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54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

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Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#71

Post by 908B64B197 »

yardie wrote: post #47
csdvrx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving asides the offense/racist grandparent comments, the worship of money is what has made America prosperous, and what still allows us to get the best and the brightest. Ask "them enlightened" Europeans (or Australians or...) how much they make, and rejoice we get to live a prosperous life here in America! And no, before someone says "but what about universal healthcare?", health insurance doesn't count, because…

The European countries who never fulfill their annual US visa allotments; to the chagrin of Chinese and Indian visa seekers who are facing almost a decade long wait. The disparities in salaries are pretty much isolated to tech. Most other occupations are pretty much similar all things considered.

> to the chagrin of Chinese and Indian visa seekers who are facing almost a decade long wait.

A lot of that is self-imposed; fraudulent H1B applications (it's for specialty occupations, some low level QA position does not qualify) from shady bodyshops are backloging the system. Thankfully, the previous administration started issuing more RFEs and we might see the backlog getting better.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#72

Post by williamtrask »

nusaru wrote: post #55
throwntoday wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. Discourse should be no holds barred. If your points can't stand unfiltered scrutiny maybe they're not as solid as you think. I consider HN somewhere between 4chan and reddit. People here are actually smart (unlike reddit, which appears to attract angsty teenagers more than anything) and willing to engage in discussions outside of the status quo. It's…

> I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. I could be wrong but I think the purpose of being civil is so that people will actually want to talk to you.

Also logic is easier for humans to parse with everyone (the writer and the reader) helping to filter out distracting emotional cruft.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#73

Post by elil17 »

This seems false. The linked article that Wikipedia cites Forbes attributes that claim to the Department of Education, but doesn’t point to a specific report. The linked article does talk about a specific reading comprehension test called the PIACC, but that’s not the same as reading levels.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#74

Post by Edman274 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #64
robbrown451 wrote: post #61

There's a strange circularity to the title. It's almost like saying "90% of Americans have below median literacy skills." In that one it is obviously false, since we define median as being at 50-percentile. But this is not a lot different. To me "6th grade reading level" should mean "the reading skills of a 50-percentile 6th grader." But then the statement can't be true, unless you accept that the typical 6th grader…

> So.... how do you define "6th-grade reading level"? The standard required to pass the 6th grade, I guess? Possibly people are reading at that level but then forget how to do it later in life? That's definitely the case with for example knowledge of maths.

Or, they never attained a 6th grade reading level and our teachers and standardized tests allowed them to still graduate high school, because failing to get a high school diploma virtually guarantees someone will be in poverty for the rest of their life?

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#75

Post by slater »

tamaharbor wrote: post #4
nomorecommas wrote: post #3

And they vote. Go figure. Maybe schools should teach literacy skills and other useful subjects. Just a thought.

Quoted post unavailable.

Untied, ey? ;)

I'd say it's a lack of funding for general education, and the decades-long prevalence of "lol nerds suck" attitudes to those who even THINK of getting said education.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#76

Post by thaumasiotes »

throwntoday wrote: post #46
ozzythecat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that HN posters are vehemently against social media, particularly FB. The reasons I’ve read are all about the general negativity, pessimism, false information, etc. While HN submissions are generally held to a higher standard, the general comments/discussions are equally toxic. Apparently FB is such a cancer and everyone else is such a problem - but we’re actually part of the problem.

I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. Discourse should be no holds barred. If your points can't stand unfiltered scrutiny maybe they're not as solid as you think. I consider HN somewhere between 4chan and reddit. People here are actually smart (unlike reddit, which appears to attract angsty teenagers more than anything) and willing to engage in discussions outside of the status quo. It's…

Richard Hanania had some interesting comments about this ( https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/reflections-on-2021 )

> When I’m on Twitter, how rude should I be?

> I tend to admire thinkers who are civil and think less of those who are rude. Usually, I try to emulate those I admire and not those I don’t, but I actually think there’s an intellectual case to be made for rudeness and snark as long as it’s used in defense of worthy ideas instead of tribalism or self-aggrandizement (maybe a topic for a future Substack). One thing that used to bother me about academia was how someone would have a critique of a research project that completely discredited it, but nobody would actually follow the argument to its logical conclusion and say the research was therefore worthless and the author should go do something else. We as a society would be better off valuing being correct more and being civil less. Maybe you would ideally want both, but I suspect that there’s actually a tradeoff, as people who tend to be right about a lot are often jerks, and academics who are wrong about everything always seem to be complimenting each other for being stunning and brave (see #HighlightingWomen and #WomenAlsoKnowStuff). Economics is less crazy than other disciplines, and now there are female academics complaining that the field is too mean, which to me seems necessary to trim bad ideas. So I’m sort of a fan of incivility and rudeness, but also thinking carefully about how to make snark constructive (I’m aware this could all be motivated reasoning and I just enjoy insulting people). Another consideration is that people usually say that movements do better when they’re polite, so I may be harming the prospects of the views I advocate for. This always struck me as a belief rooted in social desirability bias, a kind of “nice guys finish first” philosophy. The woke are the most aggressive and least civil and tolerant political faction in the country, and they seem to have had the biggest political impact in the last few years. Trump supporters are the rudest people on the right, and they’re wining on their side. So why do we think civility is good for a movement? Like using Twitter though, this is one of those things where it’s easy to see the benefits while the costs are hidden.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#77

Post by vmception »

csdvrx wrote: post #29
encryptluks2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Leaving asides the offense/racist grandparent comments, the worship of money is what has made America prosperous, and what still allows us to get the best and the brightest. Ask "them enlightened" Europeans (or Australians or...) how much they make, and rejoice we get to live a prosperous life here in America! And no, before someone says "but what about universal healthcare?", health insurance doesn't count, because…

Rich Europeans are also illiquid, first born manchilds that inherited a finance role at the family office and have no idea what to do.

I find it really interesting how the US optimized specifically for liquidity. Like, foreigners came to the US to use it for that and eventually won. Crazy to think how much is illiquid around the world, and how much more can become liquid.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#78

Post by marcus0x62 »

jeffbee wrote: post #27
woodruffw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the key observation: these surveys aim to determine the general English literacy of the American workforce. You don't have to be a US citizen or a voter, or even an English speaker to work in this country. A more accurate metric would be "prose literacy in the individual's at-home spoken language," which would probably yield a significantly less drastic picture. Perhaps not the best one, but nowhere near as e…

Still, it is interesting to look at questions that most people failed. Apparently in the 2003 round of evaluations only 16% of participants could answer the question "What is the purpose of the Se Habla Espanol expo?" after reading this short magazine article. https://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/sample_imgtxtequiv.asp?Imageid=164

I would question how many people "failed" to answer this question because of poor literacy versus a lack of domain knowledge in the subject matter. The article is full of sales and marketing jargon that most people -- in my experience -- just don't have experience with.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#79

Post by mrep »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #52
mrep wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'm not jeff bezos rich but I am in the 0.1% of income for my age group according to [0] and I don't want that. Why would I want that? Even for the uber rich I feel like they wouldn't want that. Smarter population keeps us competitive which is good for the stock market which is where the uber rich have their money and it's not like smarter population = more cap gains tax from what can tell [1]. [0]: https://w…

Do you think smart people are going to work for tips because their employers don't pay enough while their employers complain about them going on unemployment while taking huge payouts from pandemic relief and having millions forgiven while everyone else loses their assistance? Or smart people will work for ISPs and large corporations that have turned employment into a one-sided legal agreement that many people feel l…

> Do you think smart people are going to work for tips because their employers don't pay enough

I'm not a waiter and hate tipping but don't most waiters like tips because they earn more with them. It looks like the US has the highest paid waiters in the world being 25% more than malta and 50% higher than the UK which are the second and third highest paying countries for waiters [0].

> Or smart people will work for ISPs and large corporations that have turned employment into a one-sided legal agreement that many people feel like they have no other choice to sign, all the while dealing with a company that doesn't even care about it's customers?

What do you mean? What is legally allowed to be contracted is dictated by laws, not the populaces education.

> Rich people want to get richer and need stupid people to do the low wage jobs and to fight amongst themselves. That's the way it has been for ages.

That is a great way to destroy your economies stock market and your wealth by turning your country from a high income economy into a middle income one [1].

[0]: https://knowyourworth.site/job-titles/waiter

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap

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