The "M" word

I hear the 'M's have no sense of humor and lack any capacity for introspection.
 
I've worked at a fire dept. for 28 years. I have noticed in the last 10-12 years that the new hires are not as mechanically inclined as we were when I got hired on. We fix and troubleshoot nearly all of our equipment. A bit of knowledge on building construction, gas, plumbing and electrical systems in buildings is also a necessity. Most new folks don't know much about these things. They do, however, learn them extremely well. They just haven't been taught by their parents, because they either didn't know either or didn't think it was important. Most are good employees and eager to do well, they just need training in what we used to already know for the most part. They also bring a technical aptitude and ability to multi-task that I am a little envious of.

A couple of years ago, we had a kid late to the first day of the academy. When asked why he was late, he replied " I had a flat tire on the way in, and it took 1 1/2 hr for AAA to get there". One of his first classes he had to give to his new crew was how to change a tire. BTW, his nickname is "AAA".
 
Thought about the thread this afternoon. Dragged my 12 year old away from the computer and had him 'help' me to do spring maintenance on various small engine powered tools:
S: 'But dad, why do I need to know how to start the chainsaw ?'
Me: 'Because the fallen trees don't clean themselves off the road.'
 
weilke said:
Thought about the thread this afternoon. Dragged my 12 year old away from the computer and had him 'help' me to do spring maintenance on various small engine powered tools:
S: 'But dad, why do I need to know how to start the chainsaw ?'
Me: 'Because the fallen trees don't clean themselves off the road.'
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Full disclosure - I used to be that kid. I didn't understand why we were doing things, I just wanted to play games. It wasn't long after that I understood why.
 
sarangan said:
I've rebuilt nearly every major part of my car, but I don't like to change oil. Its messy, disposal is a hassle and I hate hot oil dripping on my face. The $20 oil change at Pepboys is a very attractive option for me. I am certain that the mechanics there must be assuming that I am an idiot who doesn't know how to change oil.
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I got tired of the mess in the driveway after changing the oil in my cars about 30 years ago and started taking them to Jiffy Lube or whoever was close. I know how to change the oil, but why deal with the mess? And, the idiots at Dodge who designed our old 1986 Dodge 3/4 ton van clearly didn't have to do oil changes. They ran the crossover pipe on the exhaust right behind the drain plug. You couldn't put a socket on the drain and when you got the plug out it drained all over the pipe. What a mess. Then, when you pulled the filter, that was another mess. I don't have that beast anymore (but, how could anyone be a Scout leader without one?), but I still let someone else deal with the mess and disposal of the old oil.
 
I still change the oil in my truck for two reasons. One, I know it will be done right. Two, I use Mobil1 and don't want to pay the jacked up price they charge at the quick change places.
 
Ghery said:
I got tired of the mess in the driveway after changing the oil in my cars about 30 years ago and started taking them to Jiffy Lube or whoever was close. I know how to change the oil, but why deal with the mess? And, the idiots at Dodge who designed our old 1986 Dodge 3/4 ton van clearly didn't have to do oil changes. They ran the crossover pipe on the exhaust right behind the drain plug. You couldn't put a socket on the drain and when you got the plug out it drained all over the pipe. What a mess. Then, when you pulled the filter, that was another mess. I don't have that beast anymore (but, how could anyone be a Scout leader without one?), but I still let someone else deal with the mess and disposal of the old oil.
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I'd changed my own oil for many years. My previous car was super easy. Suck the oil out, filter on top. So easy, i was doing it twice as often as required. About $100 cheaper than dealer(it used a special oil). I stopped with my current car: It's cheaper, cleaner, and more convenient to go to a dealer(yes, dealer) to do this.
 
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Timbeck2 said:
I still change the oil in my truck for two reasons. One, I know it will be done right. Two, I use Mobil1 and don't want to pay the jacked up price they charge at the quick change places.
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Mobil1 is factory recommended for my car. It costs practically the same(cheaper if you factor in my time) to do the change at the dealer($60). Plus I get a free look-see at the car from another set of eyes.
 
Timbeck2 said:
I still change the oil in my truck for two reasons. One, I know it will be done right. Two, I use Mobil1 and don't want to pay the jacked up price they charge at the quick change places.
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I do the same thing for both of your reasons.
 
I have maintained a personal fleet of Jaguars, and still have a few. No way do I take those to Jiffy Lube. I extend the same courtesy to my GM trucks.

I get to look around under the hood for preventive maint. opportunities.
I know stuff did get accomplished vs. pencil-whipped.
I know I used new oil and of what grade.
I know it's done right.
I don't strip threads.
 
I use the dealership for my truck because I bought it new and it comes with a lifetime power train warranty if maintained by the book. I also think it adds value to a vehicle, I'd rather have a lengthy service record from a dealer than some guy swearing on his mother that he never missed an oil change.

I change oil in everything else because everything else I own is pretty much fully depreciated and their is no value in having someone else do it.
 
Dan Thomas said:
This is how a lot of us older folks grew up:

Car-Maintenance.jpg


This is how a lot of M's grew up:

hqdefault.jpg
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I'm sorry, but no millennial ever played Pac-Man on an Atari 2600.
 
PPC1052 said:
I'm sorry, but no millennial ever played Pac-Man on an Atari 2600.
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Sure they have, once, as an ironic, retro hipster game night with their "m" buddies. They also waxed on about sriracha and what has most recently offended them.
 
Rgbeard said:
I have maintained a personal fleet of Jaguars, and still have a few. No way do I take those to Jiffy Lube. I extend the same courtesy to my GM trucks.

I get to look around under the hood for preventive maint. opportunities.
I know stuff did get accomplished vs. pencil-whipped.
I know I used new oil and of what grade.
I know it's done right.
I don't strip threads.
Click to expand...

Yup, same here. Also, there's not a dealership/lube shop that will change my oil cheaper than I can do it. 6qts of Mobile1 costs what it costs, dealerships may pay a lower price than I pay at Wally World, but then they mark it up in the oil change pricing. I can inspect the engine bay for maintenance items and the undercarriage for damage. I actually noticed BOTH of my front suspension springs we broken during an oil change. Both broken in the same place near the spring perch, and there was no noise when driving or appreciable change in suspension dynamics. I doubt the lackey at the lube shop would have looked or noticed it.
 
Tantalum said:
I also find it ironic that a boomer will talk about how stupid and lazy millennials are but then are unable to figure out how to rotate a PDF. And frankly, the cards are heavily stacked against us. A four year degree from a good school gets you a $60K starting salary.. gone are the days where one person with a high school diploma can raise a family of four

Most of my peers make somewhere in the 80 to 120 range, have close to half-a-million dollars in education debt, and spend two of their paychecks on rent.. one on their loan payoff, and the other on everything else..
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The problem is that it wasn't a generation that caused that particular problem. It was the American Higher Education Cartel, which is a racket worthy of a RICO indictment.

Aside from convincing two entire generations that there is no viable alternative to college unless you want to be paupers for the rest of your lives, the Higher Education Cartel does everything it possibly can to make sure that a Bachelors degree will be useless for any purpose other than attending grad school, where they can charge you two or three times the tuition to take the same courses that they won't let you take as an undergrad.

They do this by filling the undergraduate curriculum with so many mandatory ******** courses, most of which no one in their right mind would take if they had a choice in the matter, that four-year degrees in most majors are reduced to the equivalent of one year of study in the student's chosen profession, and three years of utterly irrelevant ********.

The only exceptions are a very few professions (engineering, most notably) whose accrediting agencies won't allow that kind of nonsense. That's why a graduate with a BS in any kind of engineering can find a job right out of college, while most others have to attend grad school if they want to practice the professions that they nominally studied for the past four years. The Higher Education Cartel wants to stretch the process out for as long as they possibly can.

Let's compare this to the military model of education.

My friend's son is in the Coast Guard. He has six years in and is an MST1 (Marine Science Technician First Class [E-6]). He recently decided he wants to pursue a degree in Maritime Law Enforcement through a college that works closely with the Coast Guard. He was amazed to learn that his Coast Guard training is worth more than 50 semester hours of credit toward the degree. His rating alone is worth 39 credits, and various other in-service courses he's taken (advanced firefighting, hazmat, EMT, etc.) bumped the total up to a bit more than 50.

Now here's the thing: The MST "A" school where he earned the 39 credits for his rating is nine weeks long. NINE WEEKS. In nine weeks of military-style training, he earned 39 college credits. That's almost a third of the requirements for a four-year degree. My friend's son earned them in NINE WEEKS.

At a civilian college, they wouldn't even allow a student to take enough courses to earn 39 credits in an entire year. Most colleges cap students at 18 credits / semester. Maybe they'll approve 19 if one course happens to be a four-credit course and the student kisses enough ass. Otherwise, a 16 credit / semester load is more typical (and 12 would qualify as "full-time") at most colleges.

In most military training courses I've taken, students spend 44 hours a week in classes and the rest of their waking hours studying. Other than possibly pulling barracks fire watch for four hours once or twice a week, they have no other duties. They attend classes, study, and sleep. They are motivated by whatever interest they may have in the subject matter, as well as the knowledge that washing out almost certainly will result in their being assigned to the ****tiest possible billet the military can dredge up for the next two years. Not surprisingly, the washout rates tend to be quite low.

Of course, there's the question of retention. Do students retain information that's barked at them military style? I can only speak for myself, but I remember every arcane piece of knowledge that was ever ordered into my head in the service, from boot camp on, as if I learned them this morning. Even things like the 11 General Orders, which have zero applicability to civilian life, are as fresh in my mind today as they were the first day they were barked at me in basic training by an NCO I thought simply had to be an escapee from a mental asylum who'd stolen someone's uniform.

My college transcripts, on the other hand, boast nearly a dozen courses that I don't even remember having taken, much less what they were about. (Scarier still, I aced most of them.) I've even wondered if the colleges screwed up somehow and gave me credit for someone else's courses. I honestly don't remember taking them. But there they are, on my transcripts, with the rest of the useless **** they made me study in order to take the few courses in which I actually had an interest.

If I, rather than Uncle, were the one paying the bill, I would have been pretty ****ed off.

In summary, I sympathize with your generation's educational plight. But I didn't cause it, and my generation as a group didn't cause it. A self-serving cartel composed overwhelmingly of racketeers masquerading as altruists engaging in a non-profit endeavor caused it. Not a dime that you're paying for your education will make its way to my pocket.

Still, I don't blame you for being angry about it. It doesn't really matter who's to blame. You're getting screwed no matter who is at fault. But I suggest that you consider directing your anger where it belongs rather than at an entire generation. The only ones benefiting from this whole mess are those running the Higher Education Cartel. Just follow the money, and ponder that for a while.

Rich
 
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RJM62 said:
The problem is that it wasn't a generation that caused that particular problem. It was the American Higher Education Cartel, which is a racket worthy of a RICO indictment.

Aside from convincing two entire generations that there is no viable alternative to college unless you want to be paupers for the rest of your lives, the Higher Education Cartel does everything it possibly can to make sure that a Bachelors degree will be useless for any purpose other than attending grad school, where they can charge you two or three times the tuition to take the same courses that they won't let you take as an undergrad.

They do this by filling the undergraduate curriculum with so many mandatory ******** courses, most of which no one in their right mind would take if they had a choice in the matter, that four-year degrees in most majors are reduced to the equivalent of one year of study in the student's chosen profession, and three years of utterly irrelevant ********.

The only exceptions are a very few professions (engineering, most notably) whose accrediting agencies won't allow that kind of nonsense. That's why a graduate with a BS in any kind of engineering can find a job right out of college, while most others have to attend grad school if they want to practice the professions that they nominally studied for the past four years. The Higher Education Cartel wants to stretch the process out for as long as they possibly can.

Let's compare this to the military model of education.

My friend's son is in the Coast Guard. He has six years in and is an MST1 (Marine Science Technician First Class [E-6]). He recently decided he wants to pursue a degree in Maritime Law Enforcement through a college that works closely with the Coast Guard. He was amazed to learn that his Coast Guard training is worth more than 50 semester hours of credit toward the degree. His rating alone is worth 39 credits, and various other in-service courses he's taken (advanced firefighting, hazmat, EMT, etc.) bumped the total up to a bit more than 50.

Now here's the thing: The MST "A" school where he earned the 39 credits for his rating is nine weeks long. NINE WEEKS. In nine weeks of military-style training, he earned 39 college credits. That's almost a third of the requirements for a four-year degree. My friend's son earned them in NINE WEEKS.

At a civilian college, they wouldn't even allow a student to take enough courses to earn 39 credits in an entire year. Most colleges cap students at 18 credits / semester. Maybe they'll approve 19 if one course happens to be a four-credit course and the student kisses enough ass. Otherwise, a 16 credit / semester load is more typical (and 12 would qualify as "full-time") at most colleges.

In most military training courses I've taken, students spend 44 hours a week in classes and the rest of their waking hours studying. Other than possibly pulling barracks fire watch for four hours once or twice a week, they have no other duties. They attend classes, study, and sleep. They are motivated by whatever interest they may have in the subject matter, as well as the knowledge that washing out almost certainly will result in their being assigned to the ****tiest possible billet the military can dredge up for the next two years. Not surprisingly, the washout rates tend to be quite low.

Of course, there's the question of retention. Do students retain information that's barked at them military style? I can only speak for myself, but I remember every arcane piece of knowledge that was ever ordered into my head in the service, from boot camp on, as if I learned them this morning. Even things like the 11 General Orders, which have zero applicability to civilian life, are as fresh in my mind today as they were the first day they were barked at me in basic training by an NCO I thought simply had to be an escapee from a mental asylum who'd stolen someone's uniform.

My college transcripts, on the other hand, boast nearly a dozen courses that I don't even remember having taken, much less what they were about. (Scarier still, I aced most of them.) I've even wondered if the colleges screwed up somehow and gave me credit for someone else's courses. I honestly don't remember taking them. But there they are, on my transcripts, with the rest of the useless **** they made me study in order to take the few courses in which I actually had an interest.

If I, rather than Uncle, were the one paying the bill, I would have been pretty ****ed off.

In summary, I sympathize with your generation's educational plight. But I didn't cause it, and my generation as a group didn't cause it. A self-serving cartel composed overwhelmingly of racketeers masquerading as altruists engaging in a non-profit endeavor caused it. Not a dime that you're paying for your education will make its way to my pocket.

Still, I don't blame you for being angry about it. It doesn't really matter who's to blame. You're getting screwed no matter who is at fault. But I suggest that you consider directing your anger where it belongs rather than at an entire generation. The only ones benefiting from this whole mess are those running the Higher Education Cartel. Just follow the money, and ponder that for a while.

Rich
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Exactly so. Except you left out the part where they dumbed-down a high school diploma to the point where it means absolutely nothing. A high school diploma in the past is probably the rough equivalent of a typical modern college undergrad degree.
 
Funny how POA will spend an entire thread wondering why young people aren’t interested in GA, and then spend the next thread bashing them with crusty old man complaints. Maybe there’s a connection somewhere...
 
PPC1052 said:
Exactly so. Except you left out the part where they dumbed-down a high school diploma to the point where it means absolutely nothing. A high school diploma in the past is probably the rough equivalent of a typical modern college undergrad degree.
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Oh really?
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/mobile/ted_20121016

https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume...hool-coursework-from-two-cohorts-of-youth.htm
Looks like GenX and the millennials took a lot more higher level math classes than the boomers did to me.
 
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And yet we are still behind many industrialized countries in stem even when we spend more.
College profs I know seem to think not all, but many students seem less prepared with basic academic skills.
 
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AKiss20 said:
Oh really?
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/mobile/ted_20121016

https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume...hool-coursework-from-two-cohorts-of-youth.htm
Looks like GenX and the millennials took a lot more higher level math classes than the boomers did to me.
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They may have taken the courses, but I have my doubts whether they actually mastered even basic math concepts. My doubts are based both on having been an employer or manager who had to interview applicants at various points in my life, and on more casual interactions with young people in my own family whom I consider functionally innumerate despite their having done well in terms of their grades in high school math courses.

My hunch (and that's all it is) is that students who are allowed to use calculators and computers while studying math are deprived of some sort of neural development that only takes place when doing math manually, with paper and pencil, and which results in a sort of conceptual understanding that simply doesn't take place when one is tapping buttons on a keypad. Learning math without manual computation may result in a rote understanding of the sequence necessary to solve a problem, but it deprives the student of the neural development that results in conceptual understanding.

Even using a slide rule promotes a more conceptual understanding than using a calculator because, firstly, a slide rule is an analog device and therefore works in a manner that's more consistent with that of the human brain; secondly, because it provides visual representation of those concepts by way of the various scales; and thirdly, because it requires visual processing, manual manipulation, and mental processing to use. It may be a more-cumbersome, less-efficient (sometimes), and less-precise way to arrive at the answer; but the process of using it, I believe, contributes to a better conceptual understanding.

Or to put it more concisely, both manual arithmetic using paper and pencil, and using a slide rule, more thoroughly immerse the learner's senses in mathematics in a way that promotes a type of neural development that leads to better conceptual understanding. At least that's my hunch.

I regularly draw stares of amazement when I already have exact change counted out for small over-the-counter cash sales that include tax. The cashier is still punching numbers into the register or scanning items into the reader, and assuming that I know the local tax rate, I already have the money counted out. To say I "do the math in my head" isn't quite accurate because I don't consciously do it at all. It just gets done by some automatic neural subroutine that I probably learned when I was 8 or 9.

Another area in which I think young people are being deprived is in the spatial relations involved in things like reading a map. Old-timers who learned to navigate using paper maps have this habit of glancing at the distance scale, then automatically calculating the total distance regardless of how many twists and turns there are in the route. It's just automatic. A lot of younger people, however, seem to need help with this. I watched one young driver take a scrap of paper, make two marks on it representing the distance scale, and then sort of pivot it along the route to measure the distance. It's a perfectly valid way of calculating the distance, but not one that most older people find necessary.

What I'm saying in a nutshell is that there's a difference between knowing the sequence of operations necessary to arrive at a result, and having a conceptual understanding -- a "feel," for lack of a better word -- of the subject.

For years, I thought that young people who couldn't do things like calculate sales tax in their heads were just stupid. But that was before I knew that even young children are allowed to use calculators in school nowadays. Once I knew that, it all made sense. It's like trying to learn to drive a car, fly a plane, play a guitar, or code a computer program from watching videos. You may be able to rattle off all the information after watching a video enough times, but there's a deeper aspect of learning that simply won't happen until you actually do the thing being learned.

Rich
 
Brad Smith said:
I never thought that changing a tire was a task that needed to be taught. 5 lug nuts, a jack and a lug nut wrench, right? What's there to teach???
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I think the lesson is that you can do it yourself with manual labor.
 
AKiss20 said:
Oh really?
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2012/mobile/ted_20121016

https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume...hool-coursework-from-two-cohorts-of-youth.htm
Looks like GenX and the millennials took a lot more higher level math classes than the boomers did to me.
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That doesn't address the issue that I am raising at all. No doubt there are successes at the top of the bell curve. But a high school diploma means nothing. Too many get one without having the basic skills that it used to reflect. So many get them, and can't read.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...9d9e3b3e9df_story.html?utm_term=.ff393a9d1de2

So many get them, and then can't do basic college level work.

https://thefederalist.com/2018/09/1...dents-need-remedial-classes-needs-change-now/
 
RJM62 said:
My hunch (and that's all it is) is that students who are allowed to use calculators and computers while studying math are deprived of some sort of neural development that only takes place when doing math manually, with paper and pencil, and which results in a sort of conceptual understanding that simply doesn't take place when one is tapping buttons on a keypad. Learning math without manual computation may result in a rote understanding of the sequence necessary to solve a problem, but it deprives the student of the neural development that results in conceptual understanding.
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I think there is a lot to this. Math is not only conceptual, but is a skill that needs to be practiced for mastery.
 
RJM62 said:
The problem is that it wasn't a generation that caused that particular problem. It was the American Higher Education Cartel, which is a racket worthy of a RICO indictment... Just follow the money, and ponder that for a while.

Rich
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You are so wonderfully out of touch it's breathtaking. There are monopolistic practices carried out by Institutions of Higher Learning, but you haven't a clue what they are or where they come from.

Oh, and Papa Steingar, who grew up on the decidedly wrong side of the tracks, fought in WWII, and was a card carrying member of the so-called Greatest Generation, couldn't change a tire if his fool life depended on it. The only thing he could change was the TV channel, if he could be bothered to get up and do it. I just figured out for my own self on a lonesome highway on a cold winter's day when something like a cell phone seemed more like science fiction. Wasn't too hard now that I think of it, sucks for you all if you had to be shown how to do it. I don't mind changing oil on my bike, but the car goes to Jiffy Lube. I did a brake job once when I was poor, now I go to my mechanic. He makes less than I do.

The fact that some of you mistake mechanical ability for moral superiority is vastly amusing.
 
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steingar said:
You are so wonderfully out of touch it's breathtaking. There are monopolistic practices carried out by Institutions of Higher Learning, but you haven't a clue what they are or where they come from.
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Then why has the cost of education far outpaced wages and inflation? Creation of artificial demand. Maybe 10% of jobs in this country actually require the education of a degree. But it's been foisted upon us that everyone needs one. And guess who's pushing that...

Yeah.
 
EdFred said:
Then why has the cost of education far outpaced wages and inflation? Creation of artificial demand. Maybe 10% of jobs in this country actually require the education of a degree. But it's been foisted upon us that everyone needs one. And guess who's pushing that...

Yeah.
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I think I have a bit of insight into that. When I was an undergraduate all the University had to do was supply a classroom for the professor to teach class. Also, the University got lots of State funding, and lots and lots of Federal dollars (grant pay lines were nuts, like 50%). The share of State dollars has dwindled as State governments have been squeezed, and the Federal paylines are stuck around 10%. Also, these days the University has to do Federally and State mandated things like ADA, Title IX, and all kinds other things payed for by no one but the students. Buildings have got to confirm to about 200 different codes, and the ones in use in my day have all got to be refurbished, they're old. Classrooms need all sorts of smart technology, I do half my stuff on the internet these days. Needs software, hardware, all kinds of expensive stuff. Anything goes wrong and the University gets sued. Don't believe me, just google Richard Strauss. The guy is dead, anyone connected to his time at the University is either dead or gone, and yes the lawsuits are flowing.
 
steingar said:
The fact that some of you mistake mechanical ability for moral superiority is vastly amusing.
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Totally true. But that also goes both ways. We've entered a day where working with, and using your hands, is considered low-class by many. "Stay in school Timmy so you don't grow up to be a plumber" type of thing. When really, that guy who's a plumber has his own business, might employ a handful of people, and is contributing in many ways to society

EdFred said:
Then why has the cost of education far outpaced wages and inflation?
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And now it's being used as a political tool with the topic of student loan debt forgiveness, etc. It's a massive conundrum, creating much debate. What I always wondered is who actually gets the tuition money.. most teachers don't earn crazy amounts of money, and the schools are given many other grants, etc., with a student body of almost 20,000 people (when I was there) I couldn't understand what BU was doing with our $40K/yr tuition... 20,000 X 40,000 is as much as $800M / yr. Granted... give or take based on scholarships, etc., but they're not hurting for money
 
chumash said:
I've worked at a fire dept. for 28 years. I have noticed in the last 10-12 years that the new hires are not as mechanically inclined as we were when I got hired on. We fix and troubleshoot nearly all of our equipment. A bit of knowledge on building construction, gas, plumbing and electrical systems in buildings is also a necessity. Most new folks don't know much about these things. They do, however, learn them extremely well. They just haven't been taught by their parents, because they either didn't know either or didn't think it was important. Most are good employees and eager to do well, they just need training in what we used to already know for the most part. They also bring a technical aptitude and ability to multi-task that I am a little envious of.

A couple of years ago, we had a kid late to the first day of the academy. When asked why he was late, he replied " I had a flat tire on the way in, and it took 1 1/2 hr for AAA to get there". One of his first classes he had to give to his new crew was how to change a tire. BTW, his nickname is "AAA".
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I wonder about mechanical aptitude.

Now I'm going to sound like an old timer: Back in my day, us kids didn't have cell phones, computers, or organized soccer. To keep ourselves busy and out of the house so we wouldn't have to listen to mom yell at us to find something to do and get out of the house, we did stuff. We'd take stuff apart to see how it worked and sometimes we'd even figure out how to put it back together. I still remember the day my younger brother disassembled the lawnmower in our garage, and still managed to get it back together and running before dad got home. Balsa airplanes, rockets, bicycles, lawnmowers, go carts, that old TV with a couple burned out tubes, pretty much anything was fair game for being constructed, deconstructed, or reconstructed.

I always tried to keep my kids around to help whenever I had to fix something, at least they did learn a few things that way.
 
Tantalum said:
Totally true. But that also goes both ways. We've entered a day where working with, and using your hands, is considered low-class by many. "Stay in school Timmy so you don't grow up to be a plumber" type of thing. When really, that guy who's a plumber has his own business, might employ a handful of people, and is contributing in many ways to society
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That argument is lost on people that think the end all be all of humanity is a bunch of letters behind their name. And when the S hits the F, who do I want around helping me out? Not some cube weasel that is scared of the sunlight.
 
EdFred said:
That argument is lost on people that think the end all be all of humanity is a bunch of letters behind their name. And when the S hits the F, who do I want around helping me out? Not some cube weasel that is scared of the sunlight.
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I have a friend that falls into that category. He never went to college, but he can do all the math in his head that he needs to know for running his construction business and for building whatever needs to be built for the project he's on.
 
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