Thanks for the reply. The value of a grade on the context, which can be complex. Example: "William Lowell Putnam Undergraduate Mathematics Competition 2016 at Rutgers"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.math.rutgers.edu...
"The exam consists of two parts (morning and afternoon) with 6 problems in each part. Each problem is worth 10 points for a total of 120 points. The exam is very difficult; typically a score of 20 points (2 problems fully correct) is already good enough to be in the top 20% of exam takers. A score of 40 points will probably put you in the top 5%. Grading is very strict. There is very little partial credit given. If your solution is not well written you may earn only 1 or 2 points."

I forget exactly what score I got on the William Lowell Putnam when I took it at sixteen years old. Maybe around 20 or a little less? The university math professors still seemed impressed.

Nobody is saying don't provide timely and useful feedback or even don't keep track of progress. The issue is substituting that for typical numerical grading assigned in a typical class and all the baggage that comes with it.

Related:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teachthought.com%2Fp...
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteaching.berkeley.edu%2F...
"Why do we grade and what are grades for? Although grading is ubiquitous in higher education, both long-standing evidence and continued investigations have revealed that the answer to these questions can be very different across courses and contexts. In recent years, multiple different grading frameworks have emerged with the goal of explicitly designing practices that reflect student learning. In particular, these approaches provide opportunities to give more constructive feedback to students, give the instructor and students reliable information about their learning, and focus on promoting students' intrinsic motivation."

Likewise, nobody is saying don't establish minimum standards for credentialing professionals. The issue is how you go about that.

See for example: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.facmedicine.com%2F...
"Medical school grades are almost universally given in one of three ways. (It's actually more like two different ways, but I'll get into that later.) The more traditional programs stick to the 4.0, A-F grading scale that you're the most familiar with. That's right, your GPA nightmares will continue to haunt you every time you receive your end of semester grades in medical school. Alternatively, other schools use a binary Passor Fail scale to indicate whether or not you have acquired the minimum knowledge base to... well... err... pass. Pass/Fail medical schools have become increasingly common, but we'll discuss below why this can very misleading. ...
        I found it surprising that more than half of programs in the U.S. claim to be Pass/Fail medical schools, while only less than 20% use the A-F scale. The binary grading system has seemed to take over medical education, as other systems are being phased out. There has to be some benefit, right? ...
      The main advantage to a true Pass/Fail medical school is the perceived lower level of competition between students. Supposedly, if you are not being ranked directly against your peers, and are instead only motivated to properly learn the material, you are more likely to work cooperatively with your fellow students. More importantly, you are theoretically LESS likely to sabotage or otherwise hinder the others in your class if you are not actively competing with them for a higher grade.
        More elite medical schools (UCSF, Harvard, Mayo etc.) attract some of the most intelligent and capable students in the world. Ranking their students against one another is counter-productive. We already know that these individuals are the best of the best, and an average student at UCSF is likely a stronger candidate than one of the top students at many other schools (at least that is the idea). In these situations Pass/Fail medical school grading systems make the most sense. However, for students who go to less prestigious schools, class rankings (although stressful) can allow you to stand out.
        Additionally, competition is a major stressor on both medical students and residents alike. Residencies in certain specialties are notoriously difficult to obtain, making every exam feel like a potential career ender. Resident performance can also doom your fellowship chances. Every year students and residents are overwhelmed by the pressure put on them to succeed, and every year students drop out or (worse) even commit suicide.
        As a student who went to a straight A-F grading medical school, I will give some support to the less competition is better argument. Only a small percentage of students at my program were able to achieve the highest evaluation in each class. Predictably, there was a lot of note hoarding, elite study groups that rejected weaker students, and even (a very small amount) cheating. I had friends who were on the edge of breakdowns due to the performance stress, and Although I do not have first hand experience, I can imaging that a school with no internal ranking system would be more cooperative and congenial. Obviously, there will always be stress and competition (this is medical school after all). However, taking grades out of the picture is probably one of the most effective solutions to combat the competitive atmosphere. ..."

So, given all that, yes, surgeons who graduated from a medical school without A-F grades but instead pass/fail competency tests are probably a good choice. :-) And I'd suggest such a surgeon is likely to be more cooperative and more compassionate than a surgeon who went to a school where they were graded. Still, that is gaming your question in the sense that such elite schools as above may use previous grades in their admission policies.

To see one other flaw in grading, contrast grading and moving on with, say, a "90%" grade with "mastery learning" like Khan Academy encourages:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdistricts.khanacademy....
"Khan Academy's mastery learning system builds students understanding over time, allowing them to slow down and dig into skills where they need support or skip ahead when they show proficiency. ... Course mastery goals allow students to set their own learning goals, understand their areas of strength and areas of need, and make choices about what to focus on in order to get where they want to go."

So, ideally, I want a surgeon who has mastered every needed skill to 100% at some point during their education. Again, in such a situation, what does a "grade" assigned at the end of a course of study mean? If any student does not get 100% eventually on important skills, shouldn't that be a "fail" for the course when you think about it?

Do people need to be given grades when they read books in the library? Do people need to be given grades when they have a hobby? Do people need grades when they do home repairs on their own home? Sure, these are all situations where feedback of some sort form someone else might sometimes be useful. But what would be the value of essentially arbitrary "grades"?

Anyway, a complex nuanced topic. As I see it (informed by John Taylor Gatto, Alfie Kohn, John Holt, Pat Ferenga, Grace Llewelyn and many others), the whole schooling system is broken and has been for a long time -- and it is only getting more broken with advancing technology. I wrote about that in 2007:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpatapata.sourceforge.n...

See Alfie Kohn: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alfiekohn.org%2Farti...
====
You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready. Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.

Three Main Effects of Grading

Researchers have found three consistent effects of using - and especially, emphasizing the importance of - letter or number grades:

1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. ...

2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. ...

3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. ...

More Reasons to Just Say No to Grades

The preceding three results should be enough to cause any conscientious educator to rethink the practice of giving students grades. But as they say on late-night TV commercials, Wait - there's more.

4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective. ...

5. Grades distort the curriculum. ...

6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. ...

7. Grades encourage cheating. ...

8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students. ...

9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other. ...
====

Homework is generally harmful too: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alfiekohn.org%2Farti...

And so is "competition": https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alfiekohn.org%2Farti...

Essentially, just about everything in modern schooling was *intentionally* designed to dumb down kids and make them more compliant, as John Taylor Gatto, a New York Teacher of the Year, explains:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F20...
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"

Se also by Gatto: "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.informationliberat...
"Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class position, indifference, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are prime training for permanent underclasses, people deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And over time this training has shaken loose from its own original logic: to regulate the poor. For since the 1920s the growth of the school bureaucracy, and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling exactly as it is, has enlarged this institution's original grasp to the point that it now seizes the sons and daughters of the middle classes as well."

Wow, you're dead center in th target audience for the propaganda mavens in the establishment. Take a step back from the MSM and look around. We've become the Evil Empire that we always accused the others of being. Hell, in the last election our only two allowed choices were between the senile mega-corp sponsored genocide-aiding incumbent and the mega-corp sponsored narcissist who wanted to aid a genocide.

Me from 2007: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpatapata.sourceforge.n...
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change. ...
        So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."

The point I make on technology is not exactly the same issue as mentioned in the article (demographics) -- but I can still wonder if technology plays a part in the college town decline? Which is sad, given college towns have been such interesting places to live in the past for many people (especially as many tend to be walkable places).

Makes me think to search on elementary school closures:
"As Enrollment Declines, Districts Consider Closing Schools" By Caitlynn Peetz -- January 08, 2024
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.edweek.org%2Fleaders...
"As school districts deal with enrollment declines and the end of pandemic-era relief funds that padded their budgets for three years, more are facing one of the most controversial and impassioned decisions in K-12 education: whether to close buildings with lower enrollments.
      Districts large and small, from California to New York, are considering closures as they confront enrollment drops that have accelerated in recent years.
        And there's no sign of the trend reversing, according to David DeSchryver, the senior vice president and co-director of research at Whiteboard Advisors, a communications, research, and consulting firm.
        For many districts, enrollment declines aren't what's surprising -- projections dating as far back as 2012 showed birth rates stalling, with the decline often most pronounced in urban districts, presaging smaller student populations in the years to come, DeSchryver said.
      The surprise is just how quickly those declines have come about in the last few years. ..."

Tangential by John Taylor Gatto "The Underground History of American Education": https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2FTh...

A quote from there: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F20...
        "Solve this problem and school will heal itself: children know that schooling is not fair, not honest, not driven by integrity. They know they are devalued in classes and grades, that the institution is indifferent to them as individuals. The rhetoric of caring contradicts what school procedure and content say, that many children have no tolerable future and most have a sharply proscribed one. The problem is structural. School has been built to serve a society of associations: corporations, institutions, and agencies. Kids know this instinctively. How should they feel about it? How should we?
        As soon as you break free of the orbit of received wisdom you have little trouble figuring out why, in the nature of things, government schools and those private schools which imitate the government model have to make most children dumb, allowing only a few to escape the trap. The problem stems from the structure of our economy and social organization. When you start with such pyramid-shaped givens and then ask yourself what kind of schooling they would require to maintain themselves, any mystery dissipates -- these things are inhuman conspiracies all right, but not conspiracies of people against people, although circumstances make them appear so. School is a conflict pitting the needs of social machinery against the needs of the human spirit. It is a war of mechanism against flesh and blood, self-maintaining social mechanisms that only require human architects to get launched.
        I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? ...
        Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there. ..."

These sorts of issues become more obvious with modern technology in theory providing more options for learning and living -- even if, as with smartphones as you mention, options may actually narrow in practice due to various "supernormal stimuli" reasons. Plus there are all sorts of other cultural changes including from the increasing concentration of wealth also due in part to how we as a society have commercialized technology. And there is no evidence that wealth concentration will reverse itself soon. And as the late Marshall Brain suggested, wealth concentration will likely only get worse with the deployment
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarshallbrain.com%2Frobo...
"With most of the rank and file employees replaced by robots and eliminated from the payroll, all of the money flowing into a large corporation has only one place to go -- upward toward the executives and shareholders. The concentration of wealth will be dramatic when robots arrive."

Also related:
"Why Is It So Hard For Recent College Graduates To Find A Decent Job?"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fj...
"Why are Gen Zers having so much trouble finding work?"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwhyy.org%2Fepisodes%2Fjob-...
"College grads are having trouble finding work. Unemployment for young people is higher than the overall population, and some economists predict worse times are ahead."

Meanwhile, companies using AI are pulling up the ladder for many entry-level jobs:
"AI is 'breaking' entry-level jobs that Gen Z workers need to launch careers, LinkedIn exec warns"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffortune.com%2F2025%2F05%2F25...

To each your point on homework and raise a point on grading:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alfiekohn.org%2Farti...
"Instead of assuming that homework should be a given, or that it allegedly benefits children, Iâ(TM)ve spent the last few years reviewing the available research and talking to parents, teachers and students. My findings can be summarized in seven words: Homework is all pain and no gain."
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alfiekohn.org%2Farti...
"In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading."

So, while there are many aspects of all this, maybe young people are also just seeing college as a worse and worse proposition? Contrast with:
"The High-School Juniors With $70,000-a-Year Job Offers: Companies with shortages of skilled workers look to shop class to recruit future hires; 'like I'm an athlete getting all this attention from all these pro teams'"
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Flifestyle%2F...

Sounds like an emotional reason, so maybe that is the right answer. Often people don't care to admit the real reason as that's a different part of the brain. But who knows.

Something that quick won't be from random mutations of coding genes, but it's entirely believable for genes that aren't considered coding but which control coding genes. It would also be believable for epigenetic markers.

So there's quite a few ways you can get extremely rapid change. I'm curious as to which mechanism is used - it might not be either of those I suggested, either.

I didn't see any outrage. If you need to see outrage that desperately, seek help.

Today. Once upon a time computer generated graphics were primitive and easily discernible from reality. Then suddenly they weren't. An editor at eWeek Magazine took his son to see 'Return Of The King' in the cinema. Referring to the climactic battle for Gondor scene he lamented, "We'll never again be able to say with certainty whether video is real-action or CGI-generated."

Give me a long weekend and I'll give you a video of Osama Binladdin taking credit for sinking the Titanic.

Actors? Good. Was a theater techie for five years, liked the work, but got out of it because I couldn't stand most actors and a lot of directors. Swore I'd never go back until they replaced actors with holograms, but of course at that point you don't need the lighting guy any more.

at the end of the Biden term we had full employment

You want to know what white privilege really is?

White privilege is thinking, genuinely, that we had "full employment" at the end of the Biden administration. Just 6 short months ago, happiness and prosperity for all reigned supreme throughout the land .... and then HE took over.

Now look at us.

I personally know white people who have lost their jobs. WHITE PEOPLE!

No longer are all affluent white people employed. No, now he's playing to his blue collar base, unlike Biden who played to us! The educated and affluent. Trump and his white trash followers are going to ruin everything. EVERYTHING. Just when we thought we'd rid this nation of the yucky blue collar industries, HE wants to bring them back. Well HE makes me sick.

HE is trying to bring non-white jobs back. Factory jobs. Immigrant jobs. Minority jobs. Do YOU want to work a minority job, shoulder to shoulder with actual minorities?

Do we really need to endure three more years of this? Do we have to watch HIM cater to the deplorables over and over again. We need to get our people back. The people who look like us, talk like us, smell like us .... not someone who thinks about the others.

Democrats fought a war once to preserve slavery, we birthed the KKK, we promoted eugenics, we ran the Jim Crow south, we formed the majority of opposition to the Civil Rights Act, hell we had an ex-KKK member in congress until 2010. We didn't come all this way just to watch WHITE TRASH and Negrottoes realize higher employment. Who does the president work for anyway?

He works for US! Not THEM! That's why he's so unpopular! That's why he lost the election (or erection as the Japanese call it).

I say we send this blue collar butt-kissin, nigra lovin, son of a one legged hermaphrodite back to New York City where he came from. They don't even know how to make good picante sauce there.

Come on, who's with me?

Did somebody say impeachment? Russian colluder? Pussy grabber? Insurrectionist? He insurrected against the government and against my beloved Democracy! In 3 years there will be no more Democracy, only a Stalinist dictatorship! Why oh why couldn't Biden have been president for life?!!! Why! Everything was perfect then!

I want you all to go to your windows, open them up, and scream "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Go ahead, I'll wait! Go, go now! Hurry!

The only way Trump is going to be able to move manufacturing to the US is to destroy the middle class. To kill office jobs, and basically force people to find manual labor instead.

Oh yeah, all those unskilled workers in cushy office jobs, I forgot about them. The ones who were hired on as CEOs when Flint and Detroit went tits up with their jobs were offshored. Yeah, good point.

It remains interesting that Democratic positions in 2025 are not that different than they were in 1860.

"You want to work those damn cotton fields yourself for two cents per hour? You want your children to work the cotton fields for two cents per hours? Or do you want the nigras to work those fields for the cost of a bowl full of grits? If you want to actually PAY people to work the field, and pay people who will demand a living wage, and probably benefits too .... go ahead, be my guest, free the slaves. Or, keep everything like it is, keep your job in the big house, and shut your holes. We don't need no more instigating."

Hell, you guys did such a good job when you decimated the manufacturing industry, that's why most US inner-cities are, frankly, the best parts of US cities. Sll those people put out of manufacturing jobs are now working nice, cushy office jobs like you are. I mean, think about it, if god loved the unskilled, he'd have made them born to affluent parents.

For the few that do go hungry, let them eat cake.

The iPhone isn't made in China because of the cheapest labor.

Do you actually believe this or did you just get caught up in the moment?

TFS is missing an important pretext:

Excuse me, sir, but you are mistaken about the law. Apple loves the law and supports its use where appropriate, and you seem to have an incorrect view as wo what the law requires. This may not be entirely your own fault, if I may ask, what color was the Kool-Aid you were given to drink? Can you confirm that it was purple, with a slightly grape flavor?

Some people have some residual original thought, especially in the early days of Thinking Different. While unpleasant this is nothing to worry about, unless it continues, in which case, I assure you we will try to figure out what the problem is. By any chance are you poor? Less than upper-middle class? Do you use our products to do anything other than consume content sold by Apple? Has it be more than 30 days since you have offered someone your thoughts and prayers?

User error is another possibility, specifically attempting to bypass our thought protection measures, which is against the laws of the State of Delaware. With that being said, we here at Apple believe the most likely cause is that someone gave you an incorrect cup of our delicious and healthy beverage, in which case, please report to the nearest Apple Store, where a genius will be more than happy to give you a booster dose. We are confident that this will fix the problem. Please remember, our beverage has what humans crave. It has electrolytes.

This is probably because hotels want to monopolize the rush for reservations for the eclipse in August next year. You'll see them shutting down campgrounds next.

I think he means $3000/sq meter, which I've always thought was a stupid way to judge housing.