Pundit recently posted at:
http://weblog.xanga.com/RPGpundit/684300754/item.html
Quotethe idea that "Christian girls should not go to college".
Apparently the idea is that spending 4 years away from the family, even in a christian college like Liberty University or something along those lines, weakens the "family structure" because the girls would not be under the protection and control of their father. Having even a brief 4-year period in a womans' life when she is not under the direct control and supervision of her father, and not yet given to the direct control and supervision of a husband, is just too dangerous because it creates a risk that exposure to "ungodly" elements of outside society would lead her to reject Christian values. That, and its not part of God's plan for women: they are supposed to be homemakers and child-rearers, and THAT'S their job. Higher education is not called for in these people's eyes.
You think this has to be bullshit? That I'm making all this up? Well, here you go. Click that only if you really want to go into serious batshit Christian territory.
The link led to:
http://visionarydaughters.com/return-of-the-daughters
This is interesting to me, because I have known a lot of women who went to college and accomplished nothing beyond losing their respective virginities.
In theory, college is supposed to be about education, but in practice, college graduates are all too often incompetent in their chosen fields. However, employers usually demand college credentials, regardless of whether the holder has a functioning brain.
I suspect the fundies who don't want their daughters going to college believe the following:
1) My daughter will lose her virginity at college if she goes to college.
2) My daughter has very little, aside from virginity, to offer any husband.
3) My daughter is not interested in learning.
4) My daughter has few realistic career prospects beyond "homemaker."
I suspect that, given beliefs (1)-(4), keeping the daughter back from college is a logically supported course of action. I will leave the proof as an exercise for the reader.
I have never raised a child of any kind, much less a Christian one, and so I have little notion about how fathers feel on these subjects. I do know that the fathers around me are of entirely non-Christian beliefs, and yet appear to be adamantly opposed to allowing their daughters to have premarital sex. (I live in Taiwan, where a very informal blend of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism dominates.)
I suppose the orthodox humanist pablum runs as follows: "All persons deserve the opportunity to expand their minds, and college is a mind-expanding experience for anyone who goes to classes and puts forth the slightest effort."
To which I respond, "College is a joke and most college kids learn nothing, not even how to use a condom reliably. College is a socially acceptable way for young adults to lose their virginities within their peer group. College is a genital-expanding experience if one puts forth the slightest effort, but college kids usually must expend great effort and have good luck to expand their minds in the slightest."
I take Pundit's claim to be, "If women go to college, they will learn something and become more capable." (If I'm misreading him, I apologize.) I see little apparent evidence for that claim by casual observation of college students.
Edit:
A further quote from Pundit:
Quotein the last month or two I've noticed that a new majority is emerging that is beginning to see Palin as "The Miracle". That is to say, she (and presumably certain other women) can be a very special case because they are DIRECTLY CHOSEN BY GOD to take actions that go beyond the traditional roles of women in their Christian ideas. Palin is like a modern-day Joan of Arc, chosen by God to lead the christian forces against the powers of the Antichrist in the End Times. The important thing is that Sarah Palin can run for president in 2012, but that in NO WAY means that Little Susie should ever be allowed to go to college, because Sarah Palin is a special Miraculous exception and proof of the power of God.
I don't think Christians believe Palin is a miracle. I think they see her as more intelligent than the average woman -- probably due to her Jewish ancestors. So Palin can be VP because she's *smart*, whereas Little Suzie is more than one standard deviation below average IQ. College is not worth it for unintelligent students.
If only the feminine elements of early xtianity hadn't been edited out and these extremists had more respect for women. Where's my time machine?
As for American college education..is it really that crap? Would you deny a woman even a crap education on some daft religious basis or because some are crap college students ?
Don't you think that the daughters of religious extremists deserve the opportunity to be exposed to even a second rate college education?
The preoccupation of xtian extremists with their daughters' virginities seems a bit creepy, verging on incestuous to my mind. If going to college allows women to get away from this stifling patriarchal attitude then it is a good thing.
It would be nice to see a rise in religions that weren't just masks for the gynophobic authoritarianism of certain patriarchal men.
The title of tyhis thread?
Yes , it happens....quite often. Its practically a norm or average now.
However, one of the players in my group - she went to college and waited til she was married.
College is also the place where many young women discover that they prefer women as romantic partners or even that they might be bi-sexual - that could also be frighening to some small-minded groups in this country.
- Ed C.
American colleges aren't that great, but you can easily get a good education out of even the worst of them. the problem is that most young people don't come to school with getting an education in mind. In large part, people from the US in the 18-22 range lack the maturity (and the study skills) necessary to secure a good education, and most colleges, especially large state colleges, take too many students every year to provide proper coaching to the ones who don't have the right attitude (or skills) to do what is necessary.
A lot of this comes down to the way high school works. More of it comes down to wanting to live Animal House or some variant of the same for themselves- and, hey, who can blame them, that shit looks fun. Really, most American kids at that age have no fucking idea what is actually at stake.
Furthermore, if you have parents who are willing to pay, or you have access to some other sort of funding, all you have to do is hang in there for a couple of extra years and, even if you are the most mediocre of students, you can get a degree in something.
Many people sneer at kids who are going after English or History or some other sort of similar degree- the question, "What are you going to do with that" has got to be as cliched as "What's your major?" The fact is, though, the bank, or the insurance company, or the phone company, or whatever company largely doesn't care what degrees their respective horde of cube monkeys hold. If you just want to be a cog in the wheel, the most important things to emerge from college with are computer literacy, the ability to use Power Point/ Word, an awareness of how to kiss a little ass and follow directions- no matter how goofy, a desire to have enough money to buy a bunch of shit, and diminished expectations.
The thing is, and I speak from my own experience here, most parents are not only happy to see their children become cogs- it's what they want for them. Cogs are safe. Cogs can live in the same town as you- so you have access to the grand kids. Cogs don't have crazy uncomfortable ideas- or if they do, they've been conditioned at work to keep them to themselves. The last thing you want in the family is a fucking overachiever, they make everyone else feel inadequate. Not to mention the fact that many (not most, by any stretch) overachievers (and I spend all my time with undergraduate losers and post graduate over achievers) ARE really elitist assholes who only appreciate what they've accomplished when they compare it to what every one else has not.
Quote from: Aos;271854The thing is, and I speak from my own experience here, most parents are not only happy to see their children become cogs- it's what they want for them. Cogs are safe. Cogs can live in the same town as you- so you have access to the grand kids. Cogs don't have crazy uncomfortable ideas- or if they do, they've been conditioned at work to keep them to themselves. The last thing you want in the family is a fucking overachiever, they make everyone else feel inadequate.
There's also the working class version of this, where kids aren't expected to go beyond community college because anything more than a well-paying blue collar job is considered both unneccessary and snobbish. Seriously, it is amazing how many people out there want nothing more for their kids, or expect nothing better, than some crappy $8-12/hour job.
One of my best friends is the IT guy for a senator (he may even be heading into a white house job now for all I know, haven't talked to him since the election). He's considered the black sheep of the family because he went to college (talk about putting on heirs) and has kept a good, steady job with a salary (salaried being one of those things only hoity-toity people have and all). His mom has been demanding he buy her a new house for years (since, clearly, having a middle-class job makes one a millionaire).
Yeah, I was raised by the worst kind of trailer trash (and I've got the relatives in jail for incest to prove it) and I encountered this kind of resistance in one form or another each time I took a step forward. My dad wanted me to be a factory foreman where he worked, or a (shudder) HR manager. When I first returned to school I was shunned by about half of my blue collar coworkers, and my boss, who at the time was a real good friend of mine, actually became a bit hostile towards me (he had no degree, there fore my presence was a threat). He never missed an opportunity to downplay my prospects. Actual quote, "I don't mean to burst your bubble, but you'll never get into graduate school." Whatever, motherfucker- like he knew anything about it. As an undergrad I ran into some resistance from a couple of professors (many many more were supportive an helpful- really helpful, though) who obviously thought I was too old, or too low class and should just sink back to the level at which I belonged. I and many of the people i know are often asked if it's worth all the trouble to do what we do. Fucked if I know, but it's worth it to avoid all the trouble that comes with the alternative.
QuoteI suspect the fundies who don't want their daughters going to college believe the following:
1) My daughter will lose her virginity at college if she goes to college.
2) My daughter has very little, aside from virginity, to offer any husband.
3) My daughter is not interested in learning.
4) My daughter has few realistic career prospects beyond "homemaker."
If you read the literature on these "Vision Forum" christian sites and such, you will see that its not really any of the above that they cite as their reasons.
Their reasons are:
1. Biblical theology states that women/girls must be under the "protection" of their father until such time as they marry, when they must be under the "protection" of their Husband. At no time are they supposed to be out on their own. Thus, going to public schools or to college for women (or even christian private schools or colleges) is unbiblical.
2. And here's the important one: its not that they're worried that girls who go to college will lose their virginity; that would obviously be a catastrophe for them, but they don't even consider that something that horrific could happen.
What they're really worried about is that a girl, away at college, could learn or be exposed to "unbiblical" or "anti-christian" values, the values of the world, that might lead her to question her father or her family's beliefs; that mere exposure to these ideas could threaten a girl's faith and as such her immortal soul, and lead her to become rebellious or disobedient to her father. So them going to college represents a risk to their soul and their obedience that is not worth it.
Note that in material they've produced, the literature and videos like "return of the daughters", these people go out of their way to claim that their daughters ARE intelligent and interested in learning, but that this intelligence must be directed biblically in a woman's role, that of being a helper to her father, assisting her mother in helping the household and the family, and preparing to become a future "Helpmate" to her husband. So your point 4 is kind of right, though its more of a corollary reason.
RPGPundit
Is it just me or is all this talk of "protecting" your daughter and having her "serve" her father seem a bit...creepy?
Also, as a product of American education system, please allow me to say Fuck You.
Thank you,
Bill
I wish I'd married the girl who lost her virginity to me in college.
It's tough to meet educated women outside of school.
I agree with Bill.
Quote from: Aos;271854American colleges aren't that great, but you can easily get a good education out of even the worst of them. the problem is that most young people don't come to school with getting an education in mind. ...Not to mention the fact that many (not most, by any stretch) overachievers (and I spend all my time with undergraduate losers and post graduate over achievers) ARE really elitist assholes who only appreciate what they've accomplished when they compare it to what every one else has not.
[Bitter laugh.]
I have the worst of both worlds. I *am* an elitist jerk, but I don't have the resume that would justify the level of bragging I would like to do.
I would be less bitter about this if I heard fewer complaints from undergraduates to the effect of, "We're trying, and the system is designed to swindle us."
Just this morning I had to soothe two irate business undergraduates who may have to protest against their department.
So I don't think one can "easily" get an education. Edit: Note that the undergraduates to whom I spoke are Americans seeking an education abroad, so my skepticism is not specific to American undergraduate programs, but rather to the whole pattern of modern undergraduate education.
As an anecdote of how bad education has gotten, please consider the following horror story from ultra-elitist CMU (which, despite its snobbery, still can't compete with MIT):
QuoteBy far the worst was a woman who worked at the Software Engineering Institute. She was a brand-new hire from CMU, one of the top-rated computer science schools in the country, or perhaps the world. She had written
printf("The value is %d," value);
and the compiler was giving her a syntax error. I spotted it (can you? Go take a look...) in seconds.
So I said to her, "you transposed the comma and quote mark" and walked away. A few minutes later as I passed back she told me it still wouldn't compile. So I saw the same error, and said "You have to put the comma outside the quote mark". She looked at me, and in perfect sincerity said "But the comma always goes inside the quote mark!". I started to explain to her that no, it was a parameter separator and had to go outside the quote mark, and she interrupted me to insist the code was syntactically correct. Everyone knows the comma belongs inside the quote mark! Why, her English teachers had downgraded her text when she put the comma outside the quote mark!
I made some remark about she was clearly too stupid to know how to breathe, and I was certainly not going to waste my time explaining C syntax to a CMU B.S. in Computer Science. I did my best to get her removed from any place that might put her in actual contact with a computer, but there was no one with the taste or intelligence to get rid of her. But I managed to avoid her the remainder of my time there. She once wrote a program we were all supposed to use; it was so bad it would have been an embarrassment to my nephew when he was12; he had been programming two years at that point (he graduated in 2003 with a degree in computer graphics).
Source:
http://www.flounder.com/bricks.htm
Quote from: HinterWelt;271892Also, as a product of American education system, please allow me to say Fuck You.
Of course, because you wish to prove that you are well-educated, you would be best served by just citing a resume of your academic or professional accomplishments. Perhaps the prominently displayed "Hinterwelt" logo in your sig was meant to be an implicit resume.
I'm not sure whether you intended to communicate:
1) I, Bill, am a product of USA education and I have learned how to write "Fuck."
or
2) I, Bill, am a product of USA education and I have founded Hinterwelt Enterprises, an international business empire of world-shaking potency, by virtue of my educational prowess.
Quote from: RPGPundit;271878If you read the literature on these "Vision Forum" christian sites and such, you will see that its not really any of the above that they cite as their reasons.
I am sad to say the website in question does not lend itself to quick, convenient navigation, and I don't have the bandwidth to download and watch videos, so I'm going to have to take your word for it, unless they have handy text summaries somewhere.
Anyhow, I speculate the people making the videos -- who are women, IIRC-- may have one agenda, and the men buying the videos have a different agenda.
Insofar as the people are making the specific arguments you mentioned, Pundit, then I applaud and encourage your counter-arguments.
Quote from: Koltar;271837College is also the place where many young women discover that they prefer women as romantic partners or even that they might be bi-sexual - that could also be frighening to some small-minded groups in this country.
- Ed C.
Well, I think you're using "frightening" as a shaming word. The implication is that hetero fathers who disapprove of lesbian daughters are fearful, cowardly, unworthy of respect.
Let's just put it in terms of economics.
If you were a father who was asked to pay $20,000 USD per year, for four years, so that your daughter could get a degree in Women's Studies and announce that she was a lesbian -- would you want to pay $80,000 USD for that data, or would you want her to just move out of the house and send you a postcard?
Personally, I would prefer not to pay $80,000. If that means I'm afraid of lesbians, so be it.
Well thats a cliche....
The hypothetical daughter might just as well be a business major, and start a small business that makes oodles of money....and she winds up reluctantly voting 'republican' - because she hates taxes.
....and the woman she wants to marry watches football too much.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Aos;271865I and many of the people i know are often asked if it's worth all the trouble to do what we do. Fucked if I know, but it's worth it to avoid all the trouble that comes with the alternative.
I don't know from your handle whether you're male or female. Also I'm not clear on what you do, but it seems that "trouble that comes with the alternative" is trouble from your family.
So is your claim that college is worth the trouble because college guarantees that it will separate you from your family?
I don't think most college graduates become self-sufficient -- many of them seem to still depend on their families for many years. Of course, I'm going from informal observation and anecdote, not statistical surveys.
So, clearly, rip, anecdote equals data.
Quote from: Koltar;271954Well thats a cliche....
The hypothetical daughter might just as well be a business major, and start a small business that makes oodles of money....and she winds up reluctantly voting 'republican' - because she hates taxes.
....and the woman she wants to marry watches football too much.
- Ed C.
I think I get your meaning, if what you meant was, "one should not deny non-marriage-minded women the chance to go to college because there is a possibility they might be successful entrepreneurs."
There are at least two axioms from which one could start:
1) Parents owe their children college, regardless of what children do with that opportunity.
2) Children owe their parents grand-children, regardless of how stupid the parents are.
The axioms are not necessarily exclusive. But if we take (1) and not (2), then it's easy to prove your conclusion, and if we take (2) and not (1), it's easy to prove the opposite. If we take both (1) and (2) presumably something else results.
What I actually wrote:
QuoteI don't think most college graduates become self-sufficient -- many of them seem to still depend on their families for many years. Of course, I'm going from informal observation and anecdote, not statistical surveys.
Note the use of "seem" and the explicitly drawn distinction between anecdotes and statistics.
Note that people who are determined to misread will always find a way to misread:
Quote from: NotYourMonkey;271964So, clearly, rip, anecdote equals data.
This brings to mind a quote from a man whom I personally dislike, Bertrand Russell:
QuoteWhat a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires - desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. - Bertrand Russell
I haven't studied the data in a while, but conceptually there are three reasons to go to college, from a socioeconomic standpoint (as opposed to just "finding yourself").
1. To actually learn skills and habits that are marketable. These can be as concrete as CS theory and programming syntax, or as general as abstract and critical thinking and organizing a research project.
2. Purely for the credential, which "proves" you're up to snuff even if you didn't really have to go to college to get any skills. In other words college acts as a meritocratic sieve.
3. As a way of reproducing or if possible buying into the class structure: only people with the finances and the "appropriate" set of values and behaviors can get a B.A., which is then a gateway to class-appropriate employment. Incidentally, college also gives people with similar class aspirations an opportunity to locate each other as mates.
I suppose this idea of "genital expanding" although offensive on the face of it is also worth considering; in a way it's the flip side of some of what Aos talks about. Basically I agree that college can have the social effect of freeing children from parental control without imposing actual responsibility on them. The positive aspect of this is that it encourages social mobility; the negative side is that it weakens traditional social bonds without necessarily providing a long-term replacement for the lost community. At the extreme the result could be a society of isolated, alienated "free agents".
Quote from: riprock;271943Of course, because you wish to prove that you are well-educated, you would be best served by just citing a resume of your academic or professional accomplishments. Perhaps the prominently displayed "Hinterwelt" logo in your sig was meant to be an implicit resume.
I'm not sure whether you intended to communicate:
1) I, Bill, am a product of USA education and I have learned how to write "Fuck."
or
2) I, Bill, am a product of USA education and I have founded Hinterwelt Enterprises, an international business empire of world-shaking potency, by virtue of my educational prowess.
Nope. I simply meant Fuck You. Really, not a lot beyond that. That might be too complex a concept but try, I think you can get it. ;)
And please, are we really comparing resumes on an RPG forum? Honestly?:D
Bill
Quote from: riprock;271938As an anecdote of how bad education has gotten, please consider the following horror story from ultra-elitist CMU (which, despite its snobbery, still can't compete with MIT)
So a story that someone posted to the Internet is now what qualifies as data? Even if I accept this as showing something in general -- if you claim this shows how bad education has gotten, how well do you think college graduates
used to program in C?
Objectively, from census reports the statistics are pretty clear that college graduates make a lot more money on average than non-college-grads -- from $10k to $20k per year more. So college will take a number of years to pay itself off, but it does on average pay off.
(Regarding college women who become lesbians...)
Quote from: riprock;271965There are at least two axioms from which one could start:
1) Parents owe their children college, regardless of what children do with that opportunity.
2) Children owe their parents grand-children, regardless of how stupid the parents are.
The axioms are not necessarily exclusive. But if we take (1) and not (2), then it's easy to prove your conclusion, and if we take (2) and not (1), it's easy to prove the opposite. If we take both (1) and (2) presumably something else results.
Well, it's true that if your
only goal is to have grandchildren -- especially if you want them quickly -- then by average statistics college isn't going to improve your chances. This applies to both men and women, gay or straight.
However, if you want your grandchildren to not live in poverty, say -- then you are better off sending them to college. Moreover, statistics aren't the same as one's actual child. Gay couples have on average fewer children than straight ones, but it's still common.
Quote from: jhkim;271983Objectively, from census reports the statistics are pretty clear that college graduates make a lot more money on average than non-college-grads -- from $10k to $20k per year more. So college will take a number of years to pay itself off, but it does on average pay off.
This is why I was careful to say I hadn't studied the data recently. I'm aware of the claim that college grads make more money, but this could be a product of mere credentialing. In other words I've read claims that once you control for factors like high school performance, and possibly socioeconomic status, the economic return on college is diminished or even vanishes completely (but I haven't examined them closely). Throw in the direct and opportunity costs of college (i.e., there's four years when you could be making money and getting real-world experience) and the effective requirement that people need a BA for many jobs may be a net loss to the economy, however much it may help subsidize advanced research and give graduate students jobs.
Quote from: HinterWelt;271892Is it just me or is all this talk of "protecting" your daughter and having her "serve" her father seem a bit...creepy?
Very creepy.
In my postapocalyptic campaign, there are a heap of different towns and regions, each living by their own peculiar philosophy. There's one bunch of violent racist skinheads, one purely market economy town, and so on. There's also a bunch of fundamentalist Christians. I'd had them as a bit loopy but basically decent people.
But this thread has made me want to add a little splinter group where the daddies and daughters are
very close. I think the cult leader should be called Fritzl. He wanted to protect his daughter from the world, too!
Also, this thread's title looks like pr0n spam.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;271968I suppose this idea of "genital expanding" although offensive on the face of it is also worth considering; in a way it's the flip side of some of what Aos talks about.
If I had a more charming way to express the idea, I would have used it.
I may have acquired a tin ear from listening to all the wrong college-educated people.
I apologize for my excessively graphic wording.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;271968Basically I agree that college can have the social effect of freeing children from parental control without imposing actual responsibility on them. The positive aspect of this is that it encourages social mobility; the negative side is that it weakens traditional social bonds without necessarily providing a long-term replacement for the lost community. At the extreme the result could be a society of isolated, alienated "free agents".
I think the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s were a Western society full of alienated "free agents." I suspect the pendulum has started to swing back toward extreme loyalty to groups, even if those groups are undeserving of such loyalty. The "quiverfull" movement and the "return of the daughters" patriarchalists are just the beginning.
By now I suspect most of us have heard of "Bowling Alone" by Putnam. Edit: In case you haven't heard of it:
http://www.bowlingalone.com/
Sexually repressive and tribalistically-loyal societies have high social capital, especially if they're not religiously pluralistic. AFAICT, religious pluralism went past a certain threshold and spawned various nanny-state measures - first Prohibition of alcohol, then political correctness.
The resulting social disintegration was great for the growth of government regulations, but it destroyed social cohesion for much of Western society.
Basically the "Bowling Alone" phenomenon strengthens the most radical religious fundamentalists. The more the society provides opportunities for individualists to have loyalty only to the state and not to their tribe, the more the tribes preach radical tribalism.
Quote from: Koltar;271954Well thats a cliche....
The hypothetical daughter might just as well be a business major, and start a small business that makes oodles of money....and she winds up reluctantly voting 'republican' - because she hates taxes.
....and the woman she wants to marry watches football too much.
- Ed C.
I don't really follow American politics, but I remember who the "republicans" are. That's the party of men who pretend to be hetero but who actually solicit gay sex by tapping their feet in airport restrooms.
The republicans who are actually out of the closet are apparently the "Log Cabin" ones.
So a publically-out, self-proclaimed lesbian could just go the the "Log Cabin Republican" booth and sign up. No problem at all.
Quote from: RPGPundit;271878Note that in material they've produced, the literature and videos like "return of the daughters", these people go out of their way to claim that their daughters ARE intelligent and interested in learning, but that this intelligence must be directed biblically in a woman's role, that of being a helper to her father, assisting her mother in helping the household and the family, and preparing to become a future "Helpmate" to her husband.
RPGPundit
Kinder kuche kirche. Now where have we seen that before?
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;271984I'm aware of the claim that college grads make more money, but this could be a product of mere credentialing. In other words I've read claims that once you control for factors like high school performance, and possibly socioeconomic status, the economic return on college is diminished or even vanishes completely (but I haven't examined them closely). Throw in the direct and opportunity costs of college (i.e., there's four years when you could be making money and getting real-world experience) and the effective requirement that people need a BA for many jobs may be a net loss to the economy, however much it may help subsidize advanced research and give graduate students jobs.
Many businessmen of my acquaintance tell me that all the money and time I spent on education was wasted in terms of financial return.
*shrug* I don't know how scientific such tests can be.
Further, to return to sex, suppose a husband A and wife B have only one child C. If C has two kids who reproduce before they die, then A and B's genes are doing pretty well. If C adopts a child because gay sex can't produce a child or because C spent too much time on career and not enough on breeding, then A and B's genes are out of luck.
So if one says, "I'd rather have a gay child who can afford to educate my grandchildren," one must wonder whether those grandchildren will have any genes in common with their grandparents. Gay couples can "have" kids by adopting and lesbians can use donor sperm, but if one's objective is to pass on genes to grandchildren, one might decry the gay lifestyle.
Further, if one wishes to avoid complications of birth, it is important for women to respect the limitations of their ovaries. Sarah Palin is still fertile enough to produce children, despite her career -- but if she had produced those children earlier, they would have had a lower risk of defects like Down's Syndrome.
I have had a lot of close Western friends who were highly educated, who spent years on careers, and who had heart-breaking problems conceiving children. And they complained to *me* about it. But apparently it was impossible for them to have simply married at 18.
Of course, my friends from India and Pakistan have had no cultural problem marrying at 18. Financial problems -- sometimes. But no cultural problems.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;271985Also, this thread's title looks like pr0n spam.
So kyle as a Jew do you find that most Christians think you're "smart" ?
Can you blame women for wanting to go to college ? I mean apparently some want game design to have the "14 year schoolboy" test.....sounds like trouble if you ask me.
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;271984This is why I was careful to say I hadn't studied the data recently. I'm aware of the claim that college grads make more money, but this could be a product of mere credentialing. In other words I've read claims that once you control for factors like high school performance, and possibly socioeconomic status, the economic return on college is diminished or even vanishes completely (but I haven't examined them closely). Throw in the direct and opportunity costs of college (i.e., there's four years when you could be making money and getting real-world experience) and the effective requirement that people need a BA for many jobs may be a net loss to the economy, however much it may help subsidize advanced research and give graduate students jobs.
Well, I was speaking to whether college should be viewed as an investment or an indulgence that parents give to their children. Whether credentialing is a good idea or not, it is quite real in the world today.
Whether it is a good idea or not is questionable. i.e. Should more companies ask for high school transcripts and hire high school grads as apprentices to work their way up, rather than requiring B.A.'s for their starting jobs? While it sounds good in principle, I think that companies are probably making the right choice to avoid this -- as far as their own success is concerned under the present system. Companies in modern times are investing much less in long-term research. My take on this is that it results from a more competitive global market. In earlier decades, there were a few companies like Boeing or AT&T who felt they had an assured future and so invested more in long-term projects. However, that is rare these days -- and in any case happened mainly from government support of those companies.
Universities have always been the cornerstones of basic research and broad educations. The difference is that in today's industry, far more of our jobs are in such white-collar work rather than in manual labor. I see them as of vital importance for both their research and broad education. Revolutions generally come from publicly-funded basic research, like atomic power or the Internet from the military or the world-wide web from high-energy physics.
There is a huge bias against a college education in this country, mostly from uneducated people who had to either fight or swindle their way to their current position, or who work at the equivalent of walmart. I cant tell you how many time someone told me there was not money in my field of work in this area, I finally got tired of defending my decision and answered them with "Yeah Whatever". I am doing just fine thank you, and could do quite a bit better if I chose to enter another branch of the field.
No matter what university you attend your education is what you make of it and btw, my daughter will be attending college whether she likes it or not.
Quote from: David R;272017So kyle as a Jew do you find that most Christians think you're "smart" ?
No. Why would they?
We don't have Christians like these creepy fathers with their daughters here in Australia. The only ones who believe stuff like that are the Mormon and Jehovah's Witness missionaries we get, and those are all American.
We have a few churches where the people are what we call "happy clappy" Christians, and sometimes they babble ("speak in tongues") and play with snakes. But those places have a core membership of an American pastor and his wife, and the rest are mostly made up of lonely elderly, mentally ill people and drug addicts. Basically, depending on your point of view, they prey on or they support the people our secular society has failed. But they're not any more sexist than society in general, both boys and girls are meant to remain virgins, they are neutral to the value of a secular education, and there's no particular respect for authority of father - after all, father might not be born again!
We have a few thousand fundamentalist Jews, the blokes wearing their black coats (brilliant dress choice in Aussie heat), the women wearing wigs, and so on. But they don't seek converts, so hardly anybody knows about them.
We occasionally get a loopy imam who wants to destroy Australia and turn it into an Islamic Caliphate, but usually their congregation has them removed and reports them to the Federal Police, who go and have a chat with him and persuade him to shut his stupid mouth before they revoke his permanent residency visa and send him back to whatever civil war wracked shithole he came from.
Aside from that we don't have loopy ones like this. We
definitely have people who use their culture as an excuse to be shitheads to women. But that's got nothing to do with the particular faith or culture. It can be "a good Catholic girl wouldn't -" or "a good Sunni girl" or "a good Macedonian girl" or "a good Pitjantjara girl" or "a good Chinese girl". Oppression of women is cross-cultural.
Quote from: David RCan you blame women for wanting to go to college ? I mean apparently some want game design to have the "14 year schoolboy" test.....sounds like trouble if you ask me.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;272173No. Why would they?
Quoteriprock wrote:
I don't think Christians believe Palin is a miracle. I think they see her as more intelligent than the average woman -- probably due to her Jewish ancestors. So Palin can be VP because she's *smart*, whereas Little Suzie is more than one standard deviation below average IQ. College is not worth it for unintelligent students.
QuoteWhat the fuck are you talking about?
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=12875
Regards,
David R
Quote from: riprock;271997I don't really follow American politics, but I remember who the "republicans" are. That's the party of men who pretend to be hetero but who actually solicit gay sex by tapping their feet in airport restrooms.
The republicans who are actually out of the closet are apparently the "Log Cabin" ones.
So a publically-out, self-proclaimed lesbian could just go the the "Log Cabin Republican" booth and sign up. No problem at all.
So when you say you "don't really follow American politics" you really are full of shit. Or did you just happen across Dem talking points by accident?
Quote from: riprock;271805I suspect the fundies who don't want their daughters going to college believe the following:
1) My daughter will lose her virginity at college if she goes to college.
2) My daughter has very little, aside from virginity, to offer any husband.
3) My daughter is not interested in learning.
4) My daughter has few realistic career prospects beyond "homemaker."
I suspect that, given beliefs (1)-(4), keeping the daughter back from college is a logically supported course of action. I will leave the proof as an exercise for the reader.
I think you're on to something here. More problematically, I suspect that these fundies have held these kinds of beliefs the entire lives of their daughters, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you believe your daughter has no interest in learning
before she can even speak then what effort are you going to make to foster an interest in learning? If you believe your daughter has no prospects beyond wife and mother, then what effort will you make to encourage her to dream and have real ambitions?
It's sad. Also, it creates really boring women that are impossible to tolerate.
Quote from: HinterWelt;271892Is it just me or is all this talk of "protecting" your daughter and having her "serve" her father seem a bit...creepy?
Also, as a product of American education system, please allow me to say Fuck You.
Thank you,
Bill
Deeply creepy, and even some Evangelicals consider it to be unhealthy and talk about it as Emotional Incest disguised as religion.
RPGPundit
Quote from: riprock;271946Anyhow, I speculate the people making the videos -- who are women, IIRC-- may have one agenda, and the men buying the videos have a different agenda.
The women in question are the daughter of the pastor Geoffrey Botkin, who is a major figure in this particular evangelical movement. They are essentially acting as mouthpieces for his theology.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;272173We don't have Christians like these creepy fathers with their daughters here in Australia.
You might be surprised. They might not be there in the numbers that they are in the States, or as visible in the public sphere, but a huge number of evangelical pastors who are very intensely visible in the "Intelligent Design" movement and the christo-patriarchy theology are Australian.
RPGPundit
Oh. First I've heard of Palin's "jewish ancestors". And I don't see how that would help her popularity with fundamentalist Christians, quite the opposite. And her being "smart"? Er... Smartly
dressed, maybe. Otherwise, dumb as shit.
Which is why I scan over riprock's posts, and missed that. Because he talks utter bollocks.
Quote from: David R;272175http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=12875
Of course, riprock's not the only one talking bollocks.
Yeah, I never heard anything about Palin having "jewish ancestry" either...
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;272203You might be surprised. They might not be there in the numbers that they are in the States, or as visible in the public sphere, but a huge number of evangelical pastors who are very intensely visible in the "Intelligent Design" movement and the christo-patriarchy theology are Australian.
Well, maybe so. We also have a couple of Holocaust deniers, too. But every country has a
few loopy people. For example, our former Education Minister wanted to teach creationism in schools as science, but he got shouted down so it got shunted to religion and philosophy classes [see here (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/intelligent-design-not-science-experts/2005/10/20/1129775902661.html)]. And his party lost the next federal election - that wasn't an issue in the media nor did anyone I spoke to bring it up, but I'm sure it didn't help his personal image as a bit of an idiot, or his party's image as being backwards and out of touch.
It's a bit different when their loopy views are an accepted part of the political process.
Looking at the webpage of the Evangelical Alliance - Australia (http://www.ea.org.au/Default.aspx), a site search for "sex" and "pre-marital" and the like pull up exactly zero pages talking about whether or not to do the deed. And one article says (http://www.ea.org.au/AustralianElection2007/KeyTopics/DontVoteforChristians%21.aspx) that you (the evangelical Christian reader) shouldn't vote for someone just because they say they're Christian, but,
"Of course we need more Christians in politics, but we don’t just need Christians, we need people of integrity whose integrity is not only motivated by their Christian faith but also evidenced by their actions.[...] don’t just elect Christians but ensure the people you vote for are people of integrity, and the best people for the job. They may also be Christians and if so, that’s a bonus."So even the happy clappy Christians who babble and play with snakes in Australia have a balanced view of public affairs. Even the loopy Assemblies of God (http://www.acc.org.au/Home/tabid/84/language/en-US/Default.aspx) Christians, their website's only mention of sex is being against same-sex civil unions (http://www.acc.org.au/Media/MediaReleases/tabid/146/Default.aspx#2006-05-04). They believe in divorce only for adultery and in the case of physical abuse (http://www.acc.org.au/Media/MediaReleases/tabid/146/Default.aspx#2007-04-24). I think they're wrong in both cases, however their position is pretty far from this creepy father-daughter stuff we're talking about here.
Again, every country has crazy people, there's no doubt Australia has its fair share. But when the craziness has an organised movement and formalised process for its craziness, that's a different thing. And we don't really have that here Down Under, thank God.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;271984This is why I was careful to say I hadn't studied the data recently. I'm aware of the claim that college grads make more money, but this could be a product of mere credentialing. In other words I've read claims that once you control for factors like high school performance, and possibly socioeconomic status, the economic return on college is diminished or even vanishes completely (but I haven't examined them closely). Throw in the direct and opportunity costs of college (i.e., there's four years when you could be making money and getting real-world experience) and the effective requirement that people need a BA for many jobs may be a net loss to the economy, however much it may help subsidize advanced research and give graduate students jobs.
Elliot, I normally find you to be a very sensible guy, but I'm not getting your anti-college thing at all.
A college education is, hands down, the best investment one can make. It has an average rate of return better than anything else you can do. It's not a claim, it's a fact backed up by decades of research.
The average yearly wages, according to the 2005 census, for a high school graduate was $31,539. For a college graduate, it is $50,944.
Over a 50 year employment history, the hs grad would earn a total of $1,576,950. If we only give the college graduate 46 years, that's still $2,343,424. Even if we take out another $100,000 for the costs of college, that's still almost one and a half times more earnings over a lifetime.
There's no contest.
Quote from: jgants;272320Over a 50 year employment history, the hs grad would earn a total of $1,576,950. If we only give the college graduate 46 years, that's still $2,343,424. Even if we take out another $100,000 for the costs of college, that's still almost one and a half times more earnings over a lifetime.
There's no contest.
To be fair, what degrees are we talking about here?
Clearly, there is a vast difference in earnings potential between a Master's (or even a Bachelor's) in Computer Science* and a Doctorate in 13th Century Norman Poetry.
I'm all about the college, and I am certainly not suggesting that universities cut out anything that won't directly contribute to getting a lucrative job, but let's face it: many college graduates really don't have a good skill set to get those jobs you are referring to. I don't have a college education, but I am easily earning what a college graduate would. My circumstances, of course, are a matter of luck and technical training from the Air Force, but I am not in the industry I was while in the military.
I think Mr Willen has something of a point, or at least a popular perception. Most parents - who were likely unable to go to college themselves - push their own kids to get 'an education', thinking it a Golden Ticket, without advising them on what they should be doing there. This certainly leads to a perception that college is a waste of time, because many graduates don't work in the field they studied.
That said, college costs have risen to something like 40% of a middle income family's take-home, but even so, I am sure your statistics are only slightly impacted, and a college education still gives the best bang for the buck.
*
or Biology/Genetics, or Chemistry, or... you get the point
Quote from: jgants;272320Elliot, I normally find you to be a very sensible guy, but I'm not getting your anti-college thing at all.
A college education is, hands down, the best investment one can make. It has an average rate of return better than anything else you can do. It's not a claim, it's a fact backed up by decades of research.
The average yearly wages, according to the 2005 census, for a high school graduate was $31,539. For a college graduate, it is $50,944.
Over a 50 year employment history, the hs grad would earn a total of $1,576,950. If we only give the college graduate 46 years, that's still $2,343,424. Even if we take out another $100,000 for the costs of college, that's still almost one and a half times more earnings over a lifetime.
There's no contest.
Well, I'm enjoying being the devil's advocate, but I'm not just talking nonsense. The point here is that the comparison of wages for college graduates with everyone else isn't a controlled experiment, far from it. You are comparing people
who choose to go to college and who
have enough smarts and diligence to get their degree with people who either don't have the initiative, or the money (an indicator of socioeconomic status), or the wherewithal to enter and see it through.
Suppose you took some of those people, the ones who in the current environment choose to go to college and finish their degree, and sent them right into the workforce. Assuming they could get past the prejudice against people without Bachelor's degrees--let's say they got a waiver which allowed them to legally forge their diplomas--how would they do? Well, they're probably more ambitious and smarter, and better connected, than the average person who doesn't go to college (note: average). They'll probably do better. How much better?
It isn't just me asking this question, in fact I can't claim to have thought of it myself. I came across the issue in some online periodical; you'll have to take my word for it that it wasn't something fringe but a reasonable site like
Slate. And it's been addressed by research--for example, I found this paper (http://eric.ed.gov:80/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED333840&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED333840) which says that once you control for socioeconomic status and other factors, you get "a substantial reduction in estimates of the rate of return to education." I'm just going from the abstract, but the authors have respectable institutions behind them.
It's worth noting that this and similar studies don't really engage the "pure credentialing" issue. By that I mean, they don't ask how much of someone's earnings is attributable just to having the sheepskin. In theory, earning a college degree could be partly just a signal: it proves you're able to get through, and so people are willing to hire you. It's not that you learned anything, just that you had the ability to learn enough. What if, instead, employers used the same measurements that colleges use for admissions--a mixture of standardized test scores and high school GPA? True, those aren't perfect predictors of college success, but college success isn't a perfect predictor of career success. And again, college is expensive both in terms of immediate costs and lost wages (by the way, those costs compound over a lifetime; simply subtracting a hundred grand from the total underestimates the effect).
Then there's the fact that the real-world economic return on a college degree isn't the same for all schools and all majors. Four years studying EE--I can believe that'll get you ahead. Four years doing history or English? Hmmm...
By the way I graduated from a top private school with a degree in history, and my wife will, with any luck, get her BA from a top public university next spring, with no small amount of support and encouragement on my part. I may not have taken maximum economic advantage of my degree (if I had to do it over, I'd probably have done something a little more quantitative or techie), but I'm not under any illusion as the real-world advantages I've enjoyed, and which I hope my wife will enjoy.
I do suspect, though, that "college education" is an inefficient way for the country as a whole to provide itself with a skilled workforce and its citizens with good jobs.
Quote from: CavScout;272177So when you say you "don't really follow American politics" you really are full of shit. Or did you just happen across Dem talking points by accident?
People really follow American politics know which interests are funding which lobbyists to pay out which legalized bribes. I don't go into that level of detail.
I have trouble ignoring the "democrats" like Clinton, who think that oral sex isn't sex, and the "republicans" who claim they're not gay when they have gay sex.
Quote from: Jackalope;272178I think you're on to something here. More problematically, I suspect that these fundies have held these kinds of beliefs the entire lives of their daughters, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Note that while I like logic in my own life, I don't claim that logic is a panacea to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies.
Both sides in the cultural war are guilty of self-fulfilling prophecies.
Quote from: Jackalope;272178If you believe your daughter has no interest in learning before she can even speak then what effort are you going to make to foster an interest in learning?
The extreme right might believe that they know their daughters want to be wives or nuns. They have unbending, dogmatic faith that humans are meant for a particular sexuality.
The extreme left is equally dogmatic, just in the opposite direction. They have unbending faith that sex is the meaning of life, that humans are born to be polymorphously perverse, that bisexuals are morally superior to heteros, etc.
As for me personally -- I don't have children, so I don't worry about whether I'm encouraging them to learn.
Quote from: Jackalope;272178If you believe your daughter has no prospects beyond wife and mother, then what effort will you make to encourage her to dream and have real ambitions?
Right-wing women and left-wing women are equally narrow. I have to deal with forty-something women who hate their careers. When they were twenty, they repeated the feminist line that their "real" ambitions had to be in the workplace. Now they are trying to get fertility therapy and donor sperm, and they are saying their "real" ambition is to experience motherhood.
Before feminism, women worked *and* had children. After feminism, the most conventionally leftist, Simone-de-Beauvoir women have trouble working *and* have trouble having children. Meanwhile, the women who manage to do both work and reproduction are castigated as traitors to feminist orthodoxy.
So in response to "dreams" and "real ambitions" -- well, I've never met any human who had trouble dreaming, whether asleep or awake. Getting dreams into reality is the hard part.
Quote from: RPGPundit;272312Yeah, I never heard anything about Palin having "jewish ancestry" either...
RPGPundit
My rabbi thinks so. I trust his research more than I trust most of the research on therpgsite, so... I'm going to stick with that, until I'm convinced otherwise...
Quote from: StormBringer;272435To be fair, what degrees are we talking about here?
Clearly, there is a vast difference in earnings potential between a Master's (or even a Bachelor's) in Computer Science* and a Doctorate in 13th Century Norman Poetry.
I'm all about the college, and I am certainly not suggesting that universities cut out anything that won't directly contribute to getting a lucrative job, but let's face it: many college graduates really don't have a good skill set to get those jobs you are referring to. I don't have a college education, but I am easily earning what a college graduate would. My circumstances, of course, are a matter of luck and technical training from the Air Force, but I am not in the industry I was while in the military.
If you buy the hype and think that college is really about learning, you're very likely to get severe problems later. E.g. gifted students are told to get theoretical degrees, paid for by loans, and then get screwed with bad jobs, tight constraints, and loan payments.
If you get a useless degree and try to fit in as a "cog" you're likely to be miserable. E.g. the poet who gets a degree in English and tries to be an office worker.
If you get a technical degree (such as, say, Civil Engineering) you get a whiplash of earnings. Your job is likely to be made redundant and shipped somewhere else in a few years. (Still, technical skills are nice to have ... just not nice enough to pay for the expense of getting them.)
Regardless of the student and degree type, the university system has deep problems.
Quote from: RPGPundit;272197The women in question are the daughter of the pastor Geoffrey Botkin, who is a major figure in this particular evangelical movement. They are essentially acting as mouthpieces for his theology.
RPGPundit
Your claims will probably turn out to be true, but my casual inspection of that site doesn't turn up a lot of usable data -- in fact, not even enough data to confirm or deny. I would probably have more success searching for "Botkin."
Edit:
So the point is ... you're operating from in-depth knowledge of the persons involved without giving your readers the links that they could use to conveniently verify the issues.
Quote from: riprock;272525People really follow American politics know which interests are funding which lobbyists to pay out which legalized bribes. I don't go into that level of detail.
I have trouble ignoring the "democrats" like Clinton, who think that oral sex isn't sex, and the "republicans" who claim they're not gay when they have gay sex.
Again, so you were full of shit.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;272318Well, maybe so. We also have a couple of Holocaust deniers, too. But every country has a few loopy people. For example, our former Education Minister wanted to teach creationism in schools as science, but he got shouted down so it got shunted to religion and philosophy classes...
I find it very noticeable - and yet it isn't commented on in the public sphere - how many senior Australian politicians are committed Christians.
It isn't like the United States, where they have to say that to get elected. In fact if anything being 'too' religious could be a mild disadvantage. So presumably if they say they are then they really are.
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke described himself as agnostic, and John Howard I think claimed membership of something, but seemingly very nominally.
On the other side, current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a member of the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship, former PM Paul Keating was a practicing Catholic, so was former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley. Former Minister Tony Abbott wanted to be a priest and actually entered a seminary...
It just doesn't seem to reflect Australian society. Well over 90% of Australian adults claim membership of a religion on the census, but I doubt that 20% are 'really religious'.
There are two religious parties in Australia with representation - the Christian Democrats (whose leader Fred Nile is quite well-known), and the Family First Party, which is apparently a front for the Assemblies of God. But I think the Greens have more representation than the two of them put together, so we're not talking about major players.
And it doesn't explain how we somehow ended up with two secular major parties whose leaders say things like "personal faith...helps shape the view I try to bring to the public space as well".
I don't have a thesis here, I actually don't know.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;272318Even the loopy Assemblies of God (http://www.acc.org.au/Home/tabid/84/language/en-US/Default.aspx) Christians...
I notice this section of the site is in 'US English' :)
Quote from: Age of Fable;272593I find it very noticeable - and yet it isn't commented on in the public sphere - how many senior Australian politicians are committed Christians.
Well, their Christianity follows the outwards forms certainly, whether it's expressed in their
actions is
very debatable. Tony Abbott, for example, is not famed for his gentle humility and compassion.
I would say that they're elected despite not because of their religion. It's much the same way that though Australia is generally homophobic, even those who consider the Greens to be commie lunatics simply don't know that the Greens leader is gay. It's just not an issue.
Your faith and sexuality just isn't an issue in getting you elected here. Aussies don't care. If you made a big fuss about either then you'd likely lose the next election.
It's a bit like the flag-waving stuff. Sheriff Johnny lost a lot of prestige with all his nonsense about refusing to fund schools not flying the flag, and so on. The "British stiff upper lip" came to Australia and became "keep it to yourself, mate." We don't generally make a fuss of what god or gods we believe in or don't, who we like to shag, or our country - we save all that energy for sport.
Quote from: Age of FableThere are two religious parties in Australia with representation - the Christian Democrats (whose leader Fred Nile is quite well-known), and the Family First Party, which is apparently a front for the Assemblies of God. But I think the Greens have more representation than the two of them put together, so we're not talking about major players.
The Christian Democrats have 2 seats in the NSW state Upper House, and that's all they have across the country, they ignore local elections.
Family First, which as you say is a front for AoG, has a scattering of state Upper House members across the country, but nowhere do they control the balance of power or affect government policy in the slightest; more importantly, they have one Senator in the Federal Upper House. He got in because of the bizarre vote-counting system we use for the Senate here, which nobody except the Commissioner of the Australian Electoral Commission understands. Basically if every party hates the others more than they hate you, you can get in, as described here (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/10/1097406425742.html).
Basically the major parties hated the Greens and Democrats so much that they put them last, and put Family First and a fascist party (Citizen's Electoral Council) and a few independents and single issue parties in the middle. So he got in, despite having only 1.88% of the primary vote in the state [see Senate results here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2004)].
Nobody expected the guy to get in, least of all himself. He's spent most of his time in the Senate being shown how naive he is. "Pass this legislation, we'll write and pass some other legislation which you want, honest we will."
So there is 1 of him, 1 independent, and 5 Greens. And after the next election there will probably be none of him, 1-2 independents, and 6-8 Greens, unless it's a double dissolution election in which case there could be up to 3 independents and 11 Greens.
Quote from: riprock;272535Your claims will probably turn out to be true, but my casual inspection of that site doesn't turn up a lot of usable data -- in fact, not even enough data to confirm or deny. I would probably have more success searching for "Botkin."
Edit:
So the point is ... you're operating from in-depth knowledge of the persons involved without giving your readers the links that they could use to conveniently verify the issues.
Jesus Christ, dude, you could just do the work yourself, you know? I get paid to do stuff like this, I don't give it away for free... but here: http://visionarydaughters.com/about-the-botkin-sisters
RPGPundit
Quote from: StormBringer;272435To be fair, what degrees are we talking about here?
My numbers were all national averages, based on census data, so it would be a wide mix. Obviously people with more professional degrees earn more, while people with philosophy degrees or whatever earn less.
I'm only talking about probable return on investment here. Obviously a high school dropout can win the lotto or found a multi-billion dollar company, or a business major could end up homeless. But on the average, you are way better off with the college degree than without.
Quote from: Elliot Wilen;272470*bunch of theoretical stuff*
Yes, I suppose if we created a world where education had no prestige to it, and took all of the people of the same intelligence level, then some of the economic benefit of college would decrease, particularly in non-professional areas.
But now we've entered a fantasy land which is not how the world works, nor how it is likely to work in any plausible future.
Besides, one could just as easily follow your logic in reverse. There's not much difference in wages between HS drop outs and HS-only graduates, particularly if we eliminated the stigma. So why bother to go to HS? We all know there's no real learning going on there, right?
No, it's not a fantasy world. It's how the world worked prior to the ballooning of postsecondary education in the postwar era. Well, obviously education had prestige associated with it before that time, but it wasn't a given that a bachelor's degree was a prerequisite for a white-collar job--or even graduate/professional education.
I just happened across this piece (http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i27/27b05001.htm) while looking for some other information, and it's interesting what it says: in the US, if you want to go to college and you've got the ability, then finances aren't a significant barrier. The reason not everyone goes to college is that our K-12 system is so poor. So tell me, if college is just acting as a vetting system, what I've called a "meritocratic sieve", wouldn't we better off fixing our primary and secondary schools instead of engaging in an expensive credentialing system which imparts few real-world skills?
In the real world, this isn't either/or, and maybe fixing public schools would be more expensive than just letting people fall by the wayside. (Though, I doubt it. What largely happens is that individuals find ways to insulate themselves from the social costs.) However I believe that it's largely political problems (right, left, and center) which make reform impossible, and if high school education was really what it could be, employers might not be turning to the college diploma as the bare minimum needed for white-collar employment.
You are all missing the important point: if women are losing their virginities at college, they're doing it late :D
Quote from: Imperator;272856You are all missing the important point: if women are losing their virginities at college, they're doing it late :D
More importantly, how many virginities does each woman have?
Quote from: StormBringer;272911More importantly, how many virginities does each woman have?
They may have one or three, like God.
Quote from: Imperator;272923They may have one or three, like God.
And if they find God, then they regain their virginity. Or so says a friend of my woman's who became Born Again.
"I don't believe in premarital sex."
"But you've had it with each of several boyfriends."
"Not since I found God, I am new again."
"Did he make the hymen grow back, like with Mary?"
Quote from: HinterWelt;271892Is it just me or is all this talk of "protecting" your daughter and having her "serve" her father seem a bit...creepy?
Also, as a product of American education system, please allow me to say Fuck You.
Thank you,
Bill
Of course you find it creepy. Gender control issues like this are inherently about sexual dominance whether consciously or not, and the notion of a father possessing such dominance over their child should creep the fuck out of a healthy mind.
Quote from: RPGPundit;272195Deeply creepy, and even some Evangelicals consider it to be unhealthy and talk about it as Emotional Incest disguised as religion.
RPGPundit
Those Evangelicals are on to something.
Quote from: RPGPundit;272203You might be surprised. They might not be there in the numbers that they are in the States, or as visible in the public sphere, but a huge number of evangelical pastors who are very intensely visible in the "Intelligent Design" movement and the christo-patriarchy theology are Australian.
RPGPundit
One of the most prolific early speakers in the current creationist movement was an Australian. Ken Ham, my mother made me sit through some 13 tape lecture series from the man.
He mostly does his thing in the US now though.
Quote from: riprock;272530My rabbi thinks so. I trust his research more than I trust most of the research on therpgsite, so... I'm going to stick with that, until I'm convinced otherwise...
And yet you're the one spouting off that Bertrand Russel quote . . .
Quote from: Imperator;272856You are all missing the important point: if women are losing their virginities at college, they're doing it late :D
That's pussy virginity.
According to a survey a few years ago, the good Christian gals reported ass banging and cock gobbling was not really sex. Only pussy pumping was actual sex so as long as the magic hymen wasn't broken, they were still virgins.
Thank you Bill Clinton!
Quote from: riprock;271958I don't know from your handle whether you're male or female. Also I'm not clear on what you do, but it seems that "trouble that comes with the alternative" is trouble from your family.
So is your claim that college is worth the trouble because college guarantees that it will separate you from your family?
I don't think most college graduates become self-sufficient -- many of them seem to still depend on their families for many years. Of course, I'm going from informal observation and anecdote, not statistical surveys.
I'm an overachieving elitist graduate student. The trouble that comes with the alternative is a return to life outside the comfortable swaddle of academia. I don't need
another degree to get a job. I turned down an obscenely lucrative position to do what I'm doing right now. I need the degree I'm working towards to get a job in a field that interests me, insure that I get free trips to Europe every year and three months worth of vacation. So when I talk about dealing with undergraduates, I do so from the perspective of a GA/TA and I watch every day as the vast majority of them piss away an opportunity to make the most out their college experience. Certainly part of the burden lies on educators, but you can't make a diamond ring out of a lump of shit. a lump of drunk ass shit lacking the sense (not used in the same sense as intelligence) to know that getting drunk until dawn every night is not an effective study strategy.
Furthermore, most college graduates I have known become self-sufficient far more quickly than people who don't go or drop out. I dropped out my first time, and it took me two years to find a steady job that paid me enough to eat regular- no joke. That job was sacking groceries. It took me two more years to find a job in a professional environment- and that was due largely to nepotism. i got hired by a friend of mine who had graduated from college, a shitty, shitty joke of a college at that, less than a year before. He was my boss for two years before getting promoted- a promotion I was not eligible for, because...wait for it... I had no degree.
It was the same at several companies, no degree meant you could not have the good gig. As I was approaching completion of my BA I was offered, upon completion, the opportunity to take a position that more than DOUBLED my wage. Sure you can get a job without a degree, but most of the good paying ones go to people with a college education. I have worked all manner of shitjobs, I have looked for work more times than I want to remember- take a look in any American paper, or on any employment website, compare the jobs that don't require a degree to the ones that do.
Furthermore, if you want to do something really cool- at least the type of things I think are cool, a college degree isn't enough. you have to do internships and field schools and get REALLY good grades to get the good spots. I don't mean to offend anyone, because everyone makes their own choices, but as for me, i have no intention of settling for anything less than extraordinary. I don't care how much glass I have to eat to get it. I've had plenty ordinary, and it's not for me.
P.S. Elsewhere, on many occasions I've admitted to being an idiot and fool. All that still stands, of course, 'cause I'm both, and, sincerely: I don't know shit about shit.
Damn it Aos, didn't you read Spinachcat assbanging Christian girl post. Have you got nothing to contribute to this thread...except sense. Disappointing Mr.Aos. Very disappointing :(
Edit: It does kyle. All this anti university bollocks smells petit-bourgeois. Me don't like it.
Regards,
David R
In terms of job-hunting, not just university but trade qualifications help. Being a plumber, carpenter, welder, chef or the like makes it unlikely you'll ever be out of work for long. The work is not usually well-paying, but it's better-paying than most unqualified work, and certainly better than unemployment benefits.
Edit:- or peddling your arse. There you go, hope that made you happy, David.
Quote from: David R;273134Damn it Aos, didn't you read Spinachcat assbanging Christian girl post. Have you got nothing to contribute to this thread...except sense. Disappointing Mr.Aos. Very disappointing :(
Regards,
David R
It happens like twice a year; cut me some slack!
Quote from: Spinachcat;273120That's pussy virginity.
According to a survey a few years ago, the good Christian gals reported ass banging and cock gobbling was not really sex. Only pussy pumping was actual sex so as long as the magic hymen wasn't broken, they were still virgins.
Thank you Bill Clinton!
These witty Christians have always a convenient answer to not have to follow their own rules. I wish I had it so easy :D
Quote from: Aos;273122Furthermore, most college graduates I have known become self-sufficient far more quickly than people who don't go or drop out.
My experience is sort of like that, sort of not.
For sure, all those who didn't go to college, which includes pretty much every male I knew in HS, ended up getting crap jobs. Most did move out on their own, but lived with roommates in dumps I didn't even like to set foot in. I haven't heard much about most of them for the past few years, but my understanding before that was that they were still essentially no better off over 10 years later than when they first graduated. In other words, the new generation of poor white trash.
On the other hand, I went to a private college. And although me and one or two others came from more working-class backgrounds, most people they came from upper-middle class families. And I have to say, they were more often than not terribly babied by their parents and the polar opposite of what I would call "self-sufficient".
Many of them got pointless degrees (like art or theater) and ended up moving back home for years or taking the same stupid jobs they could have gotten without a college degree (like working at movie theaters, etc).
Even a lot of the ones that did get halfway-decent jobs had to move back home for a while because they still lacked any life skills - they didn't have the first clue what to do with car trouble, or how to rent an apartment, or how to cook a meal, or anything else.
So, in the end, it's somewhat of a wash for me. The people I know who got self-sufficient the quickest were people of more modest backgrounds who went to college (which makes sense, really, since it combines a need to become self-sufficient more quickly combined with ambitions to better oneself).
I'd like to meet these women who have multiple virginities. Maybe not, I like my women with a bit of experience under the hood. Maybe women can GET their virginity back? But they'd get it back and lose it again MULTIPLE times during their college years?
I thought I understood how women worked...
Quote from: Hackmastergeneral;273531I'd like to meet these women who have multiple virginities. Maybe not, I like my women with a bit of experience under the hood. Maybe women can GET their virginity back? But they'd get it back and lose it again MULTIPLE times during their college years?
I thought I understood how women worked...
Well, let me tell you a story. :D
In Asia, plastic surgery is a lot more popular and cheaper than in the West. It's not usually major - big liposuctions, nose jobs or tit jobs - it's usually more subtle in-and-out stuff. I used to teach English to a Chinese plastic surgeon who has his own clinic in Saigon. He told me one of his most popular surgeries was sewing vaginas to make them tighter (after childbirth or just for that added 'zing') or stretching and sewing a flap of skin to simulate a hymen. To give you some idea of just how popular this surgery is - he told me of several patients who had had it 3 or 4 times, and of one woman who had it done 5 times in one year. I'm guessing that was a marriage broker scam or prostitution related, but make of it what you will. The important thing to remember is, YES, they can get it back. Or at least, enough to fool us.
Well, yes I have heard of that. I was just making fun of his grammar.
She's old and feeble and smells of cabbage.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;273136.
Edit:- or peddling your arse. There you go, hope that made you happy, David.
Kyle if you're ever down on your luck with your versatile ass you can peddle it for me, sexy.;)