Of the frequent commenters here, What is your education level?

Thoughts_Arrive

Graduated with an undergrad

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

tbergs

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

rgambs

I read on my own

tbergs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

Very true, even for medical doctors!

rgambs

I read on my own

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Pretty much anytime in life when you do something to make someone proud and prove something, the people you hope to impress are not going to be satisfactorily impressed.  
It's like, universal, we all get grandiose ideas about how someone will react, and we all get let down.

Don't do shit for anyone else!  
Do it for you!  

Go Beavers

tbergs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

I’ve lived in college towns most of my life and came across a lot of PhDs as a result. The vast majority of them were incredibly smart. I include my dad in that, too. 

rgambs

I read on my own

Go Beavers said:

tbergs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

I’ve lived in college towns most of my life and came across a lot of PhDs as a result. The vast majority of them were incredibly smart. I include my dad in that, too. 

And I worked with anesthesiologists and surgeons who thought the Rapture was imminent, black people just need to stop being lazy, and who drank themselves to stupor every night.

Go Beavers

rgambs said:

Go Beavers said:

tbergs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

I’ve lived in college towns most of my life and came across a lot of PhDs as a result. The vast majority of them were incredibly smart. I include my dad in that, too. 

And I worked with anesthesiologists and surgeons who thought the Rapture was imminent, black people just need to stop being lazy, and who drank themselves to stupor every night.

MDs are a different deal. Let’s keep the two separate!

this reminds me when I would answer the phone as a kid and the person would ask if Dr. _____ was there. I would think to myself ‘I’m not sure what my dad does exactly, but he sure isn’t any doctor.’  

Thoughts_Arrive

Graduated with an undergrad

tbergs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

I'm doing it for me too as I want to lecture at university and perhaps do research.

Thoughts_Arrive

Graduated with an undergrad

rgambs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Pretty much anytime in life when you do something to make someone proud and prove something, the people you hope to impress are not going to be satisfactorily impressed.  
It's like, universal, we all get grandiose ideas about how someone will react, and we all get let down.

Don't do shit for anyone else!  
Do it for you!  

I feel like my nieces and nephew look up to me so I want to set a good example for them.
But I am doing it for me too.

rgambs

I read on my own

Go Beavers said:

rgambs said:

Go Beavers said:

tbergs said:

Thoughts_Arrive said:

I want to do postgrad, particularly a phD so I can have a Dr. in front of my name and prove my family that I am not stupid and make my nieces and nephew proud of their uncle.

Honestly, about 50% of people with Dr. in front of their name are jackasses who aren't any smarter than someone with a 2 year degree. It's amazing how dumb someone can be who is supposedly a Dr. It shouldn't take a title to prove anything or make others proud. If doctorate work is a part of a career or life goal, then awesome. Do it for you. All we have to do is look at our current POTUS to know how much stock to put in titles.

I’ve lived in college towns most of my life and came across a lot of PhDs as a result. The vast majority of them were incredibly smart. I include my dad in that, too. 

And I worked with anesthesiologists and surgeons who thought the Rapture was imminent, black people just need to stop being lazy, and who drank themselves to stupor every night.

MDs are a different deal. Let’s keep the two separate!

this reminds me when I would answer the phone as a kid and the person would ask if Dr. _____ was there. I would think to myself ‘I’m not sure what my dad does exactly, but he sure isn’t any doctor.’  

The point is that even people who have proven themselves to be intelligent are still batshit crazy/stupid in many ways.
MDs are a perfect example, they have proven themselves in much more rigourous testing protocols than practically any non-science PhDs, and yet they don't require the sort of utterly undeniable brilliance that is necessary for a PhD in physics or chemistry, etc...

F Me In The Brain

I know a guy who has a PhD in Physics and went back to school after running a cutting edge company working with lasers and shit (he sold the company to a huge corporation) and became a brain surgeon.  Finished first in his class. Makes huge bucks.  Brilliant by any measure....until he has six beers.  Then, he is generally the most wild and idiotic guy on the block.

We are all humans.  I have a piece of paper but it doesn't mean I am better than anyone else.

dignin

F Me In The Brain said:

We are all humans.  I have a piece of paper but it doesn't mean I am better than anyone else.

Not better, but having that piece of paper proves that you were at least trained in that profession. And that's important.

I don't want to live in a world where Joe Schmoes opinion (who did a few hours of research on the internet) on a subject is taken at the same value as the PhD who has spent years researching that subject. That's Trump's world.

Halifax2TheMax

dignin said:

F Me In The Brain said:

We are all humans.  I have a piece of paper but it doesn't mean I am better than anyone else.

Not better, but having that piece of paper proves that you were at least trained in that profession. And that's important.

I don't want to live in a world where Joe Schmoes opinion (who did a few hours of research on the internet) on a subject is taken at the same value as the PhD who has spent years researching that subject. That's Trump's world.

You don’t want to be lead by Joe the Plumber?

brianlux

Post grad

Even though having a diploma of any sort doesn't guarantee someone is wise or makes good decisions or choices (I'm sure there had to have many people with degrees who voted for Trump, for example), I do think having a good education is a good thing.  Just as important, having a good variety of life experiences and learning from them is equally important. 

And another thing that is particularly useful is developing  good bullshit radar.  Like George Carlin said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UecRfBJ2LBM

PJ_Soul

Graduated with an undergrad

mcgruff10 said:

PJ_Soul said:

I think it's true, but I'm curious to know what others think about what Brian said. That many tend to become more conservative as they age. I am particularly interested in this because it's not at all true for me personally. I am becoming more and more liberal as I age... So why do a lot of people become more conservative in their older years?? I have considered the possible reasons, but none of them really make sense to me at the end of the day, besides the ones related to much older people who start getting that whole fearful old person thing going on, and so are more susceptible to right wing fear mongering.

I honestly think kids make a lot more people conservative.  Not that I am a republican in any way but it happened to me and a lot of my high school and college friends (i'm 40 like you Allie).  A lot of our views on different topics went more to the right.
In  a way I think a lot of younger adults identify being liberal because they think they are going to save the world, turns out that is not the case lol.  
I don't know Allie, it's a tough call and hard to explain.

Geez, I don't think your second to last sentence warrants an lol tag. You just managed to say that younger people 1) care more, 2) are more motivated to make things better, and 3) liberals are the ones who have the ideas that will improve the world. We should all be doing everything we can to keep people's heads in that place, not make excuses for old duds who gave up and got more selfish.

HughFreakingDillon

Some college

PJ_Soul said:

mcgruff10 said:

PJ_Soul said:

I think it's true, but I'm curious to know what others think about what Brian said. That many tend to become more conservative as they age. I am particularly interested in this because it's not at all true for me personally. I am becoming more and more liberal as I age... So why do a lot of people become more conservative in their older years?? I have considered the possible reasons, but none of them really make sense to me at the end of the day, besides the ones related to much older people who start getting that whole fearful old person thing going on, and so are more susceptible to right wing fear mongering.

I honestly think kids make a lot more people conservative.  Not that I am a republican in any way but it happened to me and a lot of my high school and college friends (i'm 40 like you Allie).  A lot of our views on different topics went more to the right.
In  a way I think a lot of younger adults identify being liberal because they think they are going to save the world, turns out that is not the case lol.  
I don't know Allie, it's a tough call and hard to explain.

Geez, I don't think your second to last sentence warrants an lol tag. You just managed to say that younger people 1) care more, 2) are more motivated to make things better, and 3) liberals are the ones who have the ideas that will improve the world. We should all be doing everything we can to keep people's heads in that place, not make excuses for old duds who gave up and got more selfish.

I really don't think that's what he's saying. I think what he's saying, correct me if I'm wrong mcgruff, is that younger people have a very idealistic view of how they think the world should be that isn't always grounded in reality. as they get older, they realize this and also their priorities can change, especially if they have kids. 

PJ_Soul

Graduated with an undergrad

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

mcgruff10 said:

PJ_Soul said:

I think it's true, but I'm curious to know what others think about what Brian said. That many tend to become more conservative as they age. I am particularly interested in this because it's not at all true for me personally. I am becoming more and more liberal as I age... So why do a lot of people become more conservative in their older years?? I have considered the possible reasons, but none of them really make sense to me at the end of the day, besides the ones related to much older people who start getting that whole fearful old person thing going on, and so are more susceptible to right wing fear mongering.

I honestly think kids make a lot more people conservative.  Not that I am a republican in any way but it happened to me and a lot of my high school and college friends (i'm 40 like you Allie).  A lot of our views on different topics went more to the right.
In  a way I think a lot of younger adults identify being liberal because they think they are going to save the world, turns out that is not the case lol.  
I don't know Allie, it's a tough call and hard to explain.

Geez, I don't think your second to last sentence warrants an lol tag. You just managed to say that younger people 1) care more, 2) are more motivated to make things better, and 3) liberals are the ones who have the ideas that will improve the world. We should all be doing everything we can to keep people's heads in that place, not make excuses for old duds who gave up and got more selfish.

I really don't think that's what he's saying. I think what he's saying, correct me if I'm wrong mcgruff, is that younger people have a very idealistic view of how they think the world should be that isn't always grounded in reality. as they get older, they realize this and also their priorities can change, especially if they have kids. 

I know what he was saying. What you just said is crap IMO (i mean that theory is crap). Calling idealistic view "not grounded in reality" pinpoints the main problem in the world. Idealistic views ARE grounded in reality. It's just that other people make better, higher ideals/ideas impossible with cynicism, greed, corruption, etc. It is basically saying that people with great ideas have to conform to a lot of shitty ideas just because the shitty ideas have become the status quo. So what is really going on is that SOME people simply get all cranky and cynical because the longer you live in a world run by assholes, the more likely you are to conform to their methods and the results of those methods. It's a terrible weakness in society IMO, and the reason nothing ever changes.

HughFreakingDillon

Some college

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

mcgruff10 said:

PJ_Soul said:

I think it's true, but I'm curious to know what others think about what Brian said. That many tend to become more conservative as they age. I am particularly interested in this because it's not at all true for me personally. I am becoming more and more liberal as I age... So why do a lot of people become more conservative in their older years?? I have considered the possible reasons, but none of them really make sense to me at the end of the day, besides the ones related to much older people who start getting that whole fearful old person thing going on, and so are more susceptible to right wing fear mongering.

I honestly think kids make a lot more people conservative.  Not that I am a republican in any way but it happened to me and a lot of my high school and college friends (i'm 40 like you Allie).  A lot of our views on different topics went more to the right.
In  a way I think a lot of younger adults identify being liberal because they think they are going to save the world, turns out that is not the case lol.  
I don't know Allie, it's a tough call and hard to explain.

Geez, I don't think your second to last sentence warrants an lol tag. You just managed to say that younger people 1) care more, 2) are more motivated to make things better, and 3) liberals are the ones who have the ideas that will improve the world. We should all be doing everything we can to keep people's heads in that place, not make excuses for old duds who gave up and got more selfish.

I really don't think that's what he's saying. I think what he's saying, correct me if I'm wrong mcgruff, is that younger people have a very idealistic view of how they think the world should be that isn't always grounded in reality. as they get older, they realize this and also their priorities can change, especially if they have kids. 

I know what he was saying. What you just said is crap IMO (i mean that theory is crap). Calling idealistic view "not grounded in reality" pinpoints the main problem in the world. Idealistic views ARE grounded in reality. It's just that other people make better, higher ideals/ideas impossible with cynicism, greed, corruption, etc. It is basically saying that people with great ideas have to conform to a lot of shitty ideas just because the shitty ideas have become the status quo. So what is really going on is that SOME people simply get all cranky and cynical because the longer you live in a world run by assholes, the more likely you are to conform to their methods and the results of those methods. It's a terrible weakness in society IMO, and the reason nothing ever changes.

nope. not crap. and the rest of your post? from 0-100 in one sentence. and your quoting is a bit off. I said "isn't always grounded in reality".  

i'm neither cranky nor cynical. I'm more involved politically and socially than I've ever been in my life. i'm just more realistic about those goals and their possible outcome. 

I spend my time at a more grassroots level. raising good kids with good values, and helping other families in my community do the same. 

you wanna try to change greedy old bastards? knock yourself out. and good luck to you. 

PJ_Soul

Graduated with an undergrad

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

PJ_Soul said:

mcgruff10 said:

PJ_Soul said:

I think it's true, but I'm curious to know what others think about what Brian said. That many tend to become more conservative as they age. I am particularly interested in this because it's not at all true for me personally. I am becoming more and more liberal as I age... So why do a lot of people become more conservative in their older years?? I have considered the possible reasons, but none of them really make sense to me at the end of the day, besides the ones related to much older people who start getting that whole fearful old person thing going on, and so are more susceptible to right wing fear mongering.

I honestly think kids make a lot more people conservative.  Not that I am a republican in any way but it happened to me and a lot of my high school and college friends (i'm 40 like you Allie).  A lot of our views on different topics went more to the right.
In  a way I think a lot of younger adults identify being liberal because they think they are going to save the world, turns out that is not the case lol.  
I don't know Allie, it's a tough call and hard to explain.

Geez, I don't think your second to last sentence warrants an lol tag. You just managed to say that younger people 1) care more, 2) are more motivated to make things better, and 3) liberals are the ones who have the ideas that will improve the world. We should all be doing everything we can to keep people's heads in that place, not make excuses for old duds who gave up and got more selfish.

I really don't think that's what he's saying. I think what he's saying, correct me if I'm wrong mcgruff, is that younger people have a very idealistic view of how they think the world should be that isn't always grounded in reality. as they get older, they realize this and also their priorities can change, especially if they have kids. 

I know what he was saying. What you just said is crap IMO (i mean that theory is crap). Calling idealistic view "not grounded in reality" pinpoints the main problem in the world. Idealistic views ARE grounded in reality. It's just that other people make better, higher ideals/ideas impossible with cynicism, greed, corruption, etc. It is basically saying that people with great ideas have to conform to a lot of shitty ideas just because the shitty ideas have become the status quo. So what is really going on is that SOME people simply get all cranky and cynical because the longer you live in a world run by assholes, the more likely you are to conform to their methods and the results of those methods. It's a terrible weakness in society IMO, and the reason nothing ever changes.

nope. not crap. and the rest of your post? from 0-100 in one sentence. and your quoting is a bit off. I said "isn't always grounded in reality".  

i'm neither cranky nor cynical. I'm more involved politically and socially than I've ever been in my life. i'm just more realistic about those goals and their possible outcome. 

I spend my time at a more grassroots level. raising good kids with good values, and helping other families in my community do the same. 

you wanna try to change greedy old bastards? knock yourself out. and good luck to you. 

OMG, dude, you are seriously in defensive mode right now. Stop taking everything so personally! I wasn't calling you any of those things! I was speaking generally. Sheesh!

PJ_Soul

Graduated with an undergrad

And FWIW, I never suggested anyone could change greedy old bastards. What you change is the system that they devised.