OT "Coming Apart" and bubble test.

Sure, likely because "The Bell Curve" (and along with it "The Milgram Experiment") are two of the most flawed pieces of social "science" that were ever put to paper.

But they still often end up as assigned reading, yes even in those dastardly "liberal arts" colleges, for reasons which are rather unclear.

I got a score of 29, which struck me strange... I grew up in a blue collar environment... electrician/radio and TV repair shop... but I don't watch much crap on TV... or go to "indigestion" restaurants ;-) ...Jim Thompson

What exactly was flawed about them, then, Mr. Smartypants?

This snowflake scored a 52, most of which likely comes not from my beer drinking or TV-watching habits, but what a childhood being poor in the

I noticed they didn't ask how many incidents of violence the test-taker has been involved in, which seems like a pretty significant oversight. How many times has the test taker been jumped by thugs in the student parking lot, or had some kid's father drive over your bike with his truck, had your home vandalized or robbed, had someone sucker punch or put you in a chokehold in the bathroom, or pulled a knife on you?

That's my experience, and the experience of a lot of kids who grew up "not rich." And most of it _prior_ to the age of 12.

Right I don't eat at those places either. I think I read that the first question was worth 7 pt's. I live among farmers and construction worker types.

George H.

I got a 48, don't drink beer, only ate at a waffle house once in a year and at none of the others. Subway and Taco bell for me. Watched 3 of the TV series, although I can't say the were a must see. Mikek

I got a 30. And based on the descriptions it seems appropriate for me

I live in an area called "Morning Sun Farms"... about 190 tradesmen and then 10 of us executive/professional (semi) retirees. ...Jim Thompson

Don't hold your breath, bitrex is all mouth and no substance. ...Jim Thompson

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Thinking outside the box... producing elegant solutions.

"It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness." -James Barrie

I had a pretty idyllic childhood, small town USA. I was a small kid growing up so not much cred for the bullies if they beat me up. I did have one fight "pool doors" which was the back exit to the middle school. He hit me once and I turtled, got kicked a few times. done.

George h.

One of the biggest problem with TME is that it's heavily suspected these days to the point of being almost certain that the experiment was not truly "blind", i.e. either incidentally or deliberately some of the participants were aware that the shock recipient was a paid actor. And if you watch the tapes you'll not they likely weren't particularly highly paid actors, not exactly Carey Grant dramatic actors here. Some subjects knew what the setup was, and likely just hit the switches all the way to the wall because hey, ten bucks is ten bucks.

There's plenty of dirt in the archives on Milgram to make some of his work look at the very least unethical, or even outright fraudulent.

There have been other studies by less well known social scientists on the topic of "blind obedience", and what is often reported is the experimenter's surprise to just how resistant most people are to doing things that are out-of-character just because some authority figure demands it, even when they're great, beneficial ideas! That jives with my own personal experience as well - it is true the "kids these days" seem intolerant of just about anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or anxious; many won't even give a YouTube clip that has news with "disturbing images" in it more than 20 seconds before ejecting out.

The good news is you think they're gonna shock some screaming volunteer to death because some asshole in a lab coat tells them to? I doubt it.

As for "The Bell Curve" entire volumes of criticism on the conclusions and methods have been written about that one - I leave you to our friend Google

The 1970s and 1980s were a particularly bad time to be a kid, I think. The administrators at a lot of public primary schools, mine included, were holdouts who had been there since the 1950s and were a couple years away from retirement and had an incentive not to "rock the boat" or draw too much negative attention to their district from authorities. If one wants a stereotypical example of bad, lackadaisical unionized educators these were it.

Sadly, the world had changed since the 1950s, and a "boys will be boys" approach to conflict definitely didn't cut it in the 1980s and 1990s. Kids played for keeps. As just one sober example:

Yep, "Real America" could improve its image a whole lot if it decided to put the cheeseburgers down for once.

Well wiki then,

I don't really want to talk about the Bell curve (I haven't read it.) but this sounds pretty prescient. (from wiki) Herrnstein and Murray offer a pessimistic portrait of America's future. The y predict that a cognitive elite will further isolate itself from the rest of society, while the quality of life deteriorates for those at the bottom of the cognitive scale. As an antidote to this prognosis, they offer a visi on of society where differences in ability are recognized and everybody can have a valued place, stressing the role of local communities and clear mor al rules that apply to everybody.[1]

GH.

I'm not sure why you are so bitter. It sounds like you grew up poor in "real America". And somehow found a way out. It seems like that should be a good thing.

George H.

The implication of the test is that it's somehow "wrong" that this bubble exists, and that it's the urban white people who are the ones who need to become less sheltered or something, like whatever ignorance of "Real America" they have is inherently wrong.

But there's no rule anywhere that I'm aware of that I have to be accommodating to behavior that I don't either morally or personally agree with. And the test makes this connection between working blue-collar jobs and stuff like daytime TV, chain restaurants, NASCAR and cheap domestic beer like they're intrinsically linked, like you can't have one without the other.

I've worked plenty of menial jobs in my life and never was into any of that stuff. That "lifestyle" to me is the equivalent of eating out of a garbage dumpster, and the author seems to be trying to shame whomever that they don't know enough about eating out of garbage dumpsters.

Hey, it's still a free country; if one decides that staying in their little Midwest town working the only blue-collar job that's available, drinking cheap beer and eating at fat-filled restaurants and doing these other dumpster-diving activities is what they want to do with their life, be my guest. Don't blame me if I'm not into it - sorry, I decided I wanted something a little better.

Their vision of the future doesn't seem particularly far off, except the fiat by which the elite rules is money, and very little to do with individual IQ. And arguments like the ones put forth in "The Bell Curve" are used to justify this state of affairs.

bitrex (seems to me) is a loser of his own doing, too old to be a snowflake, but adopting their whiner approach. ...Jim Thompson

If you look at the average state of affairs in any recent US government under the control of any of the majority political parties, the argument that high IQ is the most predictive element of social success is sort of absurd on its face, wouldn't you say?