The Most Active Threads Since Friday

I'm starting with the third most active thread over the weekend because the first two were ones that I've already discussed. This thread was titled, "UVA ED on Friday at 5 pm" and posted in the "College and University Discussion". As I have written in the past few blog posts, we are now in the college admissions season and there will be several threads of this nature. This thread was about the University of Virginia's early decision admissions decisions. As frequent readers of this blog will have read many times, early decision is a type of admissions that limits students to one application and requires a commitment to attend the school if they are accepted. Because colleges know that applicants are serious and almost certain to attend if accepted, early decision is often a student's best chance of being admitted to their preferred college or university. The original poster of this thread posted early in the week saying that the University of Virginia would be releasing its results on Friday at 5 p.m. Even before the results were released, a collection of statistics about early decision applications was provided. If there is one thing the DCUM college admissions fantasy league participants love, it's stats. As such, posters quickly obsessed over this data. Moreover, it was notable that at this point in the thread, most of the posters didn't appear to have kids who were current applicants. Rather, the thread was full of posters who, for whatever reason, are simply interested in college applications statistics. Just after 5:00 p.m., posters who did have children applying began posting their results. Almost immediately, the thread devolved into a debate about football because one of the applicants who was accepted was a football player. One poster was particularly upset that a "football player" had taken a coveted UVA spot from another student who might have gotten in on academic merit. Another unwelcome aspect of threads of this sort is the influx, or at least the suspected influx, of trolls. There always seem to be posts claiming that a student was accepted with very low stats and other posts claiming a student with extremely high qualifications was rejected. Such results do seem to have some regularity due to the coin-toss nature of admissions, so these could be legitimate posts. However, many posters are certain such posters are trolls. Frankly, I don't care enough at this point to check. Moreover, maybe I am just in a bad mood or something this morning, but far too many of the posters in this thread seemed overly invested in their kids' colleges. Posters referred to colleges as "our" school and talked about how "we" will be doing such and such in college. When a parent of a student who was rejected wrote, "We are moving on to the next school with our head held high!" a poster responded saying, "Unless you and your child share a head, you should probably dial it back...". After this, the thread deteriorated even more and I gave up reading it. While there were posts about students being accepted and others rejected, that was not always a clear focus of the discussion. What is clear is that almost everyone believes that they were discriminated against for one reason or another.

The weekend's next most active thread was another one that I've already discussed. After that was a thread posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" and titled, "Why are women so triggered about men dating younger?". The original poster asks why women are so triggered by men dating younger women. He says that while men brag about this, it's not really that big of a deal and is often just a mid-life crisis. He says that women should stop feeling insecure about it. Moreover, he argues that in most cases the women wouldn't even date those guys. Admittedly, I didn't have a lot of hope for this thread based on the title alone and what little hope I did have mostly dissipated after reading the initial post. But even those last few dregs were completely eliminated when I realized that huge proportion of the posts were from men. Why are so many men self-professed experts on why women get triggered by things? From what I can discern from actual women posting in the thread, there are a few reasons they are triggered. One is that when they were young they were appalled when older men hit on them. Therefore, seeing younger women with older men causes a sort of PTSD for them. In other cases, they suspect the younger women's motives. Such women might be "settling" because they couldn't find an available guy their own age or they might be seeking the financial advantages that an older guy might offer. In some cases, they claim to feel sorry for the women because they know the limitations and baggage that often come with an older guy. Others simply don't enjoy socializing with the younger women when they arrive as dates at a gathering of mostly older people. Some posters are bothered by how older men dating younger women reflects on themselves. One poster complained about going from a situation in which she received considerable male attention to becoming practically invisible simply because she aged. The reality is that cultural expectations are that women should date men close to their own age or somewhat older. That means that every older man who chooses a younger woman is one less eligible date for older women. This is in a market that is not exactly overflowing in prospects in the first place. Other posters are bothered by what they perceive as differences in how men and women approach the opposite sex. According to some posters, women will overlook shortcomings such as a balding head, midriff bulge, erectile dysfunction, or other physical ailments that often come with age and still manage to love such men "as a whole, complete person." They are frustrated when men appear to be unable to do the same with regard to older women. One last thought that I had about this thread is that it again demonstrated to me the existence of a group that might be called "professional daters". These are posters who seem to have years of dating experience. They are experts on the topic. In some ways, I am fascinated by these posters. Are these the lives that they want, or are they simply unsuccessful in finding a long-term relationship? Probably a mixture of both, but someone should start a thread about them.

Again, the next thread was one that I've already discussed. Skipping that one brings us to a thread titled, "Distraught about college son who’s happy about Trump". This thread was originally posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum, but I moved it to the "Political Discussion" forum when it was apparent that most of the discussion would be political. The original poster says that she and her husband are solid Democrats with progressive values. They are “distraught and embarrassed" that their college-aged son has become a Republican and is happy that President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump was elected. He says that this is due to "campus DEI and wokeness". She asks for advice for others who have been in this situation. If there is one thing that triggers Republican posters in our forum, it is the suggestion that their views are not tolerated. Such posters react to the original poster by blaming her and her perceived intolerance. They claim that her son's views are completely supported by the intrusion of DEI into our lives. One issue that such posters don't seem to understand is the difference between tolerance and agreement. There is no indication that the original poster has disowned her son or changed her relationship in any way. Similarly, she doesn't say that she has attempted to change her son's views or argued with him that he is wrong. As such, it appears that she is tolerating his new political identity. She just doesn't agree with him and is upset by his views. For some of the Republican posters, that is not acceptable. She must not only tolerate his views but agree that he is correct. Posters of all political persuasions warn the original poster about trying to change her son's views. They suggest that might only harden his position or, in the worst case, cause a rift between them and possibly lead to estrangement. One liberal poster takes a more nuanced view, suggesting that the original poster try to understand the underlying motivations for his political views and then discuss those points. Instead of attacking his political views, the poster advises, address the underlying issues that cause him to have those views. This poster also argues that there are some attitudes such as racism or misogyny that the original poster should simply tell her son are not acceptable in her home. I got fed up with this thread before I completed reading it and, therefore, I don't know how it got sidetracked to debates about abortion. But, that seems to be the fate of many political threads these days. But that led to a poster calling other posters "childless cat ladies" and the suggestion that any men who have cats are gay. So, just to be clear, we are supposed to tolerate and agree with MAGA college students but despise single women who are childless or cat owners of any gender. We live in a strange world where Republicans celebrate their intolerance while demanding that Democrats demonstrate complete tolerance. We are long past the point where we should tell Republicans exactly where they can stick their views on the entire topic of tolerance.

The last thread that I will discuss today was also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Biden pardons kids for cash criminal judge", the original poster is very upset about one of the individuals that was included in a mass clemency issued by President Joe Biden. First, a minor correction. While Biden included a few pardons in his clemency, the vast majority of the recipients had their sentences commuted. The President commuted the sentences of "close to 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities." Biden's action was the "largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history." The original poster is appalled that among the 1,500 individuals was Michael Conahan, a former judge who was at the center of a scandal known as "Kids-for-Cash" in which juveniles were sentenced to disproportionately long sentences in private detention centers in exchange for financial kickbacks. The original poster considers Biden's action to be "sick and wrong." Many other posters are equally angry about the sentence commutation. Some suggest that it is evidence of Biden's moral shortcomings, or possibly the result of corruption with one poster suggesting that Biden had been bribed. The other perspective is less damning for Biden. His action was categorical — encompassing those who had been released to home confinement during COVID-era policies and who had served the vast majority of their sentences. Conahan, for instance, had been sentenced to 17.5 years of prison and was scheduled to be released on Aug. 19, 2026. He has been serving home detention since 2020. As such, Biden's action only reduced Conahan's sentence by about a year and a half. Another poster created controversy in the thread by linking to Biden's commutation of the sentence of Shanlin Jin, a Chinese national who had been caught with 47,000 images of child pornography. However, Jin was not included in Biden's broad clemency action. Rather, Jin was released as part of a prisoner swap with China and immediately returned to China. According to the FBI, Jin's family is linked to influential figures in the Chinese Communist Party. American citizens were released to the U.S. as part of the exchange. In response, several posters compared Biden's clemency actions to those of President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump, not only during his first administration but to those planned for his second term. Trump has said that he will pardon individuals convicted of January 6 crimes. Multiple recipients of Trump's earlier clemency actions have committed subsequent crimes. Biden ignited focus on his clemency record when he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden. Many critics noted that Biden had previously been very stingy with his clemency powers and urged him to take more actions. Instead of focusing on specific individuals, Biden has chosen a broader approach that addresses entire classes of individuals. This approach is less subjective and allows for fewer charges of favoritism, but risks the result that is being criticized in this thread in which one member of the class causes controversy.