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Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Sir, this is a Wendy's culture war forum. You are not talking to people who are rejecting you from quant jobs, though if I were the hiring manager for one, I would reject you just on the basis of these posts. Not being so thin-skinned that you would fly off the handle over a tortured misinterpretation of a word is also a job requirement.

You're clearly not very good at hiring then. Maybe realistic from what I'm hearing although I think a lot of it here is jealousy and not genuine advice. I'll probably still get a good quant job because their hiring managers can't be that racist against white people and biased towards overrated brand name schools.

I really doubt anyone here is jealous of some state-school college graduate with a high GPA

you haven't actually done anything impressive yet

What really matters is genetics. The impressiveness of any action is socially constructed except for violence (historically, basically impossible to succeed at in modernity), reproduction, and to some extent wealth acquisition (the money is real, the impressiveness of the actions taken to get it is socially constructed. But the money matters and it makes people jealous). Genetics controls potential to succeed at these.

Your behavior is an example. Any achievement I have that you don't is trivial, unimportant, a waste of time, or not impressive. Any achievement you or your group has, is admired. If I had a humans factory I could easily manufacture a larger group that thinks everything you admire is not impressive, and admires things which you find unadmirable. At the end of the day though, what really matters is who polices whom, who has more money than whom, and who outbreeds whom.

you could list a bunch of different accomplishments I don't have which I would find impressive; I really doubt anyone here cares even 1/10th enough about you to create or modify a list of impressive accomplishment to exclude or include them based on what you've claimed you've accomplished or they have or have not

you just haven't mentioned anything which is impressive, especially in the context of the top 5%, 3%, and 1% talk

I don't find your deconstruction dialogue interesting; what matters is necessarily a social construction, this doesn't discount them by their nature, and what matters is in our world in reality instead of the abstractions you constantly run into when anyone attempts to get you to interact with it

I went to university and got a degree, but I also buy Caplan's case against education. Discourse spaces exist to discuss the latter. I think you're having trouble separating constructive criticism from willingness to navigate existing possibilities in the short run.

no one is having trouble separating any of this; all comments appear to have correctly recognized your escape to abstract "constructive criticisms" and other defenses when you received answers you didn't like or didn't coddle your feelings enough about your chances of getting into quant finance or possible pathways

It doesn't take much intelligence to merely insult people who are jealous of.

I wish you the best of luck man; tbh, it was my fault for interacting with you at all