, not that its necessarily a bad thing.
  - otterley 5y ago
    > I can find a competent plumber trivially. You must not live in any major U.S. coastal city. Plumbers and other skilled tradespeople are in extremely high demand right now.
    - Domenic_S 5y ago
      To say nothing of _competent_ ones. It is a great deal of work to find a tradesperson that is 1) available and 2) competent. Unsurprisingly the most available ones seem to be the least competent.
    - briffle 5y ago
      If you look, most trades limit the number of new students they will accept for apprentiship programs. Even if everyone suddenly wanted to be a plumber (or electrictian, etc) they can't get into the programs that will allow them to become certified. Its not just the trades, in my state, we have had an epidemic of retirements since 2008 for teachers, nurses, and police officers. yet the programs that are required to get your licenses don't accept any more applicants per year than they did 15 years ago. The gatekeeping has to stop, or at least be increased to allow the market to actually meet demand. But the groups benefiting from that mismatch in demand have no reason to increase capacity.
cde-v 5y ago
You're just a lab rat if you take the vaccine before it has had 209,348 years of trials.
- neogodless 5y ago
  9.693 million doses have been administered over about 10 months. If we assume linear administration, that's 4,039,164 human life years of testing.
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    Not how "long term" studies work, you can't take 9 women and produce a baby in 1 month.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  > You're just a lab rat if you take the vaccine before it has had 209,348 years of trials. Or, you know, 3. Like most new vaccines. Except with this one, an exception was made because people were (are) dying by the millions, and because most of those 3 years is an observation period for rare and obscure side effects that take time to manifest. But do nevertheless happen. We did what we usually do in medicine: risk-benefit trade-off. The decision wasn't a close one, but that doesn't mean that being concerned about the risk is somehow absurd. Point being: using charitable interpretations of your opponents' arguments does not make for brief and funny sound bites.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  People here aren’t good at detecting sarcasm.
  - diag 5y ago
    It's hard to see sarcasm when people also genuinely hold the belief.
- JohnTHaller 5y ago
  I think people are missing the sarcasm here.
gremIin 5y ago
It's the southern strategy at work. It's not about what is true or what is morally right. It's about not letting *the other team* get any wins. This is why they needed to pretend COVID wasn't a big deal, because otherwise you are admitting that *the other team* was right.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  That appears to be everyone's strategy.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Trump had a win on getting covid vaccines made And another one on setting a timeline for getting out of Afghanistan His administration wasn't very good at running a government, but they still had a couple wins
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Afghanistan is more complex, but I agree about the vaccines. But interestingly he can’t capitalize on it, because his fans are so locked into the anti-vax stance. He got booed by his own fans at a rally when he said he was vaccinated!
- ModernMech 5y ago
  That’s not what the southern strategy was. It was a cynical ploy by Republicans to court racist Democratic voters in the south who were unhappy with the civil rights bill. It worked and they switched to the Republican party, which realigned the ideological tilt of American politics. Not letting the other team get any wins will be known as The McConnell Strategy in the history books, as he has practiced a policy of complete obstruction while in the senate.
  - comeonseriously 5y ago
    > Not letting the other team get any wins will be known as The McConnell Strategy in the history books... Absolutely right. He is Lucy with the football to the Democrats' Charlie Brown. And he's just so damn good at it too.
zz865 5y ago
I think college is a good thing, but right now I think its 70% of kids go to college which is a complete waste of time and money for most of them.
- HEmanZ 5y ago
  It is not 70% of kids, and this number is not hard to look up. It has been trending around 30% for enrollment into 4-year institutions. Of those, ~60% complete the degree within 6 years. I agree that most students who got to college don't make good use of the time or investment, but it is still a minority of people who even attempt college. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_302.60.asp?current=yes https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_302.60.a... https://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=40 https://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=40
  - zz865 5y ago
    I got 70% from here: https://admissionsly.com/percentage-who-go-to-college/ https://admissionsly.com/percentage-who-go-to-college/ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/14/fewer-kids-going-to-college-because-of-cost.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/14/fewer-kids-going-to-college-...
- 999900000999 5y ago
  For me going to college was about getting away from my horrible family. They still managed to screw me over and prevent me from finishing my last year of schooling, but my life was forever made better by the distance. The class stratification in society is absolutely intense, if you're coming from a bad family you just need to get away from them as soon as you can. I made the mistake of not estranging myself from my own family much sooner. If I could change one thing about the way America works I'd eliminate the requirement for parental involvement when it comes to getting financial aid. If your parents like to beat you up, you should be able to just walk out when you're 18 and get help to go to school. But that's not the system now. Aside from a small handful of exceptions which are painfully difficult to get, you're basically on your own. I think in Europe everyone just gets help to go to college so this isn't an issue there.
- 5y ago
say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
The problem is that they're using science to protect themselves while speaking out against it.
jimbob45 5y ago
This is my favorite time of the decade because it’s at the nadir of political tension in the US. We’re exactly halfway between elections and the next election is an unimportant one (relatively). The only people still talking about politics are people who are genuinely interested in politics or who have interesting insights. Nothing that anyone says politically right now matters. For proof, consider how many of your friends even remember that Afghanistan fell just two months ago - likely none if they’re like my friends. In fact, there’s a consequential NJ gubernatorial election coming up in the next month and no one’s talking about it. I love the peace and respite we’re getting from politics personally. Anyways, to respond to you, Parson is in charge of a state that regularly has multiple cities top the US murder rate charts. Anything he says that makes you forget that fact, even temporarily, is a win for him.
- res0nat0r 5y ago
  The upcoming midterms are extremely important because the out of power party is likely going to take back the House, and all signs are pointing to them not affirming any winner of the 2024 election if that person is a Democrat, which will directly lead to the utter breakdown of Democracy in the USA.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I see all politicians as blank humans who reflect their constituents. Not everybody needs to agree, especially the further they are geographically.
bko 5y ago
There's a difference between being critical of higher ed and being anti-intellectual / anti-science. A lot of the skepticism of higher ed is precisely because they have not been doing a good job teaching science and critical thinking.
- darkwizard42 5y ago
  I think "a lot of the skepticism" is a VAST over estimate. Are you telling me that the anti-vaccine, anti-CRT (created a boogeyman out of nowhere btw), and various school boards revising how we should try to more objectively teach history/science are worried about higher ed being ineffective? I mean yes there is definitely criticism on higher ed and what value students are getting for the now extremely high price tag, but to say that this is what is the issue is definitely missing the point
sillysaurusx 5y ago
Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. It comes across as you posting this to make yourself feel good, and holy moly the sense of superiority from your camp needs a chill pill. Parson is evil. I'll be doing my duty as a citizen and trying to vote him out of office. But none of this was anti-science, nor did it have anything to do with COVID, and you've brought up both.
- YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
  I'm sorry you feel that the parent comment has an air of superiority about it. Perhaps you can help some of us out by demonstrating how we can have a more productive conversation about the data and the graphs in the cited poll. Can you give an example of how you'd like the poll discussed? And I'm honestly asking here, btw, for the sake of the quality of discussion.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. You're blaming other people for something that is 100% under your control. If you don't want to accept the truth because you don't like the types of people who share it, that's just spite on your part.
- owlbynight 5y ago
  This is a bad take. This new breed of Republicans thrive on personal attacks and ignore policy entirely when voting. Of course it's anti-science. You don't think this governor has advisors that told him the reporter looked at source code that anyone can look at it and it's not hacking? He's grandstanding for his constituency. Why? Because he knows his constituency won't understand nuance and won't hold him accountable, because he's attacking science, not guns.
- NationalPark 5y ago
  Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this?
lancemurdock 5y ago
I suppose I fall in the a republican camp so i'll bite. College is too expensive for what it gives. You gain a ton in maturity, soft skill building but unless you're in a STEM major, the material does not prepare you for the real world. Depending on what my kid wants to study, I will not be encouraging college. So much journalism is so insanely biased. I respectfully disagree to anyone who thinks Biden is treated the same as Trump was. I don't deny covid's existence at all. I took it very seriously in the beginning of the pandemic. But as more data came out, I realized it wasn't a big deal for my age group. I later got covid and only lost sense smell/taste for 4 days. Didn't feel the need to miss any work (remote job). I don't like the boomer-esque decisions some of these republicans make in regards to tech security, abortion, or cannabis but I guess I have to side with that over freedom reducing laws, excessive money printing, and increased taxes
- vanviegen 5y ago
  > I respectfully disagree to anyone who thinks Biden is treated the same as Trump was. Of course they are not. How could they be, considering the large difference in behavior towards journalists and the world in general?
- charonn0 5y ago
  > I respectfully disagree to anyone who thinks Biden is treated the same as Trump was. People respect Biden more than they respect Trump. This isn't Biden's fault, nor the fault of the people.
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    Journalists are supposed to leave their "respect" for the person they are reporting on at the door. That's the problem.
    - charonn0 5y ago
      "Respect" is not an expression of personal loyalty.
- 5y ago
rndgermandude 5y ago
>I've seen recently is the Pew poll which shows that in the space of 2 years Republican attitudes about higher education saw a 20-point swing such that that most Republican voters now believe college is net detrimental to society. I am not quite sure how much of this is anti-science as opposed to anti-college. Colleges, not science or education in general, have been at the heart of the culture war, especially in the US, and have been viewed by many - not just right/Republicans, but centrists and moderates as well - recently as problematic when it comes to things like mandatory overreaching PC culture, title IX kangaroo courts and "rape classes", safe spaces (and racial segregation of dorms to provide such safe spaces, for example), coddling of students, college educational quality and how it correlates with college profits (including minor scandals of celeb parents bribing their kids into good schools), racial bias in admissions, speech codes, left-leaning faculty, etc, etc, etc... The list of areas that people receive as "problematic" is long. I am not here to judge all these accusations on merit, just wanted to point out that they exist in the wider public debate (no matter the level of truth to them), and this is what may have swung the polls a lot more than a general anti-science stance.
jablongo 5y ago
Conservatives say that about college not necessarily because they have a disdain for education and learning, but because they think colleges have become a breeding ground for a dangerous type of bourgeois identity politics. I'm not taking any sides here just pointing out that the justification for rejecting higher education may not be coming from an anti-science perspective. That said, Parsons appears to be an idiot.
fighterpilot 5y ago
The left has its fair share of growing anti-science sentiment. I agree it's quite a bit worse with Republicans but it is growing in both directions, which is a concern. People pick their science a la carte as long as it confirms what they want. - Denial of the science of sex differences - Denial of the science of intelligence differences, the relevance of intelligence in life outcomes and how heritable it is - Belief without evidence that black/white racial differences in outcome are completely due to racism and not partly due to a byproduct of cultural differences - Anti-nuclear sentiment that wildly exaggerates the risks of nuclear power - Historical revisionism (e.g 1619 project and NYT begrudgingly making stealth edits)
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Then (as it was already well known and evident) you have a deeper problem with a faulty political system, that creates monstrous overgrowths of mental patterns begging for votes instead of progressive ("look-up-to") models. Telling example: "We believe in self-determination" // "There are unclaimed votes available in those anti-abortionist tribes" // "Ok then, we take them". This should be a joke, not an event. There is a systemic issue.
- abvdasker 5y ago
  > Denial of the science of intelligence differences, the relevance of intelligence in life outcomes and how heritable it is. > Belief without evidence that black/white racial differences in outcome are completely due to modern systemic racism and not partly due to a byproduct of cultural differences I think what you're describing is that a lot of liberals and leftists are opposed to the use of science to justify what they would probably consider racist beliefs. They might point to the use of scientific racism in the past as a reason not to repeat such mistakes. They might also question the intentions of the (disproportionately white) people who tend to focus obsessively on these issues to the exclusion of many others.
- jawns 5y ago
  Most of my friends are politically and socially liberal, whereas I'm liberal on some issues, conservative on others, and have a decent number of views that are hard to categorize on a liberal/conservative spectrum. One thing I've noticed about the friends who are dyed in the wool liberals is that they seem to be more susceptible than average to pseudoscientific practices such as reiki, crystals, homeopathy, etc. And that jives, I think, with historical trends. Go back 100 years and G.K. Chesterton was chiding the liberal upper-class socialites who were taken in with this stuff. Of course, my own observations are just anecdotal, but I would be curious to know if anyone else has noticed it.
rrauenza 5y ago
I wonder how much of this trend of distrusting colleges which looks like anti intellectualism is actually based on the wide conservative perception (whether true or not, the perception is certainly there) that conservative voices and ideas are increasing squelched in universities. Or treated with contempt. It engenders a distrust of those "ivory tower" people. I wonder if this is what has polluted and spilled over into other areas so it has influenced a general anti intellectual / elitism sentiment that gets in the way of critical thinking and science.
8eye 5y ago
well, a lot of these people could not afford college, so they send a ton of their time dismantling the system that they feel has rejected them. but, like you implied, it comes from a failed governments action on making college obtainable and desirable to the average blue collar worker. i’ve lived in the bible belt before, college was actually not talked about and then later on discouraged there, when i finally got out of that headspace and decided to go to college, a lot of people who were younger than i was who were attending college kind of treated me like i was a second class citizen and not serious about my life for waiting this long to get into college, yet i spent most of my time doing jobs to service white collar persons. jobs that otherwise would have not been done if everyone decided to go to college. so, i don’t know. the stereo type has to be broken both ways, because there is a growing intolerance that is dividing america even more so than when i was a kid. i am now living in a state with the most amount of college educated people in the us, and i still run into people who are extremely disconnected from the average american to the point where they look down on them with their rhetoric, i do not think that is healthy at all and like i said, it has become a social disease of sorts. but all of this starts at the top, with leaders that you mentioned and quite frankly, a decent portion of democrats as well.
0xy 5y ago
College is a net detriment to society. The business model of colleges is 'lie to young people and then saddle them with thousands of dollars in crushing debt for questionably valuable degrees'. The growth in the cost of college hasn't improved standards, but rather it served to fatten administration departments at colleges. Additionally, quality is dropping severely. I've seen it first hand. I can't count on two hands the amount of new grads from "quality" schools with their shiny CS degrees who cannot write code. Not leetcode, just any code. They can't solve business problems at all. It's like they learned to pass tests. That's CS, which still has some value. What about useless degrees like Political Science or Gender Studies? Those are outright scams given the results. The victims are young people.
_yoqn 5y ago
How can you say this about Republicans when Democrats and their increasingly radical dogma include such blatant anti-science as: any distinction between men and women is imaginary, that vaccines are better than naturally acquired immunity, that skin color determines virtue, that speech is violence, that COVID is more dangerous to a child than forced isolation, that an unborn child is not alive, etc. etc. etc. You're damn right people are going to be skeptical of higher education when they indoctrinate in the anti scientific cult of leftism. People are starting to smell the rotting corpse of common sense and rest assured there will be a societal reboot soon enough.
- diag 5y ago
  What distinctions between men and women are being denied that you feel need to be made? Have you done any work to asses your biases along these fronts? What makes you think that the immunity after getting infected from covid is better than getting vaccinated and not getting sick at all? I know I don't personally have the time to be sick, I have a family to feed.
  - _yoqn 5y ago
    Sure, I can back up all of my claims. For one thing, the argument on the left that gender and sex are not the same and a biological man can become a biological woman is currently scientifically impossible. Men and women are fundamentally distinguished by DNA. Even with genital mutilation surgery and hormone therapy you are only changing about 0.01% of what makes and man and a woman different as every chromosome in that person's body is the same biological sex they had at birth. Setting aside any political or subjective "reality" they are trying to push on to others. Second, Pfizer scientists are on tape stating that antibodies gained through COVID infection are more robust than those gained from their vaccines. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/5/project-veritas-captures-pfizer-scientists-giving-/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/5/project-veri...
- crypot 5y ago
  You would probably be better off with an attitude reboot. You don't always have to be the victim.
bgorman 5y ago
Interesting framing. Democrats seem to have taken “Science” to be a new type of religion. “Trust the science”, has been a catch phrase for the last 18 months. Science is fundamentally about skepticism, and democratic politicians/the media have commandeered its meaning to push their agenda. Many Covid-19 policy decisions based on “science” are not actually based on sound science, and it doesn’t seem like democratic politicians have any interest in addressing this. Here are a few examples of highly questionable policies: Mask mandates when everyone is vaccinated, school closures, gym closures, exemptions for wearing a mask when eating indoors. Most worryingly, it seems like academics are scared to publish data that contradicts the mainstream progressive narrative, because they may have their career canceled.
- diag 5y ago
  You don't do do science by being skeptical of things. You do it by asking questions and by developing experiments that can test the hypothesis within ethical bounds. How do you start to make these experiments where the outcomes could lead to an increase in deaths?
totalfaggot 5y ago
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hpoe 5y ago
You are 100% right, I'm sick and tired of these damn Republicans first it was an unnecessary war then it was discriminating against blacks, not to mention the open collusion with foreign powers to get their person in the White House, now they are actually killing people with their stupid illterate anit-vacc stances, enough is enough I say. We need to do something about these dangerous people that subscribe to dangerous ideals. I think we should start tracking them. Maybe we could force them to attend re-education, it would be a pain to implement and enforce on a wide societal level but maybe we could concentrate them in some sort of camp or something. I think this would be a good solution we could finally be rid of these dangerous ideas, and the people who hold them.
- datameta 5y ago
  This is either excellent satire or a symptom of going off the deep end.
  - hpoe 5y ago
    Satire? I am offended, this is a real solution I'd dare say a final solution to the dangers of misinformation and people who think that they should be able to do what they want because of "freedumb". I think at very least we should mark people who are unvaccinated so that other people can know to stay away from them since we shouldn't make innocent people suffer because they are too evil to do the decent thing. Maybe we could make them all wear brightly colored armbands or something so everyone knows who the dangerous individuals in society are.
    - datameta 5y ago
      Bravo. For anyone not following the very serious joke about the dangers of doing what is detailed in the parent comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution?wprov=sfla1
deleted 5y ago
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jjuel 5y ago
The goal of most politicians from either party is to pit Americans against each other instead of against the corrupt system. This way the politicians and the actual ruling class (billionaires and corporations) can keep their power all while making it seem like the other team is the true enemy. Unfortunately Americans are buying it hook, line and sinker.
throwaway09223 5y ago
I'm born and raised in California and I've never voted Republican in my life. There's a really good article written about this subject by Jose Duarte: http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/i-was-denied-admission-to-a-phd-program-because-of-my-perceived-political-views-reflections-of-a-sellout-how-diversity-would-strengthen-social-science http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/i-was-denied-admission-to-a-p... I really recommend giving it a full read. The gist is that higher education is very, very clearly biased against particular groups. "Net detriment" is loaded, but "unfairly biased against us" is a not only reasonable, but demonstrably true conclusion. Negative reactions are warranted. There's a real problem here within education.
ihsw 5y ago
College institutions have to make obvious their choice to pursue justice or to pursue truth. It can't be both and the veil of ambiguity cannot continue, otherwise support for post-secondary institutions will continue in free-fall.
dang 5y ago
Please do not take HN threads into flamewar, including partisan flamewar. We got intense flamewar hell as a direct result of what you posted, and that's not what this site is for—regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sam0x17 5y ago
  You might want to update the guidelines (or your reaction to these types of situations) to be consistent, dang. > unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. This scenario clearly meets those criteria. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. The OP specifically said he wanted to have an intellectual discussion about how anti-intellectuality has recently become a prevalent issue among a particular political party, something of interest and concern to all people, regardless of country or political affiliation. I can't think of a more extenuating circumstance, especially with the disturbing historical precedents we've seen in the last century around this issue, but it's disappointing to see that you disagree. You are trampling curiosity in the name of avoiding trampling curiosity.
  - VRay 5y ago
    I don't think that's true. We can see in the comments that there was almost no useful discussion. It just immediately devolved into personal attacks with tons of upvotes.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    (Things like this are probably better suited to email. Dan’s team is quite responsive.) My feeling is that Dan’s decision here is conclusive proof that HN’s mod team is unbiased. I was genuinely concerned that this thread wouldn’t be penalized, because it was political flamewar dressed up as intellectual conversation. It was delightful to see HN’s spirit shine through in spite of political divisions. Curiosity is a fragile thing. The original comment was entirely ineffective at fostering curiosity, and it’s interesting to analyze why. I think framing has a lot to do with it. There was no attempt made at asking questions, for example. Asking questions in earnest is the hallmark of curiosity. I don’t think that broadcasting personal feelings to a wide audience was necessary to foster curiosity, either. Quite the opposite: it detracts from the discussion. It’s tricky to express feelings in a way that isn’t divisive, and it’s important for HN comments to become more substantive as the topic becomes more heated. And you’d be hard-pressed to disagree that the topic became heated, I think. It was a lot match in a gas-filled room, and the explosive subthread was an entirely predictable, deterministic outcome.
RobRivera 5y ago
I've a bold take on your offered perspectives: Journalism has been degrading its own reputation through supplanting the standard journalistic integrity with biases. Science is in the middle of a crisis of integrity where 'publish or die' and intradepartment funding incetives push academics to pursue publications of a certain flavor, not to mention the standard of 'how was this result p-hackes' many must have to read. this isnt a republican issue, this is a governor behaving with a survivalist mindset and abdicating any real leadership by forcing a hammer on a whistleblower. also, is it so difficult to see how a 20 yr old will question the value of a 200k education? Ever see that Columbia School of Journalism piece? observe the data on climbing tuiting prices? I treasure my education, but have trouble explaining the true value when younger people simply see an increasingly diminishing return on that investment.
russellbeattie 5y ago
I 100% believe that the true issue is religion. The Church, as an institution, is dying. In their death throes they are basically doing everything they can to turn back the clock on society to a time they played an important role in dictating how we live. Every societal problem we have today is a result of Christian, Muslim and Jewish religions preaching their versions of ignorance and intolerance, every single Saturday and Sunday to millions and millions of Americans across the country. Economic conservatives hate ignorance too - you need math skills to count your profits and to best gauge how to screw over your minimum wage employees, an accurate sense of history and economics in order to best manipulate markets and legal skills to avoid IRS and SEC penalties. They are just as frustrated with general stupidity as the rest of us. But religious conservatives? They're fucking insane. They really, really, really believe what the Church tells them, and the shit the Church says is truly, truly, batshit crazy and has been for millennia. I personally know of people who truly worry about the "mark of the beast" from the COVID vaccination because that's what their Church says. In 2021 this should not be possible. Until the secular American people realize who the real enemy is and go after the Church and all its leaders, in real, concrete ways, we're going to spend the rest of our lives dealing with this shit.
- codezero 5y ago
  Still cracks me up to know that the "mark of the beast" is just a rudimentary hash folks in the bronze age used to communicate semi-secret names, in, for example, love letters.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    What's funny about the fact that there was a numerical encoding system for names/words in the first century AD? It's kinda cool, actually. Also, the "mark of the beast" isn't the hash, it's a physical mark that contains "the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
    - codezero 5y ago
      The number of its name is generated similar to a hash. And it existed outside of and before the beast reference as a cultural trend. It’s seen multiple times in ancient writing. It’s funny because it’s a reference to a common way to encode/obscure the name of someone, not literally a mark on the most evil person spawned from hell, and with all we know today people still believe it’s a physical mark that will identify evil or turn one towards evil. That shit is hilarious.
missinfo 5y ago
Anti-intellectuallism is fully bipartisan at this point in time. Framing it as belonging to the other, the unenlightened side, is just tribalism and itself anti-intellectual. This trend is increasingly prevalent in both parties. If we are to solve anything, one has to first recognize the reality of the situation and stop getting lured in by us vs them.
lykahb 5y ago
Since the student loans became impossible to bankrupt, the college prices have risen disproportionally to the income. The average time it takes to pay it off is twenty years. High level of debt makes people more risk-averse to changing jobs, starting a business, or even having children. I believe that the greedy bloated system of higher education is responsible for many personal tragedies.

leephillips 5y ago

I don’t observe that to be generally true. Each party has its favorite science facts to deny. Republicans tend to invent controversies in climate science and evolution in order to misstate the types of uncertainties that exist in those fields. Democrats, increasingly, like to deny the basic reality of embryonic development and sex in humans, that can be found in any basic biology textbook.

indig0g0 5y ago

As an immigrant from a country where we generally believe that science made the US what it is, it's unbelievable the stance the Republican party has taken with regards to science. To the extent that under Trump, there was an overt push to "take science out of the EPA". How is that even acceptable in a country like this?

anovikov 5y ago

I consider myself a liberal, and i agree with the point that college is net detrimental to society. It makes people waste their best years, teaches them mainly, useless stuff, barely breaks even in terms of lifetime earnings, and makes people bitter because they feel they are not valued by society the way they believe they should. This world needs a lot more new plumbers than new liberal arts majors. It is the society's fault that people feel compelled to go to college having little chance to make anything out of it.

ehsankia 5y ago
Worth noting that Ivy League costing hundreds of thousands is quite different from college too. Also, the major matters heavily. In something like computer science, you may be able to get by fine without a degree, but good luck becoming a doctor or lawyer with an online education.
drzaiusapelord 5y ago
I can find a competent plumber trivially. Hiring white collar jobs are much harder, especially specialized tech work. I think the anti-college popularity ties directly to the incredible cost of it in the USA, not that its necessarily a bad thing.
- otterley 5y ago
  > I can find a competent plumber trivially. You must not live in any major U.S. coastal city. Plumbers and other skilled tradespeople are in extremely high demand right now.
  - Domenic_S 5y ago
    To say nothing of _competent_ ones. It is a great deal of work to find a tradesperson that is 1) available and 2) competent. Unsurprisingly the most available ones seem to be the least competent.
  - briffle 5y ago
    If you look, most trades limit the number of new students they will accept for apprentiship programs. Even if everyone suddenly wanted to be a plumber (or electrictian, etc) they can't get into the programs that will allow them to become certified. Its not just the trades, in my state, we have had an epidemic of retirements since 2008 for teachers, nurses, and police officers. yet the programs that are required to get your licenses don't accept any more applicants per year than they did 15 years ago. The gatekeeping has to stop, or at least be increased to allow the market to actually meet demand. But the groups benefiting from that mismatch in demand have no reason to increase capacity.

cde-v 5y ago

You're just a lab rat if you take the vaccine before it has had 209,348 years of trials.

neogodless 5y ago
9.693 million doses have been administered over about 10 months. If we assume linear administration, that's 4,039,164 human life years of testing.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  Not how "long term" studies work, you can't take 9 women and produce a baby in 1 month.
kspacewalk2 5y ago
> You're just a lab rat if you take the vaccine before it has had 209,348 years of trials. Or, you know, 3. Like most new vaccines. Except with this one, an exception was made because people were (are) dying by the millions, and because most of those 3 years is an observation period for rare and obscure side effects that take time to manifest. But do nevertheless happen. We did what we usually do in medicine: risk-benefit trade-off. The decision wasn't a close one, but that doesn't mean that being concerned about the risk is somehow absurd. Point being: using charitable interpretations of your opponents' arguments does not make for brief and funny sound bites.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
People here aren’t good at detecting sarcasm.
- diag 5y ago
  It's hard to see sarcasm when people also genuinely hold the belief.
JohnTHaller 5y ago
I think people are missing the sarcasm here.

gremIin 5y ago

It's the southern strategy at work. It's not about what is true or what is morally right. It's about not letting *the other team* get any wins. This is why they needed to pretend COVID wasn't a big deal, because otherwise you are admitting that *the other team* was right.

nsxwolf 5y ago
That appears to be everyone's strategy.
- 8note 5y ago
  Trump had a win on getting covid vaccines made And another one on setting a timeline for getting out of Afghanistan His administration wasn't very good at running a government, but they still had a couple wins
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Afghanistan is more complex, but I agree about the vaccines. But interestingly he can’t capitalize on it, because his fans are so locked into the anti-vax stance. He got booed by his own fans at a rally when he said he was vaccinated!
ModernMech 5y ago
That’s not what the southern strategy was. It was a cynical ploy by Republicans to court racist Democratic voters in the south who were unhappy with the civil rights bill. It worked and they switched to the Republican party, which realigned the ideological tilt of American politics. Not letting the other team get any wins will be known as The McConnell Strategy in the history books, as he has practiced a policy of complete obstruction while in the senate.
- comeonseriously 5y ago
  > Not letting the other team get any wins will be known as The McConnell Strategy in the history books... Absolutely right. He is Lucy with the football to the Democrats' Charlie Brown. And he's just so damn good at it too.

zz865 5y ago

I think college is a good thing, but right now I think its 70% of kids go to college which is a complete waste of time and money for most of them.

HEmanZ 5y ago
It is not 70% of kids, and this number is not hard to look up. It has been trending around 30% for enrollment into 4-year institutions. Of those, ~60% complete the degree within 6 years. I agree that most students who got to college don't make good use of the time or investment, but it is still a minority of people who even attempt college. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_302.60.asp?current=yes https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_302.60.a... https://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=40 https://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=40
- zz865 5y ago
  I got 70% from here: https://admissionsly.com/percentage-who-go-to-college/ https://admissionsly.com/percentage-who-go-to-college/ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/14/fewer-kids-going-to-college-because-of-cost.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/14/fewer-kids-going-to-college-...
999900000999 5y ago
For me going to college was about getting away from my horrible family. They still managed to screw me over and prevent me from finishing my last year of schooling, but my life was forever made better by the distance. The class stratification in society is absolutely intense, if you're coming from a bad family you just need to get away from them as soon as you can. I made the mistake of not estranging myself from my own family much sooner. If I could change one thing about the way America works I'd eliminate the requirement for parental involvement when it comes to getting financial aid. If your parents like to beat you up, you should be able to just walk out when you're 18 and get help to go to school. But that's not the system now. Aside from a small handful of exceptions which are painfully difficult to get, you're basically on your own. I think in Europe everyone just gets help to go to college so this isn't an issue there.
5y ago

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

The problem is that they're using science to protect themselves while speaking out against it.

jimbob45 5y ago

This is my favorite time of the decade because it’s at the nadir of political tension in the US. We’re exactly halfway between elections and the next election is an unimportant one (relatively). The only people still talking about politics are people who are genuinely interested in politics or who have interesting insights. Nothing that anyone says politically right now matters. For proof, consider how many of your friends even remember that Afghanistan fell just two months ago - likely none if they’re like my friends. In fact, there’s a consequential NJ gubernatorial election coming up in the next month and no one’s talking about it. I love the peace and respite we’re getting from politics personally. Anyways, to respond to you, Parson is in charge of a state that regularly has multiple cities top the US murder rate charts. Anything he says that makes you forget that fact, even temporarily, is a win for him.

res0nat0r 5y ago
The upcoming midterms are extremely important because the out of power party is likely going to take back the House, and all signs are pointing to them not affirming any winner of the 2024 election if that person is a Democrat, which will directly lead to the utter breakdown of Democracy in the USA.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I see all politicians as blank humans who reflect their constituents. Not everybody needs to agree, especially the further they are geographically.

bko 5y ago

There's a difference between being critical of higher ed and being anti-intellectual / anti-science. A lot of the skepticism of higher ed is precisely because they have not been doing a good job teaching science and critical thinking.

darkwizard42 5y ago
I think "a lot of the skepticism" is a VAST over estimate. Are you telling me that the anti-vaccine, anti-CRT (created a boogeyman out of nowhere btw), and various school boards revising how we should try to more objectively teach history/science are worried about higher ed being ineffective? I mean yes there is definitely criticism on higher ed and what value students are getting for the now extremely high price tag, but to say that this is what is the issue is definitely missing the point

sillysaurusx 5y ago

Please don't make this a partisan issue. I live in Missouri. I've voted for Republicans in the past. You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. It comes across as you posting this to make yourself feel good, and holy moly the sense of superiority from your camp needs a chill pill. Parson is evil. I'll be doing my duty as a citizen and trying to vote him out of office. But none of this was anti-science, nor did it have anything to do with COVID, and you've brought up both.

YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
I'm sorry you feel that the parent comment has an air of superiority about it. Perhaps you can help some of us out by demonstrating how we can have a more productive conversation about the data and the graphs in the cited poll. Can you give an example of how you'd like the poll discussed? And I'm honestly asking here, btw, for the sake of the quality of discussion.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> You're alienating people like me from being on your side. It doesn't matter that you're probably right. You're blaming other people for something that is 100% under your control. If you don't want to accept the truth because you don't like the types of people who share it, that's just spite on your part.
owlbynight 5y ago
This is a bad take. This new breed of Republicans thrive on personal attacks and ignore policy entirely when voting. Of course it's anti-science. You don't think this governor has advisors that told him the reporter looked at source code that anyone can look at it and it's not hacking? He's grandstanding for his constituency. Why? Because he knows his constituency won't understand nuance and won't hold him accountable, because he's attacking science, not guns.
NationalPark 5y ago
Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this?

lancemurdock 5y ago

I suppose I fall in the a republican camp so i'll bite. College is too expensive for what it gives. You gain a ton in maturity, soft skill building but unless you're in a STEM major, the material does not prepare you for the real world. Depending on what my kid wants to study, I will not be encouraging college. So much journalism is so insanely biased. I respectfully disagree to anyone who thinks Biden is treated the same as Trump was. I don't deny covid's existence at all. I took it very seriously in the beginning of the pandemic. But as more data came out, I realized it wasn't a big deal for my age group. I later got covid and only lost sense smell/taste for 4 days. Didn't feel the need to miss any work (remote job). I don't like the boomer-esque decisions some of these republicans make in regards to tech security, abortion, or cannabis but I guess I have to side with that over freedom reducing laws, excessive money printing, and increased taxes

vanviegen 5y ago
> I respectfully disagree to anyone who thinks Biden is treated the same as Trump was. Of course they are not. How could they be, considering the large difference in behavior towards journalists and the world in general?
charonn0 5y ago
> I respectfully disagree to anyone who thinks Biden is treated the same as Trump was. People respect Biden more than they respect Trump. This isn't Biden's fault, nor the fault of the people.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  Journalists are supposed to leave their "respect" for the person they are reporting on at the door. That's the problem.
  - charonn0 5y ago
    "Respect" is not an expression of personal loyalty.
5y ago

rndgermandude 5y ago

>I've seen recently is the Pew poll which shows that in the space of 2 years Republican attitudes about higher education saw a 20-point swing such that that most Republican voters now believe college is net detrimental to society. I am not quite sure how much of this is anti-science as opposed to anti-college. Colleges, not science or education in general, have been at the heart of the culture war, especially in the US, and have been viewed by many - not just right/Republicans, but centrists and moderates as well - recently as problematic when it comes to things like mandatory overreaching PC culture, title IX kangaroo courts and "rape classes", safe spaces (and racial segregation of dorms to provide such safe spaces, for example), coddling of students, college educational quality and how it correlates with college profits (including minor scandals of celeb parents bribing their kids into good schools), racial bias in admissions, speech codes, left-leaning faculty, etc, etc, etc... The list of areas that people receive as "problematic" is long. I am not here to judge all these accusations on merit, just wanted to point out that they exist in the wider public debate (no matter the level of truth to them), and this is what may have swung the polls a lot more than a general anti-science stance.

jablongo 5y ago

Conservatives say that about college not necessarily because they have a disdain for education and learning, but because they think colleges have become a breeding ground for a dangerous type of bourgeois identity politics. I'm not taking any sides here just pointing out that the justification for rejecting higher education may not be coming from an anti-science perspective. That said, Parsons appears to be an idiot.

fighterpilot 5y ago

The left has its fair share of growing anti-science sentiment. I agree it's quite a bit worse with Republicans but it is growing in both directions, which is a concern. People pick their science a la carte as long as it confirms what they want. - Denial of the science of sex differences - Denial of the science of intelligence differences, the relevance of intelligence in life outcomes and how heritable it is - Belief without evidence that black/white racial differences in outcome are completely due to racism and not partly due to a byproduct of cultural differences - Anti-nuclear sentiment that wildly exaggerates the risks of nuclear power - Historical revisionism (e.g 1619 project and NYT begrudgingly making stealth edits)

mdp2021 5y ago
Then (as it was already well known and evident) you have a deeper problem with a faulty political system, that creates monstrous overgrowths of mental patterns begging for votes instead of progressive ("look-up-to") models. Telling example: "We believe in self-determination" // "There are unclaimed votes available in those anti-abortionist tribes" // "Ok then, we take them". This should be a joke, not an event. There is a systemic issue.
abvdasker 5y ago
> Denial of the science of intelligence differences, the relevance of intelligence in life outcomes and how heritable it is. > Belief without evidence that black/white racial differences in outcome are completely due to modern systemic racism and not partly due to a byproduct of cultural differences I think what you're describing is that a lot of liberals and leftists are opposed to the use of science to justify what they would probably consider racist beliefs. They might point to the use of scientific racism in the past as a reason not to repeat such mistakes. They might also question the intentions of the (disproportionately white) people who tend to focus obsessively on these issues to the exclusion of many others.
jawns 5y ago
Most of my friends are politically and socially liberal, whereas I'm liberal on some issues, conservative on others, and have a decent number of views that are hard to categorize on a liberal/conservative spectrum. One thing I've noticed about the friends who are dyed in the wool liberals is that they seem to be more susceptible than average to pseudoscientific practices such as reiki, crystals, homeopathy, etc. And that jives, I think, with historical trends. Go back 100 years and G.K. Chesterton was chiding the liberal upper-class socialites who were taken in with this stuff. Of course, my own observations are just anecdotal, but I would be curious to know if anyone else has noticed it.

rrauenza 5y ago

I wonder how much of this trend of distrusting colleges which looks like anti intellectualism is actually based on the wide conservative perception (whether true or not, the perception is certainly there) that conservative voices and ideas are increasing squelched in universities. Or treated with contempt. It engenders a distrust of those "ivory tower" people. I wonder if this is what has polluted and spilled over into other areas so it has influenced a general anti intellectual / elitism sentiment that gets in the way of critical thinking and science.

8eye 5y ago

well, a lot of these people could not afford college, so they send a ton of their time dismantling the system that they feel has rejected them. but, like you implied, it comes from a failed governments action on making college obtainable and desirable to the average blue collar worker. i’ve lived in the bible belt before, college was actually not talked about and then later on discouraged there, when i finally got out of that headspace and decided to go to college, a lot of people who were younger than i was who were attending college kind of treated me like i was a second class citizen and not serious about my life for waiting this long to get into college, yet i spent most of my time doing jobs to service white collar persons. jobs that otherwise would have not been done if everyone decided to go to college. so, i don’t know. the stereo type has to be broken both ways, because there is a growing intolerance that is dividing america even more so than when i was a kid. i am now living in a state with the most amount of college educated people in the us, and i still run into people who are extremely disconnected from the average american to the point where they look down on them with their rhetoric, i do not think that is healthy at all and like i said, it has become a social disease of sorts. but all of this starts at the top, with leaders that you mentioned and quite frankly, a decent portion of democrats as well.

0xy 5y ago

College is a net detriment to society. The business model of colleges is 'lie to young people and then saddle them with thousands of dollars in crushing debt for questionably valuable degrees'. The growth in the cost of college hasn't improved standards, but rather it served to fatten administration departments at colleges. Additionally, quality is dropping severely. I've seen it first hand. I can't count on two hands the amount of new grads from "quality" schools with their shiny CS degrees who cannot write code. Not leetcode, just any code. They can't solve business problems at all. It's like they learned to pass tests. That's CS, which still has some value. What about useless degrees like Political Science or Gender Studies? Those are outright scams given the results. The victims are young people.

_yoqn 5y ago

How can you say this about Republicans when Democrats and their increasingly radical dogma include such blatant anti-science as: any distinction between men and women is imaginary, that vaccines are better than naturally acquired immunity, that skin color determines virtue, that speech is violence, that COVID is more dangerous to a child than forced isolation, that an unborn child is not alive, etc. etc. etc. You're damn right people are going to be skeptical of higher education when they indoctrinate in the anti scientific cult of leftism. People are starting to smell the rotting corpse of common sense and rest assured there will be a societal reboot soon enough.

diag 5y ago
What distinctions between men and women are being denied that you feel need to be made? Have you done any work to asses your biases along these fronts? What makes you think that the immunity after getting infected from covid is better than getting vaccinated and not getting sick at all? I know I don't personally have the time to be sick, I have a family to feed.
- _yoqn 5y ago
  Sure, I can back up all of my claims. For one thing, the argument on the left that gender and sex are not the same and a biological man can become a biological woman is currently scientifically impossible. Men and women are fundamentally distinguished by DNA. Even with genital mutilation surgery and hormone therapy you are only changing about 0.01% of what makes and man and a woman different as every chromosome in that person's body is the same biological sex they had at birth. Setting aside any political or subjective "reality" they are trying to push on to others. Second, Pfizer scientists are on tape stating that antibodies gained through COVID infection are more robust than those gained from their vaccines. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/5/project-veritas-captures-pfizer-scientists-giving-/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/5/project-veri...
crypot 5y ago
You would probably be better off with an attitude reboot. You don't always have to be the victim.

bgorman 5y ago

Interesting framing. Democrats seem to have taken “Science” to be a new type of religion. “Trust the science”, has been a catch phrase for the last 18 months. Science is fundamentally about skepticism, and democratic politicians/the media have commandeered its meaning to push their agenda. Many Covid-19 policy decisions based on “science” are not actually based on sound science, and it doesn’t seem like democratic politicians have any interest in addressing this. Here are a few examples of highly questionable policies: Mask mandates when everyone is vaccinated, school closures, gym closures, exemptions for wearing a mask when eating indoors. Most worryingly, it seems like academics are scared to publish data that contradicts the mainstream progressive narrative, because they may have their career canceled.

diag 5y ago
You don't do do science by being skeptical of things. You do it by asking questions and by developing experiments that can test the hypothesis within ethical bounds. How do you start to make these experiments where the outcomes could lead to an increase in deaths?

totalfaggot 5y ago

FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT! FAGGOT!

hpoe 5y ago

You are 100% right, I'm sick and tired of these damn Republicans first it was an unnecessary war then it was discriminating against blacks, not to mention the open collusion with foreign powers to get their person in the White House, now they are actually killing people with their stupid illterate anit-vacc stances, enough is enough I say. We need to do something about these dangerous people that subscribe to dangerous ideals. I think we should start tracking them. Maybe we could force them to attend re-education, it would be a pain to implement and enforce on a wide societal level but maybe we could concentrate them in some sort of camp or something. I think this would be a good solution we could finally be rid of these dangerous ideas, and the people who hold them.

datameta 5y ago
This is either excellent satire or a symptom of going off the deep end.
- hpoe 5y ago
  Satire? I am offended, this is a real solution I'd dare say a final solution to the dangers of misinformation and people who think that they should be able to do what they want because of "freedumb". I think at very least we should mark people who are unvaccinated so that other people can know to stay away from them since we shouldn't make innocent people suffer because they are too evil to do the decent thing. Maybe we could make them all wear brightly colored armbands or something so everyone knows who the dangerous individuals in society are.
  - datameta 5y ago
    Bravo. For anyone not following the very serious joke about the dangers of doing what is detailed in the parent comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution?wprov=sfla1

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jjuel 5y ago

The goal of most politicians from either party is to pit Americans against each other instead of against the corrupt system. This way the politicians and the actual ruling class (billionaires and corporations) can keep their power all while making it seem like the other team is the true enemy. Unfortunately Americans are buying it hook, line and sinker.

throwaway09223 5y ago

I'm born and raised in California and I've never voted Republican in my life. There's a really good article written about this subject by Jose Duarte: http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/i-was-denied-admission-to-a-phd-program-because-of-my-perceived-political-views-reflections-of-a-sellout-how-diversity-would-strengthen-social-science http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/i-was-denied-admission-to-a-p... I really recommend giving it a full read. The gist is that higher education is very, very clearly biased against particular groups. "Net detriment" is loaded, but "unfairly biased against us" is a not only reasonable, but demonstrably true conclusion. Negative reactions are warranted. There's a real problem here within education.

ihsw 5y ago

College institutions have to make obvious their choice to pursue justice or to pursue truth. It can't be both and the veil of ambiguity cannot continue, otherwise support for post-secondary institutions will continue in free-fall.

dang 5y ago

Please do not take HN threads into flamewar, including partisan flamewar. We got intense flamewar hell as a direct result of what you posted, and that's not what this site is for—regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sam0x17 5y ago
You might want to update the guidelines (or your reaction to these types of situations) to be consistent, dang. > unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. This scenario clearly meets those criteria. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. The OP specifically said he wanted to have an intellectual discussion about how anti-intellectuality has recently become a prevalent issue among a particular political party, something of interest and concern to all people, regardless of country or political affiliation. I can't think of a more extenuating circumstance, especially with the disturbing historical precedents we've seen in the last century around this issue, but it's disappointing to see that you disagree. You are trampling curiosity in the name of avoiding trampling curiosity.
- VRay 5y ago
  I don't think that's true. We can see in the comments that there was almost no useful discussion. It just immediately devolved into personal attacks with tons of upvotes.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  (Things like this are probably better suited to email. Dan’s team is quite responsive.) My feeling is that Dan’s decision here is conclusive proof that HN’s mod team is unbiased. I was genuinely concerned that this thread wouldn’t be penalized, because it was political flamewar dressed up as intellectual conversation. It was delightful to see HN’s spirit shine through in spite of political divisions. Curiosity is a fragile thing. The original comment was entirely ineffective at fostering curiosity, and it’s interesting to analyze why. I think framing has a lot to do with it. There was no attempt made at asking questions, for example. Asking questions in earnest is the hallmark of curiosity. I don’t think that broadcasting personal feelings to a wide audience was necessary to foster curiosity, either. Quite the opposite: it detracts from the discussion. It’s tricky to express feelings in a way that isn’t divisive, and it’s important for HN comments to become more substantive as the topic becomes more heated. And you’d be hard-pressed to disagree that the topic became heated, I think. It was a lot match in a gas-filled room, and the explosive subthread was an entirely predictable, deterministic outcome.

RobRivera 5y ago

I've a bold take on your offered perspectives: Journalism has been degrading its own reputation through supplanting the standard journalistic integrity with biases. Science is in the middle of a crisis of integrity where 'publish or die' and intradepartment funding incetives push academics to pursue publications of a certain flavor, not to mention the standard of 'how was this result p-hackes' many must have to read. this isnt a republican issue, this is a governor behaving with a survivalist mindset and abdicating any real leadership by forcing a hammer on a whistleblower. also, is it so difficult to see how a 20 yr old will question the value of a 200k education? Ever see that Columbia School of Journalism piece? observe the data on climbing tuiting prices? I treasure my education, but have trouble explaining the true value when younger people simply see an increasingly diminishing return on that investment.

russellbeattie 5y ago

I 100% believe that the true issue is religion. The Church, as an institution, is dying. In their death throes they are basically doing everything they can to turn back the clock on society to a time they played an important role in dictating how we live. Every societal problem we have today is a result of Christian, Muslim and Jewish religions preaching their versions of ignorance and intolerance, every single Saturday and Sunday to millions and millions of Americans across the country. Economic conservatives hate ignorance too - you need math skills to count your profits and to best gauge how to screw over your minimum wage employees, an accurate sense of history and economics in order to best manipulate markets and legal skills to avoid IRS and SEC penalties. They are just as frustrated with general stupidity as the rest of us. But religious conservatives? They're fucking insane. They really, really, really believe what the Church tells them, and the shit the Church says is truly, truly, batshit crazy and has been for millennia. I personally know of people who truly worry about the "mark of the beast" from the COVID vaccination because that's what their Church says. In 2021 this should not be possible. Until the secular American people realize who the real enemy is and go after the Church and all its leaders, in real, concrete ways, we're going to spend the rest of our lives dealing with this shit.

codezero 5y ago
Still cracks me up to know that the "mark of the beast" is just a rudimentary hash folks in the bronze age used to communicate semi-secret names, in, for example, love letters.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  What's funny about the fact that there was a numerical encoding system for names/words in the first century AD? It's kinda cool, actually. Also, the "mark of the beast" isn't the hash, it's a physical mark that contains "the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
  - codezero 5y ago
    The number of its name is generated similar to a hash. And it existed outside of and before the beast reference as a cultural trend. It’s seen multiple times in ancient writing. It’s funny because it’s a reference to a common way to encode/obscure the name of someone, not literally a mark on the most evil person spawned from hell, and with all we know today people still believe it’s a physical mark that will identify evil or turn one towards evil. That shit is hilarious.

missinfo 5y ago

Anti-intellectuallism is fully bipartisan at this point in time. Framing it as belonging to the other, the unenlightened side, is just tribalism and itself anti-intellectual. This trend is increasingly prevalent in both parties. If we are to solve anything, one has to first recognize the reality of the situation and stop getting lured in by us vs them.

lykahb 5y ago

Since the student loans became impossible to bankrupt, the college prices have risen disproportionally to the income. The average time it takes to pay it off is twenty years. High level of debt makes people more risk-averse to changing jobs, starting a business, or even having children. I believe that the greedy bloated system of higher education is responsible for many personal tragedies.