THE PANDEMIC CHAT ROOM

[Holien]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52542943

The economic shock from this is going to be very unpleasant and will drive people into the arms of extremists populist politicians who promise salvation by creating an enemy people can unite against. 

I was hoping for a peaceful retirement (starting end of this month) but the next ten years (if I am lucky enough to be around) will be very very interesting times...

Thanks to everyone for making some really good and insightful posts it is great to understand it from the different countries perspective. 

A pity to see the charts showing America and Sweden are not decreasing the numbers. The UK seems to be winning and at least our numpties are now on track to increase testing and trace to really nail it. Took longer than it should and not enough preparation beforehand but at least our dissenting medical staff don't fall out of windows! 

[SimpleSimon]

Much of the American shop-retail industry has been on shaky grounds for decades, and i'm not inclined to feel very bad for the big chain retailers when they go. Long before Wal-Mart and Amazon won the consumer markets-game Sears, Macys, JCPenny etc and the other Strip-Mall conglomerates had already dealt a fatal blow to small business owners and local retailers. They had no compunctions about dabbling in the same sort of wage-suppression practices as Wal-Mart and Amazon. They sought the same cheap labour overseas to undercut American manufacturing workers and their pesky Unions by sending their jobs to countries with no worker protections. I would say "serves em right" but I know that they will inflict the most painful consequences of their bankruptcy on their employees while management will golden-parachute to safety again. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[Wicky]

30 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It's interesting to look at science fiction set way in the future and see what they got right and wrong.

https://www.tor.com/2015/09/29/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-operation-annihilate/

Star Trek predicted Trump's sunlight cure for pesky pandemic

 

[Wicky]

Pesky double post

Edited May 5, 2020 by Wicky

[Wicky]

Pesky triple post

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Wicky

[sburke]

29 minutes ago, Holien said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52542943

The economic shock from this is going to be very unpleasant and will drive people into the arms of extremists populist politicians who promise salvation by creating an enemy people can unite against. 

I was hoping for a peaceful retirement (starting end of this month) but the next ten years (if I am lucky enough to be around) will be very very interesting times...

Best of luck. I am shooting for 20 months from now. My buddy and former team lead in response to me asking how was retirement  “it doesn’t suck” 

yeah to others point, the brick and mortar model of shopping is fading and has been for some time. The current shelter in place is just the nudge over the edge.  There are many pros and cons to this.  The younger generation is having a vastly different experience than I did growing up. On the one hand the world they can reach is vastly larger. On the other it is largely virtual and online. Social skills and interaction are a challenge. But hey you can still get work mowing your neighbors lawn!

meanwhile Portland Now has a safe social distance drive thru strip club.  
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/drive-thru-strip-club-coronavirus-130000000.html

[37mm]

19 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

At present, the issue in front of us (and relevant to this thread) is China being used as a scapegoat by (mostly) the political right wing to deflect criticism away from taking responsibility for the way things are instead of the way they would like them to be.  Having a bunch of unmasked armed numbnuts link arms with the anti-vaxxers and Q-ANON loonies so they can wave Confederate flags in state capitals doesn't help out either.

Even if China had done everything right (which they didn't) I don't think much would change with the discussions being driven by (mostly) the right wing of the spectrum.  Because it's far better to suck up all the time pointing fingers at a scapegoat than it is to spend time reexamining domestic policies.

Case in point... look at how much time we've spent talking about what might have happened in China months ago instead of what is currently going on in our own respective countries.

I will grant that the modern "right" (with its natural inclination towards "populism") has been psyoped to a significant extent (certainly in the US).

However, I can come up with many, many examples of the modern "left" (with its natural inclination towards "elitism") also being succesfully psyoped (as mentioned, Michael Moore has just released a documentary about this).

The current "crazy right-wingers deny the virus" narrative is arguably a psyop FOR "the left".

I see a few, likely astroturfed, protests involving a few thousand people (btw, I notice no-one mentions the protests in New York City) & a few hundred bloggers & e-celebrities, of dubious worth, backed up by a number of "experts", especially from the notoriously "right-wing" institutions of Oxford & Stanford Universites.

I'm pretty "right-wing" & I learnt about this virus, in January, because of other "right-wingers"... I don't see the tens/hundreds of millions of the 'silent majority' promoting this (blatantly schizophrenic) "blame the hoax virus on China" narrative.

 

PS

I remember "the left" from my youth... as far as I'm aware "the left" died a long time ago.

Edited May 5, 2020 by 37mm

[rocketman]

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

Yes, this is troubling.  And if one looks at Sweden (which I've been watching closely), the pattern is there as well.  Spain and Italy, two of the hardest hit countries, are significantly over peak new cases and headed down fairly steadily.  The US and Sweden have appeared to stalled on their peak daily new cases.

That said, the majority of problems in Sweden are in Stockholm and the bulk of the problem in the US is in the NYC area.  When you look at other areas in each country you see something significantly variation.  In the US some areas are still climbing towards peak, some have already peaked, and some are fairly similar to the national average.  Some have pretty much no viral activity at all.  Which is why it seems appropriate for some areas to reopen more than others.

Steve

Steve, you might already know this if you study Sweden closely but others might not. One reason for our approach to the pandemic is not only by design, but one of necessity. Freedom of moving around may not be restricted in peacetime by law which is part of our constitution. So a declaration of a state of emergency would still not result in people being arrested for violating it. So they use strong recommendations in the hope that people will follow them. Most do. Some don't. And sure, mistakes have been made, primarily a failure to protect nursing homes and long term care facilities. In a way I think it is almost futile to compare countries in the search for "who has handled the crisis the best" or "which strategy works best". I one wants to isolate that factor/variable, there are a myriad of other factors/variables that differentiate countries from each other, and that are dynamic over time - that comparisons are never on equal terms. Furthermore, looking at daily new cases is simply a factor of how much testing is done. We lag behind and has so far mostly tested within the health care sector. In my mind the best way to measure what is going on is to compare number of daily deaths with the seasonal average, like in the WaPo article linked above in an earlier post. In Sweden the public number of deaths are (as far as possible) both in-hospital and out of hospital deaths, something many countries/regions don't. We try to validate the estimated number of Covid-19 related deaths in this fashion and it is pretty accurate. But in the end, the final evaluation of how countries have dealt with this will probably have to wait for a couple of years. And even as tragic as number of deaths are, there a many adverse effects of the pandemic that will take a heavy toll on us all. My biggest fear now is that health care workers can't go on working in these conditions much longer and start to burn out, get depressed, suffer PTSD and such. And when the health care system fails I sure hope there is a vaccine to save us.

[SimpleSimon]

3 hours ago, 37mm said:

I will grant that the modern "right" (with its natural inclination towards "populism") has been psyoped to a significant extent (certainly in the US).

However, I can come up with many, many examples of the modern "left" (with its natural inclination towards "elitism") also being succesfully psyoped (as mentioned, Michael Moore has just released a documentary about this).

The joke to me is that the more the view counts of Planet of the Humans increase the louder the cries of it being a Koch Brothers conspiracy get. In fact the criticisms of the film are a fascinating example of the ways in which American media fails its people and the ease with which pundits and those talking heads on TV obscure reality.

Like it's almost comical to see the media's by-the-numbers approach of attacks on the film. Focusing on trivialities (Gibbs is a poor narrator!), ad hominem attacks (Michael Moore is a sensationalist!) and red herrings (the movie simplifies complicated issues!). Really all the usual obfuscation is there, and you can tell what nonsense it is because crucially zero outlets will attempt to address or consider the film's main point...

That the alternative energy and recycling industries have been completely captured by corporate interests and money. 

Failure to tackle the central theme of the film, or even recognize it, is the weakest link in criticisms against the film. It's easy to take up too, since it'd be foolish and unrealistic to expect progress or answers in alternative energies without the sort of industrial cooperation and technical expertise capitalist markets can bring to the table. By bringing in Capitalism's problem solving capabilities you pretty much have to open up to monetization and politics for all the good and bad both of those things bring.  

Quote

The current "crazy right-wingers deny the virus" narrative is arguably a psyop FOR "the left".

I see a few, likely astroturfed, protests involving a few thousand people (btw, I notice no-one mentions the protests in New York City) & a few hundred bloggers & e-celebrities, of dubious worth, backed up by a number of "experts", especially from the notoriously "right-wing" institutions of Oxford & Stanford Universites.

I'm pretty "right-wing" & I learnt about this virus, in January, because of other "right-wingers"... I don't see the tens/hundreds of millions of the 'silent majority' promoting this (blatantly schizophrenic) "blame the hoax virus on China" narrative.

PS

I remember "the left" from my youth... as far as I'm aware "the left" died a long time ago.

Like I say, the price we pay for free speech is the dilemma that anyone can use it to circulate contemptible nonsense and lies. Truth and honesty too, but lots of nonsense. This is the dilemma of liberalism honestly illustrated by America's media. There's just an enormous amount of free flowing data and tbh what good is it if people aren't literate enough to comprehend it? I'm not talking in terms of lexical literacy either, but in terms of understanding. This is why I like to point out the inadequacy of America's education system, top to bottom. It emphasizes data memorization, not understanding. This has the effect of making people unable to form their own ideas and so therefore become reliant on guidance from "strong-leader figure XYZ" and their rhetorical garbage. They're too easily turned into acolytes instead of individuals. 

The total disregard Americans have for art and philosophy is a symptom of this, you can't even mention someone like Voltaire or Hegel (the precepts from both of whom underpin most of our daily lives in the west) to many of American Graduate Students without getting a "who's that?" How about why Americans hear the word liberal and automatically associate it with Affirmative Action or Gay Rights? You can't tell people that Alan Greenspan is a neoliberal without being corrected by oh no no he's a Republican you see. 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[sburke]

20 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

The total disregard Americans have for art and philosophy is a symptom of this, you can't even mention someone like Voltaire or Hegel (the precepts from both of whom underpin most of our daily lives in the west) to many of American Graduate Students without getting a "who's that?" 

While I don't disagree with most of what you said, I would note we Americans certainly don't have a lock on being poorly informed or even misinformed.  Hell we aren't even close.

Meanwhile  - interesting article on the challenges developing a vaccine.  To note the article talks about newer strains of the virus being more contagious, it doesn't say that they are actually more inclined to higher fatality rates though they certainly are more capable of straining our health care networks.  It also may explain partially why China's overall infection rates seem lower (assuming the numbers we have are even remotely close to being valid)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/a-mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-even-more-contagious-than-the-original-study-says/ar-BB13CHNP?ocid=spartanntp

[Sublime]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If I lived in Russia, the first thing I'd do is put unopenable metal grills on my windows.  I'd also offer to pay everybody else in the building to have grills on their windows.  That way I could be assured of dying of a "heart attack" instead

In economic news, we're starting to see a culling of the retail herd here in the US.  The first major bankruptcy of a retail chain (J Crew) was announced a couple of days ago.  Earlier a buyout of Victoria's Secrets was put on hold and is now officially scuttled.  There will be a lot more of this, much more.  Even before COVID-19 hit the economy these companies, and many more, were in the equivalent of hospice care.  One report I was reading a while back predicted that within a few years (2025?) fully 50% of all retail mall space would be unoccupied.  It doesn't take a retail industry expert to see the shutdown has greatly accelerated this trend.

Funny side note.  A few weeks ago I rewatched "Minority Report", which takes place a few decades in the future.  There was a scene in a GAP store inside a mall.  My wife and I chuckled a bit and said "there's two things they predicted wrong".  Sure enough, a few days later GAP announced they have enough resources to survive a year, then they're done.  It's interesting to look at science fiction set way in the future and see what they got right and wrong.  The "Foundation" series has a lot of hilarious misses, yet still one of the best series ever.  Harry Harrison had a future universe where disposing of outdated telephone books was a central (humorous) plot point.  Etc.

Steve

Dont be so sure.  Putins thugs could just use the journalists playbook on you -

mugged in a stairwell and murdered.

Or hell, murdered on the bridge by the Kremlin and only one camera is on.

[Holien]

40 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Dont be so sure.  Putins thugs could just use the journalists playbook on you -

mugged in a stairwell and murdered.

Or hell, murdered on the bridge by the Kremlin and only one camera is on.

Or send tourists who like Cathedrals and leave deadly perfume bottles around to be picked up by innocent folk on the look out for a valentine's gift...

Quote

Boshirov said the two had gone to visit Salisbury Cathedral, “famous not just in Europe, but in the whole world. It’s famous for its 123-metre spire, it’s famous for its clock, the first one [of its kind] ever created in the world, which is still working.”

 

[kevinkin]

4 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

I'm not talking in terms of lexical literacy either, but in terms of understanding. This is why I like to point out the inadequacy of America's education system, top to bottom. It emphasizes data memorization, not understanding. This has the effect of making people unable to form their own ideas and so therefore become reliant on guidance from "strong-leader figure XYZ" and their rhetorical garbage. They're too easily turned into acolytes instead of individuals.

Please elaborate on this since in America memorization is used as a technique only for items like multiplication tables and at an early age. Talk to any educator - memorization teaches focus at a young age. It is a basic tool. Then it can be used a lot less when kids move on to high school with reading writing and and math skills learned in elementary school in place. Some skills require memorization so those skills become second nature early in life. And last a lifetime. 

As far as "understanding" - that is not the role of public education unless it's related to (for example) a 10th grader understanding why the moon orbits around the Earth and at what distance. But the understanding you are mentioning implies political indoctrination. Youth will form their political ideas based on life experiences, not sitting in a classroom falling asleep to Plato's Cave. You can't go very far in life without memorization at an early age; but a life can certainly crash upon accepting the "understanding" and drinking the kool aid from those who have no interest in anyone as an individual. Those who are just trying to keep their tenured jobs teaching social science as if it were a natural science . 

Kevin

[Battlefront.com]

Without getting into details, tonight I think a friend of ours who died in late February is one of the uncounted COVID-19 deaths.  You might have seen recent confirmation of earlier reporting of people in their 30s and 40s having strokes.  Even with high risk factors this is a rare thing to have happen.

No matter what the cause, what happened to her was a freak medical event.  There's no way to know if she was an unlucky early contractor of COVID-19 AND had really crappy luck with it, or if she just had "normal" really crappy luck.  We won't know because nobody was even thinking of testing stroke patients for COVID-19 back then.

Our friend died in the last week of February about 4 weeks before the first deaths in her state were reported.  If it was COVID caused, then she is another example of the lag between people dying of it and the first officially documented cases.  It would also indicate, yet again, that the real death count is likely understated.  Not that the math is leaving much room for doubt on that point any more.

Steve

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-strokes-young-adults/

[AlanSA]

I live about a mile from the beach. Thought I might take advantage of the 6am to 9am "exercise allowance" period to take a walk to the beach., Then again maybe not....

https://twitter.com/NoSurrenderRSA/status/1257559326421659648

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by AlanSA

[sburke]

Some of the difficulty in India handling the pandemic.  My coworkers were telling me about the chaos there at liquor stores let’s just say social distancing wasn’t really a consideration  

https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-spreads-among-indian-police-131214838.html

https://news.yahoo.com/chaos-outside-liquor-stores-india-eases-virus-lockdown-112326078.html

[SimpleSimon]

15 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Please elaborate on this since in America memorization is used as a technique only for items like multiplication tables and at an early age. Talk to any educator - memorization teaches focus at a young age. 

They teach almost nothing in the way of applied courses while emphasizing rote memorization of facts. This manifests most clearly through excessive reliance on reference material, (textbooks, rules of thumb, repetition etc) and canned syllabi. This isnt really classroom teacher's fault though. School administrators foist a totally unrealistic workload on their staff while simultaneously culling staff counts in just about every district to slash payrolls. 

15 hours ago, kevinkin said:

It is a basic tool. Then it can be used a lot less when kids move on to high school with reading writing and and math skills learned in elementary school in place. Some skills require memorization so those skills become second nature early in life. And last a lifetime. 

Objectively they don't, and all that students learn is how to pass tests and feign knowledge of subjects rather than actually posses any. I know what good applied mathematics and understanding of physics and philosophy do for me. Most Americans don't, and to be fair don't really need to. It's the lack of basic, i'm talking extremely basic life skills that bothers me. Lots of people don't know how to cook for themselves, or do their own taxes. Schools districts job out Drivers Ed even though not having access to a car and a driver's license is literally crippling in most places of the country. These are skills every bit as critical to people's daily lives as basic literacy. Schools generally go the greatest efforts of following austerity models to cut education they objectively should be giving their students in favor of Prestige Courses that have absolutely no business being in primary education. Why? Schools want to look like they're doing a good job while simultaneously passing the tax payers a lower bill for their services, and that's simply a lie. 

15 hours ago, kevinkin said:

As far as "understanding" - that is not the role of public education unless it's related to (for example) a 10th grader understanding why the moon orbits around the Earth and at what distance. But the understanding you are mentioning implies political indoctrination. Youth will form their political ideas based on life experiences, not sitting in a classroom falling asleep to Plato's Cave. You can't go very far in life without memorization at an early age; but a life can certainly crash upon accepting the "understanding" and drinking the kool aid from those who have no interest in anyone as an individual. Those who are just trying to keep their tenured jobs teaching social science as if it were a natural science . 

Kevin

I agree it's not Primary Education's job to conduct High Education. In fact that's my very point. American Grade Schools are clogged with classes teaching students impractical skills and knowledge that they have no use for afterwards. 

I have a separate issue with America's Higher Education system, especially its Private and For-Profit Universities conning people into forking over a mortgage's worth of debt over an education that is too simplistic and leaves students without the higher level skills they need to compete in sophisticated fields of study. Everyone at my college used to joke that in the end 4 years of college really just felt like 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th Grade. I didn't go to the most prestigious University in my field mind you, but I know plenty of people who did, and they're still paying the loans off for the same amount of pay i'm making.

The irony in all this to me is that Public Schools are teaching courses fit for Universities and Universities are teaching courses fit for Public Schools. What they both have in common is a desire to cut costs, and through that they lop off staff and payroll at every turn and this causes impacting of class-room syllabi into condensed versions of what Educators should be teaching into meaningless summarization and rote fact memorization because...that's all they can teach with the impossible demands placed on them by Administrators who shouldn't be Administering a Deli let alone a school.

I think if you have at least a Bachelor's Degree in America you should know who Voltaire is, but I understand why most undergrads won't. 

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

I think if you have at least a Bachelor's Degree in America you should know who Voltaire is, but I understand why most undergrads won't.

Most undergrads, given a multiple choice question, would likely answer c) Sick DJ.  Me?  I know the answer.  Spock's uncle on his father's side.

I am a product of my environment.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Aaaaaaaand the list of "not normal Flu" evidence showing the severity of the illness keeps coming in.  Now it appears there's a nasty possible side effect of COVID-19 that is hitting young children.  Like the strokes I just mentioned, they appear to be related to the same unknown blood condition.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/children-Kawasaki-syndrome-coronavirus.html?action=click&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200505&instance_id=18228&module=Top+Stories&nl=the-morning&pgtype=Homepage&regi_id=77867169&segment_id=26626&te=1&user_id=06eb42ecc9056dd32ea63af0c30707b6

Steve

[rocketman]

I have followed a great Youtube channel by a doctor who work in a US ICU with frontline pulmonary work. He tries to observe and explain using both old and new science. His conclusion (so far) is that the lungs are the gateway but that the main problem might be in the cardio- vascular system resulting in body wide "oxidative stress". Main critical factor seems to be: obesity, diabetes, history of clotting/thrombosis and high blood pressure. There are other illnesses where oxidative stress is already a problem and then is exacerbated by Covid-19. He gives some guidance to what treatments might work and what you can do yourself to prevent problems as far as possible if you might be in a vulnerable group. For those inclined to dip their feet into the science (he explains very well) see these:

https://youtu.be/22Bn8jsGI54

 

https://youtu.be/Aj2vB_VITXQ

 

https://youtu.be/gzx8LH4Fjic

 

[rocketman]

Edit to above: this hypothesis explains why stroke might be a cause of death even in young seemingly healthy individuals.

[kevinkin]

6 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

The irony in all this to me is that Public Schools are teaching courses fit for Universities and Universities are teaching courses fit for Public Schools

Not sure what you mean. Many Universities are public and many K->12 schools are private. I think you meant all K->12 schools are teaching courses fit for all Universities and all Universities are teaching courses fit for all K->12 schools. This is just not the case. K->12 Schools in NJ taylor their daily teaching to the community and individual students they serve. 

6 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

I think if you have at least a Bachelor's Degree in America you should know who Voltaire is, but I understand why most undergrads won't.

Tell that to a student getting a Bachelor's Degree in chemical engineering who has a guaranteed 6 figure entry level job at a company like Exxon. Knowing who Voltaire is isn't going help you size a pump to efficiently and safely transfer a volatile liquid from tank A to tank B. If the engineer fails at that,  workers die and the engineer is fired. It will not even help at the company xmas party. Some of our society's most important skills are learned in STEM. Learning about Voltaire is an elective. I would never discourage anyone taking philosophy 101 as an elective to fulfill a requirement for graduation. But an engineering student might want to take additional classes in chemistry or electronics etc. with the same money. Knowing who Voltaire is does not provide any tangible advantage to STEM students or others in technical fields like medicine.

But I would 100% expect an engineering student would know who Gibbs is. However, I do not expect a newly educated voter will enter the booth thinking … gee what did Voltaire or Gibbs think about anything a century ago. 

Kevin

Edited May 6, 2020 by kevinkin

[SimpleSimon]

11 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Not sure what you mean. Many Universities are public and many K->12 schools are private.

Right and sorry if i'm not distinguishing enough that what i'm looking at here is on the aggregate. I know there's a lot of publicly funded Unis and plenty of privately run Primary schools. The student loan bubble came from somewhere though and plenty of public Universities have the same incentive to drive down their operating costs as private Universities. My point is that the result is the same even if the reasons could be different. Enormous quantities of money have gone into higher education but there's been no commensurate increase in wages to match the investment. Grads are looking at depressed job prospects even in good times. What are they going to do now???

11 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

I think you meant all K->12 schools are teaching courses fit for all Universities and all Universities are teaching courses fit for all K->12 schools. 

No what i'm saying is that the resources of education systems everywhere are being steered by interests and leadership that does not have honest intentions toward education. The motive could be profits, or it could be nationalism, but the result is the same. A widespread lack adequate skills to navigate socially and technically complex modern society. 

11 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

Tell that to a student getting a Bachelor's Degree in chemical engineering who has a guaranteed 6 figure entry level job at a company like Exxon. Knowing who Voltaire is isn't going help you size a pump to efficiently and safely transfer a volatile liquid from tank A to tank B. If the engineer fails at that, they are fired and workers die. It will not even help at the company xmas party. Some of our society's most important skills are learned in STEM. Learning about Voltaire is an elective. I would never discourage anyone taking philosophy 101 as an elective to fulfill a requirement for graduation. But an engineering student might want to take additional classes in chemistry or electronics etc. with the same money. Knowing who Voltaire is does not provide any tangible advantage to STEM students and others in technical fields like medicine.

But I would 100% expect an engineering student would know who Gibbs is.

Kevin

Like whether or not you realize kevin you and are I talking about the same thing. 

[Sublime]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Most undergrads, given a multiple choice question, would likely answer c) Sick DJ.  Me?  I know the answer.  Spock's uncle on his father's side.

I am a product of my environment.

Steve

god youre getting old steve

repeat after me

'soundcloud'

[Sublime]

3 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Not sure what you mean. Many Universities are public and many K->12 schools are private. I think you meant all K->12 schools are teaching courses fit for all Universities and all Universities are teaching courses fit for all K->12 schools. This is just not the case. K->12 Schools in NJ taylor their daily teaching to the community and individual students they serve. 

Tell that to a student getting a Bachelor's Degree in chemical engineering who has a guaranteed 6 figure entry level job at a company like Exxon. Knowing who Voltaire is isn't going help you size a pump to efficiently and safely transfer a volatile liquid from tank A to tank B. If the engineer fails at that,  workers die and the engineer is fired. It will not even help at the company xmas party. Some of our society's most important skills are learned in STEM. Learning about Voltaire is an elective. I would never discourage anyone taking philosophy 101 as an elective to fulfill a requirement for graduation. But an engineering student might want to take additional classes in chemistry or electronics etc. with the same money. Knowing who Voltaire is does not provide any tangible advantage to STEM students or others in technical fields like medicine.

But I would 100% expect an engineering student would know who Gibbs is. However, I do not expect a newly educated voter will enter the booth thinking … gee what did Voltaire or Gibbs think about anything a century ago. 

Kevin

youre absolutely right

I mean BESIDES my epic record F UP which bites me in the ass, knowing all the history in the world is worth ZERO.  I can tell you about Voltaire too! I can tell you about  Rome and obscure WW1 and WW2 and Korean and Nam stuff. I  can do all this ****, and its considered useless in America.  It doesnt put ANY food on the table.

I screwed up - if Id chosen a vocational school instead of college Id have finished (and then not gotten my 2nd drug arrest in college damning my financial aid) Id have not followed my heart and interests, but Id have been done in 18 months ( I lasted 4 years of deans list, I coulda handled that) and would have had a guaranteed linemans job for Comcast starting at 45 an hour.

the US doesnt value the arts. not like the rest of the world.

but hell even anywhere else my knowledge is useless trivia.