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"I would like to know just what he did to upset the ED people though", 1s44c

Chip Berlet, SlimVirgin, and Wikipedia

Wikipedia's Hive Mind

Daniel Brandt on the Wikipedia Issue

Wikipedia and the Intelligence Services

They don't exist /as such/, but there are patches that make players ignore the "do not skip" bit. For instance, here's one for a Philips player (DVP5160) , and one for the Mac OS X player. If you want to search for more, the technical name for the limitations is "User Operations Prohibition", or UOP.

Education has at least three aspects, in decreasing order of importance:
* Personal growth in a variety of ways (including spiritual);
* Learning what you need to know to be a good citizen participating in political life (including voting);
* Preparation for doing specific useful vocational work.

Modern schooling has so degraded the notion of education that most people think it is mainly about the third item, and that is the example you drew from. There is also a fourth aspect in practice of schooling that has to do with obedience and conformity, which is actually what most school time is spent on, whatever the purported subject:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm

Did someone need to grade you on how you talked when you were a toddler for you to imporve? Does someone need to give you a grade on sex? Does someone need to give you a grade on your slashdot posts? Does someone need to give you a grade on being a good friend or neighbor? Yet you probably improve in all those areas the more you do them. The brain is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets. You need *feedback* to improve, and that feedback can come in a variety of ways, but you don't need grades. Grades are a problematical form of feedback for the reasons listed, as well as because they tend to be so linear but performance is usually multi-factorial.

If I was a hiring manager, at least in the realm of software, I'd look at what projects a person has done (especially as hobbies) and talk to him or her about them. What relation does an "A" or even an "F" in a computer science class have to do with caring about crafting good software to solve important problems to meet society's unmet needs? Grades can say a lot about obedience, it's true. But even them, how much of a "yes" man or woman do you want your employees to be?

You do indirectly bring up the issue of certification, and for some things I'm not against it, as long as it certifies ability more than hoops jumped through and the certification process is decoupled from the instruction process (which it usually is not in schools). But even certification can be problematical, because who decides what makes a good Microsoft systems administrator say? Are the best Microsoft systems administrators the ones who say, "I never learned this stuff because you should switch to GNU/Linux or FreeBSD"? :-)

Ideally though, we'd move beyond having hiring managers altogether:
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/

Thanks for the thoughful reply. I probably would have written much the same ten or so years ago, before reading Kohn and Gatto and Holt and others, and doing unschooling with my own kid. It's hard to break out of the mindset that school has spent so much time forming -- that we need schooling.

Something else related by Gatto:
"The Art of Driving"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1d.htm
"Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving, which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel, our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifl

Education has at least three aspects, in decreasing order of importance:
* Personal growth in a variety of ways (including spiritual);
* Learning what you need to know to be a good citizen participating in political life (including voting);
* Preparation for doing specific useful vocational work.

Modern schooling has so degraded the notion of education that most people think it is mainly about the third item, and that is the example you drew from. There is also a fourth aspect in practice of schooling that has to do with obedience and conformity, which is actually what most school time is spent on, whatever the purported subject:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm

Did someone need to grade you on how you talked when you were a toddler for you to imporve? Does someone need to give you a grade on sex? Does someone need to give you a grade on your slashdot posts? Does someone need to give you a grade on being a good friend or neighbor? Yet you probably improve in all those areas the more you do them. The brain is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets. You need *feedback* to improve, and that feedback can come in a variety of ways, but you don't need grades. Grades are a problematical form of feedback for the reasons listed, as well as because they tend to be so linear but performance is usually multi-factorial.

If I was a hiring manager, at least in the realm of software, I'd look at what projects a person has done (especially as hobbies) and talk to him or her about them. What relation does an "A" or even an "F" in a computer science class have to do with caring about crafting good software to solve important problems to meet society's unmet needs? Grades can say a lot about obedience, it's true. But even them, how much of a "yes" man or woman do you want your employees to be?

You do indirectly bring up the issue of certification, and for some things I'm not against it, as long as it certifies ability more than hoops jumped through and the certification process is decoupled from the instruction process (which it usually is not in schools). But even certification can be problematical, because who decides what makes a good Microsoft systems administrator say? Are the best Microsoft systems administrators the ones who say, "I never learned this stuff because you should switch to GNU/Linux or FreeBSD"? :-)

Ideally though, we'd move beyond having hiring managers altogether:
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/

Thanks for the thoughful reply. I probably would have written much the same ten or so years ago, before reading Kohn and Gatto and Holt and others, and doing unschooling with my own kid. It's hard to break out of the mindset that school has spent so much time forming -- that we need schooling.

Something else related by Gatto:
"The Art of Driving"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1d.htm
"Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving, which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel, our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifl

"The Pharaoh was not God."

First, you wrote an interesting mix of things in your reply, so thanks. On this point,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion#Divine_pharaoh
"Egyptologists have long debated the degree to which the pharaoh was considered a god. It seems most likely that the Egyptians viewed royal authority itself as a divine force. Therefore, although the Egyptians recognized that the pharaoh was human and subject to human weakness, they simultaneously viewed him as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnate in him. He therefore acted as intermediary between Egypt's people and the gods.[25]"

Today, "The Market" is often seen as "God" in the USA, as suggested by Harvey Cox, Harvard theologian:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/

My point on hunters/gatherers is that we might soon have technology that lets people with access to land use solar panels to collect power for 3D printers that can print more solar panels and 3D printers, along with mining robots and agricultural robots. So, what do you call that lifestyle? See also Marshall Brain's Manna story.
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

We don't need "money" to buy food if we have the land and time and tools to grow it ourselves, or others give it to us (as we give them things), or if the government plans well to produce enough food and distribute it to those who need it, or if, sadly, people feel compelled to steal it (although theft is defined differently in different places, like if deer are "the kings" or not or if wild berries can be picked by anyone on undeveloped property). Those are all alternative ways people get food.

That is why I suggest there have always been five interwoven economies, of which exchange is only one (the others being subsistence, gift, planned, and theft):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

Right now, in our society, exchange is dominant, though it is coupled with a growing rich/poor divide and flat real wages for 30+ years (despite productivity doubling or tripling during that time with the extra value just going to the top 1%). The system is failing in part because capitalism does not work if wealth is too concentrated. The wealthy tend to pull their money out of the real economy and put it in the "casino" economy of stuff like currency speculation, r into government bonds that finance wars, or even just by buying up all the land speculatively from other and keeping it idle etc..

I agree with you on the dysfunctional make-work aspects of our society, and explored that here, outlining many "transactions of decline" that can be used to create jobs, war being one of those transactions of decline, but others include endless bureaucracy, endless schooling, expanded prisons, increased sickness, and other things:
http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

Or we can try to move beyond "work"; some ideas on that by others:
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjHTrwCstcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ArkJmUOIqM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNwAZSBMb0

I don't think v

"The question is: will all this lead to an era of unprecedented splendor, or of poverty? I'd say it depends on how fast we can wean ourselfs off of our ideological commitment to capitalism and turn to some form of socialism (technically, a post-scarcity society)."

Yes -- Marshall Brain says much the same in "Manna". And Iain Banks says "Money is a sign of poverty." Bob Black writes about this too.
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

Please see my other post in this thread or my site for my related comments on these trends: http://www.pdfernhout.net/

Or just my sig below.

Essentially, I feel a big issue is for us to get our socioeconomic house in order before we create so many weapons and competitive processes with all this advanced technology that we accidentally do ourseves in with it. We need to make the social transition first, because our path out of any singularities may have a lot to do with our trajectory going into them. But it is tricky, because better technology makes it easier to solve some social disputes by having a bigger pie. I like James P. Hogan's 1982 "Voyage From Yesyeryear" novel that explores these themes.
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/#comment-392
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation
http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery

Good questions. Keep exploring There are answers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA
http://johncr8on.com/projects/21st-century-institutions/
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

Many worries are "you will never get a job with previous posts on the internet around". How about we just abolish work instead, like Bob Black suggested? Or have a "basic income"? We can use high tech in other ways to address this problem than destroy our history, given robots and AIs can so more and more of the "work" these days anyway -- made possible by the same sorts of technology that makes privacy such an issue.

That said, making our networks function more like human brains as far as forgetting is an interesting idea.

... keeps most people in line. See the new online (free) movie "Human Resources" where that is mentioned in passing. Daniel Quinn has suggested they key factor of "civilization" is that all food is under lock and key.

Sure people can express their opinions, and then they can try to find jobs, which they then maybe won't...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/09/columbia-alum-castigates-_n_794380.html

A basic income might change things for the better:
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/
The USA already gives out US$800 a month per person on avergae for social security, schooling, and welfare -- why not just give every citizen a check for that amoutn every month. Seems fairer to me than a "needs" based or "age" based criterion for public assistance.

There is not true freedom without economic security. A lot of farmers had that basic security 200 years ago in the USA. Few people have economic security now in the USA where most people are living paycheck to paycheck, and the young are being imprisoned in school and made to fear stepping out of line or they won't get a "good" job. Other ideas:
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

Related to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_hypothesis

People went from 90% agriculture workers to about 2% agriculutre workers over the past two hundred years in the USA. Of the current agriculutral production, 75% of the effort goes to meat production which is not strictly needed and in general is harming people's health, and otherwise people eat too much of the wrong foods and are obese (see Dr. Fuhrman). Why is agriculture still not using 90% of the labor force? Automation and limited demand.

Compulsory schools were created to keep kids off the street and train them to be soldiers and factory workers. Working hours went down from 12 hours 6 days a week to 8 hours five days a week, and only for adults. Child labor was outlawed. So, much of the working force was freed.

In 1950, about 30% of the workforce was in manufacturing. Now it is more like aroung 12%, and the same amount of stuff is still produced (plus some is imported from China). Why? Increasing automation, better design, and limited demand. Many people are drowning in junk that clutters their homes and lives.

Granted, in the USA, women have gone into the work force and there are other confounding factors.

What happens when services go the same way through robotics and other automation, better design, voluntary social networks, and limited demand?
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery/

Consider also that unlike food and some basic goods, most services are optional.

It turns out even most medical care is probably harmful and unneccesary, compared to just eating better and getting adequate vitamin D.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

The entire economy is poised to implode.
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Related to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_hypothesis

People went from 90% agriculture workers to about 2% agriculutre workers over the past two hundred years in the USA. Of the current agriculutral production, 75% of the effort goes to meat production which is not strictly needed and in general is harming people's health, and otherwise people eat too much of the wrong foods and are obese (see Dr. Fuhrman). Why is agriculture still not using 90% of the labor force? Automation and limited demand.

Compulsory schools were created to keep kids off the street and train them to be soldiers and factory workers. Working hours went down from 12 hours 6 days a week to 8 hours five days a week, and only for adults. Child labor was outlawed. So, much of the working force was freed.

In 1950, about 30% of the workforce was in manufacturing. Now it is more like aroung 12%, and the same amount of stuff is still produced (plus some is imported from China). Why? Increasing automation, better design, and limited demand. Many people are drowning in junk that clutters their homes and lives.

Granted, in the USA, women have gone into the work force and there are other confounding factors.

What happens when services go the same way through robotics and other automation, better design, voluntary social networks, and limited demand?
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery/

Consider also that unlike food and some basic goods, most services are optional.

It turns out even most medical care is probably harmful and unneccesary, compared to just eating better and getting adequate vitamin D.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

The entire economy is poised to implode.
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Then see if the training budget will cover this: :-)
    http://www.humorproject.com/conference/

See also:
    http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/30vitamin.html?permid=196#comment196

By the way, as an alternative to working:
    http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/index.html

And, consider:

The US currently spends as much on schooling, social security, and welfare to give every citizen about US$800 a month.
    http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

And it spends enough on Medicare/Medicaid to cover everyone with good health care if it was managed better.
    http://www.singlepayeraction.org/

And the US spends more than twice as much on "defense" in a year than it would take to change the entire country over to using renewable energy and no longer need much of a defense department.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

It's all about the paradigm and a global mindshift beyond narrow vested interests.
    http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf

I didnt get my first computer until 1999, simply couldnt afford one. (Cyrix '200') In the more modern sense, a computer without internet connection is going to be pretty daunting to an 8-14 year old. Yes you can still do local things, but honestly have you thought about how much modern computing relies on an internet connection? And to your sig. The PS3 does allow modding. Unreal Tournament 3 off the top of my head. Also see this http://pcsplitscreen.freehostia.com/games.htm

A - Have a party.

That's one of the scenarios I was asking about. If you're having a party, and you're boycotting the consoles, what PC game do you load on the HTPC to play with your friends? Or by "party" did you mean "LAN party", which defeats the purpose of an HTPC?

Any of these I guess.

I remember one that had me laughing pretty hard. I had a description of it typed out here, but then I found it available on the web, so I'll just link to it. I promise, this really is a C&H cartoon.

Firefox + Greasemonkey + FB Purity = no more quizzes showing up. The removal of the most annoying part of Facebook definitely enhances the service.

http://steeev.freehostia.com/wp/2009/03/19/facebook_purity_cleans_up_the_facebook_homepage/

There are many unlabeled charities; people who, in their spare time, refurbish computers, put either free or outdated operating systems in them, and give them away to needy families or individuals. I am one of those people, groups also exist. There should be a network of these small groups so that around any area, metropolitan or rural, should exist somewhere these outmoded but not useless items can be refurbished and reused. See also http://thatroom.freehostia.com/ for more information.

Enjoy the porn:

http://mrfriendly.freehostia.com/

To predict that the keyboard will be gone in less than 10 years is like predicting the steering wheel will be gone by then, too.

In future news, auto makers have decided to stop using steering wheels in favor of laptops without keyboards.

Check out the concept photo.

I tried to take the simple route on the design of my own site, with the inspiration mostly coming from a far more famous site. The actual coding behind it (XHTML 1.1, moderately advanced CSS) isn't as simple, but it is valid. It's all written from scratch too, so I understand what everything does.

It's a sad day when such a thing as malware ca be referred to as an industry. It seems all too convienent to find 'Fix Your PC' ads on sites that are less than respectable. I am also sick of stuff being planted on MY PC without my consent. It's my property. There are solutions though. I recently beta tested a product called Aura from Atka Software LLC. It really takes a whole new approach to the malware 'industry'. It assumes all downloads are bad and does not allow ANY AT ALL to occur. Using Aura there is no need to wait for the security firms or others to identify something as malware. It just blocks it all unless you tell it not to. It really is worth checking out... I was just a beta tester but now I am an owner and user of the product. Check it out at GetMyAura. Try it... It will play a big role in stopping the malware industry. There is also a review here. -mwm