Holy shitballs. This flatline is barely meaningful, and the number of HN members who want to treat this as an opportunity to soapbox some tangential agenda is nuts.
We already know that there's a problem with education - there are many, many signs. US citizens being manipulated by false information, open bigotry, declining livelihoods of the lower economic class, political unrest and populism, educational metrics being substantially lower than other countries for years, etc.
Whether this particular article is meaningful doesn't matter too much imo. It raises the issue. Plenty of discussion here doesn't focus on the supposed trend.
Firstly, let's just give you the benefit of the doubt that soapboxing about cliche, populist, non-tech/non-business topics is a good use of Hacker News. It's not, but I'll pretend for the sake of this conversation.
We have something of a standard here for how statements need to be supported, and "we already know" and "there are many many signs" falls far short of those standards, and is eerily reminiscent of Donald Trump's instead.
"US citizens being manipulated by false information." How is this different from any other time in history? Are we better? Are we worse? Is it even relevant? It's nearly tautological that it has happened, but how much does it happen? Can an educational system do anything about it? Is it worth it?
"open bigotry." Ok. Welcome to the world. If this is a sign of a declining educational system, then virtually no place anywhere in the history of the world has had a good educational system.
"declining livelihoods of the lower economic class." Really? Support this. And give evidence that "a problem with education" (again, supposedly fixable problem) is at least one of the causes.
"political unrest and populism." Do I even need to at this point?
"educational metrics being substantially lower than other countries for years." Oh my god, finally something that is commonly understood enough to warrant no citation. And something that is probably commonly understood to be linked to "a problem with education." But now, what are you adding with it?
So, you've failed to even make a valid argument with four of your points by not bothering to support them, and the fifth is so commonly known and pointless to reiterate that there is no reason to include it here. So, why, in your mind, does this conversation belong here when we could be talking about all the cool, innovative, and interesting topics that HN was designed to support?
