Why Academics Leftists and Elitists Need to Treat Ordinary Americans With Respect
- Thread starter nsacpi
- Start date
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
The jobs are still there for lots of degrees. The problem is universities pretending that the history of music genres, queer art in medieval Britain, or oppression of lgbtq+ aborigines in 19th century Australia are as important as STEM fields, and their students buying into it.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I always enjoy counting majors on graduation programs. The number of majors in the first group of categories you listed is vanishingly small (at least where I teach). The number of majors in computer science and finance is enormous.
People focus on the shiny object of their choice and miss the real picture.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
It certainly varies by the school. Realistically there just isn’t a constant need for knowledge in those things that justifies most of them being a focus for a bachelors degree.
I had a coworker with a degree in the History of Ideas. It wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounds, world history focus with a lot of philosophy thrown in. Functionally it only let him get past 4 year degree filters when he was job searching.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
There are some majors out there that sound odd but have solid career paths.
We try to go where the interest is. Earlier this week the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee that I chair put the finishing touches on a Cybersecurity Management major. We're working with the School of Engineering to put together a five year program that will give students a Masters in Data Science, with emphasis on Big Data and AI tools.
We try to go where the interest is. Earlier this week the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee that I chair put the finishing touches on a Cybersecurity Management major. We're working with the School of Engineering to put together a five year program that will give students a Masters in Data Science, with emphasis on Big Data and AI tools.
57Brave
Well-known member
The Stupidification of American Policy
There is no plan -- just Trump's "gut"
Julie Roginsky
Mar 16, 2026
There are many ways a country can decline. It can become poorer and weaker or lose its alliances or its technological edge.
But there is another, more insidious form of decline: a country can become stupider.
That is what has happened to American policymaking under Donald Trump. The defining feature of the Trump era is not simply cruelty or corruption, though there has been plenty of both. It is the breathtaking intellectual collapse of how the United States approaches both foreign and domestic policy. Complex systems are reduced to slogans. Long chains of cause and effect are ignored. Decisions that require strategic planning are instead made through impulse and bravado.
Most of the time, that impulse and bravado emanate from Trump himself — a man who has bankrupted multiple businesses and marriages and who is the most intellectually lazy president in modern history.
To make himself seem smarter, he has stocked his cabinet with grifters and demagogues who resemble him in both tone and temperament. This has led to a dumbing down of both foreign and domestic policies that makes Nero seem responsible.
Consider the war with Iran.
Before launching military action, any serious strategist would have asked the most obvious question imaginable: what happens if Iran retaliates by disrupting the Strait of Hormuz?
This is not an obscure question. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making it one of the most important energy chokepoints on earth. Energy analysts have warned for decades that any conflict with Iran could threaten the passage and trigger a global energy shock.
Yet the Trump administration appears to have behaved as though Iran would simply fold before an oil crisis could emerge. There was apparently no one in any decision-making role who planned for a different contingency.
Instead, Iran did exactly what every foreign policy observer knew it could do: it disrupted shipping and threatened the waterway, sending oil markets into chaos. Oil prices surged past $100 per barrel, energy traders panicked, and global supply chains began scrambling to adapt.
This was not an unforeseeable crisis. It was the first scenario anyone competent would have gamed out before starting the war.
The intellectual failure here is staggering. Trump’s foreign policy is built on the assumption that every adversary will ultimately behave like a contestant on “The Apprentice”: intimidated by threats, eager to negotiate, and desperate for approval.
Real states, with their own national interests, do not behave that way.
Iran is a regional power with decades of experience preparing for asymmetric conflict. It has spent years building the very leverage that is now being used in the Strait of Hormuz. The idea that Tehran would simply surrender that leverage in the face of American airstrikes was not a strategy. It was magical thinking.
And like most magical thinking in geopolitics, the bill eventually arrives in the form of economic and military shock.
The immediate consequences are obvious: higher oil prices, higher gasoline prices, and instability in global energy markets. But the deeper economic consequences reveal just how shallow Trump’s understanding of the modern economy really is.
Energy shocks ripple, hitting shipping costs, manufacturing, and agriculture.
Fertilizer production is heavily tied to energy markets, particularly natural gas. When energy supply chains are disrupted — especially in the Middle East— fertilizer markets tighten and prices rise. That means the war’s consequences will not simply appear at the gas pump. They will appear in American grocery stores.
Fertilizer prices shape the cost of growing food. When they spike, farmers pay more to produce crops, and consumers eventually pay more to buy them.
In other words, Trump did not just miscalculate a military response. He miscalculated the basic economics of global energy and agriculture.
That brings us to the domestic side of the same intellectual collapse.
There is no plan -- just Trump's "gut"
Julie Roginsky
Mar 16, 2026
There are many ways a country can decline. It can become poorer and weaker or lose its alliances or its technological edge.
But there is another, more insidious form of decline: a country can become stupider.
That is what has happened to American policymaking under Donald Trump. The defining feature of the Trump era is not simply cruelty or corruption, though there has been plenty of both. It is the breathtaking intellectual collapse of how the United States approaches both foreign and domestic policy. Complex systems are reduced to slogans. Long chains of cause and effect are ignored. Decisions that require strategic planning are instead made through impulse and bravado.
Most of the time, that impulse and bravado emanate from Trump himself — a man who has bankrupted multiple businesses and marriages and who is the most intellectually lazy president in modern history.
To make himself seem smarter, he has stocked his cabinet with grifters and demagogues who resemble him in both tone and temperament. This has led to a dumbing down of both foreign and domestic policies that makes Nero seem responsible.
Consider the war with Iran.
Before launching military action, any serious strategist would have asked the most obvious question imaginable: what happens if Iran retaliates by disrupting the Strait of Hormuz?
This is not an obscure question. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making it one of the most important energy chokepoints on earth. Energy analysts have warned for decades that any conflict with Iran could threaten the passage and trigger a global energy shock.
Yet the Trump administration appears to have behaved as though Iran would simply fold before an oil crisis could emerge. There was apparently no one in any decision-making role who planned for a different contingency.
Instead, Iran did exactly what every foreign policy observer knew it could do: it disrupted shipping and threatened the waterway, sending oil markets into chaos. Oil prices surged past $100 per barrel, energy traders panicked, and global supply chains began scrambling to adapt.
This was not an unforeseeable crisis. It was the first scenario anyone competent would have gamed out before starting the war.
The intellectual failure here is staggering. Trump’s foreign policy is built on the assumption that every adversary will ultimately behave like a contestant on “The Apprentice”: intimidated by threats, eager to negotiate, and desperate for approval.
Real states, with their own national interests, do not behave that way.
Iran is a regional power with decades of experience preparing for asymmetric conflict. It has spent years building the very leverage that is now being used in the Strait of Hormuz. The idea that Tehran would simply surrender that leverage in the face of American airstrikes was not a strategy. It was magical thinking.
And like most magical thinking in geopolitics, the bill eventually arrives in the form of economic and military shock.
The immediate consequences are obvious: higher oil prices, higher gasoline prices, and instability in global energy markets. But the deeper economic consequences reveal just how shallow Trump’s understanding of the modern economy really is.
Energy shocks ripple, hitting shipping costs, manufacturing, and agriculture.
Fertilizer production is heavily tied to energy markets, particularly natural gas. When energy supply chains are disrupted — especially in the Middle East— fertilizer markets tighten and prices rise. That means the war’s consequences will not simply appear at the gas pump. They will appear in American grocery stores.
Fertilizer prices shape the cost of growing food. When they spike, farmers pay more to produce crops, and consumers eventually pay more to buy them.
In other words, Trump did not just miscalculate a military response. He miscalculated the basic economics of global energy and agriculture.
That brings us to the domestic side of the same intellectual collapse.
Tapate50
Well-known member
This article could have more easily been written when Joe Biden was in office.
GTFO here with this partisan bs and especially don’t post it twice
Tapate50
Well-known member
Energy prices were self inflicted by Joe
Already jacking up fertilizer and ag Chemicals
And without removing Atatollah(s)
This article wasn’t written in earnest. Just like your posts
57Brave
Well-known member
No one since WWI has brought war to the Straits of Hurmuz.
For this reason
Not even Hitler expanded WWII to that region
Read , and when you finish, find something else to read.
Wasn't Roginsky's title ...
these really arent things to agree with or disagree, partisan or " earnest" ,
kinda like 2 H's and one 0
It just is
For this reason
Not even Hitler expanded WWII to that region
Read , and when you finish, find something else to read.
Wasn't Roginsky's title ...
these really arent things to agree with or disagree, partisan or " earnest" ,
kinda like 2 H's and one 0
It just is
Tapate50
Well-known member
Are you just bitching about 3.60 gas in Columbus ?