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Poor Grades Tied To Class Times That Don't Match Our Biological Clocks (berkeley.edu)
An anonymous reader shares a report: It may be time to tailor students' class schedules to their natural biological rhythms, according to a new study from UC Berkeley and Northeastern Illinois University. Researchers tracked the personal daily online activity profiles of nearly 15,000 college students as they logged into campus servers. After sorting the students into "night owls," "daytime finches" and "morning larks" -- based on their activities on days they were not in class -- researchers compared their class times to their academic outcomes. Their findings, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, show that students whose circadian rhythms were out of sync with their class schedules -- say, night owls taking early morning courses -- received lower grades due to "social jet lag," a condition in which peak alertness times are at odds with work, school or other demands. "We found that the majority of students were being jet-lagged by their class times, which correlated very strongly with decreased academic performance," said study co-lead author Benjamin Smarr, a postdoctoral fellow who studies circadian rhythm disruptions in the lab of UC Berkeley psychology professor Lance Kriegsfeld.
Life isn't always about getting the schedule or job you want. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do what you need to do and stop whining about why you fail.
I thought that most (not all) college classes had options for scheduling. I know there are night school classes so is this about educating kids that they can change their schedule for the better or simply to provide another excuse for those who are under-performing?
Huh ... so maybe rounding kids up like cattle and packing them into big buildings and trying to educate them like cattle has other dangers then just making them big targets.
Or are these findings just applicable to college age?
While a bit groggy in my first period classes, I was always wide awake by my second class. While I do think it's ridiculous to have students to school by 7:45 a.m., I get that it can help mom and dad get to work on time, but extending the starting time an hour wouldn't put most out that much.
Conversely, I'd have to say crappy teachers make the most difference between students who get good grades and those who don't. It was my experience that when presented with teachers who were concerned with mediocre or poorly performing students, they achieved better results. However, most teachers I had in middle and high school were focused on the higher performing students and left the rest of us to our own devices -- even if we were willing to stay after school to put in the additional work. I even had a science teacher bitch to me that I was keeping her from her new husband because I'd asked for additional time after school.
I barely made it out of high school, and yes, some of that was my own fault for not striving harder to achieve more. Conversely, in college, I was an honor student; I attribute that to the quality of the teaching staff.
My point in writing this is there are more important measures to address than morning class times if we want to improve a student's scholastic success rate.
So we tailor their class times to their biological rhythms and they turn into adults with juvenile biological rhythms. Will they ever really grow up?
Our ancestors worked a few hours a day hunting game and then went back to doing nothing. Pretty much like most predators in the wild.
The main difference is that we today have a LOT more to spend our time and money on so we have to work more to get that shit paid. But if you consider what you really need, you'll notice that working just a few hours a day is plenty.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And the average lifespan was what, 30-40 years?
I'll take our modern problems over theirs.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Well, my first reaction (as many others I'm sure) was that sometimes work doesn't align with your sleep cycle either so suck it up.
But then much of the method in school (especially now) doesn't align with the real world, and school isn't supposed to be analogous to a work environment. I always felt like I was more with it in my afternoon classes going through school, and that has continued on in my work life. Luckily I now have a job with flex hours where I can roll in at 10pm and work till 7pm, covering what seems to be my hard wired peak window of useful brain time.
That said, what can you do. There's plenty of people who are at their best in the morning, and school logistics are complicated enough I'm sure. Switching to online learning sounds great in theory, but I genuinely believe a big part of school is the social aspect. Looking back I probably would have loved to not have to physically go to school, but the social experience probably did shape me for the better.
People can't perform when they're asleep on the job? Now that's a new discovery, who would have guessed that lacking sleep and rest would make people perform worse?
Where do you apply for grants for such discoveries, I have plenty more that I'd really love to present. Next week: Water is wet and it's cold up North.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People today would not be able to cope with what they had to.
So what? I don't think my grandfather, who had the same job his entire adult life, expected dinner to be on the table when he got home, and frequently relied on violence as an educational tool would thrive in today's world either. The only thing that doesn't seem to change is people who repeat ad nauseam that things were better in the past.
Society is evolving. For the most part, men no longer drag women by their hair to fuck them next to piles of animal bones in cold, humid caves, and I don't think we lost of lot as a species as we moved past that. Today, with some exceptions, every person has a chance to make a meaningful contribution to society, and this is a good thing if we're at a point where people think about biological clocks to optimize productivity and happiness, instead of "toughing it out" and sticking with rigid systems.
Yes, there are idiotic aspects in today's life that may be mistakenly perceived as "evolution" (such as sexist and racist hiring policies at Google under the guise of "diversity"), but challenging the practice of having rigid schedules is not one of them. It's about time that we start considering better options than 9 to 5 for everyone, and next time you're stuck in traffic at rush hour you'll probably agree.
lucm, indeed.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8#Sec7
Looks like a shit study. Determining a student's circadian cycle from just analyzing the "learning management system login events for 14,894 Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU)" seems a stretch. And the study doesn't seem to differentiate between a student that has the bad habit of staying up too late for a reason like socializing, which would also be in indicator of poor academic performance (kid prefers to party rather than study) versus a student who is a "midnight owl" chronotype.
All the world's needs could be met if everyone worked just a few hours a day.
But that would also require that everyone cease putting their personal gain ahead of the gains of others. Good luck with THAT!
Greed motivates humans to exploit the labor potential of other humans. It has always been that way, and all attempts to move away from it have ended in horrifying disaster.
Perhaps the better students already prioritize their schedule to give themselves an advantage? I would even venture so far as to say this conclusion is obvious.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Our ancestors (most of them) worked all day from before the sun rose to after it set just to survive, farming, gathering, hunting, whatever it took.
And they had short(er) often brutal lives to show for it. They did that because they had no alternative. It wasn't a lifestyle choice.
People today would not be able to cope with what they had to.
Just because we don't have to doesn't mean we cannot if the need arises. Our ancestors would have happily traded their situation for the comfortable situation many of us enjoy today in a heartbeat. They didn't live that way because they had a choice.
I barely graduated high school. When I went to college at 18, I was put on academic suspension after 1 year.
I went back to college as a slightly older adult. Most of my classes were after work or late mornings instead of starting my day at 08:00. I'm sure most of the difference was in how I had grown and matured but not all of it. As a professional, working daily, I do my best work in the late morning through mid afternoon.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I thought that most (not all) college classes had options for scheduling.
To some degree but it's not infinitely flexible. Sometimes the classes you need to take are only offered at a time that isn't ideal for you.
FYI, snowflakes and fragile egos didn't appear magically. They are a product on their environment, and as a Slashdot 6-digiters you are old enough to share part of the blame as it happened on your watch. Stop bitching and start doing something about it, such as mentoring young people at work or boycotting Google and Facebook for their roles in accelerating this self-centered trend.
lucm, indeed.
It'd be interesting to see what affect going to bed at a decent time has on things too.
In college, everybody I knew who had a morning class that they really struggled in were also the bozos who were up until 3am every night, and so their poor academic performance was really due to them having to learn how to set boundaries without leaning on mom and dad so much.
Those who had already learned how to be responsible for themselves would simply go to bed early enough to be awake and ready for their class. Just like, you know, you have to do after college.
FYI, snowflakes and fragile egos didn't appear magically. They are a product on their environment, and as a Slashdot 6-digiters you are old enough to share part of the blame as it happened on your watch. Stop bitching and start doing something about it, such as mentoring young people at work or boycotting Google and Facebook for their roles in accelerating this self-centered trend.
What do you mean by "Slashdot 6-digiter"?
geeky stuff I'm proud to have been a part of: linux.com / themes.org / sourceforge.net / sicnus.com
Society is evolving. For the most part, men no longer drag women by their hair to fuck them next to piles of animal bones in cold, humid caves,
Right, the space heater and dehumidifier in the basement is a real boon!
My only D in college was my EE101 class at 7:30AM Tuesday and Thursday... and I R a Professional Electrical Engineer. Boy was that a miserable class. I had a few other 7:30AM classes over the years, but most were puff classes that I could do in my sleep. I remember a CAD teacher calling me to wake me up for the final exam because I was a half-hour late but had a perfect score up to that point...
WTF does this have to do with the story? Did you fall asleep in English class and not learn the difference between "we've figured out one of the reasons why people are performing shittily" vs "I am whining because I performed shittily"? Perhaps you should stop whining about your inability to read, and instead, put in some effort to learn how to read. I know it sounds hard, but suck it up.
My biggest annoyance with schools are their insistence on operating at weird hours. Starting classes at the weird hour of 7:45am and running till 2:30.
Schools should start at 9 and end at 5pm. Sports can and should operate during the school day. Students should also have more than ample time to finish all of their work in school with the added amount of time. The same goes for studying.
I finish and leave all of my work at work when I'm done. Unless it's Sunday night prep for a big trip the next day homework hasn't existed for me for years.
This way, kids get more sleep and quality family time. Add this in with year round schooling (longer winter and spring break terms) and separate classes for boys and girls, and we'd see improvements across the board.
The main difference is that we today have a LOT more to spend our time and money on so we have to work more to get that shit paid.
False. While most things have rose at the rate of inflation, prices for entertainment have dropped substantially in the past 20 years. While a 55" tv would have cost $3,000+ just twenty years ago, they can now be bought for $300. Camcorders, cameras, tape/cd players have all been replaced by relatively inexpensive smartphones. Film and tapes for cameras and camcorders have been replaced by cheap memory cards and free unlimited online storage you can access anywhere from your phone. DVD and vcrs have been replaced by smart tvs with Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. 20 years ago you might spend thousands on a reasonable music and movie collection, that has been replaced by spending a few dollars a month on Netflix and Amazon streaming, Apple Music and Spotify.
Thanks to advances in vehicle reliability people are even keeping cars longer, an average of 11.5 years https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/2...
So really this is the richest the average American has ever been.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I'm a classic night owl, I stay up late and struggle to get enough sleep. A lot of my co-workers get into work at 8-8:30 while I show up 9-9:30.
During grad school when I had no courses and could go on my own schedule I didn't show up at 9-9:30, I showed up at 11-11:30, or even 1pm. It doesn't matter when the first course is, it was "early" for me.
I'm not a night owl because I'm somehow synced to my clock or even the sun, I'm a night owl because I feel really productive about 14 hours after I wake up, so it's really tough to get back to bed 2 hours later so I can get 8 hours sleep and wake up well rested.
Make my morning class 7am or 11am, as long as it's consistent I'm going to show up in roughly the same state. Put my easy class first on the other hand, now I'll have been up a few hours and alert when I get to the hard class.
I stole this Sig
When your argument begins with a cartoon, expect your arguments to be treated as cartoonish.
I agree, I think Google and Facebook claiming to offer unrealistic work environments created snowflakes. As someone that worked at similar tech giants the reality was pretty far from the truth. Sure there might have been a latest gen game console in the breakroom next to the pool table and bean bag chairs, but it was for show, just for tours of new hires, no one really used it.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
So, now that we're actually looking at the data, it's clear that the main conclusion of the paper is only one of many that could be drawn. The biggest alternative conclusion is that students who adapt their sleep schedule to their class times do better than students who don't. The main argument of the authors is that it "may be difficult" for people to change their sleep schedule, and cite jeg lag studies, without ever addressing that jet lag clearly does not last an academic term and within a few days most people are functioning normally. I think the jet lag studies more clearly show that people can and do change their sleep schedules, and that it may take a week or two to do so.
Honestly, not many of us were alive during our ancestors' time, so I'm guessing we've got squat on what they were actually doing for as a daily routine (save some fantastical 'reconstructions').
Who knew that matching a learning environment to the optimal learning environment for a subject would produce optimal results? /s
Most of us are jet-lagged twice a year by this silly ritual that has no beneficial effect. Can we ditch it already?
Constitutionally Correct
because I was dyslexic at first period
Dyslexia doesn't wear off by 10:00 AM. You just got to bed late, didn't get enough sleep and were nodding off in class. You should have gone to a Christian private school.
Anecdote: There was a kid who was doing poorly in public school. particularly at math. So, on the advice of some neighbors, his parents enrolled him in a Catholic school. After the first semester, his grades had improved markedly, particularly in math. So his parents asked him what it was about the new surroundings that provided the newfound motivation. He replied, "On the first day, when I walked in the door and saw the statue of a guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they took their math seriously."
Have gnu, will travel.
They were scheduled by the sun.
Or so those who live at low latitude like to think. It's far more complex than that, with seasons being far more extreme for many people who did quite well with midnight sun and winter nights.
Humans (and lifeforms in general) are good at adapting. It's a survival trait, and those who cannot adapt well are generally awarded with extinction, unless they find an unchanging niche.
That those who have a hard time adapting face more problems is to be expected. If they can't adapt, they need to relocate to where they fit in, or face that they're going to be losers compared to others who can adapt or move.
Honestly, not many of us were alive during our ancestors' time,
I was... at least for 2 generations of my ancestor's time. 1 of those generations is still around.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you're a government or a business, ask yourself which is more important: (a) being early at work, or (b) good performance at work. Because in all likelihood you can't have both.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Our ancestors (most of them) worked all day from before the sun rose to after it set just to survive, farming, gathering, hunting, whatever it took.
Our ancestors worked a few hours a day hunting game and then went back to doing nothing.
You're both right. It depends on which ancestors you are looking at. 300 years ago AC is correct. 3000 years ago Opportunist is correct. It depends which ancestors you're looking at. I imagine 3000 years ago, it probably depended on the season a lot too. In winter you probably had to work a lot harder to get you daily calories than you had to in late Spring.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
So we tailor their class times to their biological rhythms and they turn into adults with juvenile biological rhythms. Will they ever really grow up?
It doesn't matter. What matters is whether it is more effective to provide more off-shift jobs. We have TRILLIONS of dollars in capital that go unused at night, when people go home. If 10% of labor is also more effective at later hours, that's worth exploring.
Real lawyers write in C++
Our ancestors got sick of that shit and did something about it as soon as it was possible to. The joy of progress is that you don't have to put up with the same crap your ancestors did, and hopefully your descendants won't have to put up with the same crap you do.
because I was dyslexic at first period
Dyslexia doesn't wear off by 10:00 AM. You just got to bed late, didn't get enough sleep and were nodding off in class. You should have gone to a Christian private school.
Who's to say he's Christian? My experience with kids from private Christian schools in University is that they weren't able to cope with the more rigorous classes in University. They were used to being coddled in High School where teachers had to give them high grades because the parents were paying them for their kids to have high grades instead of learning.
The Christian High School kids in my University as a general rule tended to crash and burn. They weren't used to having to do work.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
kids have different biorhythms than adults. So yes, they will grow up. Biology and the passage of time will take care of that. You don't "learn" to change your biorhythms. They change over time whether you like it or not. Short of chemical intervention which is probably not a good idea.
tl;dr. Let the kids sleep in like their bodies are telling them to and they'll be more production and learn better, leading to better adults when it's time for them to be adults.
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I found it was pretty easy to pass most classes just by showing up.
I had friends who went to different universities and had that exact same experience. Unfortunately for me, I went somewhere that they expected you to work... and work hard. There were no "basket-weaving" classes at my university.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
they exist to get them ready for factory work. That's why they have bells. I suppose we could change the purpose of schools, but who's gonna pay for it? At my kid's school the reason for the early start was because they mixed junior high kids in with highschool kids and needed to keep 'em separated because they didn't have enough monitors to stop the fighting.
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In academia will do a study on the relevance of today's ancient and outmoded method of education. One where you show up for a class on a teachers schedule, and sit there and "learn" as the teacher dispenses wisdom and learning from the front of the room.
;)
In a way, today's degrees only prepare one to be an employee for someone else.
The Internet has changed things, but not education. Back in the day I used to buy books all the time, now I can not recall the last book I bought. When I want to learn something, I just fire up a browser and go and research the information I am interested in.
I wonder if the real future of education, is in free lance teachers, putting together tutorial sessions and making them available on the internet. Didn't see something a while back about a university putting their courses online. (MIT maybe? just looked and it seems so).
To me that kind of format allows those who are interested, to learn when they want to, what they want and need to.
Just my 2 cents
But oh, no, "let's go to thereapy". "We need Ritalin". "We need Adderall". "We need *understanding*."
then people wonder why this country got a bunch of druggies and nut jobs. I also see next article in the /. list is "Coffee Requires Cancer Warning, California Judge Rules."
mfwright@batnet.com
Night owls don't stay up late and wake up late because they like to party and are lazy to wake up in the morning. Researchers have found that not everyone's biological clock runs at exactly 24 hours. Those whose clock runs slower (say 25 hours) are night owls - they tend to still be alert after the earth's rotation says they should've gone to sleep, and likewise tend to wake up later because their biological clock put them to sleep later. Those whose clock runs faster (say 23 hours) are morning larks - they tend to wake up earlier because their biological clock put them to sleep more quickly, and likewise they tend to fall asleep earlier in the night.
BTW, studies have shown people's average biological clock (when deprived of reference to day/night cycles) is 24.2 hours to 25 hours. So it's actually the night owls who are normal, and the morning larks who are abnormal.
Even that is evolution. Evolution isn't about moving forward to some goal or ideal; it's about best adapting to your current environment, whatever that may be. If your environment is fucked up, then you'll evolve in fucked up ways. I bet you there are reasons Google does what it does, even if they're stupid reasons. Hiring managers have PHBs to satisfy too.
I don't think so. PBS did a things years back where they took a group of people and made them "settlers". They gave them a typical amount of money for the general store. Their job was to during the summer create what was necessary to make it thru the winter, by chopping wood, growing corn etc. The findings were not good. Every single family would have froze to death. Some would have made it a couple of months, which was not even close to the resources needed. One creative rich family who was disqualified even snuck out and bought stuff on the outside. They were indignant of course saying that they were just thinking outside the box. Life was significantly harder in the old days. Just look at lifespans.
So, why the hell don't we give the little snowflakes all 4.0 GPA, and just let them declare themselves as whatever they identify as.
Given that grades aren't earned any more, why on esrth are we studying ways for people to learn things - that is not what it is about now. You go to college, attempt to destroy your liver and enjoy the college lifestyle, and get all A's.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Newsflash: Kids who spend their weekends staying up till 4AM partying or binging on Netflix or gaming do a pretty shitty job on their Monday morning schoolwork.
What I dislike about these sorts of studies is the implication that we have no control over our internal clocks. Parents, if you care, enforce a reasonable bedtime and/or curfew for your kids. Teenagers, if you care, learn to wake up on time, which means going to bed earlier.
People act like it's rocket science, but people have pretty much always understood this basic principle... Ben Franklin and Aristotle both talked about it, for starters. If you have stuff to do early in the morning, get some sleep. If you can't do that, then you are prioritizing your late night funtimes over your early morning responsibilities.
If you make that choice, it's on you. Own it and the consequences that come from it.
So if some students have lifestyles that aren't in sync with their study schedules, they should ask themselves whether their social lives are more important - or whether they went to university to study?
This issue seems to be bordering on blaming the colleges for the timetabling, rather than recognising that the students' convenience is subordinate to the academic goals.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
In the 8pm-10pm window, even when sleep-deprived for a year (1 hour per night average total sleep), I become awake and alert. I'm using melatonin (at 8pm!) and cognitive behavioral therapy, along with stimulants during the day. It's taken nearly a year, but I finally sleep pretty well; I still sometimes can't get more than 5 hours, and can almost never hit 7.5. If I can maintain 7.5 for 2-3 days, I start to notice symptoms of mania--one of which is that you simply can't sleep anymore. As with depression, I don't really know what to do with a manic episode, and so just complain that it's uncomfortable (yes, something in there is broken).
When I was working 3pm-11pm, I would stay up until 3am and sleep until 11am. I felt fantastic. I taught myself stuff. Life was great. I wasn't on drugs. I didn't have bona fide insomnia and would sleep solid.
Studies on chronotypy have definitively identified that it is a real thing and is genetic.
I could increase the dose--I've taken pretty huge amounts of methylphenidate before--but my psychiatrist likes to raise the dose of drugs and refuse to lower them. My doctor is in charge of this prescription, and refuses to increase the dose without instruction from my psychiatrist; he's completely amenable with lowering the dose if I disagree. I worry that more MPH will cause me to be awake 24/7, although it could cause me to sleep better. I hyper-respond to amphetamine and a 15mg dose will keep me awake for 26 hours, while a 20mg dose will literally kill me after a few days.
Do you know what would be awesome? Being well-rested enough that maybe--maybe--the lowest dose would be useful, or maybe I could just chuck it all in the bin and enjoy feeling healthy without loading myself up with stims.
Everyone around me is chugging 14 cups of coffee a day.
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After the advent of cooking 1.8 million years ago, most hominids spent a lot of time not hunting or gathering. That is how culture, technology and language arose.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
We know that farming is highly inefficient on resources. An estimated 95% of people died from starvation or injury in the transition from the mesolithic to the neolithic, due to the fact that you have to work a lot harder with a much higher risk of getting nothing. That is why larger communities developed. Even though individuals and families had a low probability of surviving, a village had much better odds. It required a leader and distribution of what was produced, but it worked.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If you survived childhood, then the average lifespan in the Bronze Age was 72.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's been known for quite some time, it's good finally we have a scientific research providing evidence for one of the factors that make present day schooling (developed in the XIX century) a waste of creativity and personal development: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_... Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? TED2006
20 years ago we did not need netflix subscriptions and amazon prime and an apple Id just to watch movies
... no, we went to Jumbo Video here in Canada to pay $4.99 for a movie rental and maybe if we were lucky we could get three for $10. So basically one family movie night cost the same as a Netflix subscription cost today.
that whole "Nastry, Brutish and Short" part of life until recently. Most women died in childbirth (fun fact, there are stories of Voltaire's mistress "putting her papers in order" because she got preggers at 40 and it was basically a death sentence. Spoiler, she died). Then there's the elements. And water. And avoiding famine.
When folks talk about what they don't need they mean cell phones, tvs and internet. Those things cost very, very little. Housing, food, basic transportation, education. These are the things that eat the bulk of our income. Unless you're willing to go back to that nasty/brutish/short life there's no easy answer here.
This is not to say we have to work nearly as hard as we do. We already produce enough food to feed every one, and in 10-20 years the world ain't gonna need ditch diggers what with automation. But we _do_ need to come up with a better system for distributing wealth in a world where people don't need full time jobs (and where the's not enough of them to go around anyway). Or we could just let 80% of the population regress to abject poverty and use military drones to keep 'em in check. That works too.
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Also false. Americans were richer in the 70s. Wealth isn't about big TVs, it's about stability Yes, I can buy a nice TV for $200. But a house is $300,000+ unless I want to live in a slum and drink lead. Health care and education costs have massively outpaced inflation. Food has shot up too in the last 10 years thanks to deregulating the commodities market. Real Buying power is down. Way down.
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I've had N24 for the last thirty years, so I can officially blow this smoke back into your face.
Juvenile:
* A prepubescent child.
* A person younger than the age of majority.
* A person younger than the age of criminal responsibility.
* An animal that is not sexually mature.
* A mindless insult that all-too-often passes itself off as intelligent discourse.
Last I checked, college students fuck like rabbits, so we'll dispatch item #1 with extreme prejudice.
Age of majority
What is the normal age for college freshmen in the U. S.?
So, by sophomore year, juveniles (as defined by a minority criteria) are already a distinct minority.
So what we have here is a juvenile-onset biological rhythm shift which persist well into young adulthood.
Young adulthood having recently become the age during which a majority of the population struggles to acquire a remunerative skillset among the top-three quartiles of career prospects and life outcomes.
Fewer U.S. Graduates Opt for College After High School — April 2014
(The large chunk of the college admission population enrolled in the humanities starts the race a full quartile back, many drop-outs return to the fray later, and some high school dropouts have intrinsic skills, so even the dismal quartile from 25–50th percentile is by no means guaranteed merely by showing up.)
A really good example of the indirect path was in the news cycle this week:
Ignatieff was a catastrophic political leader, but the rest of his bio reads like a Who's Who entry (recent Order of Canada, and back to full professorship at Harvard).
Speaking of physicians, that's surely one profession that's never strayed into sparing the whip.
* How Much Do 30-Hour Shifts Suck for Medical Residents? — 8 March 2017
* No Doctor Should Work 30 Straight Hours Without Sleep — 15 December 2016
* Marathon 24- to 26-hour doctor shifts may be unsafe for patients: experts — 19 February 2016
* A Dangerous Study of Medical Resident
Also false. Americans were richer in the 70s. Wealth isn't about big TVs, it's about stability Yes, I can buy a nice TV for $200. But a house is $300,000+ unless I want to live in a slum and drink lead. Health care and education costs have massively outpaced inflation. Food has shot up too in the last 10 years thanks to deregulating the commodities market. Real Buying power is down. Way down.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2018/03/daily-chart-19
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
That's the thing. I probably wouldn't have. So, I'm still saying that I prefer our modern problems.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You need to look at the numbers instead of intuition and guesswork. Real buying power rose consistently, and at a remarkably steep rate compared to most of the word, in the US from the 70s to about 2000. It's been effectively flat since then (lots of short term up and down, but little net effect), mostly because the economy has sucked.
Median HHI (but just since 84): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...
The second chart on this page is good, shows quintiles: https://www.advisorperspective...
You might find the total inflation-adjusted growth by quintile enlightening.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
People are different. I sleep 10-6 weeknights. I get excercise and I eat right. When I get to work my coworker has been there an hour and machine guns me with ideas on the research we have been doing. From my perspective he seems manic and I can't follow. Around 10:30 he starts to make sense. Around noon I start to contribute. By 5 he says I start seeming manic and he can't follow. Then I go home at 6 and waste an hour or two of good thinking time.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
You must be young. I was 55 when I got a job that required a 10 hour day and started at 6:00 AM. It was an hour commute and I car pooled with someone who wanted to get to work 30 minutes early which meant I had to get up at 4:00 AM. After 15 months I was getting three or four hours a night of sleep and became psychotic and suicidal. I also could not stay awake at work so I had to quit. After two years of going to doctors and not being able to work I was cleared for SS disability. That was 10 years ago. Some weeks I can sleep at night but mostly I have to wait until after sun rise to get to sleep. My wife works the afternoon shift as a nurse and doesn't get home until midnight. This reinforces staying up all night.
And you're competing globally against people who are, your job gets outsourced.
Congratulations on discovering why the global village only works well if it's tuned.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"Life was significantly harder in the old days"
Life was significantly *different* in the old days. But in the old days you would have grown up around adults who were performing under those conditions and learned from them over your entire life, not just dropped in cold.
Runner ....
You must be young
32.
I was getting three or four hours a night of sleep and became psychotic and suicidal
Oh, that happens. I have built-in defenses against all that, but it's a real thing.
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you wouldn't?
horror vacui
You were still at "hunter/gatherer level" economy 20 years ago? Talk about catching up!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Probably you are talking about this series? https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/...