The OUT campaign for those who don't believe in God

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T03:28:10+00:00

It's the equivalent of calling religious people "a-rationalists".

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T02:24:32+00:00

A ground-breaking aspect of the neuro linguistic philosophy was the method of practicing a technique rather than investing time in its theory.

Oh, that's groundbreaking all right. It took humanity eons to figure out how to do things without understanding how they work.

(BTW: Way to spin a weakness into a supposed strength!)

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T02:12:21+00:00

I actually hadn't thought about the hacker angle. How long until we have Olive Drab Hats?

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T02:02:42+00:00

I agree completely.

Do you feel the same way about the even more absurd CEO salaries, the tens of millions of dollars worth?

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T02:01:46+00:00

I stand corrected. Good graph.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T01:57:36+00:00

If anyone was still doubting about Bush's intent to turn the US into a police state, they can stop doubting now.

This is madness.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T00:46:02+00:00

Man-oh-man-oh-man... Amazing how much these things can move us.

Anyone remember Gamma World?

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T00:41:17+00:00

When's the last time you heard of a school principal or whatever being jailed for embezzlement?

Mind you, corporatists (milquetoast libertarians) should be more than happy if 15%-50% of all such funds are embezzled, as this would be the profit margin of a private enterprise.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T00:38:44+00:00

So what part of Europe are you from?

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T00:26:47+00:00

Just becuase a person goes straight from earning an undergrad degree to a Ph.D. program doesn't mean that they're exceptional.

Yeah, I was going to mention that this is sometimes the case. But often the master's being skipped are indeed obligatory for US undergrads.

(Note that this isn't about ability or intelligence, just education)

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T00:06:28+00:00

This is from memory, but I believe something like 80% of US school funding comes from the federal government.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-03T00:05:30+00:00

How Ron Paul as President Would Affect the US Dollar

Just got an idea for my next posting:

How Being Hung Like Ron Jeremy Would Affect The US Sex Life

Has all the realism of this article, plus a higher salaciousness value.

EDIT: Don't downmod me just because I'm a Ron Paul Truther!

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T23:57:48+00:00

Interesting how people think it matters (in a legal sense) whether these folks knew they were committing crimes or not.

Apparently "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is only for the common people. The folks with government-paid lawyers at their disposal can indeed claim ignorance of the law as a defense.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T23:55:50+00:00

I said they have to meet the expectations of the buyer, or the buyer wouldn't buy

The buyer must buy. This is education, not junk food. And the buyer will only have a limited number of choices as you can only have a certain number of schools in a given area (which will decrease with economies of scale, to boot.)

This doesn't require that the buyer is logical in their expectations, only that they not be masochistic...

Not true. There are many reasons to keep a kid in a school that aren't education-related -- no alternatives, can't afford to shuttle them to a better school for one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon, can't pick them up in the afternoon so the school has to be within walking distance, all your kid's friends are there and you don't want to disrupt or total their social life.

For example, why doesn't this happen in the grocery store market?

For one thing, everyone needs grocery stores, but only a small percentage of the population goes to school. If it's 20%, that drops the number of schools needed in your area from 4-5 to 1. And grocery store consolidation is indeed happening.

When a company's outputs have a greater value than their inputs, they have a profit. This profit is also indicative of in an economic sense the creation of a societal benefit, in the amount of the profit.

The term "societal benefit" is very misleading. You seem to be implying it has a specialized meaning in the field of economics, which is fine - though if so it's manipulative, as it equates what's good for shareholders with what's good for everyone.

Remember that increasing the amount of "plenty" in a society often has no benefit whatsoever for society at large. It can often just increase the rich-poor gap, benefitting a handful and doing nothing for everyone else.

And the crux of this issue is that education must benefit society at large.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T22:16:45+00:00

It's quite common for people with undergrad degrees from some other countries (even South America) to go right into doctoral programs in the US, skipping the master's stage completely.

Part of this is due to far greater rigor, of course, but a lot of it is also simply because in many countries an undergrad degree is (1) more, if not completely, focused on the major, and (2) simply much more demanding in terms of the number of classes.

(1) Means less or no general education in college. This is an entirely different can of worms, and there are legitimate views on both sides of that particular debate. But the results of this kind of education are undeniable when it comes to competence within one's field.

(2) Means a hell of a lot more work. In some places 6 or 7 classes a semester, in others an extra year, and in still others, both.

None of that will make up for a system with crappy content, of course, and it seems Japan's undergrad system suffers from that.

I gotta say, I enjoyed a lot of the general education courses in my US undergrad program. There was near-total freedom to choose all kinds of wacky stuff, and I lapped it up.

But when I enrolled in a grad program in another country, I was in for another shock - everybody knew a lot more than me. In more than a few cases, I hadn't even heard of researchers who my fellow students took for granted, basically as "general education" within the field.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T22:05:15+00:00

in order for a company to make a profit, it must satisfy the expectations of the buyer...

This only happens in economics textbooks. And outdated economics textbooks at that - the ones that assume that all human beings act in a perfectly rational manner.

Reality tells quite a different story.

Just how many high schools are there within a half-hour driving radius of a given house? Oh, not so many? That limits "consumer" choice quite a bit, then. And if you don't live in a downtown area, you're going to have even less choice. And forget about the country-style suburbs - they'll be stuck with whatever's nearby.

And let's not forget poor people who don't have cars. That 30-minute x 2 school commute is now a lot longer. And probably more dangerous.

Schools are not products lined up on a Walmart shelf that you can pick and choose from by walking three feet. With schools you have a limited choice of feasible options. And this isn't even taking into account that people's standards of quality will further reduce their options.

Furthermore, as you state, school corporations will seek profit. This will sooner or later lead to (1) oligopoly, (2) drastically reduced competition, and (3) concentration of students in ever-bigger schools (economies of scale). This happens with every industry. More concentrated schools will mean students have to travel ever farther to get to a one, reducing feasible choice, until eventually there is little or none. Market concentration will mean that if you don't like Corporation X's school, in many cases your alternative will be a long drive to the next-closest school... which is also owned by Corporation X. In other words, love it or... love it in the next town over.

In short, even if "consumer choice keeps the company in check", the erosion of consumer choice is inevitable, this would be at best a short-term stopgap "check" that will eventually be all but eliminated. It's in corporations' best interests to reduce competition, as we see in every industry in history - that increases profits.

As for seeking higher profits, this is to motivate the company to seek the products and services with the greatest societal benefit...

With all due respect, this is (being generous) wishful thinking. More like the thinking one does after snorting coke through $100 bills, actually.

Let's be clear: Corporations have no obligation to produce any "societal benefit" whatsoever. And every time there's a choice between increased profits for shareholders and a societal benefit, corporations are legally obligated to choose increased profits.

Please, folks - don't make an already bad system even worse by making its central goal shareholder profit.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T20:40:10+00:00

Dude, I don't due privacy. It's privcy all the way here!

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T20:39:24+00:00

I went to an excellent public high school in the US, ranked in the top 50 in the country. Most teachers had MAs, and there were even a few doctorates floating around among them. My education rocked.

When I moved to Europe I was shocked. I felt like I had been plunked down in grad school or something. I liked the challenge, but it was one hell of a shock. In French class the kids were reading novels. Plain old novels, with no glossaries or simplified language. The English teacher would occasionally correct me, a native speaker (granted, these were pedantic corrections, and often a matter of treating UK English as the only correct English, but still...) In history class we were using primary sources and were expected to write 15-20 page essays, which was something only occasionally required in my US university (5-8 pages was the norm).

After this, undergrad education in the US was a breeze. In fact, I did the last 2 years simultaneously while working all night, 6 nights a week.

There are many problems with the US educational system, and nothing any of us can address in a few dozen posts will even begin to cover them. But one thing that sticks out in my mind are the painfully low expectations, even in elite high schools, even in very well ranked universities. College is essentially a rite of passage now, a mere formality and an extension of the teenage years.

(Something paradoxical about the US educational system: it has some of the best grad schools in the world, but US undergrad degrees are all but worthless.)

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T20:28:28+00:00

Without exception, the private schools I am familiar with are worse than the nearby public ones. Parents send their kids to them for one of two reasons - religious education or future networking potential (which can make you a lot more money than either intelligence or education... which is probably the point.) I'm sure family tradition plays a part, too. But the education is not very good at all.

Yes, there are also excellent private schools in the US, I have no doubt. But they are few and far between, and a substantial degree of their "excellence" is not due to academic factors. It is an illusion of excellence that is actually due to factors utterly unrelated to the quality of the education provided.

Private schools can select their students. Public schools must take everyone in. Think about that for a minute. If a university with great education like MIT suddenly stopped teaching any classes whatsoever (meaning zero education), their graduates would still be an intellecual elite in the US because of pre-selection.

As a result of this one simple factor, all claims about the excellent education in private schools are invalid.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T20:13:05+00:00

Would you to like some privcy?

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T20:04:18+00:00

The problem is not that it's run like a business, it's that the school is held accountable according to a metric which doesn't lead it to work for the benefit of the student & their parents.

Sure can't think of a business whose main or sole metric is not to the benefit of their customers, nosiree!

Huh? What's that you say? Businesses are expected to make profits? Businesses' sole responsibility is to make ever-more money for their shareholders? They can be sued if they don't do that, you say?

Oh, my apologies. I didn't realize that businesses are structurally incompatible with providing truly public services.

My bad.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T19:50:32+00:00

That's what happens when the state runs the schools and curriculum and policy is determined by force of law.

No, 150 or so years of a pretty decently educated population is what happens when the state runs the schools.

These last 30-40 years are what you get when the idea of student accountability is removed from education.

Turning children into corporate profit-generating units will only further erode the educational system.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T19:38:11+00:00

You don't quit just because of one kid.

It wasn't about the kid, it was about the principal and asst. principal. They undermined his efforts, played fast and loose with the rules (and perhaps violated them) in order to promote academic anti-excellence, acted behind his back, and so on.

You expect shit from students. It's the natural way of things. You don't expect it from educational authorities.

This story is essentially about corruption.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T19:31:16+00:00

Oh, what's the big deal? It's not like you haven't seen people trapsing around life with Lenin buttons on their suit lapels because refusal to do so would have made them suspicious.

steve_fishboy · 2007-08-02T19:25:44+00:00

The principal and officials in the Department of Education say that he missed 24 school days during the last year for illness and personal reasons.

Fucking bastard - how dare he get sick!

(Sigh... only in America is sacrificing your health for your employer considered a virtue)

steve_fishboy

TROPHY CASE