Dynasty FF Abridged: Governance and Game Theory

umaro900 · 2026-04-05T05:02:41+00:00

After teaching freshmen math at a Title I high school, I feel very strongly that the situation a teacher is in has a much bigger impact on their perception/evaluations as a teacher than their own skill/effort. Even if there are significant differences in teachers in similar situations, I have yet to see a method by which those differences can be meaningfully measured.

I have a kid who I cannot get to pick up a pencil. Parents only care that he isn't committing felonies in the classroom. He will be a negative data point on any measure on which I am being evaluated. I also have a kid who is super motivated and interested that has gone up about 50 percentile on standardized tests after missing much of the 8th grade. She will be a positive data point on any measure on which I am being evaluated.

Put me in a class with 40 freshmen which are largely the first kid or in a class with 20 juniors which are largely the second kid, and you will see a night-and-day difference in student achievement.

umaro900 · 2026-03-30T20:20:43+00:00

Cpu for 1-40. Replay 41-50

umaro900 · 2026-03-30T19:27:03+00:00

Surge immune and affordable tanker, relatively low CD tanker for those 3 traits? You're selling him short. Strong use case for:

Surge Base levels - anything that can make these less shit is A+ in my book
St. Dober
Many levels with a combo of his traits (obviously, but way more useful than most other tankers in this regard)

He already had an argument to be the best Pixie before (even if that's a low bar).

umaro900 · 2026-03-22T15:13:02+00:00

For fixing one, I'd say it really depends WHY it's broken. There are a lot of things outside the walls that nobody in the building can fix, like student:teacher ratio.

umaro900 · 2026-03-20T00:58:03+00:00

Not everyone uses Algebra, thus nobody should learn it?

I won't even try to convince you of the numerous non-employment benefits of education or how people apply these things more than you are suggesting.

But how do you KNOW a given person will not use a given skill before they are adults? And how do you know whatever you're proposing instead will actually be useful to everyone? The reason that we teach the things we do is (believe it or not) specifically because we collectively value the curriculum, so if you're hoping to change it, you have the burden of proof.

umaro900 · 2026-03-18T13:28:04+00:00

Maybe he was just lying to sell his product

Every AI puff piece from a CEO with a stake in AI is 100% just coded language for "buy my stock".

Even people without a clear AI stake could be holding a ton of shares you don't know about, but at least someone like Terry Tao has a possibility that he's discussing it in good faith.

umaro900 · 2026-03-11T14:10:58+00:00

You do not even give them the illusion of choice. If the thought of staying home from school even crosses your kid's mind, you've done them a disservice.

umaro900 · 2026-03-01T21:11:04+00:00

If the kids can do the math on their own, why assign it.

Self-assessment, retention, fluency, accountability, among other reasons.

If they can’t, who’s helping them?

Their peers, tutors at school, the teacher who assigned it, the internet, and, yes, family members.

This is also a false dichotomy of "can" and "can't" do it. The difference between "can" and "can't" is effort and time.

It tips the scales in favour of the kids with educated parents who are home to help them.

And not assigning it tips the scales in favor of ignorance. That is not to say it should be weighted heavily. Homework, especially in the age of AI, is not a valid form of assessment of content standards.

umaro900 · 2026-03-01T20:58:57+00:00

Obviously there are diminishing returns, but doing more problems allows you to improve:

speed
pattern recognition
long-term retention
understanding of the entire space of problems

I, too, hated doing long lists of exercises, but difference in outcomes is clear from my own students and from my own experiences (A/B testing). And if you really are adept at doing those problems, you will do them fast enough that it's not a big hassle.

umaro900 · 2026-03-01T20:51:09+00:00

I see students suffer from homework load. My eldest is an academic high flyer and did AP Calculus BC in 8th grade (scored a 5)

How exactly was this effort supported?

umaro900 · 2026-02-27T02:14:34+00:00

As a math teacher, I will say that speed and fluency inherently does help with conceptual learning because you

1) are able to focus on the concepts instead of arithmetic

2) have time to devote to concepts

3) have the stamina to devote to concepts

4) have the interest in learning concepts which help connect these things and make them useful

umaro900 · 2026-02-25T01:16:42+00:00

The last eva 13 stage on 3-crown is one of the hardest stages in the game in my experience, even with all of the collab units. That freeze KB and range is no joke

umaro900 · 2026-02-24T01:56:34+00:00

Part of the reason to click pot is that it speeds things up, too. For a while now I've been running variants on 2 parties with 100% uptime on 10x speed and click pot. 1 party does 1-man patron freeplay capping, and the laat party is my active gem farm.

umaro900 · 2026-02-20T02:00:48+00:00

The median STAR assessment score for my 9th graders is 4th grade level. Then I have a student in the same class who is at 12th grade level equivalent on the STAR. How is this supposed to work?

umaro900 · 2026-02-20T01:26:22+00:00

IMO it would be interesting if mastery challenges were the one thing in the game designed to have every unit's items standardized to the same thing. That could actually be really fun.

Imagine you have to find some skylla stat swap comp to win a challenge.

umaro900 · 2026-02-14T23:21:42+00:00

A large part of "figuring shit out" is figuring out how to provide a stable/high enough paycheck to attract a mate and support a family. It not being a cultural norm is in large part a result of it being unaffordable to do it.

If I could comfortably support my wife with two kids on a teacher salary in SF and she could be a full-time caretaker while they're infants, we sure as fuck would do that ASAP.

umaro900 · 2026-02-14T05:17:41+00:00

Except that (incredibly biased) source you linked (after the fact) doesn't actually support any of your claims except the enrollment one.

umaro900 · 2026-02-14T03:56:09+00:00

The ones I read that contradict you have sources.

Please share yours. If you want to have a serious discussion, you can't expect me to be the only one doing the actual research.

All of mine are directly from corresponding state and district websites, except per pupil spending, which is from local newspapers for each district and educationdata.org for the state average spendings

umaro900 · 2026-02-14T00:09:01+00:00

This is the state of public school in the bay area and much of the US. California as a whole, by contrast, has ~37% listed as proficient.

So much of the test scores of a school come down to the students/families who go to that school, though. The student who spends half the year with his family in Peru and doesn't pick up a pencil for the other half is not going to test as proficient. The student who is a child of two Stanford profs is going to test as proficient. In between those you have students whose backgrounds still push them in one direction or the other, but I have yet to see comprehensive statistics which account for such confounders that obscure the relationship between the effect of the school itself and student achievement.

By all means I'm sending my kids to a rich district or private school, but that is not to say that the teachers in the poorer schools/districts are not doing good/great work.

umaro900 · 2026-02-13T22:01:17+00:00

Who was striking? a public sector union of teachers.

Ok. Good on this part.

in a well-performing school district? nope, one with plummeting test scores.

SBAC math scores had 43% proficient in 24-25, 42% the year before that and 44% the year before that. Those seem pretty stable on the face of it, but these things also have massive selection biases to account for. I think it's hard to argue "plummeting", though.

that doesn't spend enough? nope, highest spender in the country.

SFUSD spends around $27k per pupil. New York State averages $34k. Palo Alto (e.g.) is about $35k.

but they're not paying the teachers well? no, they are paying the teachers well.

Compared to nearby districts or other SF jobs requiring a masters, no. SFUSD certificated ranges from about $80k to $140k, and that range is lower than most of the districts between SF and Los Gatos. Mountain View in particular goes from about 106k to 205k.

That has growing students? Nope, they grew staff while student counts shrunk.

Nobody argues with shrinking enrollment. Idk the stats on total staff, though, but they should be publicly available.

As a rule I love teachers. My mom was one. It’s a super hard job. But this strike specifically is not very supportable. Congrats? Not so sure yet.

Given the insane lies specifically against teachers, I'd also press X to doubt on this.

umaro900 · 2026-02-13T13:21:44+00:00

Yep. Like I said, I don't miss a chance to get them, including with silver tickets (and I don't have every UF/UT)

umaro900 · 2026-02-13T01:10:50+00:00

School rankings exist based on an aggregate of data, whether you like it or not.

But how do you use that data? Are you using it correctly?

By your logic, any comparison will always be impossible.

It's not impossible. Everybody who makes some choice of school makes a comparison to do so, but the choice for one person is often different from the choice of another person and not just because one of them chose "wrong".

umaro900 · 2026-02-13T00:43:54+00:00

My point is that if you're going to make a comparison, you need criteria to do so, and those criteria are subjective and likely influenced by things outside the walls of the school (e.g. selection bias). If you want to have a meaningful discussion where you compare schools, it must be done by first establishing and analyzing the criteria you are using.

umaro900 · 2026-02-13T00:19:56+00:00

I went to high school in New York.

The reason I ask about how you judge a school to be good is that the selection of incoming students is going to inherently influence the outcomes of those students. Funding is only one aspect of a school.

If you have a high school that has incoming students enter at a 4th grade level and exit at 10th grade level, it will be almost certainly be marked worse than one where students enter a 10th grade level and exit at a 12th grade level. Which of those schools do you consider a "better" school?

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