not really. its easy to dunk on because its such an easy target nowadays. while it is a unique culture (by this i mean the aspect of American rather than “white”) when you look at the rest of the world (which is quite centered on immediate community and multigenerational households), obsessive consumerism is a worldwide phenomenon.

the anti-intellectualism is an odd paradox too because it is the American (mostly white) consumer who has created a now-ridiculous tertiary education system that is levered to the hilt based on the premise of “more education”

agree.. take out the human element it is simply a supply and demand issue

If I could fuck up a bunch of statues and it would stop Republicans from breeding, you better believe I would be fucking up statues right... oh wait. Fair point.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Jul 19 2020 12:08am

Fun little story: at a conference, a colleague from an American university told us how he one day walked past the seminar room of his faculty (STEM field) and heard strange voices in a foreign language coming from inside. When he decided to open the door and take a peek, he was met by some 20 Chinese persons looking at him in a mix of shock and indignation. He said he felt like he had walked in on the meeting of a secret society or an undercover spy cell, but then it dawned on him: the professor, the research assistants and all the students in that seminar - every single one of them was Chinese anyway, so they had just decided to hold their entire seminar in mandarin, because why the fuck not. My colleague apologized and fucked off embarrassed and confused.

"Since that day, I knew that something is going horribly wrong in American academia. I still can't pinpoint what exactly it is that's going wrong, but a situation like this cannot be healthy or sustainable."

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 19 2020 07:41am

Regarding the dearth of Americans in STEM: I think film and TV play an important role in this. American series almost always depict lawyers, attorneys and business executives as the protagonists, as the ones who are most successful and run the country. When engineers or scientists are shown, they're portrayed as completely unrealistic caricatures à la Iron Man, or as unattainable geniuses à la Numb3rs.

Not just in movies. Einstein is portrayed as this once in a generation genius but in reality he only made the last step after all the previous theory was laid out for him. Maxwells equations and the Lorentz transformation laid the groundwork for his theory. The only thing einstein contributed was a generalization by labeling "spacetime" as a coordinate system, and actually traveling to make the measurements of starlight during an eclipse.

He was still important, but its a huge mistake and a disservice to portray him as a lone genius who single handedly advanced science by 50 years. Without Einstein it would have taken a few more years to put together relativity, but all the pieces were already in place.

Same with Darwin. Others were right on his tail in deciphering fossils to figure out evolution.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jul 19 2020 07:44am

Yea, its something I saw only recently. Before I saw it firsthand I didnt think it was that bad.

But companys nowadays will literally hold guns to your head and collude with senior management of other companies to manipulate and blacklist you. The international landscape makes it easy to do so even.

The sheer scale of fuckery they are willing to partake in to enslave the human condition is sickening. Im ready to outright ban shareholder opinions from influencing corporate policy.




Finance is simply more profitable as well. Why choose one when the other pays you more?

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Jul 19 2020 07:57am

Now that I think about it, that's really the core of America's STEM problem: your society glorifies fame and money like no other. Everything in American culture conditions its children to strive for quick and easy fame or money, or both. But true science, not the caricatures you see on TV and in movies but the real one, is a tedious and tough endeavor based on collaborative effort and incredibly small incremental steps. There are only very few true "rockstars" in science, and even the absolute cream of the crop rarely revolutionizes an entire field by casually coming up with a mind-blowing brilliant idea.

In real science, you cannot expect to get famous or rich, it's a career that only makes sense for people who have absolute passion and dedication to their research/their field. And that's the exact opposite of what American children are conditioned to perceive as cool or desirable.

Damn...