Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Sept. 6 WSJ Rankings" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The Wall Street Journal issued college rankings based on "how much a college improves its students’ chances of graduating on time, and how much it boosts the salaries they earn after graduation." The original poster is interested in seeing the list but had been unable to find it when visiting the library. The original poster also mentioned that the College of William and Mary had dropped significantly on the list which caused an immediate diversion of the thread to discuss William and Mary. Posters suggested ongoing construction at the university and the quality of the food in the cafeteria might be responsible. However, it doesn't appear that either of those would be factors that the WSJ considered. When posters finally got back to discussing the rankings, several posters had the same reaction that I did which was to the question the emphasis on those particular metrics. Other posters, however, argued that return on investment is among the most important factors when considering colleges. This is another example of a phenomenon in the forum about which I have complained in the past in which a significant number of posters seem to view universities as little more than glorified vocational schools. Of course, this WSJ rankings are the ultimate expression of that view. Schools are ranked, not by their effectiveness at teaching or spreading knowledge, not by the contributions of their graduates to the public good or society, but solely on their ability to pump out graduates as quickly as possible and put them into high-paying jobs. Universities are seen less as fountains of knowledge and more as widget factories, the widgets being employees for the worlds of tech and finance. The focus of the WSJ methodology caused some colleges to drop considerably from where they normally appear in rankings, provoking surprise among some posters. Others noted that top schools were penalized for having strong programs in low-paying majors.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "‘No Labels’ Party", the thread was started back in May but added 10 pages yesterday. The thread, as you can guess from its title, is about the No Labels political organization which claims to support centrism and bipartisanship. The group was founded and is led by Nancy Jacobson, the wife of Mark Penn, known for being Bill Clinton's pollster. Both Jacobson and Penn were once strongly associated with the Democratic Party but have long been estranged and moved increasingly rightward. The group has been teasing the possibility of running a presidential candidate in the 2024 elections with former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Senator Joe Manchin being suggested as potential candidates. Most of the concern in this thread is that such a candidate would merely play the role of spoiler and simply draw votes from a candidate who would otherwise win. While some posters fear that No Labels could attract Republicans disenchanted with former President Donald Trump if he is nominated, most of the concern comes from Democrats who think No Labels would draw Democratic votes. Most of the Democratic posters see a vote for No Labels as simply a vote for Trump. No Labels supporters argue that President Joe Biden is unlikely to be a strong candidate. While they don't exactly claim that a No Labels candidate could beat both Trump and Biden, they argue that Biden is likely to be a weak candidate and his defeat by Trump should not be blamed on No Labels. This is a fairly novel way of campaigning in which the goal is less to win the election and more to avoid being blamed for the outcome. Many of yesterday's posts were simply arguing about Biden's fitness for office and not really about No Labels. When No Labels was discussed, it was mostly by detractors pointing out that the organization has almost none of the characteristics of a traditional political party. It doesn't have much of a grassroots organization, it doesn't have state or local parties, and it wouldn't be running candidates for any other offices. Much of the support for No Labels is simply criticism of Democrats. All in all, the No labels supporters in this thread do little to discourage the oft-stated criticism that "centrists" are simply Republicans in denial.

The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "People who lie about where they're from" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. This is one of those threads that raises the question, should I be discouraged that people are spending their time arguing about such a mundane topic or should I be happy that the state of their lives is such that nothing more important requires their attention? The original poster wonders why some people obfuscate where they are from. The posters lives in a major city and is amazed how often when he asks people where they are from he is told "here" only to later learn that they are from a place the original poster appears to consider to be the middle of nowhere. Posters suggest a number of reasons that people might do this. For instance, they simply might not want to discuss personal matters or they might consider it none of the original poster's business. Posters describe being asked to explain where their hometown is located or to provide other information about it and they want to avoid such discussions. One poster no longer wants to be associated with her hometown. Some posters say that it is an attempt to appear more cosmopolitan and interesting. Other posters have moved a lot and are simply not sure what to consider their hometown. This is especially true of they moved from the place in which they were born at a young age. One poster has lived in so many places that her honest answer for not telling the truth is that she doesn't want to bore the person to death with her life history. The thread verges on the ridiculous at times with some posters very determined to nail down precisely where someone else is from. In addition, some posters insisted on dragging Hilaria Baldwin into the discussion and threatened to make the thread about her. There was, however, some comedy relief that I appreciated. Hats off to the poster whose details of life are "quite inconsequential". You had me laughing out loud.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled "I secretly hate my spouse’s eye color (brown)", the original poster says that she wishes her husband had blue eyes and wonders how bad of a thought this is. Many posters do find this thought to be quite bad, but even more find it to be ridiculous. Several posters can't even bring themselves to respond seriously and I was actually confused about whether some responses were serious but incomprehensible to me or simply absurdities meant as reflections of how the posters valued the thread. Some posters took it seriously to the extent that they thought the original poster was being racist and this led to debate about that. Of course, as is the tradition in this forum, the original poster was advised to divorce. One poster stood up for the original poster's husband and wondered if he would like to change anything about the original poster's body. Going further, that poster suggested that posters might react differently to a male poster criticizing a body part of his wife. Maybe the earlier posters were not taking this thread seriously enough, but this guy is taking it way too seriously. But, that was just the start of such things. Several posters were insulted by various physical characteristics, including eye color, that other posters either preferred or disliked. Often, however, the reaction of those posters was to criticize the appearance of others. The result is that probably one of the most substance-free threads in recent memory became a virtual mud wrestling match. While some posters were comparing the original poster to Nazis, other posters obsessed over the color "hazel". There is post after post about the color hazel.