This story is better titled "Gen X-er has very Gen X opinion." Which should tell you immediately that it doesn't matter what was said, it matters who said it.
But that brings us to the question: why is CNBC reporting this luke-warm hot take from that person? Nobody needs more ammunition to argue that kids these days are just faffing about. That's been the default stance of the over-forty set for millennia, and millennials have put any doubt to rest.
It's not because Elon Musk pointed anything out. He didn't. It's because he doesn't have a solution for the problems with post-secondary education. (Well, maybe he does, but CNBC sure as shit didn't quote him on that part.) It's very safe to have a mainstream opinion and when the guy the media tells you is a genius repeats your mainstream opinion back to you, then you get to feel smart for having a boring opinion. That warm and fuzzy feeling distracts you noticing the article stops there. You're diverted away from wondering why: if you can see the problem, then why the fuck isn't the article even thinking about the solution?
Yes, I know the article pretends to get at substance. But that's a con. Pointing out the hypocrisy that Musk's own companies want Bachelor's degrees isn't sticking it to him or advancing the conversation; it's confrontationally agreeing with him. If the author thought degrees actually mattered, they'd argue the point that the kind of work Musk is hiring for does demand a degree. Not highlight the seeming contradiction.
And of course the writer thinks degrees are worthless, they have a Master's but spend their days reporting on pedestrian ramblings from Musk.
> Nobody needs more ammunition to argue that kids these days are just faffing about.
Well, I think a lot of them are. I don't think this (just) because I'm a crabby old guy. I think this because so very many of my classmates in college 40+ years ago were just faffing about, and because college enrollment has increased out of proportion to the population. A hell of a lot of my classmates seemed to have come to the school (not a great one, not necessarily a terrible one) to work out their late adolescence in a reasonably safe environment a comfortable distance from home.
But that brings us to the question: why is CNBC reporting this luke-warm hot take from that person? Nobody needs more ammunition to argue that kids these days are just faffing about. That's been the default stance of the over-forty set for millennia, and millennials have put any doubt to rest.
It's not because Elon Musk pointed anything out. He didn't. It's because he doesn't have a solution for the problems with post-secondary education. (Well, maybe he does, but CNBC sure as shit didn't quote him on that part.) It's very safe to have a mainstream opinion and when the guy the media tells you is a genius repeats your mainstream opinion back to you, then you get to feel smart for having a boring opinion. That warm and fuzzy feeling distracts you noticing the article stops there. You're diverted away from wondering why: if you can see the problem, then why the fuck isn't the article even thinking about the solution?
Yes, I know the article pretends to get at substance. But that's a con. Pointing out the hypocrisy that Musk's own companies want Bachelor's degrees isn't sticking it to him or advancing the conversation; it's confrontationally agreeing with him. If the author thought degrees actually mattered, they'd argue the point that the kind of work Musk is hiring for does demand a degree. Not highlight the seeming contradiction.
And of course the writer thinks degrees are worthless, they have a Master's but spend their days reporting on pedestrian ramblings from Musk.