News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions... by watwut on Friday March 20, 2020 @05:11PM (#22641702)
I think that "smooth-talker" is typically not sonmeone who is articulate and socially well-adjusted who communicate their values and opinions in an intelligent way.

The typical use of the word refers to manipulative people who will smoothly pretend values and opinions they don't have in order to mislead people and take advantage of them. Alternatively it is people who talk about things they know nothing about convincingly enough for those who also know nothing about the topic.

The two are much different things. People who communicate their values and opinions have massive comparative disadvantage against them.

Re:MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions... by knzhou on Friday March 20, 2020 @05:19PM (#22641773)
> people who talk about things they know nothing about convincingly enough for those who also know nothing about the topic.

Exactly. This is what a room full of smooth talkers looks like: two top journalists agreeing on national TV that 500 million divided by 327 million is greater than 1 million.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/06/msnbcs_br...

Re:MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions... by IAmEveryone on Friday March 20, 2020 @10:20PM (#22643680)
You’re judging people by some stupid mistake that could have any of a million reasons. Maybe their monitors are small and they couldn’t read it, or they were thinking about whatever was coming up.

Your criticism seems motivated by some prior grudges against these people. For leadership Postillions, I’d prefer someone bad at math over anyone this petty.