More education ≠ higher incomes

People with bigger shoe sizes have, on average, higher IQs. In a large representative population, this is absolutely true. But does this mean that smart people have big feet? Or that small-footed people are stupid? This "statement" is often-used in statistics courses when showing that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. The reason that people with larger shoe sizes have higher IQs is that as people age and get older, their feet grow, as do their knowledge bases. So it's not that X causes Y or Y causes X but rather Z causes both X and Y, two otherwise-unrelated variables.

With this concept in mind, let's explore education. We always hear how higher-educated people have substantially higher starting salaries, higher median incomes, and higher wealth-accumulation abilities. Therefore, we have this notion in which we feel that if we go to college and get degrees, we will have better incomes. But is this really the case? Brace yourself because I'm going to blow your mind (or, at least, my mind was blown--BLOWN--when I learned about the following theory that I will attempt to detail).

People think that they go on to higher education (undergraduate, graduate, doctorate, law school, med school, etc.) to advance their careers, gain knowledge and a better understanding of the world, and have higher starting salaries when they embark on their chosen career path. But what they are actually doing, though, is signaling to employers that they are high-productivity individuals. That is, because they went on from high school to pursue higher education, they are much more likely to be highly-productive than those who decided they were finished with education with just a high school diploma.

For example, taking a step downward on the education ladder, people with high school diplomas obviously have higher median incomes than high school dropouts. However, we are led to believe that high school diplomas and GEDs (general educational diploma or general equivalency diploma) are about the same and that people with one or the other have similar incomes (since "high school diploma" and "high school equivalent" are almost always grouped together). But what do we see when we make GED its own category? How would its median income look compared to that of high school dropouts and to that of high school diplomas? Interestingly enough, the median income of GEDs is closer to that of high school dropouts than to high school diplomas. So we are forced to determine why this is the case. To unravel this conundrum, we need only look at the population of people who have high school diplomas, who are high school dropouts, and who get GEDs. The characteristics of people with GEDs more closely resemble the traits of dropouts.

Now why did I just overly-inform you about the financial statuses of high school equivalents and dropouts? Going back to my contention that education does not determine future income, we see that even though GEDs and high school diplomas should be on-par with one another, the income level of each group is vastly different. People with high school diplomas stick it out for 4 years, while people who received GEDs basically dropped out for reasons probably akin to the reasons high school dropouts leave school. We see here that high school serves as a filter between the "more-productive" high school diploma people and the "less-productive" GEDs and high school dropouts. So getting that GED will not necessarily put you on the same income level as that of high school diplomas because people with diplomas don't make more income necessarily because they have more education but instead because by finishing high school, they have signaled that they (on average) are more productive individuals. And it is in being more productive that people gain more income and potential for upward movement in the workplace, both positionally and financially. It is not solely due to more education.

Bringing back higher education into the picture, we see a parallel to the high school case in that people who finish a 4-year degree being more likely to be "high-productivity" people than those who are college dropouts or finish 2-year degrees. Likewise, 4-year degrees are likely to be "less-productive" than masters degrees, professional degrees, and doctorate degrees.

So essentially, education serves as a filter for high-productivity people. Much in the same way that panning for gold separates the gold from the dirt/rocks/pebbles, education separates high-productivity people from low-productivity people. Therefore, it's not that getting more education will garner higher salaries; instead, it's that the people who naturally would want to get more education are likely to be more-productive and thus better-suited to advance economically in the workplace.

Ergo, more education does not necessarily cause higher income. Instead, being a high-productivity person could cause one to want to go on to higher education and to be professionally-efficient (causing one to be much more likely to get raises or promotions). I say "could cause" because there are always exceptions, such as highly-productive college dropouts like Bill Gates or Michael Dell. It's not a "fit-all" standard, of course, but it's definitely a "fit-most" rule.

By the way, this economic theory is part of the Signal Model. Your level of education signals to firms looking to hire you if you're a high-productivity or low-productivity person since they can't know how productive you may be until years down the line. Education simply serves as one of the signals firms can use to determine your potential capacity. So if you have a lot of high-productivity signals, you're probably more likely to be hired because you have better potential to produce more output for the firm over the length of your career with them.


NOTE: My apologies for the sucky pictures; recommendations to replace them are welcome! :-D Also, the chart picture isn't the ideal example I was trying to find of GED versus high school diploma, but it is extremely difficult to find something that is. If I find something better, I will be replacing it at will. Thanks!


Unrelated, but I'm currently listening to a cover of Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather" by Tyler Hilton (and Alexa):

Oh, American democracy

Democracy is such a grand idea in theory. I mean, it's "power to the people"! How can "majority rule" not do no wrong?! (My apologies to people who have trouble comprehending the negation of negatives. My advice? Learn almost any other language. Double-negatives are not grammatically-incorrect in several non-English languages.)

In America's case (since I can't claim to know much about how democracies in other nations work), the short answer to why democracy fails: lobbyists and minority groups. Well, maybe "fail" is too strong a term; let's go with "inefficientiates," that is, a pseudo-verb form of "inefficient."

The origin of lobbyists is admirable, I'm sure, but in today's atmosphere, I'm very much not too confident that lobbying is all that "respectable" any longer. There's an urban-legend-like story of lobbying originating during President Ulysses S. Grant's terms in the 1870s. Because smoking was not allowed in the White House, President Grant would saunter over to the nearby Willard Hotel and smoke his cigars in the hotel lobby there. Eventually, it became known that President Grant frequented the lobby, so people wanting some Presidential influence would come to see him in the hotel lobby. Of course, the actual start of the term "lobbying" was in the U.K. in Parliament and the House of Commons, with "lobbying" occurring in the U.S. even before the Grant administration. But those stories aren't as fun as the Grant story, so I'm not going to share those.

Over time, lobby groups developed, with some having more influence than others over Congress and such. How do they have more influence? Perhaps long histories with particular political parties, allegiances that may be difficult to break. Or maybe there are corrupt "deals" going on. Also plausible is that a good number of the "majority rule" people simply like the leader of a lobbyist group. Whatever the reason, lobbying undermines the basic ideals of democracy: rule by the people. Lobbyists have essentially changed the American democratic field to rule by a few passionate people. Don't get me wrong; it's admirable to be passionate about a political issue. However, when laws/bills/whatever are getting pushed based ultimately solely to just these passionate people, then what the hell happened to majority rule or rule by the people?

Also of issue to me about democracy is its "majority rule" axiom. I mean, majority rule makes sense in small settings. For example, if a group of friends and I were trying to decide where to go eat, majority rule makes sense. It'll make most of us happy. But on a national scale? A lot of fucking people are going to be marginalized, and we're talking millions here. I mean, if you think about it ... ideally, all it takes is 50.01% of the population to approve something, and it would be law. What about the other 49.99%? Their voices are lost. (Of course, here enter lobbyists again....)

So in America, white people comprise 66% of the population (in 2006). Majority rule, right? Therefore, who the fuck cares about the other races? If the white people can stick together, say goodbye to your rights, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, etc. (Interestingly, in both houses of Congress, the two leading political parties tend to stick together within themselves too. They really shouldn't. If everyone were able to decide for their own stances on issues instead of blindly following whatever is the "Republican" or the "Democratic" option, maybe our government would be better.) Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I don't like "majority rule by the people."

Of course, although it may not be a great system/process, democracy is the best we have--as far as appeasing the most people. We should just revert to authoritative dictatorships. I mean, if a lot of people are going to be unhappy, we might as well all be unhappy (except for the happy dictator).


EDIT: Of course, the very next morning after I post this, I find this cool article/blog(?) on the evils of the history of lobbying.


Unrelated, but I highly recommend Danish electronic musician Anders Trentemøller.
This is his visually-stunning video for "Miss You":

Fall already, America

There's something wrong with contemporary America. We seem to not only get barely anything done but also tremendously suck at efficiently accomplishing the handful of things we do do. I'm referring, of course, to our government and economic structure and school system and what-have-you. I would elaborate, but I would much rather try to explain the whys of our faults than the whats.

Perhaps we have bureacratized our processes and systems to the paradoxical point of incompetence. To achieve anything, we now need to fill out a shitload of paperwork and a dozen people need to see/read/stamp each form (who each have to approve completely each paper ... you know, each person with his/her own different viewpoint/opinion) before going through the process again at another department. (Tangent: Does this remind anyone of the Vogons from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series?)

Maybe we should look at our developed-nation peers to figure out what the hell we're doing "wrong"? Interestingly enough though, America is arguably the most conservative developed country in the world. A fascinating side note: one of the antonyms of "conservative" is progressive. Incidental coincidence or meaningful correlation? Regardless, one big (pun intended) difference is that America is fucking huge--land-wise and population-wise--so maybe we can't look to our tiny developed-nation peers. We should do something about this overabundance of conservatism though.

Also conceivably at blame is our culture. Granted, "culture" is a very broad, virtually-all-encompassing term, so I'm going to use it to refer to our current generation and its collective (pop) cultural mindset. The (younger) generation in power and the generation growing up today grew up in a world where America was unabashedly number one economically, militaristically, politically (ha!), culturally (think "westernization"), and so forth. People grew up thinking (or at least had some sort of thought resembling), "Hey, I live in a country that is the best in almost everything. I don't need to fucking do anything!" Wrong. Doing nothing does not maintain pack-leader status. Doing nothing causes our infrastructures and top positions to falter. (An easy analogy here is a top-of-the-line computer. Sure, it's awesome initially, but without constant upgrading and upkeep, it will not only wear down but also be beaten by its competitors.)

So what the fuck, Americans? I think a lot of the problem is--and I'll try not to bash conservatives again--that this is an invisible problem. How the hell does one see infrastructures falling apart? (Un)Fortunately, the answer to this (and so many other issues) is education. But the thing is ... we're not educating our population correctly! We put kids through 12-13 years of primary/secondary schooling (the second half of which is just a repetition of the first half) to learn ... nothing. People are graduating high school with little personal (and local/state/national/international) economic know-how, barely any technical skills (skills that are learned on-the-job anyway), and simple-mindedness or lack of regard for larger societal issues (which ARE important because these things will affect their lives!). Our education system is totally failing. It needs an overhaul. In this day and age, four-year college degrees are becoming the new GED; why not change the system so that the High School Diploma reverts back to what it was? We shouldn't need to pay for our education! This is only going to widen the socioeconomic gaps in our society even more (by the way, these inequalities have actually been widening in the past few decades).

Anyway, going back to this blog entry title, I'm not advocating that America should actually collapse and dissolve. I'm just confused as to why something hasn't happened to America. Why haven't we fallen from the "top spot" already? Why do Americans think we're even at the top of anything still? When is America going to fall to number two so that our top officials can finally say, "Hey everybody! We're not number 1 anymore! We need to change things NOW!" so that change can finally occur more quickly and efficiently. Remember during the Cold War when we were bitter rivals with the Soviets and put a man on the moon 8 short years after JFK ambitiously dreamt it on the national stage? We had the wonderful warm, fuzzy feeling of being able to beat someone. Maybe we need that again.


Unrelated, but I'm currently listening to British musician Steve Appleton's "Dirty Funk":

I support socialism

Among our current economic systems, I think socialism *should* work the best, and I have thought so for quite some time.

Capitalism might *sound* the best in theory, but in practice, I feel that it falters significantly. Capitalism seems to create an environment in which those who strive their hardest reap the benefits of their hard work and "naturally" rise to the top. But what actually happens? A capitalist system--essentially by definition--creates a separation between those who have capital and those who do not have capital. It makes the path from the "have-nots" to the "haves" extremely difficult because, frankly, if you don't have capital (whether economic, intellectual, or manual) to start with, how the hell are you going to create it from nothing?

I also feel that Americans are afraid of socialism because we collectively-think that capitalism naturally punishes the lazy/unskilled by having the capitalist system eventually putting them in an economic downturn while rewarding the harder-working with constant sources of income. I'm going to use anecdotal evidence here to show otherwise. For an example of an arguably-undeserving individual who is definitely on the extreme edges of the "haves," Paris Hilton anyone? Even so, careers in the entertainment field (movies, television, music, pornography, etc.), sports arena (football, baseball, etc.), and business corporations can be extraordinarily lucrative. But what about more respected jobs like the President of the United States, teachers, doctors, and journalists? These people generally make significantly less than the high-achievers in the entertainment/sports/business fields. And about what about those extremely hard-working but unfulfilling jobs like waiters, checkers, and various blue-collar positions? These people are among the most marginalized economically.

So what I'm saying is that our economic resources are allocated in a highly non-ideal manner in our "capitalistic" society. This is where I think socialism (although admittedly with its own faults) can counter many of capitalism's faults.

Some people are going to be naturally high-performing individuals who, in a capitalistic system, will be extremely well-off. (And of course, there will be people who will just be "born into wealth" and stay there.) But I ask you, is this right? Should it mostly matter based on one's skills/achievements where one fits in the economic spectrum of things? I'm skeptical to say that it should. Here in America, we hear a lot about why the government sends our troops overseas and sends food/money aid to other countries when we apparently can't even feed our own hungry or shelter our own homeless or whatever. I mean, if we're the richest country in the world, we should be able to do that, right? Right?! Well, as I've said, our economic system doesn't really give us the means to do so.

Generally, in a socialist system, we pool all our resources/capabilities/etc and then take what we need/want based on our input. Obviously, there is a vast variation among socialist thinkers on how we would do this, how much we put in, how much we take out, and so on and so forth. But the key thing to pick up on here is this: no matter how much you put in, you will put in what you can, and the system will (try to) take care of you. So going back to the previous paragraph, those high-performing individuals will definitely put in more than they take out, but this is the way it should be. Those at the upper echelons of human ability should be helping out those in the lower cohorts of society. We shouldn't have a "I earned this and I'm keeping all of it" mentality; such a mentality will not lead us on a progressive path. And likewise, those in a capitalist society who would constantly always just be making it would no longer have to worry about making it to the next month's bills as long as they're contributing to society what they can (through being janitors, car-washers, sandwich makers, or whatever). They wouldn't have much left over to live as "lavishly" as those who are contributing to the system more.

Of course, there will always be slackers and people who try to (and maybe succeed to) cheat the system. There's no fit-all net. Please do not give me bullshit about lazy people who just ride off society's backs. There are plenty of possible measures to attempt to combat this: new laws, "job checks," the creation of some sort of job investigation office, etc.

To wrap up, I support socialism. I'm not saying that I want to overthrow capitalism in favor of socialism or that socialism is a winning system. I'm just saying I support socialism. I have no idea how American politics have demonized it so much.



Unrelated, but I'm currently listening to the British DJ band Friendly Fires' "Kiss of Life":

Call me a pedophile

Really. Go ahead. I have no shame.

Well, perhaps I should elaborate first. Actually, I should first define what I think a "pedophile" is. A pedophile is a person in western culture that is (solely) attracted to people under the age of 18. Okay, based on this definition, I might not be a pedophile, but I might be a flexible-pedophile. (Wow, that sounds really wrong....)

Now, don't get me wrong, I've never done anything with someone under the age of 18 ever (which says a lot about how much of a loser I was back in the day). But every now and then, I can't help but see an underage hottie and think, "Damn!" If you've never been in this situation, I seriously do NOT believe you.

Why do we as a society place so much emphases on the age of 18? "Oh my god! You're only 17 years, 364 days old! I canNOT think you're hot! Oh, look, it's finally midnight on your 18th birthday ... Hey hot stuff!" Maybe I'm not looking at things the right way. Is it because underage people are "innocent" and shouldn't be "corrupted"? Does being 18 make you finally able to give consent? Are 17-year-olds incapable? What about 13-year-olds? (I mention 13-year-olds because there was a photo of a 13-year-old who had pretty eyes in Saturday's paper....)

Of course, age IS totally instituationalized. And then we sometimes throw in ageism with sexism, racism, and other -isms. We can easily argue these other -isms are also instituationalized, but age is so easy to do this with. We have to be 4 or 5 to start school. We have to be 16 (or sometimes 15) to get a job in the U.S. We have to be 16 to get a driver's license. We have to be 18 to vote, join the military, buy cigarettes, buy/do porn, buy lottery tickets, gamble, etc. We have to be 21 to drink. We have to be 25 to rent a car without "underage surcharges." We have to be 25 to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. We have to be 30 to serve in the U.S. Senate. We have to be 35 to be serve as U.S. President. We have to be 65 to retire or get Social Security benefits. The list goes on and on. (*Some of the things I listed may not be 100% accurate, but the general idea still maintains.)

Perhaps the fact that age is so ingrained in our social/political/cultural/economic systems causes us to literally set mental bars or blocks when we interact with people just below one of the crucial age thresholds. Is this right? Is it ethical? More importantly, is it logical?

Anyway, back to my original reasoning for writing this entry: I think it's okay that I might think some people under the age of 18 are hot. I mean, I'm not lusting or pursuing or anything like that. I'm just appreciating beauty. I got called "handsome" or some variation of it while growing up until middle school and then post-middle school (I had an EXTREMELY awkward middle school phase) by relatives and my parents' adult friends. I doubt anyone thought anything pedophiliac of it.

I'm not saying anyone is calling me a pedophile because I usually keep these thoughts to myself, but why do I feel bad for thinking such thoughts? The correct answer (or at least I want it to be the correct answer): I shouldn't.


I swear this music video is unrelated. It's a live performance of Jesse McCartney's "How Do You Sleep":

I ALMOST hooked up with a celebrity

I'm a big fan of Jay Brannan. (Quick bio: He was in this awesome NSFW movie called Shortbus several years ago. That was his first taste of fame. Since then, he has amassed a good-sized following online through his youtube music videos. He's a great singer. He's toured the U.S. a few times and is touring in Europe right now.)

Over the summer, he was touring the U.S. again, and he was in Austin on Saturday, July 18. Of course, I went to his show. I brought my roommate along too. Jay Brannan was incredibly great live, and he was funny and down-to-earth. After he sang, he went on over by the table where some people were selling his shirts and CDs to sign autographs and talk with fans and what-have-you.

So I sauntered over. As I was eyeing the merchandise, I got this crazy-fanboy urge to ask Jay Brannan to sign my chest. So I plotted.

I bought one of the (overpriced and kinda ugly) shirts and waited in the short line to talk to Jay Brannan. The dialogue went something like this:

"Hi, my name is Timmy." ::handshake::
"Thanks for coming to the show!"
::random small-talk::
"So I got one of your shirts, and I'd like you to sign it ... but I'd much rather you sign my chest." ::gives Jay Brannan the option::
::laughter:: "Sure."
"So should I lift my shirt up or pull it down?"
::more laughter:: "It's up to you."

So being modest, I pulled my shirt down so I wouldn't flash everyone. As he was signing, Jay mentioned that the autograph probably wouldn't last. I, of course, said I was aware of this and said I was going to eternalize the signature with a picture and post it immediately on facebook. My roommate chimed in and jokingly said that I would tag him in it.

So that was that. My roommate and I left shortly after, and I "modeled" as he took my picture. We went home, and as I said I would, I uploaded the pictures on facebook.

As always, Jay Brannan had a status update after his show thanking everyone for a great show. I commented on that status thanking him for signing my chest (my default picture was a shirtless one of me with the signature). I expected things to just end at that. I mean, I was already on a major fanboy high from getting my chest signed by an awesome musician.

But nope. Jay Brannan FUCKING MESSAGED ME on facebook! I didn't notice until 20 minutes later and responded to it. Then I went to bed because I did not expect him to respond to my response. If only I had stayed online for five more minutes, I could have had a string of messages with him leading to ... well, who knows?!

I told my friends about it and they told me I was an idiot for not realizing Jay Brannan was flirting with me. He never responded to the response I sent the following morning.

(Yes, I have a lot of unread facebook messages. Most of them are from groups or updates.)

I fail at life. :-(


EDIT: To prevent this blog entry from sticking out from my other entries (in that it's more a personal narrative rather than a thought-provoking piece), I should point out that it's noteworthy how Jay Brannan "flirts" with people. When you reach a certain level of fame, how does one even try the relationshippy thing with people? There would be so much information on you already that the whole dating-to-get-to-know-you thing gets (partly) thrown out the window. There's also a chance for great commentary on socializing or something....


Actually related! Jay Brannan's cover of the Cranberries' "Zombie" (Yes, he sounds that good.):

Sex shouldn't exist

Before I get started, I just wanted to make one thing clear: I’m definitely a proponent of gender/sex equity. However, I’m not naïve, so I have to concede that historically and socially, the sexes are not equal, and I will attempt to explain why this is.

One of the greatest mysteries of life concerns purpose. Without purpose, there would arguably be no civilization because people would just simply be another animal on the planet, living tired patterned lives of eating and reproduction. We would have no reason to develop society because we would only be concerned with self-survival—keeping both ourselves and our species alive by ensuring that our children make it to reproduction age.

So at the basic level, people need to eat and reproduce to survive as a species. Already, each sex has a role: women bear children, and men father children. However, evolution shows that this was not always the case. In a very simple manner, creatures reproduced asexually for the longest time. But this could create problems because this meant the next generation was essentially a clone of the previous generation, which would make them very prone to environmental changes and more difficult to adapt quickly unless several mutations luckily occurred. With the “creation” of the male sex, two beings of the same species could now mix their genes for more genetic variation for their children.

Biologically though, males and females are essentially the same. In the womb, the penis corresponds anatomically to the clitoris, males’ nipples are only remnants of the actually-useful female nipples, and so forth. So there really is no reason for there to have been such a sexist human history. If anything, men should have been the discriminated sex since they’re the more useless sex, reproductively-speaking.

This is my theory on why there are now very strong gender typecasting—a theory strongly based on the ideas set forth in the Ender’s Game series. Women have the children and have to bear the responsibility for at least nine months ... and then possibly several more years once the child(ren) are born. Men can go around and father dozens and dozens of children. Already, we have the more sedentary-leaning women and the more migratory-leaning men.

Now, let’s look at past civilizations. The most successful ones are the ones in which the society does not move around a lot. (A noteworthy exception, of course, is the vast Mongol Empire of yester-millennia.) So we see an interesting “being sedentary” parallel between civilization and women and. But if there is some sort of connection here, what about the men? Don’t they want to move around and conquer and shit?

Here lies the bulk of my theory. Since men need women for species reproduction, and women may not allow the reproduction without some type of fatherly commitment beyond impregnation, the men have to stay sedentary and be bored. What else can they do to combat this “inequality”? Oh, I know! Create a society and culture in which the men can have political, economic, philosophical, etc., roles while the women stay home and raise the children.

Thus, a very significant exchange occurred. Women were able to live (their [theoretically] preferred) more-sedentary lifestyles in established regions, but lost ground in the power dichotomy. Men gave up their “natural” instinct to be more-migratory for the “power roles” in the aforementioned establishment of civilization.

Then, with centuries upon centuries of societal- and cultural-conditioning of these developing roles, we came to have vast social differences between the sexes. Really though, I don’t think men and women are that different. At the very basic and core level, men and women have always wanted the same things. We have only merely been “brainwashed” to think about things differently because we are one sex or the other (or both sexes like that South African runner, but I digress ...).

So the next time you bitch that men are assholes are women are crazy, just remember sex doesn’t matter. There shouldn’t be a difference at all. In fact, I think the reason that one might demonize one sex is simply because that sex is the sex one would be attracted to and, thus, allows to get emotionally closer, which would also potentially lead to being more hurt by. Of course, this is another topic entirely. There are also the homosexual and bisexual (and asexual and pansexual ...) perspectives to be aware of too....




Unrelated, but I'm currently listening to Daedelus's "Fair Weather Friends."

Am I a fan of Miley Cyrus?

Pop culture is fascinating.

I don't mean this in the teenage-girl-like manner of "Oh my god! Did you see what Lady Gaga wore at the VMAs last night?" or "I can not believe Brad Pitt betrayed Jennifer Aniston like that?!" I mean this in almost an academic sense. That is, I am interested in why and how popular culture is so popular.

I should back up for a moment and mention that one of my interests is cultures and subcultures. My interest in cultures stems from my desire to understand society and life in general. Cultures, in a broad manner, are how people live/think/act/whatever. Thus, in understanding how cultures evolve or work, I think we can (better) understand society at large. And in comprehending society, a big-picture feel of what people do can be observed, with the remaining gaps invariably somehow piecing together to form some semblance of why life is.

Anyway, a big chunk of pop culture is driven by teen pop. Arguably, the single artist who I think best embodies current teen pop is Miley Cyrus. She has somehow been in four albums that have peaked in the top 3 of the U.S. Billboard 200. Her two solo albums debuted at number fucking 1. Her song "Party in the U.S.A." is currently number 3 on the U.S. Hot 100; it was number 2 (its peak position ... so far) last week. She was in this show called Hannah Montana, which was a hit or something. She's been in big movies, probably.



Oh, and she was born in 1992. 1992! That means she turns 17 this year. (That's right, she's still 16!)

When I was 16 ... Shit, I don't even remember if I anything worthy at 16. I was probably involved in a bunch of clubs in high school. I made pretty good grades.... I definitely did not rank in Forbes's "Celebrity 100" list, let alone as high as Miley Cyrus's 2009 rank of #29.

Yeah, so she has all this celebrity hoopla going for her. She probably has legions of millions of teenage girls (and boys?) talking about her across the U.S., seeing as she graces tween girl magazine covers every so often.

So why the fascination with her? I'm not actually sure, but she definitely knows how to garner a mass audience (or at the very least, people like to talk about her for some reason, despite whatever her intentions are). I propose that she (and attention-whore celebs like Paris Hilton or humanitarian-like celebs like Angelina Jolie) have mastered some type of ... gossipy/fame entrepreneurial ability.

Some people just know how to build up an empire of fame/attention. Or they at least have a natural knack (possibly unbeknown to them?). I endeavor to crack this code.



Unrelated, but I'm currently listening to Ivri Lider.
He's a top-selling Israeli singer. This song is called "Jesse."

The "millennial" generation grows up

A response to an article in this week's Newsweek:
"Generation 9/11: Children who watched the tragedy unfold are now on the brink of adulthood."


(video from the article)

I remember the Tuesday when the events of 9/11/01 happened.

I was in 8th grade. I had a Student Council officer meeting that morning at 8:15, so at around 7:50 when the first plane hit, I was eating cereal, still unaware what had just occurred. During that meeting, the StuCo advisor had vaguely mentioned that something had happened that morning, but being merely 13, I was still ignorant of world events. I didn't think much of it.

My first class rolled around when the bell rang at 8:45. It was P/AP English. I don't remember much about my 8th grade English teacher, but I do remember this: she was a bitch. Now, don't get me wrong: she wasn't a mean bitch; she was really sweet and nice. However, she treated the oldest kids in middle school (us 8th graders) like we were kindergartners. I'm sure she meant well, but damn. That bitch. Some of the students in my class tried to ask what was going on that seemed to put some of the adults on edge. Her response? "I think you should go home and ask your parents about it." What the fuck? No one was asking her opinion or perspective on anything; we just wanted to know some objective facts. Two planes crashed into two buildings in New York. That's all you have to say.

The rest of the day wasn't as memorable to me. I do recall that about a week later after not having mentioned the events of 9/11, a guy in my P/AP U.S. History class asked why we hadn't discussed it yet. My teacher immediately stopped whatever she was going to do and said, "Let's talk about it then." I really wish my English teacher was like that. I also remember the overexposure of the news that week. Call me unpatriotic, but it got really irritating.

Anyway, enough of this walk down memory lane. I really wanted to talk about the article. In case you didn't read it, here's a quick run-down:

• The "millennial" generation (those of us born between 1982 and 2004) is starting to enter adulthood around now.
• We were born in a time of relative prosperity with the economic booms of the '90s and the oncoming of the Internet and the computer age.
• We grew up confident in ourselves with little to worry about, especially with the end of the Cold War with the result of the U.S. coming out as a sole world superpower.
• But with 9/11, terror was "brought to [our] doorsteps." As much as the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War, and the Columbine shootings have shaped the mindsets of the people growing up during these events, 9/11 will ultimately somehow shape the mindsets of the "millennial" generation, although of course to varying degrees.
• We have been forced to have a more global perspective. We are (slightly [so far]) more interested in working for non-profit corporations or trying to make some type of social change when we "grow up.

So these are the key points.

Well, I'm growing up. I'm 21. I can see the altruistic and philanthropic benefits of doing something non-profit or socially-changing, but I can't say my heart is in it yet. Based on my trodden path and its trajectory, I'm looking to stay in academia and research and add to the knowledge pools of the social sciences. Of course, the social sciences are like the theoretical side of social change, which would be the more applied side. I wouldn't doubt it if, in the future, I somehow found a way to make that jump to social causes/changes for the betterment of humanity.

But the question still remains of how 9/11 affected me. Did it even affect me? I like to think of myself as above average as far as resilience goes, so I can't say that I'm really emotionally-distraught by the events of that fateful day. Therefore, the question morphs to how much 9/11 affected me. Now, to answer this, I have to think about direct and indirect effects. Directly, I can't say I'm much changed. I didn't know anyone in New York at the time, and I had never really been there. Indirectly though, the effects are arguably gigantic.

9/11 changed the world. Unfortunately, I can't escape the world. People's views, political arenas, mindsets, prominent issues ... everything (I use this term loosely) was changed. Therefore, the boxes and the environments in which I conceptualized the world were altered forever. Whatever mental patterns society was conditioning into me at the time were thrown away and replaced with these altered ones.

Uh ... so I think I'm starting to go into logical circles or I'm just repeating things said in the article that I read almost a full 24 hours ago. I think this is a good place to end for now. I will no doubt pick up the loose strings in another blog.


Unrelated: Currently listening to Sondre Lerche, a Norwegian singer. He's pretty awesome.