1) I see the critical comments in the article here so would just like to address a few things. The common theme in how I address them is this: live by the sword, die by the sword. ... https://twitter.com/DailyNousEditor/status/1352275126939766785

2) By which I mean: The status quo is to use broad, misleading categories ('STEM,' 'humanities') as if they're reliable indicators of the particular employment prospects of various majors within them. So, for example ...

3) People will complain if I use biology in a comparison with English (biolgoy, 'STEM,' comparable prospects to English, 'humanities') and not e.g. chemical engineering. I do it on purpose. Because the status quo is to use chemical engineering (and the like) to prop up 'STEM'!

4) Which is to say: Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you like the status quo (cherry picking data, overbroad categories with low descriptive and explanatory value of what they contain), and I fuck them up a little bit, what? You're mad?

5) So as far as my contributions go, best to understand that my objective is to destroy the categories and the assumptions that go with them. I think doing so is a net benefit to the fields typically called 'humanities,' but it's also (for me) about showing a basic hypocrisy:

6) Which is that people will swallow any kind of 'STEM' career boosting without saying a word about the assumptions baked into the categories or questioning the data, but once you pull up basic facts about 'humanities' fields the skeptics come out of the woodwork. ...

7) ... suddenly questioning the categories and comparisons, because what, there's something inherent in petroleum engineering and orinthology that makes it blasphemous to group them with codicology or history? Even if the reality of employment data upset the 'STEM' category? ...

8) So I want to be very clear that if you have comments now about reshuffling categories for the express purpose of highlighting job data similarities, but not about the specious categories of 'STEM' and 'humanities' in the first place, you were misled before you got here. /end

Addendum: I don't speak for @ehayot or @V21collective, just for my take on the data.

Addendum II: This is a perfect example of the hypocrisy I'm talking about. Enter the concept of the law degree, &c. But it wouldn't occur to this person to apply the same...corrective generosity...to the 'humanities' data. But I don't blame them. That's the status quo.

Addendum III: Most people probably haven't spent as much time as I have looking at which majors are actually included in various 'humanities' and 'STEM' (and 'social science') categories in these ubiquitous studies and 'major in x to get a job' write-ups. Highly idiosyncratic.

Addendum IV: E.g. where ppl put history, econ, health sciences, criminology, business, etc. matters for claims abt career prospects by category. Often 'humanities and social science' are combined, with or without econ, for example. And engineering fields get strange groupings too

Addendum V: In all of this one person's 'rocks for jocks' is another person's 'STEM degree.' One person's 'humanities degree' is another's political science degree. The point isn't that 'humanities' is better than 'STEM'; it's that this is all demonstrable bullshit.

Addendum VI: These posters push back against prejudicial portrayals of 'humanities' majors, portrayals that arise from just-so stories and weird essentialisms about areas of study. As someone who's openly against the category of 'the humanities' I think that's still a good thing.

Addendum VII: Sorry I keep going on. Sort of. But also: Philosophers should understand the difference btw a claim 'don't avoid majoring in a 'humanities' field bc the job data actually aren't bad' & a claim 'major in the humanities, it's superior to STEM.' Former is the claim!