Why is it a bad thing that more people can get a college degree?

I'm appalled by the general sentiment of most other commenters. It seems like a lot of people are missing the point. The core argument is that you don't need to be good at maths to do most jobs. I'm an engineer myself and I work on some pretty advanced stuff, but I don't need algebra in my daily work.

It seems like a lof of commenters take Hacker's proposal as an affront to their intelligence. "I passed the test so everyone else should pass the test". This shows a serious lack of empathy. Slashdot visitors are most university engineers, we are the top 5% of the world. It's important to realize that 95% of the world are not as academically smart as you. This doesn't mean they can't do many of the jobs we rely on.
The irrationality Hacker aims at is that advanced maths is not something most people need in their working daily lives. So why have it as part of a standardized exam? It's not about being smart or dumb, it's about gauging the relative usefulness of skills.

.. their suggestion is to whitelist the entire site. This unblocks more than just their ads. It also unblocks analytics, ab-testing, other statistics tracking, and who knows what else. I was surprised to see this suggestion.

That being said, I don't particularly mind opening an incognito window every time, it prevents tracking (to an extent) and they still get to run their ads.

Yes I live in Europe. The no-no sticker is (perhaps surprisingly) mostly upheld. Sometimes I'll get a menu from a local eatery or something, but it's never big brands, they stick to the rules. I believe the system is legally backed. There is also a "don't send me shit" registry you can sign up for that will put your adres on a blacklist for advertisers, this list is also legally backed. We have a similar registry for phonenumbers. I get very little unwanted paper mail, not even one piece per month.

There is also a no-yes sticker. It blocks ads but allows things like the local newspaper and other non-ad unadressed mail. And there is also a yes-yes sticker, if you're so inclined.

The stickers are quite common here, I think 1/3 of apartmentbuilding has one.

What you describe seems like a serious problem. I reminds me of those robo-caller horror stories from the US.

What's important to understand is exactly what service Adblock offers. It's not about blocking ads, that's actually really easy to do (a simple domain filter will do). The real service is the list of ad providing domains. Someone has to manage this list. I'm not sure how Adblock currently manages their list but I'm sure it can take quite a bit of effort. How much? I don't know, I'm sure though that the cost for each user would be almost negligable because the user base is so large. It scales extremely well.

The service is not worthless, it's just extremely cheap.

I have a no-no sticker on my letterbox that prevents unadressed paper advertisments. Running adblock is like having a no-no sticker.

Adblock is now looking for a middle ground. Instead of having a no-no sticker you can have an adblock-sticker that says: some unaddressed advertisment is allowed (ie. the ones allowed by adblock). If you translate this to the paper world it could mean only ads printed on recycled paper, only single page ads; not a whole booklet, ads that are clear and concise etc.

I don't mind supporting websites I like, but I absolutely hate advertisments that take over the page, 'steal' my attention or look like content. It's a fine line and as it stands the consumer is pretty powerless to find a good middle ground. Website owners are also pretty powerless because they don't have enough control over the ads that appear on their site. It's also difficult for ad makers because there are no guidelines. Only an entity like adblock has the power to force advertisers to behave: ie. behave or be blocked.

I don't quite understand the argument of people who don't want adblock to move in this direction. If you don't like it, switch to one of the many other adblocking plugins. Im sure there will always be one adblocker-like plugin that will aim to block all ads.

I see this as a healthy development, one that could finally rid us of annoying ads while making sure content providers get compensated.

I could also see a system where adblock works with ad providers to distribute revenue. For instance, you could chose to pay adblock (or some other entity) a monthly fee that gets distributed over the content providers that you consume. Kind like Flattr or YoutubeRed, but a system that could work on any platform, from any vendor.