15 ms·

A bit of sensationalism going on. They still have to pass a standardize test that mostly proves they have an IQ suitable for military service. There are people

A bit of sensationalism going on. They still have to pass a standardize test that mostly proves they have an IQ suitable for military service. There are people that could be a great soldier/servicemember that didn’t make it through high school. Some will flourish under a military environment that failed out of high school. I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. The issue is complicated.

Waterluvian 3y ago
One thing it means is that they’re administering the test, not a school board. That may be relevant or ripe for abuse.
- rsanek 3y ago
  wouldn't be the first time -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000
  - MiguelX413 3y ago
    > m.
    - hbs18 3y ago
      The mobile version of wikipedia looks nicer on a desktop/laptop than the regular version.
- klipklop 3y ago
  It would seem to be in their self interest to not skew the test results. The military has done a lot of research on their testing. A soldier that is too incompetent is a danger to his/her comrades. Previous attempts to recruit soldiers with too low of an IQ was a disaster. More danger than help. I don’t really see how they would he less trustworthy than a school board. Especially considering the stakes.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Agreed. The military is incredibly scientific about their approach to testing. No test is perfect of course, but they have high levels of funding for full-time professionals to do nothing but study this in a rigorous academic way. Also worth remembering is that the military academies are ivy league, so not exactly low value institutions. Where there is a need for personnel, there is some incentive to accept people who might not be ideal, but they are going to approach that in the most sane way possible.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
healthdare 3y ago
[flagged]
halJordan 3y ago
The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. People not having that knowledge means they will not be able to participate. It's not about whether they will be smart enough to learn; it's about the fact that they will have to be taught. There's no foundation to build on, there's no axiomatic knowledge we can rely on. People who haven't graduated high school are inferior. They're not less human, but they are incontrovertibly less able. Denying that might feel good, but society didn't mandate 10 years of public education for shits and giggles.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- randomdata 3y ago
  > The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. The vast majority of states require that you be at least 17, and often 18, before you can choose to stop with said education. Everyone the military is willing to accept on other fronts has the literal years spent in school that you speak of. If there is a gap, it's only on the order of a few months, if that.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Right. My best friend in high school dropped out, and later joined the army after getting a GED. I dropped out as well but got a diploma from an alternative school for adults and joined. Everyone I know who did not complete high School got within a year or two. Paradoxically, it was the smartest people I know who dropped out. None of our reasons were academic. A combination of social and financial
- julienreszka 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - quickslowdown 3y ago
    Your nonsense is unwelcome here, please stay on topic, it sucks scrolling through threads and hearing interesting debate about a topic, only to have someone interject with bait/non sequiturs.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bsder 3y ago
I suspect the real issue is that a high school diploma doesn't represent a signal anymore at the low end. Many failing students simply got passed through grade to grade. If a high school diploma has no value as a signal, requiring it throws out eligible people for no reason whatsoever.
- AmVess 3y ago
  ^ This. Schools are doing a piss-poor job of educating people. Only 20% of schools can muster a 70% proficiency score, with the vast majority being much worse. What this indicates is a startlingly large number of students are receiving an education that holds no value whatsoever. Further, as already mentioned by someone else, the military will still use its own test as a means to determine where to place a recruit.
  - echelon 3y ago
    Isn't this the parents' faults? Educators can only mold so much with what they're given. This seemed apparent to me when I was in school. I can't imagine it's changed much.
    - mjevans 3y ago
      In that case, it is society's fault. Either society isn't giving a prospective good parent the resources to achieve success. Any or many reasons exist; rent is too high, jobs got replaced by AI craze, only qualified for jobs that aren't valued at a living wage. If the parents do have the resources but still fail, society is at fault as the kids haven't been rehomed to other environments.
      - echelon 3y ago
        You have good intentions, but I disagree with just about every word you said. > it is society's fault We can't step in and fix everything. Systems don't scale like that. There has to be individual responsibility. > Either society isn't giving a prospective good parent the resources to achieve success Some parents simply do not care. > haven't been rehomed to other environments There are already enough kids without parents. You'd be making the problem worse. > jobs got replaced by AI craze Hasn't even come close to happening yet.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. I took it the opposite way. High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. The top side may be extremely competitive, but the bar for passing high school is meant to be low. Someone who can't pass that and doesn't have developmental issues likely have environmental issues to address. So having someone be exploited by the government to fight instead of improve that environment feels scummy.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. That's a bold claim. Can you back it up? On the flip side, an actual path to citizenship is military service. https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-military-service https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-milita...
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >That's a bold claim. Can you back it up? It's more of a spiritual gesture than some hard law. They aren't called "standardized tests" because they test for the exceptional. I'm sure we can put the relevant education board in a room and have them argue over what should/shouldn't be on such tests, but the current result is a compromise after years of deliberation, being tweaked a little each year. I'll be a bit more specific and say "high school testing is designed to provide a floor of knowledge a government feels its citizens should achieve" if that helps.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
  > High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. I agree with your general point, but I don't know about high school per se. I quit school at age 14, got my GED, and this was one of the best decisions I had ever made. I feel like there should be more options for people to leave the system early, once they've attained that bare floor of knowledge. (Which, for a sufficiently motivated child, could in all seriousness be at age 11 or 12. The GED test was laughably easy, and it still amazes me that people sit through four years of school for that.) FWIW, the military frowned upon GEDs, often requiring a waiver, but allowed GED holders to enlist.
emayljames 3y ago
Yes exactly. For all the flaws and bad practices of the military and its recruitment, hitting down on people with bad circumstances is not flexing on those flaws and bad practices of the military. People's worth shouldn't depend on a high school diploma.
rollcat 3y ago
100x this. One of the smartest, most compassionate, successful, and resourceful people I've ever met, is a high school dropout. Even the story of that dropout alone is amazing (he managed to secure a huge grant for the said school, and decided there are more important/interesting things to do next).
nindalf 3y ago
That standardised test administered by the US military has some history. The idea was that folks who were below an 85IQ would be harder to train. During the Vietnam war they tried abandoning the requirement and the results were sad. It cost the military a lot more in remedial training, but the real tragedy is that these folks died at 3 times the rate of people who would have passed the test. They weren’t cut out to be sent to a war zone. So intelligence is important for military service but a person’s completion of high school isn’t an indication of low intelligence. They may have dropped out for any other reason. It’s entirely possible that they may flourish in the structured environment the military offers. It’s fair to ask if the IQ test is a good measure of intelligence, or if it’s measuring something else. But in this context, it’s measuring something that is strongly correlated to success as a solider.
- logicchains 3y ago
  It would be really fascinating to see a graph of IQ vs chance of being killed in a war (normalised for people in the same role); would it continuously be increasing, or would there be diminishing or even negative returns to IQ beyond a certain point?
  - John23832 3y ago
    There have been studies done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000
- dmurray 3y ago
  85 IQ really isn't that low. It's one standard deviation below average, so about 16% of people are below that. In your average high school class of 30 people, the 4 stupidest would be rejected by the military on these grounds (assume the bottom 1/31 have such severe developmental difficulties they can't even attend a normal high school). Doesn't that seem like quite a high bar?
  - closewith 3y ago
    No, it probably should be higher given how complex even bog standard infantry roles have become.
spoonjim 3y ago
Even with a decent IQ, failure to finish high school usually indicates very low commitment / time preference / overall “with it” ness. It’s not a good thing that this is the future of our military but not at all surprised that the military is having recruiting problems.
- bluenomatterwho 3y ago
  As I mentioned above, most of my teachers supported me dropping out and told me of the successful types they knew like me. However I would like to stress that this kind of path isn't for everyone and having a low-enough common denominator and standardization does have utility. For most people, not finishing high school could very well mean a lack of commitment. Especially if they need external motivators as most do. However in my adult life as an autodidact and "life long learner" I don't see a lot of self-direction or commitment coming from the general population of graduates.
FwarkALark 3y ago
[flagged]
PeterStuer 3y ago
Back in the day my country still had obligatory military service for the oldest male child of the family. Everyone had to do this. IQ tests were used to sort people coming in. The military does not only need highly functioning autonomous operators. There were many more menial positions in cleaning, catering, hauling and warm body canon fodder than there were scouts or special forces. I guess these days many of those auxiliary functions are farmed out in very lucrative deals to select private companies.
- TylerE 3y ago
  > warm body canon fodder Man, your Army Band really takes their Bach to the extreme.
  - dudeinjapan 3y ago
    It was a reference to the Star Wars canon, not Bach. Sadly his army failed to defend it from the Mouseketeers.
- dudeinjapan 3y ago
  Read abt McNamara’s Morons, referenced elsewhere in the thread. Below a certain threshold of low IQ, humans are fundamentally unfit to handle dangerous weapons, and lack basic awareness and understanding to perform even menial roles.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  > Back in the day my country still had obligatory military service for the oldest male child of the family. Everyone had to do this. IQ tests were used to sort people coming in. With due respect for your country, which country you're talking about is highly relevant. There are <5 countries with militaries comparable in efficiency to the US military and only Israel is really soldier-per-soldier competitive. That's not a criticism of your country--your country likely spends its efforts on better things--but if we're talking about what's effective for a military, US military practices really are a reasonable gold standard. That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that Israel does do compulsory military service, which is because they have different problems than we do). > The military does not only need highly functioning autonomous operators. There were many more menial positions in cleaning, catering, hauling and warm body canon fodder than there were scouts or special forces. Thinking that "warm body cannon fodder" is something the military needs demonstrates a bit of a misconception on how modern militaries work. Cleaning, catering, hauling, etc. need to be handled by high-functioning people as well, because in a warzone, attacks on things like cleanliness to reduce morale, or attacks on food and other supplies, are effective attacks. All this is to say, that if the US military doesn't want low-IQ folks, there are good reasons for that.
mdhb 3y ago
Not only are you correct here but the personality type you are describing is actually a quite common one in that environment. People who did terribly in the context of a class rooom but thrive in the military in very complicated roles. This recent interview with the commander of Delta Force comes to mind for me but what you’re describing is not rare. It cuts both ways like any organisation, there’s plenty of people who don’t thrive there as well but I’m not upset about this change at all, I think it’s sensible overall. https://www.youtube.com/live/d_mI3XxiNec https://www.youtube.com/live/d_mI3XxiNec You can listen to that person for just 5 minutes and see exactly what I’m referring to
AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]
diceduckmonk 3y ago
I was constantly failing classes in high school, but I ended up as an engineer at FANG company without breaking a sweat. My cofounder didn’t finish high school and worked as an HFT trader. People here who are judging people based on their high school accomplishments must be coming from a sheltered middle class background.
- mlrtime 3y ago
  >People here who are judging Shouldn't be surprising, in any group there will be a normal distribution. A person that didn't finish high school and succeeding isn't shocking, but falls way to the right of the distribution. Of course they exist, but until you find one yourself one would think the same.
- kamaal 3y ago
  This works only because a fairly no-license environment we have in software development and stock market investments. It won't work in places like Medicine or Army, where human lives are at stake. There is a progression your have to work through to get to serious places, else bad things can happen to both you and many people around you.
mihaaly 3y ago
'Some', 'could', 'mostly', not too strong arguments for the abolishment of generic rules applied on all. 'Some' 'could' see that the ability of jumping the requirements of education is 'mostly' coincides with a certain level of mental abilities. 'Some' smart people do not participate in organized education and 'some' graduates regardless of modest abilities, but those are never arguments for the generic population and generic rules. Probably those passing a good(!) admission test 'could' understand that still...
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  > Some', 'could', 'mostly', not too strong arguments for the abolishment of generic rules applied on all. "Some", "could", and "mostly" are words that people use when they're concerned with saying what's true, not when they have a weak argument. The facts are rarely absolutes and if you don't use qualifying words like that, what you're saying is rarely strictly true.
  - dan-0 3y ago
    This has been a litmus test for me over the years honestly. I tend to trust people much less if they speak in absolutes on complex topics. Yes, it can make your argument more strong, but you're lying if it doesn't cover 100% of the cases for the subject. For the lay person, this might be fine, they don't know, but for anyone who knows the subject matter in depth, chances are you sound like an idiot. I'd argue this mentality plays a good part in making some social media so toxic. People generally aren't going to read detailed explanations on a topic, so people who would write them have less incentive, meanwhile some pop star's 10 word tweet over simplifying some complex global crisis, like you can just make it go away overnight, will get a million likes.
  - mihaaly 3y ago
    Sounds like you confuse the word true with wishful thinking.
pimpampum 3y ago
The title says exactly what it is (unless it was posted with a different title before).

Waterluvian 3y ago

One thing it means is that they’re administering the test, not a school board. That may be relevant or ripe for abuse.

rsanek 3y ago
wouldn't be the first time -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000
- MiguelX413 3y ago
  > m.
  - hbs18 3y ago
    The mobile version of wikipedia looks nicer on a desktop/laptop than the regular version.
klipklop 3y ago
It would seem to be in their self interest to not skew the test results. The military has done a lot of research on their testing. A soldier that is too incompetent is a danger to his/her comrades. Previous attempts to recruit soldiers with too low of an IQ was a disaster. More danger than help. I don’t really see how they would he less trustworthy than a school board. Especially considering the stakes.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Agreed. The military is incredibly scientific about their approach to testing. No test is perfect of course, but they have high levels of funding for full-time professionals to do nothing but study this in a rigorous academic way. Also worth remembering is that the military academies are ivy league, so not exactly low value institutions. Where there is a need for personnel, there is some incentive to accept people who might not be ideal, but they are going to approach that in the most sane way possible.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

healthdare 3y ago

[flagged]

halJordan 3y ago

The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. People not having that knowledge means they will not be able to participate. It's not about whether they will be smart enough to learn; it's about the fact that they will have to be taught. There's no foundation to build on, there's no axiomatic knowledge we can rely on. People who haven't graduated high school are inferior. They're not less human, but they are incontrovertibly less able. Denying that might feel good, but society didn't mandate 10 years of public education for shits and giggles.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
randomdata 3y ago
> The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. The vast majority of states require that you be at least 17, and often 18, before you can choose to stop with said education. Everyone the military is willing to accept on other fronts has the literal years spent in school that you speak of. If there is a gap, it's only on the order of a few months, if that.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Right. My best friend in high school dropped out, and later joined the army after getting a GED. I dropped out as well but got a diploma from an alternative school for adults and joined. Everyone I know who did not complete high School got within a year or two. Paradoxically, it was the smartest people I know who dropped out. None of our reasons were academic. A combination of social and financial
julienreszka 3y ago
[flagged]
- quickslowdown 3y ago
  Your nonsense is unwelcome here, please stay on topic, it sucks scrolling through threads and hearing interesting debate about a topic, only to have someone interject with bait/non sequiturs.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bsder 3y ago

I suspect the real issue is that a high school diploma doesn't represent a signal anymore at the low end. Many failing students simply got passed through grade to grade. If a high school diploma has no value as a signal, requiring it throws out eligible people for no reason whatsoever.

AmVess 3y ago
^ This. Schools are doing a piss-poor job of educating people. Only 20% of schools can muster a 70% proficiency score, with the vast majority being much worse. What this indicates is a startlingly large number of students are receiving an education that holds no value whatsoever. Further, as already mentioned by someone else, the military will still use its own test as a means to determine where to place a recruit.
- echelon 3y ago
  Isn't this the parents' faults? Educators can only mold so much with what they're given. This seemed apparent to me when I was in school. I can't imagine it's changed much.
  - mjevans 3y ago
    In that case, it is society's fault. Either society isn't giving a prospective good parent the resources to achieve success. Any or many reasons exist; rent is too high, jobs got replaced by AI craze, only qualified for jobs that aren't valued at a living wage. If the parents do have the resources but still fail, society is at fault as the kids haven't been rehomed to other environments.
    - echelon 3y ago
      You have good intentions, but I disagree with just about every word you said. > it is society's fault We can't step in and fix everything. Systems don't scale like that. There has to be individual responsibility. > Either society isn't giving a prospective good parent the resources to achieve success Some parents simply do not care. > haven't been rehomed to other environments There are already enough kids without parents. You'd be making the problem worse. > jobs got replaced by AI craze Hasn't even come close to happening yet.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. I took it the opposite way. High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. The top side may be extremely competitive, but the bar for passing high school is meant to be low. Someone who can't pass that and doesn't have developmental issues likely have environmental issues to address. So having someone be exploited by the government to fight instead of improve that environment feels scummy.

drewcoo 3y ago
> High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. That's a bold claim. Can you back it up? On the flip side, an actual path to citizenship is military service. https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-military-service https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-milita...
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >That's a bold claim. Can you back it up? It's more of a spiritual gesture than some hard law. They aren't called "standardized tests" because they test for the exceptional. I'm sure we can put the relevant education board in a room and have them argue over what should/shouldn't be on such tests, but the current result is a compromise after years of deliberation, being tweaked a little each year. I'll be a bit more specific and say "high school testing is designed to provide a floor of knowledge a government feels its citizens should achieve" if that helps.
A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
> High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. I agree with your general point, but I don't know about high school per se. I quit school at age 14, got my GED, and this was one of the best decisions I had ever made. I feel like there should be more options for people to leave the system early, once they've attained that bare floor of knowledge. (Which, for a sufficiently motivated child, could in all seriousness be at age 11 or 12. The GED test was laughably easy, and it still amazes me that people sit through four years of school for that.) FWIW, the military frowned upon GEDs, often requiring a waiver, but allowed GED holders to enlist.

emayljames 3y ago

Yes exactly. For all the flaws and bad practices of the military and its recruitment, hitting down on people with bad circumstances is not flexing on those flaws and bad practices of the military. People's worth shouldn't depend on a high school diploma.

rollcat 3y ago

100x this. One of the smartest, most compassionate, successful, and resourceful people I've ever met, is a high school dropout. Even the story of that dropout alone is amazing (he managed to secure a huge grant for the said school, and decided there are more important/interesting things to do next).

nindalf 3y ago

That standardised test administered by the US military has some history. The idea was that folks who were below an 85IQ would be harder to train. During the Vietnam war they tried abandoning the requirement and the results were sad. It cost the military a lot more in remedial training, but the real tragedy is that these folks died at 3 times the rate of people who would have passed the test. They weren’t cut out to be sent to a war zone. So intelligence is important for military service but a person’s completion of high school isn’t an indication of low intelligence. They may have dropped out for any other reason. It’s entirely possible that they may flourish in the structured environment the military offers. It’s fair to ask if the IQ test is a good measure of intelligence, or if it’s measuring something else. But in this context, it’s measuring something that is strongly correlated to success as a solider.

logicchains 3y ago
It would be really fascinating to see a graph of IQ vs chance of being killed in a war (normalised for people in the same role); would it continuously be increasing, or would there be diminishing or even negative returns to IQ beyond a certain point?
- John23832 3y ago
  There have been studies done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000
dmurray 3y ago
85 IQ really isn't that low. It's one standard deviation below average, so about 16% of people are below that. In your average high school class of 30 people, the 4 stupidest would be rejected by the military on these grounds (assume the bottom 1/31 have such severe developmental difficulties they can't even attend a normal high school). Doesn't that seem like quite a high bar?
- closewith 3y ago
  No, it probably should be higher given how complex even bog standard infantry roles have become.

spoonjim 3y ago

Even with a decent IQ, failure to finish high school usually indicates very low commitment / time preference / overall “with it” ness. It’s not a good thing that this is the future of our military but not at all surprised that the military is having recruiting problems.

bluenomatterwho 3y ago
As I mentioned above, most of my teachers supported me dropping out and told me of the successful types they knew like me. However I would like to stress that this kind of path isn't for everyone and having a low-enough common denominator and standardization does have utility. For most people, not finishing high school could very well mean a lack of commitment. Especially if they need external motivators as most do. However in my adult life as an autodidact and "life long learner" I don't see a lot of self-direction or commitment coming from the general population of graduates.

FwarkALark 3y ago

[flagged]

PeterStuer 3y ago

Back in the day my country still had obligatory military service for the oldest male child of the family. Everyone had to do this. IQ tests were used to sort people coming in. The military does not only need highly functioning autonomous operators. There were many more menial positions in cleaning, catering, hauling and warm body canon fodder than there were scouts or special forces. I guess these days many of those auxiliary functions are farmed out in very lucrative deals to select private companies.

TylerE 3y ago
> warm body canon fodder Man, your Army Band really takes their Bach to the extreme.
- dudeinjapan 3y ago
  It was a reference to the Star Wars canon, not Bach. Sadly his army failed to defend it from the Mouseketeers.
dudeinjapan 3y ago
Read abt McNamara’s Morons, referenced elsewhere in the thread. Below a certain threshold of low IQ, humans are fundamentally unfit to handle dangerous weapons, and lack basic awareness and understanding to perform even menial roles.
kerkeslager 3y ago
> Back in the day my country still had obligatory military service for the oldest male child of the family. Everyone had to do this. IQ tests were used to sort people coming in. With due respect for your country, which country you're talking about is highly relevant. There are <5 countries with militaries comparable in efficiency to the US military and only Israel is really soldier-per-soldier competitive. That's not a criticism of your country--your country likely spends its efforts on better things--but if we're talking about what's effective for a military, US military practices really are a reasonable gold standard. That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that Israel does do compulsory military service, which is because they have different problems than we do). > The military does not only need highly functioning autonomous operators. There were many more menial positions in cleaning, catering, hauling and warm body canon fodder than there were scouts or special forces. Thinking that "warm body cannon fodder" is something the military needs demonstrates a bit of a misconception on how modern militaries work. Cleaning, catering, hauling, etc. need to be handled by high-functioning people as well, because in a warzone, attacks on things like cleanliness to reduce morale, or attacks on food and other supplies, are effective attacks. All this is to say, that if the US military doesn't want low-IQ folks, there are good reasons for that.

mdhb 3y ago

Not only are you correct here but the personality type you are describing is actually a quite common one in that environment. People who did terribly in the context of a class rooom but thrive in the military in very complicated roles. This recent interview with the commander of Delta Force comes to mind for me but what you’re describing is not rare. It cuts both ways like any organisation, there’s plenty of people who don’t thrive there as well but I’m not upset about this change at all, I think it’s sensible overall. https://www.youtube.com/live/d_mI3XxiNec https://www.youtube.com/live/d_mI3XxiNec You can listen to that person for just 5 minutes and see exactly what I’m referring to

AniseAbyss 3y ago

[dead]

diceduckmonk 3y ago

I was constantly failing classes in high school, but I ended up as an engineer at FANG company without breaking a sweat. My cofounder didn’t finish high school and worked as an HFT trader. People here who are judging people based on their high school accomplishments must be coming from a sheltered middle class background.

mlrtime 3y ago
>People here who are judging Shouldn't be surprising, in any group there will be a normal distribution. A person that didn't finish high school and succeeding isn't shocking, but falls way to the right of the distribution. Of course they exist, but until you find one yourself one would think the same.
kamaal 3y ago
This works only because a fairly no-license environment we have in software development and stock market investments. It won't work in places like Medicine or Army, where human lives are at stake. There is a progression your have to work through to get to serious places, else bad things can happen to both you and many people around you.

mihaaly 3y ago

'Some', 'could', 'mostly', not too strong arguments for the abolishment of generic rules applied on all. 'Some' 'could' see that the ability of jumping the requirements of education is 'mostly' coincides with a certain level of mental abilities. 'Some' smart people do not participate in organized education and 'some' graduates regardless of modest abilities, but those are never arguments for the generic population and generic rules. Probably those passing a good(!) admission test 'could' understand that still...

kerkeslager 3y ago
> Some', 'could', 'mostly', not too strong arguments for the abolishment of generic rules applied on all. "Some", "could", and "mostly" are words that people use when they're concerned with saying what's true, not when they have a weak argument. The facts are rarely absolutes and if you don't use qualifying words like that, what you're saying is rarely strictly true.
- dan-0 3y ago
  This has been a litmus test for me over the years honestly. I tend to trust people much less if they speak in absolutes on complex topics. Yes, it can make your argument more strong, but you're lying if it doesn't cover 100% of the cases for the subject. For the lay person, this might be fine, they don't know, but for anyone who knows the subject matter in depth, chances are you sound like an idiot. I'd argue this mentality plays a good part in making some social media so toxic. People generally aren't going to read detailed explanations on a topic, so people who would write them have less incentive, meanwhile some pop star's 10 word tweet over simplifying some complex global crisis, like you can just make it go away overnight, will get a million likes.
- mihaaly 3y ago
  Sounds like you confuse the word true with wishful thinking.

pimpampum 3y ago

The title says exactly what it is (unless it was posted with a different title before).