The Life Slant

The Tiring of TikTok’s Tenure

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In a November 6, 2023 article at the Wired website, writer Jason Parham has finally realized something. Millennials are finally “getting it.” To quote the article: “This is how it goes now, in what is being christened the twilight of an era of social media that redefined community building and digital correspondence. For many first-gen social media users—millennials between the ages of 27 and 42—there is a developing sentiment that the party is over.”

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Avoiding Adverse Appellations; Political Correctness in Troubled Times

It seems that almost a month doesn’t go by that the media will invent a new term. Generally, the new terms are part of a lexicon used to describe events or people in society. One of the more troubling additions to the prevailing jargon is the “social engineer.” These “social engineers” are people who are adept at “psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.”

In fact, the much -vaunted Artificial Intelligence, known as AI, is being successfully applied to mimic the voice of a young person, and that AI voice calls the grandparents, claims to be a grandchild in a jail, and needs thousands of dollars in cash to bail them out. The savior of society, AI, is already being used to steal from people, and, as it becomes more prevalent, this will only get worse. What would be the proper punishment for one of these “social engineers” who took away an elderly person’s life savings? If the punishment is to fit the crime, it is to take away everything the “social engineer” has made, via crime or any other endeavor.

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Congolese Cowboy Carnage

Vulnerable
Endangered
Critically endanger’d,
Marvellous masterpieces
Mother’s unnegotiables,
Sharks, rays!

Ocean fish keepers:
Long lifers
Slow low reproducers
Population regulators
Fitness instructors
Disease strong-armers,
Untouchable medicos!

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Age of Agony

Climate Chaos,
Hotter, longer, unlivable,
Four synchronised heat domes:
Northwestern China
{52.2C Xinjiang},
North Africa
{50C Northern Algeria},
North Atlantic Ocean
{5C marine heatwave},
Southwestern U.S.
{36C Phoenix nighttime low}, 
Fossil-fuelled HEAT!

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Mechanization, Melancholia, and Material Insuetude

One of the best ways of shoving something nasty down another person’s throat is to explain “things have changed.” Well, of course they have changed. If you look closely out your window, the vegetation will grow, change color, even wilt and die, sometimes to re-emerge all over again. Then, of course, we have the people who are unhappy with the way things are, so they deliberately change things. Please understand, I am not suggesting that all changes are bad. It is just that from my personal experiences, change has, often as not, meant that something I liked was going away, and something I disliked was coming about. I won’t go over the nasty and bitter exchanges, because they’re in the past.

Young people like change; they are captivated and enchanted with all of the new technology that has deliberately sought to obtain and keep their attention for as long as possible. The result is at least one generation that isn’t as happy as past generations. Three things making young people unhappy, from Psychology Today, October 6, 2022: 

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College, Commissars, and Conspiracy

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Conspiracy theorists wake up, it is all here. While watching Bill Maher a few days ago, he showed some statistics about colleges, one being that tenured professors have fallen drastically, and that the administrative personnel have greatly expanded. In the 1970s, 70% of professors were tenured, whereas while now, 70% are untenured.  Adding to the lack of experienced professors, we have the unbelievable inflation that has made higher-education costs astronomical.  Academic fees have expanded far beyond almost any other aspect of the U.S. economy, with the exception of health care.  

Forbes magazine, in 2017, noticed the changes: “Put another way, administrative spending comprised just 26% of total educational spending by American colleges in 1980-1981, while instructional spending comprised 41%. Three decades later, the two categories were almost even: administrative spending made up 24% of schools’ total expenditures, while instructional spending made up 29%.” Not only that, but in the present day the probability of your college instructor being a full-time tenured professor is quite low; you are more likely to have a part-time untenured graduate student who is paid a fraction of what a full professor is paid (and they aren’t getting health insurance.) 

The price of a college education has soared. From Intelligent.com: “According to the National Center for Education Statistics, for the 1970-71 academic year, the average in-state tuition and fees for one year at a public non-profit university was $394. By the 2020-21 academic year, that amount jumped to $10,560, an increase of 2,580%.

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