The world needs ditchdiggers, too, Calvin. The sound you hear is the collective wail of the affirmative action activists. Going to college is for suckers and whitey. Snoop said so.
How many kinds of dickishness are in that comment? Three? Four?
2: I count five but I could be missing some.
TLL is on a roll. Here and in the other thread.
It would be nice if it were greater than the number of sentences.
It's true, though, that common sense is important. This is why we ought to attend to the undemonstrated sayings and opinions of experienced and older people, for experience has iven them an eye with which they see aright. After all, some among those who do not know but who have experience, that is, common sense, are more practical than others who do know, but lack experience; for if a man knew that light meats are digestible and wholesome, but did not know which sorts of meat are light, he would not produce health. But the man who knows that chicken is wholesome is more likely to produce health, and the same is true with regard to crack and wealth.
As every gangsta rap fan kno, Snoop is from Long Beach, which does have a Cal State (it features in some Warren G songs).
CSULB actually isn't that bad, as far as Cal States go. Decent rugby team, too.
Yeah, but CSULB would have been even less funny on account of existing.
There's a Compton community college. Also Cal State Dominguez Hills nearby.
And the Cal States aren't that bad as public colleges go. Also, Snoop's basically right; even w-lfs-n acknowledges this (despite being way over-educated and way under common-sensed).
I was kind of pissed that CSDH didn't give me a job back when I was on the market, but now I have to admit that living on the coast is a lot nicer than living in the Inland Empire would have been.
B, I basically endorse the SD sentiment. I would make fun of you for misreading but it's too hot out.
6:I'm betting Hume.
"And what have you learned? Not a damn thing." Probably not Pynchon.
Hardehar, I once befuddled an egghead. And he was the one who said experience is better than books, and I axe him "What isn't experience? How can reading not be experience?"
He was my sense dealer, incidentally.
He was my sense dealer, incidentally.
"Whatcha want, bob? I got common and sixth today."
Also, Snoop's basically right;
He's half right. There are many highly educated people who dismiss informally learned `common sense' knowledge and pablum. There are many people with little formal education who dismiss formal education as useless elitist nonsense.
Both groups are being stupid in doing this. They are different types of knowledge, and they are fundamentally not exchangeable. You can only get along well without one or the other to the degree that you limit your life (or have it limited for you) to contexts dominantly emphasize one or the other, not both.
Bitch, CSUDH ain't in the IE. Unless you were planning on commuting. In non troll mode, What Mr. Broadus is saying needs wider distribution. It is a sham to use college as some kind of intelligence marker. As has been pointed out in these very forums, even at our most competitive colleges there reside those who have less "intelligence" than many. I believe they were referred to as "legacies". Further, more money can be made in the trades than is commonly realized. Further outreach is needed. Thank you, Snoop, for pioneering this effort.
I should add to 19 that in the latter case, the common sense only-ers have a broader playground, which is something.
19: There's also a lot of formally educated people who don't realize that people without formal education aren't limited to "common sense." Assuming that they can read.
Common sense is about as rare in the non-formally educated as in the formally, IME.
19:I think he is mostly wrong. The question has recent political relevance in McCain's invitation to Obama to visit Iraq, and the blogger position that the kind of tour Obama is likely to get in Iraq would be worse than not going at all.
Would I be better off reading Ricks and Packer or interviewing Bush & Cheney? Sheeet.
Books is better, most of the time. Facetime is mostly useless.
I only count one piece of dickishness in that quote, and it is the one that also shows that snoop is basically wrong: if you are dealing crack, you do not rule over everything. You are making a mistake less likely to be made by people who get an education to increase their earning potential.
Perhaps this should have been posted to Standpipe's joke-explaining blog, but it seems that other people did not read the same joke I did.
What joke?
2 to 1, right? Not 2 to Snoop.
Oh, I get 2 now.
Still, I think there is a joke in the main post, because snoop undercuts himself in a funny way.
Yeah, 23 nails it. When emphasizing the importance of common sense, people like to pretend that common sense and formal education are mutually exclusive, when in fact they are merely independent variables.
Thanks, Labs, it's nice to be appreciated.
Aristotle is also mostly wrong. Age and "street experience" do not bestow wisdom or common sense. The guy with six marriages does not understand marriage, tho he possibly knows something useful about women.
What is my best plan:eat mushrooms til I find the one that kills me, trust the Indian guide with my life, or check out three books from the library?
I do not value "experience" very highly at all. That's my age and experience talking. Chalabi and Bernard Lewis knew their shit, and Bush felt all educated after a couple hours talking with them. It is an absurd model for learning.
In the academic sphere, I have never understood the people who "studied under Nobel Prize winner X for 5 years, and took off from what she gave me." There are a hundred other Nobellers out there whose work ain't exactly secret. Why the hell would you let yourself become awestruck by the person across the desk?
Experience sucks.
31 F,
Yes, like belief in religion and science. I like to call them orthogonal instead of opposing or, as you say, mutually exlusive.
I never really got what "common sense" meant exactly. I think it means "things I know that I expect everyone to know" but that seems fairly snobbish to me.
But lest you be too bitter, let me point out that knowing a college education is a pile of shit is no small lesson. There are many people who don't know it. In fact, probably most people don't know it. There is surely no better place to learn this lesson than at college. In any event you can console yourselves by knowing that you won't waste time and make fools of yourselves later in life thinking how different it all would have been if only you had gone to college.
Obama Mark Vonnegut on the value of a college education.
34: I never really got what "common sense" meant exactly
Common sense is the sixth sense that tells you that it is better to read Unfogged all day than do your job.
Another thing I learned selling crack: Whitey's got no sense of humor.
Age and "street experience" do not bestow wisdom or common sense.
Dunno about street experience, but age definitely makes you wiser. The older you are, the more you understand that you might be wrong, the typical ways you tend to be wrong, and then finally with sufficient age there is the realization that you are almost always wrong. This knowledge is almost insupportable to an adolescent. Knowledge of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
I have never understood the people who "studied under Nobel Prize winner X for 5 years, and took off from what she gave me." There are a hundred other Nobellers out there whose work ain't exactly secret. Why the hell would you let yourself become awestruck by the person across the desk?
This is a great example of why experience is valuable. You work directly for a star academic, they do two things for you. 1) let you know what the next easy little step in the research line is, which is very hard to tell from outside the inner circle, and 2) let you in on their acceptable short cuts. Every famous star academic has a few tricks, forms of cheating that are acceptable by the field, which make doing their line of research much easier than it looks from the outside.
This is academic street knowledge. I presume street street knowledge is similar, except with more guns.
36: Holy shit, am I full of common sense.
Hey, JP, did you make the game with the free tix last week? Good game, crisply played. Home in time to watch the agonizing Pens loss.
with sufficient age there is the realization that you are almost always wrong
I invite you to test that hypothesis in America's finest retirement communities.
You forgot a 3rd, and possibly most important thing that star researchers can do for a student --- get them a good post-doc/job.Another thing is that you pretty much never see them, but that's not exactly a plus.
I presume street street knowledge is similar, except with more guns.
Not so much, really.
Aristotle is right in 6. There is a kind of practical wisdom that can only come from experience. The only catch is to remember that age only brings practical wisdom to those who are paying attention. The man bob talks about who has had six marriages is probably just making the same mistake over and over. OTOH anyone with an awake mind who has had 70 years experience interacting with all sorts of different people will have an understanding of people that no young person can have.
42 is one of the things I was groping towards in 38. The most important person you come to understand with time is yourself. You're the common vector in all your experience of others, because they're all reacting to you. There are characteristic mistakes you make, characteristic people you do well with and badly with, characteristic settings you function well and badly in. Gradually you start doing the right sort of stuff with the right sort of people.
Or else you discover that you prefer to comment in blogs all day.
The most important person you come to understand with time is yourself.
And Jesus!
39: did you make the game with the free tix last week?
Yes, I did make it. Was also thankful for the quick pace. I too was able to watch the third, which was yet another interesting (if disappointing) period of hockey. The better team did win I must say.
I thought of trying to hook up, but I was already mixing my daughter and her friends with some work colleagues, so did not think trying to throw the reality of my imaginary Internet friends into that mix was particularly wise. I attempted to "text to scoreboard" an unfogged greeting, but they apparently moderated it out. As it was, I had to spend time the next day explaining to the work folks why the girls were so amped when they got "Never Gonna Give You Up" onto the board.
43: Therefore Aristotle is heebie. Formal education rules!
Often 'blue collar' or 'street smarts' is conflated with 'common sense' and then that's contrasted with elite, latte-sipping knowledge-eaters who don't know anything.
That blue collar people have a lock on common sense is an illusion shattered by watching 19-year-old guys in high-paying technical professions (like, say, blowing shit up with dynamite) manage their first paychecks. Common sense is a skill that education alone can't give, but it's not automatic to the salt-of-the-earth worker.
With age comes experience, but whether with experience comes wisdom really depends a lot on the person.
Wait, blowing shit up with dynamite is high-paying?
You're the common vector in all your experience of others, because they're all reacting to you.
If they're dying, are they really reacting to you? Just curious.
Wait, blowing shit up with dynamite is high-paying?
This surprises you?
but age definitely makes you wiser
I am your refutation, sir, in only a third degree of Socratic irony.
Common sense is a skill that education alone can't give, but it's not automatic to the salt-of-the-earth worker.
Elitist. Probably one of those Obama cultists.
50: I guess I figured it would be kind of like game design: everyone wants to do it, so they can get away with treating/paying you poorly. Though I don't know how well game designers are paid. Whatever.
I don't know how well game designers are paid
The pay is pretty good. The job security is terrible.
Wait, blowing shit up with dynamite is high-paying?
The recruiter told Tim McVeigh it was.
shattered by watching 19-year-old guys in high-paying technical professions (like, say, blowing shit up with dynamite) manage their first paychecks.
Your first paycheck should be entirely consumed in vice by Saturday morning. This is blue-collar wisdom, as documented by Muddy Waters, Warren Zevon, & Merle Haggard. Hungover, broke, and ashamed you then spend Saturday searching for an SO to hand your paychecks to, until they run off with the milkperson.* Then you have the experience to sing the blues.
*"Five Long Years" but I can provide authoritative sources for all the above.
Wait, blowing shit up with dynamite is high-paying?
It's not badly paid, although on average it has nothing on crane operation, iirc.
Do you know what's surprisingly high-paying? Rewriting mutual fund analyses in slightly prettier language.
I mean, it doesn't pay *well*, but I'm surprised it pays at all.
Your first paycheck should be entirely consumed in vice by Saturday morning.
What's really spectacular is camp-based work. 3-4 months out in the bush with nothing much to do but work and and pretty decent pay. When a bunch of 18-25 year olds get back in town with cabin fever and $40,000 in pocket, look out.
62: Hmm? Can you say anything more about it here? There's a decent chance you're talking about working with someone in my department, actually.
63: I'd say that $40,000 post-tax for 3-4 months of work is more than decent. First-year BigLaw kids aren't even making quite that much. Unless it's extremely seasonal work and those people really can't find much gainful employment for the other 8 months.
As you may not be surprised to learn, the best job for young people is as summer intern at one of the giant rich law firms at which you have to have a rich family in order to become a summer intern.
My friend had something like 40% of his salary taken away by taxes for the two months he worked for Suivllan and Croewmll, and then got it all back at tax time because he had not earned any other money that year. Two months of wasting money on frivolities in the summer, and then a special bonus month the following spring!
The only catch is to remember that age only brings practical wisdom to those who are paying attention.
Word. For example, I watch the finals thinking to myself that surely the game won't be so brazenly rigged like, say, having one team shoot four times as many free throws, but once again I am schooled.
64.1: I'm working for a college friend who has a consulting gig with her old firm. She lives near Bmore.
Your first paycheck should be entirely consumed in vice by Saturday morning
my first ever paycheck was from the autumn works helping with the harvest at the state farm, when we were students
35 Tg which at that time was an equivalent of a 100 $ maybe or was it 10$ i forget the exact ratio
the student's salary it was, while the combainer would earn like 30 thousand, i think they were pretty rich
so i bought a nice leather boots for my mom and the salary's gone
my first ever paycheck as a young resident was 5000 Tg, i bought a bottle of Cinzano to celebrate with my coworkers and that was it, coz the times were all the transition and money cost nothing
64: Yeah, some of it's pretty seasonal (e.g. forest fires, other forestry stuff north enough to have a short season). Lots of it it involves pretty extreme overtime (goes along with not much else to do but work, and would rotate off for a coupel months anyway. 40k is highish, but not outlandish for some of these jobs, and I was thinking gross not net so shouldn't have said `in-pocket'.
Still, it's a lot of money to be handed at the end of a few months is the bush. I knew one kid who bought a brand new pickup cash and totaled it within 72 hours of getting back. Bought another one the next day.
62: There are a lot of tech writer gigs out there, many kind of surprised me to learn even existed, but make sense afterward.
What I need, though, is a job that lets me earn about $40k/year in either a few hours a week or full-time over a few months. Ideas?
Cala's 48 is correct on all counts.
In *Arctic Dreams* by Berry Lopez, one of the oil workers says the workers' dorms for the drilling operation on the Alaskan north slope have the same atmosphere as a medium security prison.
71: For tech writing? 40k for say 1/3 time is pretty high on the scale for that. There may be contract work for that, but lot of the better paying stuff is in-house and not flexible.
I hear you can make mega-bucks driving trucks and erecting concrete barriers in Iraq.
71: You might think of teaching overseas.
73: My brother's brother-in-law was in the merchant marine and said it was exactly like jail. The ships of today are so containerized that they can be unloaded in a few hours, so a sailor hardly ever sees the exotics port towns.
74: Hm. How does one get those gigs?
77.1: Which would be awesome except that I have a kid. I suppose I could bring him along and give him the experience of foreign daycare, but.
I hear you can make mega-bucks driving trucks and erecting concrete barriers in Iraq.
It's a shitload of money. Enough that it tempts a friend of mine who was driving trucks in Iraq for the Army. And this is a guy who's out of the Army now because he got ejected from the cab of said Army truck when it wrecked and fucked up his back.
He's at the best age for foreign language learning.
My nephew-in-law's specialty in the army was defusing bombs. He could have gotten a nice bonus for re-upping. We talked him out of it.
with sufficient age there is the realization that you are almost always wrong
Huh?! When will I reach that age?
Personally sufficient age has taught me I am usually right, it has given me impatience as I realize my time is limited, and it has given me bluntness because I am tired of explaining what should be common sense.
So I will be blunt - "common sense" is just a means to be a snob even if you have no formal learning.
Lack of "common sense" is something no one claims, it is always something one points out in others to claim one's own superiority.
For example I worked in a machine shop before learning to drive a car. When my foreman told me to "turn the wheel to the right" I did not know what he meant because, in his words, I lacked 'common sense' even though I pretended to be (his words) a brainiac.
To me the direction of a wheel turning was clockwise or counter-clockwise. I had no idea when he said 'turn it to the right' he meant "pretend it is a steering wheel and you want to turn the car to the right' - or in other words turn the very top of the wheel to the right and forget about the directions the rest of the wheel is turning.
By declaring my lack of common sense he was saying "You're not so smart!"
67: Ah, that's not us then. I'm surprised that a consultancy would outsource their editing like that, but it's definitely a necessary help.
What I need, though, is a job that lets me earn about $40k/year in either a few hours a week or full-time over a few months. Ideas?
Don't we all?
What I need, though, is a job that lets me earn about $40k/year in either a few hours a week or full-time over a few months.
Alaska, canneries or go for the gold and crew a fishing boat. You could also change things up by getting a new, rugged, taciturn, outdoorsy boyfriend who has never heard of the internet.
John,
My brother's brother-in-law was in the merchant marine and said it was exactly like jail.
What was he in jail for?
or go for the gold and crew a fishing boat.
you do not want to do this.
What I need, though, is a job that lets me earn about $40k/year in either a few hours a week or full-time over a few months.
I heard that there's an opening at the Emperor's Club.
Maybe public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. But he may have been making an objective comparison based on the secondary literature.
What I need, though, is a job that lets me earn about $40k/year in either a few hours a week or full-time over a few months. Ideas?
I know how to make about $300/hr getting your wedding tackle examined by attractive, educated people in their early 20's but like most such gigs it only comes up twice a year.
Otherwise the only way I know to make $20K a month for a few months a year is illegal.
Wait, blowing shit up with dynamite is high-paying?
It is not stable (susceptible to big demand fluctuations), and somewhat seasonal, but as an example, one of shivbunny's coworkers worked three months straight last year and came home to three paychecks, totaling $40K. And bought a truck. A guy who's been with the company a while probably makes close to $120K a year; a guy just starting out, depends on whether he gets known as a good worker (and thus assigned to jobs.)
The reason they don't have a lot of people lining up to do it is that the hours seriously suck. You're either on the road, in a hotel room in Assfuck, Nowhere, or camp in Northern Assfuck, North Nowhere, or you're at home (making no money.) It's also hard physical work, and also the sort of thing where you tend to know someone in the business which is how you get your first job. It's ideal for a guy 18-22 who wants to make a lot of money; it works less well once someone is trying to have a family.
B, In all honesty and probably taking this too earnestly 20k for 1/3rd time is a hell of a lot more likely. Baring your own contracts, but if you screw up in that you might end up with even lower taken by the hour.
85:
Well it is *one* way to get on TV . . .
in a hotel room in Assfuck, Nowhere
Wait, this is a down side?
91
Baring was OK. Probably get a bigger tip that way too.
Otherwise the only way I know to make $20K a month for a few months a year is illegal.
I know of a few such legal ways, all dangerous, and all a pain in the ass, not to mention hardly compatible with `family life'
My brother says that there are well-paying jobs begging for workers in mines in the Canadian far North.
89: yup, that sounds like the jobs & guys I knew too.
96: Absolutely. And Fort McMurray, and a few other places. There are good reasons these jobs pay well though.
93: Wait, this is a down side?
Yeah, you do get the hotel room right? So what's the problem?
96:
My brother says that there are well-paying jobs begging for workers in mines in the Canadian far North.
Heh heh, well-paying. What are you gonna do with a well?
Careful you don't get the shaft.
98:
Huh, I still don't get 88.1.
What part don't you get?
getting a new, rugged, taciturn, outdoorsy boyfriend
Never. I love my taciturn, indoorsy boyfriend and even I have my limits.
The teaching overseas thing actually could be a sweet idea, but I really would have to figure out how to balance that with the kid, and the husband's job, and the boyfriend's.
Fuck, whatever. I've gotten myself into the local CC pools, I should be able to pick up a couple classes, no?
There are good reasons these jobs pay well though.
Much like BigLaw work...
102: I'm not sure what sort of legal occupation 88.1 could be referring to.
103: If you like the tech (re)-writing work, there's a real possibility that bidding for contract work to do the trick for you (very flexible), but you have two problems. The first is networking, if you can't get in the door you won't get anywhere. The second is fundamental to the bidding process in any area, lack of experience == lack of predictability and you might underbid your time.
I'm not sure what sort of legal occupation 88.1 could be referring to.
Model for medical or art school classes, twice a year being once a semester?
What's really spectacular is camp-based work. 3-4 months out in the bush with nothing much to do but work and and pretty decent pay. When a bunch of 18-25 year olds get back in town with cabin fever and $40,000 in pocket, look out.
Ah, memories, $40k wasn't but to wish for, but still. Even on jackeroo 1st year rates, a couple of months and back in town and MADNESSS.
Snoop is talking out of his arse, too. Most drug dealers are bloody idiots. They all think they are street-smart as shit, of course, but they remain fucking idiots. You only to have to spend any amount of time around a few to notice.
Those are the entry-level dealers. The big guys are sophisticated, glamorous, and self-taught geniuses.
B, you live in Seattle, right? I have some ideas, if you want to email me at walt(dot)someguy(at)gmail(dot)com.
Snoop Dogg is a little bit my role model. I wonder if he knows how to weld?
112: He does all his welding work with his massive johnson. A little trick he learned while he was selling crack.
That really is the most awesomely bad Snoop Dogg quote ever.
107:
Model for medical or art school classes, twice a year being once a semester?
Very close.
Imagine the most uncomfortable but technically non-invasive exam men must endure.
Put another way - "turn your head and cough."
As an aside, I was well into my 40's when I realized the "turn your head" part was not really part of the exam, it was just so you didn't cough on the poor Doc squeezing your giblets. Believe me, you don't want to startle the Doc at that time.