2024

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.

I have had a busy few days, doing a bit of traveling and spending time with family. I was unable to write a blog post on Friday, so today I will discuss the most active threads since Thursday. The most active thread during that period that I have not already discussed was titled, "Harris Walz interview w CNN" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original title of this thread was actually, "Harris Walz interview w CNN – only 18 minutes", but after a number of requests I shortened the title because it misstated the actual length of the interview. The controversy over the length of the interview is a story in itself. Former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and his supporters devote a huge amount of time and effort to trying to convince the public that they are not being treated fairly. In this instance, soon after the announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would be interviewed by CNN, Trump supporters began circulating on social media the claim that the interview would only be 18 minutes long and that a full transcript would not be released. This, they claimed, was evidence that the interview would be cleaned up to hide the fact that Harris is, according to them, unable to articulate a complete sentence or connect two thoughts together. The original poster apparently based this thread on those inaccurate claims, but attributed the misinformation to CNN. As it turned out, the interview was longer than 18 minutes and a full transcript was released. A recurring phenomenon that has really started to bug me is that right-wingers will post false information and left-wingers will accept those falsehoods as fact and defend them. In this instance, posters immediately began defending Harris for giving an 18 minute interview and not making a full transcript available. This only helped to spread and confirm inaccurate information. My rule of thumb is to assume by default that anything posted by conservatives is wrong, either intentionally or simply because they don't know any better. Instead of posting knee-jerk responses defending lies about Democrats, liberal posters should take a minute to check whether the information is true or not. As for posters' reactions to the interview, they were about what you would expect. Conservatives had plenty of criticisms. According to them, Harris looked down too much, did not speak coherently, and had lots of help from Walz and Dana Bash, the interviewer. Liberals, of course, thought that Harris had done great. There were a few posters who claimed that their vote had been influenced one way or another but most people simply had their previous opinions reinforced. There was almost as much discussion about Bash as there was about Harris and Walz with conservative posters trying desperately to demonstrate that she was biased in favor of Harris. Several liberal posters also believed that Bash was biased, but against Harris rather than in her favor. Another manufactured controversy involved the fact that Walz was included in the interview. Right-wingers argued that this was unusual and showed that Harris could not be trusted on her own and needed Walz to babysit. In fact, interviews including both the presidential and vice presidential nominees are common and have been conducted by all recent nominees.

The two most active threads over the weekend were threads that I've already discussed. Therefore, I will start with the third most active thread which was titled, "Just got yelled at for leaving my kid alone in in the car while I went to the pharmacy" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster says that she had to run into the pharmacy and her 7-year-old son didn't want to come in, even after the original poster had tried tempting him. Therefore, she left him alone in the car with the car running. When she returned about 10 minutes later, a security guard began yelling at her, saying that she could not leave her child in the car until he is a teenager. The security guard also questioned the original poster's son. The original poster wants to know if it is really a crime to leave her son alone in the car for 10 minutes. Whether or not leaving the child in the car is a crime depends on state and local laws. One responder says that in Maryland children must be at least 8 years old to be left alone in the car. Another poster copy and pasted regulations for DC, MD, and VA. DC law requires children to be 10 years old to be left alone. However, in Virginia it is only illegal to leave children 4 years old or younger alone. Because the original poster said that this happened in Virginia, her actions were apparently legal. Many posters agreed with the original poster that leaving her son alone for 10 minutes was okay, but they were concerned about the car being left running. One fear was of carjackers. That concern is not without merit as a huge number of carjacked cars in the region seem to have kids in them. Other posters worried about the child accidentally doing something to the car that could be dangerous, such as putting it in gear. Those concerns aside, many posters fully supported leaving an unattended child in the car for a brief time. But that opinion was far from universal. Many other posters considered the original poster's actions to have been "lazy" parenting and poor judgement. In addition to the concerns about the running car, these posters had other objections. For instance, the original poster may have been expecting to take only 10 minutes but could have been delayed and taken considerably longer. Several posters acknowledged the dangers of leaving an unattended child alone in a car, but admitted doing so nevertheless. They had found themselves in difficult situations with no good options and decided that briefly leaving their child alone was the least bad choice. Other posters seem to take pride in leaving their kids alone in the car, feeling that any objections were a result of overly-protective parenting. On the other hand, regardless of the wisdom or legality of leaving children alone in the car, some posters were most bothered that the original poster didn't simply tell her son he had to come with her and not allow him a choice. They saw that as her parenting failure.

Once again yesterday the most active thread was the one about the Democratic National Convention and, once again, I will skip the thread because I've already discussed it. After that, the most active thread was titled, "MIT releases post-affirmative action class of 2028 data" and was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a New York Times article reporting on admissions results at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT is the first highly-selective university to release statistics regarding the composition of its freshmen class since the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited using race as a factor in college admissions. The topic of race and admissions has been the subject of many lengthy and heated discussions in DCUM's college forum. The results at MIT were almost exactly what critics of race-based admissions had predicted. The number of Asian applicants admitted increased while the number of Black and Hispanic students decreased. Both the NYT article and posters in the thread noted that the MIT results defied expectations by some that universities would use information gleaned from student essays to advantage Black and Hispanic students as a way around the Supreme Court restrictions. MIT, at least, does not appear to have done this. Posters in the thread described that sort of work-around as "cheating" and the Times article suggested that schools that engaged in the practice might expose themselves to legal action. Still, colleges seem to want to recruit diverse student bodies. Even Sally Kornbluth, MIT's president, seemed to lament the loss of diversity in a quote reported in the Times article. However, the MIT data would seem to present a significant roadblock to maintaining diversity. By being the first out of the gate, MIT's results set the benchmark by which other universities will be judged. If the admissions statistics of other top universities do not show similar drops in Black and Hispanic admissions, the schools will be accused of having "cheated". While many of the posts in this thread mention "Asians" and make broad generalizations about them, what comes across if you are paying attention is the significant diversity in that community. On the one hand are Asians who, despite the MIT results showing increased admissions of Asians, seem to feel that everything is stacked against them and, as a minority, they are prejudiced against. On the other hand are posters who seem to believe that the MIT results show that Asians will soon dominate. As one poster writes, "in 10-20 years most of these institutions will be led by Asian Americans." But, in the middle are Asian posters who value diversity and are not thrilled with the MIT results. Given that the term "Asian" encapsulates both east and south Asians, we might want to begin using other designations. China and India are the world's two most populous countries. That's a lot of people to identify by a single label. This issue is a topic of dispute in the thread. The missing element from the MIT data is the demographics of those who applied. Apparently, MIT did not collect that information. There seems to be general agreement among posters that the vast majority of applicants to elite schools have the academic qualifications required and are separated by other factors. Therefore, a drop in the number of Black and Hispanic applicants might explain their drop in admissions. It would also be interesting to see if those groups have higher or lower rejection rates. But we simply don't have those numbers.

The most active thread on DCUM over the weekend was titled, "Price gouging as her first policy announcement? Really?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Some days I feel like there is practically a contest on DCUM to see who can post the most uninformed post. Today is one of those days and this thread is one of those threads. A corollary to this is a widespread desire to be contrarian as if that automatically bestows some sort of intelligence on the poster. It doesn't. The original poster of this thread transgresses in both of these ways, at least in my opinion (admittedly, completely worthless). The original poster's primary point in her post is to question why Vice President Harris chose price gouging as her first major policy announcement and to argue that such a policy is unnecessary and brings back memories of 1970s price controls. As the very first response in this thread points out, this is not Harris' first major policy announcement. She had already announced plans for the national protection of reproductive health and support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Second, the original poster clearly knew nothing about Harris' proposal and, therefore, was misleading in her post. However, had the original poster made an effort to inform herself before posting, she might have some lingering confusion for which she could be forgiven. Harris did not exactly announce a policy but rather a plan to develop a policy. Her announcement promised the development of "clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries." She also committed to authorizing the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to “impose strict new penalties” on companies that price gouge. Harris would also address anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions that cause grocery price increases. Because none of the details of these initiatives were announced, a lot of exactly what Harris will do is unknown. But, nothing Harris outlined suggested that there would be price controls. Moreover, several states have existing anti-price gouging laws and don't impose price controls. Many of those responding are supportive of Harris, noting that posters have been complaining about inflation generally and grocery prices specifically for months. Now Harris is promising to address those concerns. The MAGA reaction is as expected. They accuse Harris of being a communist. There is literally no policy that Harris could announce which would not cause MAGA posters to claim that she is a communist. Somewhere in the middle were those who oppose former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and would like to support Harris, but are opposed to this initiative. Some of them claim to be professional economists. What I have noticed over the past few years is that mainstream economists have adopted a fairly conservative view of economics. For instance, the acclaimed Lawrence Summers repeatedly argued that unemployment would have to reach 10% in order to control inflation. President Joe Biden somehow managed to get inflation under control while keeping unemployment at historic lows. I normally respect expertise. But, professionals in two specialities, weather forecasting and economics, really seem to be wrong more than they are right. I no longer have much faith in either one.

Fully half of yesterday's top ten most active threads were ones that I have previously discussed. That includes the most active thread overall which was the thread about Usman Shahid, the young Virginian whose speeding resulted in a collision and the death of two high school girls. He was convicted of two charges of involuntary manslaughter yesterday. The first thread that I will discuss today was titled, "Nate Silver: ‘Go to a state school’" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Most readers are probably familiar with Nate Silver, a stats-whiz who founded FiveThirtyEight and has been a leader in data-driven journalism. The original poster of this thread linked to an article by Silver in which Silver argues that most students should choose state schools over Ivy League or other selective private schools. Those who have paid attention to Silver over the past few years will know that he transitioned from a purely data-driven, "let the stats tell the story", analyst to a leader in the "take industry". These days, Silver seems to pay a lot more attention to "vibes" than to data. This article is no exception. Silver claims that the Ivy League has lost its luster. His evidence for that? A poll showing declining perceptions of higher education. Not Ivy League education, but higher education in general. The Nate Silver of a decade ago would have been embarrassed to offer such flimsy, and misleading, support for an argument. To be sure, for many students state schools are compelling options. It would be interesting to see an analytical study comparing various outcomes such as salary level, employment opportunities, and other factors between top state schools and top private schools. At one time, that would be the sort of thing to expect from Silver. But not anymore. Instead, we get things like suggestions that Ivy students are "coddled". Exactly how do you quantify that? Silver's article is more a collection of right-wing memes than serious analysis. In the thread, there are those who agree with Silver, including posters who agree that Ivy students are coddled. But plenty of posters disagree as well. Like Silver's article, most of the posts in the thread are based on perception. Perception is affected by many things, not all of them accurate. The value of Silver's past brand of data journalism was that it distinguished what is believed from what is real. We don't get that from him any longer. There has been thread after thread lamenting various aspects of today's Ivy League, yet I doubt that a single poster would turn down the opportunity (for either them or their child) to attend if it were reasonably available (i.e. not financially out-of-reach). As for those claiming that they would not apply, as I have written before, that's like me deciding not to try out to be the starting quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs.