Affirmative Action: The Financial Reason Why it's Better NOT to Get into Harvard, States are Becoming Increasingly Far Left/Right, Facebook's Twitter Competitor is Horrible, (The Five for 07/07/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
Before we dive in…a quick product reccomendation. I’m a big fan of Tacticon’s rifle optics, and I think everyone should have a good first aid kit or three (not just band aids, but tools to stop major bleeding). They’re having a 50% off sale right now.
As a reminder there are never affiliate links in The Five. I just share products I find to be above average (and reasonably priced) from time to time.
Also, Mesus, the rapper I manage, dropped a new single today.
Now’ let’s get into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
We keep moving towards a future of two Americas.
One party controls the entire legislature in all but two states. In 28 states, the party in control has a supermajority in at least one legislative chamber — which means the majority party has so many lawmakers that they can override a governor's veto. Not that that would be necessary in most cases, as only 10 states have governors of different parties than the one that controls the legislature.
The split has sent states careening to the political left or right, adopting diametrically opposed laws on some of the hottest issues of the day. In Idaho, abortion is illegal once a heartbeat can be detected in a fetus — as early as five or six weeks — and a new law passed this year makes it a crime to help a minor travel out of state to obtain one. In Colorado, state law prevents any restrictions on abortion. In Idaho, a new law prevents minors from accessing gender-affirming care, while Colorado allows youths to come from other states to access the procedures.
Federalism — allowing each state to chart its own course within boundaries set by Congress and the Constitution — is at the core of the U.S. system. It lets the states, in the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, be “laboratories of democracy."
Now, some wonder whether that's driving Americans apart.
Witwer watched Colorado steadily swing to the left as affluent, college-educated people fled the coasts for his home state starting in the late 1990s. For two decades, it was one of the nation's fastest-growing states, and during the Trump era it swung sharply to the left. Democrats control all statewide offices and have their largest majorities in history in the legislature, including a supermajority in the lower house.
In contrast, Idaho has become one of the nation's fastest-growing states during the past decade without losing its reputation as a conservative haven. It has moved even more sharply to the right during that time and become a beacon to those, like the Kohls, fleeing blue states where they no longer feel welcome.
I suppose it’s tough for me to judge, as I moved out of Illinois in part due to the state’s policies and taxes, to a place more in line with my values…and wallet (specifically, in Missouri the roads are FREE. You can drive on them as much as you want, and parking isn’t $40 for a business lunch, and my friends in suburban Chicago pay 4x my property taxes for the same square footage).
But it’s tough for me to imagine a scenario where “The Big Sort” isn’t driving us towards a future where ideological violence is a more realistic possibility.
One thing that temper’s people’s hatred of “the other” (whoever “The Other” is…Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Jews, Asians, take your pick) is exposure to groups that aren’t exactly like them.
And we’re losing that with the great intra-migration.
My family and I endured 90 degree temps inside our home (when we had to be home) over the last week after a storm knocked out power throughout the Midwest. Through a peculiar set to circumstances, most of the neighborhood came back online in just a few hours, but our block was blacked out for nearly a week.
During this time, neighbors across the street ran long extension cords to the houses without electricity, to keep fridges and freezers running.
When you’re stewing in nearly triple digit heat, and are praying for a way to keep your groceries from spoiling…you don’t care if the extension cord is coming from a household that votes red or blue. Just that your neighbor cares about you.
We’re losing that ethic in America…and I don’t know what to do about it, except to mourn it’s passing.
[two]
Last week, the Supreme Court overturned Affirmative Action, a law that allowed race to be used as a catagory in college admissions. This was in large part due to Harvard’s policies making it more difficult for Asian males to be admitted…and the school’s infamous actions around simply rating Asians and Jews as having “poor leadership skills” in order to admit less of them.
21-year-old Calvin Yang released an essay on why he joined the lawsuit against Harvard via the The New York Post:
I had a 3.9 GPA, a 1550 SAT score, two varsity sports, my own political policy startup and a spot on Canada’s 30 Under 30 list when I applied to Harvard.
It was my dream school. And, when I was rejected, I couldn’t help but wonder whether my skin color was the reason why.
That’s why I joined Students for Fair Admissions in their case against Harvard University, seeking to overturn race-conscious admissions practices that I believe disadvantage Asian college applicants like me.
Finally, two years later, we just emerged victorious in the Supreme Court.
While I was thrilled when I got the news that the court had ruled that the Harvard and University of North Carolina’s affirmative action programs were in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights law, I’m not all that surprised.
The court has sided with us and affirmed that Asian Americans are routinely being penalized because their last name is Kim or Lee.
I believe affirmative action is a well-intentioned idea that is poorly executed in reality. I appreciate the desire to incubate a diverse generation of America’s future leaders, but, at the same time, the current system hurts Asian applicants. And that is just a fact.
When I was applying to college in 2020, I did everything I could to appear “less Asian” on my applications. I even glossed over the fact that I was a very talented piano player because I was afraid it might strike an admissions officer as too stereotypical.
There are VERY strong emotions around this issue…and my question is…why?!
In the case of Calvin Yang, he’s obviously brilliant, talented, sharply dressed (in his press photos) and strikingly attractive…I’m guessing he’s going to be fine, even without the Crimson H on an alumni baseball cap. Despite Mr. Yang’s impressive accomplishments, most every kid who applies to Harvard has similar credentials.
Similarly, I worked all through jr. high and high school to play college basketball, and didn’t even finish a season (due to injury)…none of us are guaranteed that our high school dreams for higher ed will play out exactly as we had planned for.
On the other side of the issue, groups who have traditionally benefitted from Affirmative Action are now suing to end legacy admissions (the practice of giving preferential treatment to the children of alumni—essentially to spur on alumni donations).
And most of the country resoundingly responded…cool.
For all the emotion around this topic, there are only around 4,100 freshman accepted to Ivy League schools each year. In the case of Harvard, the school’s $53 billion endowment is more than the GDP of Nepal, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Pakistan and more than a dozen other nation’s on earth and yet the school still charges outlandish tuition.
Oh, and Ivy League grads don’t make (much) more after graduation, so if you’re one of the unlucky ones to get into an elite East Coast school (via Affirmative Action or otherwise) without rich parents, good luck paying back your loans on more than $200,000 of undergrad tuition.
Worrying about who gets into the Ivy League is kinda like expending significant mental energy and worry on the salaries of your favorite NBA players, with a concern on who got shorted for their talent. Uhhh, they’re all rich, and you’re (probably) not, so there are probably better areas of life to focus on.
Instead of chattering on about who gets into stuffy, New England colleges…perhaps a better issue would be to check to see if those schools are admitting poor students and saddling them with debt that can never be repaid.
[three]
Well, this is weird. Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio are and his wife are “splitting up” but “staying together” or something.
NBC New York reports:
Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, are separating but not divorcing after 29 years of a marriage that helped lift de Blasio into the mayor’s job.
McCray, 68, confirmed the separation in a text to The Associated Press after The New York Times published a story in which she and De Blasio, 62, said they will continue to share the same Brooklyn townhouse while dating other people.
A short time later former First Lady Chirlane McCray spoke with NBC 4 New York in Brooklyn.
“Big change for us but Bill and I are still very much in love," she said.
Outside the Park Slope home she shares with the former Mayor, McCray confirmed she and Bill de Blasio are separating — but still going to live here — and date other people.
She tells News 4 New York that they came to this decision together and thinks "it’s the right decision for us to start this new chapter in our life."
On one hand, people are going to live how they’re going to live, regardless of my opinion.
On the other, this is more evidence that the early 2020’s are just a rehash of the 1960’s, where people questioned whether they REALLY had to work a la Universal Basic Income* (see: hippie communes, which failed), or could form marital/houshold like bonds with groups of 3-5 people (see: hippie communes again).
Now we’re back to that. I suppose the (still, technically) Mr. and Mrs. de Blasio are welcome to try out…whatever it is they’re doing, although history is not on their side.
There’s a case where open marriages/multiple partners in a marriage DOES work historically.
And that case study is in the form of historic conquerors. If you’re Solomon in the Old Testament or Ghengis Khan, and you marry for political alliances, or just because you sacked a city in Poland and one woman’s beauty caught your eye…then yeah, those relationships hold together.
But only because of a power imbalance where the woman will be executed if she objects.
The de Blasios are engaging in what Rob Henderson calls luxury beliefs…attempting to cement their elite status by embracing fringe ideas as a lifestyle. Thousands of years of recorded history tells us it probably won’t go great.
*Note: I think the conversation around UBI is more complex and nuanced than I have time to get into here.
[four]
Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) launched their Twitter competitor, Threads, this week, to a LOT of downloads.
The New York Times reports:
Two hours after pressing the launch button on Wednesday on Threads, Instagram’s new app for real-time, public conversations, Mark Zuckerberg posted that more than two million people had downloaded his latest creation.
That was just the beginning.
Another two hours later, five million people had downloaded Threads. By the time Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, went to bed on Wednesday night, the number of downloads had soared to 10 million. When he woke on Thursday morning, the app had been downloaded more than 30 million times, he said.
In less than a day, Threads — which is aimed as a rival to Twitter — appears to have taken the crown as the most rapidly downloaded app ever. It easily outstripped ChatGPT, the chatbot, which was downloaded one million times within its first five days, according to OpenAI, ChatGPT’s maker. And Threads is on a pace to exceed 100 million users within two months, a feat achieved only by ChatGPT, according to the analytics firm Similarweb.
As far as how many of those users actually LIKE the app, well I’m just going to throw to Vice on this one:
After trying Threads for about 20 minutes…I hate it. To be fair, I also hate Instagram, and the apps have a very similar feel.
I’m just not finding anything interesting on Threads, despite the fact that the NY Times touts Oprah, Shakira and Bill Gates as early adopters—yeah, I don’t care about any of those people.
My friends seem to be having similar experiences.
Maybe Zuck can fix this, but the initial experience leaves a lot to be desired.
[five]
I don’t run towards romantic comedies as a genre the way I sprint to the local multiplex to see the latest action flick…but given the right story, I have some interest.
And Happiness for Beginners has the right story (and leads). Set on the Appalachian Trail, this novel-turned-movie stars Ellie Kemper (The Office, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Luke Grimes (of Yellowstone fame) showing his range in a VERY different role than Kacey Dutton.
Catch it on Netflix 07/27
I fell asleep watching the first DUNE (nothing against the film, had a newborn at the time). Assuming you…stayed awake, you probably have a better idea of what’s happening in the trailer for Pt. 2 of the sci-fi epic.
In theaters 11/03.
NEW MUSIC:
Kat Hasty is one of the sharpest (and wittiest) songwriters to come out of the Texas Red Dirt/independent country scene in the last few years, but still hasnt’ found a mass audience (despite a co-sign from friend Zach Bryan).
Her latest three-song EP mixes late-20’s yearning for purpose and place and wrestling with why God let’s good people die…and big questions around the mortality of her parents, and her own parenting decisions…with more lighthearted fare about winning the lottery stealing a golf cart.
Until the next one,
-sth