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College is 4 years to party, chill, smoke weed, play video games and do nothing (delete as appropriate) at the government’s immediate expense. If you’re smart and care about learning you can even go somewhere good and have great discussions with professors and TAs here and there.
There has been much made of the apparent ‘social pressure’ over the last 30 years for teenagers to go to college. But most kids want to go to college because, pay, wages, jobs aside, it looks like a hell of a lot more fun aged 17 than becoming a bricklayer or taking up an apprenticeship as a hairdresser or plumber or carpenter or electrician, or getting a job at a warehouse, or a call center. Even if you do those things eventually, at least you have 4 years before you have to do them. And it’s not like anyone else is going to lend you six figures to chill for 4 years.
And if a 17 year old was asking here or in real life, I’d tell them to go to a big 4 year college and have a great time. We might all be dead from some AI engineered plague in 4 years. We might be dead in WW3. We might be dead from microplastic induced colon cancer because we ate too many processed foodstuffs. May as well have fun for a while instead of spending your youth doing mind-numbing or back-breaking (or both) labor. Be good about 401k contributions or your local pension equivalent when you get a job and forget about it. It’s like these FIRE jokers living off rice and beans despite making 85th percentile incomes in their twenties so they can hypothetically retire at 47 instead of 64.
Another problem with today's society is lack of third spaces. And another may be employees working and stressing more than necessary, because of inefficiency and toxicity from employers. If there were more third spaces, blue-collar employees worked for less hours, and there were more blue-collar employees in their 20s, they would be able to party and relax like college students.
Even today, if a high school graduate gets a vocational job that leaves time to hang out with their friends (who may be in college dorms and buildings that allow off-campus guests), their short term experience may be better: they don't need to worry about coursework off hours, and they have more disposable income (unless the college students are taking extra loans).
Although I think it ultimately depends on the person's interests. I know I'm much better at thinking than labor or service. If someone's genuinely passionate about a college field, or despises mindless work, they should get a degree, then maybe enter graduate school. But if someone only wants a social life and stable income, getting a degree they won't use is a waste, there are better ways for them to still enjoy their 20s.
Third spaces and food desert are similar. Third spaces don't exist, and healthy food is lacking because people don't want them.
I get the impression that many in their 30s want third spaces, though like healthy food, they're too lazy to act. They would also be a better alternative for those in their 20s who go to college only for the social experience, and don't use their degree afterwards.
I doubt we can revert to past third spaces, but maybe the evolution of social media will create new in-person experiences. Like how GLP-1 helps people lose weight. Or the asocial people (who used to be pressured into socializing) may die off.
They want third spaces to exist, but they don't want to start them or put the required effort into them to make them flourish. Most people are just free riders that want the benefits. I run a local board game meetup and trying to get people to do anything more than show up (and even then) is very hard.
But surely that's exactly the point of third spaces. They aren't supposed to be activities you have to put effort into - the whole point of third spaces is to enable what, for lack of a better term, I'll call socially-acceptable indoor loitering. When the bar and the bowling alley are third spaces, you don't go to the bar to drink, and you don't go to the bowling alley to hone your skill at the game. If you want your board game meetup to fulfill that role, you need to stop worrying about whether the people who show up actually play board games. Otherwise you're just running a hobbyist group. Hobbies are socially valuable too, but they're a different thing.
Sorta, if your goal is to just show up at the bowling alley or bar and not provide anything, the "socially acceptable loitering" I don't think you can complain when the space shuts down because it ran out of business by having too many free loaders. You don't need to be a try-hard at drinking or bowling but you should pay for a lane, buy a few drinks to nurse, and contribute to the community. In my specific case, it's "nominally" a board game hobbyist group but its more of a social space. We do a lot of non-board game things, social events, dinners, etc. But there are people that contribute to the community/space in the form of hosting/planning events, bringing supplies, food, and there are people that just show up, give no effort other than their presence. A community/space cannot survive with a too large majority of the latter.
I'd struggle to think of any hobbyist group that is not some form of third space. The simple law of reality is that in order for something to exist, someone needs to make it exist. And that requires effort. Legislating a third space into existence does nothing. Someone needs to actually go organize the community garden, the local pub, the dance hall. And if they get hit by a bus, and the third space falls apart? Well then someone else needs to step up and do the work.
That's totally fair. I misinterpreted "trying to get people to do anything more than show up" as suggesting you were mad at people not actually doing the signposted activity, rather than people refusing to do their fair share of the admin/etc.
A fair assumption, my b for not being more clear.
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