In fact, if you look at the 20th Century, the "progressive", "communist", "socialist", "secular" governments murdered more of their own people through outright killing and mismanagement than were killed by foreign armies in the same century, and more than all religious wars ever. And today the clamoring from the Humanities PhDs is to follow "progressive", "communist", "socialist", "secular" policies.
Perhaps the problem is the people with advanced degrees in Humanities are overwhelmingly wrong about the way the world really works, and we are right to relegate them to oblivion?
Look around, and the misery increases, globally. Tensions, stupidity, misguided masculinity, religious stupidity; all those are coming closer by the day; encircle us.
No. This is Chicken Little nonsense. Things are much, much better for most people than they have typically been. I suspect you aren't well enough versed in the humanities to know that, or even worse, have an advanced degree in Humanities, which makes you say such ridiculous things which are clearly and provably false when looked at with even the most cursory knowledge of history and civilization.
I want to apologize a little for the anger in that post, but I have been told by a friend that his vote should count for more because he has a master's in International Conflict Resolution (I'm just generally anti-war, anti-intervention, and that's not clever enough for him I guess).
There are so many things right with this post, I almost don't know where to begin, but I think this is the key for me:
You don't need to take a humanities course to care about humanity, nor do you need to view the world through an ideological lens in order to improve it. Quite the opposite in fact, leftist ideologies have been responsible for the murders of millions upon millions of inncoent people in the 20th century alone.
This nails it all on such a profound level. If the Humanities PhDs didn't spend time insulting me for not having a degree even though I'm better versed in philosophy, and castigating me for chasing money at a corporate job where I learned about economics and how value is produced, and overall thinking I'm a neanderthal and discount everything I say as "extremist rants" because I believe I should be allowed to make my own choices and leave others to theirs, I might not enjoy it so much when they can't get a job and realize self-actualization.
I asked some sports parents about that once. It's not so much the promise of pro sports careers in most cases, but substantial scholarship grants. It all made a lot more sense to me after that.
I'm a better clarinet player than I am a software engineer. Yet, I decided to go into software engineering instead of music. Why? There is a greater need for engineers of my caliber than clarinet players of my caliber. I suppose I could be angry at the world for not paying me 6 figures to play clarinet, but it makes more sense to know my place in the world and produce something other people want and are willing to pay for.
Perhaps the lesson here is that PhDs in Humanities are incapable of understanding their place in the world?
I have no intention of remaining a feature developer; I've said to my boss and his boss outright that if they want me to only do feature work they should fire me and hire two younger kids for half the price. They responded that there's no way they give up the additional expertise I have. Maybe that will change in a few years, but I am constantly upping my game because of exactly the point you are making. At this point it's quite clear that experienced developers are needed. Maybe that will change, but I doubt it.
true, but that is a perniciously relative standard, as you will probably learn eventually one way or another.:)
You don't know that. Some people are more prudent/aggressive/lucky and don't have that experience. I was lucky in that I had a rough period when my first company was swallowed. From then on, I understood I needed to be competitive. It takes extra work, but it's worth it.
That might work out for people threatened by it, but I'm doing very nicely, and under no circumstances am I giving up the good pay, reasonable hours, and decent PTO policy I'm getting. I'm sorry, but for me to join a union would set me back significantly. I know there are good and bad shops, but w/ unemployment for software engineers at under 3%, I have trouble understanding.
Company A buys company B, needs to import or marry their two systems. Neither company has staff on hand to do the integration project, because everyone at B got laid off, and A is busy with business as usual. Consultants come in and delivery a badly built, badly delivered "solution". It might even meet some subset of the requirements in a minimal way. I wouldn't say they're giving great value, but it's not nothing.
The do IT services and consulting in addition to some continued technology development. They buy a technology, and develop it internally, and then sell consulting services to implement it. Think of SAP. Same idea, same questionable (at best?) quality of delivery. But for companies that can't make a project happen with in-house talent, there's a market for so-so IT consulting.
Wait, let me understand: MDMA is illegal so kids can't get it. And kids are getting it despite being illegal. So you're arguing for failed policies by your own admission? Asinine.
So what say you? Are these stats bogus, or do the majority of women report attacks? And do men fail to report attacks at a much higher rate compared to women?
"It has been estimated that overall, only about one-third of all crimes of any kind are reported to police. 1 Yet, it has also been found that the majority of women who are victims of domestic abuse report the incident to police. 2 What this means is that women claiming to be victims of domestic abuse are not only "just as likely" to report it as other crime victims are, but they are actually significantly more likely to report it to the authorities than victims of other kinds of crime are."
Interesting. I would not have thought that the stats were this lopsided, but if you accept these stats on under-reporting, it's the case that men are four times more likely not to report, and women will report most of the time (59%).
In some ways, quite the opposite. I'm a C/Perl/Unix guy originally and now work in C#/.Net. I use my older skills to maintain older systems, yes, and probably could write a simple server in straight C without more than a Linux terminal and "man". But why would I use an inferior tool to build a new system?
Obsolete operationally or for development? I bet I could write a fast website in Assembly, but I couldn't write it quickly. I would not want to do that work I do on a web application today in Perl/CGI. In that sense, it is obsolete.
He doesn't accept that men also under-report harassment, threats, and attacks (most especially sexual assault), and is biased against the very concept because it interferes with his political agenda. I personally have experienced people not believing me about various things that have happened to me (threats, intimidation, assault) and belittling my feelings etc., but that's OK because I'm not a protected victim group. BTW Glad for your support here.
It's infinitely more personal when someone targets you because of your gender, or race
Are you sure? Have you been directly threatened with being beaten on your front lawn, because you complained about being woken up at 3:00 AM by a car stereo loud enough to shake beverage glasses off a shelf in your kitchen by a pair of men twice your size during their drug purchase? Men face this kind of threat more often than women - I've posted numerous references to crime stats elsewhere in this thread.
I'm really not trying to make this a pain olympics, but many of the men I know have been physically threatened as adults in some way or form, or have been physically (in in rare cases sexually) assaulted, or been asked to intervene physically in a confrontation whether or not they have any training or physical capability to do so. Men deal with the threat of physical violence on a regular basis (most especially in their adolescence, early 20s, and 30s) and are mocked if they make a big deal out of it (so they don't), for totally sexist reasons. It is difficult to relate to someone claiming a biased culture creates a hostile environment to relatively mild verbal assault on women when the other side of the coin is men thinking about real danger (sometimes deadly) and knowing they are supposed to "suck it up".
I am thankful you posted initially and love what you have to say. I think the big disconnect here is not that women are wrong about what they face, but that they are so ignorant of what it is to be a man that they are completely talking past us, and I'd love to know what you think of this.
I can accept every single thing you state fully. I'm sorry you have to put up with that crap, and it's not right, period.
At the same time, how many geek guys deal with real physical threats throughout childhood into adulthood (I came home from school one day so bruised from head to toe after taking a 20 minute beating on the playground that my mom burst into tears, and has actually now blocked out the memory)? How many men, once in adulthood, who, like myself, do not have the physical profile of an MMA fighter find themselves in physically dangerous situations where there is a real risk of violent attack through no fault of their own (this has happened to me on multiple occasions)?
I'm not saying one excuses the other at all. But there doesn't seem to be an understanding on the part of many talking about the harassment women experience that men are actually more likely to be victims of violence and intimidation.
Some of us men are hurting, exhausted, and in many cases afraid of being beaten to a pulp or shot outside our own home, often for trying to protect the people around us, including women. And then when we explain the situation to the police or our friends or family people don't believe us, minimize our feelings, or say, "well if you weren't attacked, there's nothing we're going to do", or accuse us of being classist or racist or some bullshit like that because we're white men and nothing could possibly be wrong in our lives.
And it gets frustrating to have extremists screaming at us in the media saying we're not doing enough to help women.
I wish there was more I could do, but as it stands, men really are more at risk of violence than women, and less likely to be taken seriously when reporting a threat, and less likely to report threats. It's really not a case where women are clearly worse off.
For sure, a disproportionately high number of the victims are young male minorities. I don't think anyone would argue that it's unlikely that drug/gang related activity was a factor in those crimes. What do you think the impact of that is on the data itself as it pertains to this conversation?
Slashdot Mirror
In fact, if you look at the 20th Century, the "progressive", "communist", "socialist", "secular" governments murdered more of their own people through outright killing and mismanagement than were killed by foreign armies in the same century, and more than all religious wars ever. And today the clamoring from the Humanities PhDs is to follow "progressive", "communist", "socialist", "secular" policies.
Perhaps the problem is the people with advanced degrees in Humanities are overwhelmingly wrong about the way the world really works, and we are right to relegate them to oblivion?
Look around, and the misery increases, globally. Tensions, stupidity, misguided masculinity, religious stupidity; all those are coming closer by the day; encircle us.
No. This is Chicken Little nonsense. Things are much, much better for most people than they have typically been. I suspect you aren't well enough versed in the humanities to know that, or even worse, have an advanced degree in Humanities, which makes you say such ridiculous things which are clearly and provably false when looked at with even the most cursory knowledge of history and civilization.
I want to apologize a little for the anger in that post, but I have been told by a friend that his vote should count for more because he has a master's in International Conflict Resolution (I'm just generally anti-war, anti-intervention, and that's not clever enough for him I guess).
There are so many things right with this post, I almost don't know where to begin, but I think this is the key for me:
You don't need to take a humanities course to care about humanity, nor do you need to view the world through an ideological lens in order to improve it. Quite the opposite in fact, leftist ideologies have been responsible for the murders of millions upon millions of inncoent people in the 20th century alone.
This nails it all on such a profound level. If the Humanities PhDs didn't spend time insulting me for not having a degree even though I'm better versed in philosophy, and castigating me for chasing money at a corporate job where I learned about economics and how value is produced, and overall thinking I'm a neanderthal and discount everything I say as "extremist rants" because I believe I should be allowed to make my own choices and leave others to theirs, I might not enjoy it so much when they can't get a job and realize self-actualization.
I asked some sports parents about that once. It's not so much the promise of pro sports careers in most cases, but substantial scholarship grants. It all made a lot more sense to me after that.
I'm a better clarinet player than I am a software engineer. Yet, I decided to go into software engineering instead of music. Why? There is a greater need for engineers of my caliber than clarinet players of my caliber. I suppose I could be angry at the world for not paying me 6 figures to play clarinet, but it makes more sense to know my place in the world and produce something other people want and are willing to pay for.
Perhaps the lesson here is that PhDs in Humanities are incapable of understanding their place in the world?
Wow. Tell me more about what I get, AC. I would not take that deal right now, as it is.
I have no intention of remaining a feature developer; I've said to my boss and his boss outright that if they want me to only do feature work they should fire me and hire two younger kids for half the price. They responded that there's no way they give up the additional expertise I have. Maybe that will change in a few years, but I am constantly upping my game because of exactly the point you are making. At this point it's quite clear that experienced developers are needed. Maybe that will change, but I doubt it.
As it happens, I'm almost "old" now, and am managing my career carefully. It's called personal responsibility, and it's hard.
How is that any different in terms of self-interest from wanting to keep the foreign H1-Bs out? Look in the mirror.
true, but that is a perniciously relative standard, as you will probably learn eventually one way or another. :)
You don't know that. Some people are more prudent/aggressive/lucky and don't have that experience. I was lucky in that I had a rough period when my first company was swallowed. From then on, I understood I needed to be competitive. It takes extra work, but it's worth it.
That might work out for people threatened by it, but I'm doing very nicely, and under no circumstances am I giving up the good pay, reasonable hours, and decent PTO policy I'm getting. I'm sorry, but for me to join a union would set me back significantly. I know there are good and bad shops, but w/ unemployment for software engineers at under 3%, I have trouble understanding.
Company A buys company B, needs to import or marry their two systems. Neither company has staff on hand to do the integration project, because everyone at B got laid off, and A is busy with business as usual. Consultants come in and delivery a badly built, badly delivered "solution". It might even meet some subset of the requirements in a minimal way. I wouldn't say they're giving great value, but it's not nothing.
The do IT services and consulting in addition to some continued technology development. They buy a technology, and develop it internally, and then sell consulting services to implement it. Think of SAP. Same idea, same questionable (at best?) quality of delivery. But for companies that can't make a project happen with in-house talent, there's a market for so-so IT consulting.
Wait, let me understand: MDMA is illegal so kids can't get it. And kids are getting it despite being illegal. So you're arguing for failed policies by your own admission? Asinine.
Too bad fear rules all. MDMA was highly effective in couples therapy, leading to years of progress in hours.
So what say you? Are these stats bogus, or do the majority of women report attacks? And do men fail to report attacks at a much higher rate compared to women?
http://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2012/07/domestic-violence-against-men-is-most.html
Not trying to pin anybody to a wall, but I think the conventional wisdom is wrong, and we can fix our perceptions by looking at the facts.
"It has been estimated that overall, only about one-third of all crimes of any kind are reported to police. 1 Yet, it has also been found that the majority of women who are victims of domestic abuse report the incident to police. 2 What this means is that women claiming to be victims of domestic abuse are not only "just as likely" to report it as other crime victims are, but they are actually significantly more likely to report it to the authorities than victims of other kinds of crime are."
http://theawarenesscenter.blog...
Interesting. I would not have thought that the stats were this lopsided, but if you accept these stats on under-reporting, it's the case that men are four times more likely not to report, and women will report most of the time (59%).
In some ways, quite the opposite. I'm a C/Perl/Unix guy originally and now work in C#/.Net. I use my older skills to maintain older systems, yes, and probably could write a simple server in straight C without more than a Linux terminal and "man". But why would I use an inferior tool to build a new system?
Obsolete operationally or for development? I bet I could write a fast website in Assembly, but I couldn't write it quickly. I would not want to do that work I do on a web application today in Perl/CGI. In that sense, it is obsolete.
He doesn't accept that men also under-report harassment, threats, and attacks (most especially sexual assault), and is biased against the very concept because it interferes with his political agenda. I personally have experienced people not believing me about various things that have happened to me (threats, intimidation, assault) and belittling my feelings etc., but that's OK because I'm not a protected victim group. BTW Glad for your support here.
You get a bonus for performing above expectations? What company???!!!
It's infinitely more personal when someone targets you because of your gender, or race
Are you sure? Have you been directly threatened with being beaten on your front lawn, because you complained about being woken up at 3:00 AM by a car stereo loud enough to shake beverage glasses off a shelf in your kitchen by a pair of men twice your size during their drug purchase? Men face this kind of threat more often than women - I've posted numerous references to crime stats elsewhere in this thread.
I'm really not trying to make this a pain olympics, but many of the men I know have been physically threatened as adults in some way or form, or have been physically (in in rare cases sexually) assaulted, or been asked to intervene physically in a confrontation whether or not they have any training or physical capability to do so. Men deal with the threat of physical violence on a regular basis (most especially in their adolescence, early 20s, and 30s) and are mocked if they make a big deal out of it (so they don't), for totally sexist reasons. It is difficult to relate to someone claiming a biased culture creates a hostile environment to relatively mild verbal assault on women when the other side of the coin is men thinking about real danger (sometimes deadly) and knowing they are supposed to "suck it up".
I am thankful you posted initially and love what you have to say. I think the big disconnect here is not that women are wrong about what they face, but that they are so ignorant of what it is to be a man that they are completely talking past us, and I'd love to know what you think of this.
I can accept every single thing you state fully. I'm sorry you have to put up with that crap, and it's not right, period.
At the same time, how many geek guys deal with real physical threats throughout childhood into adulthood (I came home from school one day so bruised from head to toe after taking a 20 minute beating on the playground that my mom burst into tears, and has actually now blocked out the memory)? How many men, once in adulthood, who, like myself, do not have the physical profile of an MMA fighter find themselves in physically dangerous situations where there is a real risk of violent attack through no fault of their own (this has happened to me on multiple occasions)?
I'm not saying one excuses the other at all. But there doesn't seem to be an understanding on the part of many talking about the harassment women experience that men are actually more likely to be victims of violence and intimidation.
Some of us men are hurting, exhausted, and in many cases afraid of being beaten to a pulp or shot outside our own home, often for trying to protect the people around us, including women. And then when we explain the situation to the police or our friends or family people don't believe us, minimize our feelings, or say, "well if you weren't attacked, there's nothing we're going to do", or accuse us of being classist or racist or some bullshit like that because we're white men and nothing could possibly be wrong in our lives.
And it gets frustrating to have extremists screaming at us in the media saying we're not doing enough to help women.
I wish there was more I could do, but as it stands, men really are more at risk of violence than women, and less likely to be taken seriously when reporting a threat, and less likely to report threats. It's really not a case where women are clearly worse off.
For sure, a disproportionately high number of the victims are young male minorities. I don't think anyone would argue that it's unlikely that drug/gang related activity was a factor in those crimes. What do you think the impact of that is on the data itself as it pertains to this conversation?