The activists of the 60s-90s were witnesses to the nuclear bombing of Japan, domestic nuclear accidents, as well as a nuclear arms race that threatened to wipe out all of humanity. It is unfortunate that we threw the baby out with the bathwater when it came to nuclear power generation, but the people who had issues with nuclear in that era did have good reasons to be afraid.
That's not supported by physics. Even at the worst - if the other reactor had somehow also melted down, that still wouldn't have caused a major climate change event. It would have been absolutely terrible, regionally, but not globally. Nuclear reactors aren't atomic bombs.
Yep. Also, the pro-nuclear techno-utopians of that era promised that nuclear electricity would be too cheap too meter, nuclear-powered cars would be common, and quite a few other things.
If the public doesn't understand complex new thing X, and advocates for X have obviously told them all sorts of lies - yeah. Don't be surprised if the public becomes extremely skeptical about X.
Up until about 2 years ago, the kids taking calculus were all becoming SW engineers for 3x the pay. With the way the job market for entry-level engineers is trending lately, maybe now there will be some left over for Ford to hire.
My experience from actually having 2 kids currently in high school is that failing is damn near impossible, but GPA absolutely does mean something for most kids. There is definitely a group of kids at the bottom that in decades past would have been held back or dropped out and those kids are now just passed along. Is that better or worse than having them drop out? I don't really know, but the reality is that those kids likely wouldn't have been cut out for these jobs anyway. At the other end of the spectrum, the competition at the top can be fierce. My kids and their peers stress way more about their GPA than I ever did because competition for colleges has gotten tougher. The education is there for those who want to take advantage of it.
> Is that better or worse than having them drop out? I don't really know
It's worse. If they'd been held back earlier, they might have graduated high school prepared for the sorts of trades jobs this article discusses. Instead, they're processed through the system as a number. Best case, they aren't constantly disrupting their classrooms.
Again, from my personal experience of having kids in school, they do hold kids back in elementary and even middle school, but less so in high school. From what I have seen, they will strongly recommend it if they feel that a student is not ready for the next grade, but won't force it if the parents disagree. There’s not a whole lot else they can do. There’s no other place in society to support these kids at the bottom and the schools aren’t funded well enough to give them the one on one attention to catch them up.
> what happens to GPA if a kid is failed/held back a year?
For a kid who is held back a year, what good is any GPA? Genuine question.
I’m sure that one could construct some sort of edge case or corner case in which a college-bound kid has a bad year. That said, for each of those cases, I’m pretty sure I could come up with a perfectly good way for that person to find a reasonable path to a very good university.
That said, in most cases, the folks who are held back will have significant issues that will marginalize them anyway: social, psychological, cognitive, etc.
i could envision a situation where there's a kid that has a bad home-life situation that gets resolved or a stretch of bad mental health that could really turn things around from one year to the next.
> i could envision a situation where there's a kid that has a bad home-life situation that gets resolved or a stretch of bad mental health that could really turn things around from one year to the next.
This happens.
Usually they will not get held back. Usually the teachers will know what’s going on. A passing C (or even B) can be manufactured in these spots. This assumes that they are normally good students.
Also note that most schools that reject people have a spot on their application where an applicant can explain any sort of extenuating circumstances (e.g., parents divorce, etc.), and a bad year will be overlooked as long as it’s clear that they are back on track and can perform.
If someone has consistent performance issues and just happens to be smart, then they need to fix the performance issues. This is usually best done at a junior college and then a transfer to a four-year school (e.g., State U).
There is definitely a group of kids at the bottom that in decades past would have been held back or dropped out and those kids are now just passed along.
This is literally my point. What difference does it make if I heard it online
Is that better or worse than having them drop out?
it is worse given that it gives false signals for the job market and devalues the credential
There are plenty of high school and college graduates that can do elementary school math. They are just going into more lucrative fields. If Ford wants those candidates, they need to offer more competitive salaries.
You're likely being underpaid. I'm in Iowa and regularly see software devs with offers higher than that. The last company I was at, they brought an intern back with a $140k starting salary. He was making more than an "architect" who had been at the company for 16 years.
I'm not in SV either and $120k would be well below average for someone with 30 years experience in my area. Of course, "in tech" can mean a lot of things. From what I have seen, tech writers and IT help desk folk don't make nearly as much as SW developers.
That sucks, i learned JavaScript during the pandemic and make more than 120k at a corporate gig in Chicago (where salaries are certainly higher than Wichita but it's no SV). I don't even have a college degree.
The BBC made a mistake and their response shows that they strive to present information accurately and will not tolerate attempts at programming. That is a stark contrast to a network where misrepresentation of facts is the norm. I think it’s important to point out that distinction in the context of the “both sides are equally bad” narrative
Why are we comparing Fox News (aka "Crazy like Fox News" ;) ) with the BBC though? Compare CNN with Fox. I have to admit I'm not up to date on the latest in US media but at least CNN used to be non-stop bashing and misrepresentation just like Fox. Agenda has come before facts for US media for a long time and it's definitely not been one sided.
I agree with you. I watch both channels and see it from both sides. I have noticed CNN getting a bit better lately. They are actually challenging both sides with tough questions.
Where is it any different? Some are more obvious than others.
At least with Fox you know where they stand and you know you need to verify your source all the time. It's way better like that.
Other media companies are very subtle, so much that you almost never feel the need to verify. And when you actually take the time to verify it, you are like WTF.
I will never ever forget how the 2015 "refugees crisis" was being sold in Germany in the "very neutral" and "our job is to share facts, not to tell you how to think" media. But I have other countless examples. The most recent examples are about how "bad Trump" is.
I don't see any solution to this, except for "always take the time to verify/compare it on your own". Don't let others do that job for you.
Fox does not get public funding, the BBC does. With Fox people have the option of not giving them your money, with the BBC anyone who watches TV channels has to pay them.
It was not just one mistake, it was systematic bias over many, many different issues over time.
~6.5 times as many people (~7M) turned out for the last no kings protest as there are total active duty military personnel on US soil (~1.14M). Sounds like a poor play, but again, irrational and/or unsophisticated people will take irrational and/or unsophisticated actions. The US military lost in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars after spending ~$6 trillion and countless lives, you’d think people would know better. Ah, well, “it is what it is.”
> Despite the recent recruitment gains, the overall size of the military workforce is down 38% from 1980; the total number of active-duty service members has declined 45,861 from 2022 to 2024, for a total of just under 1.3 million. And some recruiting challenges remain: The DOD reports that 77% of young adults in the US are unqualified to serve without a waiver.
> The three most-common factors for disqualification are obesity, educational deficits, and criminal or drug abuse records. Young adults also report low interest in serving. In a 2024 survey, 87% of people aged 16–21 said they were either “probably not” or “definitely not” considering enlistment.
I mainly only ever go on Facebook to buy/sell things on marketplace these days. Since it is the default landing page, I do see my feed and notice that it does have very little content from my actual friends. It’s mostly ads and “things I might like.” It got pretty awful for a while but it does seem to do a decent job once you block people and give feedback on posts/ads. It’s still pretty useless, and I avoid it as much as possible, but at least now it’s not hitting me in the face with graphic, hateful memes and misinformation every time I log in
Local residents literally called the proposal to accept a grant from the last administration to update the flood warning system “woke Biden communism.” They voted to abandon themselves and innocent kids paid the price
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