DCUM Weblog

Most of yesterday's most active threads might cause feelings of déjà vu. The first of those was titled, "$300k house near swim and tennis clubs, sports facilities, and great schools and jobs anywhere in the US" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. I recently discussed a very similar thread in which the poster had a somewhat higher budget of $500,000. The original poster of this thread is recently divorced and must downsize. The poster has a child who is about to enter high school and who is a gifted athlete. The poster says where they live now is too expensive and she would like recommendations for a place where a house can be purchased for $300,000 and has good schools, available sports activities, and good jobs. The responses in many cases remind me of the expression, "good, fast, cheap, pick two" meaning that you can't get all three of those things. In this case, those responding suggest the list is more like, "affordable, quality schools, good jobs, pick two" because as the availability of good jobs and good schools goes up, so does the price of housing. Even so, many responders have suggestions. However, most of the suggestions actually come from the original poster herself who has independently identified potentially suitable cities and asks for opinions about the high schools. Other posters caution about high property taxes in some areas that have otherwise affordable housing. The original poster also seems to prioritize the weather, ruling out several places because they are too cold and also worrying about the bugs and humidity in southern states. Suggestions from other posters as well as from the original poster herself are for locations all over the place with little coherence. One repeated suggestion that also came up in the earlier thread was to look for college towns based on the assumption that the professors would demand good schools.

Today I'll look at the most active threads since Friday. During that period, the most active thread was titled, "Why don’t college students understand that they’re supposed to preserve optionality?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Somehow this thread managed to escape my notice until just now and at 14 pages in length, I'm not able to do more than skim a few pages. Because I am unfamiliar with the term "optionality", I was immediately confused by the title. After reading the original post, I realized that the original poster simply meant "options". I see that the first poster to respond had almost idenical thinking. The original poster strongly believes that college majors and even first jobs should be chosen with the goal of preserving options. The poster recommends pursuing STEM majors and then working in the fields of investment banking or management consulting. Several of those responding have little regard for those fields and don't seem to believe any number of options would be worth preserving if working in such jobs were a requirement. Skimming this thread, it appears to be a rehash of a common theme of the college forum. The original poster sees the primary goal of college to be upward mobility, preparing students for a job which should put them firmly on a path for financial success (where "financial success" is defined as "wealthy"). Not explicitly said, but clearly implied, is that these students must, of course, attend elite colleges. The path of top high school -> elite college -> Goldman Sachs or McKinsey is somewhat of a DCUM archetype, aspired to if not always achieved by a number of posters. In contrast to this idea of the road to success is the view that the point of college is to get an education and that success is achieved through happiness and a range of goals beyond the purely financial. In some ways, this debate is a version of the STEM vs humanities clash that seem ever present in the college forum, but with a twist because the goal of the STEM degree is investment banking or management consulting rather than in a FAANG company. There are representatives of both sides of this dispute in the thread with many who see some truth in the original poster's position, either claiming to have followed a similar path or known those who did. In contrast are posters who are working in fields that they love and wouldn't wanted to have done things differently. As one of them says, "I’m 50 with a successful career and I can’t imagine anything worse than working for one of the Big 4 or similar types of consulting firm."

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Who are foreign people always talking to?" which was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that whether she is in a taxi, an Uber, or a nail salon, she encounters people speaking loudly on their telephones in foreign languages. The poster thinks this is strange behavior and wonders to whom these people are talking. When I first saw this thread yesterday, I assumed that it would be offensive and result in lots of upset posters. But, for the post part, that was not the case. Even those who objected to the original poster's observations kept their responses calm and substantive. I don't think any noteworthy fights broke out in the thread which is a pleasant surprise. Instead, those responding took the topic seriously and tried to provide useful responses. For instance, one of the first to respond said that her foreign-born mother is just gossiping with anyone available to take a call. Another poster who describes herself as an immigrant admits to being guilty of this and explains that she talks to a broad range of friends and relatives. She says that it is a cultural norm for them to keep in close touch and that they communicate about about a wide variety of topics. Several posters bring up the culture aspects and say that they come from much more communal cultures where people are rarely alone. Talking on the phone replaces the in-person communication to which they were accustomed. Several posters mentioned that they speak foreign languages and can often understand those on the phone. They report hearing themselves being talked about in many cases. On the other hand, a poster who described herself as a foreigner said that neither she nor her husband spend much time on the phone. She suggests that the original poster has "observational bias" and is simply more likely to notice and remember those speaking in foreign languages. Similarly, another poster has encountered many non-foreigners speaking loudly on their phones in the grocery store. One poster says her husband, who has no foreign ties, is also always on the phone and has a need to constantly be chatting. For some posters, the language being used on a call was of little matter. They hate hearing people talking on their phones regardless of the language.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Large early inheritance to only 1 of 3 siblings?" and posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. It's always somewhat surprising to me when the most active thread is one of which I was completely unaware. That is the case here, with the thread reaching 8 pages without me knowing about it. The original poster describes a scenario in which elderly parents have three children who are all married and professionally employed. One of the three siblings works in a church and, while financially comfortable, is less well off than the other two siblings. That sibling was the beneficiary of a $1 million gift from the parents that allowed them to live at a higher standard of living than the others, purchasing a large house in the most desirable neighborhood of the city and sending their children to private school. The parents do not plan to provide similar gifts to the two other siblings and any future inheritance will, presumably, be split evenly. The original poster asks for thoughts or advice about this situation. I almost immediately noticed that the original poster was sock puppeting on a fairly large scale. Most of those responding argue that the parents can do whatever they want with their money. The original poster, without identifying herself, doesn't disagree with that but describes it as "a bad idea" that is "strange" and "awkward". That provokes a question about why it is a bad idea. To which the original poster replies, again without identifying herself, "I’ve got three kids and it certainly seems like a bad idea to me." This sort of back and forth is a pattern throughout the thread. The original poster tries to support her original post surreptitiously, but only creates more questions and backlash. Other posters, not really engaged with the original poster's narrative, explain what they would have done in the parent's place or describe their own plans for dividing money between their own children. Several posters argue that good relations among siblings are more important than money and urge the original poster to focus on that. One poster finds the dispute so pathetic that she promises to give any estate she has to charity rather than have her children argue over money. The original poster, still not identifying herself, agrees that would make more sense than giving it to one child.

What would have been yesterday's most active thread is one that I ended up deleting. I'll talk more about that later, but the next most active thread was titled, "I do not want to see an NP!" and posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum. The original poster is upset because she wants to see an MD during her medical visits but is continually provided a Nurse Practitioner or other Advanced Practice Provider instead. Surprisingly to me, this thread reached 10 pages. That puts it beyond my reading stamina, so I'm not going to be able to say much about the thread. But, skimming the post, I see that a number of posters agree with the original poster, preferring MDs. On the other hand, multiple responders argue that the best nurses are promoted to Nurse Practitioners so they are happy to meet with them. There is some discussion about the reasons it has become so difficult to meet with a doctor. There is apparently a shortage. Posters complained about long wait times for appointments and then, like the original poster, having the doctor replaced by a Nurse Practitioner at the last minute. I believe the length of the thread can be attributed to debate over the qualifications and skills of nurse practitioners. Claims are made about training requirements and then those claims are disputed. I noticed at least one self-described nurse giving the idea that nurse practitioners are particularly skilled the side-eye. Her argument was that the increasing prevalence of online schools means that there are vast differences between programs and many nurse practitioners have not had experience as a nurse. Some see this primarily as a money issue with cheaper nurse practitioners replacing expensive MDs. Related to that, a poster argues that if they see a Nurse Practitioner, it shouldn't cost them as much but they get charged the same as if they were seeing an MD.

Memorial Day is a traditionally slow day on DCUM but, perhaps due to yesterday's bad weather in the DC area, traffic was a bit higher than might have been expected. How did DCUMers spend the holiday? Mostly talking about the Max (nee HBO Max, nee HBO) series "Succession". That thread received over three times the number of posts as the next most active thread. But, since I've already discussed that thread, I'll start with the runner up. That thread was titled, "Most beautiful place on earth you've seen, if you're a regular person?" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. The original poster asks what is the most beautiful thing others have seen while traveling as a "normal person", by which she means those not being sent as part of a job and not "professional" adventurers. I always struggle to summarize threads of this sort that consist mostly of one or more suggestions per post. Without going through and making a tally of the locations, I'm not sure that I can draw many conclusions. But, nominations ranged from Burke Lake to Phuket, Thailand and the Fjords of Norway. I did notice that one of my personal favorites, Lake Louise, was repeatedly mentioned. Bodies of water in general were popular. Some posters appear to have had trouble narrowing it down and provided fairly long lists. One wonders if there wasn't a bit of bragging going on. One poster proposed Nelson Mandala’s prison cell on Robben Island. I can imagine that being interesting, historic, and perhaps even moving, but I have a hard time thinking of it as "beautiful". This would be a good thread for those seeking inspiration for a future trip and is also good for provoking memories of places you've been fortunate enough to visit.

I take the weekend off from this blog and wavered over whether to take today off as well since it is a holiday. I've decided to go ahead but looking at the the threads I will have to cover, I'm already regretting the decision. As such, I'll keep things short today. Many of the most active threads over the past three days have already been covered and, therefore, I'll skip them. That is sort of leaving me with the junior varsity threads. The first of those was titled, "People you know that died in a freak accident. What happened?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster doesn't offer much information about what she wants from this thread other than fuel for her "existential anxiety". The thread is 19 pages long so I am not going to read the whole thing. From what I can tell, however, posters have listed several usual deaths. In many cases, those deaths involved people the posters knew, others they had simply heard about second or third-hand. I see a number of clearly made-up posts with some describing scenes from movies or TV shows. This is really not my type of thread so that's all I'll say about it.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Glad MCPS is getting sued". Posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, the original poster supports the right of parent's to opt their children out of school activities that deal with sexual orientation and gender identity. The poster linked to an article describing a lawsuit filed by three families demanding this opt-out right. Essentially, the battle over books in school dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity has come to MCPS, though in a pretty mild form. While there are posters on both sides of this issue, the majority seem opposed to the opt-out demand. They reject the religious concerns expressed by some posters on the basis of separation of church and state. A few posters are not concerned about the subject matter, but simply don't think that some MCPS's choices aimed at inclusivity are challenging enough. They are fine with LGBTQ-friendly books, they just want them to be better written. While much of the discussion focuses on the controversy aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity, others posters argue that this is actually a fairly technical dispute. As one posters outlines very clearly, the families behind the lawsuit are requesting to be allowed to opt-out based on regulations governing instruction about family life and human sexuality. Since the books in question have nothing to do with instruction of human sexuality, that leaves only family life. The poster asks whether the regulations should extend to any book that portrays family life even if that is simply parents, a baby brother, and a grandmother, or only LGBTQ family life? The lawsuit is clear that the families' objections are to gay families and trans gender people and are a result of the families' religious beliefs. While one family is Muslim, the others are various Christian denominations. Frankly, the books involved are fairly mild and both the original poster and the plaintiffs have to stretch a bit to make them appear controversial. At the same time, they are not asking for a ban on the books so MCPS has not entered in to Florida or Virginia territory yet. Nevertheless, despite protestations in the lawsuit that the plaintiffs believe people of all sexual orientations and gender identities must be respected, they appear quite unwilling to have their children simply learn about the existence of such people. As such, I question how much respect can be given to those about whom you don't even want your children to know.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "What parts of your life/lifestyle are unapproved by DCUM standards?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster provided no further explanation about the topic of this thread beyond what was in the title. This is somewhat baffling to me because I am not aware of DCUM having approved standards. Rather, from its inception, DCUM has been known for the lack of agreement among its posters. If any conceivable difference of opinion can be found, DCUM posters will argue about it. As a result, I suspect that "standards" in this case are simply something that one or more random posters like while a similar or greater number of random posters don't like. DCUM almost never speaks with one voice and, frankly, if it did it would be rather boring. At any rate, I am fairly certain that "standards" is not the proper term to use in this context. The original poster's examples are vacationing in Wildwood, NJ and Ocean City, MD every summer. This basically makes my point. I don't know anything about Wildwood but a quick search on our travel forum shows that it has a number of fans due to its boardwalk. To the extent posters didn't like it, it's because they prefer Ocean City, NJ. As for Ocean City, MD, just about everyone in the DC area seems to have a love/hate relationship with it. Everyone hates it but everyone still goes there. Frankly, if DCUM had standards, this thread wouldn't meet them. Almost immediately it turns into posters simply posting snide remarks or non-sequiturs. One poster, for instance, claims that DCUM hates mothers. Very keen insight about a website dominated by mothers. And, of course, racists seize the opportunity to come out of their holes. True to form, multiple arguments appear to have broken out though I can't say much about them because I can't bring myself to read more than a few posts. I feel no end of disappointment about threads like this that I consider complete wastes of time.

Once again the two most active threads yesterday were threads that I've already discussed. So, I'll start with the third most active thread which was titled, "How does your redshirted kid feel now that she/he is older?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. This is the type of thread that I find very frustrating and makes me want to reconsider what we are doing with DCUM altogether. The original poster has a perfectly reasonable request. Her family is moving to the DC area and she is giving thought to school for her daughter who just completed kindergarten. The child's birthday is in late August and she has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Therefore, the original poster is considering redshirting her daughter and having her repeat kindergarten. She would like to hear about the experiences of those who redshirted their children in the past. This sounds pretty straight-forward, right? If you redshirted your child, the original poster would like to hear how that turned out. No additional input was requested. But, this is DCUM where I have often said that if you post a question asking for input from cat owners, you will most assuredly be flooded by responses from dog owners, many of whom hate cats. No surprise then that the thread was filled by posts from those with no experience with redshirting. To be sure, many of those were helpful and informative and contributed positively to the thread. But, others were not. For instance, one poster weighed in to say that her older child was glad that he was not redshirted. Good to know, but hardly relevant to this discussion. That wasn't the end of this poster's participation, however. She would eventually post nearly 30 times in the thread, opposing redshirting and challenging the experiences of others. So, not only was this poster not providing responsive posts, she was debating those who were. As is turns out, probably not surprisingly, this particular poster is one that I encounter frequently due to her prolific posting. Yesterday, in fact, she posted at least 127 messages. The strange thing is that she does not appear to have actually started a thread herself during this calendar year. Her habit is to simply comment relentlessly, and mostly negatively, on other's posts. I appreciate this person's commitment to DCUM, but I wish she would be more positive and helpful. In this case, she is almost single-handedly responsible for this thread being among yesterday's most active and, more importantly, much less useful than it could have been. I wish I had the ability to contact the user privately and encourage her to do better, but I don't. So, maybe this post will suffice. Either way, I've blocked her IP address for 24 hours so we will see what that does, if anything. For the original poster's part, it doesn't look like she posted again in the thread. So, who knows what she thinks of the discussion?