generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

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dyao said 'no he's cool' (because he had him as a college prof)*

iatee, Thursday, 26 January 2012 23:05 (twelve years ago) link

but I agree w/ your general assessment

iatee, Thursday, 26 January 2012 23:08 (twelve years ago) link

he is my favourite academia hater

caek, Thursday, 26 January 2012 23:37 (twelve years ago) link

yeah we talked about it somewhere. maybe this thread. I made fun of the writer and then dyao said 'no he's cool' and now my gf really likes him because he writes about jane austen and h8ing academia.

― iatee, Thursday, January 26, 2012 6:05 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have not read that article but your gf otm

horseshoe, Friday, 27 January 2012 04:06 (twelve years ago) link

she got her mom his book for xmas!

iatee, Friday, 27 January 2012 04:09 (twelve years ago) link

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2094921_2094923_2105257,00.html

its like you can't even make it as an indie rock band anymore

keep working bb, http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

dave cool, Friday, 27 January 2012 04:11 (twelve years ago) link

third thread that's been posted in

iatee, Friday, 27 January 2012 04:13 (twelve years ago) link

think maybe that belongs in quiddities and agonies

Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 27 January 2012 04:14 (twelve years ago) link

no it belongs in

hell

try again, fascist (Matt P), Friday, 27 January 2012 04:20 (twelve years ago) link

Deresiewicz follows up on that nyt piece

http://theamericanscholar.org/generational-conflict/

caek, Sunday, 29 January 2012 11:21 (twelve years ago) link

I don't think that stanford anecdote is very revealing as the stanford student body isn't very representative of the generation or even the college-attending generation. like, I'd imagine the numbers would be a lot different at cal-state sacramento. it can be dangerous to make assumptions based on yr experience teaching at Yale or living in Portland. etc.

iatee, Sunday, 29 January 2012 19:47 (twelve years ago) link

that's the knee-jerk response when people start ~talking~ about mild reforms. cf health care

iatee, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 14:37 (twelve years ago) link

A real education policy would ban anaphora on the internet.

tinker tailor soldier sb (silby), Tuesday, 31 January 2012 15:39 (twelve years ago) link

"One, for a small East Bay nonprofit, drew several hundred applications. The other, for the office of the Speaker of the California State Assembly—the second-most-powerful person in the eighth-largest economy on the planet—drew three."

Presumably people rationally calculated that at the small East Bay nonprofit there would be fewer layers between them and decision-makers and that they would get the kind of real-world experience with civic issues that people like WD constantly berate elite college students for not having. And that this was preferable to making coffee for the speaker of the assembly. I'm not sure this calculation is correct, by the way! But I'm sure it doesn't have to do with some kind of narcissistic entitlement on the part of Stanford students.

Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 31 January 2012 16:16 (twelve years ago) link

it's just such a weird thing to take in isolation - like, is your argument that stanford students don't get involved enough in gov't? cause I'm sure that overall they're well represented in the offices of politicians across the country.

iatee, Tuesday, 31 January 2012 16:46 (twelve years ago) link

oh man charles murray's 'coming apart: the state of white america' is just... the actual worst. im like 40 pages in and furious

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 07:52 (twelve years ago) link

its incredible to me that someone so stupid and gross gets to write op-eds in impt newpapers and magazines instead of being kicked in the spine repeatedly

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 07:54 (twelve years ago) link

this is how i feel about Malcolm Gladwell btw

sarahell, Saturday, 4 February 2012 08:38 (twelve years ago) link

lamp did you see this

"Is This Racist?" colloquy: the American Enterprise Institute asks "How Thick Is Your Bubble?"

max, Saturday, 4 February 2012 13:35 (twelve years ago) link

tyler cowen thinks it's great for some reason

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 16:00 (twelve years ago) link

I like the sleight of hand that lets him only talk about white people (the calculations are complicated enough without adding race into the equation!!)

dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 16:35 (twelve years ago) link

tyler cowen thinks it's great for some reason

because tyler cowen is an idiot, is why he would think this

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:43 (twelve years ago) link

he posts good links but he is like the ultimate troll, it is sad how many times a day he trolls me

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:51 (twelve years ago) link

well honestly if you can place yourself within murray's 5% elite this book is tremendously flattering to you. your moral and spiritual superiority to everyone else is never the result of longterm economic trends or technological changes or trade policy or manipulation of institutions on a scale so vast its practically invisible no its because you dont watch nascar and stayed married

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:54 (twelve years ago) link

example:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/department-of-huh.html

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:54 (twelve years ago) link

yeah I mean on the one hand I think it's true that we need to look at cultural factors - like, staying married pretty clearly helps you as an economic unit (having few kids too), so that's not *not* a thing, it's just a pretty shitty explanation for why certain people are billionaires

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 17:59 (twelve years ago) link

my friend sent me a link to the david brooks op-ed on this dude and on a brief skim it didn't seem that objectionable to me. like he frames it in vaguely OWS 1%/99% language and talks about tribalism & segmentation, which I broadly agree with is a problem (in-so-far as it fosters an us-against-them mentality. like maybe rich people would be more inclined to pay taxes if the thought was 'I am contributing towards a common good' rather than 'I can't believe POOR PEOPLE are attaching themselves like remoras to my veins of flowing money.')

but yeah as max's gawker post points out, the whole enterprise is really gross, but I do think every rich white family should take in at least one poor white child so that the rich family's industrious can ~vibe~ into the poor child, it would make for a good reality show, you could monetize this

dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link

nah see here's brooks: "Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness."

the liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because the top 1 percent narrative is the narrative that actually matters. talking about the social gap between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent is hiding the ball.

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:09 (twelve years ago) link

what if I adopt chinese baby girl instead? x-post

mh, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:10 (twelve years ago) link

that depends entirely on whether or not you are a tiger mom

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:10 (twelve years ago) link

guess that means you're no longer part of the tribe

dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:11 (twelve years ago) link

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/the-one-percent-versus-the-twenty-percent/

I didn't read this before I said that I swear

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:13 (twelve years ago) link

haha yeah I just kind of glossed over that

I do believe that americans should stop being so individualistic though ~love your brothers and sisters~

dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:15 (twelve years ago) link

maybe I've just been interacting with too many libertarians lately

dayo, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link

i am not reading david brooks take on this book because the idea of it i have in my head is already depressing enough

yeah I mean on the one hand I think it's true that we need to look at cultural factors

i think cultural factors have to be put in proper context though. like its weird to use the gingrichian idea that young working class men 'dont value work' rather than think about the way say, our culture constructs gender roles so that young men are often shut out of low-skill low-wage service jobs like office cleaning, health care &c

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link

no for sure. or if you want to go one step further start taking apart the phrase 'don't value work', the concept of 'valuing work' is itself very culturally dependent.

anyway I'm thinking about starting a gen limbo blog as a clearinghouse for this sorta stuff outside of ilx.

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link

for some reason you can be an individualist and still make lots of money from other people

makes you think

mh, Saturday, 4 February 2012 19:24 (twelve years ago) link

Funniest thing about this stupid book is how all the publications giving it a good review don't publish the subtitle

max, Saturday, 4 February 2012 19:40 (twelve years ago) link

seriously though lamp you should take that quiz its hilarious

max, Saturday, 4 February 2012 19:40 (twelve years ago) link

haha i think im still much in the shaking with rage stage of my reaction to this whole thing to laugh at it much, even the idea of w/e illiterate nyt review its gotten is making me really mad in a way that suggests i cld use some ~distance~

the whole things is just so grotesque it should be funny but its getting treated so seriously! idk

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:35 (twelve years ago) link

just as a fun fact i was given a copy of the book by someone who works in securities at a party at bar specializing in craft and boutique beers i recognize that i am part of the problem

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:36 (twelve years ago) link

the american right-wing has shifted so far right that the 'moderate sensible doods' like him and brooks can just say whatever the fuck they want and get a lot of attention for it. I said it somewhere else on ilx but the easiest way to get an inordinate amount of attention is to be a moderate conservative thinker right now. like, if you're not screaming "where's the birth certificate?? where's the birth certificate??' you're already in the zone where your book gets nyt attention.

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:38 (twelve years ago) link

(becomes moderate conservative author)

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:38 (twelve years ago) link

p embarrassing that Murray didn't get laughed out of town over the bell curve but I guess ppl love scientific proof that their racism is okay

max, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:40 (twelve years ago) link

this book is p racist too tbrr

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:42 (twelve years ago) link

i know this really should have sunk in by now but it blows my mind that the state of the right wing is such that charles fucking murray can be considered a moderate anything.

horseshoe, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:51 (twelve years ago) link

lying w/ numbers = moderate

iatee, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:52 (twelve years ago) link

the funniest part is how he kinda hints around at the fact that asian people are essentially white, in america (xp to myself)

Lamp, Saturday, 4 February 2012 20:53 (twelve years ago) link


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