
Wanted: Factory Workers, Degree Required - robertgk
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/education/edlife/factory-workers-college-degree-apprenticeships.html
======
guitarbill
This doesn't sound like a higher education problem - it sounds like an
education problem. If adults can't pass a "screening test geared toward a
ninth-grade education", we're either teaching the wrong things (useless
subjects with no practical applications) or we're teaching it the wrong way.
Higher education is too late to solve this.

Requiring degrees, I agree that's a problem. People should do degrees for
academic purposes. And while there's undeniably an association between
"smart"/"clever" and "degree", the real issue is the feature creep. Put
simply, because of lack of other standards, either from education or industry,
a degree is now the easiest way to determine if someone is, well,
reliable/hard-working without taking a gamble. While I'm sure it isn't
perfect, licensing like lawyers (the bar in the US) or electricians (at least
in the UK) have is a potential work-around for this.

As an aside, I strongly believe a gap year between school and
college/university is underrated. Everybody I've met who worked for a year or
more beforehand had a different approach to college, and got more out of it.
It also gives you the chance of discovering non-academic pursuits you enjoy,
and maybe deciding college isn't such a big deal along the way. Gap years are
a huge missed opportunity for both individuals and industry.

~~~
jasode
_> This doesn't sound like a higher education problem - it sounds like an
education problem._

The story isn't really about "higher education" in the traditional meaning.
It's about taking the blue-collar _apprenticeship & training_ model and
calling __that__ a _" college degree"_. Since blue collar schooling
(apprenticeships) and blue collar careers (e.g. factory workers) have a social
stigma, some folks in the article are saying "degree required" should be
expanded to mean "apprenticeship required". The last sentence of the article
highlights this re-labeling:

 _> “And whatever you do with training, you need to call it college. You want
to make people feel good about the path they choose.”_

Other sentences in that article on that same theme:

 _> But the college-for-all movement, [...], is often conflated with earning a
bachelor’s degree._

 _> “Higher ed,” he said, “needs to respect the dignity of labor.”_

E.g. the prospective factory worker attends training at a community college
for 2 years and gets a credential that's _not_ a traditional bachelor's degree
-- maybe a Completion Certificate and call _that_ the _" college degree
required"_. That's the idiosyncratic meaning of _" Degree Required"_ specific
to the NYT article's title.

~~~
phkahler
>> The story isn't really about "higher education" in the traditional meaning.
It's about taking the blue-collar apprenticeship & training model and calling
_that_ a "college degree".

When I was in high school, we had vocational classes. I took electronics,
others took small engine repair, welding, or drafting. Hands on classes that
in some cases require applied math. I think these are mostly gone in the US
today with everyone demanding higher achievement is pure STEM classes. I'm not
sure what the "T" for technology is in high school, but I fear people may
thing it means the ability to use Word and PowerPoint.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
The loss of those classes bothers me. My 10th grader just finished a class in
Sheet Metal Fabrication and loved it. He's now taking Welding and plans to do
Electronics next year. He signed up for sewing, but it was cancelled due to
lack of interest. I can't remember the last time he was that interested in
anything at school

What's his motivation? He wanted to make costumes for ComicCon and
accidentally found something he really enjoys doing.

These classes are increasingly rare. Our school district is primarily rural
kids, and skills like the above are obviously useful on farms. But the reality
is that pushing everyone to college ignores that there are many very smart
kids out there who have no interest in college-level academics, or will simply
not thrive in that environment. However, they may be fantastic machinists, CAD
technicians, electricians, etc.

~~~
Arizhel
College-bound kids should be taking those classes too. I saw the same thing
when I was in high school: they treated things like auto shop as things that
college-bound kids shouldn't be doing. So you wind up with college kids who
have absolutely no hands-on ability and no understanding of the machines that
enable their lives, and then these kids go into engineering school and have no
idea how to actually build things that really work.

A machinist should not know more about metals properties and how to make
things out of metal than a mechanical engineer. The machinist should know more
about the particulars of operating a particular machine tool, since he uses it
every day, but the mechanical engineer should know more about how to actually
make physical things that work, and not just theory. So a class in machining,
IMO, is absolutely essential for a ME major. Same thing for EEs and
electricians; if a EE can't use hands-on skills to troubleshoot his design,
he's a failure of a EE.

~~~
gaius
I have a degree in Mech Eng from an "elite" college in the UK, and welding,
machining etc were required courses. How can you design something without
understanding how it will be fabricated or maintained?

------
coconut_crab
> Ditto at John Deere dealerships, which repair million-dollar farming
> machinery filled with several dozen computers. Fixing tractors and grain
> harvesters now requires advanced math and comprehension skills and the
> ability to solve problems on the fly. “The toolbox is now a computer,”

I don't know about America but here repairing expensive machinery is the job
of engineers, not factory worker. The latter's work involve pushing button,
soldering, assembling etc.. but not something that require critical thinking
or problem solving. Automation is still either 1. more expensive than manual
worker (in case of FMS _) or 2. only applicable for large scale /high value
added manufacturing.

_ FMS: Flexible Manufacturing System.

~~~
randomdata
As an owner of one of those high-priced John Deere grain harvesters, who has
spent plenty of time repairing it, I'm left wondering what advanced math is
used? Certainly some of the control systems will contain software that uses
advanced math, but I cannot imagine the tech coming out and fixing a bug in
that software like that out in the field. In that case, in my experience, it's
usually more of a "The computer's broken. Let's replace it completely."

~~~
coconut_crab
For some of the CNC systems I have had experience with, repairing means
figuring out which parts are broken and need to be replaced, sometimes it's
just trial and error.

~~~
dogma1138
A lot of things can be broken but there are a lot of software and hardware
patching that tech do.

During my military service we had a plotter that was used to print aerial and
spatial photography it went haywire one day and the HP tech said the alignment
heads were screwed.

While he did order a new part he also downloaded the firmware from the device,
opened it in a hex editor and manually patched some values to give us some
print capability back.

So instead of the print heads not wanting to go beyond half the width of the
role it was limited to about 80-85% of the width with more or less even edges.

So even when you need to fix what is effectively macro-machinery there are a
lot of things that you need to do and being able to understand EE and
programming concepts is a must. The tech wasn't an engineer (BSc./MSc), but
most likely had the equivalent of a 2 year engineering degree / programme.

I don't think there are a lot of low and even medium skilled jobs today
especially not in anything that relates to manufacturing, repairs and similar
fields that one can do without quite a bit of knowledge.

That said even in in the "educated" community information and knowledge has
degraded, people don't know how to fix basic things, don't know how to solve
problems other than "just google it", I can count on one hand the amount of
people I know that can install a dimmer properly without connecting hot to
ground.

------
tedmiston
> But to succeed in programs like those at Walla Walla, students need to take
> advanced math and writing in high school, academics typically encouraged
> only for those going on to four-year colleges.

I don't really know much about these positions but I'm having a hard time
buying that advanced math is required here.

Maybe my high school was an outlier but "advanced math" consisted of one
course: calculus. Even as a developer, it's not something I've ever _needed_
professionally. English was the same whether you were on the college track or
apprentice track and more students, say 3 to 1 went into an apprenticeship, or
industrial tech skills type role vs went to a university.

I get that the roles are changing from 10–15 years ago, but making the
requirements sound inflated is misleading or confusing at best and could
discourage good applicants or cause them to undertake an unnecessary amount of
debt at worst.

~~~
whorleater
Considering the fact that the adults mentioned in the article can't pass a 9th
grade test, I think advanced math refers to "Algebra 2", or "Geometry" here,
rather than calc/precalc.

~~~
gowld
They are referring to Algebra I.

------
nashashmi
In 2007 in college, my class group and I did a presentation promoting
outsourcing (an assigned task). But before we did that, we took a deep look at
the reasons for outsourcing. The kinds of info we came across blew our minds
and the minds of our audience.

The number one reason for outsourcing: it was too difficult to find high-level
workers (college degree, managers, technical IT stuff) to work in factories,
simply because they did not want to work in a factory "when they grew up".

In a rank of nations where finding high-level factory workers was difficult,
Germany was #1 and the United States was #8. The countries on the bottom of
the list were China and India, respectively.

If you took a look at the top 10 jobs most difficult to fill in the U.S.,
Sales Associate was number 1 and high-level factory-based professions were 8
of the top 10.

All info was gathered from a blog post on taleo.com (bought out by another
company) and that information can no longer be found.

The second reason for outsourcing: no young person in America wants to spend
their time making stupid stuff like pencils and chalks and little american
flags . Foreigners would be more than happy to do it though.

The reasons for outsourcing is a lot more complicated than money. And there
are nations where wage is cheaper than China and India, but were never able to
garner so much attention of manufacturers.

~~~
dukeluke
The problem for young people isn't image, but percieved limited future growth
potential. Wages for factory workers have been dropping since the 70s.

~~~
nashashmi
Wages of professions have shifted to other directions. While wages of low-
level workers may be low and getting lower, the supply is still high.
Conversely, wages of higher level workers are relatively higher but the work
is a lot more intense, has more hours, and poor working environment.

------
rileymat2
I don't have much compassion for companies that are having trouble finding
skilled people, but do not have a training program. The government should
supply a solid liberal arts education.

However, "John Deere, for example, has designed a curriculum and donated farm
equipment to several community colleges to train technicians for its dealer
network. "

Sounds like John Deere is trying to get off cheaper. This is different than
the complaint that Siemens had with basic education.

~~~
ccrush
So true. Why are high school graduates unable to repair John Deere tractors?
Well, maybe because they need some training. Why should they pay for a
university degree? Which degree? Mechanical engineering? No. Computer Science?
Also no. There is no degree in John Deere tractors. Donating your equipment to
schools won't help. Hire people, train them, and put them to work.

------
asn0
> _nearly nine in 10 jobs that disappeared since 2000 were lost to automation
> in the decades-long march to an information-driven economy, not to workers
> in other countries._

> _Even if those jobs returned, a high school diploma is simply no longer good
> enough to fill them._

> _fewer than 15 percent of the applicants [in Charlotte, N.C] were able to
> pass a reading, writing and math screening test geared toward a ninth-grade
> education._

There are going to be some disappointed people who thought all they had to do
was vote for a president who would "bring back the jobs". On the plus side,
looks like post-secondary education is going to be a valuable commodity as
Trump tightens the labor market.

~~~
0xfeba
And a Ed. Secretary who is more concerned with vouchers for religious schools
than helping public ed...

~~~
shard972
Maybe public education is causing some of these issues, I don't know too many
private school kids who get out of high school and can't read.

Such things seem to be readily accepted in public high schools. I remember in
my first year of high school I ended up getting selected for a program where I
was to read and write the answers for another kid's final exam since he
apparently didn't have the skills and it's not a requirement to finish high
school.

I wasn't monitored, so in theory I could have just gave him the answers.
Looking back on this now, I'm kind of horrified.

~~~
ryandrake
The voucher debate is 100% about using public money to send kids to religious
schools. "Education quality" is a smokescreen and largely irrelevant. To test
this, propose granting federal vouchers to anyone who asks, but with the
limitation that they cannot be used at religious schools. I guarantee voucher
supporters would oppose this.

~~~
tropo
I really don't think so. In fact, if such a ban would mean that vouchers
couldn't be used for Islamic and Jewish schools, I suspect the typical voucher
supporter would be relieved.

The normal expectation is traditional private schools. Directly cashing the
vouchers for homeschooling (books, chemistry set, opportunity cost of lost
wages, etc.) is another possibility.

------
kriro
Reminds me of an archeology job offer I once saw in Germany (for a dig).
Masters or equivalent degree in archeology, PhD preferred, 6 Euro/h.

~~~
CalRobert
Wait. It was _paid_!!?!?!!???

There's a steady supply of archaeology grad students who don't just work for
free, but rather _pay_ for the privilege of doing field work. Their only
compensation is in false hope and broken dreams.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Serious question, fellow hackers: what is going to happen to the millions upon
millions who will be automated out of the only jobs they are capable of doing?

Eventually there will be no need for truck drivers, fast food employees, even
housekeeping is becoming more and more automated. How will people find work if
a machine can always do it better? How will the less-intelligent find work if
all the jobs require education they cannot or will not strive for? What
happens to them? What happens to their children? How many people around the
world are we willing to support without their working? 100 million? 1 billion?
_Several billion?_

This is a serious and terrifying question. Automation is eating jobs so
quickly I don't have any idea what the labor landscape will look like in ten
years.

What happens to these people? Who lives? Who eats? Who gets medical attention?

Who pays?

~~~
ef4
We have already been through this transition before. Two hundred years ago,
90% of the population worked in agriculture. Now only a few percent do. The
rest didn't end up unemployed, we invented entirely new industries to meet
demands that didn't even exist before.

But I do agree that the speed of the change this time makes the transition
period far more dangerous. I think the biggest hurdle is that culture itself
will need to change. People have been taught to judge their own worth based on
how hard they work. That makes this transition an identity threat, which is
even worse than an economic one.

If we can get through the transition period without a horrible war, I am
highly confident we will see an economy that's as much beyond ours as ours is
beyond 1817. It's very hard to say it will look like (any more than farmers in
1817 could have predicted how I make my living writing software). But as long
as there are unmet needs and desires, there is work to be done. And as long as
some things are scarce (attention and social prestige seem fundamentally
scarce), there will be economies.

Another way to put it is: if most people can access the output of the robot
factories, then they won't be poor. If most people _can 't_ access the output
of the robot factories, then they constitute a big market and there will be
plenty of jobs serving each other.

~~~
st3v3r
That transition was FAR different than the one we're faced with in the near
future. People moved from agriculture to factory jobs, because there was still
a massive need for labor. We don't have that today. Someone being displaced as
a semi driver isn't going to suddenly hop into an AI startup.

So back to the question: What does that person do? How do they feed and house
their family?

~~~
ef4
People who were displaced out of agriculture didn't necessarily go get factory
jobs either. The industrial revolution was massively disruptive socially, and
a lot of people didn't come through fine. A lot of them drank themselves to
death, much like the opioid crisis today. It was their children who adapted to
a new economy.

> So back to the question: What does that person do? How do they feed and
> house their family?

We need to build the political will to take care of them through guaranteed
basic income or equivalent. And even if we do some of them will still drink
themselves to death anyway, because they see welfare as shameful.

~~~
flukus
And the life expectancy of a factory worker was insane. Cities were in a
constant population decline, only propped up by people in the country having
to find work.

------
jankotek
I do not like the condescending tone.

Many factories require highly qualified personel. Manufacturing turbines
(specially turbine blades) is highly complicated. CPUs are made in
factories...

~~~
steego
I agree and don't care for it either. Over time, the things we manufacture
will be done by less people, using less energy and materials and it will
require rigor to ensure what's manufactured is safe for use.

Over the years, the manufacturing industry will require employees to perform
duties that require an engineering mindset and a craftsman discipline. That
discipline will be applied more on the processes and machines that perform the
manufacturing rather than the products themselves. Repetitive work will become
less repetitive. It will require more ingenuity, mental and computer modeling,
and a keener understanding of the core sciences.

Education needs to become inexpensive and something people do continuously in
their adulthood if we want to remain competitive. We can't treat people like
garbage and throw them away when their skillset doesn't align with what the
markets demand.

Subsidizing overpriced university educations that pour more money into
brochure perks like luxury student housing and competitive football teams is
not the answer. For people who need it the most, education needs to be
accessible and practical.

~~~
gowld
competitive football teams are a profit center. non-competitive football teams
are money losers.

------
tangaroa11
Is it possible that workable solutions are going to be addressed on a state by
state vs federal level?

For example, my home state of California has an extensive community college
system that is very good at administering 2 year technically focussed
associate programs.

In contrast, a state with a lower population (or college) density might favor
apprenticships.

Also, if the stopping point is utilizing custom industrial applications or
specialized industrial skills, why can't companies take the initative to make
teaching versions available on public facing sites, where students can train
and test themselves before applying for jobs? U.S. companies are wealth
aggregators with little tax burden in the U.S.; it seems fitting that they
should take up some slack since they are so much more reliable funding streams
than public institutions. (Although, the article notes John Deere's solution,
which was in a very similar vein)

~~~
maxerickson
There are few areas that lack the population density to support community
colleges.

Wyoming has 7 community colleges for ~600,000 people. They will of course be
in the larger towns, but more than 200,000 people live in the 3 largest
"metro" areas, and the people that cannot commute to one of the colleges will
anyway be facing a high probability of moving to find employment.

------
xiaoma
In my experience, German companies are particularly bad about having a rigid
focus on specific academic credentials, often coupled with an unwillingness to
believe that effective learning can occur outside of schools. I do respect
their traditional apprenticeship track, but even that seems to be slowly
disappearing.

~~~
majewsky
It's getting better. My first employer hired me for a programming role
although my background was in physics, based on my open-source contributions.

~~~
xiaoma
Did you have a full 4 year degree?

~~~
guitarbill
You mean BSc? Bachelor degrees often aren't 4 years outside the US.

------
maxxxxx
I know plenty of smart people who did badly at school but excelled at working
with machines including CNC. Some people just learn differently and don't fit
into the current school system.

------
Traubenfuchs
Nearly 2 potential candidates per position, just from a single job fair,
excluding applicants who didn't go to the job fair. It's not that bad, is it?

~~~
candiodari
> some 10,000 people showed up at a job fair for 800 positions

Nope it's not that bad, it is in fact between 500 and 600% worse than that.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Traubenfuchs' point is that of 10,000 people, about 1,500 were able to pass
the screening test. This means that Siemens can choose from about 2
'qualified' applicants for each of 800 positions, which isn't too bad for
Siemens.

But you're correct that for the applicants, no, 12.5:1 is not very good odds
for getting a job.

~~~
candiodari
It just baffles me that in a city with supposedly lower-than-ever-before and
decent for the country unemployment you'd get a turnout like this.

(source:
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t01.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t01.htm)
Charlotte metropolitan area: 4.5% unemployment, pretty good non-coastal city)

~~~
ryandrake
1\. Unemployment nubmers do not adequately count the number of people
unemployed.

2\. The people who show up are not necessarily unemployed.

~~~
candiodari
Well, sure. But the Fed keeps talking that unemployment is now low enough that
it's driving up wages, and uh ... not in this case at least.

------
chroem-
If you're struggling to find qualified workers, simply offer better pay.

~~~
pc86
I don't think it's that simple. If you have a factory in the middle of Iowa
you can't offer $110k/yr and expect people from SF or NYC to move out there,
despite the huge gains relative to COL. I think a larger point of the article
is that apprentice/blue collar jobs have a social stigma around them,
particularly among people who already have degrees, and that artificially
limits the applicant pool.

How many people here would quit writing software to work in a factory if it
paid more? I'm guessing not many.

~~~
pmorici
Though no one would admit it here I bet a lot more people would jump at that
opportunity than you think. It doesn't exist though so there is no way to show
who is right. Not to mention having a job like that would give you so much
free time and money that you could write gobs of software outside of work if
you cared to.

~~~
losteverything
This.

We used to sit around and say we should have owned a bread truck route. Up at
4 and done by noon.

Then the cell phone was invented and we all lost our jobs.

~~~
pc86
To be fair, changes are that if you work remotely there's nothing stopping you
from working 4-12 every day :)

------
SQL2219
[http://indedge.com/](http://indedge.com/)

The reality of making uninformed decision regarding basic skills: The results
of an Industry Edge study of over 500 applicant tests revealed that the
average score for reading a ruler was 56%.

~~~
taneq
At risk of sounding horribly cynical, this is a company providing industry
skills assessments, proclaiming loudly that industry skills assessments are
very necessary.

~~~
ryandrake
Sad when you have to put a disclaimer on critical thinking. Anytime
$ORGANIZATION publishes a "study" proclaiming that $THING is needed, always
check to see if $ORGANIZATION sells $THING.

------
burger_moon
Hmm I used to work for Siemens as a field service worker and worked on their
turbines and generators. Neither me nor any of my coworkers had degrees. The
only people with a degree were the project managers who were engineers and
even then you'd sometimes get older guy who had been around long enough to
know their shit that they didn't need a degree to get promoted into that
position. I've also worked for a few other power generation companies and it's
pretty much all the same across the board, in fact most of their employees are
contract workers who work for outside companies because it's easier to lay
them off in the summer when it's slow.

------
franciscop
A small grammar question, it says:

"But fewer than 15 percent of the applicants were able to pass a reading,
writing and math screening test [...]"

Shouldn't it be _less than_? Isn't it refering to "less than 15% [...]"
instead of "fewer [...] aplicants"? AFAIK for people/countable things is fewer
than, but wouldn't this refer directly to the percentage?

Note: English is not my native language but that's not an excuse not to
improve.

~~~
bandrami
1\. Less/fewer is a distinction rapidly being lost by native English speakers,
so don't feel bad if it's confusing. (It's also a relatively recent rule;
Shakespeare didn't follow it, for instance.)

2\. If I were copy-editing this, I probably would have substituted in "less"
for "fewer", but mostly because as a copy-editor you feel like you have to
contribute something

3\. The senses are ultimately identical ("fewer applicants than 15% of them"
vs. "less of a percentage of applicants than 15"), so I'd say ultimately
either is OK.

------
abc03
Google started their apprenticeship program recently and has five positions:
[https://services.google.com/fb/forms/appszrh/](https://services.google.com/fb/forms/appszrh/)

Good to know Google is a good citizen and participates in this.

------
perlin
Our company, [https://oden.io](https://oden.io), is currently hiring engineers
in NYC to help tackle this problem. We are an IoT company helping to
facilitate the 4th industrial revolution. Look out for our post in tomorrow's
Who Is Hiring thread!

------
csours
Can anyone comment on government programs whereby the gov't pays for a portion
of a new hire's salary for the first X months to cover training costs?

This at least seems like an _interesting_ way to deal with the problem.

Formal training is great, but you still have to train people on your processes
etc.

~~~
jdietrich
There's a risk of exploitation by employers - hire workers for unskilled jobs,
"train" them for a few months, then make them redundant when the subsidy runs
out.

Here in the UK, there used to be a lower minimum wage for trainees. It was
common practice for employers to classify bartenders or farm labourers as
trainees for protracted periods, even though no real training was being
provided.

------
pinaceae
Remember this great article about a German machinery company opening a factory
in the US and not being able to find candidates that knew what a micron was.
CNC needs to be precise.

They started hiring veterans of the US forces, because those guys at least got
trained on heavy, expensive machinery.

~~~
logfromblammo
If they really need to be that precise, perhaps they should be using only the
standard SI units. They should have asked about micrometers (µm). "Micron (µ)"
has been deprecated since 1935, and was revoked entirely in 1967.

US schools typically do not teach the archaic or old-fashioned terms, as they
won't be on the standardized tests.

It would be similar to a US company going to Germany and looking for people
that knew what a "mil" was. (It's 0.001 inch.)

~~~
walshemj
or a thou :-)

------
z3t4
Either it's too complicated for the average human or it can be automated ...

~~~
mmirate
Logically-following question: why do we have such a population that the
average and below-average members are too stupid to out-think common
automation? Let alone, why do we _continue_ to have such a population?

~~~
z3t4
My old coach used to say that anyone can win a medal at a national event if
they just want it bad enough, and I think he's right. You can become top 3 in
any area if you just want it bad enough. But the problem is, it guarantees a
life in poverty unless you manage to become top 10 in the world, compared to
taking an average job with an average salary.

Say someone invested 3 years to get competent enough to work on that plant,
then he doesn't get a job. Now what ? It's not like his turbine blade
expertise will be useful working as a expedite in a supermarket ...

------
eliben
I'm not sure what it means by "degree"? 9th-grade level math and reading?
[referring to the first couple of paragraphs in the article]. That's hardly
what is usually meant by a "degree".

------
tehwalrus
Vocational education is undervalued in both America and the UK, it seems.

------
godmodus
Most IT jobs in Switzerland are apprentice routes.

And theyre far better than Germans these days.

Had friends with BAs apply for entry level jobs in Switzerland and get
rejected with "too little experience".

~~~
xorfish
Another plus is that you can still go to university after a apprenticeship. So
you can do something practical before you decide what you will study.

~~~
godmodus
I hope the system will adjust itself to do exactly this. Otherwise were facing
a real crises.

------
MK999
The economic value of high school education is not quite zero but it
approaches zero. So much tax money spent for nice pensions with zero results.

------
umberway
Prediction: in the distant future people who want to join an organisation will
be evaluated by how _interested_ they are in the work.

------
jerianasmith
I think post wise degree is better format.

------
battlebot
NY Times is arguably an unreliable source of information. They can't help but
inject opinion or cant into every article. They have cheapened their brand, so
can I trust their reporting?

~~~
grzm
If you don't, then don't read the article. A lot of people still read the NYT
and think critically for themselves. Please refrain from making general
dismissals like this. If you have a specific criticism, please make it.

