It’s particularly funny when right now there is an unending parade of grifters running/"advising" the US government, and _nobody is even pretending it’s not grift_.
But sure, it’s the zoomers. Wonder where they picked up that grifting is the new hot thing and laws are only for idiots. Must’ve been the deep state kindergarten teachers and communist daycares.
To be very clear, the only real evidence anybody has provided is that way more students at Stanford have registered disabilities than students at community colleges. And individual students have tweeted.
These stories want you to draw the conclusion that there are huge numbers of students who are faking disabilities and then getting access to accommodations that give them an unfair advantage in coursework, setting them up for an unfair advantage in the job market. But nobody has been able to provide evidence of these things. Are these students really faking disabilities? Or are students with means far more likely to have access to doctors who can identify these disabilities? Do the students with disabilities actually get accommodations that make courses easier for them in an unfair way? Do these improved grades give students a meaningful leg up in the job market? Nobody is pointing to evidence here. They just let you conclude that this is happening.
My spouse is a professor. There are oodles of students who have disabilities who don't receive any accommodations because their course is already set up to support these students well. This idea of structuring evaluations such that everybody is getting access to the things that a student with ADHD or whatever might get is increasingly common in universities.
All universities should require a bonafide doctor's certificate of disability, just like that used to obtain a State handicap parking permit - - with severe criminal penalties for deception or lying, including, cancellation of student visa if caught.
I get so disappointed with the number of people who game the system to collect disability. To the point that they automatically assume it’s part of their retirement pay.
Owners of capital who engage in wage theft and taxation schemes to a much higher degree love that you've been hoodwinked into focusing on welfare fraud. It's "mission accomplished" for them.
How do you know these hypothetical cheats exist that you seem to have definitive, non-anecdotal evidence of? Are you a disability claims reviewer?
It took me 2 applications, a lawyer, and 9 years (of 11 years living unhoused) to prove disability that has to be reviewed every 2 years because somehow, magically, I will suddenly not become "disabled" anymore with permanent conditions.
The "welfare queen" myth is racist and false. There might be some people who try to cheat, but it's incredibly laborious and not very profitable to do so, and the penalties are draconian.
When you are know a doctor and overhear conversations with some ranting doctor friends you learn.
It's not a small problem in Canada. Funny was this patient who got rear ended like 8 times in a few years and needed time off and massage treatment every time.
Shameless grifters are everywhere my dude. This victimhood grifiting in the article above has been obvious for over a decade. If you listened to those anecdotes and vibes you would have known this well in advanced.
Anecdotal stuff / vibes are actually really useful. The "scientific" stuff isn't as formal as you might imagine. Going to conferences is a good way to learn that the vibes are what you are going to learn.
You'd think science is supposed to be this amazing rigorous way to do things. But the way you collect the data and the way you do the analysis and the reports you choose to write is anything but. Ultimately because, well, grifters are everywhere.
> It's not a small problem in Canada. Funny was this patient who got rear ended like 8 times in a few years and needed time off and massage treatment every time.
This seems … reasonable? Car crashes are the leading cause of life-altering injuries in North America and back pain is notoriously hard to prove to the point that a hostile audience can’t say they’re overstated. If you look at case studies from the American opioid crisis, a disturbing number of them start with someone getting in a road or workplace accident and not having a full pain management regimen.
Yes, this behavior of college students is exactly what proves that America has become a nation of grifters. This is certainly the most prominent, the leading indicator, the most serious corruption that we should be focusing on. </s>
In this case though, lies have effectively been made mandatory to gain entry to certain 'elite' institutions. That is ultimately from the head, since sensible leadership would put an end to this immediately, but it's from a head that came into place in what, the 80s, 90s? Maybe earlier?
In India it's purely score based. Top on the JIT (although I guess they have special things for scheduled castes or something), you get in. In Sweden the same. Top 1% on the högskoleprov and there's nothing you can't get in to. Maybe KTH has its own, more advanced maths test for entry, and I think you need to pass an interview for medicine at KI, but aside from that nothing you can't get into. At ETH they see whether you can pass a first year of courses.
But in the US it's a bunch of weirdness, and it's from Idpol. I don't know if you could avoid it-- India obviously doesn't want to avoid it completely, but another idea is to not have the arbitrary eliteness be a thing. I used to believe in something like it, believing that only certain Swedish universities were okay (and that's probably still true for education), and then a bunch of Germans who wanted to be professors got jobs at the ones I thought were shitty and started doing good research and suddenly you ended up with places like Örebro, which I had regarded as 'what even is this' producing real science. I think the Germans are right and that a distributed less status-based university system is sensible.
India and Sweden don't have US-elite-level institutions governed by the admissions processes you discuss. KTH is not Harvard, and KI is not HMS. There are American universities with such processes, and enough students admitted under them in California and Texas and a few other US states to repopulate Sweden, and I would think for every Swedish university there is an equivalent or better US university with such an admissions process. I hazard the same thing could be done for all of Europe.
KTH and KI have many students who would do well at schools like Harvard. The level of the education is better than at the best IITs. It has people like Håstad still active.
I don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things. I don’t think that’s what institutional rot usually looks like? Now mind you I don’t think he’s going to fix anything and I’m also not sure he isn’t controlled opposition, but that would be some adversary and not institutional rot.
This is a fantastic comment in response to this article since it exemplifies the criticism of the article.
Once upon a time (ie 2 years ago) the President following the law, living up to both implicit and explicit agreements made with foreign nations, not wanting to plaster their own name onto everything, not lying about the citizens of the country, etc would be considered a good thing.
Today, doing the opposite is considered praiseworthy because “at least he’s doing something”.
This is exactly the “anything goes” mentality the author is critiquing.
> he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things
The problem is that the things he’s doing are using his office to become an actual billionaire and tearing down protections against abuse and fraud. You don’t fight “institutional rot” by enshrining the principle that loyalty trumps following the law or that policy outcomes can be purchased on the blockchain. Lying about the law and actions by his predecessors similar is building, not lowering, institutional rot by encouraging the idea that cheating is okay as long as you win (c.f. continued lying about election integrity or awarding government funds and jobs based on political affiliation).
> don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things.
Have you really never heard the phrase "it's much easier to tear things down than build them up"? Is the manifest obviousness of that phrase really not obvious to you?
Yes you too can
1. Talk about blowing up buildings
2. Blow up buildings
So he's not the first of anything in any length of time because this is what assholes all around the world do every day.
You like Trump a lot more than anyone who is informed about the things he is actually doing should like him.
But regardless, the same point could have been made about the Republican party in general for decades.
See The Baffler's article titled "The Long Con" for a history. It opens with a now shockingly unshocking list of all the lies Romney told and the prescient claim that this was necessary for Republican voters to like him.
> Mitt Romney is a liar. Of course, in some sense, all politicians, even all human beings, are liars. Romney’s lying went so over-the-top extravagant by this summer, though, that the New York Times editorial board did something probably unprecedented in their polite gray precincts: they used the L-word itself. “Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites,” they editorialized. He repeats them “so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth.” “It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but- overlong speech,” they concluded; and how. Romney’s lying, in fact, was so richly variegated that it can serve as a sort of grammar of mendacity.
[...]
> All righty, then: both the rank-and-file voters and the governing elites of a major American political party chose as their standardbearer a pathological liar. What does that reveal about them?
Should according to whom? According to you? The more straightforward way of phrasing this is “I don’t think you should like this person at all”. Okay, and?
He is after all a rapist, thief, liar, conman, bully, grifter, authoritarian, gangster, racist, sexist narcissist who may very well end the American empire and democracy, and with your help it seems.
Which seems on topic for an article about America becoming a nation of grifters.
The article frames the focus on grifting, not institutional rot. I would say that institutional rot enables grifters. But also grifters in leadership positions set examples encouraging others to grift. Heck, this current crop of grifters we've got "leading" us will outright airlift prominent up-and-coming grifters right up into their ranks, Gervais Principle style.
I'd say that institutional rot would be a much better framework for analyzing the situation of all these disabilities being claimed, but that is not where this article goes! Rather the only thing it seemingly offers is that we're just supposed to feel bad and aim to be more like the single person in the one example given, even as our societal leaders crassly do the exact opposite.
(As far as Trump "doing things" - yes, he's doing a lot of grift at the expense of our country. That's kind of the problem, right? Bureaucratic malaise was bad, and this is worse)
"Something has shifted about American attitudes towards rules, especially among members of Gen Z."
Great to hear some things never change. Now it's finally Gen Z destroying the world and no longer millennials.
It’s particularly funny when right now there is an unending parade of grifters running/"advising" the US government, and _nobody is even pretending it’s not grift_.
But sure, it’s the zoomers. Wonder where they picked up that grifting is the new hot thing and laws are only for idiots. Must’ve been the deep state kindergarten teachers and communist daycares.
https://archive.is/dVusK
This is a moral panic.
To be very clear, the only real evidence anybody has provided is that way more students at Stanford have registered disabilities than students at community colleges. And individual students have tweeted.
These stories want you to draw the conclusion that there are huge numbers of students who are faking disabilities and then getting access to accommodations that give them an unfair advantage in coursework, setting them up for an unfair advantage in the job market. But nobody has been able to provide evidence of these things. Are these students really faking disabilities? Or are students with means far more likely to have access to doctors who can identify these disabilities? Do the students with disabilities actually get accommodations that make courses easier for them in an unfair way? Do these improved grades give students a meaningful leg up in the job market? Nobody is pointing to evidence here. They just let you conclude that this is happening.
My spouse is a professor. There are oodles of students who have disabilities who don't receive any accommodations because their course is already set up to support these students well. This idea of structuring evaluations such that everybody is getting access to the things that a student with ADHD or whatever might get is increasingly common in universities.
There is no evidence this is a moral panic.
> But nobody has been able to provide evidence of these things.
Universities are able to provide such evidence, and are the only ones who can.
> that everybody is getting access
There is no evidence that this is actuality, or ever will be.
The "little or no evidence" line to defeat premises is cheap.
You have the burden of proof entirely backwards...
All universities should require a bonafide doctor's certificate of disability, just like that used to obtain a State handicap parking permit - - with severe criminal penalties for deception or lying, including, cancellation of student visa if caught.
You do need doctor's notes for disabilities.
I get so disappointed with the number of people who game the system to collect disability. To the point that they automatically assume it’s part of their retirement pay.
Owners of capital who engage in wage theft and taxation schemes to a much higher degree love that you've been hoodwinked into focusing on welfare fraud. It's "mission accomplished" for them.
How many people do this?
Do you personally know anyone who does this?
How do you know these hypothetical cheats exist that you seem to have definitive, non-anecdotal evidence of? Are you a disability claims reviewer?
It took me 2 applications, a lawyer, and 9 years (of 11 years living unhoused) to prove disability that has to be reviewed every 2 years because somehow, magically, I will suddenly not become "disabled" anymore with permanent conditions.
The "welfare queen" myth is racist and false. There might be some people who try to cheat, but it's incredibly laborious and not very profitable to do so, and the penalties are draconian.
When you are know a doctor and overhear conversations with some ranting doctor friends you learn.
It's not a small problem in Canada. Funny was this patient who got rear ended like 8 times in a few years and needed time off and massage treatment every time.
Shameless grifters are everywhere my dude. This victimhood grifiting in the article above has been obvious for over a decade. If you listened to those anecdotes and vibes you would have known this well in advanced.
Anecdotal stuff / vibes are actually really useful. The "scientific" stuff isn't as formal as you might imagine. Going to conferences is a good way to learn that the vibes are what you are going to learn.
You'd think science is supposed to be this amazing rigorous way to do things. But the way you collect the data and the way you do the analysis and the reports you choose to write is anything but. Ultimately because, well, grifters are everywhere.
> It's not a small problem in Canada. Funny was this patient who got rear ended like 8 times in a few years and needed time off and massage treatment every time.
This seems … reasonable? Car crashes are the leading cause of life-altering injuries in North America and back pain is notoriously hard to prove to the point that a hostile audience can’t say they’re overstated. If you look at case studies from the American opioid crisis, a disturbing number of them start with someone getting in a road or workplace accident and not having a full pain management regimen.
[dead]
Yes, this behavior of college students is exactly what proves that America has become a nation of grifters. This is certainly the most prominent, the leading indicator, the most serious corruption that we should be focusing on. </s>
The fish rots from the head.
In this case though, lies have effectively been made mandatory to gain entry to certain 'elite' institutions. That is ultimately from the head, since sensible leadership would put an end to this immediately, but it's from a head that came into place in what, the 80s, 90s? Maybe earlier?
In India it's purely score based. Top on the JIT (although I guess they have special things for scheduled castes or something), you get in. In Sweden the same. Top 1% on the högskoleprov and there's nothing you can't get in to. Maybe KTH has its own, more advanced maths test for entry, and I think you need to pass an interview for medicine at KI, but aside from that nothing you can't get into. At ETH they see whether you can pass a first year of courses.
But in the US it's a bunch of weirdness, and it's from Idpol. I don't know if you could avoid it-- India obviously doesn't want to avoid it completely, but another idea is to not have the arbitrary eliteness be a thing. I used to believe in something like it, believing that only certain Swedish universities were okay (and that's probably still true for education), and then a bunch of Germans who wanted to be professors got jobs at the ones I thought were shitty and started doing good research and suddenly you ended up with places like Örebro, which I had regarded as 'what even is this' producing real science. I think the Germans are right and that a distributed less status-based university system is sensible.
India and Sweden don't have US-elite-level institutions governed by the admissions processes you discuss. KTH is not Harvard, and KI is not HMS. There are American universities with such processes, and enough students admitted under them in California and Texas and a few other US states to repopulate Sweden, and I would think for every Swedish university there is an equivalent or better US university with such an admissions process. I hazard the same thing could be done for all of Europe.
KTH and KI have many students who would do well at schools like Harvard. The level of the education is better than at the best IITs. It has people like Håstad still active.
I don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things. I don’t think that’s what institutional rot usually looks like? Now mind you I don’t think he’s going to fix anything and I’m also not sure he isn’t controlled opposition, but that would be some adversary and not institutional rot.
This is a fantastic comment in response to this article since it exemplifies the criticism of the article.
Once upon a time (ie 2 years ago) the President following the law, living up to both implicit and explicit agreements made with foreign nations, not wanting to plaster their own name onto everything, not lying about the citizens of the country, etc would be considered a good thing.
Today, doing the opposite is considered praiseworthy because “at least he’s doing something”.
This is exactly the “anything goes” mentality the author is critiquing.
> he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things
The problem is that the things he’s doing are using his office to become an actual billionaire and tearing down protections against abuse and fraud. You don’t fight “institutional rot” by enshrining the principle that loyalty trumps following the law or that policy outcomes can be purchased on the blockchain. Lying about the law and actions by his predecessors similar is building, not lowering, institutional rot by encouraging the idea that cheating is okay as long as you win (c.f. continued lying about election integrity or awarding government funds and jobs based on political affiliation).
> don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things.
Have you really never heard the phrase "it's much easier to tear things down than build them up"? Is the manifest obviousness of that phrase really not obvious to you?
Yes you too can
1. Talk about blowing up buildings
2. Blow up buildings
So he's not the first of anything in any length of time because this is what assholes all around the world do every day.
You like Trump a lot more than anyone who is informed about the things he is actually doing should like him.
But regardless, the same point could have been made about the Republican party in general for decades.
See The Baffler's article titled "The Long Con" for a history. It opens with a now shockingly unshocking list of all the lies Romney told and the prescient claim that this was necessary for Republican voters to like him.
> Mitt Romney is a liar. Of course, in some sense, all politicians, even all human beings, are liars. Romney’s lying went so over-the-top extravagant by this summer, though, that the New York Times editorial board did something probably unprecedented in their polite gray precincts: they used the L-word itself. “Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites,” they editorialized. He repeats them “so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth.” “It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but- overlong speech,” they concluded; and how. Romney’s lying, in fact, was so richly variegated that it can serve as a sort of grammar of mendacity.
[...]
> All righty, then: both the rank-and-file voters and the governing elites of a major American political party chose as their standardbearer a pathological liar. What does that reveal about them?
-- 2012
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con
Should according to whom? According to you? The more straightforward way of phrasing this is “I don’t think you should like this person at all”. Okay, and?
I think you should hate him.
He is after all a rapist, thief, liar, conman, bully, grifter, authoritarian, gangster, racist, sexist narcissist who may very well end the American empire and democracy, and with your help it seems.
Which seems on topic for an article about America becoming a nation of grifters.
But at least he's doing things!
[dead]
The article frames the focus on grifting, not institutional rot. I would say that institutional rot enables grifters. But also grifters in leadership positions set examples encouraging others to grift. Heck, this current crop of grifters we've got "leading" us will outright airlift prominent up-and-coming grifters right up into their ranks, Gervais Principle style.
I'd say that institutional rot would be a much better framework for analyzing the situation of all these disabilities being claimed, but that is not where this article goes! Rather the only thing it seemingly offers is that we're just supposed to feel bad and aim to be more like the single person in the one example given, even as our societal leaders crassly do the exact opposite.
(As far as Trump "doing things" - yes, he's doing a lot of grift at the expense of our country. That's kind of the problem, right? Bureaucratic malaise was bad, and this is worse)