Wednesday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday was another day dominated by presidential politics. The most active thread was the thread that I've already discussed about Vice President Kamala Harris running for president. After that was a thread titled, "Harris vs Trump poll numbers" which was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started the thread with an excerpt from a National Public Radio story discussing a new poll that it had conducted along with PBS and Marist. The results showed that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump led Harris by a single point and in a five-way contest that included the minor candidates, Trump and Harris were tied. A significant change from previous polling was a large increase in the number of undecided voters which the original poster suggested was a good omen for Harris. Any polls at this time need to be taken with a grain of salt. While the latest polls were conducted after President Joe Biden withdrew as a candidate, they still covered days in which his replacement by Harris was not a sure thing. Moreover, she has not yet selected a running mate, a decision that will likely have an impact. Also, as the original poster points out, national polls are not all that significant. Of more importance are polls of battleground states. These caveats, along with the immense desire of some posters to engage in advocacy instead of analysis, leads posters to generally interpret the data according to their partisan perspectives. Some posters argue that polls are useless altogether and have been consistently wrong, something that is not actually true. Others see what they want to see in the data and interpret it thusly. One thing that is clear in the early polling — and explicitly stated in the excerpt included by the original poster — is that Harris has caused a reset of the election. She clearly has momentum and I believe it is beyond dispute that she has a much greater upside than either Trump or Biden. Whereas voter opinion about the older candidates was fairly well set, Harris has shaken things up. More importantly, there is enthusiasm for her among groups that had been luke warm, if not outright hostile, to Biden. A major topic of discussion in this thread was the importance of Harris' choice for Vice President. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was suggested repeatedly on the basis that he might help Harris carry the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. Others suggested that he would be just as helpful if he remained as governor. U.S. Senator Mark Kelly was similarly proposed based on his presumed ability to help carry his home state of Arizona. Because of the perceived importance of the VP selection, the thread devolved into a debate mostly about that topic. In addition, a number of posters are disappointed, either in Harris or the method by which she replaced Biden. These posters seem to show up in every thread and disrupt it with their off-topic rants. Polling results mean nothing to these folks because they have everything figured out already. But, for the rest of us, we will probably have to wait a bit longer for things to shake out and for the polls to provide more useful results.

The next most active thread was the thread asking whether former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump would drop U.S. Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate. Since I discussed that thread already, I'll move to the next most active thread which was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)". Titled, "How to get through to DH that doing 80% doesn't count?", the original poster complains that her husband doesn't complete tasks. For instance, he may do a load of laundry, but then leave it in the dryer until someone else takes care of it. He goes to the grocery store, but then leaves everything, including perishables, in the bags and doesn't put things away. The original poster gets frustrated by this because she is the one who normally ends up finishing his jobs. As a result, she has to do her work plus some portion of his. Several of those responding report that they are in similar circumstances. Some suggest that, assuming the rest of their relationship is good, the original poster just accept that this is the way things are. Others advise that she not finish his tasks and, instead, allow them to sit unfinished. The original poster says that she has attempted this with no improvement. Some posters say that rather than having tasks for each spouse they approach projects as a collaborative effort in which each spouse contributes some effort. Therefore, in the examples provided by the original poster, since the husband did laundry, the original poster should fold and put away things. Since her husband went shopping, the original poster should put away the groceries. There are clearly some flaws in this suggestion because, as in the case of the laundry, the husband is doing the easy part. In fact, discussion about laundry and the various ways posters handle that chore really dominates discussion in this thread. The most common solution is to have each family member do their own laundry. Then, if the original poster's husband wants to leave his own clothes in the dryer, nobody else has to concern themselves about it. The thread is also filled with posters who admit that they behave much like the original poster's husband and also have trouble completing tasks. They have various explanations for their failure to complete tasks.

Next was a thread titled, "Biden addresses nation soon", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started this thread in anticipation of President Joe Biden's planned address yesterday evening. Biden explained his decision not to seek reelection, reviewed many of the accomplishments of his administration, and strongly supported Vice President Kamala Harris. For the most part, reaction to the speech broke down along partisan lines. Among Biden supporters, Biden is now held in extremely high esteem. There is considerable appreciation for all that he has been able to accomplish and an understanding of the difficulty that he must have faced to decide to withdraw. Many posters were emotional in their responses. On the other side are posters who don't believe that Biden has any accomplishments. Their understanding of his administration is mostly limited to the border, something about which they actually appear to know very little. They have little patience for the praise offered by Biden supporters. For months DCUM posters opposed to Biden have been telling us that he is near death — in fact I removed a half dozen posts this week claiming that he was in hospice care — and that he was not fit to run the country. Many of these posters have spent the last couple of days demanding proof of life. Now that Biden has appeared and is not only alive, but in pretty good shape for an 81 year old who has been recovering from COVID, anti-Biden posters are complaining that he withdrew from the campaign. Others insist that Biden is still hiding one or more serious medical conditions. The right-wing loves conspiracy theories and last night's address was not immune from them. One theory is that the speech was pre-taped and may have been using a green screen rather than being in the Oval Office. In fact, not only was the talk delivered live from the Oval Office, but several reporters were there to observe it. My view is that Biden may be the most consequential president of my lifetime. This will be even more true if Harris defeats Trump. Biden has significant legislative accomplishments including the Inflation Reduction Act which included significant spending on green projects, the American Rescue Plan that helped deliver the U.S. from the pandemic-related economic downturn, the CHIPS Act that is helping return manufacturing to the U.S, and the bipartisan infrastructure law that is helping rebuild America. Biden is criticized for inflation, but if you compare the conventional expectations regarding inflation from not only Republican but many mainstream economists to what has actually happened, Biden has nearly delivered a miracle. There is a thread in the political forum in which a poster confidently predicts that gas will reach $7 a gallon due to Biden's "moronic prescriptions". In fact, the price of gas never got close to that and has generally been less that half of that prediction. I expect that history will be good to Biden. The one blemish on his record is his handling of Israel and Gaza. It is a significant black mark and one that really should do significant damage to Biden's reputation. But since most Americans don't seem to care about tens of thousands of dead Palestinians, I expect that the topic will hardly come up in the future.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Would you support your child in pursuing a degree in English Literature?", the original poster says that this is a "noteworthy pursuit" but that she is concerned about the career prospects. Many posters see this as a useful degree, but not a particularly lucrative one. As such, some would not argue against the major, but are not willing to pay for it. Others would only advise pursuing the degree if the student did not expect to have to rely on it to suport themselves. Several posters argued that it was a good degree as long as the student intended to pursue graduate school. A few posters pointed to examples of English literature majors who had landed in lucrative jobs, contrary to expectations. Many argued against it, particularly those who feared that artificial intelligence would make the degree obsolete. I have written several times that the many of the posters in the DCUM college forum view university education as vocational school on steroids. Its purpose, in their view, is to lead to a well-paying job. As a result, much of the discussion in the thread focuses on comparing salaries earned by those with liberal arts degrees such as English literature to salaries earned by those with STEM degrees. Personally, I am pretty squarely on the liberal arts side of this debate. My view is that an ability to think critically, communicate clearly, and assimilate new knowledge sets individuals up for countless options. To the extent that studying English literature develops those skills, I am in favor of the degree. However, I probably also agree with those who argue that graduate school would be necessary after obtaining such a degree. As for the danger of artificial intelligence, it presents some dangers but perhaps not as many as are generally believed. As things stand, and into the foreseeable future, AI does not create. Generative AI simply follows rules. Creativity comes from breaking rules and doing something new or in a way that it hasn't been done before. If generative AI replaces the creators, we will be stuck with the culture that we have now. Think of a library in which an infinite number of books can be added, but every additional book only contains content from the previously-existing books. There won't be anything truly new. My apparently limited imagination does not allow me to comprehend how this is an improved situation.