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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   30511 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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I respectfully disagree.

Physical appearance in the post I responded to refers specifically to physical fitness. Half-a-century ago, general physical fitness was broadly necessary (e.g., many people had to walk or do physical labor), and now is much less so (e.g., much smaller proportion of people have to walk or do physical labor, and for the latter OSHA mandates all kinds of supportive equipment).

Sex in the post I responded to refers primarily to marriage and its dissolution, so "how-to-get-and-stay-married" is the relevant skill here.

Finally, playing-the-game-of-credentialism (a.k.a. "education") is without a doubt a more widely practiced skill now than it was fifty years ago. About 90% graduate high-school; of those, half go to college; of those, about half graduate with a degree. Fifty years ago, much higher percentage of people dropped out of high-school, and less than 10% of those who graduated went on to college. (There stats are approximate but broadly correct.)

The credentialism game has changed to accommodate the large influx of people seeking credentials.

Sex in the post I responded to refers primarily to marriage and its dissolution, so "how-to-get-and-stay-married" is the relevant skill here.

I think your story makes sense for marriage but not for sex (for which as we all know marriage is neither necessary nor sufficient).

Finally, playing-the-game-of-credentialism (a.k.a. "education") is without a doubt a more widely practiced skill now than it was fifty years ago. About 90% graduate high-school; of those, half go to college; of those, about half graduate with a degree. Fifty years ago, much higher percentage of people dropped out of high-school, and less than 10% of those who graduated went on to college. (There stats are approximate but broadly correct.)

The credentialism game has changed to accommodate the large influx of people seeking credentials.

I don't really understand your point here. you seem to be agreeing with me that education is not something generally unnecessary, so it doesn't explain the bimodal distribution mentioned by OP.

I don't really understand your point here. you seem to be agreeing with me that education is not something generally unnecessary, so it doesn't explain the bimodal distribution mentioned by OP.

I think I see: OP conflated (or rather, placed in extreme proximity) education as getting-credentials and education as reading books. The getting-credentials has a coming-together pattern (more people are going for education credentials, so there is more of a continuum of the type of credentials and their quality), but the reading-books has a coming-apart pattern (majority read practically no books, a small minority read lots and lots of books).

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