Slashdot Mirror
Showdown With The Pinkertons
Dawn, Jim, Shannon and I sat down around a conference table in a tightly-secured office building south of downtown Charlotte, N.C. on a brilliant spring day. From the window, we could see the hills of South Carolina in one direction, the towers of downtown in the other. A collection of Pinkerton baseball caps filled a wooden shelf.
If anybody had told me that I would be munching chicken salad sandwiches and fries with executives from the Pinkerton Corporation, the largest security concern on the planet, arguing about kids, violence, oddball profiling and the Net, I would have refused to believe it. But that's the Net for you. Jim was a Pinkerton senior veep, Dawn and Shannon, the Web developer and site architect, respectively.
Jim was courteous, but clearly exasperated.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a highly critical column here about a WAVE (Working Against Violence Everywhere) America Web site developed by the Pinkerton Services Group under contract to the state of North Carolina and soon to go national. It offered an anonymous toll-free number, so schoolkids could turn in classmates they believed were acting strangely or dangerously. After the column appeared, Jim revealed, WAVE America received more than 70,000 e-mails and a few mail bombs, and repelled a number of assaults on their system firewalls. Jim had clearly never heard of Slashdot before all this, and he was still struggling to figure out exactly what it was or why he had to pay attention to it. This Net furor had clearly put a bit of a cloud over Pinkerton's ambitious plan to peddle WAVE America all over the United States in response to the post-Columbine school-violence hysteria. My guess was that this meeting was Dawn and Shannon's idea.
I'd flown to Charlotte, against what I knew were hopeless odds, to persuade Pinkerton to trash WAVE America . We argued for more than three hours behind closed doors. Clearly, the flap over the Web site was something Pinkerton wanted resolved if possible. Jim said the company hoped to set up anonymous toll-free "safety" and anti-violence hotlines across the country to relieve unnerved and overburdened school districts of the responsibility of monitoring students who might be disturbed or dangerous.
Although I write often about corporatism and its unhappy impact on free speech and culture, I had rarely penetrated so deep into the belly of the beast, nor felt so affirmed and unnerved by what I saw there. These were perfectly nice people I was meeting with, and they were unwaveringly embarked on what I believe is an awful course. Corporatism doesn't allow for moral notions like right or wrong, however. Corporatism (which is not the same thing as capitalism or corporations) has one ideology: successful, profitable marketing. Corporatism doesn't like controversy, because it, potentially at least, can scare off or offend potential customers. That's why I was there. I would be reminded of this 20 times over the next few hours. Ethical arguments, like peas off an M-1 tank, failed to penetrate.
It's hard to imagine going into any confrontation better prepared. I felt righteously equipped with the usual brilliant assortment of eclectic e-mail, screeds, quotes, citations, studies, suggestions and encouragements from Slashdotters. The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice had sent me some stats -- school homicides declined 40% in a single year, from l998 to l999. Students have a one-in-two-million chance of being killed in school, even though the public thinks it's likely to happen.
Computer engineer Chris Burke of the University of Michigan sent me a wonderful set of applied criterion measuring the probability that children considered dangerous actually will be. Chris's criteria are too complex to detail here, but he concluded that the probability that someone who meets the criterian actually is potentially dangerous turns out to be surprisingly low. "If we assume that the number of dangerous students is 1/25000 -- which is ridiculously high, but for the sake of argument I'll use it ... then only 6.7 per cent will be dangerous. Which means that 92.3% of the time you will be harassing innocent people." Reading this aloud to the Pinkerton people was one of the highlights of my life.
Meredith Dixon and many others e-mailed me about Todd Strasser's eerily prescient novel, The Wave, (which became a movie), about a junior high school teacher who uses anonymous reporting techniques reminiscent of the Hitler Youth to demonstrate how easily independent thought and moral conscience can be subordinated to an evil system. The book, published in 1981 and still available (Laurel Leaf Library: ISBN: 0440993717), was based on an actual incident in Palo Alto in l969. The Pinkerton folks were not happy to hear of this antecedent name for their cheeful, up-with-America, let's-promote-some-respect Web site. Nor were they impresed by my repeated arguments that every repressive political system in the 20th century -- Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Apartheid -- featured anonymous reporting -- especially by children -- as a cornerstone tool in their efforts to subjugate dissidents. The idea that this might not be the way to teach citizenship in a democratic society didn't seem to make much of an impression.
Joey Maier e-mailed me this quote from former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." If anything captured the spirit of WAVE America, that was it.
A Slashdot editor and writer urged me to ask Pinkerton what remedies students and parents would have against false accusations. (The answer: None. Pinkerton doesn't make accusations, they just pass along information. That wasn't the company's problem, the execs said. Nor were any misuses of anonymously reported information by the schools that received it).
I also brought this message: "When I was a teenager, I didn't want people to listen to me because they might be afraid of what I might do," chromatic wrote on Threads. "I wanted people to listen to me because they cared about me and could identify with the way I was feeling and the thoughts I was thinking. Don't alienate young people even further in the guise of helping them. Please."
Even as I was searching for one of my favorite Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes, Jamie McCarthy e-mailed it to me: It's from The Gulag Archipelago, his epic story of Stalin's concentration camps: "... In every village there were people who in one way or another had personally gotten in the way of the local activists. This was the perfect time to settle accounts with them of jealousy, envy, insult. A new word was needed for all these new victims as a class -- and it was born. By this time it had no 'social' or 'economic' content whatsoever, but it had a marvelous sound: podkulachnik -- 'a person aiding the kulaks.' In other words, I consider you an accomplice of the enemy. And that finishes you!'"
I confess to being buoyed by these smart, eloquent messages and citations, which I read and re-read on the flight to North Carolina. I was especially happy to be writing for a site where so many people -- hundreds -- could send such messages, and had such passionate perspective on what freedom really means, in a culture where it's constantly trampled and manipulated for profit, ratings, political gain or cultural power. Somewhere deep in my consciousness was the naive (or just plain dumb, maybe) belief that the Pinkerton execs would hear these messages, experience an epiphany and abandon WAVE America on the spot.
What emerged instead was as strange a cultural stand-off as one might imagine, a mix of the fascinating -- it was amazing to have a face-to-face confrontation with executives of the storied Pinkerton company (the writer Dashiell Hammett was a Pinkerton man, and the company had a bloody history of strike-breaking around the turn of the century) yet it was innately futile, and we all soon knew it. Over the sandwiches and iced tea, which hardly any of us touched, we each epitomized our distinctly opposite sides of a cultural chasm. Shannon and Dawn (given the volume of hostile e-mail Pinkerton was getting, I've decided not to use their full names) let Jim do the policy talking.
If there was any comfort to be drawn from the encounter, I suspect it would have to be from the fact that it was taking place. Voices on the Net had reached deep into a company that wasn't exactly famous for being interactive. That was something new.
These were pleasant, articulate, reasonable sounding -- and profoundly intractable -- people. We weren't speaking from the same sensibility or history or even using the same language. We butted heads all afternoon, but it was an odd argument in that scrapping WAVE America was never really on the table, and it was clear the company wasn't particularly interested in refuting any of my arguments, or those of the people who had e-mailed me theirs. I wouldn't swear that they disagreed. It simply didn't matter. The point was, there was a market for school-safety programs like this, and if Pinkerton didn't pursue them, somebody else would. The corporatist ethic doesn't allow for relinquihing potentially lucrative markets to competitors, any more than it does for conventional notions of right or wrong. In that sense, the meeting was exhausting and, probably, largely pointless. If there was leverage, it was in the fact that Pinkerton clearly wanted to go forward with its program in the least controversial way -- another corporatist hallmark.
I argued that WAVE America was simply wrong. That it was neither necessary, since the amount of school violence had been insanely exaggerated, nor effective -- kids could hardly be expected to accurately gauge the emotional or mental states of their classmates. I also argued that it was dangerous, that anonymous reporting was one of the primary tools of every evil political system in modern times. I reminded them that some of the smartest, most interesting and ultimately successful kids often experienced extreme and systematic harassment and brutality for being different, alienated or otherwise non-normal. That if educators, politicians or private corporations like Pinkerton really cared about school safety, they would do something to protect these outcasts.
The experience, in many respects, resembled talking to an affable stone wall. I did encounter more flexibility than I expected. Yes, my hosts acknowledged, they knew that school violence was dropping sharply (more about this later), but so what? It was still a problem, politicians like those in North Carolina were demanding some action, and so were parents, journalists and educators. Schools didn't have the resources or security skills to police themselves. Somebody had to respond, and Pinkerton was in the "secure environment" business, so why not step up to the plate?
Jim told me something I hadn't quite grasped: the anonymous reporting culture is a growing business, now deeply entrenched in the United States, a result of the victimization movement and lawsuit epidemic rampant for nearly a generation. Encouraged by federal and local governments, and many corporate and educational institutions, hotlines operate all over the country to report date rape, sexual harassment, abuse, and other forms of brutality and insensitivity. Since so many institutions in the United States are now presumed to be unresponsive to the needs of one group or another, privately-administered anonymous reporting hotlines are spreading. Pinkerton itself runs more than 800 such lines. It was inevitable, said Jim, that they would move into schools, and that Pinkerton would extend its security expertise and set them up. I found this amazing, which made Jim shake his head and shrug. I was transfixed by the idea of a democratic country whose response to social problems was to create an entire new tradition of informing. It had been happening for some time, he told me.
Yes, my hosts further acknowledged, they were aware that anonymous reporting was a staple ingredient of some of the world's most repressive regimes. Until the Wave America flap, however, Pinkerton had received no complaints about its hotlines. Privacy and security are the company's cornerstone marketing values, Jim insisted, and it's very careful about screening and disseminating the information it receives. Pinkerton's credibility depends on it.
Basically, the Pinkerton people spouted the now-familiar rationale for behavior like this: "Hey, don't blame us. A North Carolina Task Force came up with this, got the governor's blessing, and somebody is going to run it.Why not us? We know how, and if we don't do it, somebody else will."
Fine, I countered, but what about the schools that receive these forwarded anonymous tips. What about their privacy rules? Their security? Do these reports stay in files forever, or go into computerized law enforcement agency files? Are they destroyed after a given time, especially if they prove false or unfounded? Couldn't a kid be wrongly -- and anonymously -- on file, never know it, yet find this information in government or corporate files years later? Here, the Pinkerton people just shrugged. That was the school's problem. But, I persisted, didn't they just say that schools didn't have the resources to run such programs, which is why Pinkerton was involved in the first place? More shrugs.
Reports will be carefully screened and analyzed by professionals, I was assured.Only the most serious calls, involving serious violence -- rape, assault, possible crimes with guns -- were forwarded to school officials; the rest were not passed along at all. What happened to the not-passed-along reports? Nothing; they stay within Pinkerton's secure walls. For how long? Nobody knew.
Pinkerton was unhappy with some of the media portrayal of some of WAVE America's more controversial features.
Initially, the press reported (and I passed along) that kids were being offered cash and other gifts as incentives to turn in their angry, depressed or trouble classmates. But although the site clearly did offer gifts -- a computer, CD's -- the Pinkerton execs denied that they had or would offer cash or other goodies as a direct incentive for reporting their peers.
Things get a bit murky here, as the site has been hurriedly altered and re-designed in the past week or so. Under "Fun Stuff," the web site now has a message that simply says: "Coming Soon." Clearly, gifts will be used as incentives to draw kids onto the site, and reward them for participating, even if kids can get them without reporting anyone. But Pinkerton explained, there may be marketing tie-ins with companies promoting school safety in the future. Let's see: no direct reward for turning in a classmate, but gifts and prizes encouraging kids to use a site that offers anonymous reporting. A fine line.
The execs seized somewhat obsessively on this point as an example of how the program's goals -- to promote respect and school safety, and to provide a last-resort outlet for reporting of serious crimes in a country where schools are overwhelmed, underfunded and rattled by recurring media and political hysterias -- had been distorted by people like me.
"We understand that you disagree with the program," Jim said, "but we expect you to be responsible and accurate." Fair enough. But I pointed out repeatedly that the goodie give-aways were incidental, never the main issue.
The central question, I argued, was that the Net culture included, even embraced, kids who are brainy, individualistic, sometimes-alienated and rebellious, and often outside the norm in their values, attitudes and behavior. These kids suffer enormously at the hands of hostile peers, unknowing teachers, clueless parents, journalists and politicians. It's hard to imagine how WAVE America would benefit them in any way, but simple to foresee how it might still provide another forum in which they'd be branded -- anonymously, no less -- dangerous.
Pinkerton conceded that the "symptoms" of dangerous behavior its site had listed earlier were too vague. These initial "early signs of violence" included: Suddenly has bad grades or little interest in school; Expresses uncontrolled anger; Has excessive feelings of isolation and/or rejection; Is easily angered by minor things. Dawn and Shannon showed me their new, improved criteria, still under consideration and design and not yet up on the Web site. These new "warning signs," says Pinkerton, were provided by the American Psychological Association.
"If you see these immediate warning signs," WAVE America will announce, "violence is a serious possibility":
- loss of temper on a daily basis
- frequent physical fighting
- significant vandalism or property damage
- increase in use of drugs or alchohol
- increasing risk-taking behavior
- detailed plans to commit acts of violence.
- announcing threats or plans for hurting others
- enjoying hurting animals
- carrying a weapon
My response was that these symptoms were still awfully vague, and in any case that school kids weren't psychologists and shouldn't be asked to evaulate their peers emotional lives, or to try and differentiate between transitional depression or alienation and being potentially violent. What kind of risk-taking behavior? Agressive skateboarding? I still didn't understand why these weren't school or parental problems, rather than Pinkerton ones, or why the monitoring of emotional disturbance was being handed off to children. I still believed it was offensive and disturbing to put schoolkids in the position of anonymously turning in their classmates, enemies, and friends to an anonymous hotline run by a profit-making corporation with a vested interest -- and a classic conflict-of-interest -- in promoting the notion that schools were dangerous. This didn't promote safety, it subverted responsibility and democracy.
Besides, I added, many knowledgeable Constitutional scholars believe that the Supreme Court will eventually overturn police or other administrative actions based solely on anonymous reporting of crimes or potential crimes without supporting evidence. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court overturned the arrest of a Florida man who was searched because of an anonymous tip and found to have a gun. This, the court said, violated Fourth Amendment strictures against unreasonable search and seizure; the police needed evidence beyond an anonymous report. Though kids are stripped of Constitutional rights in most American schools, it's hard to believe courts will ultimately uphold educational or police actions taken on the basis of anonymous calls. If they do, though, Pinkerton and its Web site will have succeeded in undermining a fundamental freedom.
The Pinkerton people did say they'd consider refining their "symptoms" still further. And they made the inevitable co-opting gesture: Would I be interested in working with Pinkertons on WAVE America, or in writing for the site? Would Rob Malda perhaps like to contribute something? I said "No" on my behalf, and giggled a bit at the idea of Cmdr Taco or his partner in crime, Hemos, as columnists for WAVE America. But if the site were going forward, I suggested, Pinkerton could at least set-up an e-mail account to receive and consider feedback from people involved in the issue. It might even consider assembling some sort of advisory panel to help safeguard the interests of the kids it affects.
I found WAVE America too exploitive, offensive and disturbing to participate in, but others can make their own decisions.
Still, I left the meeting discouraged by the spectre of a country where the emotional welfare of schoolkids, and the potential violence that emotionally disturbed kids might wreak, seem to have been turned over to profit-making security corporations rather than to teachers, guidance counselors, therapists, and parents. The Task Force in North Carolina that came up with this dunderheaded response to a complex social problem is the first candidate that should be reported on that hotline.
Last Sunday, nearly a year after the Columbine massacre, the New York Times finally got around to publishing an exhaustive look at "Rampage Killers." The paper profiled 102 killers in 100 rampage attacks in a computer-assisted study looking back more than 50 years and including the shootings at Littleton in l999. Four hundred and twenty-five people were killed and 510 people were injured in the attacks. The newspaper found -- and convincingly detailed -- what should have been obvious from the first. The most common thread in these horrific sprees isn't media, technology or culture, but mental illness: at least half of the killers shown signs of seriousl mental health problems. Also this week, the National Association of Attorneys General reported that the most important factor in preventing youth violence was a "stable, loving home." The group also reported numerous instances of bullying and harassment of schoolkids all across America because students wore unusual clothing or were taller, shorter or heavier than other kids. This rare outburst of sanity was almost completely ignored by the mainstream media. But since unstable and unloving parents have now been identified as a child safety issue, perhaps we need a new anonymous hotline so that kids can turn in their unstable or unloving moms and dads -- or their neighbor's mom and dad -- along with the angry classmate in the next row. It would seem to follow. And it would seem inevitable.
The Times' series is detailed and impressive. But it comes after years of hysterical media reporting linking violence among the young to pop culture and new media technologies -- TV, movies, computer gaming, the Net. More than 80% of all Americans, reported the Washington Post last year, believed the Internet was at least partly responsible for the killings at Columbine. The very idea that programs like WAVE America will alter this horrific reality is itself a mental health problem.
Was the trip worth it? I don't honestly know. I appreciated the Pinkerton people meeting with me, though it didn't cost them anything, other than a few hours and some sandwiches. (Slashdot paid my traveling expenses.) I made some points directly to the people who needed to hear it. They are well aware that thousands of people are watching them; that's a strong stimulus to behave. They're tightening up vague criteria and dropping the idea of of rewarding tipsters with cash, gifts or caps. They seemed to understand that abuse of the different is a safety issue, along with guns and assaults.
But the meeting also reinforced my growing belief that corporations like Pinkerton are inherently amoral. I'm sure their workers are kind to their spouses, pets and kids. But the Pinkerton people don't see morality as their concern, which, in a sane society, might be one reason not to turn issues like school safety and violence among the young over to private corporations. Theirs is a simple equation, a statement right from the contemporary corporatist heart: they perceive a profitable opportunity in the security market, one created not by them but by irresponsible journalists, lazy educators and exploitive politicians. Someone will fill it. Might as well be them.
Sunday, I received this e-mail from the head of Pinkerton's WAVE America Web Development team:
"Jon,
It was very nice to meet you in person the other day. From that meeting we have made several changes to the WAVE website. The changes include clarifying that there are no prizes, cash, or other rewards for submitting a report via the website or phone. We also made clear that only reports which contain safety concerns should be submitted to WAVE. Our privacy policy, while not yet in it's final form, is much more complete now than the last time you saw it.
While here, you also suggested we get some input from the readers of slashdot to help us with the WAVE project. If you would be so kind, please include the email address [suggestions@waveamerica.com] in your article. We hope the WAVE website will be used not only as a tool to aid in preventing school violence, but also as an educational hub where students, teachers and parents can go to collaborate. Any suggestions or constructive criticism about how to make the website better would be greatly appreciated.
The WAVE website is now, and probably always will be, a work in progress. We hope that with the help and suggestions of you and your readers, we will be able to build a website that will empower the students and give them a voice.
I know that you didn't agree with everything about the WAVE project, but hopefully when you left here, you were able to see that this isn't a "big brother" program, but rather an educational program that hopes to prevent school violence by teaching Resolve, Respect, and Responsibility."
It seems to me that a system like this may have a weakness in scalability. I'm assuming that they will have people (not scripts) filter incoming messages to determine appropriate actions. Submitting large volumes of random messages to the snitch line could hamper their ability to be profitable.
Any other ideas?
Unfortunately, I think Pinkerton's is likely to play the PR game well. All it will take is for them to find one example where they may have saved a life, and they can tout that as validation for their service. Any ideas for deflecting this?
Jim told me something I hadn't quite grasped: the anonymous reporting culture is a growing business, now deeply entrenched in the United States, a result of the victimization movement and lawsuit epidemic rampant for nearly a generation.
What I don't get is this: Why nas anonymous reporting become a business? There have always been sources to anonymously report things: the Police for one thing. The police are supposed to investigate anonymous reports to see if they warrent action. Or, to assure anonymity to the person that reports it.
Now I don't mean that the case of the Florida arrest was justified. I said to INVESTIGATE. The case was overturned because the search and seizure was unreasonable, not because it was based on an anonymous tip. It was "based solely on anonymous reporting of crimes or potential crimes without supporting evidence." The police in this case should have investigated if the case was even necessary to follow up on, to get other supporting evidence, before searching and arresting the man.
The Columbine incident was the complete opposite. Remember that there was already a police complaint on these guys. This wasn't even an anonymous tip. Another student and his parent already reported to the police that Klebold and Harris may be unstable. The police in this case did not even bother to investigate, and lost a chance to stop a massacre. If the police had done their jobs and did their jobs, they would have found Harris and Klebold illegally exploding homemade explosives, illegally buying firearms, etc. All of which would fall under supporting evidence and be sufficient to lock them up.
What is needed is not more phone numbers for anonymous reporting. What is needed is for the current system to work. People need to be encouraged to use the existing emergency hotlines and resources to report possible crimes. People shouldn't be profiled by amateurs, but neither should possible crimes go unchecked.
is to completely inundate the WAVE system by reporting (millions and millions and millions of times, incessantly repeatedly and never ending) with entries about this new, insideous, dangerous intruder into the schools called "WAVE America" and report the names of all the people who created it as attempting to infiltrate the schools with neo-nazi ideals and subverting the students.
Unfortunately, this is kind of a no-win situation. If you stir up the controversy, Wave America gets more publicity. There is no such thing as bad publicity for a new company, product, or service. Even though they would like to tone down the negativism, Pinkerton is still, no doubt, loving every email they get. If you don't stir up the controversy, this will go through quietly and without incident. No one will think twice about the ethics of turning in a classmate. The best solution I can see is to encourage people to use the guerilla tactic of turning in so many false reports that the Wave America project becomes meaningless. A skilled hacker could probably come up with an "insta-report" program that would submit names and reports automatically, using a school's roster, yearbook, or whatever. Unfortunately, since there's no control over how the information is used, the potential for just setting up local and school authorities to harass even more innocent students is high.
There is yet-another-reason for home schooling. Your local schools might blow chunks, or have inadequate educational oppourtunities for your particular child.
The few children I know who are home schooled are brighter, read more, have greater breadth of knowledge than most kids their age.
Even the one home schooled for religious reasons encourage the kids to think for themselves instead of getting the fashionable point of view crammed down their throats by teachers. ac
Yeah, I just turned JonKatz in for being a dangerous and slightly creepy bag of hot, noxious gasses.
Sorry, I just had to post this again. John just earned a whole new respect from me...
That's not a bug. That's a feature.
The people who work at Pinkerton's may be morally indifferent. But the people who run the North Carolina schools and who make the policy decision to use such programs: they have a moral agenda. Their moral agenda includes molding adolescents into adults who do what they are told.
Pinkerton's has long experience in the field of social control, from violence to anonymous hotlines. They know what their customers want: to make high school students into sheeple. Thus, it doesn't help to point out that Wave America delivers this benefit to customers.
It would help more to go to the North Carolina policy makers and bring copies of The Wave, both the book and the movie. Point out that a school in Northern California already tried a program with that name. Point out that Pinkerton's knew nothing about it. Let Pinkerton's explain why their program is so different from this other program with the same name that they knew nothing about: which makes them incompetent!
Meanwhile, I'm getting fed up with these "hope his airplane crashes" posts. Damn, we have a nice geeky site here, how about showing the damn world that we tolerate and respect (while hotly debating) people who are different from us?
Question:
Of the people who got the crap beaten out of them numerous times in school, how many of them would have liked to have had an anonymous way of reporting the violence?
Personally, I think I would have at least tried it, although I wouldn't be surprised a bit if I'd just gotten beaten up even more for 'ratting out' the perpetrators.
At least in the schools I went to, violence was a REALLY big problem.
Here's an idea. Create a fund to send copies of the WAVE movie to schools across the country, and lobby school districts to make it a part of their curriculum/schools to show it. I saw it when I was in 7th grade, and it really did change my way of thinking.
There's a MAJOR difference. If you pull a fire alarm, a lot of the time, you get coated with dye, so that if it turns out you just wanted to skip gym class, they can come after you for maliciously setting off alarms. Feel like dialing 911 on a whim? Go try it. Problem is, the number that you dialed from is recorded. Barring you using an anonymizer device or a pay phone, when the cops come to a false alarm they're going to be asking questions, as in who was it that was at that phone booth at 5:45? And if it's a residence, they'd like a word with the joker who owns the phone. With something like this, hey it's totally anonymous. So if I want to label someone a dangerous offender as a "joke" - what's to say I won't do it again? Not that I would - but usually with these schemes there's some accountability - but unlike 911, here there is none.
Simply report to WAVE that all of the popular kids and bullys are disturbed. Cite every behaviour imaginable and eventually WAVE will have a low signal to noise ratio.
The report in the NYTimes that was mentioned at:
p age-killers.html"
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900ram
is inaccessible without a fee. It now costs $2.50 to access, apparently it just expired from the free 1-week archives. Perhaps Slashdot could contact NYT and arrange to have this story made available again for free?
After the column appeared, Jim revealed, WAVE America received more than 70,000 e-mails and a few mail bombs, and repelled a number of assaults on their system firewalls. :)
Keep up the good work, slashdotters!
Their indifference to the negative (possibly permanent) results of their information gathering bothers me greatly. There's no idea or expression of responsibility by Pinkerton's staff. If there's a buck to be made, they should make it. If there's a mistake - hey, it's not their problem. That's _very_ disturbing.
Pinkerton's isn't going to drop the service until there's no profit. Remove the market and there is no profit. As long as there is a market, flooding it with bogus reports is just going to make it more expensive. As long as people are willing to pay for it, it doesn't matter how expensive it is to run. Jon Katz had the right idea but met with the wrong people. The people buying the service have to be presented with the arguments Pinkerton didn't care about. I have to assume they really have good intentions, however misguided. Convince them it won't work and will only harm innocent people and they'll dump it. There goes the market and hence the service.
As "Database Nation" becomes reality, and everything (true and false) about a person becomes a commodity, it occurs to me that someone should begin actively creating a way to systematically erase that same data. Anyone possessing that skill would be wealthy indeed as he would be able to grant freedom at his whim (that is, for the right amount of cash). Is it just me, or is captilism somehow becoming the highest form of oppression? Doh!
Although deeply flawed, rarely successful, and despite my mixed feelings about lawyers, the existance of class action law suits is one of the few things that gives corparations pause. Punitive damages can devastate shareholder value for even the largest companies. Now THAT hurts! Even the threat of a major lawsuit can damage a companies stock value for a long time, especiall if it gets alot of press. Now if the Pinkerton scheme remains small and marginal then it may not produce enough profit for the company to be worth the flak they will take for it. However, suppose it is wildly "successful," ie, suppose students start ratting eachother out and school authories use this information. If this creates a poisoned at atmosphere that tramautizes "teens" who are individualistic but branded as "dangerous" they and their parents can sue for psychological damages. Moreover, suppose one of these "dangerous" kids, rather than being helped by Pinkerton assisted alienation, snaps, kills a bunch of classmates and explicitly mentions Pinkerton as part of his/her reason for snapping. Then, Pinkerton, welcome to public relations, class action hell. The even the parents of the dead classmates can sue for creating the atmosphere that pushed the killer over the edge. I am (obviously) not a lawyer but I would imagine that arguments that explain that any profits that WAVE could possible generated would not be worth the bad press, controversy, and possible legal damages to Pinkerton. This is the only argument many corporations will understand. And if they think they are too big to worry about such things or that proper labeling on their site will help, remember that the Tabacco companies also thought so too. One last thought is that "Jim" might be the guy whose job it is to make WAVE successful. Talking to him about scrapping it is like talking to a marketing guy at GM about the immorality of selling a Pinto that blows up when hit from the rear. You really would have to either talk to the legal dept. or the person who has the power to pull the plug on the project.
Blue Ribbon was a joke. All those people proudly displaying their blue ribbons. The CDA was doomed to fail. What people missed in that same bill was the deregulation of the telcos. While you waved your stupid blue ribbon protesting the possible loss of nekkid pics, WorldCom began buying up every competitor in site and the RBOC's began reviving AT&T. Where is competitive local dialtone for individuals (as opposed only for businesses)? Where are the lower monthly bills? What happened to the transit/peering agreements UUNet used to have with smaller providers now available only to "Tier 1" providers? The CDA died in the Supreme Court which had nothing to do with that dumbass blue ribbon campaign. Why don't you go do a protest mime in front of Pinkertons or something equally stupid?
Your understanding of the system is weak at best. I see my neices and nephews growing up spending more and more time on the rain forests than on Abraham Lincoln. There is much more teaching of political correctness than education. Politics is not what six year old should be spending much time on (lame letter copying campaigns).
A large part of the problems today are with society in general. Thugs are made to stay in school (your shit kicking theory) in Decatur, Illinois, when it's obvious most of them have no interest in the learning part. All in the name of political freakin correctness. If Jesse Jackson wants to take on the no-tolerance rules, he needed to pick a better group of people, say the New Jersey Four (kindergarten kids suspended for three days for playing Cops & Robbers with finger pistols, one hand bazooka, and yelling threats).
On a similar note, last night's South Park on hate crime laws was terrific. "I'm going to make an example of you. The next time you want to hurt someone, make sure they are the same color you are." Hippies piss me off, too.
Jim told me something I hadn't quite grasped: the anonymous reporting culture is a growing business, now deeply entrenched in the United States, a result of the victimization movement and lawsuit epidemic rampant for nearly a generation. Encouraged by federal and local governments, and many corporate and educational institutions, hotlines operate all over the country to report date rape, sexual harassment, abuse, and other forms of brutality and insensitivity. Since so many institutions in the United States are now presumed to be unresponsive to the needs of one group or another, privately-administered anonymous reporting hotlines are spreading. Pinkerton itself runs more than 800 such lines. It was inevitable, said Jim, that they would move into schools, and that Pinkerton would extend its security expertise and set them up. I found this amazing, which made Jim shake his head and shrug. I was transfixed by the idea of a democratic country whose response to social problems was to create an entire new tradition of informing. It had been happening for some time, he told me.
SO that makes it right, hunh? Wow. That's incredible. Accountability has been thrown out the window. They have no problem with this whatsoever. It's astounding. I am not a dogmatically religious person but I spent enough time in Sunday school to learn the 10 commandments. One of those is, "Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Rules are made because of past problems. Well, the business of bearing false witness is a very old problem and apparently, in the opinion of those who wrote the bible, a very big problem. It made the top ten. So, why tempt people with these anonymous snitching programs?
hotlines operate all over the country to report date rape, sexual harassment, abuse, and other forms of brutality
So, if you don't like the results you get from the system, set up another "system" to do an end run on it. Yeah, then you don't have to prove things; you only need to make the accusation. This is by definition a kangaroo court.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
argued that WAVE America was simply wrong. That it was neither necessary, since the amount of school violence had been insanely exaggerated, nor effective -- kids could hardly be expected to accurately gauge the emotional or mental states of their classmates. I also argued that it was dangerous, that anonymous reporting was one of the primary tools of every evil political system in modern times. I reminded them that some of the smartest, most interesting and ultimately successful kids often experienced extreme and systematic harassment and brutality for being different, alienated or otherwise non-normal. That if educators, politicians or private corporations like Pinkerton really cared about school safety, they would do something to protect these outcasts.
A lot of the motivation for this kind of system, that is to say the reason it will sell, is that it discourages individualism and independent thinking. Jon makes it sound as though he needed to point out that the chilling effect such a system would have on the more eccentric and intelligent students is an accident that the company may have overlooked. I'm betting it's a feature designed into the sytem from the start.
In a corporatist system, what's the point of school? To create new crops of consumers. And what happens if people are allowed to form their own thoughts and ideas and are allowed nonconformist behaviors? They might question the barrage of advertising, might not believe what the corporate-owned media tells them, might want to challenge the pro-business anti-individual laws that the government passes at the behest of the corporations.
So of course this will work. The only people more hated than the jocks are the smart kids, the oddballs, because at least they can't or won't fight back while the jocks will. So now we'll give any kid with a grudge the power to report anything they don't like about someone. And of course the schools will just eat this up, just like they do now when they suspend kindergarteners who play cops and robbers, because it makes them look proactive and responsible. And we'll have schools that are free of creativity and individualism, schools that teach that backbiting and fear of authority are cherished values.
This clearly is the product of an evil political system. It's the political system that's taking root now and will become dominant if something isn't done to stop it.
A Slashdot editor and writer urged me to ask Pinkerton what remedies students and parents would have against false accusations. (The answer: None. Pinkerton doesn't make accusations, they just pass along information. That wasn't the company's problem, the execs said. Nor were any misuses of anonymously reported information by the schools that received it).
Did this remind anyone else of "Wernher Von Braun", and I was singing the Tom Lehrer song to myself "...'vonce rockets are up, who cares vere ze come down, zat's not my depaatment' says Wernher Von Braun"
BTW, here's an interesting study(probably the one Katz was referring to): http://www.cjcj.org/schoolhousehype/shh2.html
It never ceases to amaze me how much people enjoy playing the bad guy, while publically proclaiming their martyrdom. Why do self-proclaimed "intelligent people" insist on doing things they know will turn others against them? Why do they insist on spam, mailbombs, DoS attacks, and other means of resistence that will ensure that their point will not be taken seriously? And why do we encourage Katz to tilt at windmills? Do we so get off on being outsiders that we have to push ourselves further to the outside?
Do what my mum (mom) did when she saw things 'wrong' with my school.
Got herself on the school Governers board (it wasn't that difficult as they are usually short on volunteers) and argued for the changes to be made.
It worked quite nicely and our school was a better place for it.
This is what the 'pro' WAVE-ers have done, so why not do the same if you are anti-WAVE.
The quote attributed to Franklin (or Jefferson) has been used by just about every extremist movement, from pro-gun to pro-abortion to pro-prayer to <foo>. However, once dissected it simply is a statement of stance, akin to "I want X and I want Y, and I want them both, and I want them in full."
If, instead of making a stand, either or both had concentrated on building bridges, the gulf would have been crossable before their first cup of coffee arrived.
(After that, it's for one or both sides to make the decision =to= cross, but you can't cross where there's no bridge, and you can't build bridges whilst making stands.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Oddly enough, I am moving out of Rochester, NY, where last I checked I had a choice of local dialtone. Besides, if all these things are such a big deal to you, why aren't you organizing something? It honestly sounds like a worthwhile cause to me.
BTW- This has to be the absolute best Jon Katz piece I've seen here on /. I'm mildly depressed after reading the way Pinkerton execs basically washed their hands of any responsibility for the effects of their program, however I am encouraged by a couple of points: 1) They took the time to arrange and host a meeting with someone who is not increasing their bottom line. 2) They listened at the meeting and went so far as to detail their privacy policy and (supposedly) eliminate rewards for informants.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
This was a very good piece. All around. Good work, Jon.
I have to admit that until now, I'd pretty much been ignoring your articles. I read this one purely by chance. FWIW, you're back on my reading list.
I hope the Pinkertons are really misguided, but well-intentioned. If so, they might become enlightened. Unfortunately, I think they're probably greedy and exploitive. How can you not see the dangers in this sort of system?
----------
You mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized peo
Ahh, but WHY do schools have to be run by the government? Look at all the other "government funded" programs. They WASTE an incredibly disproportionate amount of money for what they cost. Currently Schools are the same way.
The only way to fix this is to promote competition BETWEEN schools. No parent wants to send their kid to a lousy school.. but right now we don't have that choice.
Religion vs. Science is a non argument here. If people had choice there could be achool that teaches creationism and one that teaches evolution. Let me choose which school I want to send my kids too.
And if you're worried about the left or the right wing having too much of an effect in those schools.. you don't have to worry.. most people are down the middle and the extremist wwould have much less power trying to influence 10000 independant schools vs. our lovely "if you have the $$$ we will do your biding" government.
The only thing we need government for is to build roads, and fund the police and millitary. Everything else is a waste.. just look at the SS program. (If you're under 35 and think you're gona see a penny of the money you fork out to SS every paycheck when you hit 65..haha.. I'd start looking for a good 401K plan)
Ex-Nt-User
PS. Mabey I'm just a cynic
Such horseshit! I'm not religious or radical. I still don't see how it's my responsability to pay for the children of others, if I didn't make them pregnant.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Hey, the reporting is annonymous. So who is to say that you are not in high school?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
This is kind of like the voucher plan, which is a great idea. What a lot of net libertians need to realize is tat in a lot of way the way right folks have some good ideas.....
Vouchers are a good idea because it means people can START THEIR OWN SCHOOLS, and use gov't $$ via vouchers to pay for them....
They were the same episode. And note of course how that's the same one in which Lisa, model student, rebels....
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
And definitely include a badge or pin, something we could wear every day. Draw a parallel between this and the Jews getting labelled with Stars of David by the Nazis. And no, I do not compare this to the Holocaust. But this is how Holocausts start and I don't want to wait until they are packing the undesirables off to reeducation camps. God, that gives me the creeps just typing that.
An organized campaign should be sending out a statement to TV, radio, government officials. Say it early and often, and wear the badge to show your support. People will start learning about it just from wondering what's up with this {star|logo|symbol|pin} showing up everywhere. Maybe hold rallys or marches in the larger cities.
Hell, a couple of my friends started the Amazon mock reviews and that got national coverage - you'd think some concerted effort could get something this important into the limelight. All we need is some "concerting".
-- Raven
Of course, the defence that "this affects real people" is no defence at all. What you mean is that it now has the possibility of affecting you.
Heh... who needs the comedy of politicians when you can watch the slashdot community choking on their own credibility.
--
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
I'm not talking about the police, dumb ass.
Once WAVE becomes reality, I think there's a great story waiting to be written by a high-school student who makes the anonymous phone call to turn in himself or herself for being violent, destructive, and potentially murderous.
Make up all the accusations out of thin air as if you were an angry fellow classmate. Make the call from a pay phone, noting the exact time and writing down what you say. Don't tell anyone (even your parents) what you're doing. And document everything that happens.
The story of the falsely-accused, from the inside, would be a fascinating read.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
The Wave is based on a true incident that occured in a high school history class in Palo Alto, California, in 1969.
The powerful forces of group pressure that pervaded many historic movements such as Nazism are recreated in the classroom when history teacher Burt Ross introduces a "new" system to his students. And before long "The Wave," with its rules of "strength through discipline, community, and action, " sweeps from the classroom through the entire school. And as most of the students join the movement, Laurie Saunders and David Collins recognize the frightening momentum of "The Wave" and realize they must stop it before it's too late.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
This is probably an unpopular opinion on slashdot... But I partially agree with the use of profiling--engineers use similar techniques to diagnose stuff (you just don't automatically assume everything flagged is an error). Anyways, here's my letter:
:-)
----------
Just to let you know where I'm coming from: I am a self-professed geek who
reads Slashdot, blah, blah... But I do believe in profiling as a
diagnostic tool: if 10% of people who where red clothes and drink pepsi
end up killing people, then you keep tabs on all those people (but don't
arrest them just because they fit the profile).
I do have a couple of concerns/suggestions. Maybe before schools could be
allowed into this program, the teachers and some of the administration
would have to go through a (small) training program that educates them
about how to treat an anonymous tip. (Like, don't assume automatic guilt,
but do call student in, maybe search locker, etc). In addition, you can
educate the schools on dealing with people who excarbate the problems
(like the stereotypical "Jock" who spends his whole high school raping
women and beating up "geeks"). After all, if it turns out that most school shootings are perpetuated by people that have been beaten up at
school, preventing beatings of the people reported would also reduce
shootings.
As time goes on your educational program can evolve as you have more
experience in the area.
Add an abuse-reporting hotline (or make it an extension of the same one).
Students can report school abuses to the information provided by
Pinkerton. Maybe also add a way that students can report students who
consistently beat them/others.
Also, there are plenty of existing counseling hotlines. Maybe you could
have pointers to them on your websites for students who *are* depressed
and carry guns
Finally, maybe set up a watch-dog group. These guys wouldn't have to have
any real power (you don't want the likes of Katz to be able to shut you
down instantly, or be able to force you into moves desigend to bankrupt
the program), but they could point out to you actual/potential problems.
It would naturally be an unpaid board.
Well, thanks for listening and showing a willingness to address concerns,
The fear that it *is* the best part, that is, that it won't ever get better, is probably part of it. Some people go through teenagehood with more "issues" than others, and at that age, the old crystal ball is a little cloudy, leading to shortsighted measures occasionally.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Err, Spartacus?
I disagree. I was never pushed around or harassed by geeks/punks/goths/D&D'ers/etc in highschool. Not once. Every single person who ever bullied me in highschool was either a football player, or someone who was in that crowd. They're the ones who were always fighting, harassing people, and making life miserable for others.
Although it sounds good, the fact is that most schools do not punish the football players for what they concider normal activity for them.
If the school is harrasing the star quarterback then all the "important" kids get upset and tell their parents. Result: the school leaves the quarterback alone.
On the other hand when the jocks put in that the geeks or other strange stundents have gone crazy, the school will follow thier every move, harrass and be quite prejudiced against them. They do not form a mojority, so they are safe to abuse.
Basicly I don't forsee this WAVE being more than a way for schools to have a more "legitamite" reason for picking on the strange kids.
There is definatly a problem here.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
We're not talking about business--we're talking about the parents.
Worse, actually; a democracy has to preserve at least some capacity for thought in its citizens (elections and all).
1) This isn't a democracy
2) The public education system is responsible for the lack of thinking skills in our society today.
Businesses don't even have to do that; it's more profitable to squash even those last vestiges of independence.
Government feels this even more strongly than businesses.
Far better to have a child taught by a trained professional than by someone who, in the end, may well not know much more than the student.
Someone who knows not much more than the student? Ahh, you must mean "educators." Your elitism astonishes me. This is the same argument that was made for monarchy--kings must rule because "common" people don't have the necessary training and skill to do things correctly.
Furthermore, the theories I hear coming out of education research are completely bogus; it appears that the "training" doesn't pay off.
While I have seen more than my share of corruption in individual school administrations, I don't see where the corruption is in the system itself.
On principle, it is wrong for the state to educate--this is outside the scope of government and within the realm of parenting. When government oversteps its bounds and invades the parent-child relationship, it is tyranny.
You know, you've been using the word "corrupt" and derivations thereof quite a lot. Without giving a single shred of evidence as to where the corruption lies, no less.
The school system is a way of making sure everyone believes what the government tells them to believe. They make sure you understand the world their way. You must see history their way. You must see philosophy their way. You must see politics their way. The school system is a way of making sure we have ignorant, misinformed, and pliable "citizens."
One last note on this: I have yet to see a kid who is truly addicted to school.
He's talking about the way people fall in love with the doctrines that are dumped on them. Though it will do no good to tell you this--as you obviously believe the things you have been told--look around you: our entire culture is shot through with the same old lies and fairy-tales.
When schools become used as a political tool, it is a Bad Thing. But I'd like to see your evidence that school has become a propaganda tool. Oh, that's right, you don't provide any. And thus, no reason for anyone to believe you.
I'll give you proof enough, but we'll have to take it to private e-mail, as it is too involved to discuss here. Of course, as I said, you most likely will refuse to accept what I have to say--you're firmly convinced by your indoctrination that it's a pack of lies.
By the way, what do you mean by "when" schools are used as a political tool? That's what they were created for.
If you really want to discuss this further, e-mail me.
After Columbine, there was such a frenzy of "something must be done or my little Johnny might get hurt!" that any public official not seen to be doing something about it would get thrown out of office immediately.
While I don't disagree with you, I just would like to point out that this is not a "Nazi" or "Fascist" idea. Authoritarian maybe, but that's actually different from Fascist.
Absolutely correct. Just to add to what you said: if your position is correct, your reasoning is sound, and logic is the order of the day, you will succeed--I guarantee it.
Can this really be a coincidence? I mean, are we sure this isn't just a *huge* hoax?
Search first, ask questions later.
Today's strip makes everyone here guilty. Please turn yourself in now. :(
I also feel it still stinks. And I agree that it's a venue tailor made for abuse. I couldn't personally co-operate with a program like this, but didn't feel I could/should make that decision for anybody else. It's hard not to think about a program like this..and the fact that taxpayers are paying for it..and not be discouraged.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
So what should be done is create a site where people can register themselves. This site will generate a random number of reports to the Wave site of "bad" activity every day for every user registered with the Tidal Wave site.
This site would probably get blocked/detected by the Wave site pretty quickly. So you add a way for people to randomly report someone with a button push.
There can even be a "suggest a deviant activity" like being 15 and obsessed with Teletubies to generate new subjects for the report.
See GEEK Force's WAVE Bye-Bye Campaign.
Jon Katz is a guy we love to hate.
There is an important difference between WAVE and SlashDot: SlashDot allows you to be anonymous in front of your peers, opening room for a discussion. I can create a new nick and call you all sorts of names, but a) everyone knows about it, and b) you can reply. If I don't care about your reply and I'm just trolling, I'll never use that nick again. If I'm really worried that you're going to do some harm, that theory is now in the open where you can refute it if you wish.
All of the checks and balances provided by an open forum are removed with the WAVE program.
Perhaps every school should use SlashCode instead of WAVE?
-- Spring: Forces, coiled again!
So anonymous reporting, when it's being used to snitch on "dangerous kids" is bad? But having Anonymous Cowards is considered an important part of Slashdot.
AC's here are anonymous because they're spewing crap, or because that have important information to disclose, but don't want to reveal themselves. Oftentimes, these ACs give us insight into corporations that are undertaking questionable practices.
So when is it OK to be anonymous? Is it OK to snitch on corporations when they're being bad, but not on people?
Or is it that Pinkerton's making money off the anonymous reporting scheme that bothers people?
I'm not trying to defend Pinkerton (I think their WAVE program will be next to useless), but I do want to know where the line is.
Five elementary-school kids were suspended for *pretending* to play with guns last month. Here's an insightful, if not exactly fact-filled summary:
http://www.seanbaby.com/news/gunkids.htm
Best quote - "If you get someone in trouble for nothing, that's like giving them a Slaughter the School Free Card. You've already been punished for it, you might as well finally kill that kid that puts gum on your chair."
Think that's crazy? How 'bout this one -- Tuesday, a teacher in an Arizona school shot herself in an attempt to make a point about safety at her school:
http://dailynews.ya hoo.com/h/ap/20000411/us/teacher_shot_5.html
I believe we've officially reached the point of hysteria, folks.
Incidentally, if there was one argument which I think might have swayed the Pinkerton folks, it would be this: "When some Microsoft millionaire's computer-geek kid gets harassed and branded "dangerous" by his peers and teachers at school because some jackass first-string football player passed on a bogus tip on your system, who, exactly, do you think is going to be first on the list of people getting sued?"
--
perl -e '$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00";
s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72,
$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00"; s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72, (74..76),(78..80),(82..85))[hex $1]/eg;
The whole 6th Amendment reads:
The clauses that need to be applied are to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.
Children are the current target of this threat but the scope of this could expand to cover everybody.
I know that no laws will prevent this; and that Pinkerton will find other avenues to get similar information -- but I feel that reminding people that this is going on can never hurt.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Cheers!
--Ivan, weenie NT4 user: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
Hmm...
The view of this situation is very simple. Pinkerton wants to remain in favor of their customer (ie. the State of North Carolina), so they chose to accept the contract. Jon may have a better time lobbying the state than Pinkerton Corp., but then politics never really get affected by outside sources other than by public opinion and campaign contributions...
On the lighter side of things...
Maybe WAVE America won't get the exposure that the state expects. After all, if they legislate that all public access computers have censorware installed, and that censorware looks for specific words that may be contained on WAVE America, some kids might not even be able to get to the site...
Well, at least we can hope that one government initiative helps to squash another one. I'm doubting that nothing short of a far-reaching public outcry will stop the WAVE America site from coming online...
What do you expect from a state, where only one out of every five children live with both parents.
I don't think he was saying hunting for food is a bad thing. I think he says hunting for the sake of killing an animal is sadistic. I also enjoy deer meat, but I also am appalled at the people I know who don't even eat the meat of the animals they hunt, they just want to see the blood, and have something to hang on their wall.
And I'm not even saying it is wrong to enjoy hunting, but if you kill it, you better eat it.
I post links to stuff here
to stop this nonsense. How long could it possibly be before some poor kid is beaten by the football team or expelled from school because of a flood of anonymous tips?
I would assume that a court could see the passing along of unsupported anonymous tips as gross negligence leading to personal harm.
Apparently DSS is well known for acting precipitously on anonymous tips: if a dozen people phone in that you've left your kids alone in the car, you'll probably be in jail the next day even if you don't own a car or have any kids.
"This will go down on your permanent record!"
...that the Pinkerton corporation was originally private law enforcement for companies struggling through strikes. The Pinkertons would showup and rough up the strikers. Maybe Pinkerton hasn't realized that there's been a change in the last century and a half?
Big K.
Poopdick.
If everybody here registered a free email at Waveamerica, and used it as a spam account (For recieving, not distributing) it would take down thier server in a matter of minutes! What is this? Have I finally found a good use for spam??
You say you want a revolution....
...that people often seem to miss. Companies do not have ethics, and they are not 'good' or 'evil'; they only have interests, and they will pursue those interests as far as they can.
of course pinkerton doesn't care, they were probably all part of the cool group or whatever and don't know shit about what its like to be the outcast. I bet if a few members of the board were outcasts in school they would be open to other suggestions.
pinkerton, if you actually read this, i want you to know you will be hurting more people and wrecking more lives than you save, only to line your pocketbooks. You people make me sick. I only hope the individual's coming up with this idea don't go home and think they are decent and moral human beings after working on such a project.
That's it, I'm reporting you to the Pinkos! What that number again?
The heart of the problem with this whole WAVE America program, is that incompotent legislators have turned over a social problem to a commercial enterprise. The results - surprise - a plan that puts profits ahead of any sense of moral, ethical, social, or democratic consideration!
Your suggestion that the entire educational system be turned into the very same type of corporatist's cornucopea is completely irresponsible. How many times have social concerns been turned over to commercial interests in the name of Privatization, with the result worse than before?
Let's consider Health Care - the big Privatization push which has resulted in the medical decisions for patients being made by HMO/Managed Care companies, based upon profit/loss projections - rather than Doctors, based upon medical necessity. I personally, have an enormous issue with this - everytime I change employers, or health insurance plans, I run into the same prescription problem over and over again. The medication I need to take daily, is not listed on the "Formulary" of these companies. Although I am refilling medication which was initially prescribed years ago. Each and every time, I have to jump through hoops to get my doctor's assistants to forward a correctly worded pre-authorization request to the new company. I then have to wait for someone with a calculator in their accounting department to decide whether or not to honor this request, and issue approval for the medication!
What, I ask, would be the true benefit of "Privatizing" the Education system? Do you truly believe that insane, politically motivated, unethical, immoral, irresponsible policies are going to simply vanish without a trace? Or, instead, will they be replaced by insane, corporatist motivated, unethical, immoral, irresponsible policies? I think the latter!
The solution to Social Problems should be solved via Social Solutions, not Commercial or Religious Solutions. As far as I'm concerned, the root cause for the vast majority of problems in the current Public School system is Religious in nature. If the religious zealots would keep their preaching confined to their church, instead of pushing politicians to weave it carefully throughout the educational system, we'd be far better off! Oh - but that's not what the Separation of Church and State relates to... huh?
When schools are able to actually teach fact-based, and current theory-based subject matter, then our school system will improve. As long as it's diluted with religious thumping regarding Creation over Evolution, Sexual Abstinence over Reproductive Biology, and so on... it will continue to suck - and keep sucking more and more each year!
I AM, therefore I THINK!
That much could be inferred from your past writings. I'm a bit more curious about their
positions, though. In this article, there's about a 2-1 ratio of "I told them this" to "they responded with that". If you're gonna report, bring back the story, not the ideas you left with. Otherwise, all you have is a strawman that paid for sammiches.
I think anonymous reporting is potentially dangerous, but there's definitely a need for it. In many cases, potential victims have a real and justified fear of retribution. Besides, there's no functional difference between this and ratting out that goth kid in gym to the principal, except that someone is making a buck off of it. The principal isn't going to say, "well, so and so told us you were going to blow up the school". He'll say "We've heard some things that concern us."
ummmm, is my anonymous call still anonymous if WAVE has caller ID?
Citrix
Leknor
http://Leknor.com
"So many idiots, so few comets"
Yes I agree with most of what you say except that "promulgating conformity as practice and as virtue" is not bad given the alternatives. First, kids need to know what the "received opinion" is before they can even begin to be skeptical about it. If suspicion is the highest virtue in your universe, then I don't really want to live there.
I think many children are happy to conform because it gives them a starting point -- a backdrop if you will -- against which they can begin to question the status quo.
Secondly, no western liberal democracy could function without mass-produced, brainwashed (to a certain extent) automatons. Who else is going to keep the trains running on time? People who aren't desensitized to repetitive, mechanistic bureaucracy would balk at most of what bourgeois life throws at them. If you'd rather have a society structured differently than the one we live in now, go ahead and change things.
I think that the crushing banality of bourgeois life is simply the price we have to pay for a society based on equality. We eliminated the noble and the divine when we beheaded the monarch. All men are created equal. Underneath this explicitly held precept, there is an implicit relativism which destroys the ability to question because it denies the individual a platform from which to view the status quo.
The relativist claim that "There is no such thing as absolute truth" has come to mean "anything goes". Rather than responding to this moral abyss with fear and trembling, Americans (and really all western democracies) simply busy themselves with material pursuits in order to drown out thought altogether. They can't become passionate about issues because that would threaten the comfort of consumption and, more importantly, it would exemplify the heresy that some things are more valuable than others. Students are not learning how to learn or think for themselves because that is not the objective of public school. They're learning how to consume. They are being fed knowledge so that they won't have enough hunger to cause much of a stir. They are being given a mass of facts in order to pre-empt valuating and weighing things. Weighing alternative points of view leads to the dangerous and undemocratic belief that some facts were more important than other facts. It would mean that the universe no longer reflects the equality of man. We can no longer say "The firmament sheweth His handiwork and the heavens declare His glory".
I agree that in a lot of ways this is insidious, but would you prefer a return to the ancien regime? Would you prefer dictatorship or anarchy? If you do prefer those things, then I suppose we can agree to disagree.
Of course people are no longer as willing to lie down as they once were. The growing gap between rich and poor means that fewer and fewer students have anything to gain by conforming. Hence the movement to home schooling, no schooling, behaviour problems, etc, etc.
Even more outrageous than that, libertarians believe there ought not to be criminal law!! All "disputes" should be settled in civil court by Tort. (I heard the leader of a libertarian party say that at a speech he gave at the University of Manitoba)
Please, libertarians out there, restore my faith in humanity and say it ain't so!!
The real problem is that America is in decline. It happens eventually to every great power. Panic-striken Americans are casting about for scapegoats but there just aren't any.
That said, you really have to ask yourself whether you feel better having a child at home where mom or dad feels they are just a pain in the neck. In theory parents are better than "professionals" but in reality they often turn out much worse.
Another thought that came to mind when I read your post was of the children on Kibbutzim in Israel who are raised collectively, in a kind of day care. The kids seemed quite well-adjusted and not needy or enraged. I think kids will do well as long as they are treated fairly and shown some affection.
Also, think of the benefits of having someone offer you guidance who has no vested interest or ulterior motive in advising you. Pushy stage parents, or "hockey dads" (I'm a Canuck) are probably much more detrimental to the child's well being than a disinterested adult. Think about all the crazy parents who want their kids to succeed where they failed, even if the child has no interest in whatever it was that the parent failed at.
What about the teachers and day care workers who recognize battered children and give them a safe haven that they would never have at home? That has to have some value to society, does it not?
I'd say the jury's still out on whether third-party parenting is worse than "natural" parenting. There is still a case to be made for a mix of both.
Sorry, I should have been more explicit. I meant to disagree with the claim that we have "historically unprecedented levels of literacy". The literacy rates are lower today than they were in the 1780's. I didn't mean to imply that public education hurts the cause of literacy. On the contrary, it can only help. I was just being nit-picky about a tiny historical fact. Sorry to be unclear.
That's not entirely true. New England Puritans had achieved almost 100% literacy by the 1780's.[1]
[1] Daniels, Bruce Puritans at Play p28, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
For a complete and thorough account of what corporatism is and how it affects liberal democracies please see The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul.
I'm certain that disclaiming themselves as Big Brother helps employees sleep at night, but it doesn't change reality.
No one wakes up in the morning deciding to become Big Brother, they don't set out to do evil. Evil is achieved only through consistent application of indifference and misguided idealism. ("The world would be better without _____")
Justifying immoral activity by saying that "someone" would do it anyway is the ultimate cop-out. You aren't even willing to defend it, only stating that others are even less moral than yourself. ("Well, someone will turn in these Jews, it might as well be me.")
Reminds me of Battlefield Earth (soon to be a bad new movie) -- Earth was owned by aliens who had conquered it, and the bank was going to sell Humanity into slavery when they reposessed it. Over and over they would say, "It's just business, humans. Sorry. Nothing personal, just business."
Don't worry, it's just business here at Pinkerton. Gotta satisy the market. If we don't someone else will, so it may as well be us. Nothing personal, hope we don't ruin your kid's life, but if we do, sorry, nothing personal. Just business...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The "Pinks" have a reputation to live down to. They got their start busting unions by physical violence.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Or, better yet...get "good" and "bad" students together and in concert, have the "bad" student report the "good" student. Should be a wonderful PR move to point out the results. The crux of this being that the this would be done with the "good" student's blessing as an effort to show the idiocy of this project.
Jeff
I almost think the cash and prizes were a good thing. If you wanted the cash and prizes, you couldn't be anonymous.
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
You are damn right I'd be screaming about that. You want your God taught in public schools to my kids? Great. We'll then teach my God to your kids. We can start with what a load of crap this whole Jesus idea is. Then we can discuss the various parallels between Santa Claus and the idea of a God that gives you Eternal Life if you'd only be good.
Maybe we could move on to the idolatry section of the course, where we teach the kids that leaving nice presents in front of a certain statue will make one of the gods happy.
Finally, we can move on to the Moloch section of the course, where students can bring in infant siblings. The teacher will then tell them to smash their heads against the walls and drop their bodies into a pit of fire to ensure a good crop.
For the advanced students, we might want to have a section on temple prostitues.
I bet you'd be screaming if the schools were teaching that.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
It is left-wing secular homeschooling which has been the fastest-growing form of homeschooling for the last decade. For a reason.
Because there aren't many people doing it?
If one person is a member of club X, and one more person joins, they have a 100% increase in membership! That's a fast growing club!
If one hundred people are a member of club Y, and one more person joins, they have a 1% increase in membership. Not so impressive.
Other dumb things you said:
The idea that it's the state's job -- even the state's prerogative -- to advance every social good is the very pretext by which they usurp the rights of citizens.
If it is the state which is educating your children, you have already abdicated your responsibility.
First of all, it is very much in the state's interest to make sure that everyone is well-educated. Well educated people commit fewer crimes. Well educated people tend to earn more money and produce greater economic growth. If you want the children of poor people (who can't afford to pay for prep schools) to get ahead, public education is the way to go. Tell me, in 25 words or less, a poor immigrant is going to teach their children English. My grandparents didn't have English at home, even though they were born in the US. Public school is where they learned it. The same is true today.
If you want a permanent underclass, get rid of public education. If you want to have opportunity for the poorest people in society, public education is the way to go.
And no, I don't want to hear about vouchers. Should a childless couple get their money back to spend as they see fit? After all, they aren't getting ANYTHING directly out of the school system, either. Just as it's in the state's best interest for everyone to be educated, it's also in EVERYONE's best interests for people to be educated, for the exact same reasons. In a democracy, the people are the state.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Of course (wink wink) I coulda been trying to say "read here, read here!!" which is what all of our /. posts are really saying, isn't it? ;-)
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Excellent, excellent point.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Hopefully my little bit helps to make the world a better place.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
In my books, there's really not much difference between shooting deer with a rifle or dropping 1000lbs. of cluster-bombs on the same site. The deer has just about as much awareness, or ability to take evasive action.
:P
You've obviously never hunted before in your life. Dropping a bomb involves pressing a button. Killing a deer, even if you're not a bow and arrow hunter like my dad used to do, is NOT an easy task. It's hard to impress that onto someone who does not hunt, so go get yourself a gun, and try it sometime.
Nor, in my books, is there any difference between deer hunting, whale hunting, hare coursing, fox hunting, badger baiting or any other similar pursuits. There's no "challange", no uncertainty in the results, no respect for the life you're about to erase, no compassion for the animal or anything dependent on it.
You're right. I have no compassion for the deer I kill, because I kill it in order to eat it. Venison tastes really good, it's better for you than beef, and it IS a challenge to kill a deer.
As for American Football, it's just Rugby with armour and some glamour girls on the sidelines. Like modern hunting, all the reality is removed and you're left with an empty shell. Desensitised and meaningless.
Huh. I say the same thing about rugby. And most sports in point of fact.
Personally, if I were running something like Pinkerton's program, I'd have those two activities as the two strongest indicators of a sociopath.
So a sociopath, to you, is a guy who plays sports and hunts? Wow, that's at least 60% of the population. You must not go outside for fear of all the sociopaths walking the streets.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Really? It's not hard to believe for some of us.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
Hah!
As if the people who watch Inside Edition have any idea who the Hitler Youth was.
Hey! Lookie-here! Maybe that's part of the problem!
Not to mention the fact that most of the people implicated in other help/reporting lines are adults. This may seem to be a simple distinction, but what it actually means is that the vast majority of people affected by Pinkerton's other "Help Lines" have a legal recourse to rely upon if they are falsely accused/defamed. OTOH, NONE of the people who would be affected by WAVE have any legal recourse for themselves. The best that they could hope to do is to convince their parents that they have been wrongly evaluated and hope that the parents are willing to go to court if necessary to protect their "Rights" (which is a funny thing to say, because as we all know, children in America have almost no rights). This is the kind of ridiculous, ineffective, and dangerous policy that can ruin a child's life for no reason other than that they are different. For every "Dangerous" child this profile catches, I'm sure it will catch 1000's who have never posed a danger to anyone, and mark them with a stigma that may never wash away. But hey! It's OK to sacrifice 1000's for the good of one person, Right?
Hmmm....Let's see...I'm a reasonably well-adjusted individual who has never seriously hurt anyone, am considered bright, intelligent and funny by most of my peers, have a good job and am quite successful by most measures...let's see how I stacked up on these points in HS.
1) Loss of temper on a daily basis: Yep, I was a 15 year old boy with a bunch of hormones welling up in me. I was a geeky smart kid who blew the curve for people in classes. I found something to be pissed off about nearly every day between the ages of 15 and 18.
2) Frequent physical fighting: Yep, I took martial arts when I was in high school, and my friends and I would spar at least 2 or 3 times a week without pads. It may not be the type of fighting you're thinking of, but it IS fighting, and more importantly it sure LOOKS like fighting to someone who doesn't know what's going on.
3) Significant vandalism or property damage: This I did not really participate in, but we did like to go to the dump and break bottles, or take a sledgehammer to junked TV's, machinery, appliances, etc. Still shows a "violent" impulse.
4) Increase in use of drugs or alcohol: Gee, I had an increase in HS from never having touched drugs or alcohol, to drinking occasionally and smoking weed. Does that count?
5)Increased risk-taking behavior: Oh Yeah!!! Teenagers do a lot of stupid stuff. Sometimes they think it will be fun, sometimes they just don't know any better. We used to drive fast and reckless, skate and bike hard. Free climb, jump off of buildings, mock fight with real weapons, etc. All stupid. All risky. All part of being a teenager.
6) Detailed plans to commit acts of violence: We were very into paramilitary groups and martial and military thought. We would often draw up plans for fortresses, discuss small group tactics and hand-to-hand combat, play D&D and other RPGS (another excellent point that someone else pointed out, Many RPG's require intellectual familiarity with weapons, strategic thinking, tactical knowledge, and battle planning), and practice group attack and defense with martial arts.
7) Announcing threats or plans for hurting others: How many teenage boys in the heat of passion have not screamed out "the next time I see you I'm gonna kick your ass!"? Hom many have said, after being picked on, "Just wait til you try that the next time!". It's normal, teenaged blowing off of steam, BUT IT COUNTS!
8) Enjoying hurting animals: Well, I did a lot of fishing when I was in HS, and Boy did I enjoy it! Now I may not have taken sadistic glee in hurting the poor little fish that I caught and ate, but I did hurt (and KILL) them, and eat them. I also thoroughly enjoyed it.
9) Carrying a weapon: There was not one single day that I was between the ages of 14 and 20 that I did go armed everywhere! I always had at least a knife, and often had much more deadly melee or throwing weapons. I never carried a gun, but I shot shotguns with my friend and his dad fairly often.
I have just shown you that I fit this profile EXACTLY!!! when I was in HS. I now have a college degree, work for a major multinational telecommunications and data networking company, and pull down high 5 figures a year. Now think how much worse my life would be if some stupid, vindictive nincompoop had reported me to the authorities and it had resulted in legal/disciplinary problems. Would I have used my knowledge, training, and violent impulses to hurt people in an effort to defend myself? Would I have felt like the world had turned against me a sunk down into a spiral of depression and suicide? Would I have shut up and taken it like a good little boy and had the state and my parents prying into my privacy, running my life, and sending me to useless therapy? Hard to say, but I know it would have made my very hard adolescence that much harder. This is what you propose would be a "good" idea to do to 1000's of innocent kids whose only crime is that they are not shiny happy people who are not interested in socially acceptable, politically correct subjects. They are not cattle to go where the powers that be point them. For this, they are going to be punished.
Also, you cannot convince me that even bright HS students have enough knowledge of their peers (especially those that they are afraid of and refuse to get to know) to accurately assess whether or not they are significant threat.
My impression of this fiasco is that it will ruin a lot of children's lives, and not save a single one. The beauty is that you don't have to save a child for the project to be a success, since there is no possible way to prove whether or not the subjects of these reports would have committed violence. All the state and Pinkerton have to do next year is say "School violence decreased x% last year. Good thing we have this right wing, nazi-esque finking system in place to catch those violent types before they strike". Forget the fact that violence went down 2x% the year before without it. It's all a sick demented scam to make people even more afraid of government, and even more willing to wear the leash. High School is where children begin to learn about being adults. Don't you think we should teach them about taking responsibility and being accountable for their own actions? If these lessons were instilled in more of our citizens, the US would not be in as sorry a shape as it is now.
But since unstable and unloving parents have now been identified as a child safety issue, perhaps we need a new anonymous hotline so that kids can turn in their unstable or unloving moms and dads -- or their neighbor's mom and dad
You've never heard of social services? They take anonymous tips.
If you hear your neighbor spanking their brat child, or if your neighbor is home schooling their child, if your family eats vegan food, or if you ARE the child, SS will take anonymous tips. (What an appropriate acronym!) A lot of homeschoolers don't like to register with the state, and go through all the red tape. Unfortunately, *it's*the*law*, and the social services goons will be more than happy to take your child away...in his (or her) best interest, no less!
-lf
Not only will they take your child, they'll also cart you off to jail. How nice.
-lf
(forgot to put this in my first post)
Pinkerton: "We hope the WAVE website will be used not only as a tool to aid in preventing school violence, but also as an educational hub where students, teachers and parents can go to collaborate."
Here's a site all about turning in potential malcontents. What kind of 'collaboration' can they possibly be hoping for, outside of McCarthyism? Make it a class project to see which member is the most likely threat, and report them?
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
I have question...
What is a smart, sick kid, with homicidal tendencies or criminal fantasies to do with such a web site? Could he not use the information presented on the site against his/her parents, teachers, etc?
Picture this; an always smiling, over-eager kid, who dresses like his teachers, listens to nothing but Christian rock, is always quoting the bible, etc... Would you consider him dangerous? What if the kid uses the web site to cover his tracks by accusing others?
Maybe they should add a few things to their lists of symptoms; if the kid is a good actor, beware! if he/she is just too perfect, he/she is probably hiding something!
What if he/she displays signs of corporatism; should we turn that kid in? After all, we all know that corporatists have no moral/ethics... just like criminals, no?
This probably refers to email bombs -- massive volumes of email sent with the intention of crashing their email servers or filling the mail queue. Not nearly as nasty as sending actual explosives via parcel post, but still an act of vandalism that we should condemn.
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
It seems to me that one of the major objections Slashdotters have to the WAVE program is that neither the Pickerton Services Group nor the anonymous reporters are subject to any form of accountability. I offer the following suggestions as an attempted remedy:
Accountablity of Pinkerton through appointment of an ombudsperson.
Universities like the University of Western Ontario and media groups like Brill's Content appoint an individual to act as a neutral third party to investigate complaints. In Brill's Content's case, the individual is given a multi-year contract with protective clauses to allow him/her to write a monthly column without fear of reprisal. I suggest that Pinkerton do the same.
Acountability of anonymous reporters through transparency
According to the WAVE America webpage, care is taken to ensure that reporters remain anonymous by omitting names and identifying details from the WAVE Line reports that are sent to schools. I suggest that these reports be available for scrutiny by outsiders, either through the WAVE America website or though a request of the ombudsperson.
Does anyone read Slashdot after the 731st post?
A point of fact, here: ISPs do not have and never have had "common carrier" status, at least not in in the US. Not in the legal sense, anyway.
Do not trust a neighbour
put no confidence in a friend.
Even with her who lies in your embrace
be careful of your words.
For a son dishonours his father,
a daughter rises up against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law---
a man's enemies are the members of his own household.
Micah 7:5-6
Talking to the customers is the right thing too, but there the argument needs to be taken to every potential customer, in a negative marketing effort.
I don't know - perhaps a billboard campaign that doesn't mention Pinkerton, but is lots more specific than "love your child" messages.
My four-year-old son has this to look forward to? He's already bigger and taller than everyone else his age, and he's smart, too. He also likes to "play rough." Jeeze, he fits the profile already.
Not to mention if you keep up the war on drugs, you have all those permanent DEA agents getting paid, there is a need for a Drug "czar" and so on. It is quite ironic that the chief of DEA is known as a Czar. It rather accentuates the bureaucracy, don't you think? King of drug agents, such a worthy title. I agree with Jessie Ventura, the way to stop the war on drugs is to get addicts un-hooked. Legalise everything, regulate it, tax it. Revenue for enforcement, no fear of prosecution for users, and help for hardcore users. Of course, you can get just as hooked on Methadone than you can on Morphi(ne |um).
Lowmag.net
I keep hoping that someone less extreme in so many other areas will take up this flag. I appreciate Jon's work, but he's got one too many monkeys on his back.
Couldn't (Shouldn't?) the geeks of the world turn this around and deluge WAVE with lots of false reports of dangerous jocks, etc.? Report the abuse you take as fighting, violence, and so forth. Take every slight offense and report it. Either they'll give up because of an overwhelming signal-to-noise ratio, or maybe they'll turn in the jocks.
for those of you who don't know what Goodwin's Law is check out: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/leg ends/godwin/
That's our geeky, nerdy, or just non-athletic children who will be falsely reported by the "popular" kids as a new form of high school hazing.
That's our intellegent children who will be falsely reported as dangerous, because they blew the test curve.
The fundamental flaw in this scheme is it asks children to evaluate their peers, yet gives them no incentive to do so fairly. This flaw will cause the system to be abused more than used. It should be shut down before any children are harmed.
Unfortunately, the government will never listen to letters. They don't care about schooling. If they did, public schools would be properly funded, and teachers would be paid decently.
Pinkerton is being paid by the government, probably on a fixed-rate contract. They only care about money, so the cure is to render the system unprofitable. Increase load on the system until it becomes too expensive for them to maintain. I don't mean their network infrastructure. I mean their system of evaluation and screening staff. Trained people are a lot more expensive than equipment.
The true solutions to children's problems in school are the same ones they've always been. Supervision by well trained teachers, backed by good school psychologists. This is currently impossible due to huge class sizes, and poor funding. The money for more teachers should be pulled from quack schemes like Pinkerton's.
frequent physical fighting
Assult is against the law.
significant vandalism or property damage
Vandalism is against the law.
increase in use of drugs or alchohol
Drug use is against the law.
increasing risk-taking behavior
Define?
detailed plans to commit acts of violence.
Conspiracy to commit a crime is against the law.
announcing threats or plans for hurting others
Conspiracy is against the law.
enjoying hurting animals
Minor offense, but still against the law. Call PETA!
carrying a weapon
Against the law.
Let's see. All the warning signs are criminal activities. Shouldn't the police be involved? It appears to me if WAVE doesn't report these findings to the police, then they are aiding and abeding a potental, known, criminal.
Anyways, what ever happened to a right to see ones accusers?
Quack
from http://www.crosswinds.net/~djpotter:
Due to an extreme hardware failure beyond our control these webpages have been lost. We are truly sorry for this loss and did everything we could to restore the data. Please reupload at your earliest convenience.
Crosswinds
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Remove the quotation mark from the URL, and it should work. At least it did for me
p age-killers.html
corrected link: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900ram
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I propose replacing the words "disturbed teen" with the words Jew, Nigger, or Homo and then seeing if the Pinkerton proposal still sounds like a good idea.
Shocking? It was meant to shock, but it's no less valid for the language.
The party's over
Actually, the definition of literacy has changed over the years. Originally, a literate person was someone who could speak Latin (which is where the word came from). 100 years ago, it meant someone who was able to read the bible. Before mandatory education, this was still true. Now, a literate person is someone who can read newspaper-level writing, write effectively (as in not just be able to spell the words right) perform all arithmetic (but not necessarially algebra+) and knows some critical thinking skills and science background. Not to mention, someone who knows about the history of the world and our country. Soon, it will also be a matter of knowing how to use a computer. 100 years from now, it may include differential equations, neural net design, symbolic logic, whatever advances in writing we have made, genetic analysis, and xeno-sociology. We would be literate by our standards, but complete rubes by theirs.
You are correct about the pressure of conformity, but there are many practical issues to resolve in education before that stops being a common practice. Actually, in many classrooms today, teachers (you may have had some poor ones. their quality is very uneven) don't need to resort to those tactics. I know mine didn't.
The whole idea behind WAVE seems to be correlating certain kinds of behaviour with certains kinds of wrongdoing. How about this: set up a database of all the people who buy torque wrenches and then use it to predict who is going to commit the heinous crime of car maintenance on the weekend. I think there would be a very good correlation.
Wait a minute, car maintenance isn't actually all that damaging to society... so how about setting up a database of all the people who have, say, bought guns and then try to predict those who kill people. I'm willing to bet there'd be at least as good a correlation and this would be something worth having!
a search of the article turned up no occurances of "pooped" or "what do you think?".
very thorough, interesting, well-documented, well-researched, and well-witten article, Jon. your best work yet.
[note: i have no opinion on the subject matter itself, due to professional interests.]
-- ken williams
The admission that large percentages of our population would be in severe financial crisis if the state did not pay for the daily supervision of their children is more an indictment of our economy than an argument for that system's virtue.
This is an interesting statement, given how long the current economic boom has endured. How would the destruction of the public school system solve this problem?
Anonymity is a good thing until you use it as a front end for persecution. Then it ain't so good.
Now, I suppose this WAVE thing wouldn't be so bad if you also had anonymous rebuttals. It would be even better if you had secret discussions with the accused students, instead of pulling them out and making examples of them (when they haven't done anything wrong).
And what if I could anonymously turn myself in preemptively, in order to head off later persecution? That would be nice. I could roll the dice and be able to opt-out of the whole being-ostracized shebang.
But I really don't think anonymity is the problem with WA. You're concluding that since we are against WA we are therefore against anonymity. And that conclusion is baseless.
I was persecuted out of my residence hall my second year of college, and to be honest, the anonymity of the reports that led to it didn't really matter. If my accusers had been known to be by name, the only difference is I would have known exactly who to hate, instead of hating them all. (I'm not a better person for hating them, btw, but neither are they for hating me.) But the reasons for my anger for them are the same whether I know who they are or not.
In fact probably both me and them are better off for not knowing, all else being equal.
What I am against is the process, and the atmosphere of bias against me, that led to my being ostracized. And I am kicking myself for not placing any value in the mechanisms. I had been given the same anonymous statement forms that they all had been given; there's no reason to think I couldn't have put in my own, pointing out their prejudices, and my own feelings about their treatment of me. I laughed at the forms, thinking them a joke. When that process was finally used against me, saying the exact things against me that I would have said about them, boy did I realize how wrong I was.
The bottom line however is not that their anonymity led to my ostracization, though it did encourage them. Handing someone a license to have anyone they dont like kicked out is like handing someone a gun, rubber gloves, and ski mask, and telling them they can use it whenever they feel threatened.
These kids need to be taught to be tolerant and accepting, not be taught they can remove undesirables with impunity.
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
I would encourage all geeks and freaks to call that number and turn in every jock they know.
I mean, why not take advantage of the inquisition? There's no clear distinction made in Wave America's campaign of segregation as to what social group of kids qualify as violent or good (if we ignore the Gap Kids models on the front page).
And when the burly, demanding fathers of these sternly-raised jocks start shaking their fists at the PTA meeting over why their son was targeted by this witchhunt, it will die a miserable death.
--
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Your point is well taken. I think I've been fortunate to have had more than my share of good teachers and the ability to tune out and ignore the few bad ones without ruffling too many feathers. Having parents who were educated and educators, with rather derogatory attitudes about some powers-that-be, probably helped. I think I've always known that school should promote independent thought, particularly if you can disagree with the teacher, and make it stick.
If the schools are trying to produce a monotonous sequence of sheeple, something is very, very wrong.
>>Literacy was at a higher rate in the US before mandatory schooling.
Somehow that seems extremely unlikely. When manadory schooling went into effect, a third grade education was actually an accomplishment. People signing legal documents with an "X" because they couldn't write their names.
I have no doubts that the education system highly propagandizes itself, but unless education is mandatory, either culturally or legally, the literacy rate will be rather low. And somebody has to pay for it.
It is pretty safe to say that the Pinky corp isn't going to back down, so why not make it uneconomical for them to do business. I suggest that we divide up the slashdot names into 5 sections (one for each weekday) and that once a week people call in an waste their time by telling them your objections. This is peaceful and it would give everyone a chance to express how they feel.
Mark Mansour
It is left-wing secular homeschooling which has been the fastest-growing form of homeschooling for the last decade. For a reason.
Indeed it has. Mainly because it's a hell of a lot safer than our schools at the moment. But that's a
problem with the schools, not the system.
I agree with most of your points, but you are dead wrong on this one. School is actually the safest place children spend time in. They are many times more likely to die or be injured in the home or on the street. Schools are ludicrulously safe. The only reason anyone thinks any different is because of sensationalist media coverage.
Where Jon and others really need to make their case is to the potential customers of this product: school boards, parent's organizations, etc. It is these people that need to be told that they don't have to give in to hysteria in response to what is essentially a non-issue.
Regarding the issue of prizes on the web site: the Pinkerton officials say that they will include language that explicitly says that it is not necesary to report anyone in order to qualify for these prizes. However, Publisher's Clearing House does the same thing with their sweepstake form and a significant number of people still think it is necessary to order the magazines in order to qualify.
Well, I never thought I was especially peculiar, but I guess I must have been. I very clearly remember reading about teen suicides and wondering why on earth anyone would want to kill himself when he was in the best part of his life. Maybe I was just too busy to be depressed -- I lettered in football (no, I never bullied anyone) and track, played second board on the chess team, and captained the math team, when I wasn't playing trombone badly in the concert band or hanging out with a dozen or so friends (half guys -- we were the "calculator wearing kids" -- and half girls) or at youth group or just plain reading. Or maybe I was just too conceited (hence my remark about self-esteem).
Jeff
The only problem with this is that an indicator should to correlate well with that which is supposed to indicate. Hunting and gridiron, as far as revealing sociopaths is concerned, fail this test miserably.
Jeff
This simply isn't true. Most teenagers, maybe. But, assuming that by "unhappy" you mean something more than the common disappointments that small children and adults also experience, by no means all. Someone who's big enough to take care of himself and who has a decent level of self-esteem is adequately defended against most of the causes of "teen angst."
Jeff
Half a millennium of Christianity and the Roman Empire (with the Christians being thrown to the lions for most of it). In the east, of course, there was after that another half a millennium of Christianity and the Roman Empire (with the Christians, in the form of the Eastern Orthodox Church, doing quite well).
Jeff
The liberal media won't print it, you won't see it on TV,
You're right that newspapers and TV stations are unlikely to pick this side of the story up, but it's not because they're "liberal." It's because they're huge corporations. In Katz-speak, they're corporatists. Their interests lie in making sure we all view our public educational system as horrifying, dangerous, incompetent, and, above all, hopeless. It sells papers, it keeps viewers glued to their sets, and it gives corporations more openings into our kids' lives.
Or haven't you noticed the increasing role corporations are playing on campus these days? The high school I attended in the late eighties was free of corporate slogans and logos. Now, though, the cafeteria serves Taco Bell burritos, Pizza Hut pizza, and McDonald's hamburgers instead of the home-made ones they used to serve. And the grammar school I used to attend now gets the commercial-laden "educational" cable feed. And kids get their pack of Target school supplies at the beginning of each year.
What's so wrong with that? It ties us down to corporations. One of the big reasons I use free software is that I don't want to be beholden to yet another corporation. Our public schools also shouldn't be tied to corporations. We should be doing these things for ourselves, with our own tax dollars, instead of by selling our kid's eyeballs to corporations.
Oh, and if you're wondering why media outlets would care about all of the above - it's because the people who run those corporations tend to be very wealthy, and tend to have holdings in many, many other corporations - including places like Pinkerton and the company who makes 'Hooked on Phonics' (another corporate product that benefits from the 'public schools are hopeless' mentality being fostered among the citizenry).
Anyone have any ideas how we can get more exposure?
I have no idea how to approach TV stations, etc. about carrying this stuff. But I do know that it is effective to keep talking about it with friends and family. That's how things really change - one person at a time.
Jon mentioned that this doesn't happen in other countries. Has ANYONE noticed that? You don't see Japan, who has the highest suicide rate on the friggin planet coming up with any anonymous lines. You don't see ONE country in Europe, which has more sex, violence, and bad language in a year than we've EVER had coming up with something like this.
Also, did anyone notice that while the 80% of Americans think the Internet caused/highly-influenced Littleton, did anyone ask these same people if computers might have caused it? It may be that they believe computers (or computer games, to be more specific) could cause such a thing. Remember how everyone freaked out about Doom, and how the two Littleton killers played it? I think that 80% could be significantly altered (either way, who knows) if a more specific question were posed. Computer-illiterate people are scared of computers. Its a fact. They fear it because they don't understand it, and they don't understand it for many reasons. Some being that they don't want one for fear of loss of privacy, or the inability to operate it, or the inability to get training on how to use it. If 80% of these "Americans" said this, who were they? What background? Did they have knowledge of computers? The general public is vague beyond reason, and this would be a prime example of asking "Non-computer illiterate" and "Geeks" and "Computer illiterates" their view on the subject. Hell, I see a poll Hemos. Does anyone else?
I suppose its only right to assume that the worst will follow in this case. This is not big brother, they said. You're right. It isn't. But the road to hell...
--------------------
Obi
in the US. I don't know what is.
American Education is an oxymoron. More like American Indoctrination. In my opinion that lack of valid instruction in critical thinking is the problem with our freedoms being encroached.
Children today are taught WHAT to think. Not HOW to think. This makes a program like WAVE quite workable.
I see one possible means if disabling this brainwashing is to legally encumber "educational" institutions when they fail to produce students capable of using the tools of critical thinking.
Had it not been for my majoring in Math on the way to becoming an accountant I might not have the prescence of mind to put together a reasonable argument about anything. (Incidentally I became a mathematician instead of an accountant)
Furthermore, in dealing with the insidiousness of government/corporate fascism eroding individual rights, it well behooves each and every one of us to begin understanding the laws that govern us and begin using the legal system to slap the government back in place. [I think it's a great fallacy to assume that only attorneys can deal with the law. That's like saying only the blackjack dealer can tell you if you have blackjack. Or perhaps they decide what the rules are. Then how do you ever stay ahead?]
The law itself (and Supreme Court decisions) says that the law is to be written such that a person of average intelligence can understand it. Any law or statute that is vague or misleading is void. Period. The trouble is that with over 500K laws, what one person or group of people could ever find the laws that are elgible for being voided. Is this a case for Open Source Legal Research? One does not need to be a lawyer to research the law. Look at paralegals.
So what's my point? My point is that demonstrations and pleas for intelligence are good for getting attention but the real guts of a number of our problems as citizens in a nation where the law is supposed to be the ruler is appealing to the law. Approaching Pinkerton was a
wonderful 'good faith' effort and I think it fits in with an aggressive legal approach.
For those of you who cringe and see a toiletful of money going down the drain when lawyer and law is mentioned, consider that the bulk of the work is simply researching what statutes and laws apply.
What's to say that a couple of hours of research over 7 days doesn't pay off? Especially if it's
approached and organized within an open source paradigm.
Bitch and moan for a little, but at some point we should work together to REALLY put an end to this kind of fascism. WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. We should stop being lazy and do our part in preserving the higher ideals of the American Republic.
If you ain't part of the solution, then you're part of the problem.
The constitutional right to Due Process is fundamental to the Legal "Business".
You have the right to deny any claim made against
you; confront any witnesses and cross-examine them, and the right to present evidency contrary, as well as demanding that the evidence against you be presented. Also you have the right to be heard by an impartial and fair official (typically a judge)
If Due Process is dead our legal system is complete and utter bullshit.
Great article Jon.. I'm hasppy that you did take the time to travel to the "belly Of the beast" to talk to them.. Although I am sorry that the Pinketon folks proved tru to corporate sterotypes... And Thanks to Slashdot for funding your trip, an honorable task indeed.
So for those of us like myself who thin kall of this WAVE stuff is just pointless/stupid.. what next? So we write to the goverment of North Carolina, and tell them we dont want our tax dollars wasted on this?
Boycott Pinkerton? Create an alternative website, disseminate more accurate information? Create a controversy over this? (We all know that goverments and Comapnies try to back the hell away from a controversy)
What should we do next?
---
Starvo
http://thepoliticalgeek.com/blog/ Politics for Geeks.
"Only the most serious calls, involving serious violence -- rape, assault, possible crimes with guns -- were forwarded to school officials; the rest were not passed along at all."
Hold on a second here. Let's set aside for a moment any moral aspects of creating anonymous classroom informants, and agree for the time being that much information could be obtained that could indicate what students were prone to undesirable behavior, whether shooting up cafeterias, bullying dweebs, or thinking Marilyn Manson is, like, really cool.
Under the above-quoted policy, NONE OF THIS information would be given to the school officials who are supposed to be intervening to save the schools from our tragically disturbed youth! The only things Pinkerton would tell them about are already-committed felonies and conspiracies to commit felonies. (And this is stuff that Pinkerton should be reporting to the local police, anyway, not to the school.) Why, then, are students encouraged to rat on those who seem depressed or angry if those reports are only going to linger in Pinkerton's files??
I have felt that I just couldn't make a difference but I tried to convince others of my views and attempted to keep motivated in my "rightousness."
However, until now I thought that I really couldn't make a difference in the world and that I was just wasting my precious time on causes that I couldn't effect. However.... "one ant can't do dick but a billion of them could build a cathedral." I can't remember where the quote come from but basically I'm just one person. I struggle in vain.
Or do I
Just as a billion ants can't build ANYTHING without a focusing leader, causes don't become Global without a focus either.
Some of you don't like Jon (perhaps for his extreme writting style) but our feelings about prejudice in our schools AND our feelings about the violence in our schools would never have shown on the main news sources without someone with a larger media presence than you or I.
My wife heard about Slashdot and our anoyance (is that strong enough?) from reading Yahoo News. Wow. Not exactly People magazine but its a start to reach those parents and legislators who are blindly solving the apparent symptom of a national issue and not its root cause. (Root Cause. Yup, an engineer.)
Not sure how much value I'm adding here but perhaps from a Meta level, I'd like to remind us all that although /. is no longer a cozy group of good friends, we are a collection of thinking and acting citizens.
Reminds me of the Greek Democracies. Here you just need to have access to a computer and the Internet. No land required.
I was transfixed by the idea of a democratic country whose response to social problems was to create an entire new tradition of informing. It had been happening for some time, he told me.
Hmmm... i dunno, Jon... where do you see a democratic country?
JK, i gotta say, i like your angle on many things, but you appear to have fallen into the old snare of belief that ours is a democratic nation. It is not. i offer the following def's for comparison:
democracy (d-mkr-s)
n., pl. democracies.
1.Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2.A political or social unit that has such a government.
3.The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4.Majority rule.
5.The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
[French démocratie, from Late Latin dmocratia, from Greek dmokratia: dmos, people; see d- in
Indo-European Roots + -kratia, -cracy.]
plutocracy (pl-tkr-s)
n., pl. plutocracies.
1.Government by the wealthy.
2.A wealthy class that controls a government.
3.A government or state in which the wealthy rule.
[Greek ploutokratia: ploutos, wealth; see pleu- in Indo-European Roots + -kratia, -cracy.]
Don't ask. Go see.
You went into the meeting with the intent to abolish the WAVE website, even though you didn't think you had a chance of doing so. In essence, you aimed for the stars, but only reached the moon. While you didn't get them to shut down the site completely, what you did actually may have done something even better
Because of your meeting, they changed some things on their site around. This fact shows that they are open to out ideas and suggestions. You can't kill the site, but you can alter it for the better. Change it small bits at a time, making it better with each change. If everyone cooperates, and works at it, you might be able to turn this thing into something half-decent. And as it's been stated before, mass email-bombs is not the way to do this.
Personally, I would have thought you would have leapt at the chance to work with them. That would have given you the chance to try and change things from the inside.
If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It may be a little sour for your tastes, but it's better than sucking down a raw lemon.
"Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are transmission errors."
There's a *slight* difference between being able to anonymously express opinions, and anonymously snitching on "different" people. One is the hallmark of a free society. The other is a hallmark of a fearful society.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The so-called "education" system of the US is a State-run propaganda organ mated to a state-subsidized day-care program. It has nothing to do with "thinking for yourself". Schools exist to promulgate conformity as practice and as virtue.
Wrong. Society itself - of which the education system is but a part - is responsible for conformity. Humans are social creatures, and the pressures to conform to the social norms around us are heavy and come from many different sources. Television, radio, movies, school, family, clubs, music, books, advertisements, Slashdot... All of these are forces which shape our minds in certain ways. Homogeneity occurs because of our inherent desire to be a part of the pack, following the alpha-males and preening ourselves to appear to be attractive and viable reproductive mates.
It's cold, it's harsh, but it's true.
- Rev.
Why shouldn't the kids who are teased and beated daily be able to use this system? Why should the "normal" ones be the victims in WAVE's sight?
Rather than the Jocks picking out the Nerds and Goths and telling WAVE they're dangerous and depressed and whatnot, what about telling WAVE that the Jocks are beating the shit out of someone and mentally torturing them daily.
This will probably be used incorrectly and by the wrong people for the right reasons (especially considering the "danger" criteria) because they think the "normal" people are the ones in danger. But if Pinkerton was actually thinking of the real kids who were being victimized, they would not only avoid controversy, but they'd be going after the real source of the problem, the propagators of the misery.
It could work, they just have the intended targets backwards.
--
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
And I SURPISED no one has quoted the simpsons yet
"WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" -- Maude Flanders (RIP(God bless her soul))
Well... I hate to pick nits, but I can't let this go by, I'm too much of a Simpsons nut. That's Helen Lovejoy's standard plea. In fact, I don't think Maude ever said it.
Anyway, that was useless. I apologize.
--
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
"Nor were they impresed by my repeated arguments that every repressive political system in the 20th century -- Nazism, Communism, Fascism, Apartheid -- featured anonymous reporting -- especially by children -- as a cornerstone tool in their efforts to subjugate dissidents. "
I personally think that this is extremely important. Kids don't know any better, for the most part, and make for very effective snitches. They just don't have the ability to make this kind of judgment about their peers. While we're not exactly talking about 'political dissidents', we are talking about a country where free speech is ostensibly a right recognized and protected by the government, and the adoption, by State Governments to put this kind of tool into Public Schools. The point I'm trying so very hard to make is that the parallels aren't that hard to draw, and the more people who do, the worse it looks. I hope that this turns into the P.R. nightmare that it should be.
The WAVE program is using plain-old down-home fear mongering to sell a product. It's not trying to 'protect our children' (A stated motive that should set EVERYONE'S bullshit detectors off).
this is too long of a post.
-nme!
Here's a new area they could break into:
Charlotte, NC - Pinkerton Inc. announced a new program aimed at reducing lightning strikes by providing an anonymous toll-free number and website where people could report depressed, dangerous, or potentially violent cloud formations.
"We felt this move was necessary," said a Pinkerton official, "given that students are as likely to be struck by lightning as they are to be killed in school violence. Besides, if we didn't offer the program, someone else might."
>grab a list of all the jocks and football players...
Shoot, where does that leave some of us? I was on a few varsity teams in H.S. (school of 400, you get to do a lot of things), and had all of the necessary academic achievements (SAT/AP/etc) to end up with an honors degree in Engineering a little later and make my way into a comfortable room here in IBM. A friend of mine was all-conference in wresting, track and football, not to mention second in our class and ended up at Princeton... Where's your logic?
Wait? You played with Linux and played sports in high school?! That's not possible!
You are making more stereotypes - shame on you.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
He can be stubborn, and often misses the mark, but this time he was stubborn with a purpose and actually did something 'right'. Unfortunately, he's talking to people who don't care about his side of the argument - it isn't a buisness argument, so it doesn't concern them. They made the usual token efforts, and he continues to be stubborn.
I rarely agree with Katz and dislike most of the wasteful tripe he has written, but if you've ever looked into this company and this program, you should be a little concerned... at least *someone* is talking ot them (though I wouldn't have sent *him*)...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Well, Einstein did do very poorly in mathematics (possibly failing, don't recall) until his (uncle?) tutored him in Algebra and showed him the "interesting" side of solving problems with Math rather than rote memorization...
Sigh. No, he didn't. That's the legend. Look here.
--
Greetings New User! Be sure to replace this text with a
Clear, Dark Skies
Einstein- failed at school, and was regarded as a "misfit"
Nobel - ditto
bzzt. That garbage about Einstein failing in school is just an urban legend - he did quite well, thank you. As for Nobel, huh? What does a manufacturer of munitions (who happened to have a guilt complex) have to do with this discussion?
--
Greetings New User! Be sure to replace this text with a
Clear, Dark Skies
1. Write your reps, protest, the whole democracy bit.
2. Call the hotline and report everyone in your class!
I'm not suggesting that anyone do this, but it seems to me that a plan like this would be a good target for civil disobedience via a flood attack.
Gather a large number of conspirators together, who each night will make one phone call to the system. Either use names at random from the class, or use (non-obviously) fictitious names.
The signal for which they are looking would become lost in the noise of the "jamming."
2) He came with facts, not just hyperbole and urban legends
3) He didn't denigrate the opposite side
4) He WENT - he got off of his butt and traveled to meet with these people, which is more than most of us would do (myself included).
Thanks for taking action, Jon, when most pundits would be content to snipe from afar. (Was there some problem in editing? I didn't see the phrase 'open source' in the piece ;> )
-Chris
"Peanuts, Mr Bond?"
Phooey. The only reason that anonymity is needed for reporting of information to authorities is in order to protect the individual. However, this is a resource/cost issue, not a philisophical necessity.
The request for anonymous posting is because individuals feel threatened. If people were to find out that they reported something, then the reportee's safety would be in jeopardy.
I don't see that anonymity solves the real problem. If a person feels threatened by following a legal (or at least socially responsible) life-style, then the real problem is that society itself is not protecting its own citizens.
Basically, if the problem is that you can't trust the authorities, then what good will reporting anything do? You fear your society. Anonymity is not going to solve that problem; though it might protect you for this one time episode. Or, if you fear reprisal from those you report, then again society is not supporting you properly (for example, the police don't have enough resources to protect you from this reprisal).
So either you live in fear of the authorities of the society, or you have allowed your society to take cost-cutting measure to a point where you aren't properly protected.
I feel extremely sorry for you if this is the case.
Pp.
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
Oh, don't worry. Your reputation will be destroyed and your life as you know it will cease to exist LONG before they get to the trial stage. The courts are required to assume "innocent until proven guilty," but American society is not.
I don't know if you are being sarcastic in response to my sarcasm or not. My point (and yours!) is that WAVE uses the simple indicators. Those off us who hunt (or used to, too many drunks with rifles these days) have weapons, carry them, and enjoy shooting. Here in Rural Utah the local ranchers shoot stray dogs to keep them away from the livestock. If J Random Kid from NC visits the family on the ranch in UT and does this, is he a threat to society? Of course not! Also note that, in Utah, many people wear black trenchcoats. Too keep the rain off. Are cowboys a threat to society? Well, we could go on and on, and no doubt will, but I will end this comment here.
Best Slashdot Co
Too bad no one listens to Jefferson anymore.
I do, I have Surrealistic Pillow in my car.
And along comes a man with a sledgehammer
All it takes is one hit
adnthem little animals are dead
George
loss of temper on a daily basis
frequent physical fighting
significant vandalism or property damage
increasing risk-taking behavior
detailed plans to commit acts of violence.
announcing threats or plans for hurting others
carrying a weapon
Every FPS game player shows these traits.
I'm going on gamespy and collecting names!
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Hello Jon.
I've read your columns for many years now, both on Hotwired and now on Slashdot. I've always found them outstanding. I also read your book "Geeks" and had my wife read a few passages that expressed particularly well some of my own experiences.
Like you, I'm a little bit older than many of today's geeks. I was in high school before widespread internet access, when mainframes ruled the corporate and educational world, and a home computer was an Apple II. I escaped the Hellmouth using the geek communication tool that pre-dated computers: Ham Radio. Now, I live and breathe the stuff. Computers and technology are the tools of my trade. My geekiness set me free. I also work in the media, where reactionary bullshit reins supreme... Hey, it pays the bills.
Your Hellmouth series following the Columbine incedent remains the most insightful and on-target commentary on this subject to came out of any media. The Pinkerton WAVE program again demonstrates the establishment's belief there is a quick fix to these problems. They foolishly believe imposing a police state in our schools, further crushing what little creativity and individuality remains, will have a positive effect. They'll wonder in amazement when the next set of geeks shoots up the next school. They'll wonder where they went wrong...
Both my parents were teachers all their lives. My mother was an elementary school principal, and my father a college professor and administrator. My closest uncle a high school principal, and his wife owns a chain of day care centers and private schools. I've been exposed to public and private education my whole life. It amazes me that educators, most of whom are well educated themselves, can be so out of touch with reality that they fail to see what's going on right in front of their faces. Yet, time and time again we see the evidence.
I applaud you for your continued attention to the issue of harassment in our schools, and administrators' bone-headed response to it. I watch my local schools very closely for this kind of activity, and oppose it whenever I see it. Hopefully, if enough geeks watch them closely enough, we can make high school a bit less hellish for our children.
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
There is an excellent book out there called Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax. It's incredible how one person's stupidity divided a city.
Couldn't help but notice your sig. Can you imagine if they had this back in the 40s and 50s, there would have been no Hunter S. Thompson. No Burroughs either. Heck, a lot of great writers would have been expelled from the system.
I agree. I remember when I had to carry my own Tylenol (wrapped in my pocket in a piece of kleenex) because I needed parental permission to get one from the school nurse. Uh, yeah, I'm going to OD on one Tylenol! However, I understand the legalities and the fears. Now you see in the US where kids are being suspended for playing cops and robbers and cowboys and indians with guns made out of their hands. Oh whither childhood?
And the various "radical" factions know that school boards are the best way to get your foot in the door of politics. The "religious right" has been using school board positions as a stepping stone for some time now.
However, in places like Oklahoma, you have a textbook committee, which is appointed by the governer, approving what books schools can spend state money on. The Attorney General ended up telling them they didn't have the authority to require an evolution disclaimer. But now an elected official is pushing a bill requiring creationism to be taught. Even if you can stop some insanity at the school board level, there are still plenty of people higher up the food chain who will promote their cause.
I don't care if this never gets moderated up and is lost in the 500 billions comments that will definitely follow this article. I have to say this:
This is the best article ever written by Jon. It is informative, well balanced and touches the real issues. I had my doubts about Jon's ability to talk to the corporate folks. Turns out he has what it takes.
Thanks Jon.
Now if only your other articles could be like this...
ok, I do agree with most everything that Jon said above. I especially like the reference to The Wave. But something struck me as odd. Jon, you said you don't understand the reasoning in having students report their fellow students.
This is one thing that does make sense. When you were a kid, how often did you talk to you parents about your life? I was reasonably close to my parents, but they still didn't know anything about me. The same goes for teachers, etc. My friends were the only ones who knew I was a pyro at heart. My friends were the only ones who knew about my depression. And don't underestimate a young person's abilities to see psychological warning signs. My friends, the ones who knew, were the reason that I didn't do anything really wrong. They noticed that I had a need, and helped.
Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that WAVE is a horrible idea. To accept anonymous reporting and not take resposibility for the disemination of that information is just stupid.
Actually, I think the dramatic drop in child violence has to do more with kids helping kids than anything. Whether we like it or not, kids will not seriously go to adults for most of their problems. They will talk about it with close friends, and get over it. Maybe we shouldn't concentrate so much on identifying these kids as we should on helping all kids understand basic psychology.
Not only will they be able to help fellow students, but they will lead more fullfilling lives.
The customers don't care whether the system works or not.
What the customer gets is insurance. When there is a problem and the school system gets sued, the question "what did you do to prevent/solve the problem" has a concrete, quantifyable answer: "we gave Pinkerton $X." What Pinkerton did with the money doesn't matter. The school system has addressed the problem, and the problem no longer belongs to them.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Convince Pinkerton to keep all the money, and do very little with it. I mean, they have the statistics that violence is going down, school officials don't seems to believe it so why not keep living in a fantasy world?
It's sort of like the "bear patrol" on the Simpsons, you know, "You don't see any bears around, do you?" The bear patrol bought all kinds of fancy expensive equipment and didn't do anything to solve the non-existent bear problem.
Pinkerton, you've decided to make money by pandering to the delusions of a school board: Take it to the next level, after all, by the time the Emperor finds he has no clothes he'll be too embarrassed to admit he was wrong....
On a related note, I think the ritalin companies should start replacing their pills with placebo's. The school districts will never know the difference, and look at all the money they'll save!
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Does knowing that "Panduh", or "pvente" posted something mean more to you than "Anonymous Coward?"
...you're talking to a bunch of lazy geeks. We don't get out much. I don't tan, don't have kids, and don't know anyone who has kids.
I hope that I just offended some well-tanned, father-of-three geek out there who hates to be called a geek. Now you guys get off your asses and fight this WAVE crap! I can't believe this!
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
So, you can send in anonymous reports on students. Over the internet.
I can't help but think that they'll be swamped with 1000 fake reports for every real one. They'll be a prime target for the misfits themselves.
It just seems inherently flawed. I doubt that they can even get this to work at all. So don't worry too much about it.
As many people have said before, they are a corporation, and they only care about the bottom line. The only reason they talked to Jon was because they think that maybe if modify the system a little that the geek community will quiet down.
I think this is a good sign, it shows that we're making enough noise to be heard. Now we need to make it louder.
You know... Jon Katz catches flak all of the time for being a blowhard, and generally undereducated on technical issues, but it seems to me that he is perfectly on the mark this time around. This WAVE page is a Very Bad(tm) idea, and the ease of use and anonymity that the web allows makes it far too easy to abuse. I am impressed that Jon Katz (and Slashdot) are stepping up to the plate and actually doing something about it.
The real problem is that the anonymity of the Internet makes it hard to tell the truth. In these kinds of situations you want anonymity. But you need to evaluate the truth. IE if you report a Rape you talk to a trained professional and are anonymous. That professional has enormous potential for abuse but is a person that can be held accountable for their actions. The anonymous e-mail has no such professional evaluation nor is that possible. This removes an important check to balance the system that is the real problem. If real help is to be offered it needs to be with trained professional in person on a case by case basis, every agrees there are not thousands of kids ready to commit these crimes stop acting like there are. Anonymity is fine there just needs to be reasonable check to balance the system. It in not possible to make a perfect system but this one is not acceptable.
Tackle
:)
:)
Sorry, "Grammar Man", but I just couldn't resist pointing out that the above sentence, which uses the subjunctive mood, should have read: "If only there were agreement on the issue."
But thanks for taking up the cause...
At least Jon learnt something from /. : :-)
Not once in is whole article he uses the word of fame...
Good going, Jon! See, it's not that hard... Makes it even more readable (ghasp!).
cheers,
Roland
here's an excerpt from their 'about' section:
(quote)
Your call will go to a company working for your school. A person who has been specially trained to listen to your concerns will answer and ask
questions like...
What school do you go to?
What are you concerned about?
What did you see or hear?
Have you discussed your concerns with a trusted adult?
The address is also on that report, usually. (Yes, I've had to inspect the 800 billing report for the ISP I used to work for -- we used it to know where we need to put a POP for a certain customer.)
800 numbers aren't the only ones to get your number... my former employer once got an order from Bellsouth to tell our Lucent phone switch to honor the "don't display my number" bit. The switch was feed via PRI, so both DNIS and ANI information was always available and delivered to the handset! (New FCC regulations allowed us to turn it back on several years ago.)
The bit at the end about "undiagnosed heart condition" is a standard statement used whenever a torture victim dies. Death implies heart failure by definition, and undiagnosed heart condition means that no doctor documented the fact that 150cc of [insert toxin of choice here] would stop the poor bloke's heart. Remember, the movie is about an uncontrollable bureaucracy and UHC is the ultimate bureaucratic tool for avoiding consequences. It's the doctor's fault, not mine. Especially useful since no one ever came back from an interrogation session.
The first use of this that I know of was in It can't happen here, by Sinclair Lewis, discussing the rise of fascism in the US. Also used recently in a number of movies/films discussing Russian police tactics, most recently (and crudely) in The Jackal.
Rev Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
that's an anonymous coward for you...
How precisely does showing a firearm demonstrate instability and danger, by itself? If he's reasonably trained (some schools have rifle teams... and they DON'T go rampaging...), and generally has good judgement as to perceiving threats, he can make y'all safer. If some loon chooses to ram a Cadillac and run over kids (which HAS been done), the police likely aren't able to arrive in time. Consequently, the only feasible method of self-defense in such a situation is for somebody to be armed (as fists don't stop Cadillacs, and most folks wouldn't be willing to try to jump into a car that's running over people...).
Cops walk 'round with firearms. Most of 'em never even *draw*, let alone fire. It's not the showing itself that's a threat without additional context like simultaneously verbalizing threats against the pop.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
You tried to argue ethics to a businessman
Unfortunately, in Today's 'corporate' America, this is the god-awful truth.
While most of us here at Slashdot applaud you for your moral and ethical concern with WAVE, it isn't always the most affective way to talk to person in this standing, as they are mostly concerned with making budget so that all of their employees can be paid.
Also, on another note, It may be perfectly true that these people are ethically aware of the freedoms they are robbing from American children, but don't have enough guts to speak up against there own company (in fear of losing a job). Many people just can't afford to do such a thing (Maybe in their life, they are financially responsible for their family, and for almost *any* person, family comes first).
It seems what we have now, is a Conflict of Interest between the big-wigs in Pinkerton, but we will surely never see it, because family values come way before job values.
~Marshall
--
Homer: "No beer, No TV make Homer something something";
Marge: "Go crazy?";
Homer: "Don't mind if I do!"
arcane for life
Unless I'm seriously misreading this. But it did say mailbomb, didn't it?
Turning up the heat is not a bad idea. The problem that needs to be overcome it the rate of change. If it's not fast enough people will accomodate. (My Machiavelli is really confuing me on this point.) (On antoher note, would reading Machiavelli at school qualify one to become a contestant in the Wave game?)
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
I threatened lawsuit and the agency removed the report (or so they say).
My only guess is that I ticked someone off on the road. (At least they didn't pull a gun it guess...)
Just like everyone else is going to say. Abuse the system. (It's anonymous right? So that means that even if they wanted to catch the people abusing thesystem, they can't, right?)
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
It seems obvious to me that the best way to prove the ineffectiveness of such a program would be to overload it. Turn in the football stars (foot ball playing is violent behavior, isn't it?), the cheerleaders, micky mouse, yourself, everyone! Make the signal to noise ratio so high it's useless.
Then take it to your school board and state representatives. Make sure that they know that this program, or anything like it, is a waste of money and likely to cause worse problems (including more deaths) than it could possibly prevent. Eliminate the money, and the sharks like Pinkerton will go feed elsewhere.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Wonderful effort, you got as much as you could expect from them at this point. Further gains on this front will only come when a connection between market growth and the value system you expounded can be demonstrated to Pinkerton.
This is EXACTLY what Neil Stephenson meant when he suggested injustices done by corporations were more important targets than Big Brother's own spying.
I believe Slashdot power can be harnessed by first building a simple site with a database of email, phone, fax, and mailing address of every school board representative and member of state or government legislature. Visitors would input their state, compose a letter in an online form, and have the site send it to the appropriate people. *Maybe* Andover could pay for bulk snail mail of letters to offline representatives. This is the easy part. Physical mail is more effective, so offer the database to people who want to write snail mail themselves.
The magnification comes from requiring journalists who ask about the campaign to print the full URL of the site (and fax number or mailing address if Andover is willing) in their own articles, broadcasts, or interviews with you. Viewers of these articles who don't read Slashdot will see an available outlet for the indignant impulse, and you will also build a library of anti-Pinkerton email. CNN, AOL and other services also might be asked to carry a link in related articles. Also require writers who cover the site to send copies of their articles to you and post them on the site as well.
If you can also personally answer all email sent to you through the site, you should be able to develop an even more powerful feedback loop and gain real allies. I did a project like this before. It took a few years and it will certainly take a lot of your time, probably for no pay.. but it will work to the degree that you put energy into it. You might also be able to serially publish in online and offline venues constructive criticism amassed from non-tech types through the site, this would provide magnification of brainpower, not just a simple multiplication of email.
Personally I was bullied too, and had to change school districts twice: once out of private school in the first grade, after my parents won a court case against the school, next back to private school after eighth grade (due to physical danger and shittiness of the public school). I had an incredibly supportive family and enough money to commute 45 minutes each way to an expensive private high school, and was very lucky.. it changed my life. But this experience tells me there would have to be a tidal wave of lawsuits like the very difficult one my own family won, to stop Pinkerton after untold damage was done. Much better for everyone if it could be fought out in the media ahead of time.
In defense of Pinkerton's (and likely to rouse your collective ire) I would point out that what you saw was corporatism in action. They had made a decision to develop promote and distribute WAVE for 'fun and profit' as corpatism does with every marketable item or service. The fun is in making the experience of the service, or of the item's use as pleasant as possible while maximizing the profit to gained, even if it's only the 'good-will' aspect. They'll take all the input they can understand or justify toward this, trying to maximize the traffic at the 'storefront'. They'll bring in their strongest critics for 'advice' as long as they retain control and believe there is a return on the investment. If/When the return does not meet desires, they'll cut it loose in some way that absolves them of as much residual responsibility as possible. You saw them, as you say, trying to understand Slashdot and why it should be important to them. To expect anything but conversation (that you got hours of it is impressive) for a first meeting is truly naive. These people can't, without putting their jobs, careers, and lives on the line, make or promise any major change immediately. The changes they made speak volumes about their listening abilities and their resolve to go ahead in some fashion. The same effort that you expended here needs to go into every other anonymous hotline and three times as much into improving families and family life in America. In life, as in other systems, the easiest thing is to do nothing and let nature take its course, and the less we do, the more nature will take its course. We have a choice about the situation. The outcasts and malcontents need something and iyts not somebody telling stories about them, but rather somebody listening to their stories - and dreams.
>Though kids are stripped of Constitutional rights in most American schools, it's hard to believe courts will ultimately uphold educational or police actions taken on the basis of anonymous calls.
I am afraid that you are totally wrong in this statement. Kids are not stripped of their constitutional rights in American schools. However, their some rights are limited for very obvious reasons. Freedom of speech is one right that is limited because a school is considered a "special place" by the courts. Bethel vs. Fraser (1979) set the precedent that freedom of speech may be limited if the student is causing s distraction to the education others. This is simply a common sense law, a student who is yelling in the back of a room during a class can not justify his/her actions by claiming freedom of speech. However, as long as it is not a justifiable distraction, the courts will not uphold every Tom, Dick, and Harry principal that wants to censor a student for whatever stupid reason.
As for searches and the 4th amendment, recently there has been controversy over locker searches. What students do not realize is that their lockers are property of the school and are thereby subject to search. However I believe the jury is still out on whether or not school officials can search inside a backpack that is stored in a locker.
It is true that rights are limited in schools but to claim that kids are stripped of their constitutional rights is a completely false and erroneous claim. But on the other hand, the scary part is the school administrators who have the power to ignore or abuse these rights.
Ben
I really get the feeling that Pinkerton arranged this meeting with Jon to try and get people to stop harassing them... something on the order of "Sir, the geeks are revolting!" "Well, arrange a meeting with their spokesperson, that oughta shut them up."
"I am not revolting, I've just not shaved today..."
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
I got this from another comment, but I think he's onto something. Use a swastika or possibly an upside down US flag for the graphic. It will offend the hell out of everyone and probably get some attention. If swastikas or upside down flags start popping up all over the web, even on private pages, people will pay attention.
I would disagree that you do it based on social class. It seems that such an approach would be just as unjustified as jocks using it to report geeks.
For a more effective, and less partisan approach, simply report all the children of teachers, adminstrators, school board members, local politicians, and media representatives. If you're going to something unethical to make a point, at least make sure that the point is made to those who have the power to change the system.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
1: Set your modems to dial the WAVE America phone number endlessly while you are at work. They have to pay for every one of those long distance 1-800 calls. If even a few people did this, it could cost them a bundle. 2: Continue the email campaigns against them. Wading through email takes time, and time is money. 3: Those of you that attack the WAVE America firewall, don't stop. Dealing with that is time, time is money. 4: Call and ask the people answering the phones how they can work for such an amoral corporation over and over again. Over time enough of this on top of other prank calls can lead to stress and employees resigning from the company, leading to high turnover rates that are bad for profits. In short, do ANYTHING you can to hurt Pinkerton and WAVE in the pocketbook, right where it counts.
"Even if you can stop some insanity at the school board level, there are still plenty of people higher up the food chain who will promote their cause."
People higher up the food chain aren't promoting their causes, they promote the causes of the moronic schmucks who will vote for someone simply on the basis of religion. Politicians have realized more and more recently that the easiest way to get votes is to worry less about pleasing big corporations or small interest groups and just kiss up to people so stupid that they simply vote for the guy that supports Jesus.
Any polictical figure who actually claims to be a christian is a liar, because if he really believed and wasn't just presenting a facade, the morality of the christian faith would push him to work against the immorality and dishonesty that run rampant in politics. Such a politician would be quickly attack and shut out by every other politician around, who would scramble to protect their own corrupt little niche in the world of corrupt politics.
I agree. Props to Katz for sticking his neck out.
I used to be a regular of an #efnet channel where all the regulars had become good friends. One of them was a great guy who had spent years struggling through life as a geek in an area where the macho redneck moron stereotype fit 99% of the town, including his family.
/. guys to try and make a difference.
As far as geeks go, he wasn't even much of a geek. But he was intelligent, great with computers as well as electronics (ie: circuitry.). As his life spiraled downward he somehow managed to start a successful web business after dropping out of high school to escape the daily torment. He moved out of his parents house, and was doing very, very well, especially for a 17 year old dropout.
Then Columbine happened. This gave a great idea to some of the idiots he had attended school with: they accused him of threatening to come to the school and shoot them both.
He was immediatly arrested and jailed, and charged with assault. He was to be tried as an adult, and kept in prison until his father somehow raised $20,000 to bail him out.
During the time he was in jail, he became unable to keep up with orders coming in for the stuff he was selling over the web. He was very late on a few, and publicly apoligized for it on some web based message boards. He caught up on his orders, and things were looking bright until a few guys decided to scam him. They reported him for credit card fraud, saying that he had charged them and not shipped them some rather large orders that he had shipped in an attempt to get double what they had ordered. Because he was under suspicion for the previous incident, he was immediatley arrested, and all of his computers and business related equipment were confiscated.
At this point the police leaked the whole thing to the local paper, which reported it all front page, stated that he had been convicted (untrue) and embellished with accounts from his "schoolmates" that he had attempted to molest local boys.
He was soon released from jail after the FBI looked at the fraud case and had it all dismissed. When he got out, however, he had been evicted by his landlord and terminated from his side job as a result of the newspaper article. Unfortunatly, none of the local lawyers were willing to take action on his behalf.
So he got a job several counties away delivering pizzas, and moved back in with his family.
One night, on the way home from work, another driver ran a stopsign and slammed into him at a busy intersection. He didn't want to stop in the intersection, so he drove 100 feet down the road to the first open spot which happened to be his house and went back to the intersection to await the police.
When the police got there, they recognized him, and things changed from a simple accident to him being nailed with a hit-and-run charge and they again arrested him. He was released the next day, and then fired from his pizza job.
The last time I heard from him, his life was pretty much in ruins. He had no job, no car, no money, no computer, and couldn't leave the state to go start over somewhere else because he still had to wait for his trial to start and end so that his dad could repay the loaned bail money.
This is where things like WAVE lead. Idiocy that destroys live that have potential to be incredible.
What a Goddamned shame.
At least we have good people like Jon Katz and the
Instead of fighting the system with moral arguments or legal battles, bring it down from the inside. Anonymous reporting means they can't trace reports back to a source, so just flood the site with false reports. Sifting through tons of garbage to find the genuine reports will make the enterprise unprofitable.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
Yeah, right!
Turn over the education of children to fundamentalist religeous fanatics. This can only lead to further degradation of the american way of life. In the last few decades, it seems the ones who do the work that keeps the country alive have been ignoring the politicos and hoping they will go away. the ones who are voting are either on the public dole, or are voting for idiots who seem to know what theyre doing, but really dont. What is the effective difference between Al and GWIII? Ans: GW3 will fire the DOJ and set MS free, while lining his pockets. Al will only line his pockets, while telling us that its 'for the environment'. The 'war on drugs' is a war against americans. With musicians on MTV reporting how they financed their first albums with money from selling drugs, do we really think anyone will listen? All repressive societies used these tactics to consolidate their control. It starts with 'Educating' children with propaganda, and goes downhill from there. Our current 'hitler youth' organisation could be 'dare' or 'wave' or whatever, but it WILL come if we let it. The net exposes freedom for all to see; some governments really dont like that; in ten years will their childern be able to compete globally? If some fundamentalist organisation takes over our children's education, will they be able to understand what we do? Evolution is a litmus test of some of these problems; If you dont understand the practicality of evolution, could you ever understand biology; i.e. AIDS progression, or other disease development? "Oh, you're from Kansas, they don't teach biology well enough to get into this college." To conclude, we need to seperate the idiots from congress, and their public teat, not let someone less qualified, however well meaning, teach.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Let's report WAVE to all of the filtering software makers and request that the site be blocked.
I hadn't considered that one. Thank you for suggesting a beautiful hack.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Everyone keeps talking about reporting the Jocks or the lawyers' kids...
While I do not advocate it, it is easy to see it happening. The reason is that that will draw the most attention/outrage/legal problems. A geek turning himself is likely going to be treated as "..a troublemaker who's damaging out system and must be dealt with.. severely." And who care about geeks? Not the school or WAVE or this discussion wouldn't be taking place at all. It would not be needed.
The idea of reporting innocent people is wrong.
Exactly. If you are innocent, then it is wrong to report yourself.
Who *should* be reported? Those who actually ARE a threat to others. Amazingly(?), the kids who are such a threat most often turn out to be jocks. Not always, but that's the best odds. The idea of 'good sportsmanship' might have existed once upon a time. Now, like 'once upon a time' it is just the stuff of Fairy Tales.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Running for school board is another really good idea. In a lot of cities and counties, board members often run unopposed due to the overall lack of interest.
Great idea. Unfortunately, I live in Boston, where the school board is appointed by the mayor. Any idea how concerned citizens could influence them?
Put my clarinet beneath your bed 'till I get back in town.
But, that leaves the question of, if the parents are failing their responsibility, how can we as a society detect that and get help for the kids? We can't monitor people's homes. That would clearly be a violation of the basic right of privacy, especially in your own home. So the only thing we can really look for is 1)signs of domestic violence (if that is a problem in that kid's home, which it isn't always), or 2)Psychological disorders in the children.
If Pinkerton would develop some strong policy on how they will deal with abuse of the hotline/website so that people wouldn't be harassed I could maybe support WAVE. Additionally, there needs to be some legal precedent (read, unfortunately, that school districts probably won't set up appropriate policies for how _they_ handle info given to them by Pinkerton until someone sues a school board and establishes court precedent for what is appropriate) to protect students from harrasment. And when I say "protect students" from harrasment, I mean both those that are wrongly accused, and those that really do need help. The information that Pinkerton collects needs to be handled confidentially, students who there are questions about need to be quietly, non-embaressingly(sp?) contacted by professionals who can adequately evaluate them; and
if (mentalhealth == "normal"){quietly send them on there way and make sure there is no record that could give them problems later}
else {get them set up to get counseling and/or therapy}.
My two cents. Jeff
I agree that school violence is 1)very rare, and 2)caused by troubled homes. But even if you want to say that it isn't the kid's "fault", Dillan was the one who took guns and bombs into school, not his parents. So it logically follows that if you can somehow (Note: I'm not advocating wave, because I think they just don't have the safe-guards and protections in place to prevent abuse) identify those kids (extremely small number that they are) before they start shooting people up, and get _help_ for them, that would be a Good Thing(tm).
Whether we're discussing the Japanese detention centers during WWII, the communist witch hunt of McCarthy, or the fictitious Arab camps of The Siege, it is never right for the government to violate the inherent freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights. Once that happens, our country is no better than the enemies we're fighting against.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
Let those tears, flow!
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
Imagine if /. had a policy of selecting certain posts over others. A can-of-worms to be sure...
It seems that since the 'anonymous tip' mentality is becoming more and more entrenched into our society, we must find a way to make the systems by which they are delivered self regulating. I like the idea of a assembling some sort of advisory panel to help safeguard the interests of the kids it affects. Perhaps even better, build the site's community nature and make it self-regulating like /. The people who would become part of an 'online school saftey community' would be those who were truly concerned: parents, educators, and even better, students themselves. That's what this whole thing is about anyway, right?
Guvegrra?
>How much money is Pinkerton going to lose over this? Ah, the sweet giant sucking sound of cash registers being emptied as more and more schools bail out of Wave...
No, a flood of bogus reports won't bother Pinkerton in the slightest, since they probably get paid by the call. It'll just end up costing you the taxpayer. Remember, they said they just collect and turn over the information.
The correct place to fight this is in the school board or state legislature or wherever this hare-brained scheme was dreamed up.
When they impose polices like ZERO tolerance of "violence" (Having your picture taken on top of a field gun is not OK. Fighting back is never OK. Saying "bang bang" is never OK. Violent skits are never OK....), or encourage students to explain how words "feel" via "whole language" -- encouraging them to invent their own spellings, and essentially pushing EMPATHY, not EDUCATION, *then* there are severe problems
Oh yeah I forgot, kids aren't supposed to learn to enjoy learning or feel like they're in a safe environment where they can grow in to knowledge. They're supposed to have facts shoved down their little throats and then regurgitate them on command. Maybe when we're done force feeding them multiplication tables and endless "reading" work books we can teach them to roll over and beg for scooby snacks.
Kids can't "rationally" assess historical events or "comprehend" mathematical proofs if they feel like shit all the time and are terrified of getting the shit kicked out of them after class. You're understanding of how people learn is weak at best.
Couldn't have said it better myself (tried to in an earlier post though). Much of the net is built upon anonymity. People use this cover to attack other people as well. How many people who have publicly disagreed with the majority of the /.ers here have gotten spammed or publicly trashed by them ? Anonymously ? On the other hand, this is probably the best piece by Jon I've read. He shouldn't instinctively disregard their offer to write for them. They seem to be giving him an opportunity to add some balance to the discussion. I'll post this anonymously so no one knows who I am !
Dang !
True, but the FBI and police have been using this technique for years. Successfully. The only difference here is that you are reporting someone who fits a description rather than one who has committed a crime. Nonetheless, a falsely accused person's life can get turned upside down. Where, as a society, do we draw the line between absolute freedom and absolute "safety" ? Live in Singapore under constant supervision (read lesser freedoms), and the reported crime rate is low. Live in an area with little or no policing authority and the crime rate is high. Some people draw the line near, some draw it farther away.
EvenThere is another memorable line from Dune ...
We have talked to them.
They did not listen.
I think it's time for action . . .
So, talking to the corp didn't help. Big suprise. Now there are a few other options people can take. Personally, I think a good approach would be for all of us to contact the Civil Liberties Union. The fact that this program is being utilized by a government institution gives some extra power to us, more specifically on the side of constitutionality (or so I hope). I'm no lawyer, but I hope I am accurate in this assumption. Here are 3 of their criteria for persecuting individuals, and why I think they would not stand up:
Displays intense intolerance or prejudice.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the KKK allowed to demonstrate and express its views? Isn't that one of those things that goes along with your constitutional rights? Now, individuals can get mad and curse and scream and express their views in contradiction, but the government cannot. The school system cannot say that one view is correct or not, and it cannot single out and persecute a person because they hate the different races, religions, hair do's, lipstick colors, or anything else people are prejudiced against.
Conveys violence in writings and/or drawings.
Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. Writings and drawings are also protected by the constitution. Also, now the schools will have to stop teaching about war, having essays on the subject, etc. etc, because that would be training the students to write on the very subjects for which they will be singled out. Another angle is this -- what is the symbol of the Christian faith? A guy getting nailed up on a cross, stabbed, suffocated, thorns jammed onto his head, and who knows what other undocumented nasties. I guess faithful followers of the nation's most popular religion will not be able to draw or write about that.
Is easily angered by minor things.
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Something that is a minor infraction to one person, when viewed from a different angle, can be a very serious offense (such as tracking muddy boots across the floor of a temple in which you are supposed to remove your shoes). As long as the angry individual breaks no laws, then they are free to express their anger over any infraction. Heck, if they never express their feelings, can't that lead to nasty mental disorders and a build-up that will eventually lead to an explosion of rage and a shooting spree?
Perhaps there is more we can do that sit around on a message board bitching and moaning, or sending emails to a corp that we -know- will not deviate from their chosen path unless forced to do so by the government or the bottom line.
How was the chicken salad?
dialpad also `...didn't netscape 6 preview feature something called net to phone? I think any one of these would provide true anonyminity(sp?) which is a concern if you're calling a large corporation for anything (note I am *not advocating prank calling ;-)).
This raises another important point. If you're calling a call-center, chances are they have advanced natl. caller ID features. What assurances does Pinkerton provide that they don't have *your* name on a file someplace?
How is this different than a member of the Liberal Left having issues with a school because they don't want their kids exposed to dangerous ideas like the existence of a holy and personal Creator which might cause them to think for themselves? I bet you'd be screaming if the schools were teaching that.
The fact of the matter is that only one side of the story is being told. If you were on the other side of the issue, or could even just be objective, you'd realize that. To use evolution as an example, what's wrong with school suggesting the possibility that some Higher Power we can't detect or measure is influencing our universe? You may not agree with it philosophically, but it is possible. Since it is possible, and so many people do believe it to be true, why isn't it mentioned as a possibility in schools? Why is evolution taught as the only theory? Why does your philosophical outlook predetermine what is acceptable to consider?
To address your other points, if the State wasn't responsible for education, the tax burden would be lowered on private citizens. Parents could use that money to fund their children's education in any way they saw fit, perhaps by school choice, or home schooling, or private school...whatever. The point is that the parents are in responsible for raising their children, and not the State, as it should be. (Gosh, sounds like a voucher system. Good idea!)
Constitutionally Correct
Since the big media school shootings, my school has hired Pinkerton Security (yes the same guys) to "patrol" our school. Basically they kicked a couple nice teachers aides out in the cold and replaced them with fat, bumbling security guards who actually care LESS about what goes on in our school. I think Pinkerton is taking themselves a little TOO seriously.
http://chrismetcalf.net
It seems unlikely because you don't know the real history. It's still true. In the early 1800s Alexis de Tocqueville visited America and found that "There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare." That was a full 30 years before the first cumpulsory indoctrination camps were founded in this country.
My grandfather, born in 1901 (he died recently) in quite possibly the poorest county in the country, had a 6th grade education, dearly paid for by himself and his parents not "given" to him by a public school system. That 6th grade education was superior to what most college grads have now, he could read and write not only english but also latin, well, and a very small amount of greek. He knew more history than many history professors I have met, and could do algebra geometry trig and even a little basic calculus in his head. This was the sort of school system that the prussian model mandatory public system displaced in many areas, even poor ones.
Actually by the time he was born the prussian model had already been implanted in the US by Horace Mann and his ilk, so he was actually fortunate to have been born in such a poor and "backwards" area where such "enlightened" instutions had not yet penetrated. He went to a one room school, where students were not segregated from each other to prevent the natural mentoring of older students with younger ones, where "socialisation" was not twisted by unatural "class" divisions, where students were not expected to march from class to class in pavlovian response to bells timed to ring every time some real learning began, and where a child that finished a years work in a couple weeks was given the next years work with a smile and an 'attaboy' instead of being regarded as a dangerous threat to regimentation and class boundaries (as I was.)
Anyhow, enough ranting from me, don't believe me. The fact that I am a survivor of the youth concentration camps we call schools doesn't necessarily mean I am any more qualified than you to understand them, as you are doubtless in the same spot. Read what John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991, has to say, and only believe him if you find that what he says makes sense. I think it does.
You can find excerpts from and links to much of his work on the web here and it is, imhop, required reading for anyone concerned about what is wrong with our schools and how to fix them.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Your reply suffers from a lack of vision. You see "private schools" and you think of a private monopoly, as our "public schools" are a monopoly now. But what we are talking about is de-monopolising.
An effective school is not something that requires large sums of money. Absent government regulations like we are trying to repeal, the barriers to entry are quite low. Many many people are home-schooling their children now, and on average doing a great job even measuring by the tests the monopolists devised! In a world with seperation of school and state, you would not be forced to send your child to Pinkerton High, you would have an almost infinite range of choices. The catholics still have their own schools, despite decades of assault on them. With the end to the assault, more would come into being very quickly - religous and secular. Any one of the people who are now home-schooling their own children could easily (and in almost all cases would be glad to) open their doors to their neighbors children, perhaps for a small fee to help them defray their expenses, just so they can do what they love doing - raising children in a stimulating, natural educational environment.
One of Mann's primary goals was to produce a population that would willingly work in factories - the free people of these united States in those days generally would not do so for more than a couple years - to save a nest egg and start their own business.
Please, read more on this before you make up your mind, a great place to start is with the writings of John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991. Several of his pieces are available on the web, links and short excerpts are here.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I like the way you think!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
OK, so people make a big deal about racial profiling, why not geek profiling? Where's Martin Linux King jr.
poop.
What you guys need is a data protection act for the protection of privacy. A decent one would make this sort of scheme much harder to setup, and easier to police. Yes, there are flaws in such laws, but they are glitches in comparison to the overall goal. Its a interesting historical irony while it is the Americans who have been most concerned with individual rights in the face of goverment actions, it is elsewhere that people have realised that the same rights also need protection from predatory corporations. Doubly-ironic is the fact that it is the latter who possess the resources to abuse personal information in new and creative ways.
While working on my Masters degree, I supported myself working as a substitute high school teacher. Every day at work I saw the cruel politics of the highschool social order played out. There are the tormentors and the tormented, the same social classes that existed while I was in HighSchool. Amoung the tormented, there are a few that I would consider dangerous. But these poor souls are, as has been said many times before, usually the product of mental illness. What bothers me about this is the psychological implications of this sort of targeting. To the typical, harmless student, being pulled aside and forced to be examined under a microscope for signs of a predisposition towards violence, is just another painful and embaressing ritual they have to endure. This alone is bad enough. But what happens when they get one of the violent ones. Nobody has considered what effect this will have. Imagine the sense of empowerment a potentially dangerous student might receive when, sitting in frount of a Principal or School Psyhcologist, he or she comes to the startling realization "They are afraid of me". Belive it or not, Highschoolers are more intellegent that most people give them credit for. They are unexperienced, and lack a certian amount of maturity, but they do have an understanding of what goes around them. I cannot think of one student, while in High School, who did not hold the beliefe that their teachers and administrators were incompitant boobs. At best, being 'chosen' to the tpyical violent youth will become a typical rite of passage down the road to deliquancy. At worst, to the truly mentally disturbed, it will solidify their feelings of parinoia, there feeling of being singled out and picked on. Even if we ignore the dangerously unconstitutional nature of this program, this well meaning experiment will most likely cause more harm then good. If WAVE really wanted to work, if they insisted on getting students to call up anonymously, I'd prefer they would do so to rat out teachers and administrators. I remember a rather unfortunate incident that happened to me in school, while a teacher walked by, and laughed. At the time I had no recourse. When I was a teacher myself, I saw first hand how uncaring and non responsive other teachers and administrators are. Granted, not all teachers allow the sort of unruly behavor that could cause a young student to reach a braking point, but most do, and they simply dont care. I would love to see the company respond to a school district "We have had quite a few anonymous complaints about teacher X. You should send him/her into a counsoling program to make them understand what their job really is."
Reading through the posts, pretty much all of the slashdotter's are saying that we need to find a way to stop this... I seem to remember that just the other day about a story on freenet, where pretty much it was that freenet should not be stopped because of freedom of speech, etc. Does anybody else see the irony in this?
I'd bet that the formula of 92.3% could be applied to freenet (or napster, etc.) almost as equally. Most likely 92.3% of the data on freenet WILL be warez, porn, etc.; but this is a good thing because freenet promotes freedom of speech, isn't this the exact same thing? Pretty much what the slashdot crowd is telling the world, as long as it's speech we AGREE with, we will fight tooth and nail, but if it's something that we DON'T agree with heaven help the flurry of attacks, hate mail, childish behavior that is about to follow.
I don't care if you are for or against the pinkertons, but if you support freenet you should be for the freedom of other people to have their say. Sure incorrect information in one has affects magnituds more than the other, but if one boils it down and gets to the heart of the matter they are infact almost the same. You want the freedom of freenet, you should support the freedom of people to anonymously rat. You don't want people to anonymously rat, then you shouldn't support freenet. They both are probably going to have close to the same numbers for valid to invalid data.
Go ahead let your flames go, but I can't stand people standing up for one ideal (when it suits them) and then oppose that same ideal when it might negatively affect them.
Spelling & grammar checker off because I don't care.
To quote Mark Twain: "God made an idiot for practice. Then He made a school board."
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/04/13/student.plot.ap/i ndex.html
Kid reported situation to parent, who reported to police, who acted...
WAVE should have nothing to do with issue and will likely cause more problems than they solve -- however, they have done a nice job of absolving themselves of any responsibility for their actions and absolving the anonymous reporters of anyresponsibility for their actions. Power without responsibility -- what a great combination (sarcasm).
If a student has knowledge of a potential problem student/situation, they should report it to a parent or a teacher and that person should make the call on the next course of action. These are the people in the best situation and the most qualified to make the call. If the teachers aren't qualified to handle this and the parenting is too poor, then that is the problem which needs to be solved -- and WAVE will address none of this. North Carolina would be better off dedicating their money to solving these issues than giving it to the Pinkertons...
First of all, I can't even think about this topic without feeling that naseous ripping at the bottom of my stomach. \n Second of all, whn I was in high school, not more than 7 years ago, I wandered the halls like everyone else there. The only difference between me and them was the fact that I liked working with computers instead of sports, and that I embraced the fact that I could think for myself, and I had talents that would be useful to me in the future. And the response to that was abuse, both verbal and physical. And I adapted to avoid the trouble, and learned to defend myself in the best ways that I could. \n \n But, the thing I found remarkable, was the fact that it was allowed to happen. Teachers and administrators turned a blind eye to my suffering. I decided then and there I would do the best I could in my future to help people who are like me. And I have done his through supporting the "nerds, geeks, and weirdo's" by listening and offering ways to survive. I try my best to listen when someone who has been alienated needs to talk, and offer support the best I can. It may be a small thing, but it is what I can do. And I encourage them that one day they will not be a weakling. They will have money and power, and people will listen to them when they have those tools at their disposal. And I hope they will have the place in their hearts to look after the younger generation of their own kind. \n \n Now is the time that we have the power. We have the access, we control the tools. Why not make a statement through civil disobediance? See how well the elite do business without their email. Without their web access? Without basic needs that run their world? Turn off their computers, and watch them scurry. Show them they NEED us, and that we won't take getting kicked around.
When this system is pitched to a school board, someone should ask if Pinkerton will stand behind their product and bear any legal fees if the school is later sued concerning any information provides the school. If Pinkerton says they won't, it's up to the school to decide what to do with the information, people should ask "Are you providing a value-add service or not? Don't you believe in your service?" It should be made extermely clear that Pinkerton doesn't provide any guarantees whatsoever about the quality of the information that their service provides. Without a quality product, and product guarantees, there should be little to no market for it.
Tim, very thought provoking. thanks. I believe this would have the effect of massively lowering class size and creating literally 10's thousands of competive small classrooms. picked, controlled, paid for by parents. parents would be responsible.
The first time my daughter (1st grade) had a bad teacher and I tried to do something about it the principal (who was a very good principal) all of a sudden started talking bull. I realized there wasn't a damn thing she could do or myself. damn union rules. At the time they wouldn't allow transferring our daughter to another class because parents disliked the teacher, everyone would have transferred.
- A pathetic public education system...
- ...based on ancient, deeply flawed victorian-era pedagogy
- ...where the teachers (who have to finish grad school to teach - unless it's a city school, where they'll take anyone of the street, without even getting their name down) get paid less than garbagemen - AND THAT'S NOT A JOKE OR AN EXAGGERATION...
- ...and which are managed bureaucratically, often by career state employees with no meaningful oversight from any elected official or the community.
- A pathetic government...
- ...populated, out of necessity, by people who will say anything, do anything to get elected and stay elected (is it really that much fun?)... and that includes utterly destroying the single most valuable public institution of this or any country: public education - for the slightest expediency.
- ...and largely ignored by a society so jaded with the misadventures of their elected officials that perhaps 1 in 10 Americans still regard their executive and legislative branches of government as anything other than a cruel joke.
- ...and let's not even talk about their fiscal policy
- A pathetic populace...
- ...out of which, after all, the administrators and politicians, the votes that empower them, and the media which makes it all happen smoothly has come, after all.
- ...in a constant state of denial about both the propserity, safety, and sanity of the nation they live in (after all, speaking of anonymous... there are now installing anonymous infant drop-off bins in Suffolk County, NY).
- ...and, let's face it, already suffering from the growing failures of said educational system.
Ignorant, hateful parents are the culprits of school massacres (and you could take that line of reasoning a lot further, too). And why can't we, the press, or the government, admit it?We make people at least pass a test to determine if they can drive, so why do we let any dumb couple of assholes pump out children and send them out into the world?
The bottom line is, people are supposed to be intelligent, decent and good to their neighbors, to their friends, to strangers, and to their children for a reason. It's more than just a choice you're entitled to for being born. Everything you do has consequences.
Without a general understanding of this principle, it's hard to imagine any society working for long. But yet walk down the street, and most people you pass are so ignorant of these basic truths, so far gone... And if you actually let yourself care one way or another, you feel literally adrift in a vast, stormy sea... with not a solid thing in sight to anchor your hopes.
We're on the road to Tycho.
To those of you who still are, you have all my sympathy. But please, please spam the nazi hotline people!
Thanks,
David
We're on the road to Tycho.
Essentially a denial-of-service attack, no? What would be really funny would be to put yourself solidly in the middle of the mass of people you submit. And, in your description of things that show you're dangerous, put "Spams Pinkerton Security Systems Dedicated to Promoting A Safe and Secure School Environment For All (Who Fit In)." ;-)
That's not to say that I like DoS attacks. For the most part, I think they're and immature and wrong way to get your views across. However, in this case, it may be justified.
No flames please, this is just my OPINION.
-RickHunter
No, not just random people from the list. What would really work would be to submit everyone...every name you can find. A list that's supposed to identify a specific type of student isn't going to be very specific if everfyone is on it.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I'll bet they never showed Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in your school.
"Public" schooling costs nearly TWICE as much as individually-financed education. And it wouldn't be Pepsi Education or Pinkerton Education either, it would be Mormon Education and Atheist Education and '60s Hippie Education and Gun Nut Education and all the other wild variety of education that would spring up when people were allowed to finally choose the type of education they wished.
As for the poor, scholarships from foundations, churches, lodges, and service clubs could finance the vast majority of the "poor" whose parents are unwilling to take on the financing job themselves. For those "poor" parents who do take on that responsibility, there would be thousands of low cost schools run by concerned parents in basements and living rooms.
Government Monopoly Schools are financed by the force and violence of taxation. It's no wonder the kids in them grab guns to "solve" their problems.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
And yes, somebody does have to pay for it. "Public" education is mostly financed by grandmothers on fixed incomes who later get evicted from their paid-for houses because they can't pay their property taxes any more and are unwilling to rebel against the guns of government.
I'll say it again. Government Monopoly Indoctrination Centers are financed by the force and violence of the guns of the tax collector. It's no wonder that kids forced into them by legal mandates seem to think that shooting up the classroom is a way to solve their problems.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
I had to laugh at the bumper sticker I saw on the freeway this morning: "If you can read this, thank a teacher." Well, no. I can read the bumper sticker because I made the effort to learn how to read. No teacher ever made me read, or even helped me read. In fact, most of my teachers despaired over the fact I was reading a couple or three grade levels ahead.
The argument that nobody will educate their children unless it's mandatory is the same argument that nobody would learn to read unless a teacher "taught" them how. And that argument assumes that nobody is motivated to read or to become educated by anyone or anything but laws and government monopoly miseducation systems.
The literacy rate in These United States might now be 99% had we not been gulled by the government educrats into believing that they and they only could educate us.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
So before you start grouping nazism, fascism, apartheid and communism all together, look at the philosophies surrounding each. Communists have no particular reason to get children to anonymously turn in social deviants, but then again, communism isn't often practiced around here.
Coincidentally, the Globe and Mail had a page 3 story today on why 80% of the world's population (or at least their leaders) really don't like capitalism, so it appears that their are two sides. (Can you guess the demographics of that 80%? If so, you win a free meal !
So where do we go from here? Pinkerton isn't going to do the right thing, they're going to do the profitable thing. We, as a community, need to start doing whatever we can to take the profit out of WAVE. How? A few random thoughts (some of which have already been seen in previous posts):
1. Start sending in reports. Use a pay phone and start reporting the people who have the resources to best hurt the program:
lawyer's kids (all the better to drag this crap into court quicker),
popular jocks (so that the program appears to the customers to be targeting the wrong people),
congresscritter's kids (to lay a foundation for possible political solutions),
children of the members of the task force that thought this up (because the taskforce members deserve pain),
Pinkerton employee's kids (demoralizing the enemy never hurts),
and more.
Give some thoughts to these reports. Script them out if you have to. Make sure that your reports meet the criteria for pass-along and throw in some juicy details to get the security drones salivating.
2. Start hitting the potential customers. Make sure that schools know that if they participate, they are going to have to answer some tough questions. For example, if you have children attending a school that partakes in the program, demand to see the procedures for security on the tips they get from Pinkerton. Demand to know how they are safeguarded, what the retention schedule is, what actions will be taken when a tip is received, etc. For any private school, demand that their contract with you be modified to require that they report to you any tip received on your kids. Heck, demand open disclosure of the number and severity of *all* the tips received by the schools. Any lawyers in the house? In Texas, we could possibly use the Open Records Act to demand these things be made public. I don't know how it would work in the original state, but there's gotta be a way. If enough of these reports are disclosed to the public (remember, we're inflating the number of reports under action #1, above) and the public gets to see that there are never any shootings afterward, the program can start to just look like a waste of time and money.
3. Make this an issue in school board elections. "If you support anonymous snitching without adequate safeguards, ala WAVE, you won't get my vote! And I'll tell everyone I know to vote against you, too!"
4. Make sure that school boards hear about this during budget meetings. "This is a waste of money. We're spending good money here but getting nothing in return. We're just harassing a bunch of people who don't deserve it and setting ourselves up for lawsuits!"
5. Ancillary point: Demand of the school board of any school district that adopts the program that they increase funding for liability insurance. "After all, you guys bought this program that's sure to get us sued. You've got to protect the school district by doubling the amount of liability coverage."
6. Who's gonna start the anti-WAVE website? We've got to have a central clearinghouse for information. We need to know when WAVE is being considered for adoption by a school or when it is adopted. In that way, we can target the right individuals at that school for action. We can find and feed info to the people in a position to fight. Furthermore, such a site will provide a place for horror stories to accumulate and, by extension, a way to source expert witnesses (kids who've been hurt by all this) to testify about the practical evil of this sytem during the inevitable lawsuits. Perhaps just a continuing "WAVEWatch" feature on Slashdot would to the trick, or maybe even just a mailing list.
7. And I'll probably think of 20 more things by this afternoon. So can you! Reply to this and add to the list. Good plans of action start with wild brainstorming sessions. No matter how crazy an idea is, post it. It may inspire someone who needs it.
After reading Jon's comments, and seeing the address to which I could address comments, I sent the following message to the WAVE folk.
Hi,
First, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to speak with Mr. Katz, while I don't know what impact the conversation had on your plans, I do appreciate the fact that you were willing to chat with him about it.
Second, I have to tell you that I find your project to be absolutely terrifying. As a geek kid, who twenty years ago would have fit any profile as a "potential problem," who is now raising a geek kid (he's six, moody, loves computers, is far smarter than most kids his age), I have to say that my greatest desire would for him *not* to have to go through the same things I went through growing up.
Unfortunately, projects such as WAVE tend to enhance the stereotype, not discourage it.
I also have a few questions based on what I have read about WAVE.
I imagine that you will be buried in e-mail, but I do look forward to a response to the above questions.
I certainly hope that they will reply, as I feel that they are important questions.
Stand Fast,
Stand Fast,
tjg.
politicians get misguided notions from media, and are spurred into action by misguided parents (ie, fear of being voted out of office), and they set into motion these wrongheaded projects that somehow always manage to do the most harm to the very things they profess to protect. Jon Katz makes an important point that the very people who need to be protected in this system are the ones who most stand to be wrongly identified - the ostracised geeks.
A lot of what is happening is the direct result of parents not accepting responsibility for the raising of their children.
As an example:
In my Philosophy of Education class we have been reading about the differences between how people within the realm of Education and those outside of it use the language of education. For example, the term "potential", and the concepts of the "aims" of education vs. "means to ends" in education. What becomes apparent is that because people talk at cross-purposes, meaning is ascribed to things such as the SATs, MCAS, and other well-meaning but mis-guided efforts at State regulation of education initiatives (such as curriculum frameworks). Now Test Scores are used by media and politicians as a way to "reform" the education system in ways the don't make sense simply because they equate test scores with the future health of our economy. This has been proven to be an unfounded connection (all the negative TIMMS scores of the late eighties/early nineties were construed to show that our economy was in dire straits and that we woudl be crushed in ten years by our rivals because our schoolchildren were failing these exams -- this hasn't happened !! We have had the strongest economy in our history for the last 10 years!
------- "One of the joys of travel is visiting new towns and meeting new people." -- G. KHAN
Therefore, one approach would be to make noise that tax funds not be used for programs that utilize anonymous reporting as the brunt of their database. (Yeah, like that will fly.)
At the very least - we should be talking to local, state, and federal officials to show them the danger of these products.
"One alternative is to change the law to allow non-law enforcement agencies to investigate without complying with the Fourth Amendment and numerous other constitutional principles such as due process, and allow those agencies to take the necessary steps to protect their own systems and to protection national security,"
Thats from the director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center. They say they are not endoresing this or any other proposal, but the fact that they could even think of such a thing is insane.
A bunch of Pinkertons ignore my 4th amendment rights and come storming into my home are gonna find out they can't ignore the 2nd quite so easily. Granted such a likelyhood is remote at best, but corporate rights to make money should never trump our basic civil rights.
-=RR=-
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
When I first read this, I thought I'd like to make a poster of it. That was my first response.
Then I pondered the phrase "exploiting peer-pressure". The concept of peer pressure already pre-supposes the urge (instinct?) to both want to conform (fit in) and to force conformity on others. This god already exists.
Most of the horrors that happened to me in school had their genesis in either my disappointment at not fitting in or the attacks on me by people who were trying to force me to conform.
I wish that I'd had somebody train me in how to deal with these conformity urges, how to not be controlled by them and how to resist trying to control others. Instead, the adults around me used this weakness against me... and it allowed them far more control over me than any other method. OF COURSE it would have been against their self interest to help me deal with the issues of conformity!
But to be the devil's advocate: I believe the conformity instinct is inborn. Why do we have it? What use is it? Do we have the wisdom to say "it ain't right" when we don't even understand why millions of years of evolution has given it to us?
-Eldurbarn
In case you didn't notice on the site... Pinkerton offers free email accounts such as "user@waveamerica.com"
I got mine...invasionofprivacy@waveamerica.com"
Go get yours HERE!
"Being alive is a crock of shit." --Kilgore Trout
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I've had my bouts with having conformity crammed down my throat. In elementary high school, I had almost nothing in the way of workable social skills because of ADD, and I have to say that my life was not terribly happy because of it. Social skills are not being conditioned to conform, but the are the ability to know when and how to say what you have to say so that your ideas will be recieved receptively. That was an ability I often just didn't have. For example, jumping up and down babbling in front of a peer review board trying to explain my General Theory of Everything (even if my math was right) would probably cause them to ignore me, even if I had my facts straight. Unfortunately, due to my lack of social skills early in life, this was precisely the sort of behavior that I was prone to engage in.
To sum up my point: social skills are important to communicate good ideas and to foster collaboration and agreement. Having them does not mean you've become a conformist consumer-unit.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
It's simply an issue of making our concerns manifest. We feel that the system could be abused, so abuse it. That will convince them better than any arguments. If they actually come up with a system which can't be abused, then more power to them. I don't think it's gonna happen, but if it did, then I wouldn't have any problem with it.
Then there are the possible lawsuits. The Plinkertons are opening themselves up for major lawsuits if they persue this and ANYONE gets screwed over injustly. Admittedly those likely to to sue will be conspicuously absent from any school diciplinary action no matter the offense.
We could probably set something like this up. Find a straight-A kid who's never done anything bad in his life, and who has a good lawyer as a relative (no legal fees!). See if they'll go along with it, then have 15 or 20 people report this kid as dangerous...
The kid gets dragged off, the relative represents him for free, and they prove that this kid is 'perfect'.
Maybe then Pinkerton will realize what the hell they're doing.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Does the US have a "Kids Help Line"? In Canada, it's this toll-free number kids are encouraged to call anonymously if they're having any trouble. Its corner stones are listening and counseling rather than an intervention.
Maybe it would be a better idea to encourage school children to call in on that line, where they could be encouraged to support the person they're calling about (who's abviously in a difficult situation) or call the police, as appropriate. (Read: it's usually the former..)
"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." -- some Roman guy (I don't remember who)
* "Uncle this droid is malfunctioning" -- Luke Skywalker
I even encourage geeks and nerds, goths and punks to launch a (nation-wide?) pre-emptive strike: if you are in high school, grab a list of all the jocks and football players and denounce them as punks, goths, malcontent, depressed, drug-addicted and violent characters. Throw in a few white-power/aryan nations jerks as well. Rat on your teachers. Report on your class president, on the Prom Queen, on the cheerleaders!!
That is a bad plan. Here's why:
If the school starts receiving scads of reports about its star athletes and popular kids, they're just going to start ignoring the reports that are about these people. The main problem with high school is that the "jocks" and popular kids are allowed to get away with lots of stuff that others aren't, due to their sports status or whatever. It won't be a stretch for school authorities to continue overlooking these people, and they might even be encouraged by these false reports.
Unfortunately, I think the only real solution is to use the WAVE system responsibly. Don't flood WAVE with false reports; only real reports against those who deserve it, with as much real evidence that you can supply.
Are football players picking on the D&D gamers, causing damage to property (ie stealing/defacing books, scattering dice down the hall with a kick) and so forth? Basketball jocks making the heavy girl cry? Report the event in the most complete detail possible. But make sure every event is verifiable or at least undeniably plausable.
We all know who the real problem children are. We have to turn all tools that might target us antisocials against those who have alienated us into fitting the "violent" profile.
-JimThetajimtheta@beer.com
My stupid web site
I brought this up last week. I'm glad the idea finally got moderated to a place where people can see it. Get involved locally. When we forget that governements have the ability to control corporations we turn our lives over to the corporations.
What about North Carolina? (Score:1) by marshall11 (mw6g@yahoo.com) on Tuesday April 04, @04:05PM EDT (#386)
Everyone is behaving as if the Pinkertons have already won this insane battle. The truly insane thing here is why our state governments support the idea of anonymous reporting on minors by minors! THE STATES ARE THE ONES WHO ARE BUYING THIS PROGRAM. They are the consumers whose demand will make it successful or not.
For the Pinkertons: "Why do you think North Carolina supports the idea of a society where kids report other kids for being different? Are other states eager to sign onto this gestapo mentality? Let me know which ones so I can be sure not to visit.
At that point I was taken to a real licenced Pyschologist. I had a medical examination. All I can guess was at that point it wasn't large enough to notice.
After Prozac and company didn't work, I went to a chiropractor as a final option, after all how many people have TUMORS? ... When the chiropracter got fed up after nothing fixed my problem ( some things he did DID help, but some made it worse..) he had a cerebrial-spinal ( guessing again..)CAT scan taken. Whoa! Whats that? I was immediatly taken to a neurologist who had another CAT scan done.
I had brain surgery next week. fun, but don't try it at home kids.
I'm positive that no doctors made a mistake, as I had a type of tumor prevalent among kids/young teens.
But the whole point of this original post was this:
The idea that WAVE has could not only hurt kids that want to be different, but also those that really have problems. I'm afriad if something like WAVE had happened, my parents couldn't have gotten me the help that they did ( eg, the government comes in and says they can't dictate my life because they're obviously bad parents). Would I be dead? Not a question I want to ask. DanteAliegri.
-- What doesn't kill you hasn't tried hard enough.
True. I believe we basically agree on the ultimate goal of school : create people which are well educated on a number of technical skills (math, history), but with unaffected non-technical abilities (creativity, interests, ..).
The situation can be compared to general free-market policies : do you want a market which is completely free (the ideological Libertarian market), or a market which is free up to a certain limit, where the govt sits on it as a watchdog to avoid social or economic excesses ? I hope you go for the 2nd, as we all know what reckless exploitation of scarce resources, child labour, slavery etc have brought us. Well, I guess it's the same thing here; if the goods to trade are the children's minds, do you want a totally free market where corporate (ie non-state) schools can deliver any goods they want (no warranty, no liability, no guarantees) at any cost they think is ok ? Maybe you can point out a flaw in this analogy, but imho non-state schools are exactly the equivalent of a total-freedom free market.
Again I don't have much arguing to substantiate, so I'll pick up your challenge :) My mom is in fact a teacher in a state-governed school, and I'll ask her a detailed account on how policies are set, to what extent history could be warped if it better fits the current puppetmasters way up the govt chain, etc.
All I know is that I came out of school pretty much the way I like it, and I am a nerd/geek. I also don't know any other nerds or geeks which came out of a state-run highschool with traumas, supressed creativities or any other personality modifications that'd suit a Big Brother. That's in Belgium, though, and from what I gather here on /., USA schools must have a totally different attitude towards creativity and being different. Which is exactly why I still think of any problems as aberrations : it seems to work over here.
Well, maybe I was just conditioned into thinking that Our School Is Good ;)
Yeah, exactly. You're complaining that the current government-run schools suck because they're applying business techniques onto kids. You're right. However, as a solution, you're suggesting to get rid of the government interference and go fully private. Ie, have the schools being run by corporations ??? Sounds like a serious contradiction to me. If there is one environment where children would be treated as units, which need to be processed at an effective cost for maximum throughput and revenue, it would be a private school which can run without any possible state interference, regulation or guidelines. So yeah, Mann fucked up but that's precisely because he tried to make state schools similar to privately run factories.
Granted, in this particular case the government is royally screwing up by asking a private company to deliver a hightech witch-hunt system. But in general, I would rather expect a private corporation to come up with this kind of ideas, than the government. I mean, really, what kind of policies will schools have when they're run by corporations without any state interference ? If there can be a world where the /. fears of a schoolsystem "educating" the youth into mentally flat, 'stable' drones ready for marketing campaigns come true, that would be it. Current private schools at least have the state behind them as the state basically says "educate the kids whatever way you want, but as they leave the place they do know this and this and have these and those abilities". Total separation, as in total freedom for the schools to do what they want, sounds like a recipe for total disaster.
I admit this post is more of a gut feeling than an argument. Still, I like to think this Task Force is rather the exception in an otherwise well-working environment, than the default modus operandi of a schoolsystem which should be dissed altogether in favor of corporate run total-freedom schools. Bleh.
Are the kid's who aren't home schooled dumber? Would I be smarter if I hadn't gone to a public school? This is a silly argument to be involved in, I quit :)
I realize that this is a point that was made in the article, but I feel that it is possibly the most important. You don't have a date rape hotline for people you think might be date rapists. You shouldn't have a "school violence" hotline for people who you think might be violent.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Do you seriously think it's acceptable to harass kids just because they're powerless? Do you seriously think no adults disagree with that concept?
It's narrow-minded, self-centered idiocy like that causing these sorts of problems.
At least now when kids start suing Pinkerton because of the harassment they receive because of this system, Pinkerton can't claim they weren't aware of the problem.
Couldn't Slashdot have sent someone a little more convincing than Katz? Nobody takes Katz seriously, not even Slashdot readers. They had a big chance, and they blew it.
This is a brilliant insight! I don't think I've ever heard it put so well. This is a major mistake our culture has made in reacting to Naziism. People tend to focus so much on the racism (which is of course a horrible thing) that they forget that Facism is simply the logical extreme of patriotism. The Nazis were, first and foremost, about the supremacy of the German people. All their actions were directed towards the goal of suppressing any kind of opposition to their supremacy. Controlling ideas and anonymous reporting and killing all the Jews were all just logical (to them, anyway) means to this end.
Corporations have the same problem, though it usually takes a different form. Their total commitment to the bottom line causes them to take any means to the end of profit, regardless of the ethical implications. Whenever any goal (supremacy of your nation, profit, economic growth, religious evangelism, political victory, etc. etc.) takes precedence over morals, you run the risk of committing serious oppression.
We must remember that the Nazis burned books as well as people, and that both were part of the same line of reasoning.
This issue is not about suppressing Pinkerton's speech. This is about preventing them from taking action. There's a difference. The fact that I'm in favor of freedom of speech doesn't mean that I have to agree with everything anyone says.
Furthermore, I don't think that the freedom to turn someone in to an anonymous hotline is equivalent to freedom of speech. Of course people have the freedom to say whatever they want about their peers to whomever they choose to say it to. The question is about what is done with this sort of speech once it's said. Do you see what I mean? WAVE proposes to set up an organized system for recording and catagorizing people's accusations against their peers. On the one hand, listening more carefully to what children have to say about their environment is a good thing, and certainly parents and school officials and so forth should be encouraged to do so. However, the question is, is a private security company like Pinkerton the right entity to be listening to the concerns of children? There's certainly a danger in paying too little attention to what kids have to say. There is also a danger of paying too much attention, or the wrong kind of attention.
Everyone has the freedom to cry "witch!" Problems start happening when people actually listen.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."--Voltaire
I hate this stuid anonimity bullshit. people should own their statements especially when they are accusing someone. it is a basic right to defend oneself and to do that one needs to know who is accusing you and what one is being accused off. one of the only times when such behavious was allowed (to accuse someone and not have them know in who accuser or what the accusation is) was during the stalinist dictatiorship of Russian (read Darkness at Noon), another time was during the Inquisition. If people want safe schools and whatnot make guns illegal. it is as simple as that. Sure people who are completely deluded about the language of the amendments to the constitution of the US pretend that citizens have the right to own guns. Even if that was the intention of the framers of the constitution who fucking cares they can be and have been wrong about things in the past. the retarded worship of the forefathers needs to stop they are not gods after all they allowed slavery and believed wholeheartedly that blacks were inferior to them just because of their skin color. information needs to be free but the only way it is free information is if it has a background information needs context for it to be useful otherwise it is worthless. Who made a statement gives the information some of its proper context.
However, I have these comments:
My chances of winning my state lotto seem to be a lot worse than being killed in school, according to these numbers.
Most hotlines are set up to report crimes which have already happened, which is markedly different than letting unqualified armchair psychologists guess who may or may not be capable of commiting a crime. I have been told that 911 is the appropriate hotline to use to report an immediate threat to life or property.
So it seems that Pinkerton is using the following defense:
"It's not our idea, we've just been hired to implement it. If we don't someone else will, and why should we give up market share? Besides, someone else has already made the moral and ethical decisions--those decisions are not ours to make in this case."
Jon Katz should have taken his well-researched, reasonable discussion to the real decision-makers, not the hired gun who's just doing the job.
Is it wrong to commit immoral acts for money? By definition, yes. Is Pinkerton doing just that? Probably. Is it more effective to dispute with the hired gun, or the guy who did the hiring? In this case, I'd have to say the latter.
I applaud Katz, and /., but clearly this issue needs to be debated at a higher level before any policy changes are made.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I'd likely be in jail now. Hell, I'd be in jail even if it was implemented here at work. I went into grade 9, oh, 10 years ago I suppose. Boy was I picked on; 13 in grade 9, intelligent as hell (and therefore socially inept). It was bad enough in public school when I was yanked out of classes once a week and sent to Gifted classes in the next town over. What the teachers never seemed to realize was that by saying "You're intelligent and deserve extra attention" they were also saying to every other student "You're stupid, and not as worthy as he is of extra attention" and we all know what happens next. Anyway, back to HS. One day I went to the book store, the only one in town that carried D&D stuff, and picked up the brand shiney new Thief's Handbook. Brought it to school, as I'd picked it up on lunch, sat down in German class, and started reading it. Teach walked in, saw the "Theif's Handbook" in big gold letters, and freaked, big time. Never occured to me to think that it might look wierd to others. Anywho, lets look at this for me here at work. Often does my colleuge and I discuss the finer points of various martial arts, while standing in an office or hallway. We routinely go on Nerf hunts. I have a Soldier of Fortune box under my desk, THE ULTIMATE SNIPER training manual (which I got when I got Tribes) and Killer on my shelf beside all my comp security books, Oracle books, etc etc. We're trying to create an OSS tactical space combat sim, so we're constantly discussing tactics, weapon effects, that sort of thing. Yeah, I'd be in jail by now under anonymous reporting, most likely. Hell, under these laws, a couple of kids practicing Shakespere would probably look like dangerous, mentally disturbed people. "Pay me my due, or I shall take a pound of flesh from thee" indeed. It disturbs me that, as others have pointed out, the system tries to breed into some students (football and other sports players) exactly the same traits it tries to breed out of others (people who can't be bribed with a letter jacket) while claiming it's for the good of society. I think this needs to be on a school board by school board basis, if not school by school, and should only be implemented on a two-thirds majority vote by each parent, student, and employee at said school.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
911 is far from anonymous.
I wonder how many times I would have used that number on people I hated when I was younger, or got in trouble, or just plain bored. I know the 1 time I was turned in for anything, it was a totally false accusation and it hurt me emotionally.
I got a referral because someone claimed I wrote a paper. I presented evidence of my handwriting to the Vice Principal and I also proved my whereabouts. Care to know what happened? Nothing. They did not suspend me(I had a perfect record) nor did they do anything to the kid that had accused me( A total jagoff). I sent in samples of my handwriting to the principal and several papers That I already had written. It was obvious that paper was not written by me. Did it scar me? Yep, I grew harder for it. The thing that sucked the most? I had to fight him physically (and kicked his ass) later.
I was 6 foot and played chess. I got run over by a classmate and all he had to do was pay for my glasses at the time. (I called the police). I got into a fight on the bus to prevent my sister from being sexually assaulted on the Bus.
Its like this, WAVE will not do any good anyways, School administrators only want to pick on the "outcast" and not the people who do things. It is cool to pick on the outcast, even the teachers do it.
Never fret, I have a great job, Wife, Kid, and am alive to write this note. all is not totally lost.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
Perhaps even better, build the site's community nature and make it self-regulating like /.
Yeah, hot-grits moderation consumers and abusive moderating just might be enough to have WAVE get frustrated and give up.
Great idea!
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
With this and the mapping of the human genome, How long before we have 'discrimination down to a science' ?
If you've seen Gattaca you'll know what I mean.
Paranoia that your friend or classmate might be a Communist swept the country in a very similar fashion. Children worried about the patriotism of their parents and their fellow students. College students were kept under close wraps. Peaceful protests were violently broken.
Is there really that much difference between disliking your society and disliking your government? If someone doesn't like the way things are done, should they be prosecuted? Unfortunately, this seems to be the way America tends to go. Someone intending harm is a threat, this is an unavoidable fact, but deciphering that simply from an act of anger or a lowering of grades is completely ridiculous.
The problem here is not with the companies trying to cash in on this. The problem lies with the repeated buildup of hysteria we have seen before. Just as the Red Scare indelibly imprinted America's history, so will this, unless people can stop panicking long enough to open their eyes and see reason.
One thing we must keep in mind is not to look at the problem; look for the solution.
peace and humptiness;
jim.
your right.
sorry I get those 2 confused, they look so much the same.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
second, even if this system IS moral, it still does not provide any security in the school system. If I kid really wants to kill something, trully and honest wants to gun someone down, he will gun them down BEFORE anyone has time to notice. It is like sucide, if a kid really wants to kill them self, they will and there isn't NOTHING anyone can do before hand. If they "look" and leave "hints" like they are going to kill themselves, they aren't going to, they just want understanding, love or something like that, they don't want to die.
If I was going to hAx0rS the DOD web page, I won't tell ANYONE about it, I would do it and get it done with. If I told EVERYONE that I was going to hAx0rS the DOD web page, I would just be a script kiddie "bragging" to his script kiddie buddy and didn't have the real skill required to r00t a DOD box.
Same thing. If any highschool kid trully wanted to achive the goal of killing multi-class mates, they would do it, and they would keep fucking quite it about it. Cause they KNOW if they get caught or talk about it, they can't complete their goal (killing-classmates).
I don't see ANYWAY this can stop kids from killing kids. The only thing that can stop that is parents do their fucking job! It is the parents job to teach our kids right and wrong, not some companies. Do you really think a money grubbing company like "Pink0 Bastards, Inc(TM)" can teach our kids right/wrong though bidding them with T-Shirts?
The only reason I am never having kids is because I know for a fact I would really fuck them up in the head and won't be surpised if they came out mass murders. If I did have kids though, I would make sure they would be able to funcation in society without the use of auto-matic weapons. I just think parents need to do their fucking jobs and stop relaying on a "Quick-fix patch for kids" yes you, average parent know can fix you kid with one easy payment of $24.45, if your kid ends up on the six o'clock news, you get double your money back.
Comeone people, is "PinkO Bastards, Inc.(TM)" this fucking stupid or greed to sell our kids so they can buy a new fucking house.
God dam this pisses me off, I think every one should call "anonymous tips" into 60 minutes claiming the CEO of "PinkO Bastards, Inc.(TM)" does LSD while masterbating to the weather channel.
"OH YEA PARTLY COULDY, OHHH SHOW ME THAT SLIVER LINING, SMACK THAT WHITE FLUFF UP GOOD BITCH, WHO'S YOUR DADDY, WHO'S YOU DADDY"
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
If these people are honestly concern with the safety of our school system, they should do it in a more community involed type of way (not that I am saying this is RIGHT (anonymous kids doing oddball profiling) but there could be a better way of doing it)
If they are trully concern, why not start up a non-profit org, so that their will be nothing to temp the greedy. Have it avaiable and open to the school (students/parents) and anyone else trully concerned for our kids.
Have it completly open and have a vote where everyone (including the kids) have an equal vote in the "best" way to protect our school and provide a more productive learning envoriment.
Right now, everyone is say "Pinkerton (whatever their name is) isn't conerned, but are just greedy fucking bastards and should burn in hell for using our childern to pull a fast buck" Take money out of the sisuation Pinkerton, do it non-profit and give EVERYONE an equal vote in the process used in the school systems. Pinkerton don't say THIS is the way it is going to be, and we WILL make money off of it. Say WHAT do the parents and childern think, and HOW is the best way to do this?
The parents and childern and the ones that are IN the school, so they know beter how it operaters than some money grubbing company.
Pinkerton == PinkO Bastards
Pleaes prove me wrong Pinkerton
And I SURPISED no one has quoted the simpsons yet
"WILL SOMEONE PLESE THINK OF THE CHILDERN!" -- Ma Flanders (RIP(God bless her soul))
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Go get em Jon. Katz rules!
I think this proves the theory of hackers in other things then computers. Nice artcile, my hat is off to you Dr. Katz.
Katz kicks asz.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Very well put. Freedom today is very much being dilulted in favor of safety nets and "security". I feel embarassed going to the Jefferson Memorial nowadays. I can't face our founding fathers knowing what a horror our nation has become and that I'm not doing anything about it.
Katz finally seems to be learning something about our culture. I see no evidence of MS Word pasting, and Katz has abandoned the term geek profiling in favor of oddball profiling (much more fitting!)... In any case, thanks to Katz for speaking up. With continued work, maybe some reform will come out of the school system, where the main problem lies.
That's exactly what Pinkerton's is doing. They accept anonymous information. You're right, there's a risk that such information will be malicious or just wrong. So they moderate it up or down. If it meets a reasonable set of standards, and that will need to include some double checking, then, hey, guess what, they pass it on to the people who should know about it. (Now, that's a devil's advocate argument: I want to see the standards. That's a reasonable request for the public.)
The basic premise of Katz's criticism is that too many people will abuse anonymity for that to be a workable solution. Slashdot shows that to be plausible in forums like this one, and, certainly, some cases of abuse will happen. The question before the house is whether that abuse will be frequent. That's an empirical question, and there's evidence speaking to it from other anonymous "snitching" services. For instance, the frequency of false reports to Date Rape hotlines is about the same as the frequency of false reports of stranger rape, approximately 3%. That tends to support the claim that WAVE will, on balance, do more good than harm.
I have been to both public and private schools. The private schools are so much better than the public that it isn't even funny.
I was also educated in both public and private schools, and I definitely did *not* see a major difference in the overall education.
What I *did* see, however, was that the things Slashdotters complain about (bullying and ostracism as the response to nonconformity) were *far* more prevalent and tolerated in the private school. This may have been the age group involved (4-8th grade private, HS public) but inasmuch as I was a "geek" I was much happier in the public school than the private. More hands-off administration, more opportunity to take advanced classes, and so on.
And not to be pedantic, but using words like "Algerbra" and "tax dectutable" doesn't exactly help your case.
I re-emailed the letter I sent to them earlier. A copy of which can be found here
I really don't know if e-mailing the suggestion box will do any good. By this time they're probaly forwarding all e-mail to /dev/null, but it won't hurt to try.
All e-mail concerning the above link can be directed to the address above.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
They decline to state how long they will maintain reports after forwarding the juicy ones to schools. They claim they will not pass reports to other outside parties. Simple subtraction tells me they will sell their analysis, not the raw reports, in the form of Pre-employment recomendations.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Teachers and school officials, for the most part, do not give a rat's ass about the children they are suppost to be educating.
Attention Deficit Disorder is severely over diagnosed because all you really have to do to have the symptoms is be bored or interested in anything else besides what the teacher wants you to be doing.
So yes, Pinkerton's is filling a void made by teachers and school officials who just don't want to be bothered. The best way to fight that is at your local level.
As for W.A.V.E. America, how can we tie it in with The Wave movie? If the movie is anything like the book, or the story as published in The Whole Earth Catalog soon years ago then is will open some peoples eyes to this kind of activity. Maybe we can fake some W.A.V.E. America ads tied in to the movie?
Get this cheese to sick bay!
"The man who would sacrifice his freedom, for security, deserves neither."
-Thomas Jefferson
----(o)----
The way to do it is to write your local press--newspapers, TV stations, etc. If you can do that, maybe you can get some reporters involved, some articles published and stories done. By getting local people involved, you are helping to ensure that by the time Pinkerton gets to your town, they won't have much hope. The more this happens around the country, the less hope Pinkerton will have of expanding, and the more awareness will be raised in North Carolina as well.
Thanks Jon.
I keep thinking of the number one thing that is going to make this inneffective, is also the same thing that we're affraid of: signal-to-noise ratio.
Essentially we pretty much all agree that school administrators are going to be going on a wild goose chase on most of the anonymous tips. Because people can provide the information anonymously, and there is no reprecussions for posting false information, bogus reports will run rampant. It will be used as a tool to pick on the same kids that they are trying to 'help'.
We ourselves are capable of encouraging and submitting reports that may or may not be 'legitimate'. Meaning, there is nothing wrong with me reporting that John Doe(pick a fictious name) in the school in Anytown USA has been displaying 'violent behavior' regardless of weather I have ever even been to Anytown USA. By creating a high signal-to-noise ratio, will school administrators just toss the reports into the trash?
The only way that the Pinkerton people could make their information become 'valuable' again would be to place some accountability on the informants--essentially what we think they should be doing anyway.
Perhaps this provides a ability for us to essentially change the policies on a grassroots level?
-k
-Elendale (Is it just me, or did Katz sound a bit... defeated?)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Libertarianism values the rights of the individual above everything else. If Pinkerton had any concept of Libertarianism, they would be horrified at the thought of becoming a tool of tyranny.
Except that I rather doubt this will be used to take anyone to court. It's to be handled by schools, which as we all should know have no standard of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt"...
But having this on the web has other connotations. It's going to be abused. It's a perfect tool for exacting revenge on someone you dislike.
tcd004
tcd004
Sure, they claim that these phone calls and e-mails are anonymous, but when it comes time to take someone to court, the prosecuter is gonna want a person, not an anonymous coward (tm). 911 is recorded. Thanks to doubleclick et. al. all our internet traffic is most likely recorded. Even though it may not be paper, there's a trail...
Here is the correct link to the NY Times article A Closer Look at Rampage Killings.
Interesting article. "such killings account for only one-tenth of 1 percent of all homicides"
Of course, later in the article it dives into arguments for more gun control laws and more invasive police procedures. Cor! What freedoms and rights some people are willing to give up.
--
Mike Arms
A neat form of mass protest would be to encourage everyone you know to report themselves on the WaveAmerica site.
Maybe being on Pinkerton's list could be a sort of status-symbol for the 21st century.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
My take on the whole thing.. (might be redundant)
The pinkerton execs only talked with Jon Katz because they were caught off guard by the slashdot response. They don't know who we are.. they don't know what we represent.. What they saw was a potential pr nightmare.. So naturally the decided to do some research.. They don't care what we think.. All they're interested in is keeping us quiet.. or getting us on their side.. Hence the "Job offers".
I find the concept of this reprehensible.. (But not particularly out of the ordinary for a large corporation)
So we have a choice now.. Attempt to debate with those that do not have an desire to listen to us.. Or deliberately dork up their entire system..
I think we should make sure this issue stays in the minds of slashdot readers.. and if possible extends to non-readers..
Lets show pinkerton what slashdot represents.. and why they need to do a little more than offer us a cookie to shut up and go back to our room..
-Dan
I'm glad that they got rid of the prize incentives... that was just a wrong thing to have.
I still think that half of my friends - myself included - would have had calls into this service, had they had it when we were in high-school.
We played video games (to excess by some standards). We were computer enthusiasts. We played D&D (gasp, the horror!). Some wore "concert shirts" and listened to "Heavy Metal" music... other wore black, some even wore camouflage... We got into fights (I was 6'2" and 150 lbs. in High-school... of course I was a target...)
Obviously (sarcasm here btw) we were a danger to ourselves and the public.
Sigh.
BlackNova Traders
When has this planet ever been sane?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I gotta say, I think it is totally reasonable to speak with the WAVE folks and bonus points to Jon for doing it. However, you have to take a look at what motivates people. Corporations, by definition, have a responsibility to make money. Now, ideally, they can make money and be responsible, but they have to make money to survive. So, convining them tot turn down money is a tough fight.
It seems to me that the place to fight this is the government. They don't have a responsibility to make money - they have a responsibility to protect our freedoms and our safety (and balance the two). Since it is on the internet, it can't be limitied to North Carolina. I recommend we call and write our representatives in congress and push for legislation outlawing this type of profiling.
I don't agree that their view is focused solely on "security." The legislators who designed this program probably do believe that they are enforcing a secure environment for children, but Jon makes the point that the Pinkerton people are focused solely on making money. It would be the same thing if you convinced your boss to use for the whole office. He wouldn't be interested in the "open source movement," just the fact that the bottom line is vastly improved by free software. The suits will sit there and justify their actions with pretty reasons, but its still all about the cash. dollar dollar bill, y'all -Kabloona
I'm very interested in seeing Jon's definition of corporatism. He uses the term quite often as a perjorative in his writings, but I haven't seen where he spelled out exactly what it means. How can I tell if a given person, corporation or other institution is corporatist? Please provide the litmus test, Jon.
...things that apparently Pinkerton doesn't want to have to deal with at all from what I gathered. Slashdot is simply a big PR problem to these folks and that's that.
I don't think our administration calls parents up using this list (I actually hold our district administration in high regard. Our school administrators are reasonable, PC, reachable, and friendly as far as I know), but the teachers are instructed not to let those people take bathroom breaks from class, etc. :)
Your level of paranoia may vary, but I don't think this particular practice is dangerous as implemented in my school. Then of course 99% of the people don't know who's on the list, they don't abuse those kids or tell their parents with no evidence...
Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
"An operator will be on the line shortly to deal with your pressing emergency, but first:
"Wouldn't you just love *love* a nice and tasty Pepsi-cola? Pepsi, it'll quench your thirst."
[screaming]
"Hello, this is Debbi, what's your emergency?"
'Quick, help, someone's after me!'
"Please give me your location so we can get the police to you right away. But first, why don't you go and visit priceline.com? They let you name your *own* prices for airline tickets and hotel reservations."
Oh, yeah, this just sounds like a great system, doesn't it?
From what I can see so far the WAVE program will not go away. Hence, it's probably time to start a counter-offensive. Some variations on existing Copyleft gear denouncing WAVE for what it is, maybe a new design or two, may be a start. Give it a name, a URL, announce it here. Some synomyms for "Breakwave", (you know, the Pier, the thing that keeps waves out of a harbor) please.
"My response was that these symptoms were still awfully vague...."
I'm sure the Pinkertons found Jon just as intractible as he found them. This list is a vast improvement over the previous one and is not one that they arbitrarily drew up but drew upon expert advice (Well, educated advice anyway. If there are any experts in this area they seem few and far between and their voices are surely lost in the cacaphony of pop-psychology snakeoil pitches).
Do the items need to draw out specific methodologies for torturing animals? Wouldn't you find it the least bit disturbing that a child (or anyone) has a detailed plan for committing specific acts of violence? If that's too vague perhaps you'd be the sort of parent that watches television while the kids make pipe bombs in their bedrooms.
This argument draws attention away from the real problems of the program in the same way the "I Ratted on a Bully" T-Shirt furor did.
I can see the appeal of this program. When I was in school, you didn't tell on the guys that beat the living tar out of you. Why? Because the principal would bring you in to ID the thugs and you'd get pounded again - off the school grounds. But I can also see the pitfalls in a system that allows students to be stigmatized without an opportunity to refute anonymous charges. We should be able to confront our accusers, but until the systems - court, school or otherwise - can protect the accusers from retribution that system remains equally flawed.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
A good idea, but it still treats only the symptoms, not the disease itself.
To fight the disease, go after the state of North Carolina and its school board.
This needs to be stopped before it spreads, and if NC is not discreditted, they will be held up as a "success story" by Pinkerton (or others) when similar programs are proposed in other states....
The entire program must fail, not just the eco/capitalistic side of it.
"The Internet is made of cats."
A good idea, but it still treats only the symptoms, not the disease itself.
To fight the disease, go after the state of North Carolina and its school board.
This needs to be stopped before it spreads, and if NC is not discreditted, they will be held up as a "success story" by Pinkerton when they bid on the same program in other states....
"The Internet is made of cats."
Anyone have any ideas how we can get more exposure?
Do you really think /. can stand more exposure? You've already got M$ employess trying to use /. for spin control. Now you'll probably have Pinkertons in here. And it's only a matter of time before prayer meetings in NC and across the bible belt come online to make sure they have refuted you within your own forum ("Yer the DEBIL, Dave Potter! John Katz is SATAN!!"), and try to save all our souls ... all just to ensure job security for the idiots that came up with the WAVE plan.
That said, I think John Katz should (and could probably) get his article published in the national print media ...
"The Internet is made of cats."
Has anyone at Pinkerton seen Brazil? "Don't suspect a friend, Report them!" Too bad the world doesn't have a reset button. I hope nobody reports me to WAVE for that last comment.
My karma is in a nose dive
I know fact doesn't matter when it comes to religion, but the Romans never committed wholesale persacution of any religion, including christianity (contrary to what the '50s movies claimed). At any given time during imperial age, there were several hundred religions/cults operating in all corners of the emnpire. You must remember that up to that point, mo single religion had ever been dominant. As a result of the massive empire they had to maintain (made up of many religious and ethnic backgrounds) the romans were extremely tolerant towards other religions. In fact the romans incorporated elements of conquered peoples' religions into their own, unlike the Greeks who were true racists. The Romans basicly let people worship what they wanted, so long as they followed the laws and paid their taxes (not unlike our government in that respect). What little written evidance that survives suggests that the romans wanted to avoid conflict, and espicially avoid executions of dissidents because of the martyr effect, but the Christians refused to pay taxes and they refused be accountable to Rome because they were suposedly acountable to something higher. The number of Christians killed officially prior to Constantines eddict of Milan in 313, would fit in a large closet. The terror didn't start until the Byzantine age when heresy was a capital crime. I know that no one likes to hear this because their 2nd gen. translation bible (with various meanings read into it from both times) says otherwise, but I suppose the actual history will never be completely known because the christians, under SAINT cyrill burned the great library. --- It's never so simple as "good" and "evil", now is it?
Perhaps it's time to take repressive measure against the bullies, rather than the victims in the form of the geeks. Unfortunatly the administrators generally side with the bully because they are easier for them to relate to.
By the way, does anyone remember what followed the Roman Republic (before Christianity and the Dark ages)? What will follow ours, or more importantly, when?
Your founding fathers are spinning in their graves. As the baby boomers shiver in terror of outraged youth, the civil liberties that millions of your parents brothers, grandfathers et al died to protect. The right to privacy will die under the pressure of the corporate bottom line. The entire fabric and design of the United States was built to prevent monopoly and trusts, because concentrations of power have always led to abuse. If you do not fight against these abuses with every fiber of your being, your children will have to do it with guns and bombs, and they will hold your memory in contempt for having forced them to that end.
Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, the spritual forces of evil
I'd like to see Pinkerton set up an anonymous reporting hotline so we can turn in people who use lowercase L's when typing a year in numeric form.
Jon - it's okay to use the "1" key. Really.
Three cheers for Katz... what a brilliant article. I am glad that somebody is doing something about this. Keep up the good work.
The important thing to remember, as katz points out briefly, is that the problem of snitching is endemic throughout the justice system. If you're prosecuted by the feds (I'm speaking from experience here) you're offered substantial time off for ratting out your co-conspirators. Whoever's first in line gets the break. And we're talking about cutting your time in half, in some cases. The math works out great because there are so many sentence ehancements at the federal level when you're deemd to have 'conspired' with someone.
When they prosecute these big mafia cases, the wiseguys trip over each other to be first in line to rat. When you're facing 20 to life, you'd be a fool not to. It's that philosophy 101 case -- the prisoner's dilemma, but with the deck stacked completely against you. In my case, the time (12-18 months, no co-conspirators etc.) was small enough that it wouldn't have really mattered, but I'd hate to be in the position to have to decide.
So this shit with pinkerton is one symptom of a disease that's coming straight from the top. cc your senators and reps on your hatemail to those motherfuckers.
circa75.com
No doubt there's always someone higher the food chain, but the school board is the entry level. Unless pro monitoring activists can muster the support to sponsor a statewide movement, these things often--not always as M-G points out--get implemented at the local level. Opinions on issues like monitoring often vary immensely from community to community in any give state--your mileage may differ, as I'm used to states with largely urban environments. For instance in Michigan, Jackson might be for WAVE, while Ann Arbor and Detroit might be ready to secede from the state over it. Of course, every state does make decisons about education differently, but a lot does happen at the municipal level, and it is a great way to get your foot in the door.
Meanwhile the higher on the food chain point gets a little scary. The governor can issue statewide mandates that carry all the way down. I'm worried that in my state--and in quite a few others--that the governor and his administration is fundamentally disconnected from the people. Its would be all to likely a scenario for Pinkerton to market its program directly to the governor. To a lot of conservative governors, law and order, figures very highly in their worldview, and by virtue of being big and popular enough to win elections, the issues around abuse of power towards minorities is not something they canot see without help. In this case, I use the term minority to refer to anyone who exists outside of the mainstream. Lets face it, a lot of the people reading this could be considered a cultural minority. Anyway, this problem with someone higher on the foodchain being disconnected is someting to watch out for very closely. Of course, it can also be an important check and balance to short sighted school boards if those higher up are progressive. Definitely something to bear in mind in either case.
If anyone is interested, I just set up a preliminary mailing list: freakpower@umich.edu To join, send email to freakpower-request@umich.edu. Sorry for the name, but it's what popped into my head as a catchy title that wouldn't already be taken.
Wow, this is a great idea! Ironic hypocritic bastards! How can they not realise that actions like these will cause even more problems? Instead of actually thinking about what causes the problems they just charge right in. These proposed actions have an uncanny similarity to witchhunts. Everyone will be too busy pointing fingers and being paranoid of that kid in the corner who doesn't talk to notice the real trouble signs. Instead of teaching kids the right way to do things we isolate them, making them feel even more alienated. This is one of the few things I agree with Katz on.
Apartment6
I'd think a better way to fight this is to have anti-WAVE highschoolers in North Carolina repeatedly call the 800 number and file anonymous reports on everyone in their school. The WAVE people will start hanging up on them after the first 10 or so, but by calling repeatedly at random times from random payphones and using funny voices, it could throw enough noise into the system to make it practically and obviously worthless. If this happens to be illegal for whatever reason, please don't take the above as actual advice to perform an illegal act. And kids, stay in school.
"School violence" isn't a reality. Oh, violence occurs in schools all the time, but what the casual news commentator means by "school violence" -- the lone crazed gunman in the nation's schools -- is so rare as to be irrelevant to reality. But as fantasy, it's priceless.
/., we argue a lot about DVDs and MP3s, as if these were somehow important. And, by and large, we're among the LEAST bored people I can find. People look hard for things to keep them interested these days.
I live in Colorado. I remember the gloating tone in the voice of Kathy Walker of KOA radio, the first news anchor to report, as she happily detailed the first information on the Columbine shooting. It was the best thing to happen to Denver media in a long, long time. They've milked it for months. They'll periodically milk it forever. Why? Not because it's relevant, but because it's entertaining.
We live in a profoundly bored culture. Even on
And what's more interesting than a real, genuine, life-and-death Cause? Get Involved! Stop Violence! Save Kids! You don't need to know or contribute anything in order to be a part of something really exciting! Heck, School Violence is Hot right now!
You think politicians and school boards are immune to this? What's more interesting, the REAL problems in schools (like lousy teachers, awful curriculum, and general indifference to education), or the thought of some kid with an AK-47? What's easier to deal with? (Hint: since there really isn't a kid with the AK-47, virtually anything you do will work. Happy day!) If enough of your colleagues and voters are on the bandwagon, it doesn't matter if you want to do this or not, you had better do this anyway. When a Cause catches fire, you better help fan the flames.
Pinkerton is responding to this. First, they buy the whole Cause hook, line, and sinker. And second, they know full well that there's money in zealotry, and money is sorta important to them too.
But honestly, they'd do it for free. They'd do it and donate the services if they had to. It's a Cause. It's excitement. It beats being bored.
Thanks to Jon, we are now aware of the WAVE site. His article mentions that Pinkerton operates 800+ anonymous tip lines and that they are not the only ones to do so. My question is; what are the other sites? Forewarned is forearmed. If I know that there is a site for reporting XYZ then I can choose to do (or not do) XYZ OR better yet, do something (like Jon did) about altering or shutting down the site. If all the other sites were out in the open, like WAVE is now, then this same discussion could be had about them also. Pinkerton is at least a well known entity. Some of these other sites could be run by some organization with less ethics. Who knows what may happen to all the data they collect. Even bad information is power.
Unfortunately, you are the type of knuckle-dragger that stands to benefit the most from reading both the article and the reply. Even if he had been a "[GURPS-playing] fat, ugly 30-40 year old man", what the fuck difference does that make to his point?
... try understanding instead of insulting, and you _may_ just crack the 80 IQ layer, sparky (oops, now I just insulted you - don't report me, eh?)
I pray that you are just trolling and that this comment does not actually reflect your true state of mind. If it does, why not go pound on some hippies? Hey, why not take a baseball bat to some homosexuals? The point is that YOU are one of "sheeple"
I am amazed at the continuing effort of people to push their responsibilities to others. We don't have the time or the energy to get to know the children under our care, so lets get Company X to do it for us. I don't have time to teach my children about right and wrong, so lets install blocking software to prevent them from ever seeing wrong. With all freedom comes responsibility. If people were living up to their's, there would be no need for programs like these.
I wrote a letter to them, very well knowing that I was mailing to /dev/null, but it was fun anyway.
To solve our problem in an active fashion however, could we somehow get a list of schools that adopt the program? Arguing to the schoold (who pay for it with taxes) should be much more effective than fighting a company that has everything to lose by listening to us. -Effendi
-Effendi
Ah, the sound of American distrust :o)
:o)
Where else in the world - in what other nation - does the government teach people not to trust the government? The nation's founders didn't trust the government, so why should we?
Still, despite all its faults, despite the imperfections (is that an understatement?) in the school system, we still need it. State-run schools raised the literacy rate in this country remarkably since those early days when few could read, and those that could read the Bible and their shipping orders and little else.
Our need for public education has not yet passed, but I think the trend towards private education will continue to grow. Maybe one day we'll be completely independant of public schooling - or maybe they'll get their act together and upgrade the system (don't hold your breath)
Morgance
Actually, a friend of mine was on a rifle team. He was also incredibly good at it. The part that gets me, is that a local newspaper did an article on him (this being after columbine, and the Canadian Red Deer incident), and the very first sentence in the article was "He could shoot someones head off from 200 yards away" It's reporting like this that will screw us over in the long run.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder"
No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the general population
The quote, which was said by P.T. Barnum, was originally "No one ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American public."
However, over time it has gotten warped so that it is now usually quoted as "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
Quote it one way or the other. I vastly perfer the second, even if it's not what he actually said.
The bus came by and I got on
That's when it all began
There was cowboy Neal
At the wheel
Of a bus to never-ever land
I'd rather be lucky than good.
So call from a pay phone... Or maybe Pinkerton guards in every city will madly rush to the location of every call and fingerprint payphones on an as-need basis.
That's what I was thingkin, also. But I think it was Pinkerton that initiated this, not Jon.
The problem is the demand for this type of service, not the supplier. It's the legislature and schools who need to hear what Jon tried to convine Pinkerton of.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
...is to understand where you are coming from. They want to know where you stand and the way you think so they can properly appease you and your followers. So now they can have all your issues "addressed" with well-thought out answers when the press comes down on them.
Its just like sending Microsoft reasons why you think they are bad on their doj vs. freedom to innovate page.
I'm not trying to be paranoid here, its just that if I were them, I would agree to talk to you (and pay to do so) for this reason.
(P.S. No i haven't read all 39,828 comments to see if this one is redundant or not)
The reason a lot of people don't listen to Jesfferson anymore is that while he wrote the Declaration of Independence he was a slaveowner.
Then in the only book he wrote he described blacks as having, among other sub-human characterisitics, as being more smelly because they secreted more fluids through their glands rather than the bladder.
I not only don't listen to him, but I don't quote him, either.
Perl rox
I am at work, so I do not have time do this properly, but corporations are amoral as a matter of law. Corporate directors have been sued by shareholders for donating too much money to charity. Corporate donations are limited in a practical sense by the benefit conferred by tax breaks and the notion of "corporate good will." And you know what -- that's how it should be. It makes corporations more predictable and easier to regulate. If a corp does something wrong then either a lawsuit results or the government steps in to fix things. End of story. Remember two things: 1. People have morals, not corporations. 2. Morality can not be legislated. btw, for the sake of disclosure, I am a practicing lawyer.
First, Granola snacks to Jon. It sounds like you did make at least a small difference in the presentation of the web site and the companies view. Don't feel upset that you couldn't topple a corporation on one meeting. I feel the same way about corporatism that you do. Outside of visiting HQ (We don't get invites for tea at Micro$oft all that often any more) the best things to do if you don't like this stuff is to get political. I propose a slushdot fund to buy some sleezy (and yet very effective) lobbyist in DC? Put your money where your mouth is and don't forget to vote! I blame the backward state of North Carolina as much as Pinkerton in this case. Who voted these nutcases in office anyway. Nobody, that's who. North Carolina has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country.
Back to the subject matter at hand...Do I understand this correctly? They want the children in school to psycho-analyze each other? Since the schools are underfunded, should we get rid of the teachers too and have the students teach each other? Schools should cater to students they as if they were the first class passengers on a luxary liner. They shouldn't be required to do anything for themselves except learn.
"I'm a slave of Karma, Spin the Wheel and I'm a king reborn."
And if I were to say, "Those who would trade their cash for food deserve neither," how would that parse differently? [snip]
Your proposed statement would parse differently due to the fact that food is of more value at a fundamental level than cash... You can't eat gold or drink oil, after all.
However, once dissected it simply is a statement of stance, akin to "I want X and I want Y, and I want them both, and I want them in full."
I think the point of the Founding Person's statement is that you can't have both and that one (liberty) is more worthy of possession than the other (security). The idea is that if a person chose something of lesser value over a greater one, he wasn't worthy of being given the choice in the first place...
Even though I agree that liberty is better than security, this leads to the argument that free will should be thwarted just because people can't use it effectively, a position that some people will regard as wrongheaded... Oh, well.
--
Des Courtney
Those who complain about affect & effect on
Otherwise, if I were in High School facing this kind of crap I'd do a Rodney King on them.
I hated high school, largely because of the student/student violence at every level. I got beaten up, and held my own a few times, but hated every second of it. 7.5% of my high school graduating class went on to higher education, and a higher percentage eventually went to jail. The threats and intimidations and violence were constant and completely un-checked by the administration.
I would strongly urge any North Carolina high school student to get a video camera with a good Zoom function and a directional mike, both fairly affordable now, especially if you're one of the bright kids from a stable home, aka "targets". Take some pictures, it won't be hard to find. Get a good set of tapes, and drop on the desk of any sleazy (aka "advertised") lawyer in town. This is the age of litigation, we'll just make sceaming "faggot" at a D&Der in the lunch line very very costly to a school district. With the right judge, although probably not with a jury trial, that sort of shit will be found as unacceptable as it really is.
JonKatz, Awesome job! You've done well.
Peace.
Let's not forget the unfortunate trend of people who don't want to do the parenting job themselves, but expect someone else (the schools, govt., etc.) to do it for them. "I'm much too busy with my job to be a parent, let's just make a new law!" This WAVE thing is just the same idea in a different guise -- instead of involving ourselves with our kids, let's appoint an outside entity to get involved and find out what our kids are up to.
load "windows7"
Ok, let's say an innocent child gets reported. Their teachers and parents find out about it and they confront the child. Now the child feels like someone's always watching his/her every move for some sign of hostility towards someone else. This makes the child feel like he/she can't be trusted, etc. If other children in the school find out about the accusations toward one particular child, I can see those other children teasing and picking on the innocent child.... children can be quite nasty. This causes the accused child to become drawn into himself/herself and then they really do develop serious problems. These Pinkerton people better take a big step back and realize what harm they may cause.
No problem will ever be solved by trying to destroy the supply, because someone will always find ways to supply for a demand. For instance, let's look at the drug war. The attacks on the supply are not working (cf guerilla uprising in Columbia keeping coca production up, Afghanistan's gov't subsidized heroin production, etc.) The reason why there is a drug problem is because there is a demand for drugs. The only way to put drug producers out of business for good is to remove the demand for drugs.
Same applies here. Coorporations are not obliged to act morally. However, governments are. Government is paying for this service, whether or not it will work (cf 80s SDI research, recent Mars trips, standardized testing in schools, the list is unending). The only time these ideas are canned is when there is no need or public appeal for them. I am not outraged that Pinkerton is going to make this product (hell, companies make stoopid products all the time cf M$ Bob). I am outraged that government will buy it.
The heart of the matter is that facists tactics such as these can be popularized. Most people agree that Hitler was evil. However, he didn't solely sieze power in Germany, but used facist tactics and was extremely popular in the 30s. Who here blames the German populace for electing Hitler? He didn't create the demand for change (the Treaty of Versailles did), just offered a skewed solution that seemed well-reasoned at the time to many Germans.
The reason why this fell on deaf ears is because invoices have already been signed. Money has started changing hands. People's desire to be protected has made them willing to give up liberty for it.
That is what is disgusting.
What frightens me the most about this whole situation is as such: Pinkerton has NO LIABILITY for what happens to the information it sends out. What would happen if your credit card companies, banks, and schools started releasing all their information on you to the public. Your credit history in plain view, your police record, open for everyone, all your grades, your medical history, your bank account info, in plain view for all to see. Of course the companies have no liability or responsibility to keep this info private so their not at fault if you get screwed.
Second question: What about social implications of this. If some kid gets accused, even falsely, and years down the road he's trying to get a job, but the employer finds out he's on WAVE America's watched list. What are the odds of that person eer getting a good job. What happens to that kid trying to get into Perdue or Yale. Schools don't what trouble makers.
Even our government has liability. Why should the Pinkerton Corp. have no liability whatsoever for what happens to the kids it accuses (and yes, it will do the accusing, becuase even if someone anonymously reports a child, I doubt that the corp. will do any serious validation of that accusation and just add the kid to the list, which it distributes, thus making it the accuser).
Props to Katz for the effort. One of the previous posts had an idea of a ribbon campaign. I second the motion. Let's get the ball rolling on this.
-Cogito ergo sum. I think therefore I am.
not only will pinkerton be liable for episodes of harrassment and false accusations, but the school districts will have to open their pocketbooks as well. who in turn will....sue the pinkertons.this whole scheme is parody of true security measures. give the gd principal a badge and a gun and let him solve this security issue in the style of the old west. the pinkertons can sell em the badges.
thousands of people could phone 1-888-960-9600(wave's reporting line) and ask questions about the program or even just say they got the wrong #.
your reasons exemplify why the state should not be in the education business. more dictates from the feds only cause more of this bs. who do you think dictates the hiring policies? why do you think johnny can't read? (uncle sam states that each school must teach x therefore there is no time or resources to teach y). a private school answers to its customers, a public school answers to no one. i am the spouse of a public school teacher in a rural area in case you want my credentials
The state provides education to give citizens the ability to vote. You cannot vote intelligently unless you can read the ballot. You cannot pretend that people who are illiterate can understand the implications of the laws that the government imposes on them. I hold the state RESPONSIBLE for the education of my children, because I can (theoretically) control them.
Ask this, if you think it's such a great idea: would you allow the same people who control your cable or phone service to control your child's education? If you found the quality of the education to be unsatisfactory, would you be able to hold them accountable WITHOUT a bunch of lawyers and money?
It sounds to me like the discussion needs to be taken up with the governor of North Carolina...
"A North Carolina Task Force came up with this, got the governor's blessing, and somebody is going to run it."
Pinkerton is just running with it. unless I missed something, it sounds to me like this is a government issue...
Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it - Chinese Proverb
I did *not* know that Jon wrote for Rolling Stone. Thanks for the information.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
Jon, I must say bravo on the two articles and for your hard work. You wrote a wonderful piece the first time that clued us in to the problem, at which time I almost blew a gasket when I went to the site, and the second article after meeting with them was a fantastic wrap up to the whole problem our country is facing. I believe that the media and the politicians are one in the same and have the same objectives and practices. Others have stated in the past that the government controls the media, but let's assume that isn't true. Both parties attempt to manipulate public opinion with little facts, hearsay and orwellian techniques. The politician looks at what the current problems are and tries to convince the public the problem is worse than it really is and that he/she is the only one working on it. A politician's job from day one is to prepare for the next election. The main stream media's job is to find a problem, attribute it to any fad, deviance, political agenda, video game, movie or anything else any self-respecting alarmist may latch onto and exploit that angle for all it is worth. A good case is that now a year has passed since Columbine and we are finding that most of what was reported about those two murderers was distorted, taken out of context, just plain wrong and in some cases out right fabrication. WAVE is a natural result of these two entities, an attempt by some people in power to convince others that "hey, I'm doing something about it!" and Pinkerton is a company that is merely making a profit off the hysteria. Unfortunately, they have no concern about the nazi-esque ramifications of this problem. "Not our problem. we're just providing a service. They came up with the idea". What about the companies during WWII in Germany and Japan that used slave labor? Some of the companies are still in operation today. They can use the same argument. "We didn't start the war. We're giving these people a job, otherwise they would be dead." I applaud you Jon for letting us know about this problem. /. has shown that net activism does work, and even though Pinkerton really doesn't any intention of listening to us, others will and we must not allow this to continue. Keep up the fight against those who inflate phantom statistics, create programs to "solve" the problem and then proceed to piss on the personal rights of children and adults. Never give up!
but the "amoral corporate mentality" which is only interested in profit and America's "lawsuit epidemic" are going to bring this system down in the end. I seriously doubt that this system will end up being profitable for Pinkerton. Although the Pinkerton Execs pointed out that such systems already exist for the annonymous reporting of other crimes, I agree with Whyte Rabbyt who pointed out that these systems apply to crimes which have already occurred, not to potential offenders. What I see happening with this program is that
a) Pinkerton will be flooded with countless false reports (which, given the prevailing opinion here and knowing how kids usually behave I would guess is inevitable)
b) One or two of these reports will be followed through and an innocent kid's life will be severely disrupted, resulting in a very costly, (most likely) very high profile lawsuit against Pinkerton and the school system which hired them.
After one or two of these lawsuits, Pinkerton is going to have to rethink just how profitable this program is going to be. My guees is this program won't last. Although it would not be fun to be one of the unfortunate kids (but the money from the lawsuit would be nice)
"Truth is like a tragedy" -Coal Chamber
I recall last year, during the events at Columbine, when I closely followed the Drudge Report. It is an admittedly sesnationalist news source, but it has its advantages in that it is sensationalist across the board - it will provide links to every source of sensationalist reporting.
What struck me most about the links I found on the Drudge Report is that, given the enormous volume (at least 30) of different news articles it listed regarding Columbine, almost every single article was reporting different "facts" about the story. Most notable, of course, is that until the day after the events, almost every media source in the country was listing a death toll of "at least 25". There is nothing the media likes more than an enormous number of murders to report, presumably because they assume that the number of people who take in their media is directly proportional to the scale of the tragedy being reported. Also remarkable, however, is that most of the news sites listed all manner of "reasons" for the actions of the two killers, and almost every single one of these reasons later turned out to be true.
Most of this erronous reporting centered on either racism, Marilyn Manson, Hitler worship, or the Internet (or a combination of all of these). None of them touched upon the kids' harrassment at the hands of their peers, their open and ridiculed homosexuality, or their seemingly innocuous threats that were made the day before the events on Usenet. Despite all of this false information, I didn't see a *single* retraction in ANY news source that apologized for false or lacking reporting.
Needless to say, I to this day run into people who are convinced that Marilyn Manson should be banned because they caused the tragedy at Columbine. This is the kind of thing that really demonstrates what power false and sensational media reporting has to mold public opinion and allow travesties of justice like the WAVE program to continue unchecked.
One of the serious downsides of the freedom of speech and the press afforded us by the First Amendment is that people are allowed to say anything, regardless of fact, and get away with it unless someone else objects in a court of law. Of course, in a situation like Columbine there isn't a public figure in the world who would dare risk the alienation of voters by protesting the spread of misinformation by the media about two obviously deranged killers. It is much easier to villify, demonize, and dehumanize murderers and write them off under labels like "psycho" than it is to sit down and attempt to truly understand what has happened.
Of course, the WAVE program is a response to current attempts by school administrators to finally undergo this process of trying to understand what causes such tragedies to occur. The problem lies in that these administrators go about this process with a level of judgement that has already been clouded and molded by the previous erronous media reporting. They may say they are trying to be nonpartial and look at the issue from a new angle, but it is obvious that the government of North Carolina is being strongly influenced by both their own pre-formed opinions, and the pre-formed opinions of the voters who keep them in power.
The solution, then, to stopping programs like WAVE is not to go after the Pinkerton corporation, who like typical coperatists are examining nothing but the bottom line. The solution is to work against the spread of misinformation about teen violence and its causes. The media would much rather continue to report about the threat posed by "social outcasts", then admit their own errors and attempt to rectify the problems their false reporting has created.
The general media, then, can not be looked to to help the situation. The only way we can stop this program from expanding and spawning other, similar programs it to somehow find a means of educating the public, of making them aware of media misreporting and sensationalism. I really don't know where to begin in this process, but I'm sure that if some way could be found to do this, things really could get better.
Of course, there is a real obstacle in that general human nature thirsts for "gossipy" and exaggerated stories. There is nothing like the imagined threat of violence to make life seem so much more exciting than it really is. However, something really needs to be done, or problems created by things like the WAVE program will just continue to get worse.
Upon reading that I think we discovered the true purpose of Pinkerton's intentions regarding this meeting. You were right. It was never about morals or concern about kids' rights. It was negotiation and an attempt by them to minimize bad publicity.
If they could have gotten you to do that.. then it would have appeared that you were supporting the general nature of the program. End result: their most vocal and potentially dangerous detractor is now on board.
I don't know about anyone else, but I read that and heard a dozen or so internal alarms go off.
IMO that was the key point of the meeting for them.
Thank (insert deity of choice here) that you had the wisdom to decline.
Not to mention that these guys are not exactly America's best and brightest. Someone mentioned that most of these people were there because they couldn't cut it in the police or military. They can't throw you in jail. Whats the worst they could do? Report you to your school. Pass along a piece of unsubstantiated, circumstantial evidence that wouldn't wash with any court in the country. BAFD.
Its almost comical. The people who they are going to go after will be almost invariably smarter than them. Oh gee, I'm being chased by a snail. I'm really going to have to run after I finish my coffee and a smoke.
I've read some very good suggestions on how to counter attack this "threat" and they're all pretty good. Might I suggest another? How about some "I got harrased by Pinkerton/Wave America" t-shirts to proudly display. Maybe thinkgeek could sell them. :^)
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The lack of education is apparent in the behavior of the NC politicos, Pinkerton leadership and the Pinkerton team working on WAVE. Fear, hysteria, uncertainity, and paranoia are perfect emotions from which great fortunes can be made and from which power consolidated. Is it that easy to forget events from less than 100 years ago? The systematic ostracization of a group is so easy when responsibility is diluted to the point where no one individual or organization can be held accountable. So who would be accountable if wrongful accusations were made? Pinkerton says they have no liability, just like the Germans who put the Jews on the trains headed for the camps said they had no responsibility. By creating a mechanism such as WAVE, Pinkerton is enabling not respect but amoral, abusive, irresponsible acts without consequences. Why are we encouraging children to be more cruel and calluous? The behavior Pinkerton says they are trying to prevent is not the result of evil but sickness. Is this how we should teach our children to treat illness? Where is the compassion and empathy that all of us as human beings desire when we are ill?
I just want to know if Pinkerton is the company that I should check with to get the specs for my kids' barcode tattoos. Left or Right side? Size? Format? Let's just tag the little buggers so they're easier to "monitor". Arrrgh!
"Never pet a burning dog."
Unfortunately they started executing the Danish en mass.
We'd hope we're not that far, but when was the last time the US government was responsible for wrongly penalising someone?
"You end up talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you're going to sa
Try looking that up on a search engine.
"You end up talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you're going to sa
So we've got some people who are taking this as a menial joke, but then the others that are seeing this as the serious issue it could be, should we let this thing run wild.
This has some great comparisons towards a police state that is not run by a democratic government (due to it being run by a coporation) and it's not the actual site that scares me, just the idea that it could carry on into something more serious.
"You end up talking to yourself a lot, which gets terribly boring because half the time you know what you're going to sa
Ha, ha, ha !!! Obviously you didn't go to French techno raves a couple of years ago. I've been searched "american style" and filthier many, many times in la belle France.
I've heard a few suggestions here that the /. community should begin a page that can be used to show people what Pinkerton is doing with the whole WAVE thing is wrong.I'm not sure if anyone has done this,but I'm going to volunteer my server space to do this.
/. is a reporter for a newspaper,or a reporter for a news network,etc.
That's right...If enough people email me about this and send me some information to start me off with,I will assemble a simple site for the purpose of informing the public.Who knows if someone out there reading
So help me out.Flood my mail box with thoughts and information.I'm ready to help.
Matt "ComradePenguin" Adair
--------------------------------------
------------------------
Thus Spake ComradePenguin
I was sleeping through one of my more boring school classes when one of my fellow students heard me saying "Down with Big Brother" in my sleep. Can you believe that? Luckily he had the insight and courage to report my actions anonymously to the Pinkerton Thought Police. I'm just glad they got me before it was too late.
"If I don't kill these Jews, somebody else will. I have to make a living somehow, so why not this?"
"If I don't make Godwin's Law apply to this thread, someone else will."
Even /. allows for anonymous postings.
Really? My bonehead co-worker has been making "Anonymous" troll postings (a couple from my machine) for the last few days. I get blocked from posting because several of these postings got moderated down and happen to come from the same IP address: our proxy server.
I hardly call that anonymous.
The problem is that school kids tend to be vicious little bastards and have absolutely no problem with using any available and safe (to them) means, including such a service, as a means to exact revenge on classmates for percieved wrongs. Believe me, I've been on both sides of the fence. Such a service will most likely be abused to such a great degree that it won't even function well enough to serve the stated purpse, good or not.
Of course the fact that it doesn't work won't matter just so long as Pinkerton keeps getting their money. This is a profit-making corporation, and their sole interest is to make money. The actual benefits of their programs are irrelevant in all cases but one: to promote their company reputation and thus attract new customers. The point of the customers is to make more money.
One would think that there would be a natural image incentive for Pinkerton to create a truly helpful program, but that is not the case. Unless there are big complaints, and I do mean big, people will not listen when the kids say that the program is causing problems. If the administrators thing that the program is helping, if the parents thing that it's helping, then they will not listen to the kids with respect to the effectiveness of the program. Remember, that the parents consider themselves to know best (they generally do), but if Pinkerton can sell them on an idea then it is irrelevant what the kids say. And even in this case, Pinkerton doesn't have to put much work into it; the media has already done their work, priming the parents to demand that Pinkerton's system be implemented in their child's school at once.
So here's what it comes down to:
As long as Pinkerton has no incentive to act in the childrens' interest, they will not do so. As long as Pinkerton can convince parents that they need this program (the media has already done a good job), there will be virtually no incentive for them to perform well with respect to the kids.
If you want to change Pinkerton, change their profitability. Publicize them, Taco's article, anything about them. Only through public disapproval can WAVE be stopped.
[ze Snark]
Of course Jeffersons'definition of freedom included the freedom to own slaves. I've seen this quote often abused.
Remember, there is no "we" in megalomania !!
Unfortunately toddlers usually burn their hand on a hot stove man times before they learn what hot is. As such, I doubt that the country will learn not to create or use programs like this because of one lawsuit etc...
Anxiety is merely paranoia without an audience.
hah hah only serious indeed....
Instead of working from the outside, join them.
As a parent I would hate to see this program come to my state. They met with Jon Katz because they were troubled by negative publicity. Getting the facts out is probably the most effective way to stop them.
"I am an American. You are a sick asshole!!"
Among their reasons for reporting students, Pinkerton suggests: * detailed plans to commit acts of violence. * announcing threats or plans for hurting others Um, doesn't a lot of this sound like an adolescent having a bad day? Remember high school? Scenario: You have a test. You fail. You complain about the teacher, saying "I think I'll just slug the jerk." Now you are reported and you don't know who not to trust. Now, didn't high school suck enough without this crap? We can't stop Pinkerton, but we can ensure that they're profits are low... keep up the protests.
"This item contains functional sharp point."
It's a pity that they don't put the same amount of effort into analysing and correcting social problems as they do computer program design. In this instance, what WAVE are doing (or what they're being paid to do - they might try to draw that fine distinction) is a HACK of the highest order.
Imagine you have a program, and every now and then it throws out terrible, dangerous data (kids killing kids). You know the problem is somewhere in the low-level code (the homes or environment in this case), but you're just not willing to make the effort to dig down and face the difficult issue of sorting it out. What to do instead? Just try to catch the problem immediately before it shows itself, in your high-level code. You reason that you have so much data to spare that even if you catch a few false-positives (kids just being harmlessly different because they are different), the app will still work.
I know I wouldn't get away with basic design mistakes like this at my job. Why can these people (the civil servants in charge of the mess I guess) make fundamental mistakes and get away with it?
What are they going to do if more and different types of social problems show up? Keep hacking at the top of the system to try to catch them? When are they going to finally realise that there is something gone wrong at the fundamental level, and spend the time and resources sorting it out there?
How about the "normal" kids? The ones with a large group of admirers, with wealthy parents, quarterback in the football team or cheerleader, that very, very often kick around with the kids not fitting into their group or "normal" people? Is it these kids, or is it the oddballs, that are going to end up in the Pinkerton register? My guess is the oddballs, because the "normal" guys are just that, "normal".
/ The Arrow
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
It seems to me that everything we do today is inspired by the potential PR effects it may have. Sometimes, though, we get things wrong and it backfires. But to offer computers and CDs in return for turning in a "troubled" friend is a terrible idea. How do you judge who is "troubled"? Is it because he/she wears only black clothing, never eats in McD's, has a pet iguana? What warrants a reporting?
As the article suggests, parents play the most important role in the building of a child's character. If they screw up, the child will be affected. Hence this focus shifting on children is BAD! For it's not children who decide to become bad, it's their environment and primarily parents. If you look at all the serial killers, they all have one common feature: troubled childhood. Physical and sexual abuse, broken families, alcoholism, drug abuse... How can you expect a normal person to come out of that? But instead of reporting that child, one ought to have a social structure in place where the parents would be taken into account and they should be corrected, not child.
My £0.02 (approx. $0.03).
I believe that Mr. Katz and many other /. readers are overreacting. WAVE America is an extension of most schools current policy of allowing students to share information with administrators and counselors without revealing their identity. Every school in the country encourages students to share information with school leadership when that information might help prevent an act of violence. They will generally keep the person who brings that information forward secret because, if they couldn't, it is unlikely that such people would come forward. Who could disagree with allowing students to ananymously tell administrators about problems with their classmates? What is the worse that could possibly come of it? A counselor inviting a student to meet with them and encourage them to share their thoughts, probably. WAVE America merely automates this over the internet. If you honestly have a problem with this, you should direct your anger and arguments to schools that allow students to ananymously advice administrators of potentially dangerous students.
Soldier(R)
Soldier(R)
They begin flooding Pinkerton with calls, clamoring for "First Snitch!" Or, when they report Natalie Portman for antisocial grits-pouring behavior.
In HS I'm sure that I would have been identified as a potential risk. It's only a matter of time before companies and government agencies (The Post Office) will implement similar systems. It always amazes me what rights we are willing to give up.
As a school administrator (I'm the Director of IT for the Bishop Union Elementary and High School districts), I will voice my contempt for WAVE America in no uncertain terms. I teach a LAN Admin class with students who might easily fit into categories deemed unacceptable. In our districts, we hire trained, professional psychologists who deal with troubled students. Using other students as informants is not just morally wrong, it is horrible professional practice. In all likelihood, this program would unnecessarily expose the district to liability (in those cases of unfair or inaccurate accusations and subsequent investigation by the schools). I can say I would categorically reject such an effort in our school districts, and I'm confident other school administrators would feel the same. Regards, Joe Griego Director, IT Bishop Union Elementary & High School Districts 800 West Elm St. Bishop, CA 93514
Don't Die Wondering
I just sent two e-mails off, one to a large list of friends (copying Jon's article to them), and the other to the suggestions@waveamerica.com letting them know what I thought, in rather polite, and eloquent terms (by the way, thanks to WombatControl for the reminder of the Jefferson quote, very appropriate).
... which at best is only good for getting back corrections in grammar and spelling. It's the wrong message to the wrong people.
As I sipped caffeine from a steaming cup it occurred to me that we are e-mailing the wrong people with the wrong information, and in fact are (in a small parallel universe sort of way) making the same mistakes as WAVE, and those that have fought against such acts in the past. We are e-mailing our friends, of like mind and discipline, and thus basically preaching to the choir there, and we are e-mailing those responsible expecting to change their minds by reasonable argument. This isn't very bright, since if they were responsible and reasonable, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place. Above all of this we are approaching the media, who would only be interested if it actually did harm anyone (prevention of news is not their business) and trying to "inform" the general public
Here's what I think should be done (of course I am now going to be reported by a thousand high schooler's hoping to get the baseball cap) An e-mail from WaveAmerica.com should be sent to every prominent citizen who has a school age child, letting them know that their child has been reported to WaveAmerica.com as being a possible threat to society at large for being moody and discontent 4 days out of the last month, and that these anonymous reports are being kept on file in the trusted hands of the Pinkerton vaults where no one, like college deans or FBI agents can look at them, unless of course they keep up the yearly subscription fees, or they really want to. No, the parent of said child, nor the child her self can not look at the file or argue against the contents. And no, we can't even verify the contents of this courtesy letter. This is not a trail, it is simply the report of fact, a record of information which will be used in the protection of the Society at large and the freedom and safety of all.
Thank you for your participation and your support.
Jon was definitely the best (prepared) ambassador for sanity, yet, as someone aptly pointed out, "moral" corporates have filed for Chapter 11 long ago.
We can only change their point of view by making schemes like WAVE commercially unattractive. It is encouraging to see that monoliths like Pinkerton are prepared to listen and even talk. This means they recognise our power to impact their bottom line.
Even minimal negative press for Pinkerton, Pinkerton's Swedish parent and especially their larger clients can go a long way in changing a corporation's attitude towards a project that does not account for a major portion of the bottom line.
Unfortunately I agree with Spiralx's post that the problem is much bigger than corporate America.
(I feel safe in the UK as the police don't carry guns.)
Anyone with a good imagination who thinks methodically can dummy up a believable report that makes even the most quiet and easygoing look enough like a homicidal maniac waiting for somebody to happen for authorities to want to at least look into it.
I also wonder what the Pinkertons' stance will be after the first couple well-publicised lawsuits by students who wrongfully came under investigation because of their website.
I have my own point of view about what Pinkerton should do with the data they collect. As somebody mentioned, 800 numbers ARE traceable; my idea is Pinkerton should trace back all calls to WAVE and secretly build a list of those who inform on others. Then, in some point in the future (say, in 20 years), they could bring up the snitchlist and background check all the names to see what proportion of those on it have done real evil in their lives. I am sure the results would be extremely interesting.
Introductions- I read about y'all in the Wall Street Journal and am confused by the techie stuff but oh so happy to see the freedom of expression/privacy/all other Constituational rights stuff & the general breath of fresh air that wafts thru slashdot. That's because I am old enough to be most of the slashdotter's mom :o) My doom- playing 15 year-old son is my resident tech advisor. A lot of us then hippie kids suffered in school in the 60's and early 70's. I know school was fun for me til 10th grade when cliques got ugly and freaks learned who their friends were. Please be forgiving as I stumble about cyberspace - I like your spirit. Peace.
I read your piece about the meeting with the Pinkertons as well as the piece detailing the math used to arrive at the 6.7% figure. What I am curious about is where the other 1% of the reports disappeared to? Your source as well as yourself reported that if only 6.7% of the reports were warranted that 92.3% of the kids would be being persecuted for no reason. That only adds up to 99%. Am I missing something somewhere or did someone just goof on the math?
Re: the Al Smith quote in your sig, "The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy." On the contrary, this is a case of democracy run amok. The masses approve of the violation of individual rights and the trampling of traditional freedoms in order to gain safety from imaginary boogymen. There could not be a clearer example of why we have a system of separated powers, a non-elected Federal judiciary, a written constitution and bill of rights. I much perfer Ben Franklin's comment, paraphrased here: Those who would trade a little liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety. Democracy is simply the best tool so far for achieving the goal of liberty, but is not itself the goal.
>Being an outcast implies being a member of an underprivileged minority. Here's Webster's definition: Main Entry: outcast Pronunciation: 'aut-"kast Function: noun Date: 14th century 1 : one that is cast out or refused acceptance (as by society) : PARIAH 2 [Scots cast out to quarrel] Scottish : QUARREL - outcast adjective No where does it mention being a member of an "underprivileged minority." By Webster's definition, I was an outcast through most of my school years. But by your definition, I couldn't possibly have been an outcast, since I am white and my family could not have been considered underprivileged in any way. I can assure you I was an outcast. I was "refused acceptance" by my peers from 2nd grade through 5th grade. During 6th grade, 1 girl accepted me, and we became friends. The others never did accept me. So is Webster wrong and you right?
"How could it be better to turn over a critical function of society to business or, worse yet, require parents to home school?"
1) It should not be turned over to business. It should be made the parent's responsibility, as it has always been in history, and as it is designated in the U.S. Constitution.
2) They can choose to homeschool, or they can choose to form a school and hire 1 or more teachers to teach their kids for them.
"How could it be better to put a higher financial burden on the people who can afford it the least -- single parents."
It would not put a higher financial burden on those people. In fact, they could homeschool for less than what they are currently paying in taxes for the public school system. I know several single parents who are paying their taxes for the public school system and homeschooling their kids, while holding down at least 1 full time job. It is not easy, but doing away with the government school system, and the taxes that support it, would make it easier, not harder.
I homeschool our 2 older ones, and will homeschool the 2 younger ones when they're older, for less than what we're paying in education taxes. In our state, our property tax goes to education, and part of the sales tax. Our property tax alone is almost $200 a year, plus we pay an additional 1% sales tax that goes to education; then on top of that, the federal government sends some of our income tax back to the state (with strings attached) for educational purposes. I homeschool 2 kids for less than $300 a year. And, could do it for even less than what I spend now, if I needed to do so (I buy educational games that we don't really need in order to make learning more fun). Even when the 2 younger ones get older, I don't believe I'll spend over $300 a year, because a lot of the material I'm using with the first 2 can be reused with the second 2. So then I'll be educating 4 children for less than what we're paying the government to run their schools. And our kids will have a much better education. They'll actually be able to read their diplomas (yes, they will get diplomas) and do math on a higher level than just the basics (a lot of government school kids can't even do the basics). They'll know REAL history. They read (or will read) the writings of the actual people from history (our founding fathers in particular), not some text book filled with lies about our founding fathers. They'll know the real story of Thanksgiving, not the fable that is currently being taught as fact in our government schools. They'll actually read and study the U.S. Constitution. Government school students are lucky if they read and discuss the preamble. And, they'll know that the Theory of Evolution is still just an unproven theory, not fact, as many of the government school students are taught today. They'll also know about the dinosaur fossil that was found inside a fossilized sandle print. (Have you ever seen an ape wearing sandals? I haven't.)
They'll also know about the UNfossilized dinosaur bone that was found not too long ago. And yes, they'll know the Bible. Not what some Sunday School teacher, or preacher, tells them it says, but what it really says, because they will have read it and studied it themselves.
" a few extremists can't tell the difference between myth and scientific discovery."
You're right, there are some extremists who cannot tell the difference between myth and scientific discovery. Unfortunately, they are the ones in charge of the government schools. They teach the Theory of Evolution as though it is a scientifically proven fact, when it is not. Most homeschoolers teach the Theory of Evolution to their kids, as theory (as it should be). Therefore, you cannot legitimately say that "they don't want their children exposed to dangerous ideas like Evolution which might cause them to think for themselves," when they themselves teach it to them. The last thing the government wants is people who can think for themselves. They want our kids to grow up to follow their instructions blindly. That's what the school to work program is all about. They tell the kids what they will do for a living and then specialize their education in that field. Then they put them to work in that field when they're finished. At least that's how it's intended to work. I think there are enough people in this country who can still think for themselves to keep it from actually happening.
"Education is an important societal function."
Education is important, but it is not a societal function at all. Read the U.S. Constitution. It clearly says that the education of children is the responsibility of the parents, not society.
"We can not abdicate it."
We have already abdicated it, as a society, by allowing the government to take control of what used to be public education. We no longer have public education in this country. We have government education in it's place. They said, we'll educate your children for you and relieve you of that burden. We said, ok, thanks.
There are now many parents who have decided that the government is not doing a satisfactory job. So they have decided to relieve the government of the responsibility of educating their children. They choose to either send their kids to private schools, pay private tutors to teach them, teach them themselves, or teach them to be self learners. This is how it should be, according to the Bible and to our U.S. Constitution.
Also, education doesn't have to cost anything more than the time to do it. You can get everything you need from public and/or college libraries; from phonics programs to Calculus text books, not to mention all the sciences, and the history that is in any public library.
I don't have anything that dates back all the way to his lifetime, but I do have a final exam given to 8th graders in 1895, just 36 years after his death. I think it gives a pretty good idea of what the educational level was back then.
This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, KS. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the Salina Journal.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that
have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give
Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal
marks of Punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and
show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of
Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3
ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it
worth at 50 cts. per bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for
tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for
incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per m?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per
acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a
Receipt.
U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is
divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by
Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of
the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton,
Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates:
1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet,
phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of
each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling.
Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in
connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi,
post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite,
site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein,
raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and
indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia,
Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of
the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the
ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give
inclination of the earth.
Hmmmmmmm. While we are on the subject of quality of education, I am wondering if you never learned the correct use of which (versus that) in a public school, a home school, or from other people? A small nit to be sure, but possibly to the point... one way or another.
It has had perverse effects from the beginning. Horace Mann, the father of public education in America, developed his plan for socialized education based on the assertion that all children are alike and can therefore be educated alike. He invented the assembly line long before Ford, but applied it to children instead of cars. This idea has persisted, sometimes blatantly, sometimes veiled, ever since. WAVE America is simply one more example. One kid is different from the rest? Either fix him or throw him out of society. Never allow variability in the process, because that will produce variability in the product.
"The nail that sticks out is pounded back into place." -- Japanese proverb
I agree. The one thing we (nerds, geeks, and me) have going for us is the ability to keep Pinkerton from profitably operating their web site.
I also encourage everybody to turn in people who work for Pinkerton and their families. Let's see how effective their screening is when they have to wade through all of the sordid pedophilic details of the guy in the next cube. Maybe they won't be so apathetic when it's their own kids getting reported.
If they truly are screening these reports, that's the easiest way to get them. The more reports, the more people they have to train (they _DO_ have a program that trains the people who evaluate the reports, right? I don't mean the armoured car driver who gets $6.50/hour, either. If you're doing psychological evaluations, you should at least be able to speak the target language.) and employ. That will drive a stake into the heart of any profit they might make.
How about if we combine two evils for a better good? Let's report WAVE to all of the filtering software makers and request that the site be blocked. It's a whole lot more harmful to kids and society than most porn sites and is definitely the most offensive thing I've seen on the web.
I'm going to do my part. I promise to report a police officer, clergyman, principal, govt. official, or media personality every day. I stongly encourage everybody to do the same. Hell, I'm going to report myself first.
The only things corporations understand is money.
So the only way to fight this thing is to sue
Pinkertons for all false accusatons.
Now, Pinkertons is trying to weasle out of
responsibility for false accusations. But the
fact is somebody MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE for false
accusations.
Everyone's going to claim no responsibility for
false accusations, but someone's 'feet need to be
held to the fire' on this issue. And I think
that someone should be Pinkertons.
Unfortunately, this is an expensive way to go,
but I think it's the only way to fight this
(frequent, continuous lawsuits against
Pinkertons).
(800)!= Anonymous
Jon writes for Rolling Stone. When things are printed there, people *do* pay attention.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
"People like Katz are so set in their ways that very little can be done to change their mindset. It's unfortunate, but true."
Actually, Jon was putting forth well-reasoned arguments and supporting facts, not just saying that WAVE is bad and should be scrapped. The difference between his opinion and Pinkerton's opinion is that he supported his opinion. Pinkerton never rebutted most of his arguments, they just said it wasn't their problem or that some task force decided it was a good program. That's why Jon reasoned that there was no budging them on the issue because they are a corporate entity and they smell profits. They obviously weren't interested in a debate on the morality or responsibility involved in their program. They just want to move forward in a way that will create as little controversy as possible, thereby not jeopardizing their profits.
So, Katz isn't being close-minded, Pinkerton just didn't even try to put forth an argument to change his mind.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Lets keep watching them and let them know what we think.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
To paraphrase gilroy's dinosaur analogy below(apologies for not responding directly), each corp is a herd. The herd attracts like individuals to it, and those that aren't are driven out. The herd will not react to anything less than another herd, for it lacks the language to deal with anything smaller. (Ahhh frick, I;m out of practive with coming up with analogies. But I hope the gist remains.)
But the dinosaur analogy is a flawed one. Herds imply a certain homogeneity, that is, everything is essentially one species, but corporations, especially large ones, aren't like that. They are much more diversified because they have to be, because they have to manage so many disparate variables. The end result is that not everyone in a corporation shares the sort of guiding vision that a 'herd' might, and the barriers between these groups are most often found between the lower ranks and the higher ranks, as well as across the different positions within the company.
... the problem is that Pinkerton, as a corporation, is comprised of the very people that comprised the tormentors of geeks in high school.
That is as much of a stereotype as the one that you are purporting that Pinkerton is advancing. The fact that because you see big, jock-like bouncers and musclehead security guards does not mean that Pinkerton is run by the anti-geeks. Pinkerton is a huge, diverse corporation. They have marketing people (people who could easily have been artists in school), web programmers (most likely geeks like yourself), psychologists (hell, that one can go either way; I knew both in college), accountants (that word itself is a stereotype), economists, managers, and business. The president of my company, an Internet provider which is known for having rather geeky employees, is an ex-football player who is proud, forceful, strongminded, and very perceptive about the Internet world. The President of the NFL, Paul Tagliabue, is a scrawny former basketball player, known for being a brilliant and shrewd legal mind (he looks like a geek, too).
Do not stereotype Pinkerton the corporation because of what you see at the lowest of their levels. The Pinkerton representatives that you see are not the same ones that are developing WAVE America. If you stereotype them, you stoop to the same level that they have, and your arguments are just as shallow and invalid.
Er, you mean that democracies only function to your spec if there is "some capacity for thought in its citizens". Sure, I'd like a smart, issue oriented electorate, too. But fact is, in a world in which power is disposed of by popular vote, it's obviously in a candidate's best interest (as far as getting elected goes) to keep the populace ignorent and uncritical -- if he can somehow manage it. School boards in conjunction with mandatory schooling provide precisely that power.
...and Christianity (as practiced widely) teaches that Christians are better than unbelievers...
On a state level, this is theoretically possible. Not on a national level, however (schools are run by the states, not the federal government). Even then, you only say it can happen. Let's see examples of it really happenning.
Oh, that's right, you don't provide any.
Actually, I think I just did. Kindly remove your foot from your throat.
No need; you didn't present the evidence until someone pointed out that you weren't doing it. My statement was still valid for the time.
And what else is the bid to have Oklahoma schools teach creationism but an attempt at state sponsored propaganda?
One: For crying out loud, you don't even have the state right. It's Kansas, not Oklahoma.
Two: Seems you've been brainwashed more than you claim the students have. Nowhere in any state does any school curriculum mandate the teaching of creationism. What happened in Kansas is that evolution is no longer mandatory learning. Creation is not mandatory there either. Nothing is. In other words, except perhaps at parochial schools (which, incidentally, are not ) not a single thing is going to change.
The people who have seized the reins there have an agenda for how they'd like people to think.
Here, again, I must disagree, but my view is actually more extreme than yours for once. It's not that they have an agenda on how they want people to think. They simply don't want people to think for themselves at all. It's the perverted brand of pseudo-Christianity that you see in the religious right nowadays that's the problem there.
Don't kid yourself that it's purely a love of Christianity which moves those people.
The hell of it is, it probably is purely a love of Christianity that moves most of them. You forget, the brand of Christianity practiced by the religious right scorns individual thought. Most of the people are just plain duped. Matter of fact, once the original leaders all finally keel over, they'll all be dupes of dead men.
They know that if everyone grows up thinking Christianity is more valid than other religions (which don't get their origin myths put in science text books) and, heck, just as valid as science...
One: that's illegal. Try as they might, they can't do that in a state-run school (parochial schools, perhaps).
Two: You speak of creationism being just as valid as science with a very disparaging tone. My guess is that you too have had a bit of indoctrination going on. Mainly the fact that the two answer totally different questions, and in fact both could well be valid or invalid (evolution asks how it happened, whereas creation asks why. My point is this: we're never going to know which one is truly what happened until someone can figure out how to build a time machine. The only truly fair way to do it is something like this. "How did life originate? We're not certain. These are the major theories, and the pros and cons of each. There are many other theories also." Present the students with all the theories and let them decide for themselves. After all, isn't independent thought what you wanted? Let's see you back it up.
If you could call that perverse twisting of the religion Christianity, yes. But that part of it's bullshit, made up by psychos out to... well, I don't claim to know what was going through their heads (probably a mixture of greed and arrogance).
By the way, a little tip which is really fun when going up against the religious right: read the Bible. Seriously. Reading (even skimming) through it once will give you a better working knowledge of what it says than at least 90% of the religious right. This is particularly fun because you learn just how much crap has been spoon-fed to them by their own corrupt religion (example: you know that Hell place they're always saying you're headed for? The Bible never mentions it, or anything like it, ever. Not even once). You can use this to take the Bible they're trying to cram down your throat and cram it right back.
Christianity becomes a virtuous trait in a candidate -- as has already happened (the Boston Globe had a nice article on it if you hadn't figured it out for yourself). Promulgating Christianity in schools is a good way to make sure eventually only Christians are elected to office.
But not the only way. It should interest you to know that all of the past U.S. Presidents have practiced some form of Christianity. I believe only two (maybe three; I'm not certain) were Catholic, and the first of those came as recently as the 1960's. And all this even after evolution became mandatory.
But, hey, this is other people. You went to (or are going through) ~12 years of schooling in the US, right?
Correct.
Think for yourself. Look back on your own experience and ask "Hey, did I learn a lot?
Nope. Not till I hit college at any rate.
How does it compare to what I learned on my own?
Extremely little. However I'm not exactly a usual case; I was reading encyclopedias when I was three. I read Tolkien at six.
How does it compare to what I learned from other people?"
If you're speaking about in-school experience, I learned more from other people than I cared to.
Ask yourself "Did I like being in school? Did it engage my intellect and introduce me to new things?
No and no. With some exceptions. It depended more on the teacher than anything else. There are damn good teachers out there, even in the public schools.
Or did I sit either bored or terrified in most of my classes wishing I could be somewhere else, doing somewhere else?"
Could be somewhere else: hell yes. I really didn't like my schools, but not because of anything wrong with the schools themselves. It was the people there.
Doing something else: not really. Maybe taking a higher-level class, but that's it.
What they did to you was wrong. They had no right. It could have been different. It could have been better. Having to spend your childhood in a state-run or state-authorized institution being told the state's version of reality was wrong.
Now you sound like you're the one doing the indoctrinating. While I agree that it could have been different and/or better, there's a few things I see in your argument that don't seem right. "The state's version of reality"? You're being a big harsh. Two plus two equals four, no matter where you go (Mathematics). The word "guarantee" means a promise (English). Butterflies go through four stages of life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult (Biology). E = mc^2 (Physics). Potassium reacts violently with water (Chemistry). Well over 50% of the United States' annual budget goes to Social Security (Economics). These things are all true, no matter which way you slice them. You can say 2+2=5, but that's still not right.
What you seem to have odds with is history. And here, you certainly do have a point. I remember as a fourth grader in Maryland studying the state's history; when we got to the point of the Civil War the textbooks did acknowledge that Maryland was a slave state, but tried to gloss over it (the main argument being that since Maryland's major cash crop was wheat instead of tobacco, the slaves weren't as bad off there as in other places). It should also be noted that this book was custom-printed, and not in widespread use. Interesting, the things you remember from elementary school.
That will destroy us more surely than the current system will.
What evidence do you have for that? Or is that just "what everyone knows"?
The exact opposite, actually: what people don't know. The sad fact is, to survive in this world you need a good, broad education. The public schools currently don't provide this, but the answer is to improve the schools, not destroy them. It should be noted that as recently as two generations ago we were leading the world in every aspect of education. These things you speak of are recent phenomena, and I con't think they can be attributed to the school system (at least not entirely).
Can you think of any forces in your life which would benefit by your believing that uncritically?
By believeing what uncritically? Or are you using "that" as a means of demonstrating that I am thinking very uncritically? Either you never got it through your head that voice inflection doesn't travel over Unix, or you needed to pay more attention in English class ^_^
I suppose it merits pointing out that the nations which are starting to catch up to our lead and even pull ahead all run mandatory schooling programs, most even more restrictive and "fascist" than the ones you find in the U.S.
Oh, don't worry. In three generations (~90years) they'll be in exactly the same boat as we are now.
You're not giving any evidence again, but this time you're not even giving a reason for the evidence to support. Why will it happen there?
I just wanted to send heartfelt kudos to Jon for having the meeting, and writing this story. Even if he hasn't persuaded Pinkerton to scrap the WAVE program, he has performed a valuable service by bringing it to the attention of a much wider audience than would otherwise know about it.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
In this case, Pinkerton's execs are hiding behind the great god Mammon. While we may feel moral outrage against them, they are by no means the only ones. Yes, we can promise them that they'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes, but that doesn't result in fundamental change. The question in this case is the same as in the Columbine case: how do we turn our society into one in which people will take their responsibility by making their own moral choices?
I don't claim to have an answer to this question. But I think I can at least recognise some wrong answers. Teaching kids to turn others in is definately one of them. Encouraging people to act on unverifiable anonymously reported accusations is another.
(allowing locker searches and drug tests for example)
It always amazes me that drug searches are legal in the U.S. More or less mandatory in A LOT of companies. I can't understand that. Here, in France, I believe that only a doctor would be allowed to perform them, and would then be bound by medical secrecy rules. Would he break them, he'd be sued to death, lose his license to practise, etc ... Were a non doctor to do it, he would be charged with illegal practice of medicine -- jail and hefty fines usually ensue. Not to mention that a company doing this would immediately get all the trade unions on his back. (There are exceptions, such as pilots, for obvious reasons).
You may have stumbled upon the *real* motive here (in addition to scamming a few bucks from the state).
I'm sure Pinkerton's offers employers background checking of potential employees for a fee, and wouldn't mind being able to hint that their background checking service was superior to that of any other company because they have sources that the other companies don't.
Many employers aren't as worried about "...be sure we don't miss a chance to hire somebody good...", as much as they are about "...make sure we don't hire somebody that's not going to work out and is going to be a lot of trouble to get rid of...".
Although not all of those tips will lead to someone who's down in the basement loading ammo clips this very minute (who Pinkerton can take credit for turning over to the cops), the ones that don't go any farther than Pinkerton's files, and that aren't spam and disinformation, and that do refer to troubled and depressed people, could be very useful in blocking the hiring of people who will have a hard time getting along with their fellow employees, who will be chronically late for work, who will tend to be out sick more often, who will take offense at perceived (but not necessarily real)slights, and who may have gotten through high school without exploding in rage and violence, but 20 years later, with the last of their dreams in shreds, may "go postal".
Therefore, if these files are unfair to a lot of people, the people in the files won't know, and the people using the files won't care.
the following sig is intended as humor, the preceeding post is not
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I e-mailed Katz after the first article to suggest that he get the views of the several gubernatorial candidates running in the upcoming primary (this issue doesn't seem to be attracting much attention from the various North Carolina media so I'm guessing none of the candidates are up to speed on it either, but I've got to hold my nose and vote for somebody), but the e-mail I received back sounded very "form letter"-ish, so I'm not sure if he's persuing this idea or not.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
They are not the enemy per se
Report everyone (yourself included), without exception and favouritism.
That's rather conspicuous. Don't you think reporting EVERYONE would look a little suspicious to Pinkerton's assorted staticians? A less obvious idea would be to report a random 10%, 5%, something like that, of your school. Kill the signal/noise ratio.
If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
We will never be able to come to a consensus on which 10% ISN'T crap.
If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
The more I read about this the more it reminded me of the little kids in blue shorts, grey shirts, and red neckerchiefs ... the uniform of the spies. These little wrenches were brought up from birth to spy on everyone around them (including their parents). And to turn them over to big brother at the first instance of suspicious behavior. Which included, talking to oneself in sleep, loud emotional expressions, unconcious behavious, any biasness towards the big brother and so on. Most spies get their badges by turning in their parents before they reach the age of 10. Thoughts were outlawed, the very instance someone thought of something that was against the establisment, they were doomed and would cease to exist shortly.
Who controls the past, controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past.
--
I'm tired of telling people there's a problem. I'm sick and tired of nobody listening to me and the shock and disbelief people are having. "Oh, it can't happen HERE". That's how the holocaust started! Take note from your own history - The Wave started because nobody believed it was possible. History will repeat itself.
Force them into the open. Force them to be extreme. Encourage the use of profiling, let the police into our schools, let them punish, compartmentalize, tear apart, destory, label, emotionally scar and hurt the people who don't fit their Utopian world. Drive the suicide rate up. Make the school environment tense. Make the kids paranoid, make the teachers afraid of the students and the students afraid of the teachers. TURN UP THE HEAT. And then.. when the death toll rises, the media clamors for justice and asks why this happened....
"Just Wave."
That's a fair first step, but what if the system is still introduced and geeks, goths, homosexuals, chess-club members, and other different-but-harmless students start getting harassed or suspended due to the WAVE program, and the school board still wasn't listening?
I don't know about you, but I'd be prepared to do something wrong if I believed that the alternative would be a greater wrong.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Please don't do that. It's no less biased than Pinkerton's own scheme Besides, all you'll succeed in doing is making it "cool" to be on the reporting list...
On further reflection, that's at least as good an idea as spamming WAVE: Report enough jocks and "popular" people, and being on the list will become a status symbol instead of a scarlet letter...
I can see the fnords!
Now you're just being ridiculous. How can 99% of a social group be branded as outcasts by the other 1%? Being an outcast implies being a member of an underprivileged minority.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I forsee two ways of successfully stopping this. The first as was said is making it unprofitable. The second is once the system is in place to have the legality of it challenged. As I am not a legal expert I will focus on its profitablility. Rather than creating a contreversy through media focus on their customers, the schools. Because it is the parents the schools will listen more closely to the parents need to be well informed of the issue and motivated to ask the schools not to use this.
From a business perspective the parents can gain a first mover advantage. By putting a bad taste about the Pinkerton Group's plans the group will be forced to address these issues if it wants customers. I would highly recommend if there are students reading this that they go through the archives and prepare themselves as JonKatz did. Then discussing this with your parents and school officials who may be supportive (when discussing the issue I recommend always keeping a level head and suggesting a break should tempers flair).
Although it is a copout attitude the company is simply responding to their markets demands. Not an easy task but change the market place. Make this an issue that PTA and school boards face now, not when offered the system. All of these are just my personal ideas, I don't know if these will work but I hold a certain amount of optimism that schools will improve because of the attention they are getting.
The real issue here is waste. What is it about eating the meat per se that absolves you of the act? In my opinion, killing a deer and wasting it, is no better and no worse than, say, burning down a forest or cutting down a tree for thrills--you are needlessly wasting resources. Are the resources (e.g., plants, animals, trees, etc.) you are consuming being put to good use proportionately? If an avid hunter only selectively takes one buck a season for its hide and antlers (and does so reasonably, without excessive waste), and draws some significant satisfaction in it, I find it hard to draw a significant distinction between you (hunting and eating for enjoyment) and the hunter who wants for equal or greater enjoyment. It is not as if you need the meat per se; you enjoy that meat, therefore you hunt.
In other words, I can respect hunters and fisherman who do so tastefully and reasonably and not necessarily for the flesh. What I can not respect are those who kill for quick sadistic thrills (e.g., getting drunk with some buddies, and putting holes in anything that moves that isn't human, then just leaving it).
You know, Anomalous, I was about to jump in and attack your position, but on reflection, I think you're on target. Like so many other things involved with the government, though - the patent office, social security, and legal system, to name a few - public education is a good idea with a (currently) flawed implementation.
What we have is a program that's been around for over a hundred years - it's gone past the point of being a legacy system, and morphed into a nightmare of political maneuverings. The original point of the program, education, has almost completely been lost; and because of the political implications, nobody is willing to even consider scrapping everything, going back to square one, and building something new to correct the problems inherent in the current system. They just want to patch, add a new feature here, tweak something there, and end up introducing two new problems for each one they correct...
There's some hope, though. I just read an article about schools in Arizona, where it sounds like they're essentially trying to build a hybrid between state/private education, where the state puts up the money for education on a per-child basis and certifies schools, but schools are run privately and parents can choose which school(s) their children attend within their area. From what I've read, it looks like it's working, and may be the kind of architectural overhaul that could keep the current system viable for another hundred years (or however long it takes politics to screw that up, as well.)
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
And that is simply because Katz won't use an editor. It was practically painful to read, and there's no excuse for this story to have ballooned into a 4000-word article. I read it the same way I read all of his articles -- read about 10 or 15 paragraphs in, then give up and skim down to the end.
Near the end, when Katz mentions that it only cost them a few hours and some sandwiches, I wonder if he (as well as most Slashdotters) understand that time equals money, especially when you're talking about (1) someone who actually has a job, and (2) that job is an executive position. If Katz recognizes this, it doesn't come through in his articles.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Yeah, I'm a Brill's Content subscriber, and he was a regular there (I keep asking him what happened with that gig, but I haven't found out from anyone). I admit that I can't recall much about the articles now, but I know that they were much easier to follow than his articles here, because I thought about what he was saying instead of having the poor editing as an annoying distraction nagging in the background. Here, they're just out of control.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Gee, Katz has been silent for a week now. And it's now the one year anniversary of the Columbine shooting. I guarantee you all he's got something in mind...
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Thank you for parroting moronic platitude number 37.
You're welcome -- thank you for assuming that you're more intelligent than I by virtue of the fact that we disagree.
Even if you assume that the state generally implements the will of the majority (a tough assumption to defend), the idea that a majority can speak for everybody is morally indefensible
Nobody said it speaks for everybody -- that would be logically imnpossible (it would be E Pluribus Unum, literally!). It speaks for the majority of people who bother to take part in the activities and are even moderately capable of debating policy. If you don't believe that, you've obviously never involved yourself. When they count the votes at the end of the day, that's who wins. Whether or not our particular implementation of voting and representation is ideal or efficient is of course debatable, but it seems to be more effective than other methods attempted.
The state is not the citizens. The state is an organization with its own dynamics, set up to implement an at-best-poor approximation to the consensus desires of a (possibly large, possibly small) subset of the citizens
The state is an organization with the dynamics of whatever citizens participate in it. If you don't participate, you're correct that it won't represent you. What do you expect, voting by telepathy? That you will make your views known to representatives and school boards by complaining on Slashdot? Minimal participation yields tremendous gains, that's exactly why the Moral Majority managed to have such influence over school boards. Participate and you will be heard. feel free to ignore me, though -- I like having multiple votes.
In the case of schools in the US, this includes systematically inculcating consensus ideas, many of which are nonsense, and systematically suppressing independent thought
Which is a wonderful reason for you to take your child out of school. Feel free to do it, no one is stopping you (despite what communal pressures you feel "the state" is putting on you)...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Heh. You learned that in public school, didn't you?
No, I learned it by travelling the world and seeing how good we have it. People elsewhere on this planet marvel at what we can accomplish by simply writing letters to a representative, by the idea that we can share our thoughts without any serious concern for well-being. I've found that people who are cynical about the US have either never left it or never lived there (depending on their origin).
No, the "state" (in the US) is an institution formed to represent the citizenry (we live in a republic, not a democracy). As such, it is vulnerable to being co-opted by private interests.
Technically, it's a Constitutional Democratic Republic, but we'll just assume from here on out that the other person actually does have a clue what he's talking about, 'kay?
Indeed, the government and agencies therin are vulnerable to undue influence (indeed, corruption) of the power we have granted them. That doesn't make them any less a function of the people, only a corrupted function of the people. As such, "we the people" have the ability to correct that corruption or eliminate the agency.
Just because we don't spend as much time as we could making sure to eliminate every pocket of inefficiency or graft in our mutlti-trillion dollar organization doesn't invalidate our control over it.
No, the state educating our children is a convenient and efficient way for those people who have the power to make sure the children of those people who oppose them agree with them
"The people who have power" are us. Go to your school board and you will be able to influence trmendously, because no one else is there. So don't criticize others simply because they participate and you don't. Don't say it doesn't represent you simply because you expected a psychic event to occur for the board members to understand your desires.
If you get outcoted, then your voice was at least heard. And you still have many options -- take your kid out of school if you really dislike the policy.
No one forces your kid to go to THAT school, we only mandate (collectively, through the Governement as our executor) that chidren be schooled. We made the moral decision years ago that having children working the in the coal mines at age seven was probably a bad idea for the long-term efficacy of our society. If you disagree, work to change the policy or find a society that agrees with you, but don't delude yourself into thinking that your voice is silent.
Now the two sides (and many factions) are at war over who gets to promulgate their propaganda next.
And of course you can pull your children out of public school at any time, so long as they are schooled somewhere.
But even more than that, having sides fighting over the resolution -- well, that's what we're all about in the US. We have the adversarial system entrenched in everything we do. Maybe it shouldn't be that way (I don't know) but it does seem to make us wind up in the middle ground most of the time. There are many places on Earth where people don't fight over ideology because it means being killed in the middle of the night. Given the choices, I suppose I'll live in a place where the admittedly slow-moving processes usually leave us with a reasonable comprimise. For short periods we may wind up with ridiculous things being done in our name, but in the long haul it always shifts back because for all our laziness, we are the most righteously indignant people on the planet...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
If Mr. X has a gun, and he showed it to me at school, do I want him to ever be able to find out who turned him in?
So dial 911 from school, and report it. Or call crimestoppers.
being anonymous to report a crime (having a gun at school) is no problem.
This is akin to calling a rape hotline and telling them you thing your neighbor is really creepy and might rape someone someday. There's a big difference between alerting the authorities to a problem that needs to be addressed and doing profiling in your spare time under the aegis of school safety.
Everything the WAVE program purports to do would be better served by the police. Anything short of that standard shouldn't be reported anonymously, because it's just as likely to be hot air...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Well, Einstein did do very poorly in mathematics (possibly failing, don't recall) until his (uncle?) tutored him in Algebra and showed him the "interesting" side of solving problems with Math rather than rote memorization...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Why on earth would anyone even bother talking to the Pinkerton people? This is a free market economy and, as has been said before, if there is a demand, there will be a supply. This was no more productive than going after gun manufacturers or Columbian coca farmers.
/. so perhaps it could be posted again. Write a REAL letter....email won't even get past the filters. When someone takes the time to put pen to paper, it commands more respect than a dozen emails so write. Pen is mightier than sword, yes?
It is school boards and governments who are asking for things like Wave and that is where we must agitate. I remember once that someone put a list of addresses of government representatives up on
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
OK, so there's a demand for this type of program. Where is the demand coming from?
--
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
With a little note on the side: I come from a decent family but one that had alot of emotional problems at home.
Here it is twenty odd years later, and now I'm a dad (two girls thank you), and you know what? I look around and what I see isn't a lack of caring parents, it's a lack of parents who have good parenting skills, you know, little things like:
- Uncritical listening, which is where a young person can go to a parent with whatever is bothering them, and not get an angry, explosive response or an emotional withdrawing.
- Consistent application of fair discipline, that is, a parent saying what they mean, meaning what they say, and sticking to their guns in administering discipline where the consequence is the right size for the bad action of the kid.
- Showing willingness to learn together, rather than "preaching from on high".
Granted, my parents were horrible examples of these kinds of things, but they tried, and I knew they were trying, which went a long way toward reconciling the mistakes. And I'm way short of perfect in these areas myself.I just wish this stuff was easily learned and shared, so that the young people I see around me stood a better chance of being happy in the long term, no matter who they are, how they currently express themselves, or what their situation may be.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
But the Pinkerton people don't see morality as their concern, If it isn't there concern then who are they to decide what behaviour is indicative of a violent path? While I hold some unique views (in the eyes of most slashdotters) on morality, everyone should be able to agree that if a company isn't concerned with morality then they have no place in this profiling issue. Let's throw out the inherent wrong in the whole issue. They aren't concerned with morality yet they are making moral guidelines for moral behaviour. I can't be the only one who see's this.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
The Pinkerton guys have a point: there is market demand for this. It's not like they are pushing this program down onto unwilling schools -- the schools ask for it. And while it's true that an ethical (translation: whose ethics are somewhat similar to mine) company would not get involved in this dirty business, it's also true that there is a whole bunch of less conscientious people who would do it without a second thought.
Katz is somewhat misled by his anti-corporation (what he calls anti-corporatist) stance. He suggests that schools should work with troubled (from their point of view) teens instead of big corporations getting into the act. Well, and how would that be better? If the school principal is an asshole who believes that wearing black is a sign of being possessed by Satan, then Pinkerton or not, he is going to inflict major suffering on non-conformist kids in his school.
I don't see the WAVE program as a problem -- I see it as a symptom of a much bigger problem, vis. that schools are scared of their own kids and don't understand them. I don't know if it can be fixed, but while schools fear teens and while hysterical parents demand strip searches for a 150% guarantee that nothing bad will happen to their little Johnny in school, such things as WAVE will continue to pop up with gruesome regularity.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
*smirk* I come from a corporate environment. Ethical or not, if legal okays it, then it's going to happen. More than once, we got calls at my former employer's NOC that were the FBI, the State Police, the local police, the Secret Service, or the INS on the other hand, with siezed company property.
Anonymous reporting's been around for ages. And the schools use it. Some of them responsibly, others irresponsibly. Before I dropped out, my high school introduced a 1-800 help line to report bullying, to get help if you were depressed, etcetera. I know for fact that before I dropped out, the most action they took off information from that line was suspending someone for two weeks for fighting, and sending a LOT of kids off to a special school for kids with drug problems.
Since then, there have been *THREE* deaths at this school. One of them, this weekend, hit me very hard. It was someone I knew. He was stabbed to death at a party, trying to break up a fight. I don't doubt for a second that people will abuse these things. My school was so afraid of me, just because I was the "quiet kid" who was "smart," that they actively sought ways to get rid of me. I was threatened with expulsion repeatedly. Unjustly, I might note. ("What, you're going to expell me because some idiot who can't turn on a PC says I hacked his Macintrash? Shall we get the family lawyer on the phone?")
A school district basically FORCED a friend of mine to drop out. They continually harassed him, suspended him, etcetera. At the ADMINISTRATIVE level. And he wasn't a behaviour problem. He was a quiet kid who wore a lot of black. And they took ESPECIAL effort to make his life hell. This shit has been going on for years. In fifth grade, mind you, I had to memorize the family lawyer's number and tell them to call him every time they sent me to the principal's office for a bullshit reason. To this day, I have kept contact with at LEAST two lawyers - a contract/patent lawyer or firm, and a general counsel who can at the least, refer me to the appropriate lawyer should the need arise.
Yeah, the "if we don't do it somebody else will" argument is bullshit. But it's also true. It's CHEAPER to run a voicemail system that just takes messages than to provide ACTUAL HELP. Actual HELP requires ACTUAL PEOPLE. And people require MONEY. Pinkerton's profit margin will be in excess of 50%, with an error margin I'd guesstimate at in excess of 90%. Statistics be damned - offer a fifth grader a computer if he reports fifty violent students, and he'll be on that phone day in and day out till he gets that computer. No effort required - just lie about some kid you don't like.
This is unethical in that this is just a 'tattletale' line. And Pinkerton will NOT hire people to make it a HELP line instead. Then they would LOSE money on it due to the scope of it. (I hope you Pinkerton fools are reading this.) They KNOW this. They don't have the balls to admit that they're in this EXCLUSIVELY for the money. They can yank away those prizes any damn time they want for any bullshit reason they want. So they don't have to actually give away ANYTHING! Imagine the profit margins THEN!
It's time the whole goddamn world wakes up and realizes that playing catchup and tattletale is not only fucking STUPID, but just EXACERBATING the problem. It's like making a pinprick in a finger, then pouring sulfuric acid over it, and adding yeast. Then add some infectious diseases (WAVE) and pretty soon the only solution left is to cut off the ARM. I won't have kids, if I ever do get married, because I will not raise kids in this environment. Not by a longshot.
Obviously Americans can't take care of their own kids, the government's got it's head so far up it's ass it can't figure out how to make reasonable and intelligent changes and desicions, and the corporations could care less so long as they can post higher earnings estimates. Makes me want to move somewhere like Sweden or Finland. Obviously, people are far more responsible over there.
I don't know about you folks, but I've had it with this bullshit. If nobody's going to take a stand and point out who's REALLY at fault - the parents, the schools, the society, and America as a whole - then it's only going to get worse, and people know it. They're still in denial though. So nothing will be done till it's too late. Bah. I'm not disillusioned - I'm realistic. And if this is the way America will be, then every American on the face of this planet is SCREWED.
*steps down off soap box*
=RISCy Business email here
your company here.
shelby != ford
If you're interested in making your school safer, three of the best things to have in your back pocket are resolve, respect and responsibility. When we show others respect and determine to resolve conflict peacefully, we lessen the potential for people to become violent. It is also our responsibility to
know what often triggers violent behavior and how we can respond appropriately.
According to extensive research, here's a number of early warning signs of violence. However, it's
extremely important to know that this is not a "checklist" to be used to stereotype anyone. These early warning signs need to be viewed in the appropriate context. They are not to be seen as individual indicators, but when exhibited in combination, are cause for concern. They include:
Not a checklist, but if someone exhibits more than one, be afraid, be very afraid...
Hits or bullies others.
Expresses uncontrolled anger. however, controlled anger is just fine, just try not to show too much emotion
Has unlawful possession and use of firearms.
Displays intense intolerance or prejudice. We cannot tolerate intolerance and must treat prejudice with extreme prejudice.
Conveys violence in writings and/or drawings. i.e. reads comics books, sci-fi, likes action movies, Discovery channel shark specials... This is the worst for me, I used, and still do use creative expression of violent acts as an outlet for the anger caused by stupid shit like this whole WAVE thing. What can I say, I watched a lot of G.I.Joe as a kid.
Uses drugs or alcohol on campus. Yes, because we all know any drug that doesn't have a trademark, patent, or advertising budget is baaad, bad!
Makes threats. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, don't even think of standing up for yourself, that's for other people to worry about. Oh, and it's not only airports where you can't joke about bombs anymore, now it goes on your permanent psych sheet.
Is easily angered by minor things. Does get's frustrated by people trying to profit off the misfortune and problems of others count as a minor thing?
Keep mail bombing these fuckers, that's my $.02.
Remember we must treat absolutely fucking destroy any all all violent tendencies in order to be safe at school.
--
+&x
I think that I addressed the whole thing about trapping; it's less fair and less sporting. If we used traps the beaver would be dead by now; instead we shoot and not a single beaver has died yet. Yeah, it hasn't exactly helped the final goal of restoring some balance to the lake, but OTOH it has kept us true to our ideals.
Not that I'm against trapping; it has its place. But I personally don't wish to do it.
When I say that good ecology is Genesis 1, what I mean is that in there it says that man has dominion over the earth; he has power over it and is able to do what he will. But with this power comes responsibility; what Christian would deny that God demands an accounting for the use of His gifts? Much is expected from those to whome much is given. It's the parable of the talents all over again.
Which is why I oppose the misuse of the earth and why I support wise-use and conservation efforts. That and I sort of like the place:-)
Golly it's late; 1.30 here...
`No challenge'? Obviously you've never been hunting. A friend of mine owns about 160 acres with three lakes on it. Two of these lakes have a nasty beaver problem: about 40 beavers, when there should be maybe eight to twelve. They have killed all the saplings and are now working on the 15 to 25 year-old trees. The native coyotes and wild dogs are not working, and the beaver are spreading disease and contagion throughout the whole area.
We have made four hunting trips trying to get the damned nuisances. We have yet to shoot a single one. We've tried every method: dusk, dawn, spotlighting (legal for small game) &c. And we're not a bunch of hunting newbies; it's just that beaver are difficult animals. There is plenty of challenge, let me tell you.
As another points out, you must have a correlation in order for an indicator to work. Hunters and football players tend not to be sociopaths, unless you choose to define hunter or football player as sociopath, in which case it works out just fine. Hunters--at least responsible, mature hunters--are not in the sport for the fun of killing. They are in it for the challenge, for a love of nature and a respect of wildlife (believe it or not, these do not contradict killing said wildlife; does a hiker respect the trail he is cutting through the wilderness?), because they feel that it is a more authentic method of getting food, because they appreciate organic meat, because they feel that it is more humane &c. &c &c.
Yes, there are irresponsible hunters. But the majority of hunters look down on these. Unless you are a radical vegetarian (in which case I respect your opinion), it is a logical inconsistency to state that animals should be indutrially killed but not killed on a one-on-one basis.
There are instances of modern hunting where the reality is removed. Certain of the private hunting establishments amount to little more than shooting fish in a barrel. But on the other hand you have the bowhunting and blackpowder movements. Try shooting a snowhare with an 8 inch flintlock pistol when it is under 32 outside; it's not as easy as you might think. Try shooting a whitetail with an arrow after you've tracked it for an hour. Hell, forget shooting it; just try tracking it for an hour.
A lot of this is due to regional variations. In Montana I believe that it is considered unsporting to use corn or salt to attract deer, but in Texas no-one does anything but. This is due to the fact that in Texas private land is very small and hence the hunter cannot track across country, and public lands are dangerous, whereas in Montana public lands are open and safe. But the end result is that Montanans think that Texans are unethical and Texans think that Montanans are too strict. Who is right? If the Texans did not hunt as they do, then the deer population would undergo a Malthusian period of sickness and starvation.
On-Topic Stuff Here
To get a little bit more on-topic, those warning signs are pretty silly. Let's look at some of them:
Are they bothering you in some way?
I pointed out the ways in which the high population level (remember we want to control them, not exterminate them) is a problem. They have ceased going after saplings and are now attacking older growth. These are trees which have stood in one place for 15-25 years, but are now being killed to no end; the beavers instinctually cut them down but are unable to drag them into place. They `girdle' them but make no use of them. This land is mostly wild, but what parts man has tamed or cleared have been put to use. Maybe 8 acres have been cleared: a road, a house, a donkey pen, a chicken yard and a junkyard. Every tree that was cut down was used for something. Every grass mowed was used to feed a goat. But the beaver kill for no good end; they kill out of instinct but make no use of their kill.
In addition to this they are causing a problem with the fish and the local animal population. Their increased numbers have caused a rise in the incidence of disease amongst all animals: beaver, armadillo, deer, coyote, feral dog, cat and even some fowl. Their great numbers have had an effect upon the fish population of the lakes involved. I do not know why the population rose as it did. No doubt there is some good, although probably accidental, reason. But the end result will be starvation and death for all species unless the population is brought more in line with what it should be. And that is where we come in.
Have you some reason to arse about with guns other than it's more fun? Are you, in fact, taking pleasure from (trying to) hurt these animals and are reluctant to finish the job quickly?
It is more sporting to try to shoot them. Trapping would be the most effective alternative; it is how one kills beaver commercially. But it's not terribly fair to the beaver; it is not pitted in a contest against a foe it can smell and hear, but against one which is invisible and which, in fact, draws it in with bait. We choose to hunt them because it is a contest of skill: our skill to find and to shoot (which, BTW, is more difficult than any movie shows; try hitting a moving target about 3x3 in. in the water as it dives at night with a mist on the lake) versus the beavers' to detect, warn and evade. So far the beaver have won. That's more than fair.
You are right though; there is something fun in it. But it is not fun in the suffering of an animal. It is the fun of the chase. Have you ever played tag or hide-and-seek? Those are but vague shadows of hunting. There is nothing like the thrill that runs through one at the sound of the approaching animal. First there is the rustling (or, in our case, the splashing). The noise may approach, or it may depart (always a disappointment). The tensions builds. Then--at last--the sighting! Now the rifle is raised, the hunter tracks the animal through the scope. He waits until he has a good shot at the vitals; there is no honour to shooting a beast in the leg or gut where it will slowly and painfully die. No, the hunter holds his fire until he has a good chance of hitting the head or chest. He steels himself, and fires. The shot hits, and it is over within a few seconds. That is the most horrible moment of all for me: when I see that I have just taken life. I don't enjoy that at all. But I enjoy the thrill of the chase, the wait, the anticipation, the joy of a good shot and the taste of meat I have killed and dressed myself.
Killing is a nasty bloody business. The hunter knows that: he sees it happen before his eyes. The vain consumer never sees it; meat somes in a plastic package like all his food. But the hunter saw an animal that was alive and healthy, and he changed that in an instant. Then he took responsibility for his action: he dressed the animal and prob. butchered it. The consumer has no idea what is involved. He has no sense of responsibility.
Oh give me a break. Thank god for these selfless individuals out in the wilderness, day and night tirelessly protecting nature from itself and the rest of us stay-at-homes from the rage of the wild beaver.
Hunters kill not out of joy of killing, but from the joy of hunting. Killing is a part of that, it is true. But it has to be. The pursuit is much more fun than the attainment of the goal; the hunt is more fun than the kill.
t is a logical inconsistancy to say you are killing random animals (I assume you don't actually raise them to hunt them, like some foxhunters do in the UK) because of respect for the farm animals raised for the purpose and which will be killed in their millions anyway, regardless of your actions. It is a logical inconsistancy to say that you spend so much time and effort to kill these animals without pay and without being asked by the govt or other body which could force you to do it and then to claim that you don't get pleasure out of it. You don't seem to realise that the very real pleasure of hunting is not in the kill. At least, not to a mentally stable person. It is in the contact with nature (a far bloodier master than any man, that is certain), in the outdoors, in the pursuit and the tracking, in the technical skill involved in shooting. To do all these things without shooting is to be false about it. That is why I cannot subscribe to the `shoot nothing but pictures' philosophy: it feels empty to me. Others may differ, of course. But if one is going to indulge the instinctual urge to hunt, it seems to be lying to stop just short of the ultimate goal.
(about blackpowder pistol season for hares) Why is this any different from using a machine gun?
It is very different. The difficulty makes it a fairer and more sporting match. Believe it or not, hunting does not consist of driving to a field, walking up to a deer and shooting it through the head with a pistol. But it can be much easier with modern weapons. When one has become an excellent hunter with modern gear, it becomes time to up the ante and make things a little more difficult. IMHO, at least.
In re: taking pictures and not shooting.
Have you ever shot? I shoot quite frequently, but at cans or paper targets. These are a lot of fun--shooting is a challenging sport. But shooting at a real target is more of a challenge. It takes nerves and skill. Taking a picture involves these, but it is less real because it is less serious. There is nothing I know of more serious than levelling a weapon at another living being. In that moment the other creature goes from fellow to foe. It is an introduction to that principle which underlies all of life: competition. We compete with every other organism, from bacteria to plants to animals to other men.
This is not to say that we should wipe out any organism. We are called to be stewards of the Earth and its resources (good ecology is Genesis chapter 1). IMHO it is better stewardship to hunt than to merely by pre-killed meat. And there is fun in that shot. There is uncertainty. The animal is not dead until the round hits. At any moment a finger might shake, an arm might quiver, a branch might obstruct or the animal may bound away. That is fair. What chance does a cow have?
Not that I oppose the cattle industry. But I feel that hunting is a fairer means of procuring meat.
Man this is so off-topic that I will surely be moderated down...
How can I get this back on-topic? Lemme see...
On-topic Follows
Perhaps what high-schoolers need nowadays is an education in authenticity. Too many of them have been raised in an environment in which decisions have no consequences. There is no responsibility in their world. From the day they are born they are sheltered from every effect of their actions. They are not punished in any significant way, but are taught to feel good about themselves in the futile hope the self-esteem leads to respect for others.
They eat packaged meat, packaged vegetables and lead packaged lives. They watch a television in which problems never last more than an hour. They watch movies in which only the attractive side of violence is shown. The use computers in which anything can be undone (which is a nice capability, of course). But in real life there is no undo button. When you kill a man he dies; generally he dies in a graphic, painful and humiliating fashion. Too late to say `I'm sorry.' Too late to rethink things. Too late to hit undo.
Children are doing these things because they really don't understand the finality of their actions. They have been insulated all their lives from the unpleasant realities of life. And what better way to take out their frustrations then to carry out the common fantasy of killing one's classmates? Only problem is that in real life it matters; there's no way to bring someone back to life after his brain has been shot out the back of his head.
Children need to be disciplined. They need to be brought up to recognise some sort of right and wrong--I don't really care if it's my right and wrong. They need to realise that their actions have results. They need to see that life has no undo button. Hunting demonstrates that...
Three examples that come right to mind are whites/blacks during Apartheid, nobles/commoners through medieval Europe, and old-timers/AOL users in the mid '90's.
--The basis of all love is respect
How much crime there is in an area has more to do with how well people protect themselves than it does with how many police are roaming around.
Police are armed historians. They do a very good job of coming in after the crime has been committed and making detailed reports of exactly what happened. Depending on the situation they may even arrest someone. But arresting someone after the fact is hardly a way to stop crime.
Crime stops when people defend themselves and their property from criminals. There are states like Massachusetts(sp?) where if someone breaks into your home and you kill the bastard, you'll rot in prison. What does that give the criminals? A license to break into your house and rob your or do violence to you because they know you won't defend yourself.
I'm lucky that I live in Arizona where nonsense like that gets thrown out of the state legislature with prejudice. Here you can carry a gun in public as long as it is not concealed. Getting a concealed carry permit isn't difficult either. Other than the hot weather, this is a great place to live if you believe in freedom and the right of people to defend themselves and their liberty.
I don't usually rant like this, but the very idea that police prevent crime is ludicrous to me. They can be very effective in finding the criminal after the fact and collecting evidence to lead to his or her eventual incarceration. Criminals don't do what they do with the idea the'll get caught. They do it and plan on getting away. If you don't think you'll get caught, the cops aren't exactly a deterrant. A deterrant is a would-be victim unwilling to take any crap and with no reservations about putting holes in the criminal.
Anti-defense nuts can just move on, nothing you say in response is going to change my mind. I've heard it all before and yes, I did listen. I think things like gun control are bad because I've been around long enough to understand human nature. Gun control is people control because as George Washington said, "Guns are the people's liberty's teeth."
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
But I have never even been in a fight, let alone blown up a school or execute classmates. This is just incredible. I would hate for my son to be classified like this. Home schooling is looking better and better...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Rather, the very things that make Pinkerton and other security firms attractive to thier lower levels (power, authority, and the ability to exercise them), becomes pervasive throughout the corp. The corporate fundamentals that are preached are often done to appeal to the rank and file and keep them in line (ie. To Serve and Protect, or whatever catchphrase is on the company posters that line the Head Offices). This will rub off on everyone company wide, precisely because it is pervasive, and you need to spout the company motto in order to keep your job.
So it doesn't matter wherther you come in with the best intentions or not. Eventually, those who aren't comfortable with the company line will move off to another job, another environment that more closely aligns with what they believe in. Others, who don't find the company line so objectionable, will stay on. So the prevailing stereotype remains, and in fact becomes self-fulfilling.
To paraphrase gilroy's dinosaur analogy below (apologies for not responding directly), each corp is a herd. The herd attracts like individuals to it, and those that aren't are driven out. The herd will not react to anything less than another herd, for it lacks the language to deal with anything smaller. (Ahhh frick, I;m out of practive with coming up with analogies. But I hope the gist remains.)
--sugarman--
If the market demands something, someone will try to supply it. Doesn't matter if the thing is legal or not. All you can hope to accomplish by making something illegal is to take the profit out of it. This requires some price sensitivity on the part of the buyer.
Given that what Pinkerton is selling isn't illegal, you have to figure out some other way to stop them. Because, as they point out, if you succeed in stopping Pinkerton's, someone else will try to meet the market demand. No way is Pinkerton's going to walk away from that market demand.
-russ
p.s. You, too, need to learn some economics. I can recommend some good books if you want.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Yes, you're right, it puts materials and money above humans. That is the primary effect. However, the secondary effect is that in order to get these materials and money, capitalists must give people something they want *even more* than the materials and money.
The only way a capitalist can avoid creating more than they destroy is to use force. The only legitimate use of force in America is the government. Get my drift? If you want protection from capitalist abuse, keep them the hell away from government, and vice-versa.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Well, that was Franklin, but you've got the right idea.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
wrenling wrote: "And the above will only happen IF the PARENTS of that kid decide to back him/her and go to bat for them. Many parents are just as scared of the school system as the kid is -- or honestly believe what the school is telling them, because they dont understand their child's motivation either."
Hear, hear!
I was an RA at a summer program for "gifted children" for 5 years, and met a lot of kids' parents. I also went to an suburban American high school, which like most high schools has a multi-variable social scene.
A lot of parents don't care about their kids, or t least not in ways the kids can appreciate. The militarist father next door in American Beauty is unfortunately not as unrealistic a character as I wish he were, though he's not the only variant on the theme of parents-who-never-grew-up. Those parents' kids tend to be surly and resentful. The biggest danger they pose is probably to themselves (because they're constantly mad and it distracts from their forward vision, metaphorically speaking) and to their own kids, who I fear they will treat the same way.
On the other hand, some parents clearly not only love their kids in the abstract, but establish loving bonds with them that mean the kids talk to their parents, grow up decently adjusted and primed to experience the world happily.
These things transcend "socio-economic level" (which usually means "economic" but that's another story)... rich parents are sometimes dulled by wordly concerns and general malaise, poor parents are often much wealthier in their relationship with their kids. And sometimes vice versa.
That's not to say that parents are the only factor, or that if you want happy kids you should forswear worldly possessions. Only that nothing an anonymous tipline (prizes or no) can ever do will affect the root causes of unhappy kids. But it might make a lot of otherwise OK kids miserable.
And you know what? All teenagers are unhappy at certain points, some more than others. You show me a teenager who is never unhappy, and I'll search his room for drugs while you lock him in the basement.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Thank you for parroting moronic platitude number 37. Your toaster will be arriving by US mail.
Even if you assume that the state generally implements the will of the majority (a tough assumption to defend), the idea that a majority can speak for everybody is morally indefensible.
The state is not the citizens. The state is an organization with its own dynamics, set up to implement an at-best-poor approximation to the consensus desires of a (possibly large, possibly small) subset of the citizens.
In the case of schools in the US, this includes systematically inculcating consensus ideas, many of which are nonsense, and systematically suppressing independent thought.
The state may be you. The state is not me.
It sounds like someone severely screwed up your diagnosis. Psychological evaluations should *always* include a medical examination to exclude physical causes. I wouldn't expect this from a chiropractor, but a psychologist should have insisted on an exam. (Was he a licensed clinical psychologist, or a "social worker" out of his depth?) A psychiatrist, being a MD and the person who actually writes the prescription, has no excuses at all.
Was the tumor overlooked because it was small, or did they never bother to check for it?
If it's the latter, you should contact a local lawyer to explore whether medical malpractice occured. I hate lawyers second-guessing doctors, but if someone prescribed prozac for a sleep disorder and muscular (neck) pain without first eliminating physical causes then they are seriously jeopardizing their patients' health. You didn't say if your tumor was malignant, but even if it's not consider the possibility (which does occur) that the tumor could have been treatable when you first saw the psychologist and psychiatrist, but terminal by the time they finally identified it.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
One thing this points out is how private companies are increasingly behaving in ways that are out-and-out unconstitutional - or, they would be unconstitutional if a government body tried to do them.
For example - it was just a few weeks ago that the Supreme Court decided that an anonymous tip is insufficient grounds to stop and search someone. If a simple frisk can't be done on a tip, I'm fairly sure that police monitoring or tracking of a person's behaviour because of an anonymous tip is even less constitutional.
Meanwhile, corporations constantly engage in kinds of monitoring, supression of speech, and restraint of behaviour that, frankly, approaches fascism.
I think we're going to reach a point where the Consitution is going to need a major rework - we need an ammendment that says that a person's rights cannot be abridged by anyone, not just by the government.
--
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Clear, Dark Skies
What I would suggest is a coordinated plan of civil disobedience - get a lot of kids to report themselves. The difference is that it forces the school to go through the work of investigating all the reports, as opposed to creating obviously fake spam about non-existent people.
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They're so concerned about maintaining "security" that the fact that it may harrass innocent people doesn't really matter to them.
No, no - if that was there interest you could reason with them that there are better ways to improve security. What Pinkerton is really interested in is using the appearance of "security" as a tool for making money.
--
Greetings New User! Be sure to replace this text with a
Clear, Dark Skies
The other posts rebutting this are excellent, but I want to add two things:
One: Why do you think the rest of the world is more "forward thinking"? The problem of schools promoting football more than literacy is endemic. Why would you suppose that the folks who caused things to be this way locally wouldn't also want to make it that way nationally?
Two: In the end, isn't your right to make your own standards for yourself what's really important? What if you had to go to a school which met a set of national standards, but wasn't up to yours? Would you say "But it's OK, because it's from Washington?" Wouldn't it be better for you to be able to go into your school and say "do this better or I'm going to a better school down the street, and taking my funding with me?"
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-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
AHA! I knew there was a role for Pinkerton in this somewhere!
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There is a difference between a guarantee and an imposition. There is a difference between the right to education and the requirement to attend government approved schools.
If education is a right, how come they can kick you out at 22 if you still don't know how to read? Is it only a right for smart-enough people? Or only young people?
If education is a right, why is there a law that you must attend but no law that the teachers must teach you? Why do they grade you (who are, ostensibly, the customer) instead of the teacher who is the service provider? In what other industry is the customer rated?
If you want education to be a right, and work for that end, go ahead -- but that's certainly not what we currently have in our system of mandatory attendence.
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Precisely. And that is why we must prevent the government from participating in schools! The power to enforce conformity of thought is wrong. It is unjust, evil, bad, bad, bad!
We do not want anyone to have the power to tell everyone what to think -- which means we don't want anyone to have the power to tell the rest of us what we have to learn in school. No one should ever be allowed to exercise that power. Least of all Big Brother.
The government, as you point out, is best positioned to abuse worst that power. That is why so many of us are against the government running or authorizing schools, or mandating the people's attendence in them.
This is not theoretical. As I posted in other threads, there are plenty of books which indict our school system for teaching politically edited history (just as creationism is a politically edited version of science).
This entire -- entire -- argument boils down to exactly that: those who see WAVE as an aberation, and those who see WAVE as characteristic.
I know you'd like to believe this is a hiccup in an otherwise functioning system -- who wants to borrow trouble? who wants to believe they've been duped or taken advantage of?
But the more I learn, the more I read, the more I talk to people.... the more it becomes plain that the system is terribly, terribly warped. There are a hell of a lot of witnesses willing to say that school sucked for them. Unfortunately, a lot of us have observed that it is the modus operandi of a corrupt system.
I challenge you: if you say you care, go do some reading. Pick up some books on this history of school reform, and find out what happened to it. Pick up some books on the theory of pedagogy, and the politics of schooling. Then make up your own mind.
Take the red pill.
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AHHHHHHHHH!!!! Dude, you can't go generalizing from your system to everyone else's system, at least not without some serious substantiating research.
Yeah, the schools in the US rot. The subtext you're not picking up here is that the situation in the US is so bad (even though no one agrees quite what that situation is :) that it's taken for granted in our mass media that we have a "school problem". The media have been discussing "The School Problem" since longer than I've been alive (!).
While different people have different interpretations of just what the problem is (e.g. "The problem is kids dropping out of school" vs. "The problem is we can't expell troublemakers"), no one here could posit there isn't any problem -- at least and not be laughed out of the room.
Speaking as a survivor -- and I do mean that word -- things are very, very bad. If you haven't, please read Katz' Hellmouth series.
I have to admit, I am a little cheezed off at you. It turns out you are spouting off about something you haven't witnessed yourself one way or another, and are speaking of abstract principles. I lived in this system for 13 years. OK? I was essentially in prison for 13 years because of Other People's abstract principles about what I should or should not be doing.
I commited no crime, was accused of none, nor was I found guilty, yet I was required by the state to forfeit my liberty 5 days of every 7 for the majority of the year and surrender myself to their custody. And as if the law were not force enough, the economics our country has developed make it hard-to-impossible not to comply. Our government has state-funded day care, which handily disguises the fact that the majority of Americans can't afford their own kids.
So to hear you, off in some other country, breezily assure us all that "oh, there's nothing wrong with the system".... let us say it's a little galling. Look me in the eyes when you say that. Feel free to tell me that what happened to me didn't happen, that what I witnessed is not so -- but look me in the eyes when you do.
Then we do not agree. I perhaps haven't made myself plain. While there are many dreadful aspects of abuse of power in state-run, state-mandated schools, they are hardly the only reasons to despise our school system. I'm pretty much entirely against schools, except the independent, voluntary kind. I don't agree that "if we just got rid of the abuse of power it would be OK". I still believe that there are plenty of other horrors in our system which would justify its dismantling.
I might agree that having the populace be skilled and well-learned would be a social good. But I neither agree that the state has a right to coerce people into meeting that standard, nor do I agree that schools can ever be particularly good at acheiving that aim!
Having a populace be populace be healthy and well fed is also a social good. But we don't let the government track what we eat, prescribe diets for us, mandate weight testing, and keep permanent records of how well we meet their fitness standards, etc. We certainly don't think governments have a right to control what we put in our bodies.
So why do we think they have a right to control what we put in our minds?
No, what the ultimate goal of schooling is is irrelevant to me, and ascerting what it should be presupposes that schooling is a benign tool to use.
The people should be free to educate themselves however they wish, whether in schools, apprenticeships, private lessons, self-study -- or not at all. That's what freedom means.
"Non-state schools" aren't exactly the equivalent of a total-freedom free market, any more than "non-state supermarkets" are total-freedom free markets or "non-state banks" are total-freedom free markets.
If you wish that there be law which says, for instance "no class shall have more than 30 people in it", or other such functional regulation, that does not concern me. The government can say to a grocery store that it's aisles must be so far apart -- but cannot say "you can't stock peas". (At least, not without trouble.)
And this misses the point. There are people who aren't going to buy admission at schools. They may decide to defer their education, or to teach themselves, or barter for it, or take apprenticeships, or come up with yet new clever ways of getting the learning they desire, which we, trapped in an institutionalized world, could not imagine.
The government can't say "you must buy your groceries at this store", but they do say "you must get your education at this school". You can turn around and grow your own crops if you want, or barter with your friends, or starve. That's what freedom means.
I'm not just talking about the freedom to choose between schools. I'm talking about the freedom to choose not to school. I'm talking about freedom from schools.
Excellent! However, do go beyond asking one teacher, even if she is your mom. :) Perhaps all teachers in Belgium are deeply politically aware and versed in educational theory -- but it is remarkably not so in the US. I know quite a number of teachers who have, to be short, no clue and no political savvy. They don't know who's influencing the textbook committee; why would they? That's all happening in the capital which might as well be on a different planet. I'm the one giving them books on educational theory. Even really basic ones, classics like Holt and Neill.
So, yes, ask -- but keep exploring.
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Heh. You learned that in public school, didn't you?
No, the "state" (in the US) is an institution formed to represent the citizenry (we live in a republic, not a democracy). As such, it is vulnerable to being co-opted by private interests.
Guess what? It has been.
No, the state educating our children is a convenient and efficient way for those people who have the power to make sure the children of those people who oppose them agree with them.
It puts, as it were, all the educational eggs in one basket. Public education is a winner-take-all system. Whoever manages to seize the power gets to impose their version of What Kids Should Believe on everyone. That's why it is corrupt.
Why should what I be taught -- while we are doing our legally mandated time -- against my own beliefs? Why does a majority have the right to say to the minority "we're going to indoctrinate you against your will"?
Should the Christian majority have the right to promulgate their beliefs to the children of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, etc? It would be representative of the wishes of The People -- at least in those many places Christians are the majority. But that doesn't make it right.
The schools are corrupt (among other reasons!) because they are given unjust power over the minds of the populace. They are a "bully pulpit". It's not just that they tell you things that if you knew better you might not belief. It's that (1) they have the imprimitur of the state giving them credibility (2) they preoccupy your time for over a decade so you likely won't be exposed alternative views.
For the longest time, liberals turned away from the abuse of human rights, because, bluntly, it advanced our agenda. Yeah, we were brainwashing kids, but we were scrubbing their antiquated superstitions out of them so it was OK. It was our beliefs and attitudes, so it wasn't reeeeeally propaganda. So it amounts to the state telling the people what to think, but they're telling people to think the right things so it's OK, right?
But it's not right. And while well-meaning liberals were being enthralled by this power over the citizens of tomorrow, they failed to note that the conservatives had figured it out, too. Now the two sides (and many factions) are at war over who gets to promulgate their propaganda next.
We trotted right out there on that slippery slope, and Wooooops! We thought we could get away with violating some people's rights without the tables being turned. Oooops.
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Then you get it.
If it's wrong for him to insist your children be taught his way, it is wrong for you to insist his children be taught your way.
He's just asking that the system be fair.
I don't agree with his religion, but even I can see his point.
The folks in Oklahoma who are advancing creationism would say "Fine, we'll have both." I say that's not the answer.
I say the answer is that nobody gets to say how other people's kids get taught!
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Better than whom? Us schooled /.ers? :)
First off, the homeschooling/socialization canard has been widely and thoroughly debunked.
Secondly, since when did we put socialization a priority? Of all people, really.
We are discussing the difference between people who have free minds and people who are, er, good at not rocking the boat.
I know which I prefer...
No, it's the best of arguments. It requires you to ask hard questions, and ponder deeply. It exercises the mind and challenges the heart. Keep with it. The answers you find in yourself are worth it.
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Er, you mean that democracies only function to your spec if there is "some capacity for thought in its citizens". Sure, I'd like a smart, issue-oriented electorate, too. But fact is, in a world in which power is disposed of by popular vote, it's obviously in a candidate's best interest (as far as getting elected goes) to keep the populace ignorent and uncritical -- if he can somehow manage it. School boards in conjunction with mandatory schooling provide precisely that power.
(There was a fascinating article about 12 years ago in a mainstream mag called "Why Can't Johnny Think?" which outlined exactly why it's in your average schoolboards members' personal self-interest to keep the electorate docile, ignorent and uninterested.)
You may have noticed there are an awful lot of /.ers who complain about the American electorate. Every time a YRO article hits the main page, you can expect laments about how the general public doesn't see what all the fuss is about as their rights are eroded. Now, maybe you disagree with that sentiment. Perhaps you think the American people are an involved, interested, vigilent electorate passionately participating in the Great Experiment of democracy. OK, then we would have to agree to disagree. But if you do concede that not all is well in the American electorate, I would like to propose an alternate explanation.
I say "alternate" because the standard /. assumption is that the populace is stupid or lazy. My proposal is that they have had been indoctrinated.
Hello? We were discussing WAVE? The product that school administrators argue they need to keep their schools safe?
But of course, that's the tip of the iceberg....
L ies My Teacher Told Me (I'm not suggesting giving amazon.com money, but if you check out the "also boughts" on the bottom of the page you'll get a bunch of books focusing on other academic areas besides US history.) The book is an examination of, among other disturbing things, how twelve of the most popular US history texts used in HS classes were edited to make certain groups in the US look less bad. For example, the Deep South states insisted on a more flattering (of them) depiction of the Reconstruction (following the Civil War.) Similarly, famous people who had (now) unpopular political or religious positions are depicted without reference to, for instance, being communists or deists or supporters of the KKK.
The State has been editing your text books. Get used to the idea.
And what else is the bid to have Oklahoma schools teach creationism but an attempt at state sponsored propaganda? The people who have seized the reins there have an agenda for how they'd like people to think. Don't kid yourself that it's purely a love of Christianity which moves those people. They know that if everyone grows up thinking Christianity is more valid than other religions (which don't get their origin myths put in science text books) and, heck, just as valid as science, and Christianity (as practiced widely) teaches that Christians are better than unbelievers, Christianity becomes a virtuous trait in a candidate -- as has already happened (the Boston Globe had a nice article on it if you hadn't figured it out for yourself). Promulgating Christianity in schools is a good way to make sure eventually only Christians are elected to office.
Actually, I think I just did. Kindly remove your foot from your throat.
Really? Who'd you learn that from, a trained professional?
There are a growing number of people who have come to the conclusion mass-produced education is of necessarily inferior quality, completely aside from any liberties your government is taking with the content.
But, hey, this is other people. You went to (or are going through) ~12 years of schooling in the US, right? Think for yourself. Look back on your own experience and ask "Hey, did I learn a lot? How does it compare to what I learned on my own? How does it compare to what I learned from other people?" Ask yourself "Did I like being in school? Did it engage my intellect and introduce me to new things? Or did I sit either bored or terrified in most of my classes wishing I could be somewhere else, doing somewhere else?"
If you can answer, "Heck, yes, school was great; I'd go back in a heartbeat; I never felt so intellectually awake; I learned so much!" then more power to you.
If you can't, I ask that you listen to what I have to say with an open mind. If nothing else listen to this:
What they did to you was wrong. They had no right. It could have been different. It could have been better. Having to spend your childhood in a state-run or state-authorized institution being told the state's version of reality was wrong.
I don't. We abolished slavery even though it savaged the economy. This is a matter of civil right, of human rights. The fact that fixing the problem would be bad for business is hardly an excuse for business as usual. Efficacy is never a justification for the abrogation of liberty.
I suggest you go speak with some more homeschoolers before speaking for them. Start with a subscription to Growing Without Schooling, or perhaps attend their conference.
When, precisely then, does a problem with schools become a problem with the system?
Precisely.
What evidence do you have for that? Or is that just "what everyone knows"?
Can you think of any forces in your life which would benefit by your believing that uncritically?
Oh, don't worry. In three generations (~90years) they'll be in exactly the same boat as we are now.
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But if they don't (immediately expand the program), then there must be (a reason). I can think of lots of ones. Maybe a lot of parents don't approve of the school for some reason. Maybe the teacher's union opposes it (you wouldn't believe the shenanigans of the Boston's teachers' union the past few months!).
But doesn't it behoove you to figure out why? If you care, I mean.
Anyways, it's great that you're really pleased with the quality of education your kids have got from that school. (I presume they also are pleased. :)
If "education" (really attendence) weren't mandatory, all schools could kick out troublemakers.
If our system were not coercive, then schools could move away from being babysitters and police forces and jails, and maybe get somewhere with education. Personally, I'm skeptical of the value of classroom learning in even the best of circumstances, but, hey, I think people should have the right to use whatever formats work for them (or that they think will work for 'em.)
Forcing everyone into schools just guarantees you'll have lots of resentful violent people in every class.
When teachers aren't in the business of running "chain-gangs" (John Holt's words), but are leading a group of volunteers, they have a chance of getting somewhere.
And, for that matter, they aren't violating anyone's liberty.
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I hunt -- I like deer meet.
...but I'm not interested in a fair fight. I want to feed my family.
I should probably stop here, but really feel like ridiculing you some more...
There are many ways to do that. You chose shooting deer. Some find that choice to be saying something about you.
Perhaps you would do well to live in the wilderness for a year or so before condemning those of us who live that life. Being faced with a choice between feeding your family, and killing a deer, the choice is easy, if you are human.
Neither you nor I face that choice, thankfully. Many people live beyond such a reality, and some choose to take advantage of it by discontinuing the needless killing of animals when possible. Certainly, we don't choose to go out and revel in it.
I think you need to look much deeper for the roots of what you apparently consider sadistic behaviour
Ok, inability to empathize with other beings? Inability to relate their pain with your pain? Inability to see the desperate struggle of that deer to live for what it is - a desire to live that is as strong as your own?
You can find yourself to be as improbably as you like - I find you to be all too typical.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
There's a lot of similar quotes between the two, really...
Because a system have problem doesn't mean that you the system in inherently bad.
School system has LOTS of problems, I'll be the first to agree, but would parents do any better if they had to educate their children themselves? I doubt it a lot. Parents who do it now are pretty successful, but they're motivated to do it, most parents wouldn't put all that energy into it.
I've seen other kinds of school the traditional one. There are alternatives that are possible. I don't know how available it is in the US, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible.
If you have a better way to teaching kids together, by all means, go for and start your own school system. If it's good, it might replace the actual system at some point. Or become a teacher in education to try to change the way teachers are taught to handle a class. Or just send your kids (if any) to a school where you are more satisfied with the education to promote it.
There are lots of ways to try to change the system without first sending it crumbling to the ground.
And the thing is, education has positive externalities. If we only have private schools, economics tells us that we'll have amount x produced, but that there are benefits to society when people produce/consume the good. If we only have private schools, they'll produce less than would be socially optimal.
Solution: subsidies?
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
BUT, remember that government agencies don't just operate on efficiency criteria. (Thanks to Bardach, Ellwood, et al.)* We don't want our governments to cut corners on building schools. We want them to go the extra mile in making sure that teachers are accredited. Plus, the government does things on equity criteria as well. Does this affect the poor more badly than the rich? Could we use this garbage collection program to hire welfare recipients and get them back to work? (Donahue)*
Point is, your values are different from mine, and as long as we disagree on the criteria, we'll never get to the same solution.
P.S., it's interesting that you say we even need the government to build roads and do the military and police...there are libertarians / anarchists who say private industry could do those as well. If schools, why not roads? It's a lot easier to determine whether a road is bad than a school.
[*]Thanks to the public policy department at UC Berkeley.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
But the real root of this problem is not that corporations are amoral. Corporations, as such, are a legal fiction. They do not exist apart from the individuals who make them up. They do not act apart from their employees.
And that leads us to the real problem: most people are unwilling or unable to think in terms of principles, and corporate employees are no different from most people.
Right and wrong are abstractions. They can (and should) be derived from reality, but instead are usually given to us as a list of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" that someone just drew up and posted on a wall. There is no connection to life, reason, or reality.
So people don't take things like freedom and privacy and morally important. They just become something we like a whole lot, but can be sacrificed for "important" things, like keeping our children from being different from their peers. And when you talk about these being important priciples worth fighting for, people don't disagree with you, they simply have no way to understand what you're talking about.
Pinkerton's employees are thus complicit in slitting their own throats. The problem is not that they don't believe that. The problem is that their minds, like most people's, make them incapable of understanding it.
However, I suggest we let Pinkerton go at this full steam. That way, when the inevetiable train wreck occurs, it will be so large and damaging to Pinkerton that no one else will try this foolishness.
www.eFax.com are spammers
You're comparing state-sanctioned genocide with market practices? They have nothing to do with each other, unless you're posting another 'outraged' comment as an AC. Same with weapons of war, take your problems with them to your government not to the corporation, which exists only to turn a profit and has no incentive to listen to you.
Enlightening the public and pressuring government is the smartest way to do away with something like this. Not by hoping an process whose only reason to exist is to make money will somehow feel like you do. Corporations may be legal entities but they ain't human.
Um, many conservatives do NOT have a problem with secular schools simply due to their secular nature.
When they impose polices like ZERO tolerance of "violence" (Having your picture taken on top of a field gun is not OK. Fighting back is never OK. Saying "bang bang" is never OK. Violent skits are never OK....), or encourage students to explain how words "feel" via "whole language" -- encouraging them to invent their own spellings, and essentially pushing EMPATHY, not EDUCATION, *then* there are severe problems.
Education is meant to be effective. It's not meant to boost all students to equal levels of happiness, or to claim equal levels of achievement. Something's wrong when whether students feel happy with themselves matters more than whether they can rationally assess historical events or comprehend mathematical proofs, or even make themselves understood in something at least properly reminiscent of acceptable, coherent language.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
>I'd have those two activities as the two strongest indicators of a sociopath.
To sum up: Your particular morality is that these activities are wrong, or empty, or meaningless, etc.
The central point to freedom, IMHO, is that freedom does not legislate, or control in any way, morality. That you would press your morals on me is exactly what these fights are about, and exactly what we should be fighting.
It's a relatively easy concept to contemplate, and an impossibly difficult path to follow. I should have the freedom to do whatever I wish, provided my activities do not impact you. I cannot, for instance, harm you physically, since this impacts on your freedom.
The difficulty is defining where the line is. In one sense, American football does not impact you, since you can simply choose not to watch it. In another sense, everything a person does impacts all other people in small, imperceptible ways. Football is still watched by many people. The average american cannot ignore football completely, since it is focused on by a large segment of the public. It is talked about at work, shown on TV, etc.
What was my point? Don't press your morals on me. How to do this, and maintain order in a society? Beats the hell out of me. Perhaps its just a matter of multiple sides fighting over these principles until a true solution presents itself.
>>>>>>>> Kvort
-Don't mind me, I'm personality-deficient and mentally-impaired.
You may find this hard to believe, but my oldest daughter, who is graduating from high school next month, has gotten a first-rate high school education in a public "magnet school," Tampa Bay Tech, in Tampa, Florida.
Yes, Florida! I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I went to Florida public schools thirty years ago, and back then my school was absurdly bad. Not that they couldn't have been worse - at least my school's teachers didn't, for example, physically abuse the Jews in their classes because those Jewish students wouldn't accept that Christian Coalition parody of Jesus as their personal Savior. But I hardly learned anything in my high school classes and I was bored practically to madness. In contrast, my daughter's classes have been really hard and challenging, so she will be well prepared for her college classes next year. I wish I could have gone to a school as good as hers when I was her age.
The secret to the success of the "magnet schools" is that if a student is lazy or a troublemaker, the school authorities are allowed to kick him right out and send him back to the ordinary, high-school-as-day-care schools.
My biggest problem with the "magnet school" program is that it is too exclusive. It's great if you can get in, but for every student that is accepted into the program there are three applicants. As the "magnet schools" don't cost significantly more than the regular schools, which, as you rightly note, are more accurately described as baby-sitting compounds than educational institutions, I don't see any reason why the local school board doesn't immediately expand the "magnet school" program so that all the applicants, or at least all the ones who are academically qualified, can get in.
Incidentally, all three of my kids skipped out of public schools for the first few grades, instead doing home-schooling.
Why doesn't every family home-school? The answer should be obvious. When I was a kid, the average U.S. family had one parent with an outside job and one parent who stayed at home and kept house. On that single income, that average family was able to afford a house, a car, a TV, and the rest of the usual middle-class trappings. But in the last thirty years or so, the wealthy class, who control the prices and wages for the rest of us, have arranged things so that if the average family wants to own a house, both parents must work. While inflation disguises the effect, the fact remains that the American working class has thus gotten a massive effective pay cut over the last generation. Productivity is up, too, but that rich, powerful minority sequesters every cent of the excess wealth that is produced, resulting in America's ever-widening gulf between the median income and the income of the richest fraction.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
> The only thing we need government for is to
> build roads, and fund the police and military.
You read slashdot, that means you respect numbers, right? These industrialized countries which have national health care achieve longer life expectancies than the U.S. with its profit-driven corporate-extortion system, at between 50 and 75 percent of our cost.
Returning to the subject, which is public primary schools, I know of no country in all the world that entrusts the whole of its elementary education to private enterprise. You want us to be the first? You want to experiment? With my kids?
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
> Literacy was far higher in De Tocqueville's time than it is today.
Do you have any statistics on that? I find that very unlikely. And I'm not gonna cheat, though I suppose I could, and ask, "Oh yeah, does that percentage include the slaves?"
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
I don't have good figures, so this is at best an educated guess, but just from regularly looking at the crime news in the papers, I'd be willing to bet a decent amount of money that playing football is strongly correlated with violent crime, especially strong-arm assault and rape.
Between the egomania arising from the typical jock's sense of impunity, with typical high-school or college administrations treating him as though he were rich or something like that, and the psychological effects of all that disgusting chronic hormone-abuse, it makes perfect sense to assume that being a jock is a red flag warning of sociopathy.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
In the same schools where young adults are taught that generalizations are almost always wrong and that absolutes tend to corrupt truth, a Zero Tolerance policy on ANYTHING is hogwash. I am in college now, fortunately, but I have seen friends getting 'busted' for having a bottle of Tylenol in their locker. I have seen nail clippers and nail files taken away from girls since they 'could be a weapon.' They only tried once to take away my swiss army knife (with a 1.5 inch blade) until I mentioned that I might sue and had talked with the ACLU (a bluff, but... ) Schools are so paranoid right now that they are hugely overreacting to everything, in matters where a little logic and trust in some decision maker would help the system immensely more than a rigid 'Zero-Tolerance' policy.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
One thing that concerns very much is the fact that they are keeping the files of the people who are found innocent, well that and the fact that they are keeping the files at all.
A previous employer of mine did background checks on all applicants. Guess who they use. Pinkerton! How does it look when you apply for a job and your background check comes back with you labeled as "dangerous".
I will be among the first to finally admit that Katz's geek-anthropology-fantasy-world expertise is actually good for something. He may be a delusional self-important twink, but he appears to be more of a sincere activist than most other /.'ers.
I'm not the real Larry Wall, but I play him on Slashdot.
I think it's great that Jon Katz did this. The outcome was obvious.
They are a corporation. Their only concern is money. They can make all the token changes they want, but the idea is still the same.
Capitalism does one thing: it puts materials and money above humans. Any system like this is doomed to what our country is now reaping. I think everyone understands this but Americans. You can argue all the Libertarian free market capitalism ideas you want, but nothing can change as long as that first sentance is true. NOTHING.
And Katz is interested in changing his mind?
I can turn it around just as easily: "People like Katz are so set in their ways that very little can be done to change their mindset. It's unfortunate, but true."
I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree with Pinkerton's initiative. What I am saying is that Katz is just as close minded as they are, and it behooves everyone to understand that reasonable people can disagree on things. We only have Katz' point of view on what their intentions are.
--
That said, I don't blame Pinkerton too much - the real villains are the task force that came up with this recommendation, and a public that doesn't care to get involved with the education system enough. School boards need to be rigourously monitored by the community, and (gasp!) taxpayers must be willing to pay the cost of providing the proper amount and quality of staffing in schools.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Yes, but they've been the enemies of "upstanding" Americans for years anyway - see here for a Christian perspective on D&D and here for a Time magazine article, both of which are anti RPGs. There is a good overview of the whole situation with lots of links here at about.com.
Why are we encouraging children to be more cruel and calluous?
I see what you're saying, but I think the problem is not so much we're encouraging our children, more that we're not discouraging them. It's more apathy than malice. And that is the true sickness, since apathy can lead to any number of evils coming into play without resistance of any kind.
There's one thing that really covers everything on this. "I reminded them that some of the smartest, most interesting and ultimately successful kids often experienced extreme and systematic harassment and brutality for being different, alienated or otherwise non-normal. That if educators, politicians or private corporations like Pinkerton really cared about school safety, they would do something to protect these outcasts. " - unfortunately (in my experience at least) the educators, politicians etc. were normally the ones who would have been doing the informing had this policy been in place when they were at school.
It's always the intelligent, the depressed, the "different" who are castigated, excoriated and harassed - the WAVE program is just another way to do it. Only this time it's anonymous, and there's the potential for this black mark to be held against the person *way* into the future. Look at some of the precursors -
Einstein- failed at school, and was regarded as a "misfit"
Nobel - ditto
These are just the first two that readily spring to mind - but there are many many others, and they all received enough crap from "the system" without it being added to by corporatism junkies like Pinkertons.
Sometimes I just despair of sanity ever returning to this planet...
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
When (not if) the Pinkertons make a mistake and falsely alienate the child of a newspaper reporter this will be front page stuff. The Pinkertons will shut down the program and wish like hell that they had listened to Jon and the Slashdotters after they find their clients moving to other security companies.
A bit like when the Dana-Farber Cancer Center accidentally killed the Boston Globe health reporter with an accidental overdose of a chemotherapy drug a few years ago. Didn't take long for heads to roll and a complete review of the Center.
This WILL have a similar outcome.
no sig.
Literacy has never been higher in These United States than before Horace Mann decided the Catholics in Boston were insufficiently Americanized and started the "Public" school movement in the 1850's specifically to "Protestantize and Americanize" these benighted European immigrants.
That today's "Public" schools now propogandize students with the mantra that "All problems have a government solution and only government can solve problems," is no surprise, given that the all the employees of these "Public" schools are government employees.
Do your homework. Literacy was far higher in De Tocqueville's time than it is today. There were no "Public" schools before 1850 worthy of the name and yet citizens of These United States were considered the best educated and most literate of any country in the world, certainly a kudo that cannot be given today.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
The site should probably be offshore to prevent Pinkerton's lawyers (aka corporate thugs) from attacking the freedom of speech of the persons putting up the site by advocating things Pinkerton doesn't like.
If the campaign gets big enough, this really can be stopped in its tracks.
Black banner, anyone?
y2k info - http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/y2k.html
Tech Public Policy stuff
However, the recourse seems obvious: spam! Imagine what is going to happen if a system receives thousands of provably false denunciations...
I even encourage geeks and nerds, goths and punks to launch a (nation-wide?) pre-emptive strike: if you are in high school, grab a list of all the jocks and football players and denounce them...
Although I enjoy the thought of spam being used for good and not evil that is the completely incorrect way of handeling Pinkerton
I don't think ambushing a group of individuals in a particular social group that you don't happen to belong to makes you a better person than those individuals you percieve as a potention threat, those who would turn in geeks. We don't know geeks would be the main target of the WAVE project, we are only speculating that they would be. For all we know geeks really are invisable to the rest of the school.
However spaming them with names of people who do not exisit, ie John Doe at New Minas Middle School, would be a much more anoying use of spam and wouldn't hurt innocent people who don't happen to be geeks.
Little Sister
"The future masters of technology must be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the
Would I be interested in working with Pinkertons on WAVE America, or in writing for the site?
This blew my mind!!!! Did they offer you sex or money too? :)
I wish they had answered all the 'what will happen to the data' questions.
Little Sister
"The future masters of technology must be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the
It obviously isn't fair to that kid, but I be it would quickly bring the issue of recourse and false accusations to the attention of the short-sighted political folks who thought of this.
OK, first of all, JON KATZ IS A TERRIBLE WRITER!!!
/. continue to support (and maybe even pay? That's never been clear.) a writer who can't write concisely and explicitly refuses to self-edit his works?
/. and its ilk can do something--we're a fairly significant voice folks!
God this was painful. He did something quite significant (meet with Pinkerton's as a result of his previous article), and had a lot of interesting stuff to report about the meeting. However, it was almost impossible to get through his rambling, repetitive, obtuse verbal diarrhea to find the interesting bits.
Why does
OK, rant off. This story could have been written so much better by so many others, though.
That aside, there were some surprises. I would have thought, for instance, that the idea of corporations being inherently amoral is pretty obvious. Corporations make money. They'll behave ethically if they can make (more) money doing so. That's about it. There are a few ethical companies out there, but there'd be a lot fewer if they didn't get tax breaks for it.
Then again, I suspect Jon is naive in the very best sense of the word. He wants to change the world. He thinks (and I agree entirely with him) that companies _should_ care about what they're doing. Maybe that's where
If anything, I was a bit surprised at how flexible the Pinkerton's people seemed to be. While the WAVE project won't go away as a result of our actions (at least not this quickly) some of the suggestions seem to be getting incorporated. Rewards getting dropped, for one example. Changing the criteria (NB: singular ~ion; plural ~ia) used for another.
Finally, a note to all revolutionaries: The only way to get your ideas taken seriously by companies is to distill them into financial terms.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Companies look at people as equals, in every aspect, except for themselves. Then again, most people do. It's a common thought for most people not to acknowledge the circumstances that control someone else's life. (Well, I'm normal, I do my work, you should be able to too!)
I had a similar experience. I was an all-A student since I started school, in AP classes, school 'Academically Gifted' programs, and even started taking Computer Science college classes at night. Until my sophomore year of high school, when I suddenly lost all my strength and interest in my activities.
I knew, myself, that something was wrong. But how can you just go up to an adult and admit it, knowing that they would probably just lock you up in padded rooms for the thoughts that went in your brain. After getting 'forced' into 2 years of counseling, psychiatry, countless prescriptions to anti-depressants, I was getting very frustrated, and frequently expressed my rage, verbally and physically. My school, and my peers, had it in their minds that I 'chose' to be sick, or that I had just given up on life. I suddenly became very unpopular, and an extreme outcast. If someone came up to me, trying to be friendly, I'd blow them off, assuming that they'd treat me as others had. That's the problem with our human society, from both sides of the coin.
So after two years of useless tests (so that the doctors can admit that they weren't ignoring me, and sleep well at night) they finally decided that maybe something was REALLY wrong. So, my senior year in high school, after having to take all remedial classes to graduate, they diagnosed that I had narcolepsy and hypo-glaucema. So when I was asleep, I wasn't in REM. When I was awake, I was either dipping in and out of REM randomly ("Oh, he must have spent all night playing on his computer."), or just plain "lazy" from my sugar running in the 30's.
Think of how many hundreds, thousands, who knows, students or adults in the world that have similar medical problems as us. These are issues that are handled gently, especially for teenagers, who are so obsessed with how they are viewed because of their differences, and are likely to keep things private, away from friends and family. That makes them a prime candidate for WAVE, and all of the checklists that it can make up.
The problem isn't with the person, it's with the society, and how society views people singularly. The idea is so spread that ANYONE we meet around the corner could be the one that rapes us, carjacks us, or kills us, that we, as a society, are taking such drastic actions as this.
Although the Pinkerton justification is suspicious, as it's an "everyone's doing it" defense, I had a similar reaction to Katz: I was appalled (though not necessarily surprised) at the way anonymous reporting has been so casually accepted.
We must remember that the horror of the act being reported doesn't excuse setting aside people's rights. I would wonder how many false child abuse or sex harrassment claims submitted to these reporting services have ruined lives unfairly. Witness the string of child-care center sex abuse accusations supported by what turned out to be coached testimony.
It's probably a good thing that WAVE came along to make us aware of the potential for abuse in this growing "security" field.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
If you see these immediate warning signs," WAVE America will announce, "violence is a serious possibility":
This is a list prepared by experts? It basically reads like "If you are doing X it is likely you will do X". If you see someone fighting daily, it is likely that they will fight again. The thing that really worries me about this list is the question of escalation - this list assumes that doing something very slightly out of line will become something dire and disasterous in the future.
Hey - I can run through this list quickly and see if I can match up any of these traits to myself? Hmm. Loss of temper - well I may pull my hair out occassionally looking for a bug in code, so that might count. Frequent physical fighting - well I used to do Taekwondo and that is most definitely a sparring sport, so that would have counted (until I dislocated my shoulder that is...). Drugs and alcohol increase - well some nights I don't have wine, and some nights I do, so any night with a glass of wine following a 'dry' night is an increase. Detailed plans on commiting acts of violence - well I might have drawn up some strategy for my dwarves to explode the opposition in an online game of Myth II. Tee hee. In fact that might account for several of the others! :-) And I carry a penknife for those times when my glasses have fallen apart and I can't find the jewellers screwdrivers.
Wow. This list is dynamite. In fact it works out just like Astrology - if you try hard enough you can fit most traits to most people. That is amazingly dangerous - vague lists like this can be mis-applied by well meaning people and could wreck lives. Possibly permanently - if you ended up getting thrown out of school because of badly thought-through lists like this, you might never achieve that University place that you should have got. Or even that vocational course in motor mechanics that you really wanted to do.
Not that the Pinkerton corporation seems to care about the result of their initiative though - they seem to basically look on it as a business opportunity without risk - they act as a collector of information from anonymous sources and distribute it after consideration under some unknown criteria, getting paid along the way. Amazing that in this enlightened day and age we would allow a corporation to wield such power over peoples lives.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
As I understand it the purpose of Jon Katz is to add a "real" jouralist into the mix. In that spirit I think it would be nice to see dateline/20-20/60-minutes kung fu put on the whatever state board that is contracting Pinkerton.
I want to know what's going on in the heads of the public officials involved in this.
loss of temper on a daily basis
significant vandalism or property damage
increase in use of drugs or alchohol
all these were certainly halmarks of the football program at my high school...
it seems we've gone from geek profiling to jock profiling. even though i think any kind of profiling is wrong, i have to say it's about time!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Do you all remember an old movie called The Wave? It was shown to us in school, it was about a teacher showing his class how easy it is to persuade masses to a movement (such as the Nazis) and he formed a militia like group called the Wave and they had secret hand codes (much like a nazi salute) and if you weren't part of their group then you were considered a nobody. I laughed when I first heard about the Wave, and thought to myself...."My God, that movie is becoming a reality"
loss of temper on a daily basis: Sure, why not?
frequent physical fighting: Ok, nobody can verify that, either
significant vandalism or property damage: I once got arrested for disturbing the peace
increase in use of drugs or alchohol: Yeah, like I could increase my alcohol consumption
increasing risk-taking behavior: Shoot, just two weeks ago I was stuck on the side of a mountain for two hours because I decided to go rock climbing with no gear! Also, I pierced my ear. Heck, when you work for a defense contractor, that is a serious risk.
detailed plans to commit acts of violence: Ok, here's the plan... I see someone that I am going to hurt and then I hurt them. More detail? I hurt them with my fist. More? On their face.
announcing threats or plans for hurting others: Ok, the person that I am going to hurt is named Jon. or Bob. Shoot, I'll just call him Al.
enjoying hurting animals: If that cat pees on my stereo one more time...
carrying a weapon: I have a stun gun in my car. Also there's some dropped weapons charges on my record.
OK, so when these guys go national, turn me in repeatedly. I have nothing to hide and I don't mind wasting the time of the Santa Barbara police (there's a reason for charges on my record being dropped. The Santa Barbara district attorney will charge you with anything to get a conviction). Also, if their program doesn't cover protecting school kids from outside threats like me, then what good is it?
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Stop and think about it: who am I? All you know about me is a nick, and you don't know much about that. Posters here regularly talk, chests puffed out, about the importance of anonymity on the Web, and they have good reasons for those arguments. They talk about revolution and overthrowing governments as reasons to preserve anonymity. (I doubt that any of them really know much about revolution, but that's irrelevant; the principle is right.)
Now tell me why that isn't also important when you think that someone might pose a threat to you? If Mr. X has a gun, and he showed it to me at school, do I want him to ever be able to find out who turned him in? He's already shown that he's dangerous and unstable, for God's sake, by showing me the gun at school in the first place!
Jon, you're right about the other things: prizes, and vague rules, and the fact of safety in the schools. But you obviously didn't read the _Times_ piece very well: one of the other facts the authors pointed out was the number of times that everyone involved had ignored the threats offered by the rampage killers. Given the fact taht a potential rampage killer is, ipso facto, dangerous, what are you going to do to allow people to raise awareness of such a threat without providing anonymity?
tcd004
To me this seems to be especially dangerouse to fantasy roleplayers. Many of the things one does for roleplaying games, especially those set in modern or near future times, may be seen as planning violence. Needless to say since these are not threats to anybody, and are entirely fictitous they are protected by the first amendment, etc.
--
Hephaestus_Lee
"[Y]our wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick." -- Ian Anderson
>They think that what they're doing is morally correct and is in the best interests of all.
I don't agree, I think you miss the point. It's not at all about their sense of "morally correct" or "best interests of all", it is totally about profit motive. Unless what they are doing is outright illegal, there is little chance they even worry about if it is moral, ethical or in anyone's interest other than their equity stakeholders. If it happens that they can defend it under arguments of morals, ethics or public interest, that is merely PR.
The only way a company like this abandons a program is when it can be proven that it will not make money or land someone in jail. There's lots of money to be made. Parents are demanding that schools do something to protect their kids from the next Columbine and administrators will be only too happy to go before the board and get whatever funding is needed to put a turn-key solution in place that will releive them of their obligation to respond to the demands for some kind of program or somesuch.
Pinkerton will have done a business case. It will cost x to develop this program, y to run it each year and we will have z revenues per year based on our projections of the market and our likely penetration in years 1 thru 5. If the business case creates a 15% or better return, it gets approved, money is budgeted, resources are earmarked and a project commences. No where in that equation is there a valuation of "is this right?". That information may emerge in the form of a press kit.
The only thing that could derail this and obviously got their attention is negative publicity. It seems obvious to me that the only goal in their meeting with Jon was damage control (well, they attempted to let him contribute in an obvious attempt to buy his approval, but that just seems a token gesture).
Corporations are not evil, being either good or evil requires a soul. Corporations have nice mission statements that make it look like they have a soul and a conscience. Some individuals that work high-up in the corporation may be concientious and well-meaning. They may even have deluded themselves into beleiving that these qualities play into their decisions about how to run the company. In the end though, corporations exist to generate a return for equity stakeholders without incurring undue risk or breaking the law. I would imagine that morality, ethics and the common good rarely make more than a token appearance at board meetings.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Write to the North Carolina Sate Board of Education for being such doofus' in abdicating their responsibility and subverting the constitution (4th Amendment).
The email adr is: jworsham@dpi.state.nc.us
I gotta go and write those hosers.
Perl rox
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
I'm not sure what sugarman was trying to say, but I was saying that each corporation is like a dinosaur (or other large animal). Sure, the dinosaur is make of lots of little cells -- brain cells, blood cells, etc. There are discrete types and each type has its own agenda and needs. In that sense, the dinosaur is far from homogenuous -- it's not a bundle of undifferentiated protoplasm.
But on a separate level, those sub-divisions don't matter. The dinosaur as a whole has its own agenda and needs and it doesn't really pay attention -- directly -- to the sub-levels. Now, there are also small fuzzy mammals on this playing field. They, too, are made of sub-levels, and those sub-levels are recognizably similar to the sub-levels of the dinosaur.
Yet the dinosaur doesn't recognize kinship to the mammal and (as I argued) doesn't even understand the concerns of the small players.
Now, the herd argument is different (I think). From my POV, I don't see any given corporation as a herd. As Hrunting mentioned, the members of a corporation are too diverse to really make the herd analogy work (on that level). On the other hand, I don't see too much difficulty in modeling corporations as each a member of a herd -- a corporatist herd. Notice that most of Big Business thinks much alike (there are exceptions, but they are a minority).
Does that help? probably not. Oh, well.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Personally, I've always felt that the most effective way to combat these types of assholes is to render the system ineffective by filling it with trash.
The fact is, the only reason Pinkerton sees a market here is because there is a portion of our poputlation, the power mongers, who are willing to spend our own tax dollars in order to maintain their power base. Just as the US Census is being used to manipulate and maintain power, so is the Pinkerton kiddie snitch web site.
I'd suggest that we all logon to the web site and "report" our own slashdot.com handles as "suspects" that need investigating in order to burn the available $ resources so that they aren't available to harass the truely inoccent, somewhat strange, but possibly brilliant children who would otherwise be investigated. After a few years of throwing tax dollars at this type of effort, perhaps even Pinkertons customers would eventually give up because of the futility of the effort.
Mark@Sanderson.net
Wow, even with the limited number of posts, some of you already slam Mr. Katz. To you I say, "Nee!" Leave him alone. This is an excellent article, and perhaps you should have read it before hitting "Page Down" repeatedly and replying "KatzSux!" or other such drivel.
/.ers are a bit of a small segment - we may think we comprise a large group, but in reality, most of the sheeple out there have no idea what Slashdot is or why we matter.
The frightening part of this article (to me) is that only a small percentage of us will see it. The liberal media won't print it, you won't see it on TV, and you know other websites won't pick up on it and let the other sheep see what's really going on. *Sigh*
Mr. Katz, I applaud you for a well-written article. I now suggest you send this article straight to several large newspapers and websites. No, they probably won't be printed/posted - but what if they were?
Anyone have any ideas how we can get more exposure?
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
Here's something for Pinkerton to ponder... by screening the information that is submitted, aren't they opening themselves up to liability?
One of these days, someone will rat on a classmate via the WAVE site -- the warning will be disregarded as insufficiently substantiated -- and then the subject will go on a shooting spree.
Pinkerton will find itself in court pretty fast when that happens.
The solution to that is to:
A) Not pass any information and shut the service down
B) Pass all the information along, without evaluating it, as a policy to insulate the company from liability.
Interesting times ahead.
The fact that there is no guarantee of how this information will be used or even if it will remain on file is extremely worrying. The reaction after Columbine in particular has not been to help schools crack down on the bullying and isolation of some students. Rather the State governments seem to prefer the idea that they would rather ruin the scholastic careers of a few children rather than deal with the issues that are causing the problems.
Expecting a large corporation to take a moral stand was certainly hopeful but it's important that they now know how a large number of people feel on this issue. At least for now they are taking a close look at the way they do this even if they won't stop for commercial reasons.
When they got back to Denmark they found their houses and stores largly intact.
I View the people of Denmark as some of the greatest heros of the 20th century.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Nor, in my books, is there any difference between deer hunting, whale hunting, hare coursing, fox hunting, badger baiting or any other similar pursuits. There's no "challange", no uncertainty in the results, no respect for the life you're about to erase, no compassion for the animal or anything dependent on it.
As for American Football, it's just Rugby with armour and some glamour girls on the sidelines. Like modern hunting, all the reality is removed and you're left with an empty shell. Desensitised and meaningless.
Personally, if I were running something like Pinkerton's program, I'd have those two activities as the two strongest indicators of a sociopath.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Step one: Get a list of students in your local high schools.
Step two: Set up a lot of web proxies on machines across the U.S.
Step three: Use each web proxy to report at least two or three students at random from your list.
Step four: Watch Big Brother^w^wPinkerton get sued by several thousand parents of cheerleaders and football players whose children have been labelled "dangerous".
Step five: Repeat as needed.
Folks, I'm not kidding. They appear dead-set against listening to rational discussion, and this calls for drastic measures. We can't stand by and let this happen to our children and friends. Remember how badly you were treated in high school? Can you really sit back and watch it get worse? This system must be shut down.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
When talking about local school districts, the chance of having intelligent people elected to sit on them, especially in a rural area similar to where I grew up, is slim to none. And yet these people are the ones who choose many specific policies, fund allocation, and the hiring of teachers.
In many cases, these people are parents, but that doesn't make them able to provide education for their children. For example, in the school district I survived, the school board hired new secondary teachers from the local state university, despite the fact that the existing faculty had published a statement to the district that they would no longer accept student teachers from that school because they were not qualified to student teach, let alone be hired as teachers.
Holding schools and teachers to higher national standards will only become more important as communications technology continues to shrink the distance between people. We have almost reached the point (in the Rust Belt, anyway) where there are too few regionally-dependent jobs (manufacturing, agribusiness) to support the claims that the national government doesn't need to be involved in steering education in a beneficial, forwarding-thinking direction.
That's just my thoughts. I grew up in a community more concerned with the football team than promoting literacy, and my high school still graduates people who can't read well enough to fill out applications to work at the grocery store.
--mandi
No, I'm sure they didn't laugh at him. How could you laugh at such misdirected sincerity? I'm sure they just shook their heads sadly at him. But really, they would have done much better *for* Jon to say "Yer talkin' ta da wrong people, fella. Don't blame us -- we're only sellin' what people wanna buy."
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Difference: at some point, the government is accountable. Pinkerton is not, despite coming up with this venture, because no one gets to choose who runs it outside of an anointed few within the company. The government (yours or mine) isn't much better, but at least you can pick your poison.
What this ad for this group has to do with a company setting up a snitch line for kids to tell on each other, I have no clue. Sounds more to me like this is an example of why most companies should stay out of education, if anything - most have no business being so involved with the lives of kids as Pinkerton intends to with WAVE America.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
If the school system is going to claim to act in loco parentis, it cannot palm off these responsibilities, any more than parents can.
politicians like those in North Carolina were demanding some action, and so were parents, journalists and educators
Political logic:
We know how, and if we don't do it, somebody else will.
I will not invoke Godwin's Law.... I will not invoke Godwin's Law.... I will not invoke Godwin's Law....
Pinkerton was unhappy with some of the media portrayal of some of WAVE America's more controversial features.
I'll just bet they were.
Let's see: no direct reward for turning in a classmate, but gifts and prizes encouraging kids to use a site that offers anonymous reporting. A fine line.
I haven't seen such a fine line drawn since Clinton's quibblings over the definitions of the words "alone", "sex", and "is".
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
You exemplify the problem in a nutshell!
These things are (sorry) obviously connected. Schools need security because of they way they are stuctured -- in a thousand ways. Start with policies which forbid violent students from being expelled. Or with 30+ children being "supervised" by one adult who is primarily responsible for keeping them quiet and controled. Or with policies about violence which turn the other cheek when one class of people (whites, jocks, etc.) assault another class.
There's been shooting in workplaces, but nobody's crying out for more police among the cubicles or hotlines to report dangerous co-workers. No, schools are different, and we all know the reality of schools yet we, as a culture, persist in denying that they are the savage, oppressive, unjust, violence-breeding places they are.
It is schools administrators and teachers who are the customers of Pinkerton, crying out for WAVE. They WANT these measures in their schools. What Pinkerton kept saying, and you all keep refusing to hear is:
It's all well and good to flame Pinkerton for implementing this abomination against rights and liberty. But who commissioned it? Who ordered and paid for it? Who embraced it?
If you don't like it, who is going to make you/your kids -- with the force of law -- submit anyway? The schools are a government organ. The government is getting Pinkerton to do its dirty work for them.
If you don't like what's going on in schools, well, bad news: you're up against The Law. Many states have loopholes through which you can get your kid out of mandatory schooling. But if you don't like the fact that the electorate of tomorrow is going to arrive at the age of majority acculturated to fascism and totalitarianism... What are you going to do? Schools are necessarily fascistic and totalitarian by their design. Maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of running them.
Is Pinkerton evil for doing this? Sure.
But really, folks, why is there no outcry against the schools/governments which use it?
They're the one's with the lion's share of the blame.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Well I think Katz missed a great chance to really make a difference when they offered him a chance to work on the project. He could have been a thorn in their side till they either kicked him off or sidelined him. As for meeting with Katz at all this will probably be used as a P.R. ploy. "Well we met with several people from the online community and talked with them about this program. They seemed satisfied with the direction the program is taking because they turned down a chance to work on the project with us." Maybe make a few piddly changes in the program and point out how enlightened they are to the whole matter. It seems they never really intended to change the program to a large degree or outright cancel it just because they talked to Katz.
This whole thing is insane to say the least. Pinkerton is going to take the line that credit bureaus take. "We just give the information, what the company (school) does with it is their business." It's a cop out and a way to avoid responsibility in the matter while making money. As for keeping the information themselves I have this supsicion they won't purge this stuff. It's too valuable. They can use it when conducting background checks for employers to make them look as if they are being thorough. "Well his criminal record is clear, credit looks good but he did have several people call in about him in high school about dangerous behaviour." Pinkerton is not stupid. You don't stay a profit making corporation for long if you're stupid. This has been thought through and responses have been scripted from the beginning I imagine. For all we know this was filed under "Internet Pundits Attack Program: Counters to same."
Taking the incentive program out only made sense. Maybe they never had full intention of implementing it. It would cost them time and money. After all if this was really anonymously reported how would they know where to send the rewards, etc? It might have been included in the original proposal as something to ax when it went to the bargaining table.
This whole thing will either be scrapped because it's swamped with bogus calls or scorched to the ground from lawsuits. Of course it could also work out that the thing is implemented, teenagers ignore it and never use it and it slips away into the shadows as another failed program. Then again it could work just like they think it will with tremendous success, lower school violence, and make everyones lives a little better because it existed... and maybe some Arab oil sheik's checking account will be transfered to my on accident.
There is considerable difference between shooting a deer and dropping bombs. Bombs destroy everthing in sight, leaving little that is useful later. I hunt -- I like deer meet. I provide food for my family that way. I garden also -- more food. If you must insist on equating animals and humans, then I am a predator. Are wolves to be considered sociopathic for following their nature?
As to the certainty of a kill -- you have clearly never hunted deer or rabbit. Finding the critters and getting a clear shot is not easy. Taking a bad shot is dangerous and a waste of ammunition. If you only wound the animal, you run the risk of being attacked by it, or having it run off to die someplace where you are unable to retrieve the meat from the carcase. I don't know what you would consider a fair fight -- but I'm not interested in a fair fight. I want to feed my family.
I can say nothing about fox hunting or badger baiting -- they don't make good food, AFAIK. I've never hunted whale -- I don't live by the sea. So I will say nothing about those as activities.
Perhaps you would do well to live in the wilderness for a year or so before condemning those of us who live that life. Being faced with a choice between feeding your family, and killing a deer, the choice is easy, if you are human.
I think you need to look much deeper for the roots of what you apparently consider sadistic behaviour. I doubt that any simple measure will reveal those who enjoy hurting other people, which is (IMHO) the root problem anyway.
As I see things, this is precisely the problem with WAVE -- they use these simple indicators.
As to me being an improbable individual -- well I am. I hunt. I garden. I live in the country. I make furniture. I hack computers. Don't make generalizations and expect them to hold everwhere.
In my books, there's really not much difference between shooting deer with a rifle or dropping 1000lbs. of cluster-bombs on the same site. The deer has just about as much awareness, or ability to take evasive action.
Nor, in my books, is there any difference between deer hunting, whale hunting, hare coursing, fox hunting, badger baiting or any other similar pursuits. There's no "challange", no uncertainty in the results, no respect for the life you're about to erase, no compassion for the animal or anything dependent on it.
As for American Football, it's just Rugby with armour and some glamour girls on the sidelines. Like modern hunting, all the reality is removed and you're left with an empty shell. Desensitised and meaningless.
Personally, if I were running something like Pinkerton's program, I'd have those two activities as the two strongest indicators of a sociopath.
Do you group the slaughtering of a few thousand cows and pigs by repeated blows to the skull in with the hunting pursuits? Or would that make it harder to eat your Double Quarter pounder with cheese? How much respect and compassion did you have for that bacon you ate for breakfast? Unless you are a complete vegan you are being unbelievably hypocritical. I AM NOT a vegan, or a vegitarian, I have been hunting, I have spent 4 hours stalking a herd of deer through the woods, silently. I have carefully lined up a shot and taken down a deer. I have cleaned that deer, gutted it, tanned the hide and eaten the meat. It was NOT easy. The Deer are hard as hell to get close enough to to shoot. They blend in with the forest extremely well. Most hunters DO have respect for the animals they hunt, not all, but most. So don't bitch about hunting unless you are also going to bitch about cattle farms and things like that. And doubly, don't bitch about them unless you are Vegan.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I've seen several posts here today, suggesting that the way to "turn around" Pinkerton's WAVE America plans, is to bury them with false random reports.
Remember, that's your cheerleader daughter that you're reporting at random. That's your chess-club son who will be labeled as dangerous by false reports. That's your best friend whose life will be changed for the worse because somebody sent a false tip to the authorities. These are innocent kids out there, and you'd be making the problem worse, not turning around peoples' opinions.
The analogy would be exactly what was depicted in the movie and book, the Wave: let's make a bunch of neonazis, to show that the Reich was a bad thing. Let's put people on death row falsely, to show the death penalty has problems in judicial review. Let's kill a bunch of people of race X, to show that genocide isn't what we're looking for.
Spam will never be the answer . Sing along, it's a mantra. Never attack another person's computer. Never scrawl "j0o r 0wnd!" on another company's website. Never flood some email box just because you disagree with them.
Read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO. Learn to debate ethically, instead of hiding in the shadows showing off l33t skills. Show reason in the face of unreason; in time, you will be respected.
Send polite letters to each of your congressional representatives, and to each of your local school board members. State that you're very concerned that programs like WAVE America are moving in exactly the opposite direction from the one that YOU want YOUR school system to take.
(Spam will never be the answer! =anagram>New interval-blasphemers, we.
Embellish new WAVE partners.)
[
No, I'm not advocating it, but it is inevitable and something I didn't see addressed.
What happens when the folks WAVE harrassed or their friends (who might be a good distance away such that school/city correlation will be utterly meaningless) strike back and hack WAVE by doing they're own 'reporting'? What have they to lose? Nothing. That's beauty (or danger) of anonymous reporting accusations. It can work both ways.
"Hey, we've gotten a dozen reports of FirstName LastName doing BadThing1, BadThing2 and BadThing3 at ThisSchool. Maybe we better..."
Can 'die Welle', er, WAVE filter this out? Will they be swamped with having to filter it? Or will they not filter this (WAVE's victims will know what triggers to use, so it won't be easily skimmed away the false positives they manage to lob back) and the crumbled under the weight? And thus lose credibility.. and thereby get bad publicity (from traditional press) and then have to deal with that?
Is such a 'crack' at WAVE honest and ethical? I very much doubt it. Even WAVE being dishonest and unethical (though perhaps well intentioned.. mmm pave that road!) doesn't make it right. But they better expect it for a simple reason: people will fight as dirty as they have to survive.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
have to admit some of katz awareness-building language constructions get a bit tiresome, but the corporatist/geekdom stuff make sense...
i find this particular article/activism very compelling, good job katz!
alas, there are problems... i designed military electronic systems, and had to justify my livelihood ethically and morally to *myself*. nice and balanced how katz provides the obvious surface facts (you would expect any real journalist to provide), the wave system can lead to oppression-abuse and gosh-darn-it, the principles are nice people who just have different priorities, maybe lack some moral refinement or ethical reasoning, but not *bad*.
the piece walks these three pinkerton employees out onto the plank to hover above the vast inky void of being culpable in "harassing innocent people" and akin to *nazi collaborators*, but accepts just *shrugs* with mightily damning conclusion the organization is *inherently amoral*.
i wonder if katz even recognizes his own culpability?
####
Shannon and Dawn (given the volume of hostile e-mail Pinkerton was getting, I've decided not to use their full names) let Jim do the policy talking.
####
how stupid is this, anybody think we cannot find these people? let me be the one to risk my own reputation and plainly state facts, these fucking assholes are mere millimeters from being guilty of discrimination, manslaughter and conspiracy to commit murder.
remember judge bork? if your video rental preferences are news, just think what political opponents could do with a transcript of the pinkerton wave report on you...
just image how traumatic wave-inspired "intervention" could be, how many "dangerous" people will be driven to suicide out of despair, fear, or shame...
those are potential consequences reports made in good-faith (although quite probably deluded or otherwise inappropriate), now step this way to the area of stupid adolescent pranks, cruelty, community-based cultural conflicts (a ripe area for murderous episodes since the salem witch trials)... voila, thinks me you are in the realm of collaborating in harassment which will escalate to murder. of course, such disputes escalated to mayhem before pinkerton, and if they didn't get involved in this abuse, some other opportunistic sod would.
i do not believe this is conjecture, but actually common sense, a program like this, if "successful" (oh, for the love of marketing) *will* result in more people harmed than spared harm. i have a very strict sense of justice, and would not dream of retribution without *concrete* evidence of culpability--but what about someone related to a future victim of pinkerton?
once the anecdotal, personal horror stories start rolling in, a few more people at pinkerton will probably have to wear bulletproof vests home at night, and when the statistics (gotta love those) pile up about pinkerton victims getting thrown in jail (having no criminal history *before* becoming a target) and winding up in the morgue, well, if you work at pinkerton, stock up on narcotics now, you might have trouble sleeping at night.
so shannon and dawn, how do you justify yourselves? the systems i designed protect people, can you truly say the same thing?
Nice sentiment, but it doesn't "scale" well.
What you're saying, in essence, is that since you don't like the decisions made locally, you'd prefer to see those decisions overridden by a larger, more powerful, more remote force -- in this case, the US Federal Government.
So not only are you willing to give up the extra local control you can (and should) exert over your local officials to a more faceless, less accountable (to you and your local community) organization...
You make this decision because you don't agree with how the "dumb local folk" ran things.
What will you do when the Feds don't run things right? Campaign for One World Government?
When you succeed at that, what will you do when that fails you?
The answer: at that point, there will be nothing left that you can do. You will no longer have the option of moving to a community filled with "more enlightened" people, because the OWG you promoted rules over them with the same tight-fisted self-assurance as it did over your previous community.
So go ahead, push your "bigger is always better/smarter/faster" agenda, but keep in mind that there are many of us out here who truly understand what a delusion that is, and we're willing to do whatever it takes to preserve our freedoms, even if that happens to, on occasion, inconvenience you by also preserving yours.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
I got this back from a very dear friend of mine, who is one of the quietest, smartest, most respected people i know.
response as follows:
the rest is the katz article.
Make no mistake, this is REAL.
~zero
insert clever line here
sig?
Well, firstly, considering the fact that such anonymous reporting hotlines have existed for a long time, I think it's reasonable to say that we're already at the toddler-burning-his-hand-stage.
But more importantly, there is something we can do. Let's not despair; it is clear to me that despite the myriad differences between us, most of us have this cause in common. We are numerous, intelligent, and capable. We can easily overcome this obstacle. How? Jon Katz himself told us how:
In a sense, the Pinkertons are even more naive than we are for believing that we could change their minds about the business -- because they are naive enough to think that if they address some of our concerns, that we'll just go away. That was their goal with the meeting -- to address the concerns so that we wouldn't affect their bottom line. Our response should be obvious: Attack their bottom line.
Controversy is our ally. Our outrage is our ally. You know how much we despise FUD when it's used against us? Well, consider the Fear Uncertainty and Doubt that WAVE brings us, and let's share our fears with the world! American media loves nothing more than bad news -- and WAVE, from our perspective, is wonderfully, awfully, fear-inspiringly, paper-and-tv-ad-sellingly BAD news!
Here are some things worth considering. First, most people are not normal. Normal is abnormal. The reason Revenge of the Nerds was such a great movie for most people is more people can relate to being outcasts than can relate to being popular. How many `popular' kids were there in your entire High School? Maybe 1% of the entire school population? The rest of us were outcasts.
Begin by asking the public, "What does WAVE want with our children?" Immediately, the question does several things: One, it demands attention. Everyone gets concerned when their children are involved, and especially when there is the hint of a threat. Of course, we know that it's more than just a HINT of a threat. Two, it makes WAVE the center of the issue. Three, it demands an answer.
Some of us reading and posting here are the oddest of the odd, the most ostracized of the outcasts; however, realize that when it comes to being oddballs or outcasts MOST people relate better with this than they do with being the Prom Queen.
This is our advantage, our controversy, and our defense.
So, if you're lurking, it's time to talk. If you are a regular poster, get moving! Start posting on other websites you visit about this. Call a town meeting where you live. Make posters and put them up around campus and around town advertising anti-WAVE websites. Oh yeah, make an anti-WAVE website, too. If you're a student, form a political action group (you'd be amazed how easy these are to form!) and begin protest marches on campus. Talk to anyone you know personally who has a child who is in high school or about to be in high school about this! Anyone you can talk to, any message you can send, send it. Get the word out beyond the confines of the slashdot.org domain. Speak to people!
I'm going to start by talking with my supervisor at work, who has three kids in high school. I'm going to tell him how if other kids decide they don't like his kids, they can just call up and make up whatever stories they want anonymously...and get a pat on the back for being ``good citizens'' while his kids' names get passed along to the authorities for the suspicion of crimes they didn't commit. I'm going to tell him about the atmosphere in public school administrations since Columbine, and how anonymously-given lies will be taken seriously. I'm going to point him to slashdot to read more about it. I'm going to make HIM concerned. I'm going to do this with my boss, too. I'm going to make connections to the novel of the same name to make sure he has the same connotations in mind. Then I'm going to move to the next person, and to the next. Whenever I get into conversations with people who have children, I'm going to bring up the subject..."Have you heard about this WAVE program that's starting in North Carolina, and is going national? It's a lot like this book I heard about..."
Arm yourself with knowledge, and fight with words. The pen (and the tongue) really is mightier than the sword.
Corporations are their own life forms. The individual motivations of all the people making up Pinkerton are essentially irrelevant. The corporation is its own justification and operates according to its own overwhelming drives -- to survive, to expand, to make a profit. Its competitors aren't people -- the competitors are other corporations. Slashdot matters to Pinkerton only because it fitfully mistakes us for another corporation.
Freedom cannot matter to a corporation because freedom (as usually connotated) involves the rights of the individual, and corporations are not individuals. Individuals don't even activate their radar. Only if individuals organize into quasi-corporation-like organisms -- the Blue Ribbon Campaign, slashdot, etc. -- can a corporation notices them.
One of the images I have had lately -- admittedly biased and comforting -- is that corporations are dinosaurs, huge and overpowering. A dinorsaur would never be able to understand if a little mammal said, "But wait. We know you want to get dinner, but don't step on us -- that would be wrong." The dinosaur would wonder what the hell it even means to step on someone -- because to the dinosaur, if you are "someone", you are automatically too big to be stepped on. But of course, to the mammal, the world looks different.
This picture is self-indulgent and incomplete -- it's nice to think of myself as part of the evolutionarily-favored ones -- but it's got some aptness. Jon Katz' problem, as far as I could see, is that he saw people and assumed he was talking to individuals. But in fact he had been summoned by Pinkerton, not by its employees, and he failed to speak directly to it.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
"If I don't kill these Jews, somebody else will. I have to make a living somehow, so why not this?"
"If I don't build these chemical weapons, somebody else will. I have to make a living somehow, so why not this?"
"If I don't help alienate these kids, somebody else will. I have to make a living somehow, so why not this?"
Do we see a pattern?
--
The so-called "education" system of the US is a State-run propaganda organ mated to a state subsidized day-care program. It has nothing to do with "thinking for yourself". Schools exist to promulgate conformity as practice and as virtue.
And you think privatized education would be any different? Businesses would do just the same thing. Worse, actually; a democracy has to preserve at least some capacity for thought in its citizens (elections and all). Businesses don't even have to do that; it's more profitable to squash even those last vestiges of independence.
The admission that large percentages of our population would be in severe financial crisis if the state did not pay for the daily supervision of their children is more an indictment of our economy than an argument for that system's virtue.
Correct. Now, how do you propose to fix the economy such that this is not so?
If it is the state which is educating your children, you have already abdicated your responsibility.
Please explain. Far better to have a child taught by a trained professional than by someone who, in the end, may well not know much more than the student.
The system of mandatory schooling in the US is despicably corrupt. It must end.
Again, please explain. While I have seen more than my share of corruption in individual school administrations, I don't see where the corruption is in the system itself.
But having a propaganda organ to indoctinate the entirety of society is the One Ring of our culture -- it it utterly addictive and utterly corrupting.
You know, you've been using the word "corrupt" and derivations thereof quite a lot. Without giving a single shred of evidence as to where the corruption lies, no less. I do like the Tolkien reference, however.
One last note on this: I have yet to see a kid who is truly addicted to school. The few who even approach that level tend to have problems at home (note that I'm not talking about people who simply like school; addiction is something more, a desperate need to be there).
So-called liberals -- who would otherwise staunchly support freedom of speach and diversity of creed -- have become enamoured with the possibility of mandating their beliefs by means of this tool. They have become just as fascist as the religious right -- both sides wrestling over control of this power over the populace.
When schools become used as a political tool, it is a Bad Thing. But I'd like to see your evidence that school has become a propaganda tool. Oh, that's right, you don't provide any. And thus, no reason for anyone to believe you.
It is left-wing secular homeschooling which has been the fastest-growing form of homeschooling for the last decade. For a reason.
Indeed it has. Mainly because it's a hell of a lot safer than our schools at the moment. But that's a problem with the schools, not the system.
The state-run state-mandated system of schooling must be destroyed before it destroys us.
State-run, perhaps. But to destroy the idea of state-mandated schooling in whatever form? That will destroy us more surely than the current system will. I suppose it merits pointing out that the nations which are starting to catch up to our lead and even pull ahead all run mandatory schooling programs, most even more restrictive and "fascist" than the ones you find in the U.S.
to convince them that there isn't a market, and make it unprofitable for them. Protest, create controversy, do whatever it takes to stir up criticism, make people question their system, get articles in newspapers about it, etc. The only thing that will make them leave this area of business and make others wary of entering it is if there is little/no profit and high risk/controversy.
BilldaCat
The Supreme Court ruling Katz referenced is here.
Katz says that this may not apply since the courts have given schools a lot of leeway as far as kids' Fourth Amendment rights are concerned (allowing locker searches and drug tests for example) however, it is not the schools that are the tippers here. If a school employee (or other agent of the school, like a crossing guard) has a suspicion, they are free (perhaps even obligated) to act on it.
WAVE is for young citizens to report on other young citizens, and though WAVE itself maybe an agent of the school, the tipper is not. Therefore, I think the findings of Florida v J.L. would hold in determining that an anonymously reported tip of a mere suspicion that another person may be possible of commiting some undefined crime, is not sufficient to arrest/question/harrass the implicated individual.
IANAL, but given that the system seems unconstitutional by its very nature, I think an attorney, perhaps the ACLU, could easily shut down the program, or force it to ignore any reports that don't indicate an actual crime has taken place (example: bringing a weapon to a public school is crime in itself, so these types of reports would be allowed; wears a black trenchcoat is not a crime, so reporting it wouldn't be allowed.)
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I know everyone is just looking for an excuse to rip into John, but give the man credit. He is actually doing something about the causes that you people claim to believe in. Take a cue from John. This is how you engage your so-called enemies. Yelling, screaming, cursing, etc. won't get the job done. John employed some sound techniques in getting his point across:
1) He LISTENED
2) He came with facts, not just hyperbole and urban legends
3) He didn't denigrate the opposite side
Regardless of whether we believe Pinkerton, or anyone else we disagree wtih, is wrong, they are people and they have an equal right to have differing opinions. Reasonable people can get together and discuss things. This is what separates us from animals. Let's remember that.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Of course nothing you say will make them change their minds. They're so concerned about maintaining "security" that the fact that it may harrass innocent people doesn't really matter to them. They think that what they're doing is morally correct and is in the best interests of all. Those sort of people are so set in their ways that very little can be done to change their mindset. It's unfortunate, but true.
As Jefferson said, "those who would trade Freedom in order to find Security shall not have, nor do they deserve either one." Too bad no one listens to Jefferson anymore.
if you are in high school, grab a list of all the jocks and football players
Please don't do that. It's no less biased than Pinkerton's own scheme.
If you're going to Spam it to death, then do it fairly and evenly. Report everyone (yourself included), without exception and favouritism. Naturally you'll need to munge the source addresses
Yet Another Stupid Idea.
How could it be better to turn over a critical function of society to business or, worse yet, require parents to home school? How could it be better to put a higher financial burden on the people who can afford it the least -- single parents.
The Radical Religious Right has got issues with schools because they don't want their children exposed to dangerous ideas like Evolution which might cause them to think for themselves. Don't ruin all of society just because a few extremists can't tell the difference between myth and scientific discovery.
In a lifetime of witnessing stupid ideas, this has got to be the stupidest. Education is an important societal function. We can not abdicate it.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
What if there was some graphic that could be associated with this? Someone could set up a central website against anonymous reporting in general, that people would link the graphic to. Katz could tug on some of his contacts and get it in the media. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think that this will fix everything, or that everyone will share the same level of outrage -- but if we can keep up the campaign against any corporation that gets this "bright idea", it will be more injurious to them than it's worth.
The most important thing in my mind is the graphic -- lots of people work against many other issues, but a central image is what seemed to bring unity to the Blue Ribbon campaign.
How about it? I'm not artist, so I shouldn't be the one to come up with the idea for the pic, but I'd be happy to help get the ball rolling, so drop me an email.
While there may be people within the corporation that have entered it from other channels, the security field is by and large comprised of ex-jocks and those that tried for other forms of authority (Police, Military) and either couldn't hack it, or were removed from their previous position of power.
Quoth Bart Simpson, "I've got my first taste of power, and I like it" (I'm not sure if this was the 'Hall Monitor' episode, or the 'Ride in a Cop Car' episode (Or if those were in fact the same one...constant Simpson re-runs...all blurring together...)). Anyways, the point is the same. The people you are trying to sway are the very people who, if you were a geek, made HS a living hell for you. Why should they behave differently now? They simply have more latitude to get away with it.
So if all the arguements in the world will fall on deaf ears(any accomodations they make being simply placatory while the actual service remains in place), then the way to combat it is to take the fight to other fronts. Protests, alerting other media sources, etc. Linking WAVE to a swastika should manage to draw enough attention to the issue, if enough people see it. So make the Tabloids work for us. They love something conrtoversial, and seeing Deborah Norville leading with the headline "Are our highschools producing the next Hitler Youth?" on Inside Edition may make the traditional media run with the story. Heaven knows they've done it before, and knowledge and exposure is the only way to combat this thing.
Well, enough ranting here, any other suggestions?
--sugarman--
You should have been talking to the customers of WAVE, to persuade them not to buy. As Pinkerton rightly pointed out, if you persuaded them not to do it, someone else would. It's the same reason why the war on drugs can't work: because jailing a drug dealer just creates a job opening.
-russ
p.s. too bad about wasting your time. You should study economics.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Mixing state involvement with education will have some perverse effects. In some cases, you may think those effects are worth it, in others you may not.
The issue is complicated, but for those interested in the argument that government-controlled, compulsory, tax-funded schooling is inherently wrong rather than only a matter of bad execution, you might be interested in the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, who take their cue from the phrase "separation of church and state" and in a sense for the same reasons.
Efforts like WAVE America expose the danger of trusting a bureaucracy to "care" for children in other than a cursory, bean-counting way. "Care" as euphemism, that is.
[Note: I am not endorsing -- nor do I agree with, so far as I know -- any or all religious beliefs of the founders of this organization. =) ]
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I hate to say it, but it's true. I really can't blame you, but you made the #1 error that Free Software advocates everywhere have been making for a long time.
You tried to argue ethics to a businessman. Eric Raymond pointed this out at one of his talks. While he was explaining how best to advocat Open Source, the same methods apply to arguing to businesses. "You have to learn how to convince someone who doesn't give a shit about ehtics." (I can't say that's an exact quote but it's close).
All they care about is the bottom line. ESR pointed out that the way to convince them to switch to Linux is to point out that it is better a better deal.
The Plinkerton group responded very predictably to ethical arguments. "If we don't do it, someone else will", and "We have put our company on the line, we can't pull out now. Instead let's change it to make it more pallatable."
The better thing would thave been to point out that there were more who fit the profile of 'dangerous' than didn't. They won't be happy. Advertisers aren't going to be very entheuastic about advertising through a company that is pissing off most of their target demographic. (ESR also pointed out that it's a good idea to throw in a couple of 'business' words:> )
Then there are the possible lawsuits. The Plinkertons are opening themselves up for major lawsuits if they persue this and ANYONE gets screwed over injustly. Admittedly those likely to to sue will be conspicuously absent from any school diciplinary action no matter the offense.
Arguments such as this are more likely to shake their confidence. Comparing them to Hitler isn't likely to convince them. After all they believe that facism is about hating Jews, not about controlling ideas. For that many marketing people actually study Hitler's technique, after all he was the most brilliant mass manipultor in recent history, and what is marketing besides mass manipulation.
There was nothing unpredictable in the meeting. Most 'geeks' are quite concerned with ethics, and have a rather finely developed sense of what is right and wrong.
What we generally fail to realize is that so do businessmen. It is just that their view of right and wrong is directly tied to how much money is made. After all, they have a "responsibility to the shareholders."
The first step in convincing a copratist is to learn to think like him, then construct arguments that will appeal to that sense. Remember, power and money seem to make up the ethical landscape in that world, and your arguments must show that.
If you want to point out ethics, point out that the target demographic feels this way, and will respond accordingly.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
"frequent physical fighting", member of the football team.
"increasing risk-taking behavior", wide receiver.
"detailed plans to commit acts of violence" given to them by the coach.
"announcing threats or plans for hurting others" 'we're gonna kill West High at the game!'
"enjoying hurting animals" 'I'm going after a buck this year!
"carrying a weapon" With my 30-.06!
So, most of my neighbors in Utah are dangerous people who should be tracked for life.
Best Slashdot Co
Jon, that Pinkerton does not want to scrap a profitable and potentially expanding project is not surprising. To think that they would pay attention to geeks and nerds is naive (at best). As a group, we have been consistently ignored.
However, the recourse seems obvious: spam! Imagine what is going to happen if a system receives thousands of provably false denunciations...
I even encourage geeks and nerds, goths and punks to launch a (nation-wide?) pre-emptive strike: if you are in high school, grab a list of all the jocks and football players and denounce them as punks, goths, malcontent, depressed, drug-addicted and violent characters. Throw in a few white-power/aryan nations jerks as well. Rat on your teachers. Report on your class president, on the Prom Queen, on the cheerleaders!!
Then, step back and watch in amazement as all these guys are dragged into detention by the principals.
How much money is Pinkerton going to lose over this? Ah, the sweet giant sucking sound of cash registers being emptied as more and more schools bail out of Wave... =)
Just my US$ 0.02, of course.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
It seems to me that a fundamental argument of Pinkerton's was flawed. Yes, there is an existing 'anonymous reporting culture' But the area this falls into is in the category of existing crimes or malfeasance of some kind, ie rape, abuse, et.c.
The extension of this into attempting to pre-empt criminal behaviour is what is so dangerous, and Jon Katz would have done well to draw that distinction. There is a world of difference between an anonymous phonecall to some relevant body about suspected child abuse, and an anonymous phonecall because a young adult is behaving 'differently'.
In fact, in this case, it would be possible to extend this particular example and say that with the likely psychological repercussions of abuse, it would be more likely victim would be reported to an organisation like Wave America than the perpetrator... So who's being protected then?
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While I can appreciate Jon's frustration about Pinkerton's apathy toward the points he raised, I have to say I'm not even slightly suprised that this was what happened. A sad fact of modern corporate culture is that they need to be ruthless in order to prosper - if the majority of companies are ruthless then their competitors also have to be ruthless to compete. And this is what breeds the amoral attitude that corporations have. They are required to make money for their shareholders, and this requires them to go for anything which can make money legally.
No, the real issue here is education. In recent years we have seen the culture of hysteria grow from the Weekly World News to encompass practically all mainstream media. People often aren't educated enough, or educated wrongly, and as such don't possess the necessary scepticism to see that the media is always biased towards getting a good story, whether it bears any relation to the real issues or not.
The trouble is, once the hysteria has set in it is almost impossible to stop. Rational arguments and facts have little impact, especially in a society where most of the populace lack the education to understand or apply them. The government, or whichever body is appropriate to the hysteria, is then forced to give in to this hysteria, since if they are up for election they require public support. This is probably one of the major failings of democracy, but the only real way around it is to have a well-educated populace who can consider issues rather than being force-fed opinions from the media.
Will this ever happen? Not for a long time in my opinion. Education is a slow process, and changes in society seem to be running ahead of people's ability to encompass and adapt to them. That's what we really need - the ability to adapt to new circumstances without holding back or fearing the future.
Pinkerton is a major company. They have not only devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars into developing this program, but they are also putting their company name behind it.
They are using this to break into a new area - an area where they can police (because they are a security company) without having to employ security guards. Where they can pass on information that they receive, regardless of the source, with no liability at all to them. Whatever service agreement they make with the school system will project them from any legal backlashes.
What it is going to end up taking is a court case - a court case where some poor kid (given the statistics) has had his or her life turned upside down and backwards by some anonymous report because he/she listens to NiN or Ministry, runs a counterstrike server at home, and realizes that black is cool cause it goes with *everything.*
And the above will only happen IF the PARENTS of that kid decide to back him/her and go to bat for them. Many parents are just as scared of the school system as the kid is -- or honestly believe what the school is telling them, because they dont understand their child's motivation either.
The worst part is that once again people are going to have to be hurt by something before they realize its bad - much like a toddler burning their hand on a stove to find out that its hot.
Just my 2 cents.
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First off, one needs to know what my situation was.
April of last year, I was told I had a brain tumor, specifically a Pilocytic Astrocytoma ( horrible spelling, sorry). Because of that tumor, my senior year had been hell, I couldn't get any work done, I'd sit in the bath at 3 am, wondering why my neck hurt. My junior year wasn't as bad. I had been put in the night school, because I wouldn't get out of bed before noon. I dropped out of that also.
I had been to a psychologist, psychiatrist and a chiropractor. I was given Prozac and a few other drugs, but nothing helped.
Everyone though I was crazy.
What would have happened to me if WAVE was in my school in my Junior year, when I was still in school? I had many signs that would warrant someone turning me in ( hence, why my parents took me to a Psychologist..).
I don't have an answer, but at least I know the question.
DanteAliegri.
-- What doesn't kill you hasn't tried hard enough.
As if extremists on school boards banning the teaching of evolution wasn't enough, this WAVE thing points out how important it is to check out what's going in local school boards. The local school board is one of the most ignored public decison making entities in the entire US system of government. This is where decisons like implementing WAVE are being made and affirmed. I think we all need to locate our school board reps and write them some letters expressing our concerns. Sitting in on the open meetings is a darned good idea too. Running for school board is another really good idea. In a lot of cities and counties, board members often run unopposed due to the overall lack of interest. Great place for a concenred geek looking to get into politics to start. At the same time, this lack of interest is dangerous. Decisons to implement programs like WAVE often happen without any attention being paid. We're lucky it got noticed this time. At the same time, we have an opportunity to make a real difference here. Due to the scale involved here, your input as a citizen has a big impact, and if you should decide to run, you might get elected. It'd be good to have some technically savvy people resident in these decision making bodies. It'd be even better to have level headed, analyical people making good decisons.