This post is specifically for Christians. None of this applies to non-Christians, so please no red pill complaining about the horrors of marriage from non-Christians in the comments.
Every single Christian should ask themselves these 5 questions:
1) Do I burn with lust, passion, or loneliness?
2) Is my lack of a spouse negatively impacting my Christian walk?
3) Am I called to marriage?
4) Do I fornicate, masturbate, look at pornography, or date non-Christians?
5) Would I rather be single for the rest of my life than married to this Christian?
If you, as a single Christian, have answered yes to any of #1, #2, #3, or #4 yet have rejected people to whom the answer to #5 is no: consider why.
I have been counseling young women not to follow that strategy. One of the big problems I’m running into though, is this. Men say they are only engaging in the hook-up culture because they are responding to what women want and that if women want traditional marriage, then they shouldn’t engage in premarital/hook-up sex, which would force men back into the commitment-for-sex role. Fair enough, but then girls are telling us that if they don’t put out, if they don’t work a slutty vibe, they can’t get men (even most Christian men) interested in them because they are competing with girls who do. That means it doesn’t work very well (socially, not morally) for just some women to avoid premarital/hook-up sex; it has to be almost all of us who avoid it. But when secular women start trying to tell women to close their legs and stop giving away the milk for free, they are accused of trying to run a sex cartel. And maybe they are accused of that because they slept around first, but how surprising is that really, given the fact that the alpha mares in the female herd strongly encourage young women to do so, and women only learn (and accept) the folly of this strategy when they’ve gotten older?
SSM, and a few other manosphere-related women keep perpetuating the same false argument. Please stop.
While there is no easy solution for society, there is an easy solution for individual young women.
Young women should go for young men who are willing to wait until marriage.
“Most” might not be willing to wait, I’ll even accept that “most” ‘Christian’ men might not be willing to wait but there are many young Christian men who are planning to wait until marriage.
If a woman is serious about it, she can find one. It may mean choosing a young man who’s not as hot as the one’s demanding immediate sex, who’s a bit nerdy or socially awkward, but them’s the breaks.
If young women would rather fornicate and hope for a relationship born in sin than choose a less attractive young man willing to wait, that’s their choice, but they should stop complaining about there being no option but spreading their legs.
If a young woman has high standards for hotness, then she should accept that she might be single forever. The higher her standards the more likely she is to be single and the more likely she is to waste her prime attractive years.
The complaints of women on this issue ring hollow.
Young women have far more options than the vast majority of men could possibly dream of. Stop trying for perfect and then complaining you can’t get perfect without fornicating. Instead, either: 1) Accept being a fornicating sinner and the consequences of such, 2) accept that your high standards will leave you single, or 3) go for a less attractive man who is willing to wait.
That’s the simple reality of the situation created by women’s own demands.
The worn complaint of “I can’t find a man without fornicating” is both tiresome and false, please stop perpetuating it.
Either that or express it in its proper form: “I can’t find a hot man without fornicating, so I’d rather sin with a hot man than be chaste and/or marry a moral, but less hot, man.”
That’s an opinion I can respect. It’s immoral, but at least it’s true.
Those perpetuating the “I can’t find a man without fornicating” argument are excusing sin and leading other young women to sin. (Not to mention that it’s making it harder for us awkward men waiting for marriage).
Anyway, for women not looking to justify fornication to themselves,here’s a link to some advice I’ve given in the past for building your own attractive man from less attractive materials.
EDIT (2014/03/24):: After thinking about this, I believe I went farther than is prudent here and was inaccurate to the point of error, and have withdrawn the redacted lines. I expressed what I was trying to say more accurately but less readably below.
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EDIT (2014/03/23): SSM, and potentially others, have misunderstood what I said, so maybe my writing was insufficiently clear. Therefore, here is my response in the comments to SSM clarifying what exactly I am criticizing.
SSM,
I do not believe I have misrepresented you; instead I think you misunderstand my position.
I have not said you have counciled fornication because, as far as I know, you have not.
I did not read the comments on the Picky, Picky piece at Donal’s, so I don’t know what you said there. (If you have particularly called out the pernicious myth I outline in my post and below I apologize for misrepresentation).
My problem is with this:
Fair enough, but then girls are telling us that if they don’t put out, if they don’t work a slutty vibe, they can’t get men (even most Christian men) interested in them because they are competing with girls who do. That means it doesn’t work very well (socially, not morally) for just some women to avoid premarital/hook-up sex; it has to be almost all of us who avoid it.
The repeated stating of “women can’t get men without fornicating” is incorrect. It may be true that women can’t get some men [typically the hots ones] without putting out, but it is not true that women can’t get men without fornicating.
There is a difference between “men” and “some men” or “particular men” or “attractive men”.
I highly doubt any but the obese (who should improve themselves) or the deformedly ugly (who I have much empathy for) can not get men.
In fact, whenever I have heard women saying I can’t find a man, or there are no good men, they have always had both many men and good men available to them. In some cases, I was a good man who had asked them out previous to them saying this.
Instead of perpetuating the myth that women can’t get men without fornicating, you, and others in the sphere who perpetuate this myth, should instead tell the women complaining to look towards the good men around them who they have been ignoring (ie. the awkward or unattractive men) or to shut up and accept that their high standards may leave them single.
Because every time I (and likely most good Christian men) hear a Christian woman say there are no good men, or I can’t find a man, or I can only get a man through fornicating, I (we) become that much more bitter towards your whole sex.
You have no idea just how discouraging, how dispiriting, how emasculating, how embittering this “I can’t find a man (without fornicating)” is to Christian men.
If you want any good men to still be looking in the church, this shit has got to stop. Because every time I hear it, I am pushed that much closer to saying “fuck marriage” and that will be one less bachelor available for Christian women.
It seems Tucker Max (of fratboy asshole fame) and Geoffrey Miller (who wrote Spent) are creating a male dating and self-improvement site. LaidNYC and D&P have detailed how they think Max and Miller are just going to rip off pre-existing manosphere bloggers and try make them politically correct.
That the new site will be politically correct is nigh indisputable given Max has written this:
But somebody trying to profit off the manosphere by stealing ideas and making them more acceptable to liberals is not terribly surprising. It was bound to happen at some time and Max Tucker is well positioned to do so. In retrospect it seems almost inevitable.
Instead of lamenting the inevitable, which laidnyc and D&P did a good enough job of that, I would like to instead point to a comment by aramaxima:
From a paranoid reactionary perspective, it looks to me like the Cathedral is about to turn the Manosphere into controlled opposition. Stealing all its ideas, rebranding them to a “wacky pair of a bestselling author and an Ivy researcher!” and then (of course) ignoring that the Manosphere at all ever existed is exactly how I’d do it.
Some reformed asshole stealing ideas is, in the larger scheme of things, not that big a deal. What manospherians should be worried about instead is entryism:
Entryism is a small team of conspirators trying to manipulate and control another organization – usually a larger organization with a bigger mailing list and more funds. Thus for example a small group of political extremists, a team of half a dozen or so people, would naturally like to take over an big organization involved in some big money, moderately leftist, politically progressive task such as funding housing for the poor, if lots of funding for the poor flows through the housing organization.
In this case, the ‘big’ organization is the manosphere and its ‘funds’ are lost knowledge of the SMV and influence among disenfranchised young men. The mainstream progressives would definitely like to bring the manosphere to heel to work for its agenda.
How I foresee this working:
1) Max uses softened versions of red pill concepts (let’s call this the purple pill) that are more acceptable to polite society. These ideas will still be outside of the mainstream, but only slightly so. Max will become the David Brooks of dating advice; still kind of icky but acceptable enough for the NYT.
2) The purple pill is still more effective than the blue pill, so it still gets a following. Many disenfranchised, but liberal, young men who would be scared off by the harsh truths of the manosphere accept this new politically correct purple pill.
3) A new purple pill community for young men with its own set of blogs develops with Max being a key player. Maybe the community links up with existing purplish-pill dating sites like the Good Men Project, Hooking Up Smart, and Mark Manson, maybe not.
4) The purple pill community begins to link to and get links from some of the more “acceptable” manosphere sites like the Art of Manliness and MMSL. Overlap between the manosphere and the purple pill community begins.
5) The purple pill community begins applying the the manosphere and/or red pill labels to itself; either that or it develops its own label and beings applying that itself and the manosphere as a whole. Either way, the two communities begin to fall under similar label to most outsiders. (The same way those in the manosphere are still called MRA’s by a lot of outsiders). We’ll call this the new manosphere (NM).
6) Extreme feminists will attack the purple pill NM for some reason. Some red pillers will defend them (he’s one of “us” being attacked by one of “them”) and ties will grow within the NM.
7) As the feminist attacks happen, the NM will distance themselves from the “extreme” red pill community. They’ll post a few apologies and some politically correct claptrap to satiate their opponent’s bloodlust. This, of course, won’t work.
8) Purple pill types will start to concern-troll the NM, trying to dilute the message, purportedly for the good of the message. “Look how we’re upsetting others. We’re driving people away. We need to soften our language and maybe talk less about mean stuff so we can get more people into the red pill.”
9) Eventually, the NM will start cut themselves off from the red pill community and denounce them. “Those guys aren’t part of the real NM”, “the NM would never have anything to do with sexists like that”, etc. Red pillers will be shunned and excluded from the NM.
10) At this point the manosphere will have become completely controlled by the purple pill. The purple pill will be called the red pill, Max (or someone else like him) will be the centre of the manosphere, and Roissy will be that crazy crank who hasn’t evolved with the red pill. Old red pillers will either have to rebuild the community that was destroyed by the entryists or leave altogether.
Now it probably won’t be exactly this way, and will almost assuredly not be in the exact same order with such discrete steps, but the general thrust of the movement will be the same. The result will be the same, the conquering of the manosphere by the purple pill.
Also realize, Max and Miller do not have to be doing this intentionally. Maybe all they want is some easy cash from stealing others ideas. They may even be opposed to some of the steps. They may end up being simply tools of others. In fact, it wouldn’t even require anyone doing this intentionally, it may simply happen because that’s what tends to happen to large, unstructured organizations. They go left.
Also, even if Max’s site goes nowhere, which is possible, they are not the first (HUS) and definitely won’t be the last. There will be other entryists and the pattern will be the same.
****
So, how to stop it?
Entryism can only be stopped by vigilance. To keep the red pill from being subverted current people of the manosphere have to stop them from doing so.
Here’s some things that can be done:
1) Aggregates and other gatekeepers, such as RP Reddit and manosphere.com, have a special importance. They must make sure not to put Tucker Max’s site or other similar sites, into their rolls and must keep content from purple pill sites from infesting them. If some gatekeepers allow themselves to be taken with purple pill stuff, they should be abandoned for other gatekeepers.
2) Important manosphere figures must make sure to distance themselves from purple pill types sites. Mockery, such as Aunt Giggles, can work well for this. This already being done.
3) If a men’s dating or self-improvement group or community outside the current manosphere starts to take the red pill or manosphere label upon themselves, the manosphere needs to vocally reject their usage. As well, if purple pill communities create their own labels and try to apply them to the manosphere, the manosphere must reject those labels.
4) Concern-trolling must be ignored. Anybody who starts to campaign for making the red pill more accessible by enforcing language codes, political correctness, sensitivity, etc. needs to be shunned and delinked.
5) Avoid linking to purple pill sites for purposes other than mockery, rejection, or rebuke.
6) If purple pill commenters start concern-trolling your blog, make sure to either answer and reject their concerns or delete their comments.
7) Mockery works wonders against entryists. Use it.
8) Those manospherians who become to cozy with purple pill sites need to be warned, then shunned.
Those are some ideas I can think of immediately. If anybody else has others.
It should be noted to be careful not to go too far in enforcing over-rigid ideological control. It is counter-productive as the manosphere thrives on open discussion. There is a difference between keeping entryists out and keeping everybody out. A line needs to be drawn between acceptable disagreement and questioning and entryism.
****
The manosphere can listen, or not. It can take steps to protect itself form entryism or not.
But if it doesn’t, don’t be surprised to hear: “No true red-piller thinks hypergamy exists”, “every red-pill person knows the Dark Triad is unattractive to women”, “those sexists aren’t a part of the manosphere”, etc. in the next few years.
And I will make boys their princes,
and infants shall rule over them.
And the people will oppress one another,
every one his fellow
and every one his neighbor;
the youth will be insolent to the elder,
and the despised to the honorable.
For a man will take hold of his brother
in the house of his father, saying:
“You have a cloak;
you shall be our leader,
and this heap of ruins
shall be under your rule”;
in that day he will speak out, saying:
“I will not be a healer;
in my house there is neither bread nor cloak;
you shall not make me
leader of the people.”
For Jerusalem has stumbled,
and Judah has fallen,
because their speech and their deeds are against the LORD,
defying his glorious presence.
For the look on their faces bears witness against them;
they proclaim their sin like Sodom;
they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
For they have brought evil on themselves.
Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them,
for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him,
for what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him.
My people—infants are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people, your guides mislead you
and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.
(Isaiah 3:4-12 ESV)
Does that not sound like our society?
Does not “And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow, and every one his neighbor” sound like democracy?
Does not “the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable” remind you of “don’t trust anyone over 30” and “baby-killers”?
“My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them.” Hmmm… How long until Hillary is president?
How cursed is a society that worships what in earlier times were feared as divine wrath for serious sins?
A while back I mentioned inner beauty, saying I accept the concept itself but reject the abuses it has taken. I decided to write a bit more on this topic after reading this post on why men marry some women. (If you’re a young woman looking to marry, I would strongly suggest reading that link).
The concept of “inner beauty” typically gets short shrift in these parts, and deservedly so. Inner beauty is usually used as an appeal by either unpleasant fat people or unpleasant aging women for why people should love them despite their unpleasantness, obesity, and age. Sadly, Jim Carrey was right about how inner beauty is often used:
Despite the abuses of inner beauty, inner beauty is actually very important. As the earlier linked article pointed out:
1. Men are attracted by the physical, but marry character
a. Newly engaged men said that what attracted them to their fiancées was how classy, positive, energetic, enthusiastic, and upbeat their future wives were.
i. While 68% gave a physical description of their fiancée, only 20% said that what attracted them was how gorgeous and sexy their fiancée was. Over 60% described their personalities, even if the women in question were very beautiful.
b. Therefore, be positive!
2. All wives are trophy wives—men marry women whom they admire and like to show off (but not for their physical appearance)
3. Dressing appropriately sends the message, “I am wife material.” Men marry women they perceive as “situational virgins” who move easily in their world.
a. Editor’s note: In other words, don’t dress like a ho. Men see a sexy outfit as an invitation to have sex.
b. Most men decide within 10 minutes of meeting a woman if she’s appropriate for marriage, or just for a casual affair.
c. Over 80% of men said or bragged that their fiancée was the kind of woman they were proud to introduce to friends and family
d. Over 70% of men said that they knew that their future bride was a “nice girl” the minute they met
e. Only 7 out of 2,000 men interviewed said that their fiancée was dressed in a very sexy outfit when they met.
For finding a husband, women’s looks are secondary, their inner qualities are what matter more. (For finding hook-ups, the opposite is true). This doesn’t mean women should ignore her looks, secondary is still important, but instead a woman looking for marriage should focus on developing the internal qualities a man would want in a wife.
****
Look at the list above of attractive features from 1above: “classy, positive, energetic, enthusiastic, and upbeat”
All but ‘classy’ can be described as simply as ‘actively happy’.
Classy is simply a polite way of saying “not an embarrassing slut”. If you look at points 2 & 3 this simply reinforces that point. Men don’t want someone slutty for marriage, they want a nice girl.
If a woman simply develops herself into a happy, energetic person and refrains from making a slut of herself, she will be attractive.
This is true inner beauty and it shows outwardly.
****
Your outer self reflects your inner self.
Your internal attitude will reflect how others perceive you.
The manosphere talks of frame and irrational self-confidence a lot, because they know that how they think about themselves, their inner personality, comes through in the way they look, in the way they stand, and in the way they talk. Having a strong, confident frame attracts women. The men of the manosphere knows that a person’s inner self reflects their outer self.
This is a man’s inner attractiveness.
But this internal frame doesn’t just apply to men, it also applies to women. A woman’s internal attitude will greatly effect her external appearance.
A women’s positive attitude is extremely important. A genuine smile and positive outlook on life can easily and greatly increase a women’s attractiveness.
Here is something most men know, but many women seem not to understand. The vast majority of women under the age of 25 who keep themselves healthy, have a positive attitude, and smile a lot are attractive to most men.
To be unattractive usually requires effort on a women’s part.
****
To be unattractive most young women have to actively make themselves unattractive by either having a bad attitude, gaining weight, mutilating themselves through piercings or tattoos, or actively hampering their looks through too much make-up or a bad (ie: short) haircut.
Obesity is the most common reasons for young women being unattractive, but, even that is simply an outward expression of an inward attitude. I’ve written more about this before, but to summarize, obesity a symptom of two of the seven cardinal sins. An unwillingness to take the most basic care of your body shows outwardly a deep inward self-loathing.
Tattoos and piercings show internal attitudes as well. Tattoos demonstrate poor decision-making, trashy attitudes, and sexual easiness. Piercings demonstrate much the same. While these might attract men looking for easy sex, they are counterproductive in sending the message “I am wife material”.
A bad haircut (ie: short hair) displays a lack of femininity and a lack of desire to be feminine. This displays an unattractive internal reality.
Poor make-up is less permanent and less destructive, but caking it on like a whore, makes you look like a whore, which is the opposite of classy wife material. This may be showing an internal problem or it may simply just be showing cluelessness.
While these external markers may all show inner ugliness, inner ugliness will show through more directly as well. Inner ugliness will display itself in frowning, bad attitudes, argumentativeness, nagging, and the like, all of which is horribly physically unattractive.
If a woman simply keeps in shape, is happy, and doesn’t ruin herself, she will be able to attract a man.
****
There are a few exceptions to the rule, some people are are just born physically ugly and no amount of inner beauty or self-care will change that, but that is rare.
Look at this 1-10 pictoral scale, how many women (excluding the obese) like those in the 1-4 categories does a man actually see in real life?
For myself, I can only think of one example of a girl (from church) under 30 from my entirety of my regular social circles (school, friends, social activities, etc.) who would fall among the 1-4 range for a reason other than obesity. It is very rare in the course of my regular life in public areas (bussing, shopping, at church, walking around, etc) that I will see a <30 woman who would physically be a 1-4 for reasons other than obesity (or, occassionally, a hideous make-up job, bad haircut, or piercings/tattoos).
The young, in-shape women who is actually unattractive is a very rare thing.
For a woman, being a 5 or higher means the majority of men are naturally attracted to you.
So, if you are a women looking to find a husband, develop your inner beauty. Be happy, be positive, be energetic, and don’t get fat or be a slut.
****
To bring this to a more abstract, ideological level, this is one of the problems with feminism; feminism actively tries to destroy inner beauty.
They encourage fat acceptance, sluttiness, and bad attitude.
As for sluttiness, Tracy’snewpiece shows you exactly what they are encouraging there. Hardly the time of women that would be a classy, nice girl to show off to family. Radish Mag has a nice long piece on this as well.
As for bad attitudes, feminists are actively campaigning against being happy and smiling. They believe smiling is tyranny and have started a campaign called “Don’t tell me to smile”. They revel in their “bitch faces“. The possible examples are endless, but its obvious the feminists are opposed to being “positive, energetic, enthusiastic, and upbeat” or anyone encouraging the same.
So, to any women looking to get married, avoid any feminist advice, for men are looking for exactly the opposite.
****
For just one example of how feminists destroy inner beauty, we’ll take RoK’s ugliest feminist, Lindy West (trigger warning: Lindy West):
She’s obviously very unattractive, but if you look closer you can tell she has good skin and no major deformities. If we see a picture of her smiling (even if it a kinda fake smile) and hiding her fat , she jumps physically from a 2-3 to a 4:
If she lost weight and put on a positive attitude she could probably easy jump form the ugly range to the attractive range. Even so, just physically speaking she’s not the physically ugliest person I’ve seen, but her ugliness is not from her physicality, it flows from her inner self. Because she follows feminist dogma she will keep herself fat, she will continue to display a bitchy face, and her inner ugliness will continue to glower through.
As the top commenter on the RoK article stated:
These women are rotten to the core. That’s why Roosh picked them. They’re miserable, cynical, pessimistic, angry, and offer nothing of substance. They’re physical appearance was just icing on the cake. They’re ugly through and through.
It’s her inner ugliness that truly makes her repulsive.
When I wrote of Tracy Flory-Clark a lot of men expressed repulsion to her. She’s kind of plain but not physically ugly:
With a more genuine smile and eyes that didn’t have the thousand-cock stare, she could probably be fairly attractive. It’s not her outer self that’s repulsive, it’s her inner self which manifests outwardly that makes her repulsive to men.
These feminists are not ugly because of what’s outside, they have an ugly inner core.
****
So, women, unless you want to be in line with the ugliest feminist in America, develop your inner beauty. It matters a lot.
Not to mention you’ll feel better about yourself as a happy, healthy, joyful, energetic person rather than a bitter, angry, hateful one.
Amanda Marcotte notices something right-wingers have been saying for ages, but, of course, doesn’t acknowledge that her and her kind are the reason this idiocy exists.
the average debt in 2011 was $23,300, with 10 percent owing more than $54,000 and 3 percent more than $100,000
To be honest, this is not that bad. $23k is a lot, but livable, even 54k is not insurmountable, but for the 3%, $100k is a serious commitment. In some areas equivalent to a mortgage on a starter home.
The problem though, is that these are ok only if there is employment for those taking the loans. The NYT doesn’t cover this in this article, but the real problem is half of these people graduating are not going to have jobs or will be underemployed.
$23k in debt is doable if you make $40k a year, even $120k ($900/month according to the article) is doable if you make $60k a year coming out of university and live frugally for a few years.
But, if you are unemployed or working part-time as a barrista, there is no way to keep payments up on much more than a few thousand dollars worth of debt and still be able to advance in life.
****
The NYT misses that the tuition bubble is not a bubble because tuition costs are high; an expensive degree can be an excellent investment for both the lender and borrower if it increases future earnings.
The whole article is off-base as high tuition costs are irrelevant if the economic benefits of the degree match or exceed the cost of the degree.
The tuition bubble is a bubble because a lot of these degrees are worthless.
So why are they worthless? Part of it is simply the transition to post-scarcity, even highly educated and skilled people may simply be replaced by machines. Some of it is because these degrees teach no useful skills, such as Master of Puppetry, an awesome album but a crappy degree. But there is another, even more fundamental, problem that the NYT ignores almost completely.
****
The main problem is touched upon later on in the piece, but only very obliquely:
the main job of the admissions staff, after all, is to admit students
An off-hand reference in the second half of a sentence at the bottom of a paragraph is all the NYT devotes to the crux of the tuition bubble.
****
Huh? Isn’t admissions staff’s job to admit students?
No, the admissions staff’s job is to screen out students for whom university (or college) is not appropriate.
College is becoming increasingly easy, yet still a third of students still can’t hack it.
The admissions people are failing their job. One-third of people entering university are not capable of completing even the dumbed-down modern university curriculum.
Think about how many more would not be capable of completing college if standards were similar to those 50 years ago.
Look at education, public admin, business, psychology, legal professions, health professionals, etc.
The average incoming student for all of these is only around average intelligence. About half of them are of below average intelligence.
This is why there is a tuition bubble.
****
It used to be that a college degree meant you were a cut above the rest; that you were a competent, intelligent individual.
Now all a college degree shows is that you are able to stomach a university’s bullshit for a few years and are not a complete dullard.
That’s why your degree is worthless.
It doesn’t signal you’re a superior intellect with a strong knowledge of your specialty.
All it shows is that you’re not completely incompetent and are able to parrot BS back to the BS’ers. How much is not being completely incompetent worth to an employer?
Even a high GPA doesn’t mean much. With grade inflation everybody’s GPA is fairly high, how can an employer trust that you actually earned yours?
****
As an aside, look at public admin and social services: 96.3.
Do you want to know one reason why your government doesn’t work very well? The people in public admin are being educated to run the government. Do not think that these are not going to be the front-line clerks at the DMV, or even their supervisors; these are actually the people who are going to university to learn how to create public policy. They are the ones who will be creating government policy and regulations that will control your life.
Most of them are of below average intelligence.
Think about that for a minute. Please don’t weep.
Of course, the average business major is not much better, barely scraping by at 101. 2.
And we wonder why the US economy is stagnating?
Teachers are at 99.3. Half of all teachers are of below average intelligence. Here’s where you can start weeping for the future.
Your kid is likely being taught by someone of average or below average intelligence.
If you’re reading a post about the economics of post-secondary education on a blog for leisure (like say, this post you’re reading right now), it’s highly likely the large majority of these teachers, bureaucrats, and businessmen running things and teaching your children are much more stupid than you.
Aren’t you feeling comforted?
****
Thankfully the drop-out rate is so high. I’d hate to think what the school system and government would be like if a third of these sup-par students didn’t fail to finish their degrees.
****
So, after all that, you’re probably understanding why the tuition bubble exists.
It exists because too many people are getting a degree.
Everybody wants to enter the road to the professional, white-collar, middle-class, which is what university is thought of as now.
But not everybody is capable of being a white-collar professional.
Of course, modern liberal dogma can’t admit that some people are just not capable of being white-collar professionals, after all, we are all equal. The Bible (or Stephen Gould, depending on your religious beliefs) and the Constitution (or your sociology professor, depending on your political beliefs) say so.
So those in charge, those who would read the NYT, can not and will not prevent those who shouldn’t be going to college from going to college.
Instead, they’ll encourage them to go. They’ll give these marginal students huge, government-backed loans they’ll never be able to pay back. They’ll lower academic standards as far as they can go, then lower a them a bit more, destroying any academic, economic, or signalling value of your degree in the process.
Doing otherwise would expose their ideology for the lie it is and their ideology takes precedence over the good of these marginal students, not to mention the other students whose degrees are made worthless.
So, as these marginal students flood colleges, demand for college education increases, so tuition goes up.
The academic value of the degree erodes, as grade inflation and lowered academic standards become necessary to keep these people in college, and maybe (hopefully) let them graduate.
The economic values of these degrees plummets. Your degree no longer signals competence, knowledge, and intelligence to an employer; all it signals is a lack of incompetence. Why should he pay well for that? Why should he hire the marginally competent at all?
Thus a bubble. Paying more and more for less and less.
One thing though, bubbles can’t last forever. Reality always wins in the end.
Eventually, the post-secondary education system will run into reality.
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Economists do not predict a collapse of the student loan system, which would, in essence, mean wholesale default.
NYT’s economists never fail to be amusing. I wonder if this was Krugman or Friedman, maybe both?
Those who are blinded by ideology will run full tilt into the wall of reality. They will then act surprised.
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With more than $1 trillion in student loans outstanding in this country
$1 trillion, that’s almost 7% of GDP. If a large percentage of these loans default, this will be a major economic catastrophe. It may be possible for the US government to forgive them, but that will be a significant increase in national debt.
Students are likely stuck with this debt.
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So what can we do?
Short answer: nothing.
Long answer: That’s a question for another post.
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One last note:
Leaders of the for-profit industry defended themselves
I’m usually a staunch defender of the free market, but in this case, all I can say is:
The for-profit college industry is a brood of blood-sucking parasites taking advantage of students who should never set foot near a college for their own benefit, and the student loans programs in a disgusting display of parasitic corporate welfare. May their whole industry rot.
I read my Tweets. It seems the Oscars are tonight. Who knew? Thanks Anti-Dem blog, I guess. A lesbian who had a sitcom a couple decades ago took a picture; 2 million RTs. A lot of people it seems. Society is dying.
I read a newspaper article a friend sent me. It’s from the CBC. It seems tribalism is evil; ethnic nationalism moreso. I almost forgot. Thankfully, this one was at least written by an adult with a functioning brain and a basic grasp on reality. I read another article, this one was not. The mind revolts; I remember why I don’t read newspapers anymore.
I’m visiting family. The TV is on while we talk. Commercials come on. I haven’t seen one in months; it feels like a mental assault. The stupidity almost hurts. Do I really feel the brain cells dying or is that psychosomatic? Has anyone, ever, been even half that excited over an egg sandwich before in their life? Even more, I am insulted someone, someone with a degree and a six-figure job, thought I would actually believe somebody could get that excited. The actor’s every expression screams backpfeifengesicht, yet I would be the one to go to jail. There is no justice. Wait, if they’re making this commercial somebody must actually be convinced to buy an egg sandwich because of it; the mind reels away from the horror. Finally the pause in conversation ends; I can ignore the terror.
I am riding the bus. An ad displays an idiot who is amazed, mouth agape, the government will subsidize his renovations. Does a thousand dollar subsidy from a nameless bureaucrat really elicit such an emotional outpouring? I wouldn’t even be that amazed if my office pool won the lottery. His face looks retarded. The urge to punch something, anything, stirs, so I look elsewhere.
Another ad. It’s a mentally handicapped man, looking slightly less retarded than the renovations guy. “I’m an athlete.” Despite being better at his sport than 90% of people will ever be at anything, “I’m an athlete.” is how you advertise him? I’m an emotionally-detached asshole, yet I’ve never been that condescending to anybody in my life. Why do the Special Olympics hate disabled people?
Another ad, but of a soldier advertising the military, something noble, something worthy. Looking past the uniforms, its a woman; still sacrifice is sacrifice. ‘I love that I’m a role model.’ Shudder. I look to the quote under the other women soldier beside her, ‘People take me seriously.’ Defeat overwhelms me. Where are the calls to flag, country, patriotism, duty, honour, sacrifice, freedom, hell, even democracy, something, anything, transcendent? The army is purposefully recruiting narcissists. My biggest regret for almost over a half decade was not joining the army after high school; that regret is almost gone. Why can’t I fall asleep?
I am at work. I overhear my coworkers discussing a show I’ve never seen. I stay in my cubicle. They move to discussing football; I don’t recognize the names. I stay seated.
I scan Slate semi-regularly just to keep some connection to the mainstream news and opinions. I rage at the stupidity and asininity, but at least it’s not Salon or the NYT or HuffPo.
The headlines are increasingly infected with the Gawker voice. You know the voice; the one that sounds like Cracked headlines had a retarded step-child.
“I opted my kids out of standardized tests. I thought it was no big deal. Boy, Was I Wrong.” Here’s how someone who hadn’t drank paint as a child would write this: “Opting my kids out of standardized tests was a greater hassle than I thought.” See: 14 words in 1 flowing sentence as compared to 19 in 3 choppy sentences; much more readable and it sounds like something not written by a child who skipped his standardized tests. But I guess you must appeal to the other paint-drinkers. Can people no longer read ‘complex’ thoughts?
Also, up yours Slate. I don’t need your permission to lick a cookie-dough spoon. What kind of pathetic incompetent does? Come to think of it, what kind of worthless person even thinks about this more than, “Hey, my cookies are baking, let’s eat the leftover batter”?
Seems Pharrell’s, who sounds vaguely familiar, Happy, which does not, is the new Hey Ya, whatever that means. No one ever writes on heavy metal; c’mon Iced Earth’s new CD just dropped.
I read something in XX. It’s dripping with venom; hate seethes from every word. I check the byline, but I already guess the author. Is there any person in the world more hateful than Amanda Marcotte?
I write for my blog. Trying to find article on Gawker voice I vaguely remember reading a long time ago. Find this instead. There is actually someone who believes Gawker writes good headlines. America deserves destruction. Reason #5: “They’re written like real people talk.” Really? Reading a Gawker headline makes my bloodlust rise. If the people I spent my time with talked like that I’d be in prison. Remind me to never talk to anyone either named or friends with Andrew Hanelly; 20-to-life does not interest me.
Finish Mass Effect 3. It and the first two have been my major interactions with popular culture over the last three months. 40 hours a game, a game a month, an average of an hour a day (but more realistically one or two evenings a week). I also watched LilyHammer and House of Cards.
The more time passes the more disconnected I feel from society and culture. My knowledge of societal and cultural events around me all comes from a small internet subculture. No radio, no TV but Netflix, no newspapers, no sports but the occasional party for the ‘big game’ or ticket to the ‘local team’.
What little of culture seeps through my filters repulses me.
I’m not sure how healthy this is. I’m not sure if the alternative is any healthier.
’s daughter
but a crappy degree. But there is another, even more fundamental, problem that the NYT ignores almost completely.