December

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "How to fix our crisis" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The "crisis" in question pertains to the U.S. education system, which the original poster believes is failing on many levels. According to her, the SAT is not rigorous, American students are dropping out of STEM programs "like flies", and students are not graduating with the skills needed to compete for entry-level jobs. This is a 19-page thread full of fairly dense posts and, as such, not easy to summarize. Two things the thread demonstrates are the acute politicalization of education and how data can be manipulated to support an argument. Almost immediately, posters associated the original poster's argument with recent statements by failed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who has similarly argued that American culture has accepted mediocrity instead of striving for excellence when it comes to education. When a poster described a comedian who had joked about "MAGA friends", a poster immediately assumed that this was a rebuke of rural White kids, and one poster instinctively posted about alleged deficiencies among urban kids, presumably meaning Black and Hispanic children. It is not clear why posters made the connection between "MAGA friends" and rural White students or even why remarks about MAGA attitudes about education are considered derogatory. After all, it was President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump who famously said that he loved the "Poorly Educated" and attacks on higher education have been a hallmark of MAGA ideology. While many posters preferred to support their arguments with data, there was considerable disagreement about how data was used. For instance, some posters referred to data showing that American students lagged behind those of other countries as evidence that the American education system is failing. On the other hand, posters suggested that if the U.S. data was limited to the performance of White and Asian students, the U.S. performance would be near the top. This, the posters argued, showed that the U.S. education system was clearly capable of producing high-performing students. If true, however, this data does show the inequality in our system. Similarly, some posters refused to accept that the U.S. education system is failing or suffering from significant problems. Other posters agreed with the original poster that there is room for improvement, but there was little agreement about what exactly should be done. The original poster proposed that calculus be made a requirement for high school graduation. Many posters objected to this, arguing that, for most people, calculus has little value. The original poster also proposed not awarding high school diplomas to those who failed to meet the increased graduation requirements. It is not clear to me that the original poster's proposals would actually increase the education level of American students. Rather, it would probably just create a larger number of individuals who lack a high school diploma. A better strategy might be to ensure that calculus classes, as well as classes necessary to prepare for the course, are widely available as options for those students who want to study the subject.

After taking a week off, I was not sure how to get back to blogging today. One option was to just ignore the last week and start with a discussion of the most active threads over the weekend. The other choice was to look at the most active threads during the entire time I was off. For better or worse, I have chosen the second option. The most active thread during that time was the one that I have already discussed about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO. After that was a thread titled, "Why is Blake Lively so overrated?" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Let me preface this discussion by admitting that I am probably the least qualified person imaginable to discuss this topic. Frankly, I have no idea who Blake Lively is and could not pick her out of a police lineup if my life depended upon it. I understand that she is an actress, but I am not aware of any role that she has played. I may very well have seen her in a movie or show, but if so, I don't remember it. In fact, were it not for this thread, I am not sure that I could correctly identify her gender given that "Blake" can be a male name. What I can say is that this thread was started in September of 2018 by a poster who believed that Lively has "a weird looking face" and is a bad actress. After three pages, the thread died and sank into obscurity until it was revived just over two years later by a poster who claimed that Lively's biggest accomplishments were getting married and having children. After five posts, the thread returned to obscurity. Then, two months later, it was resuscitated by a poster complaining that Lively's "eyes are small". The thread then returned to hibernation for over a year, being awakened in March 2022 and then taking another year and change off. It was not heard from again until May 2023, at which time it received only a few posts. It was then zombied in August 2024. When the thread was revived in August, it was 8 pages long. Today, it is 95 pages. I understand that most of the new interest is the result of a lawsuit that Lively filed against Justin Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment. However, that lawsuit was not mentioned until page 28, so there were 20 pages of fairly recent discussion even before that occurred. Threads like this that are nearly 100 pages in length present a particular challenge to me. I wouldn't read a thread of this length even if the topic interested me, and this topic doesn't. As a result, if there were a lot of complaints about it, I would probably just lock it rather than devote the effort necessary to moderate it. But, as it happens, there have not been a lot of complaints about this thread. Instead, there was a thread started in the Website Feedback forum suggesting that the entire thread consisted of nothing but "PR bot vs PR bot spam". Apparently, "bot" is used in a rather unorthodox sense to refer to people rather than automated posts. At any rate, I noticed one anti-Lively poster who posted 27 times, another poster who posted 26 times, and a pro-Lively poster who posted a whopping 87 times. I suspect that these are actual humans with too much time on their hands rather than paid public relations professionals. I must admit, however, that the suggestion that Hollywood public relations firms would find DCUM discussions worth influencing is rather flattering, if somewhat unrealistic.

Yesterday's most active thread was again the one about the shooting of the UnitedHealthCare CEO that I've already discussed. After that was a thread titled, "Not enough office space: safe from RTO?" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. This is the second day in a row that one of the most active threads has been about federal employees being forced to return to the office. In that thread, as well as several previous threads on this topic that I've discussed, the fact that many federal agencies have reduced office space has come up as an obstacle to returning to the office. The original poster directly addressed that aspect of the issue, saying that her agency was among those that reduced office space and now doesn't have enough for all employees. Moreover, there is no funding to acquire more office space. She wonders if this will make her safe from return-to-office policies. Most of those responding do not think the original poster will be protected. As always in threads of this sort, there are a number of posters who are positively drooling at the thought of federal employees being forced back to their offices. The more painful this is and the more disruption it causes in the employees' lives, the better such posters like it. The idea that federal employees might also be forced like sardines into cramped places without desks is enough for such posters to almost need a cold shower and a cigarette. Many of the responses in this thread were very eye-opening for me. It seems that many federal employees have already gone through returns to the office in which there is no longer a sufficient amount of space. I learned a new term, "hot desk", in which employees scramble for available desks and lose them even if they get up for a meeting. Several posters report that they now work in open environments with desks side by side and face to face. With no privacy, many of the posters say that they have to take telephone calls in their cars. One poster says that her husband, unable to find a desk, works nearly the entire day in his car. Posters who work in the private sector say that this arrangement is increasingly common for them as well. As many posters point out, this situation is not really a bug, but rather a feature. The incoming administration is hoping that federal employees will be incentivized to quit. Some posters report that they did exactly that rather than put up with the insufficient work spaces. Some posters assure the original poster and those like her that she will adapt to such an environment and that she shouldn't be discouraged. Indeed, other posters say that they have adapted. That might require sound-cancelling headphones, constant movements to quieter places for taking calls, or the aforementioned working from their car, but they make it work. The more cynical among us, which most definitely includes me where this topic is concerned, would argue that one of the main motivators of return-to-office policies is the need to fill commercial real estate which otherwise is in danger of collapsing. If agencies are not expanding space, that problem is not going to be addressed. Office building landlords will probably need to trek to Mar-a-Lago in order to convince President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that the federal government needs more office space.

Yesterday's most active threads returned to a more familiar situation in which several were threads that I've already discussed and will skip today. That included the most active thread of the day, which was about the school shooting in Wisconsin. The next most active thread was titled, "GA & MLS NEXT Form Strategic Alliance" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. This thread was a bit of a challenge for me to decode due to the alphabet soup employed throughout the thread to identify various soccer-related entities. For those, like me, who do not speak "soccerese", I can translate the thread's title thusly: "Girls Academy and Major League Soccer NEXT Form Strategic Alliance". "Girls Academy" is a girls’ soccer league consisting of a nationwide network of girls’ travel soccer teams. "MLS NEXT" is a boys’ league that is associated with Major League Soccer that, if I understand correctly, is aimed at developing talent for the professional league. Based on my very rudimentary research into these two leagues, this does not appear to be the first time the two groups have announced an alliance. As such, many of the first responses were that this is not a big deal and is nothing new. You really have to have pretty arcane youth soccer knowledge — something that I lack —  to understand this thread. But what I think is behind the interest in the thread is the potential impact of this alliance on another soccer league. That league, Elite Clubs National League or ECNL, is currently the home of many Girls Academy clubs. Many of these same clubs apparently have MLS NEXT boys’ teams. As such, they may be caught between ECNL and MLS NEXT. There may also be clubs in the opposite situation who have Girls Academy teams and ECNL boys’ teams. The concern seems to be that ECNL may suffer as clubs switch to MLS NEXT. While many posters believe that this is a realistic concern, other posters scoff at the idea. One argument that I thought made sense — though, again, I really know nothing about this topic — is that Girls Academy and ECNL are focused on a development path that leads to college soccer teams, while MLS NEXT aims to develop professional talent. Right now, women's professional soccer is not all that attractive — at least according to some posters in this thread — and the emphasis on college is more appealing to girls. A thread about ECNL's plans to change the age cut-off for which teams players should join has been among the most active threads for months. That issue also comes up in this thread with some posters arguing that Girls Academy will not adopt the same changes and, therefore, will be more compatible with MLS Next. Or, maybe the opposite is true. I was repeatedly confused by the discussion in this thread, so I could very easily have things backwards. The bottom line appears to be that, in many cases, this announcement will change nothing. But, in other cases, clubs may have to make a tough decision, and there are strong arguments in favor of multiple choices for that decision.

For the first time in a long time, none of the top 10 most active threads were ones that I previously discussed. That almost made me feel that something is wrong. The most active thread was titled, "SMU? Really?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As I have been saying in recent blog posts, we are now in the college admissions season and will have many threads such as this one dealing with admissions decisions. The original poster says that her son applied to Dartmouth University during the early decision round and was turned down. He is now considering Southern Methodist University, and the original poster and her husband are worried about job prospects from a non-elite college and find the choice very disappointing. Unfortunately, the original poster is a troll. Almost immediately after starting the thread, the original poster began posting replies using different personas. Mostly, the original poster posed as a third party responding to the original poster and fluffing SMU as a great college and Dallas as a liberal bastion in conservative Texas. The original poster defended herself from criticism from other posters and, in turn, posted criticism of others. The personas used by the original poster changed, sometimes having a son, sometimes having a daughter, sometimes claiming to live in Dallas, and sometimes claiming to live somewhere else. Looking at other threads started by the original poster — which I subsequently removed — it appears that the original poster has been following this pattern from as far back as August. Since then, the original poster has undergone racial transformation, gender changes, had children who experienced gender changes, and considered a baffling range of colleges. Just yesterday, the original poster started a second thread titled, "Reed v Swarthmore". Strange that a student planning to commit to SMU is also planning an early decision strategy (presumably for next year) for those two schools. Based on the IP addresses used by this poster, my guess is that the poster is a college student who is currently home for winter break. If so, it is sad that trolling DCUM is the best way the individual has found to spend their free time. As an anonymous website, DCUM is very easy to troll. It really takes no talent. However, as this poster shows, if you do it long enough, you will eventually be caught. Perhaps that doesn't matter, but hopefully, the karmic effect of a significant number of people simultaneously thinking you are a loser will have some impact.

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 most active thread yesterday was the thread about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO, which I've already discussed. After that was a thread titled, "The insanity of 1%er East Coast parents and college", and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she has been observing several "1%ers" — meaning families in the top 1% of income levels — go through the college admissions process and "It is INSANE". She then went on to say that the families should calm down because their kids are "super privileged" and will be fine regardless of the college they end up attending. Simply in terms of technicalities, according to current data I just Googled, the top 1% in the U.S. consists of those with incomes above $819,324. While it is never possible to be completely sure, it is likely that some DCUM posters are in that group, and certainly there are plenty of 1%ers in the DC area. The top 5% includes those with incomes above $335,891 and probably describes significantly more DCUM posters. While many posters agreed with the original poster, others objected and suggested that she was simply jealous. One poster was apparently so upset by the original poster's very mild criticism of the top 1% that the poster suggested that the original poster deserved physical harm. That, of course, proved the original poster's point that some of these folks need to mellow out. Fundamentally, there is a difference of perspective about how the college admissions process is viewed. The original poster and those who agree with her believe that 1%ers look at elite college admissions as something that they deserve because of their wealth. They have always tried to provide the best for their children, and only an elite college will suffice as the best in this instance. According to the original poster, such families are stressed and panicking, even going "stark raving mad" in fear that their kids will not be accepted by a top school. The view held by the top 1% — or top 5% as it may actually be on DCUM — is that the panic is entirely justified. These families believe that, far from being privileged, they are actually disadvantaged when it comes to college admissions. As they see it, unless their kids are legacies, athletes, or have some other hook for admissions, their chances of admission are slim because the elite universities are looking for diversity and more likely to choose a poor farm kid from the plains or a racial or ethnic minority applicant. Added to this is the view — explicitly stated in the thread — that while state universities might be okay for others, such schools would be a humiliation for elite families. When the original poster says that these kids will be fine regardless of where they go to school, a poster replied back saying, "Fine is for normies". As always, generalizations have their limits. I doubt that every 1% family panics over college admissions and there are probably some who are perfectly happy to see their children attend state universities. Moreover, the panic over admissions is not limited to the top income families. We see it at all income levels on DCUM. But there is something particularly galling about those who have had every advantage complaining that they lack privilege all of a sudden.

The two most active threads over the weekend were the thread about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO and the ECNL soccer league age cutoff changes. Since I've already discussed these two, I'll start today with the third most active thread which was titled, "UGA EA Stats and decisions dates" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This thread is about the University of Georgia and its Early Action round of admissions. We are now into the college admissions season and we can expect threads of this sort to frequently be among the most active until late Spring. Most of the college admissions excitement at this time of the year involves Early Decision applications. Students are only allowed to submit one Early Decision application and must make a binding commitment to attend the university if they are accepted. Early Action admissions shares the earlier deadlines and release of results of Early Decision, but doesn’t have the one application limit or the required commitment. Still Early Action allows students to target their preferred schools and determine in advance whether they need to resort to alternative choices. The original poster started this thread back in early November. Unless the original poster was hoping to demonstrate how neurotic some parents get when it comes to college admissions — something she succeeded at doing whether it was intentional or not — she really made a mess of things. First of all, she started the thread by posting nothing but a link, something that is prohibited by DCUM's guidelines and something that would normally cause me to delete the thread. I am leaving the thread alone this time only because of all the posters who posted over the weekend and who would be disappointed to see the thread disappear. Even worse, for reasons that I cannot begin to comprehend, the original poster engaged in blatant sock puppeting. After starting the thread with just a link, she later posted her daughter's grade point average, test score, and other admissions data. She then went on to reply as if she were a different poster to her own post several times. Saying in one post that she didn't think the girl would be accepted and in another post saying she thought she would be accepted. Imagine being so obsessed with a college admissions decision that you start a conversation with yourself on DCUM? As for the posts that weren't written by the original poster, a lot of them simply addressed the University of Georgia’s admissions statistics and debated the quality of the school. Some posters insist that it is a top university and even a so-called "public Ivy". Others are not as impressed and don't consider it to be among the top universities. Building up to the 4 p.m. Friday release of results, posters were mostly posting about how difficult it was for them to control their anticipation. Approximately 5 minutes after the release, a poster said that her child had been accepted. After that, there was a steady flow of acceptances and deferrals.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "UHC CEO Gunned Down in Midtown Manhattan" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. There were also threads on this topic posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and the "Money and Finances" forum. I either locked or deleted those threads so that we wouldn't have duplicates. This thread, of course, is about the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot in Manhattan while preparing for UHC's annual investor conference. The shooting appears to have been a premeditated, well-planned-out, targeted killing. Many of the posts concentrate on the event itself, reporting details as they became known and speculating about the identity of the killer. But probably even more of the thread is devoted to debating America's healthcare industry. The thread is revealing of the anger that lies in many people about our healthcare system and, at times, even a bit frightening. The thread is also another demonstration of the difficulty moderating threads of this sort when there is suddenly mass interest in the topic. I was personally shocked to see the number of posts that praised the killing and urged that more CEOs be similarly murdered. I was actually forced to lock the thread for a couple of hours while I went through the then 33 pages to remove such posts. I considered them to be hugely inappropriate. I believe that I removed 12 pages worth of posts in that effort. Probably the biggest issue of debate regarding the shooting itself was the identity of the killer. Many posters suggested that the shooter might be a disgruntled customer who was upset about coverage being denied. Posters invented elaborate scenarios that might drive a normal person to shoot a CEO on the streets of New York City. Others argued that the killer must be a professional hitman, the only question was who had hired him. As details became available, speculation went from the hitman idea to maybe a less than professional killer. The video that was released of the shooting at first suggested that the killer was well-practiced and very competent. Later information, however, seemed to lean against that view. An intriguing detail that has just emerged — that the bullets used had "Delay", "Deny", and "Defend" written on them — could indicate that anger towards the insurance industry was a motivation. "Delay Deny Defend: Why insurance companies don't pay claims and what you can do about it" is a best-selling book on Amazon.com that is critical of insurance companies. Plenty of posters were very vocal about their own anger with insurance, especially health insurance. There is a widespread perception that health insurance corporations are motivated to turn down coverage to their customers and, therefore, profit from those customers' deaths. Thompson was personally vilified because UHC is considered one of the worst insurers when it comes to denying coverage. Even posters who explicitly said they don't condone murder had a hard time feeling much sympathy for the death. Other posters were downright giddy. Some even hoped that this would be the start of changes in the system. However, as other posters pointed out, the system we have is roughly that for which people have voted. There has never been strong electoral support for single-payer systems that would eliminate the role of insurance companies. Moreover, the incoming administration of President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump will, if anything, make things even worse. Trump famously does not have a healthcare plan, but only the "concept" of a plan.