The booing that's famously happening this year is in response to graduation speakers who attempt to say something encouraging about what A.I. is going to do to the career they may still hope to pull off.
Hunyo 5, 2026
"That eyebrow pierce.... You’ll have trouble getting the barbell out and eventually someone will have to use tiny pliers to cut it out of your face."
Said Molly Jong-Fast, speaking at the Bennington graduation and, later, quoting herself in a NYT essay titled "It’s No Wonder Grads Are Booing Their Commencement Speakers."
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If a nose ring isn't enough of a signal that you are absolutely crazy add in an eye brow bar or two and watch the men scramble to get away from you.
Conspicuous tats are also a pretty good sign to stay far away.
Job skills are like animal species. The more specialized they are, the more likely they are to go extinct. The successful grads, like successful species, are the ones that can adapt to new habitats.
I was saying Booo-urns
Apparently college students have been trained well - to shut down when presented with something they don't agree with. And journalists have been trained well - to "report" on what they want you to think is the problem although it isn't actually the problem. (And although it's not part of this story, it's all of a piece to point out that Democrats have been trained well - to pretend introspection, tolerance, solution-orientation when they are not actually doing any of those things.)
Is it the same for the titty barbells?
Asking for a friend...lol.
So, did they turn on her, too?
"Eyebrow pierces? What about AI and affordable homes and climate change???"
The main point of the commencement speech that I will never be asked to asked to give is “in a world of large language models be a small language model.” It’s essentially a more or less type speech.
I’m still highly confident the fright that humans will be ‘Jetsoned’ out of work is fostered by failure to learn from historic periods of innovation. As always technology will be disruptive to certain jobs but will create opportunities that didn’t previously exist. Automobile, refrigerator, personal computer, internet…pick a disruptive technology. All the same…
…they teach economics at Bennington but they refer to it as ‘political economics’ kind- inequality, climate change, racism- you know, Paul Krugman NYT economics, not smart people normal economics…
I bet they wear socks with sandals…
Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” and his X feed are the antidotes to the AI panic. Required reading.
With “barbell” brow piercings, doesn’t one end of the bar have tiny threading that screws into one of the bells so it can be removed?
Pliers don't cut. Does she mean diagonal cutters?
---- a world where I often felt like an impostor
Hmm. Yes. Weren't we blog readers treated to a bunch more of Ms. Not-Erica-Jong's dubious musings just recently? Why? And why more? Speaking as one of those readers, I found her prior entry here pointless, and this one too.
#LookAtMe, hater.
@ Wince
I think so, but I expect, like any threads, they're subject to corrosion and can get locked up if you don't use them for a while. The face is probably a harsh environment for very fine threads.
A mad hater (sic) with a handmade tail (sic). #RebelsWithACase
“The booing that's famously happening this year is in response to graduation speakers who attempt to say something encouraging about what A.I. is going to do to the career they may still hope to pull off.”
A.I. is watching this and thinking, “These humans are going to be pushovers.”
1956: "What do you want to be in life, Johnny?"
"An astronaut!"
2026: "What do you want to be in life, Johnny?"
"I need to creatively engineer my human output so that I am never mistaken for being AI bot. 'Want' has nothing to do with it."
Anthropogenic Intelligence (AI) #NoJudgment #NoLabels #Whatever
Did these kids find a tough job market this spring? That would be consistent with the other data suggesting the accoutrements of supply/demand that favored new and recent grads for so long has swung out of their favor…
“Pliers don't cut. Does she mean diagonal cutters?”
Given the level of intelligence on display at this event, they probably will remove them with pliers.
"Did these kids find a tough job market this spring?"
Saw a headline yesterday that the number of job openings is high. Though maybe not in fields these people studied for.
Pliers would work if you just yank hard.
“Pliers don't cut. Does she mean diagonal cutters?”
Isn't that why they booed her?
Pliers may be designed or amended with a cutting insert to severe the wire, so to speak. A social transition in progress with a liberal license.
She said "pliers" because the slang term for diagonal cutters is "dikes".
…no grads at Bennington know how to use hand tools, except maybe the crafty artists…
I didn't read the book, but apparently she wrote a Mommy Dearest book about her mother, Erica Jong. I don't follow Molly that closely, but she does seem like a block off the old chippie.......Apparently she's one of the neo-Luddites. This isn't the first technological advance in history, but it's the first technological advances that affects people who write about technological advances. Remember when Thatcher closed down coal mines that were economically unsound.. That was a crime. But closing down coal mines because coal is environmentally unsound is a pious act that will win you a place in heaven.......If AI cures cancer but causes disruptions in the job market for Bennington grads, can it really be worth it.
I've been using tools extensivly since the mid 50s. I train on tools. Jong was correct in her use of the word "pliers"
There are 30-40 different kinds of pliers including "diagonal pliers" or "diagonals" Also sometimes called "side cutting pliers" as some here call them. Pliers is a catchall term. Perfectly correct in the instance cited. Especially since the speaker's goal seems to have been to shock the audience a bit.
I could only fault her if she said "they will need to cut them out of your face with pump pliers." Pump pliers often have shearing cutters but would not be suitable here. Now I really would have applauded if she had said "They are going to have to rip them from your face with a pair of ChannelLock(tm) pliers." Or ViseGrips(tm) or pump pliers or lineman's pliers, or wirestripping pliers or ...
John Henry
Job market seems hotter than a Tiajuana cathouse at present.
But only if you have some useful skills.
Like AI Engineer. Per Claude
Entry level with zero to two years of experience runs $120K to $150K at competitive employers
The average AI engineer salary crossed $206,000 in 2025 — a $50,000 jump from the prior year
And for chemical Engineers like my granddaughter, class of 2027:
Entry level salaries typically range from $57,000 to $79,000 annually, while most engineers earn between $67,500 and $106,500, with top earners surpassing $125,000.
(snip)
The realistic ballpark for a new grad: $75,000–$100,000, with industry and location being the biggest variables.
I am assuming that means for people who stay in engineering and don't rise into management.
Or
Non-union trade school grad starting salary: Entry level HVAC technician median starting salary is $54,100 a year, or about $26 per hour. That's the realistic starting point right out of trade school.
The range: The majority of entry level HVAC salaries fall between $51,500 and $78,500, with top earners at the 90th percentile making $102,500.
I wonder what skills these grads have? I suspect many of them are highly expert in fuck-all.
And will be competing for barista jobs. Because, you know, making Starbucks coffee is a skill. Especially if you can draw a palm tree on the coffee with the chemicals.
John Henry
John Henry
I have read that some experienced "AI Prompt Engineers" make $500m or more. Sadly it may be coming down. Claude says national average is only $129m now.
That is wild. They don't know the answer, they don't even know the question. All they know is how to format your question so the machine gives an answer.
John Henry
And lest we forget:
$200,000,000,000+ in new manufacturing facility construction is underway in 2026. Not counting all the machinery and equipment. At least another 50-100% of CapEx.
Can these grads work construction? Hard to find workers these days, esp with PDJT gloriously throwing the illegals out of the country. Pay is through the roof.
John Henry
A strange dynamic. People who have been working for 20 or 30 years are embracing AI. I know it is increasing my productivity and freeing up a lot of time. I've 57, and I'm way ahead of younger people at my company.
While we're talking pliers, check out Vampliers. I recently bought a pair of their lineman's pliers to carry in my tool belt. They seem like really good quality and have an interesting screw extraction feature which TBH I haven't tried yet, but is something I know I'll use occasionally if it works as advertised.
I had to replace my trusty Knipex pliers after I bit into a hot 14/2 and ruined the the cutters on them. Dumb.
I was going to just buy another pair of Knipex because they're fantastic tools, but Vampliers offered me a hat so I thought, what the hell?
One of my clients make the high precision solid and braided wire used in stents and catheters. They use a lot of small diagonal pliers, naturally very high end, probably $15-20 each. They don't sharpen them, as soon as they start losing their edge they throw them out. They once gave me a box of 15 or so discards. As far as I can tell they are still as sharp as anything you would buy new.
Perfect for cutting (or ripping) barbells from faces.
John Henry
but Vampliers offered me a hat so I thought, what the hell?
You sound like a cheap date.
John Henry
They're not cheap pliers.
Original Mike said...
"Pliers don't cut. Does she mean diagonal cutters?"
Dykes? Do I hear dykes?
And I have a pair of Vampliers. Very useful in particular situations.
'Put down that dwarf hand me the pliers'
Knipex. Well. Now I feel bad.
I was thinking of the $2 hat that got you to change brands, Bob. And it was a joke, in case it didn't come through.
John Henry
No, I get it. And you're right, they got me with the hat. That's what pushed me over the line. But I like the hat, it's actually a pretty good hat, not a snap-back "trucker" hat either. And more importantly I like the tool so far. I was also swayed by a desire for something new and different. That's how exciting I am, changing plier brand qualifies as something new and different. I went wild.
My assumption was that one end of the eyebrow piercing screws on and off to facilitate putting the piercing in, and that is you leave it on too long, it'll rust or turn crusty, and you'll need pliers to unscrew it.
Consider that the young are supposed to be at their most open-minded. Aren't the institutions doing a great job?
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