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More Bad News From The Hellmouth
Within minutes of Sunday's announcement that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is working with a threat-evaluation company to develop a computer program that helps school administrators spot dangerous students near the brink of violence, the e-mail began.
Although the new program was widely described in the mainstream media as a valuable tool for defusing violence, plenty of geeks and nerds -- especially younger ones -- knew better, and saw it in a different, perhaps wiser, context.
"It worries me a great deal, wrote The Hollow Man. "Can you make us heard about this? Voice our concerns? This tool will be making diversity a wrong, [and will be used] for alienating and ostracizing those who are different." Hollow Man described himself as a "very, very worried geek."
But he's also a smart one, and history is on the side of his well-founded fears.
Geek Profiling, the Post-Columbine nationwide American war on the culture and lifestyles of the different, the alienated, and the non-Normal, has climbed to another Orwellian level, thanks to a federal law enforcement agency and a threat-evaluation computer program.
After the Columbine High massacre, American educators, politicians and journalists concluded that guns, values or a twisted educational system weren't the problem. It was, especially, those geeks who were online a lot, who gamed, listened to the wrong music, wore the wrong clothes, rejected sports and other reigning social conventions, engaged in rebellious, defiant or "inappropriate" speech or dress.
Even though violence -- and fear of violence -- among the young has been declining sharply for years, media and political ignorance of kids, technology and culture has only deepened. The only demonstrable links in the recent spate of horrific school shootings - still a very rare occurrence - suggest that trouble arises when emotionally-disturbed adolescent white males gain access to guns. In the months after Columbine, however, there is no federal or nationwide program to help emotionally disturbed kids or to keep them away from lethal weapons.
The answer, most schools seem to have concluded, isn't examining their own structures, values or curriculum, but in enforcing widespread conformity. Stop dressing strangely, behaving individualistically, engaging in non-traditional recreation, or speaking honestly.
Now there is Mosaic-2000, with its promised ability to confidentially (read secretly) vet and rate potentially violent students on a scale of 1 to 10. It is not yet clear where this information will be stored or who, precisely, will have access to it or for how long. But it seems plausible that anonymous complaints, aberrant behavior or teacher hostility could be stored digitally in a student file for the rest of their lives.
Some administrators can't wait to test Mosaic-2000. One Ohio principal whose school is getting Mosaic-2000 told a newspaper that Mosaic's "immediate virtue would be in producing detailed documentation of its evaluation of a troubled student so that doubting parents could no longer challenge an administrator's judgement as too subjective." Now parents defending their dangerous kids will have the ATF and Mosaic to contend with as well as school bureaucrats.
Mosaic's programs, according to The New York Times, rely on carefully - worded questions about student behavior based on case histories of people who have turned violent. They're designed by Gavin de Becker Inc., a private security and software company in California (de Becker came to prominence garnering tons of publicity protecting Hollywood celebrities), and are intended to help officials discern a real threat amid varied outbursts, threats and warning signs. For the past 10 years, the company has tailored risk-assessment programs for special law-enforcement programs dealing with problems from domestic violence to terrorism.
This is an astounding elevation of the unthinking deployment of computer technology as a social -- and profit-making tool to make intuitive judgements in educational environments that often confound experts with years of training.
The Mosaic school program promises questions carefully crafted from case histories by 200 experts in law enforcement, psychiatry and other areas. It will include a variety of concerns beyond alarming talk, ranging from the availability of guns to reported abuse of domestic pets.
"I think it's a wonderful tool that has a great deal of potential, and I hope it's properly used by the schools," said Andrew Vita, associate director of field operations for the ATF, which has used the Mosaic approach to investigate abortion-clinic bombings.
Mosaic is also used by Yale University and federal courthouses to evaluate the potential for violence of individuals who make threats. None of the many media stories about Mosaic in the past few days even raised the question of why such a Draconian security program -- do we really want schools to be run like federal courthouses? -- would be deployed against schoolchildren at a time when violence among the young has dropped to its lowest levels in nearly half a century.
Don't hold your breath about that. Since it's simpler and more expedient to blame the Net and harmless subcultures like the Goths or computer games like "Doom" or TV shows like "South Park" for violence, schools have been granted what amounts to hunting licenses with few restrictions. Kids like Hollow Man have every right to be worried that they'll be punished for what they think, wear, say or do on weekends.
In any other context, a government-sponsored computer program offered by a law enforcement agency and a private security firm to enter school systems and track down certain types of students in schools would trigger howls of protest. As long as we're deploying Mosaic-2000, why stop at "potentially violent" oddballs? Why not get to the really dangerous people loose in schools, maybe programming Mosaic to hunt down and identify religious fanatics such as those who believe in the literal truth of the Bible and reject Darwin and evolution? Aren't they a threat to school science programs?
Will Mosaic be used to identify bullies who exclude, ridicule, beat up and harass kids who choose to be different, driving them into the fringes of school life?
Might it prove helpful in identifying oppressive and unimaginative educators who cling to antiquated curriculums and passive teaching environments, even though many of their brightest students have vastly more creative and stimulating lives online than they do in school?
What about social cliques that believe the most important part of their school year centers around parties where they drink themselves into oblivion and, afterwards, are prone to elevated rates of sexual assault and automobile accidents?
Or school administrators and guidance counselors who know so little about some of their students or the nature of their own schools that they are shocked and uncomprehending when some kids become severely disturbed or enraged, even sometimes to the point of stockpiling and using guns and bombs?
Hollow Man and most geeks and other know better. Mosaic 2000 is out to vet them, and others who dares to define themselves differently from the normal as defined by unknown people working for private firms and government agencies.
Federal law enforcement agencies and private, for profit security companies have no legal mandate or business in schools, deploying computer programs to compile information on kids.
Federal agencies like the ATF and DEA haven't been able to put much of a dent in gun or drug traffic. Why would anybody cede them the duty of sifting through the complex sociocultural world of high school?
Programs like Mosaic-2000 are another nightmare from the Hellmouth that school is for so many kids. They are an abdication of responsibility and a lame excuse for schools to seek out the often creative, individualistic, idiosyncratic and rebellious students with whom they have battled for eons, and who cause them so many problems.
Violence is almost never one of them.
Hey cool! We've got a new "minority group" to protect. The Geek-American Liberation League will be there when you need them, with placards and chanting.
Soon we'll have Geek-American Cultural Centers on campuses across America, where the Geek-Americans can paint their placards, lay out their leaflets, and plot rebellion.
Why do I think that this Katz guy is trying to apply his worn out Liberalism to a new "problem" mainly to breathe life into his aging dogma?
Damnit Jon, no "geek students" are "sounding the alarm". You have absolutely no idea about us or about our thought process. Please, STOP TRYING TO EXPLOIT US FOR FINANCIAL GAIN. Let the whole Columbine thing rest already. Stop rehashing it. Haven't you made enough money off of those dead students and their families yet?
This may be flamebait but...
I used to like some of what Jon Katz had to say. I would see his posts and see all of the anti-Katz posts and think that these people need to get over it and leave him alone. Lately though he seems stuck on his role as the self designated defender of the geek minority to the rest of the world.
Perhaps the persecution of the geek minority is actually an evolutionary advantage. Those who are popular and not prone to being picked on and alienated grow up being weak and unused to the harsh reality that his world can be. These geeks go through a trial by fire and in most instance become better people for it.
I suffered my fair share of abuse and ridicule and so I developed a tough skin. I learned to take the ridicule, laugh at it, and get on with my life. I think that this "save the geeks" crusade that Katz is on was interesting initially but has gone on far too long and has evolved into a waste of bandwidth, occasional christian bashing and some other fun.
Jon, get over it and start doing some realy writing!
Jon, the other day you were quick to stereo-type Christians into your own pigeon holes. Now you want to criticize others for doing the same within an indecently short period of time.
Give an apology first for the Christians before I'm even going to bother reading the full text of your posting.
I never could understand the people who criticised you, but I'm coming very close now to blocking your postings myself.
I have to agree to this response in part. Assuming the software comes in the form of a test taken by students, my guess is you can fake your way though it. I did this I don't know how many times in high school durring various social evaluation tests. The idea of such software seems flawed at a number of levels. My guess is they will implement the system, and violence will continue and the whole thing will get flushed.
Predicition is dificult, especially about the future! I would personally feel comforted if we could see the source of this future behavior predicting software. Without the source, how can anyone trust or properly interpret the results? The Mosaic 8-ball says, "The future is uncertain." Afterall, Garbage In - Garbage Out.
Three out of five of the voices in my head say it won't work.
If Jon keeps up his whining, the Holocaust survivors will be pitying us next.
What's a MYOB?
First off, just because you have a religious faith (of any sort) and may not believe in Darwinism, does not instantly make you a fanatic OR dangerous. And doesn't mean do you necessarily object to the teaching of the theory of evolution.
Okay, here goes:
1. Obtain dictionary
2. Look at definition of "sarcasm"
3. Read definition
4. Repeat as often as necessary
All better now?
ha ha.
(which is like a hoho but smaller.)
There always have been (and always will be, most likely) kids who are "different". Different isn't better or worse than the rest, it's just different. Judging Geeks to be morally superior to jocks (or vice versa) is just an application of one of many possible value systems. Creation of psych evaluations for high school systems was an almost inevitable consequence of the recent acts of violence in public schools. I haven't seen you mentioning that little of the violence has been committed by "Geeks", "Nerds" or whatever label you might want to use. Are you trying to milk that connection as part of some private agenda? Because I don't get it. Psych evaluations aren't designed to isolate the Geek freeks, they are intended to isolate the potentially violent, which is another thing altogether, I would hope. Not that it has much of a chance of succeeding.
Is this made by Microsoft? Anyway - this is the dumbest thing I have EVER heard of... Let's see... "Yes the 17yr old will be perfectly honest while filling in the questionnaire" Yeah right. Since they can't force you to answer correctly (since there shouldn't be a 'correct' answer) - I can't see what is to prevent a kid from just checking all the "A" answers or just filling in jibberish. I would have a ball with this... :) Seems like yet another waste of $$ and time for school administrators who need to get off their ass and start teaching... Anyone see the report a few nights ago about the school teachers having to buy school supplies out of their own pockets - America the Beautiful!!
It does??? I don't know whats up on your end but I linked to it quickly and freely.
... but weren't most teachers/instructors geeks? I mean, really. They care about knowledge and education, don't they? Isn't that a geek, more or less? Sure, I suppose the Phys Ed guys are geek-jocks, or somesuch... but the core academia in a high school cares about knowledge. I know that teachers aren't in it for the money! Of course, give an adolescent geek ten years and they'll become a cog in the machine just like everyone else. You can't escape the fact that money rules the world. -syn
I have a suspicion that this Mosaic 2000 tool will end up being remarkably similar to the Minnesota Multiphasic test that was used before. It will consist of several questions that when taken out of context and bunched with other questions will lead to alarming results. All the Minnesota Multiphasic did was to tell you how much like a Minnesota farmer you are (do you like mannish women?). All the mosaic 2000 test is going to do is (if you answer truthfully) how much like their idea of a dangerous person you are (Do you neighbors think of you a quiet person?). What they probably don't realize is that the people who would be the biggest threat are also those who are smart enough to blend in with the crowd. Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Right about that. I was at a High School journalism conference once and there was discussion about dealing with the administration and contreversial stories. My school was lucky though. Unless it constitute slander, the students had full reign over what to print. We criticized the administration EVERY ISSUE.
Geeks are just as bad about folks "different" from the norm.
See yesterday's post about Phish to see a whole bunch of geeks jumping to conclusions about "dirty hippies", what cars they drive, and how the only thing on their mind is their next hit of acid. Really open-minded posts there (*sarcasm*)
Before you start slamming the powers that be, take a look at yourself and ask why you can justify slamming them when you're just as bad. The answer is actually painfully simple: you're just not in power.
Hack at the root, not at the leaves
Why is it that =Mosaic= is said to be trying to profit from this mess but Katz isn't? Katz has got so much journalistic mileage - if he can be said to be a journalist and not a babbler or scribbler - out of this that his bona fides are suspect when he shouts `Profiteering off geeks'.
In any case, anyone bright enough to be a geek knows enough to lie on tests like these. It's much the same as throwing the results of your IQ test to make sure you're seen as an overachiever.
Obey, conform, and respect authority. No just kidding. By obeying ridiculous regulations you are agreeing to them as well as agreeing to their legitimacy as authority. Widespread disobedience will allow the community to be shaped to a more inhabitable place.
If someone tells you that you have to take a Mosaic 2000 test tell them to fuck off.
My personal guiding rules that deal with interaction in society are:
1. When with a crowd or someone else, bother no one.
2. If someone bothers you ask him to stop.
3. If he does not stop, take physical action.
Simple and logical.
This has "most humorous faux pas of the day" written all over it.. Come on, folx, use the preview button!
Open mouth, insert foot.
Well when I was in highschool I wore a long black trenchcoat, listened to industrial and was generally pissed off at the world. I've settled down since then, take a more relaxed view. I think the key point is what they do with this information.. At my school they had the school shrink interview the 'odd' ones, fairly harmless. I think if they just used this software to perhaps 'help' the individual in question. Of course one key question is if the person needs helping.. While there are plenty of weird harmless geeks, there are also many I've met who do hate the world, themselves, carry all sorts of weapons and tend to be general bad-asses just so no one will bother them.. A few of them could use a helping hand..
this is the most informative response I've seen. He actually did some research about what he was talking about, unlike Mr. Katz.
Funny thing is, Mr. Katz gets to post his knee jerk don't know what the hell he's talking about didn't research the subject articles here...
Moderate this one up, boys. He's got a lot of good points.
It is worth noting that this is more of a Brave New World kind of thing, rather than 1984. You've got people being pidgeonholed (Alpha, Beta, Delta Gamma/Gifted, 'Normal', Troubled), you got psychological and chemical treatments (Soma, Prozac) Etc. I'm sure many people have made similar comparisons.
Remember, it's a lot easier to view the holes in a badly- designed system than to design a good system. If Mr. Katz coul come up with a good system, would he be here, or out earning a Nobel?
People wanting to find out more about how the particular school interviewed acts in regards to handling privacy and safety issues may want to check out the following article from the local press: http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli.pl?DBL IST=cd99&DOCNUM=20898
The problem is with the people that we choose as school administrators and the biases that they as people bring to the adminstrative decisions that they make. As an example, after I was expelled from high school (ostensibly for excessive absenteeism, but actually for vocal & persuasive philosophical dissent and persistent 'pain-in-the-assishness'), I had a conversation with my school's assistant principal about my college plans. His comment was, "Oh. You'll be going to community college?"
In his worldview, universities & private colleges were for people who played by the rules (which implicitly meant even holding the attitudes and beliefs that one is 'supposed to'). There was no room in his mind that someone who eschewed his values and had been officially invalidated as a person by his institution could possibly succeed in a traditional sense!
An administrator like this is going to bring these biases to *any* aspect of, or tool employed in, their job. Just as they learn to subtly influence the career matching software they employ (by filtering the answer to every question through the lens of their beliefs about a student -- "he/she obviously doesn't really like this/that"), they will learn to subtly influence Mosaic ("hmm ... this student obviously does feel extreme hatred toward his peers -- he doesn't dress like them!"). The answer to every question that is open to interpretation in any way will be thus influenced.
Personally, I'm far more concerned that in the US our schools function as cookie-cutter, 'worker-drone' factories where critical thinking is seen as an aberrant behavior to be repressed rather than a valuable skill to be taught & cultivated, than by any particlar tool that gets employed in the process. The problem is not the tool, it's the operator!
Well... The first two specifically say "criminal [case, prosecution]" since there's no legal proceedings before a recognized court, these will pretty much get swept under the carpet. I suppose you could try and make the argument that the school administration has assumed some aspects of a judicial system. But as someone pointed out, attending school is voluntary. Don't like it? Don't go. Get a GED and go to a junior college. You'll get a better education, and have more fun.
Consider this... A "full time" HS education has you in class from 8am until 3pm, followed by compulsory homework until you have just a few hours of your life left. A "full time" college education has you in class from say 9am until lunch, followed by maybe a afternoon lab two days a week. Don't like listening to your old man rant at dinner? Sign up for that evening programming class. :-)
This obviously isn't for everybody. You need a certain amount of maturity and dicipline. There's still homework... a "D" is a failing grade, and college transcripts (report cards), unlike high school, tend to follow you for life. College professors don't like to listen to excuses, and most often don't. Make them mad, and they just toss you out of class. Don't bother whining, nobody's listening. You're there because you want to be. I might add, that fact makes college a bit of a rush. FREEDOM!
Of course if everybody dropped out of high school at 16 and went to JC, the teacher's unions would lobby to get the law changed so you couldn't. :-(
As for the first amendment, you'd need to prove that they were interfering with free speech, or the establishment of a religion, etc..., etc... Good luck.
ACI would love to actualy get a copy of this program and pass it around see what it actualy does and what exactly its looking for so we dont have to rely on these vague descriptions of it...
"Uh-oh.... two independant thought alarms in one day."
or just not read the comments anymore. Anyone know where on the 'net the intelligent discussions have migrated to?
It has been over six months since the incident and I have not heard one official statement of the motive or even the trigger. We also have anectdotal evidence that would seem to indicate that a few percent in every high school are seen as people who could snap.
So now we have the ATF spending millions from their budget (likely they'll get a nice bump from congress to reward their forward thinking) to create a profiling program. This is bad beyond imagination.
If you are supplying such a system, you have got to make sure it catches all but the weirdest of cases. If Buffy, the class president and homecoming queen, snaps and kills... who could have seen that coming. We live in litigeous society and when the ATF is sued for not catching an "obvious" case, they are going to shift the blame and sue the supplier. If I were creating this I would be damn sure I was using a huge net. I'd probably identify 10% to 20% of the student body as having high threat profiles. Why not?
We need to create special schools. Those who do not fit in can see a phychiatrist for half the day and spend the rest in special classes covering current trends in fashion, music, and entertainment. On graduation, they'll be rewarded with a pair of baggy jeans and a gift certificate to the Gap. Don't give up on these people, the individual can be subverted and brought back into the fold. In most cases the American high school is enough to accomplish this task, but in rare circumstances we must take additional steps. Send your donations to...
What the hell is the Bureau of ALCOHOL TOBACCO AND FIREARMS doing getting involved in this? Where does the name EVALUATING STUDENTS fit into the acronym BATF?
Tired of Katz? Then run, do not walk, away from slashdot. We, the posters, are what's keeping this leech alive. It is quite obvious that Rob and co. don't give two fucks if he pisses people off. Why? slashdot is owned by a corporation now: hits and click-throughs are what matter. Use technocrat instead: it's quiet over there, but only because everyone is here.
This is way of topic. but it is not. Ambiguity. What fun. Okay. The NYT currently gives out FREE subscriptions. Yes they are free. All you have to do is "create an account". This is the bait. Whoa cool I get the NYT online for FREE? How cool is that. But uh oh. What happens when you have to start PAYING for that account that is Free? In the coming months of perhaps the next couple of years its going to happen. And I really wish /. would stop using NYT. Think about it. You get a bazillion NYT accounts. The next logical step is to charge for your subscription on line. Even something low like 2 bucks a month. Its going to happen. I work for a company who is doing the same thing. Sure just create your free login. *COUGH COUGH* In a few months after our userbase grows a good bit more ( which it has. its been showing quite linear growth ) We are going to drop the bomb. My bosses said we will lose about 80% of our "Free Subscribers" But we should get a 20% return rate. Hmmn? Do some math now. A. The site gets about 300k Hits / Month. Thats some nice banner advertisement. And now we have about a 150K user database. Drop that even to just 20K people and we stand to Make about DOUBLE my salary / YEAR! Its crazy. I can tell you this is going to happen a lot. Be wary of the "Free Login" There is no OTHER reason to do it. Statistics my ARSE. They are out to make money. And they will. Just watch.
Tired of Katz? Then run, do not walk, away from slashdot. We, the posters, are what's keeping this leech alive. It is quite obvious that Rob and co. don't give two fucks if he pisses people off. Why? slashdot is owned by a corporation now: hits and click-throughs are what matter. Use technocrat instead: it's quiet over there, but only because everyone is here.
I fell into a number of these categories. Abusive parents (emotionally and physically). Chronic clinical depression (suicidal). Gifted intelligence. Weak physical strength. Socially outcast.
The depression caused a mental retardation effect, limiting my ability to think and remember. Ironically, my base intelligence was sufficiently high that I was still judged "gifted". Nobody noticed the retardation effect.
Eventually, after I failed out of college, my parents had me tested. Far more involved and thorough testing than what this software crap they're currently shoveling will do. Those tests picked up my depression. In much the same way a person with an "I microsoft" T-shirt stands out at a linux convention.
I was treated. I spent over 12 years in therapy. And I have to tell you, psychopharmaceuticals are great stuff.
What concerns me is not this test. Properly arranged, it could very easily pick up problem cases like my own.
What concerns me is the band-aid fixes that school administrators will apply to these cases. School guidance counselors, and school administrators, are not equipped to deal with kids that have been psychologically tortured to the point of breaking. THEIR BAND-AID SLAP-AND-DASH QUICK-FIXES ARE MORE LIKELY TO PUSH KIDS OVER THE EDGE THAN TO HELP THEM.
As for guns: You guys are far to focused on them. Poisons are available over the counter everywhere. Explosives are trivial to create. Cars make excellent weapons. Knives. Glass in a pinch. Rope. They are all options. If someone truly means to do some damage, you are not going to be able to prevent them from arming themselves.
As I said: I was suicidal. Right on the edge for far, Far, FAR too long a time. And if I had killed myself, I have to wonder, would I have let the people who tortured me live?
That and be a perfect candidate for political office.
When Timothy Leary went to prison on some drug charge they gave him a bunch of psych tests to determine what kind of a threat he was. Of course he had been a psych professor at Harvard and had written some or all of the test. Geeks should take it upon themselves to put up a "Hack Mosaic 2000" page that will have a bunch of strategies for making the program think you are the most pathetic of sheep when you are really an anarchist inside :). I could even see Cult of the Dead Cow producing a T-File about this. Geeks don't cower in the face of technology, they learn it and then screw it over! Note: This does not mean that you should go do anything violent, that would be in poor taste, however futzing with bizy bodied administrators is perfectly ok.
Honestly, looking at the profiles of the Columbine kids, either me and all of my friends would have been marked, or those two would have fallen through the cracks.
My best friend was a morphine addict, we were from mixed income brackets, one of my friends burned down his garage with a home made flame thrower. We were angry, wrote questionable stories and poetry, and between us logged months in juvie hall and mental institutions. We were link them, from the loud music, to the black trench coats, to speaking in forien languages in the hall (from French to Russian.)
I'm sure there are a lot of kids like us. Although only some of us didn't go on to college, and some are doing better than others, we all went on to lead productive lives with no serious jail time and relatively few addictions (mostly niccotine and alcohol.)
My point is that if the computer would have caught the kids who shot up thier school, it would have caught a lot of other kids. If it didn't catch us, it wouldn't have caught those kids in Colorado. After all, it would have been an amazing program to distinguish us from them.
...more dark sarcasm in the classroom...
Katz has a bug up his ass about technology? Surely not. This credits him with enough intelligence to a) locate his ass and b) shove something up there. When it's broken down like this, you can see the absurdity, surely?
Because he doesn't know shit?
NCSA should sue Netscape over IP theft, and the Open Source(tm) community should commemerate the theft and closing of the Mosaic source by boycotting Netscape. (but that's another rant)
Is this Mosaic as in the web-browser? I could just see it now, you look at slashdot and a bell goes off and magically a red light flashes above the monitor.
I beleive that the government is too stupid to realize some important facts. Black people are not special and do not need special protection, much like white people don't need it. No body need special protection because they are "minority." But...people have protection, special rights, and yet a "majority" kid who acts funny gets put through hell for being different, while some "minority" kids sit in the back of the bus smoking pot and nothing happens.
My 1/1e-999999999 of a cent
Ah yes. Now we're defending the rights of "Goth-Americans", and anybody else who chooses to adopt a fashion and flaunt it.
Soon people who glare unkindly at the fellow who sits at the front of the bus and picks his nose will be jailed for discriminating against "Nosepicker-Americans."
Lifestyles, lifestyles. We've gotta celebrate diversity. Etc.
Its my recollection that lots of companies give psych tests to screen possible employees for jobs they would be good at, and if they would be good employees. There was some controversy in the 80's over this, but I think that the tests are still legal to give.
This Mosaic test seems to be in the similar vein but obviously aimed at determining violence a person might be capable of.
The group that is probably the most excited about this are lawyers. They are just waiting for some poor kid to be wrongly profiled so they can launch a big lawsuit.
The group that should be the most insulted by this should be teachers. It is another example of trying to replace a teacher with software. I'm sure that some envision the future of the teacher as nothing more than programming computers to deliver the curiculum.
We won't be able to stop the intial testing, but when they fire it up and it prints out the football teams roster, the whole experiment will be short lived.
Will they also profile the teachers? They might consider the Post Office as a client.
The idea of mass conformity as a solution to the violence problem is misguided. Not being able, or not wanting to conform and feeling as if they were on the outside is what precipitates much of the violence. Forcing more conformity will make it much worse. Who has the bigger problem, kids who can't or won't conform, or the kids who can't cope with the ones who don't.
Vive le difference.
Ummm, you guys ever heard of an expert system? Expert systems take the knowledge of experts in a field and sort of combine their knowledge into a computer program. If executed properly, the expert system will perform on par with the experts, and considerably better than non-experts who are in the field.
Why would you believe that for some reason a psychologist can ask a child questions and determine whether the child is violent, and a computer cannot? Computers cannot replace psychologists, but they can be a tool, recreating the actions of a trained mental health-care professional in a well-defined task.
Furthermore, everyone has taken all sorts of standardized tests, to determine everything from intelligence to personality types. Do we somehow have an intrinsic distrust of IQ tests? Mosaic appears to be exactly the same sort of thing, applied to a different domain.
I'm not sure what planet Katz is on, but sure as hell ain't this one.
wouldn't hesitate either. I'm not even supposed to be posting this Slashdot comment; no "web forums". Telneting is 'disabled'. Kids are watched whatever they do. And our school doesn't even have that many problems. If our school deploys Mosaic, I'll be the first to score '11', and then edit the internal records :)
Resistance is futile.
Mosaic is just a standard psych exam. They've been around for years, and I would think that making it a computer program (the results of which computer-illiterate school administrators cannot understand; for proof of this, I'll let you talk to a friend who works for a school system's IT dept.) would actually make it safer, since they can no longer fudge written results to fit their theories. The problem is the administrator themselves. They cannot be trusted to responsibly use the test. They will use it as a weapon against "alternative students", as they were referred to in our system. So the real question becomes, what happens when this tool becomes abused? Mosaic will scream their incomplicity; "We only meant it to be used in cases where threats had been made." The administrator will bury the results, claiming that Mosaic had only been a contributing factor. And the victim of profiling? Blacklisted for life, because any legal action shows up in your file, which is then passed on to any interested parties. So nothing will change because of this test, except that the initial costs of playing the "profiling game" will drop dramatically, and the marginal costs even more so. It will be far easier to pigeonhole students that pose a threat to administrators, and therein lies the true problem with this system - not Mosaic, but those who would abuse it.
is here.
Moderate this up, please. It is somewhat profound...
In middle school and highschool, I had to do drug testing. My parents requested the school to preform the tests. The reason why they wanted the tests done was because of a church guide to kids and drugs. I fit a bunch of the "profiled" drug kid descriptions in the guide. I dressed in black, wore long sleeves(hide needle marks?), like to be alone, pale skin, and extreme weight (skinny in my case). Never mind that the drug tests were Always negative, I still had to take the tests for 7 years! It gave me a bad reputation and lowered my self esteem because I felt like nobody believed me. What good is being a straight A student when everyone thinks you're the drug queen of the school? After being profiled, I had to work doubly hard to win teachers over to me. There's no way they are going to be able to keep quiet the results for every student. Teachers gossip with each other. This profiling is just going to lead to more stress for more kids.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Give me the questions and tell me how you want the point system to be done and I can make a mosaic clone for free under the gpl. No need to pay gavin de pecker for something I can make in 10 minutes with perl for free right?
I've took a lot of personality and aptitude tests back in high school and I've come to realize one thing. If you are smart enough you can 'fool' the test. Once I wanted to be a journalist like Peter Arnett (this was during Desert Shield/Storm time) so when my career counselor gave me an aptitude battery to fill out, I answered all the media and communications questions with 'very desirable'. Lo and behold when the test was scored, journalist/reporter was at the top of my list as a career choice. I knew that I could determine the results of a test by determining the subtext of the question. If any geek has been required to take the Mosaic-2000 test and there's a question like 'Do you feel the need to use violence to solve your problems with other people?' Say NEVER! (I'll bet almost everyone reading this has felt the urge to strangle someone who makes a wisecrack at your expense). Tests like these are based solely on the truthfulness and perception-of-self of the test subject. If there's a leading question that might mark you as an 'undesirable', put the politically-correct answer (no, I have never felt like nuking the football team). It's as simple as that. How the heck are they going to verify your answers anyway? Call your mother? (Um, hello Ms. Johnson? the school needs a complete inventory of your son's music/CD collection and a list of his current video game preferences, please fax ... also include some photographs of his clothing). If I was back in high school (God forbid I go through that again) I wouldn't worry one iota.
"List 10 practical steps that a school could take to guard against this violence." 1. If a teacher chooses to be discretely armed, let him/her. If some thug - violating a whole host of laws and morals - enters school and starts killing then only immediate solution to the immediate problem is for a teacher, exercising the _right_ to be responsibly armed in the interest of protecting innocent life, to shoot the attacker and immediately stop him from killing more. This whole "gun-free zone" nonsense has created a building full of potential targets, and murderous thugs know that _nobody_ will stop them. Other countries, facing similar problems, armed the teachers and promptly stopped all attacks. And no, an otherwise normal teacher is not going to suddenly become seized by demons and start slaying everyone in sight just because there's a handgun under his/her jacket. M-2K is about as useful as "restraining orders" for domestic abouse (i.e. virtually worthless). There always has and always will be some people who will turn violent and have means to act violently; responsible innocents MUST have the option of fighting back to promptly stop the violence.
Whoa there. The crux of the problem is contained within this statement. The two nuts who pulled the triggers are the only people responsible for the Columbine tragedy. In a society where no one is expected to take personal responsibility for their own actions, what was to stop them?
Hmmm. Vicious cycle, n'est pas?
Dude, you forgot the part about stealing the Harrier and strafing the school...
The concern is not one of test accuracy, solely.
Even if the testing is perfectly accurate, its not the results themselves that are the problem. It is the very likely misinterpretation and misuse of them.
You have list three categories, which I suspect are quite correct. I also suspect that that, at best, only two and more likely only one will be truly recognized. BUT all three will get the same treatment. And this will likely cause far more problems than it will ever solve.
So, it is a Good Idea but only if The Right Thing is done. Schools are run by pointy-hairs. Chances of The Right Thing getting done? Appoximately Zero.
There was a yearly ceremony called "Nerd Day" during which the entire student body was encouraged to come to school dressed in their nerdy worst in order to make fun of the nerd lifestyle. An officially sanctioned fun time was had by all that were "normal" at the expense of the geeks and freaks who mostly spent that day in their computer room playing demonic fantasy role playing and violent multiplayer computer games. One day, a teacher at this fine institution of mid-level learning wrote a modest proposal of a letter to the local newspaper suggesting that "Nerd Day" was not much different than having a "Nigger Day" whereupon all the white folk should be encouraged to come in and dress their homey best and consume vast quantities of watermelon and fried chicken. As usual, the point was completely lost and he was instead accused of racism and nearly lost his job.
Nothing much changes. I remember the time when I excitedly told my few friends how my brother the physicist grad student had instructed me as to how nuclear weapons worked and by a game of telephone this little story propagated to the principal who then claimed I had threatened to blow up the school. Mind you, blowing up this school system might not have been an entirely bad thing given that we later learned that the principal and one of the science teachers had a shared interest in pedophilia and one day some fine young lads found some photos of our art teacher showing off some ahem creative uses for paint brushes, but that's not the thrust of this story. I shudder at what a bunch of monkey boy ignorami would do with such software and I fear for the kids.
"Do you like pink flowers?"
they asked:
"Do you want to kill your teacher?"
Surprisingly people often answer very truthfully.
This assumes that it is accurate. When I was in High School, I probably would have scored high on the Mosaic test. Why -- because I was a ticking time-bomb. I had a father who beat me at the drop of a hat or less. He once broke my arm. By high school, the beating had stopped and I repressed the memories.
By luck, I never exploded, but I could have used some counseling. It would have averted the troubled decades when I was still seething. I finally have recovered the memories and have counseling.
Note: In spite of this I have a happy family, two well adjusted grown kids, and a successful if checkered career in science and computer engineering.
Unfortuanately children are not afford the same rights or responsibilities as other citizens. Also remember the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law..." and the this is transfered (can't remember the term) to the states, and perhaps some other Federal bodies. I am not sure though doubt it applies to schools. As far as items like due process: detention is essentially being incarcerated agaisnt one's will on the whim of a teacher. Certainly no "due process." Additionally, not bearing witness agaisnt oneself is a crime in school - that is you can be punished for it. Generally speaking, the Supreme Court has not upheld the rights of students (see opinions on dress codes for instance) and why would Congress or State Legislator's care - after all children do not have the right to vote. The right to public assembly has been a joke for a long time, as has freedom of speech. Try hanging out in the hallways between classes or publishing an "Anit-American" viewpoint in the school paper. Of course, this doesn't get to the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem lies in our societies lack of ability to take personal responsibility for anything. In this mad rush to blame someone, we end up making a large number of mistakes. There are of course many many other problems with our society but I will not rant here. Rather I will cut to my point: Hold "children" fully legally responsible for their actions. The problem with not holding them fully responsible is that you end up with reactionary laws. Example: curfews. Essentially that means that the innocent get punished and the guilty probably continue to break the law. Another example, applying to society in general: gun control. Plus crypto, etc. Criminals will find these things without regard for the law, making them difficult to get will not solve the crime problem. (Note that there may be actual benefits of some of these laws, though I doubt it.) "Citizens" under the age of 18 have lived in a police state in the United States for a considerable time, but the worse idea was presented by a very very insightful poster who indicated that the current state of schools will desensitize upcoming citizens to the stepping on of their rights. And American's are apathetic enough!
Scenario: The local dumbass pusher has decided that his bitch is too uppity, so he thinks to bring a gun. Two sub-scenarios progress from this:
- He remembers the guards and the metal detectors, and just skips school.
- He doesn't remember the guards and the metal detectors, and gets busted by Old Mr. McGregor. Maybe shoots the guard when the gun comes into contention.
In either case, the guards and metal detectors have made a difference.That said, I agree with most of what's been said about a generation of kids being raised as sheep. What's the alternative? Restricting gun ownership? That'll just end up disarming the people that would have been (previously) able to defend their homes and persons; and there'd be a supply of illegal guns for years to come, for all those that didn't comply with the restrictions.
I think it comes down to a cultural change - I enjoy violent games, television, etc. But I also recognize that I've become quite desensitized to violence along the way. Frankly, executing someone doesn't sound as bad as it might - and I do indeed attribute that to having seen such executions glorified every time I turned to an avenue of entertainment. How many mafia movies have you seen? Doesn't it look cool to kill someone? Look at the prestige that gained the killer.
Welcome to impressionability, and the new dynamic Morality.
you need a moving van.
As I understand there were at least 6-12 firearms laws broken and never enforced much less prosecuted in the Columbine shootings.
Well, as I understand it, they're not having much luck interrogating the two Columbine shooters, and they're not even agreeing that they understand they're Miranda rights.
Why'd you have to ruin an otherwise good post with uninformed speculation like this?
So... you believe that there's a strong correlation between violent offenses and playing AD&D? You just said that the system's going to try and match against the behaviors of past offenders; why is AD&D going to stand out as a predilection of offenders?
Well, let's look at me, shall we (the AC me, for obvious reasons):
... let's just say that I would have had a long list and a full appointment book.
;). By the time that I was out, I was able to deal with adulthood a lot more reasonably, and was thus able to cope. And I have been (less a grad degree) working ever since for myself.
1. product of a broken home
2. primary caregiver manic-depressive
3. suffered severe depression starting at age 13
4. moved several times as a child, few friends
5. one of two siblings gay, alcoholic (former, now)
6. other sibling alcoholic, cokehead (former, now)
7. very high IQ (tested 170+ several times)
8. unsettling scores on MMPI (twice)
9. liked heavy metal, was a skinhead
10. very interested in nuclear war
11. in trouble once for making homemade napalm
12. in trouble once for stealing a police car
I could go on.
I am now the owner of a company that does UNIX and general systems consulting. We have just under three dozen employees right now. I seem to be very well liked. The last time that I had an acrimonious exchange with a police officer was twenty years ago, and I am in my mid-30s.
Would I have been better off in jail? Under sedation? Under observation?
I don't think so. I was seriously bored and didn't have a damned thing to do. I was unhappy and alienated (normal for a teenager), just a lot more creative in finding things to do (i.e., unlike everyone else around here, I did not do all the drugs I could get my hands on and drive around loaded throwing bottles at black people walking home from work at midnight). I did not kiss ass, and this made me stand out. I enjoyed correcting teachers, and this made me stand out. I had interests outside of school (computers, such as they were at the time) and didn't hide the fact that I was incredibly bored the whole time. That made me stand out.
So, if the test was trolling for people outside of the norm, it would have nailed me right away. If it had been trolling for people who, say, had a broader definition of "fun," it would have nailed me. If it was trolling for people who at several points were in the planning stages of murder they were so pissed off, it would definitely have nailed me. And I can say with assurance that they would have probably put me away for a good, long time, because I was very pissed off.
And that would have prevented me from being a threat, as long as I was put away forever, because if I had ever gotten out
As it was, the fact that I was able to get a job from my parent's friends who thought that I was too bright to waste and spend my free time tending the mainframe and hanging out with senior defense contractor executives kept me sane, because I could actually hold a conversation with the 50+ year old men. I even got good at golf. That was what kept me generally out of trouble (the cop car is a different story, but I was just lucky there) until I could hit college, finish in two years, and get into the working world, where, for a few exiting years, I found that some parts of the US Government just love people like me and always seem to have lots for people like me to do. Or did, and then the wall came down and the business dried up
If I had not had rich parents with rich friends, I am sure that I would be in jail right now, or drunk somewhere, trying to slow my brain down. I have met myself in other people who are true wizards more than once, and they are even more twisted and angry now than I ever was.
Fact: IQ is a key distinction between people. Higher IQ generally makes you better (as it "the faster model").
Fact: Most people hate people who are different, especially if they are better. And they hate people who are smarter.
Fact: With more information, the smarter kids are going to start retaliating in really, really nasty ways. Things will get uglier.
The only thing that we can do it to try, each and every one of us, to get tracking by IQ back into the schools and to try to get all of these kids together someplace with better teachers. If you care for the future, this would be a good place to start. I have been doing this locally and have gotten decent corporate sponsorship for a lot of these programs. Try to do the same, just make sure that the barrier to entry is just IQ. Keep the geeks seperate and you will keep them alive and far less molested than they would be otherwise.
Tests like this are not a cure -- they are simply noting the symptoms. The cure is to keep the bright ones somewhere out of the way until they are old enought to fool everyone.
Schools aren't known for caring a whole lot about the constitution or the legality of what they're doing. For example, last spring I was 'indefinetly suspended' from school for allegedly threatening another student. What really happened, and this was verified by the other student and several other friends of mine and the other students was that we had a joke, where I would 'threaten' to "Gun you down like a Colorado schoolgirl" (I thought it was funny THEN.) and she would respond with something like 'I'll run you down like a deer in the headlights.' The adminstration found out about this, and I (the male agressor) was suspended. The other participant (susposedly a passive female) was not punished at all. If human beings can't tell, or refuse to acknowledge that we were joking, how could a computer program?
If this is what "most rational people" would agree with, then they are agreeing to complete, utter, and unmitigated horseshit.
Relative to thirty years ago, there is no "ease with which one can [sic] attain a gun today". In 1967 you could pay cash for a firearm and get it through mail order, no questions asked. In 1999 you have to endure the 20,000 local, state, and federal laws regulating the possession, sale, and transfer of firearms: age restrictions, background checks, waiting periods, licensing, and so forth.
In short, firearms have never been more difficult to obtain than they are today. This is not opinion; it is verifiable, objective fact.
Anyone suggesting otherwise is not serious about tackling in the problem and is only contributing to the status quo.
So by daring to point out that the emporer has no clothes, that the claims of "easy access to guns" are a farce and a fabrication, I'm "not serious about tackling the problem"?
You are a moron.
Myth.
Violent acts never "just happen." Violent acts are committed. They are committed by people who make the decision to commit them. You seem to suggest that the person is an irrelevant factor in the equation, that Mother Teresa and Bernard Goetz have equal chances of going on a shooting spree when subjected to the same stress.
It's a myth, and a dangerous one. There are differences between the person who finds his wife in bed with another man, and goes off to a bar to cry about it, and the person who gets cut off on the highway, chases the other driver for a hundred miles, drags him out of his car, and beats him to death.
To place blame instead on what happens to people, and ignore the choices they make on how to deal with what happens to them, is wrong and dangerous.
Well if it wasn't worth bitching about, then it certainly wasn't worth bitching about bitching about it. Which makes me wonder if it was worth bitching about bitching about bitching about it.
Katz, you really don't get it. Most /. readers normally realize this, but this time even the readers are off base. Mosaic 2000 is not about "technology" oppressing people. What Mosaic 2000 is about helping principals and guidance counsellors to identify children with emotional problems. It is analogous to offering a national training program for guidance councellors and principals to teach them to find emotionally disturbed children. This is not about irradicating individuality and creativity. It is about helping kids who need it. And until we know more, the public outcry you try to create Mr. Katz, is entirely unwarranted.
How is your stereotyping of all schools based on your personal experiences in any way different than someone saying "The violent kids today all play Doom, therefore all Doom players must be violent!"? You are saying "My school forced me to do shitty things that I didn't like..therefore all schools will do the same thing." Both of these statements are taking a single data point (or a very small subset of data) and extrapolating them to the world at large. Both of these statements are patently and unequivocably wrong.
I agree, you had 5 intelligent points to your original post, then you blew it with the speculation. Just because you are bitter doesn't excuse you from being called to the carpet on the exact same thing (stereotyping/profiling) that this thread seems to be up in arms about.
Ah, yes...the whole "Geeks are more intelligent/compassionate/articulate/sensitive then the jocks" line. What a farce! Wake up, by buying into the slashdot mentality that somehow you are part of a group that is better/smarter than the other you are no better than what you claim to be against.
Shame on you. *You* are part of the problem, not the solution.
That's Silicon American to you thankyouverymuch! www.geekpride.org Now more important than ever!
Is it some kind of Doom clone?
...If I were still in school, I'd be down in the admin office every day. Easy solution, "geeks" are smart, so homeschool. Draw out the smart stuff without the hassle of stupid people pulling down your class. Learn at your own pace, learn what you want to, and never have to put up with "normal" kids. Home schooling is a great way to learn, and it's legal in all 50 States, and in most other countries. Suggested Reading: Grace Llewellin, "Teenage Liberation Handbook"
The only thing the Nazis lacked was a GOOD database system. The Gestapo would have loved the idea of this program; make it ILLEGAL not to take the 'Good-Nazi-evaluation-test'; those which scored poorly would have compulsory RE-EDUCATION. ACHTUNG! You have been warned! Geeks will be shot!
earlier, you asked how children would be prepared for a police state by having armed guards in schools.
i think you oughta take a step back, find out where in your education you were taught that any of this bullshit was acceptable, and then extrapolate what that same kind of programming is doing to your precious kids.
you are setting them up. hope you enjoy the world you make.
-derek
As soon as this program identifies all of the schools precious football players, it will be shut down.
What's wrong with armed guards and metal detectors?
1. They make a potentially violent child think. Do you understand what would happen if a potentially violent child actually thought about killing everyone at school? 13 dead would be wishful thinking. 11 dead would wildly optimistic. Everyone dead would be probable. And it wouldn't even be necessary to give up your life or freedom to do it.
2. They make the students mad. I am serious. I have seen what I thought were average students enraged at the fact that, as usual, the actions of a few were damaging their education.
3. If you were not part of the problem, then you wouldn't say something like "What's wrong with metal detectors and guards?" If you were not part of the problem, you would drag your kids over to the computer, and have them read some of the horrible things violence at school brings about, instead of writing some lame post. (aside to my daughter: See, Jeanne, if someone says something stupid, it is your job to tell them so. Otherwise, they'll never learn.)
(It's hit #1 when you do a Google search for the word "psychopath", by the way :-)
The decrease is documented. Try locating the FBI Umiform crime report. I would say start at the DOJ or FBI website, but they don't seem to be available. Hmmm, I wonder what they're hiding....
The way profiling "works" is quite simple (and this is also the way this program works). You take your known criminals (or whatever specific group you're targeting). You study them by having them fill out questionnaires or whatever. And you make the assumption that whatever differences tend to show up between them and the general population are markers of criminality (or whatever characteristic you're targeting). Then when you look for criminals (or whatever specific group you're targeting) you can use these markers to weed out people that are unlikely to be in the target group.
My guess is also that Kiwi's accuracy estimates are too generous and so the problem is probably worse.
My guess (and it is a guess) is that more often than not it may even not even work so well to do what it is popularly thought to do best --catching killers by law enforcement (that is, I wonder what the hype to reality ratio is with this technique). I mean, sure, you may get an account of a retrofitted profile that seems to match the Unabomber described in the popular media after the arrest, but did the profiling do anything to catch him? Or you have the Olympic Park bombing and Richard Jewel. The guy got in trouble for one and only one reason, he fit a profile very well (like the pyromaniac who as a firefighter puts out the fires he sets he was supposed to be the mad bomber who likes to play the hero). Or take the killings in Yosemite Park. Law enforcement knew what type of person did those crimes so they had it pretty narrowed down to few suspects who, if I remember correctly, were in prison and therefore not a threat. Only as it happens they were wrong and the killer was on the loose and killed again.
Yeah, yeah yeah Give em hell, they really deserve. Evaluate people with computers!!! *snoort* I really hope for the americans that they get their gun laws and their highschools sorted out.
I am sorry I missed this yesterday... It strikes me that no matter how you look at this, good or bad as an individual incident. that it is actually very much in-line with the current mentality that if you don't like something just make a law or a "program" social or computer to weed it out. the only thing they are forgetting is that they will never be safe. ever. no-one will ever be safe from the world, nobody can escapre the inevitibility of humans thinking. nobody on this page has been made safe from this post or Katz's post, and even if they did ban free internet speech who's to stop me from writing on a scrap of paper, printing subversive thoughts out at work, or smearing them on the wall with my own blood. the point being that making laws about everything that comes along will never solve anything, and is about the most wastefull use of enery ever concived. We have to educate people to be concious, mature, deliberate thinkers to be able to cope with a chaotic and unpredicable world, trying to make it safe will never solve anything.
Comlumbine will serve as an tool to get people (parents) very afraid of all the wrong things. About christians and violent jocks: good points - they'll never use this software for that. Think about all the bias built into this crap; it makes me sick
The situation is getting scarier by the month. We are excusing all manner of nonsense.
People need to remember to protect their liberties. You can't trade them for safety.
Isn't ever school like this? I am a few years out of school and me and the close group of friends I had in high school still hang out a lot. We PRIDED ourselves on the fact that we DID NOT conform and in some cases that people were down right afraid of us. Me the computer geek who didn't look it, two of the largest "psychos" (granted they are a bit unstable, but arn't we all in our own little ways? ;-) ) in the school and a few others. None of us really fit in with the "in" crowd and we enjoyed it. This kind of thing scares me as, who knows what distinguishes someone from being on the verge of violence, and just not wanting to conform with the rest of the school "society"? I know I'd of wanted to give someone a good kick in the ass if they had tried to force me to conform to the way everyone else was. Life is about individuality and having a computer program to try to help determine who is and who isn't safe to have around doesn't seem like a good idea, especially if there is humans writing the program. No matter what anyone says humans can not be 100% objective all the time due to personal prefrence and experience.
As a recent high school student I can attest to the fact that profiling (of all kinds, not just geek) is an enormous problem in our nations public schools. However, the real problem with the Mosaic software to me is that it is another panacea created by frightened adults in an over-reaction to a few tragic events. If I'm not mistaken, there was a software package called mosaic that was used at my school which asked students questions to help them pick a career. As any student who has used this software can attest, it is completely worthless. I don't care how many technological advances or collaborations with psychologists a software package contains. The bottom line is that there will always be messed up kids who are beyond help. As for the kids who are troubled and can be helped, even if they are identified by software, I find it difficult to believe that a system that actively promotes the alienation of students who don't fall into a certain category can do much to help these students. If schools want to help troubled students, they need to start at ground level. While they can't do a whole lot with the fact that some teens have troubled home lives and suffer the effecs of other societal ills, they can offer support to ALL students. That is, even students with alternative views, interestes and talkents. Furthermore, school administrations need to take a stand against intolerance within the student body. What administrators may dismiss as simple teasing is actually disgusting harrasment which could escalate to tragic levels. In short, the existence of this software package will only give schools a false sense of security and avert scrutiny to the root causes which, of course, will still be festering. Only through additudinal changes and pro-active measures can we hope to effectively eliminate not only violence in schools, but many of the other problems that face young people.
Finding out which kids are emotionally disturbed isn't nearly the problem people make it out to be. Usually, someone knows. Shortly after my then 14-year old daughter attempted suicide two years ago, the state insurance covering her refused to pay for residential treatment. The hospital wanted to release her after 2 days with no follow-up plan at all. One social worker suggested to me that I quit work and stay home with her if I was worried - given that I'm a single mother whom doesn't receive child support, this was a pretty stupid suggestion - as if being homeless and ahving a depressed child was better than just having a depressed child. In addition to being very depressed, engaging in self-mutilation and suicide attempts, she was very hostile at the time as well and acted out violently sometimes. In order to get treatment for her, I had to turn over custody to the state. I have been a member of a number of parental groups and am sorry to report that this is not at all uncommon. Many of us have kids whom we're seriously worried about. Many of us have put in scores of hours calling agencies and participating in family therapy, IEP meetings, and insurance team meetings, and still can't get help for our kids. Most private insurance has severe limitations on psychiatric help, and qualifying for state insurance in most states is very difficult. I am nowhere near the first parent who's had to turn over custody of her child to get help - and it's unlikely that I'll be the last. I don't know why we have to go on a search for troubled kids when we don't help the ones we've already know about.
I'm Theo, my login isn't working right now, so I'm in on AC,
this might get kinda toasty, but these are my honest thoughts on the matter.
First off, for everyone who's complaining about constitutional rights,
How many times have we seen very bad things implemented by some corporation
or another, in lieu of some worse form of regulation?
I get the feeling that it may be about the same thing here.
And let's face it, just try to exercise your constitutional rights,
and they've got you as a violent dangerous person right there.
Second, before you go blaming us Christians,
look at all the people who are involved in putting this kind of thing in place.
Yes, there are some screaming for it, but there are probably just as many
who aren't part of a "moral majority" type group
(secular humanists, postmodernists, and left wing control freaks come to mind,
but there are others, I'm not just picking on you)
who want this kind of thing, either for malicious or misguided reasons.
Just get them thinking it's a big step towards their big
"mark of the beast" thing, and you can get some of the more extreme christians on your side.
Third, an idea for how to deal with all these people who want
monitoring of all these kids, filters in the public library PC's,
v-chips, movie ratings, and this mosaic bull...
These people who with one mouth say people need to be responsible for their own actions,
but with the other scream don't make us responsible for our own.
I say we go on the offensive and sue to have their children taken away;
that they are abdicating their parental responsibility by their constant
cries of "take care of our children!".
If they don't want to do the job of parenting, then they shouldn't be allowed to.
parting humorous shot:
maybe some people hated the south park movie not for the violence and swearing,
as much as it was a condemnation of their actions as morality cops.
(truthfully, without saddam waving around a phallus, and satan being a whiney co-dependant,
I could see some pro-family group endorsing that movie.)
Perhaps the real reason for a rise in violent acts across all sectors of society is that Americans as a whole are feeling disenfranchised. It is becomming clear that without access to 'China-gate' style influence buying, citizens can do little to affect their situation. In 'The Prince' Machiavelli wrote, "all the people ask is not to be opressed". He explains that when the citizens are prevented from going about their business freely (which includes getting an education free from invasive 'personality tests'), they tend to become unruly and it is difficult for the prince to maintain his position.
This thing will get worse before it gets better.
Do some research, don't blindly parrot what Katz is saying!
Read the web page, www.mosaic2000.com, hunt around, you'll see why your post is so stupid.
If you're given this test and told to take it, don't. I think that's a pretty simple solution. Just say no. People can only discriminate against you if you let them.
If you're given the test and told to run it, you are probably the principal of the school, you are definitely not a student.
If you choose not to, fine, you may get fired by the Board of Education, you may be liable if you failed to notice a violent student.
It is a tool, for administrators, to evaluate whether student who have made threats are dangerous.
It is not a test given to all students to flag the ones who need re-education, to turn shy computer loving geeks into football supporting sports loving simpletons.
If it were used to lock up potentially violent people, it would be wrong, but most posters are still stuck in "I'll lie on the test" mode.
Careful reading of the NYTimes article suggests that the Mosaic 2000 program is used to vet whether individuals who make threats have potential for violence. Nothing suggests that this tool will be used for random evaluation (like random drug testing) or targeted evaluation of individuals perceived to be weird, odd, or different. If making threats (i.e., telling a teacher "I'm gonna get you for this") is an essential part of being Geek, then maybe we do have something to fear here.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Good God, don't encourage him like that! This man speaks for nobody. He's not known for much besides half-baked philosophy and stealing ideas from previous Slashdot articles. He trivialises everything he touches by turning it into mindless hippie rebellion. The real world is a lot more complicated than Katz is willing to admit... this is a guy desperate to fight and weaken authority figures, but what he really wants is to replace them with himself. Even by _suggesting_, "Gee, Jon, looks like you're the voice of the disenfranchised geek!" you're empowering him in a seriously unhelpful way. HE IS NOT. He's just spouting off. If you want to hear the voices of disenfranchised geeks, TALK TO THEM. Not to Katz.
He's better known for calling for adults to sneak underage kids into R rated movies :P as for your suggestion, it's unrealistic. Adults do not establish the high school pecking order! Teenagers do that ALL BY THEMSELVES. I could see establishing 'havens' for subgroups that are picked on, the Chess Club or Computer Club etc. (and you'd damn well better be ready to include the Football Team in that, or you're a hypocrite- anyone thinking those jock kids are immune from insecurity is just stupid... they are human too, and they too are suffering adolescence) However, I've not seen Jon Katz implying any such thing- he seems to insist that you have to get all the teenagers to appreciate and celebrate each other, and that is ludicrous.
The obvious counterexample was Haight-Ashbury, which I don't think Jon dares to bring up- it is a powerful mystique that seems to give credence to his simplistic calls for unity, but what people overlook is that the heyday of Haight-Ashbury was predominantly tourist teenagers from suburbia, that the movers and shakers of it were manipulative hustlers, and that by 1970 it had disintegrated into streetfights and drug killings- something the modern teenager would find more comprehensible.
Not unity: diplomacy is what is needed today, the ability to negotiate between the various interests of the people involved in the war zone that is America. Jon is absolutely the worst person imaginable to be put into this role, because he is incapable of seeing past his illusory evil authority figures. What you're seeing, Jon, is badly frightened people, on both sides. If you understood that even for a second you might have a broader mind and be more capable of aiding the people you so dearly want to represent...
The problems are:
1) This is a politicized issue. Thus, it is unlikely that the test will be completely objective. A school in Dallas already considers wearing Marilyn Manson shirts to be a "warning sign," and I wouldn't be surprised if more things along those lines started happening.
2) Psychology is not 100% correct. If you violate the rights of even one person because of your psychological analysis, it's not worth it. In fact, it's possible that your labeling a non-violent person as "violent" and constantly reinforcing that they're sick and need to get help (when, in fact, they're not) could do more harm than good.
I personally listen to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, KMFDM (in fact, the two songs the Columbine kids quoted on their webpage are among my favorite KMFDM songs), Bad Religion, Ministry, and a host of other "bad influences." I enjoy playing Doom2 quite a bit, and Quake or Vigilante occasionally. I am fond of explosives (though I don't get much opportunity to experiment with them).
I wouldn't be surprised if one of these profiling tests (provided I answered it truthfully) considered me "violently inclined," even though that's about the furthest possible thing from my personality.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well since this is a computer program, it would presumably written by geeks if it actually works. Therefore you would think they may have coded it to make sure it does not flag geeks over jocks, despite what some unbalanced administrator feeds it. I would like to see what they think after their entire neanderathal (sp?) football team is marked as dangerous.
The government would be as well off to farm out the contract to Psychic Friends Network. Yessir.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I saw this thing on TV.
A person feels they might be in danger. In order to assess their real risk, they are put in front of the computer which then asks a series of questions about the suspect's behavior towards the potential victim. Based on this information, an expert system returns a value which tells the user how well-grounded their fear and anxiety is.
That's just one mode of the program. I'm sure they will set it up to question the suspect.
Both situations are frightening, because of the expert system involved. It's based entirely upon heuristics. In the case of school kids, the questions won't be "does this person own any weapons?", they will be "does this person ever play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons(tm)?"
The expert system is constructed to match behaviors of suspects to behaviors of past violent offenders. There are going to be a lot of false alarms.
--Threed
> as I said before, of the very well defined line
> between being a criminal and just being
> different. And you can always punish a
> guard for abusing his/her power.
Yes, tomorow when the gaurd first enters the
school you can, sure. Have you not noticed that
the most well defined "Line" today can easily
be "Nudged" tomorow?
The fear is this... today its armed gaurds at the
door. They watch the metal detector and get called
if there is a fight or gun.
Tomorow...well since we already HAVE the armed
gaurds and are paying them, lets expand their
duties a bit! Why not have them search for drugs
too.
You know they have been doing such a splended
job, and we have had no problems with the gaurds
...lets have them do all locker searches.
hmmm... this is working out great. Lets just give
them the power for random locker searches.
The problem here is that each day the line moves
a little farther. Its the nature of power, once
you put someone in a position of power, they want
more power.
Look at the government and our police. Every day
it seems the line between where they are allowed
to search without concent and where they arn't
seems to blur a little more.
Under current law, police can sieze your property,
money, car, etc without even charging you with
a crime, or worst...after you have been aquitted
of a crime! (its a civil case)
Where does the money go after they have auctioned
off your car? back to the police budget.
Do you think this came over night? It was numerous
years and differnt sucessive laws that made this
possible. First forfeiture laws. Then drug laws,
then finnally laws that let them forfeit more
easily in drug cases, etc.
Witha little research you will see that abuse of
this system is so rampant that some police
departments practiclly run themselves off intimidating drivers and "Forfeiting" their money
once the officer "Sees marijuna residue" on the
money (what that is exactly several people woulf
like to know)
Our society is slowly creeping towards a police
state. More and more laws. More and more power to
the police. Putting armed gaurds in schools
serves ONLY to further that agenda by
de-sensitising kids to it.
Lets take a little history quiz:
Name a program where little kids are "trained" by
men in uniform. They are taught all forms of
propaganda and lies about "The Enemy" and
encouraged to turn in ANYONE who they see
doing bad subersive things ESPECIALLY their
own parents (so we can get them help of course)?
A) Hitler Youth Program
B) The Dare Program
C) Both
Ill give you a hint...the answer is C.
But perhaps we think its right that the government
use children as spys against their own parents.
Maybe its good that we take children away from
parents, no matter how loving and fair, just
just because their kid caught them smoking a
joint. (Its happend, I have personally talked to
people who saw this happen first hand)
I don't see why now is the time to impliment
security in schools. As Mr Katz said, student
violence has actually reached its lowest levels
in many years. Obviously then something is being
done right in the absence of "Security". Why
not foster that?
If you really want "Security" then its simple.
Mandate mandatory firearms safty at a young age,
then let every kid and every teacher carry
guns to school.
A psychotic gunslinger wouldn't make it 5 feet if
people were armed. The simple fact people forget
is that guns are to people what Atom Bombs are to
nations. If everybody has them, then nobody
can use one, without immediate and deadly
retaliation (possibly from 3rd parties)
This owuld also have the effect of teaching kids
enough about guns in the safety course that they
would know how to handle one (thus loweing
the chance of gun related accidents)
-- Steve
1) Allow Faculty to conceal and carry. Yes normal
faculty should be able to carry concealed weapons
if they wish.
Think about it...if you and a friend were going
to "Go in" and shoot up a school...the first
target is any armed gaurds (if there are any).
If even 1 or 2 teachers in Columbine had a gun
with them, it could have been ended alot faster.
(not that there were many casualties considering
that it WAS a completly unarmed population...
deathtoll should have been, by all rights, more
on the order of 50 or 80, given the firepower
of the 2)
2) require psychiatric training of all teachers
I am not saying make them all psychologists...just
some basic training. Not too much more then it
should take to give the DSM IV a glance.
The reasoning for this is so that teachers can
learn to recognize dangerous patterns. Perhaps
this wont aid security too much, but it may help
them get help for some disturbed individuals who
slipped under normal "Radar" be gotten help.It
should also help advance those students who
cause trouble because they are bored and ready
for higher level of learning
(under the current system they are labeled
"Troublemakers" and sent off to slower classes)
hmmm ok so I have 2 steps so far...
-- Steve
With the rise of the internet and Geeks running these new companies, it is now ok, among many (but not all) people to be geek.
My proposal is to ask these successful, socially productive geeks, Who game, play doom, were different in school, and get profiled by M2k. I suspect that M2k (if it is as bad and dangerous as we say) will profile these socially productive geeks as being dangerous, and we can prove by example how dangerous M2k will be.
Chris
--
3rd Annual Atlanta Linux Showcase
-- www.primeharbor.com
In his scenerio (not unlikely), *EVERYTHING* is being done out of what is likely genuine concern and goodness. Yet, it's completely messed up.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Which wouldn't be so bad, except that there are a lot of bad laws out there.
Part of the problem is that we pay legislators to legislate. It's easier for a lawmaker to pass a new law than strike an old one off the books, and they need to be seen to be active to justify our votes. So they're always seeking new causes to legislate on.
Another part of the problem is that we're living through an era of rapid social and technological change. Most non-geeks don't like change; it disturbs and worries them. In times of change, societies are prone to waves of mass hysteria: and the hysteria usually focusses on some "out" group who can be blamed (conveniently) for society's ills. "If only they'd go away/behave/conform everything would be alright!"
(Do I need to explain this point in more depth?)
The mixture of surveillance technology with a public witch hunt driven by a moral panic is terrifying and without precedent. Over here -- in the UK -- it's being manifested in the shape of half a million surveillance cameras a year going up in public places, in police authorities installing camera systems with neural network based face-recognition software (to spot suspected offenders whenever they go out in public), in a Home Office obsessed with the idea of eliminating, not minimizing, obstacles to obtaining speedy convictions through the court process (such as jury trials, double jeopardy, the right to silence, and so on).
Sound familiar? It's the same mind set at work ...
As a kid, I enjoyed trying some of the experiments a TV scientist (Professor Heinz Wolff) came up with. My favourite has to be his first, the Great Egg Race. (Build a machine, out of nothing more than household items and powered by nothing more than a single rubber band, that can carry an egg safely, as fast & as far as possible.)
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)
However, he obviously wants feedback, so here it is:
I'm sorry, but I'm not impressed by Jon Katz take on this. "Troubled" kids can be identified, and often fall into one or more of the following:
In the first 3 categories, the parents need help. It's not the child's fault that their parents are messed-up, but what good does it do anyone, least of all the kid, if everyone else says "it's none of my business"? And how can do you anything, if you blind yourself to there being a problem?
In the next 4 categories (and there are probably a great many more like them), the kid needs help. Not counselling - ADHD isn't "bad behaviour" - but help as in appropriate teaching style & pace and a check-up by a COMPETENT pdoc. In short, the kid STILL doesn't need to be changed, it's their environment that's the problem.
In the last case, the OTHER kids might need some kind of treatment, to be more tolerent, as might some of the staff. As above, it's not the kid's fault, but it does NOBODY any good to neglect the fact that SOMETHING isn't working.
IMHO, this program approaches the problem with an Anti-Katz attitude - it blinds itself to the reality of the dynamics involved, as much as Katz has a tendancy to blind himself to the fact that sometimes action needs to be taken.
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)
I think it's important that there's a response to the issue. Jon's article may be a 'worst case' but it's not unreasonable.
My take on this is that it's a bad thing, but if we have to do it (calming the nerves of worried parents is a perfectly valid reason) then its better than many of the alternatives. I'd rather have a computer doing the initial finger pointing. A machine doesn't discriminate on anything other than what it 'sees.' People are far less objective.
Y'know, I bet its those Christians again. If the "self-proclaimed guardians of morality" would just stop harrassing the poor little geeks, then we wouldn't need these computer profiling tools.
We could have our freedom! Freedom to be different, to indulge our base instincts without any niggling voices telling us that we are humans, not animals! We could live, free from the cruel repressions of those who want us to love each other.
We could have world peace, or at least whirlled peas. We could stand up, hand in pasty hand, and share our victimization.
</sarcasm>
Jon: we are all victims sometimes. Do you know when we become victimized? When we define ourselves in terms of how we've been oppressed. It's time to get over it. Yeah, school sucks. So you do better for your kids than your parents did for you. IMNSHO, Homeschool. But you don't spend your whole life dwelling on a sucky circumstance that you can't do anything about.
Given your lack of identifiable geekiness, all I can figure is that you are trying for demagoguery with these "hellmouth" articles. The first one was good. The second half as good. The progression is geometric, or worse.
-- Slashdot sucks.
Are you completely insane?!? I don't care how many people they unjustifiably throw out of school, it's only a fraction of the tradgy of a dozen kids getting murdered!
I'm speechless... doumbfounded... agast that you would think something like that...I'm going to just presume that you weren't thinking too well when you said it.
Let me rephrase the question, then.
Suppose it's fifty years ago, and a town is paralyzed in fear--there's a serial rapist. He's found, he's black, he's lynched.
Only a truly cruel and crazed person would violate the town women in that manner--something must be done to make them feel secure--no, to make the town more secure. The remaining black families must be run out of town, or live in eternal fear.
Most are run out. Some stay. None feel secure.
What's more tragic, I ask you? The women who were raped by the insane, or the families that were exiled by the righteous victims?
These aren't idle questions. Stuff like this happened. In some places, it still happens.
There are no easy answers, Ky'dishar. That those victimized lash out and create victims anew is probably the most tragic flaw in human nature the world has ever known. It's awful to see innocent children die; it's more awful to see innocent children losing their innocence by culling their herds in an act of retribution. That intolerance and unjustified hate was both denounced and practiced by the same mob scares me more than the acts of two deluded students.
Respond, if you read this. I've actually been thinking about this alot lately.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
There is a tangible difference between teachers being taught the psychologies of youth and mentorship and a test being used to single out The Different as A Threat.
Filtering out the human touch in the name of increased efficiency is not the solution. One does not sooth psychic damage through machinery.
If you think about it, teachers don't exactly get much respect either. In some respects, they're even more tragic than the outcasts that get left unprotected.
Interesting how pretty much everyone in certain institutions is dehumanized to some degree...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
The circumstances of the relative evils are not what's at issue here.
It doesn't matter that Rape is less evil than Murder, nor that losing one's school is somehow less painful than losing one's home. Have you considered that a GED doesn't let you get into many universities?
While there is an aspect of the potential, bear in mind that there were immediate responses in both lynch mobs--otherwise innocents were scapegoated and exiled, on the will of those who were once innocents. The mob acted in revulsion and horror at the unthinking, inhuman way their brethren was treated; they proceded to treat Those Of The Enemy in the exact same unthinking and inhuman manner.
Do not look at this in terms of travesties of Justice. Look at it in terms of the human tragedy--the transfer of evil from those who committed grevious acts out of isolation or insanity to those who had neither.
Think of the kids growing up in Kosovo who want nothing else but to grow up and kill some Serbs. Purely potential, yes--but utterly tragic; possibly more tragic even than the murder of their parents.
Again, there are no easy answers. Maybe that's what bothers me about M2K so much.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I've been trying to bounce Mosaic-2000 around in my head for a while. After all, we're all screaming that Doom Does Not A Serial Killer Make, and neither does a penchant for trenchcoats. What if Katz is overreacting--what if this software program is really a way for knee-jerk bureaucrats to get their suspicions laughed at by an impartial analyzer? We know that expert systems used to diagnose heart attack systems can, in some circumstances, be even more effective than trained physicians at cross-referencing indications, contraindications, and other tasks necessary to come up--quickly--with an accurate solution.
So, if heart attacks can be diagnosed accurately, why not violent behavior?
After all, I may not be normal, but what do I have to hide? I'm not going to kill anyone.
Us good people don't have anything to fear.
Oh. I've heard that before, haven't I.
Framing Mosiac 2000 as anti-geek is myopic. A psychographic dragnet such as this is quite possibly the most disturbing concept I've heard in quite some time, and should be on the top ten lists of every privacy advocate in the country. Suppose the data compiled was absolutely accurate--a fallacy I will address later--suddenly, a complete profile of your identity has been compiled automatically. Your character type, your likely reactions to various forms of coercion, your fears, your dreams, an invaluable pantheon of knowledge about how to control you and how to react to you--all sitting in a file, based upon answers you were compelled to supply.
And that's if the data's accurate!
It's tough to not see Orwell when people keep using 1984 as a study guide.
Of course, the chances that such information might actually be accurate isn't exactly high. Yes, it's true that expert systems do wonderfully for heart attack victims. Heart Attack Victims don't usually intentionally lie about their symptoms--students do. What's so beautiful about it all is how natural it is:
A close friend of mine grew up ill, and because of the pain she saw her parents experience from her illness, she learned to mask that pain from them and the people around her. Children learn very quickly--there are expectations of you, you are to meet them not in terms of reality but in terms of perception.
Testers like Mosiac 2000, which cannot be written without an implicit bias towards a given desired social identity(non-violent passive, Mr. Orwell?), will quickly be seen as another overbearing set of expectations to fulfill. And children, masters of the art from birth, will learn to adapt to the tests, and "pass them" like any other standardized centrifuge of a test.
Not that this is easy, or without consequence. Shoving your self into a corner has a way of making you even more isolated, even more wrong. Or, of course, it's just another way to fuck the system that's trying to do the same to you. Either way, useless data.
But what of this semi-mythical test? How do we know that it doesn't really know what to ask?
The fact that it was apparently designed using Grade A Felon Material probably isn't a good thing. Reminds me alot of the controversy when some serious yahoos took feminism way too far and posted fliers across their university containing the photo of one guy with the words underneath: POTENTIAL RAPIST.
They picked the poor schmuck at random.
In a world where every student is a potential assassin, where the mob demands the right to psychoanalyze on penalty of exclusion, where everyone and everything must be open and analyzed and identical and conformant and not too much and not too little and nothing in between...is there any room for childhood?
For finding oneself?
How can you find yourself when the test already knows who you are?
What do you say to the kid who the test claims will kill his family?
Technology is a wonderful thing. Kids don't even need to grow up anymore; computers will do it for them.
Of course, it won't work, at first. There will be problems. There would be gnashing of teeth. But with time, the psychographic profiles of the kindergartners will be compared with their profiles when they finally grow up to their violent and sexual destinies, and the next generation of kindergartners will be more correctly controlled.
Who needs privacy. The babies are dying. You don't have privacy anyway, Mcnealy told me so, the babies are dying. You don't want the babies to die, do you? Are you a baby killer too?
No. I guess I grew up in time.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
RESIST!
RESIST!
Ok Jon, let me see if I get this straight:
It is NOT ok to blame access to the internet or quake or anything 'geek' for people going nuts.
It IS ok to blame access to guns for people going nuts.
Nope, doesn't make send to me.
This reminds me of an article I read in a teen magazine that comes with the local newspaper called "React". It had an article on a kid that decided to dye his hair 2 or 3 different types of colors to change his look and the school expelled him and would not let him return until he washed the color out saying that it was a sign of malacious behavior. He ended up transferring out of the school after taking them to court. My point is, if a kid dyes his hair as a way of saying "I'm going to do something bad(TM)" how is making him wash it out going to change his state of mind? I think it would just make him even more angry. BTW, that was actually a decent Katz article, even though everytime he references Hellmouth I bust a gut laughing. >:)
-- filgy
Unless, of course, you're a sociopath with a gift for seamlessly lying and telling people what they want to hear, in which case you'll slip under the radar unnoticed.
Geeks
Of the 'geek' types that I know they are not remotely depressed/opressed to the point that they wish to take up arms for their cause.Sure these people are pissed off that their inteligence and ability causes them to be outcasts but they are okay with it. These people have the intelligence to transend this sort of discrimation.
Goths
Of the 'goth' types that I know I see a common thread of 'Oh my god, everybody hates me, nobody loves, so I'm going off to school to kill everyone when high on drink and drugs that alter my perception of reality'. These people feel opressed. They feel descriminated against. They are prepared to 'fight the power/system' that causes the pain the percieve.
But by focusing in on sterotypes -- Geek/Goth/Jock/Nerd/Brain etc etc --we are no better than the powers that be who authorise and endorse the deployment of this sort of personality profilling.
Is personality profilling ever going to give us accurate results? I could kill my lover and get off with a few years in jail by claiming a crime of passion. I could storm in to the office of my 'pointy haired boss' and stab him and claim tempory insanity and get let off! If I have no history of violent behaviour and I do not fit into any 'profile' this could happen and frequently does!
So what am I saying? This sort of profiling does not work. We live in a diverse cultured socitity. We live in an age of information. Who can say what makes people commit these actions? No one can. Everyone can suggest actions that can contribute to actioning of violence but sometimes people just see red. Reason goes out of the window and violent acts just happen. Fact.
What can be done? I suppose that the only thing that can be done is generate a socitity that allows us to act individually without fear of oppression. But we are a long way from this while software such as this is permitted into our lives.
As a little a side - at sometime I will learn to spell!
Might this program be a violation of a few items from the Bill of Rights?
...nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;...
From the fifth amendment:
From the sixth amendment:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and 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, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Or, just maybe, the sacred first:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
What's everyone else's thoughts on this? Any lawyers out there care to comment?
Hows this for a solution... Instead of these warm and fuzzy non-solutions, why don't we as a society DEMAND that the law-enforcement enforce existing firearm laws on the books. As I understand there were at least 6-12 firearms laws broken and never enforced much less prosecuted in the Columbine shootings. If the law enforcement went after these firearm violations and tried to dry up the black market gun industry, the country would be a better place. I personally am a gun owner and am sick of all this call for new gun control laws and privacy invading laws. This Mosaic2000 is nothing more than same old non-solutions. Project Exile has drastically reduced the number of gun related crimes, and gotten a huge number of black market guns off the streets in Richmond. This initiative has been so successful that as I understand it's being rolled out statewide in Virginia.
All though when the fx of EU really kick in i'll probably have to move to norway or island or something!(
LINUX stands for: Linux Inux Nux Ux X
FRA: STFU GTFO
I don't think it was much of a mistake (certainly not worthy of bitching about).
It could be said that a software 'program' is different than a driver or something. When I think of 'program' or 'application' I think of a tool, versus stuff like drivers or underlying OS code that is never interacted with.
But guess what? It doesn't matter. Katz isn't critiquing the latest OS releases or pondering the best executable format.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
The talk of a "profiling system" reminds me of an exploit by Timothy Leary (as told by Robert Anton Wilson).
As Leary was rotting in a holding cell (having been busted for pot possession) in California, the state decided to administer a personality test to see where he belonged within their penal system.
The idiots in the Corrections Department issued him a test that he himself constructed.
So, he filled out all the answers that would lead the Powers That Be to think he was docile, complacement, looking for leadership, a born follower, etc. etc.
Once he was placed in minimum security for awhile, he escaped and high-tailed it for Switzerland.
Surely M2K could be mistreated as such, no? =-)
-----
".sig,
From the article....
./ community, who really doesn't want it. I don't like the idea of Mosaic2000 ('Lies, damn lies, and psychological exams') any more than the next geek, but let's talk about it honestly; good, bad, 'warts and all', and not just try to stroke the geek community.
>Why not get to the really dangerous people loose
>in schools, maybe programming Mosaic to hunt down
>and identify religious fanatics such as those who
>believe in the literal truth of the Bible and
>reject Darwin and evolution? Aren't they a threat
>to school science programs?
First off, just because you have a religious faith (of any sort) and may not believe in Darwinism, does not instantly make you a fanatic OR dangerous. And doesn't mean do you necessarily object to the teaching of the theory of evolution.
And teachers and school administration staff tend to be more liberal, not members of the religous right. And the one teacher I had in high school who WAS a dyed in the wool, born-again, Bible-thumping Christian, was my science teacher for 3 years, and we covered quite a lot of Darwin, and no Creationism, except in a few personal editiorials in private.
Second, this is nothing but bait. Due to the large reaction over the Kansas evolution, I get the idea that this is an attempt to influence readers using an already popular reference completely out of context. The school/evolution debate has NOTHING to do with Mosaic2000, and the idea that they are somehow related is wrong.
There is a lot of 'content free' information here. In this article we see the statement "The level of teen violence is at it's lowest point in years" (sic), yet we see no references or research. I'm not arguing the point, but it is NOT an accepted fact. We have one anonymous e-mailer that Jon mentions, quoted several times. What about the rest of the e-mails? Nothing quotable?
I once liked some of Jon's articles, but now I'm starting to view them as attempts at pandering to the
jf
Katzdot
Okay, then what? The last time I looked just because you have the potential to act violently or the profile in this case, doesn't make it a crime.
Okay, now that you've got the drop on the violente ones, then what? You watch them 24 hours a day? You race them in for therepy that is for thier own good?
Not only is this kind of bullshit not needed but it is down right unconsititutional. I think its like presumed inoccent until proven guilty. Fuck that! We can profile the bastard and get him now.
Last time I checked thinking evil thoughts isn't a crime. It's carrying them out that makes it a crime. Neon
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Okay, then what? The last time I looked just because you have the potential to act violently or the profile in this case, doesn't make it a crime.
Okay, now that you've got the drop on the violente ones, then what? You watch them 24 hours a day? You race them in for therepy that is for thier own good?
Not only is this kind of bullshit not needed but it is down right unconsititutional. I think its like presumed inoccent until proven guilty. Fuck that! We can profile the bastard and get him now.
Last time I checked thinking evil thoughts isn't a crime. It's carrying them out that makes it a crime.
Neon
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
...but if you subsitute 'postal worker' or 'boy scout troop leader' for 'student' and then make it a condition of employment or participation I imagine far fewer people would object. This is after all the era of 'protect me from everything and make my life risk and hassle free as long as everyone else but me is inconvenienced'. The first thing I'd do is create a course like the SAT prep course that teaches students how to fudge the at-risk test. Better yet pressure your local school board to offer something similar in the school itself under the banner of 'being a better citizen - 101': kids get one fewer real class to worry about and the school gets to hire another resource specialist. Heck they could even tie at-risk students to State and Federal funding for special education for learning disabled and physically challenged children. I can see it now, administering drug tests to children taking the at-risk exam to ensure that they're not too mediocre to falsely pass and then forcing them into taking Ritalin to ensure that they don't act out in class after flunking the exam. Better yet since you could defend the use of nothing but vague value judgments anyway, each locality could sprinkle their own version of the test with all sorts of religious, ethnic, language and cultural questions to marginalize whomever they want at will.
'Let a hundred flowers blossom' - Mao Tse Tung
BTW: It's the 2nd Ammendment that provides the right to bear arms. :) It doesn't effect the rest of your statement, but for everyone else's accuracy....
;)
;)
As for sugestions, I have a few.
First off, nobody can guarantee 100% saftey. Anyone who says they can is selling something. There will always be problems unless you know how to achieve utopia. As for the question you state, how much freedom am I willing to give up for saftey? None.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary saftey deserve neither liberty nor saftey." - Ben Franklin
It's often quoted, but do you really understand the point? Since nobody can provide a guarantee of saftey giving up liberty for it is stupid. It may work for a short time, but the criminals WILL find a way arround it. Then the price you paid becomes worthless. And then we go for another round where the government asks us to give up yet more freedom for saftey. Round and round we go... where does it end? For me, it ends here.
Now that I have been negative, I will offer potential soultions. I don't guarantee they will work, But you asked.
1) Remove the government monopoly on schooling.
In order for this to be effective you must also remove the tax burden for the people that is used to pay for it. The government schools can still exist, and they can be paid for by the people that use them just like the 'private' schools. For the needy, there are charitable organizations that can help there.
This would allow for competition in schooling. People could choose where they wanted thier kids to go to school. Kids that have special needs could go to a school that caters to those needs. "Gifted" kids can go to a school that has accelerated learning programs. etc..
2) End the failed War on Drugs.
It's a war we can't win. And we have only made the problem worse in fighting it. See the statistics for crime durring prohibition. Crime skyrockted, and fell back down after it was repealed. People also said that repaling it would mean we would have drunks running all over the place. Everyone would be wasted all the time, they said... it didn't happen. Alcoholism dropped. The Drug War is exactly the same thing as prohibition, it's just a different class of substance.
How would it help to end this for the school violence problem? In some areas there is a big problem with drug 'turf wars' and gangs. This extends into the schools at times. It also helps get the guns into the hands of children since there are so many kids with them allready. Ending the war would reduce crime across the board, and cut away the proffit from drugs. Gangs would have nothing to fight over, and most would not be able to afford the illegal guns and ammunition anymore. If you declare a war, is it any wonder there is shooting?
3) Lower the tax burden.
High taxes are a large part of the reason people have to have 2 incomes. If one parent could stay home with the children it would help restore the traditional "family unit" that everyone is so sad to see going the way of the dinosaur. The loss of family values is also blamed for the increase in school and kid violence/crime. So fix the problem. Lower taxes back to the point a single income will let people get by. They will have to decide for themselves, but I know a LOT of people that say one parrent would be home, if they could afford it. In most familys I know, the second income basicly pays the taxes. There is no excuse for this in a free nation. The colonies rebelled over far lower taxes then we now face to create this country. That should tell everyone something.
It should also be noted that school violence is dropping. I agree, one is too many. But if the trend is a decline, why mess with it? You acknowledge that nobody can guarentee saftey. We should keep a close eye one it, and make sure it stays that way. But if it's going down and government gets involved it will probably go back up. That's the track record government has throughout history.
The stuff I mentioned above would help a ton. In the mean time, we should be educating the people. Teach them to keep thier guns locked up so that kids can't steal them. Trigger/Action locks at a minimum. Get them to be parents and teach thier kids. There is no pancea, no quick fix. But maybe we can all get involved a little and make a long-term soultion to the problem. Without having to lose any freedoms either. It can be done, but are people willing to work at it? Time will tell. As you said, what price are you willing to pay? Is a little work worth it?
Travis
I read a book around age thirteen on the effects of radiation. Such as how many rads a scorpion could take before dying, the dosage that would cause human sterility, etc. You get the idea. It was mostly composed from documents from the military about nuclear testing. In one chapter it talked about some of the extranious info that they compiled. One was a document from a general or admiral, a higher up, that green plastic trash bags offer protection against radiation. Not black, or white, or beige, or brown, but only GREEN platic trash bags. This nugget of information has been the seed for all my skepticism about Reputable People Making Irreputable Decessions. FYI & most definitely off topic.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
As a thought experiment, lets suppose you have a school with metal detectors and guards. Lets further suppose you have decided to attempt to attack several students with automatic gun fire. THOUGHT EXPERIMENT!!! Chill! Now we assume you have access to automatic weapons and at least one accomplice. You now must get past metal detectors that are in a fixed location and are manned in a highly patterned way. How do you get through them? You don't, only an idiot would try to sneak a gun through a metal detector. Unless it is ceramic, which we will assume your weapons are not. Thus you use another entrance. Assuming they are locked in some form from the outside you have probly more than a dozen ways of sneaking them in. I of course can't list any as they would be very specific to the building and the usage patterns.
Personally, from an attackers point of view, metal detectors actually make a masacre situation easier to carry out by creating more "patterns in usage" which all tacticians love to take advantage of. You spinkle a few false positives that weeks before which hieghtens sensitivity, then have a day or two of normal opperation to take the administration into the trough of responsiveness. This coupled with the already false security afforded by the detectors would put the adminstration firmly behind the eight ball in responsiveness.
As for the security guards, this would also be highly dependant on patterns of usage. Do they walk the same predetermined patterns of the halls. What is the repsonse of calls for aid, fire alarms, etc. Do they carry guns? stun guns? billy clubs? pepper spray? Are they locally known in the community or hired thugs from outside? (This can highly effect the likelyhood of returning fire)
For the security guards I would use smoke bombs and lady-finger firecrackers to sow confusion. If they are trigger happy, they may end up killing more students in smokey hallways than the actually perpetrators. Tactical combat says to turn a negative into a positive, use the guards to your advantage.
As for all the other fire-code mandated exits that are possibly locked to prevent entrance, you now have multiple blind alleys to herd individuals into.
Now that I'm done scaring myself let me say my opinion is that metal detectors are bad. They harass good students by making it a wrong to bring metal to school. And as for the future shootists, they will boil until they find a way around the problem. Whereas without metal detectors good students aren't harassed. Bad students will come to school with knives and crowbars, but then you can identify them before they move up to hand guns and pipe bombs.
As for security guards it is much the same, good students WILL be harassed, there is nothing you can do to elimante that. And bad students will avoid them or use them to harass the good students. (Sneak a pound of Mary Jane into school and stuff it into lockers, bags, etc.)
Pretty much all parents and adminstration is saying is we can't solve the problem, so we will "Duck and Cover". Tommy the Turtle says. "Duck, and cover."
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
And OH MY! Convicts in jail will actually steal spoons, sharpen them and stab other inmates with the spoon. Cups of slurry to them from now on so everyone will be safe. Couldn't it be that this girl was just bad, as in evil, and would have killed with something else if the pocket knife wasn't available? What is up with the recent object fixations? If she only didn't have a knife? If they only didn't have ready access to automatic firearms? Don't you think there is a deeper problem that you are glossing over by focussing on the method instead of the perpatrator? Some people are just EVIL, you either can lock them away or change them, anything else is just treating symptoms.
"But why a spoon and not a knife?"-Sheriff of Knottingham
"Becuase it would hurt more!"-False King John
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
In psych 101 they show a video of a random person off the street that is mentally healthy. They then tell you of the study performed where this video was shown to psych undergrads, psych grads, psychologists and two other levels of psych training. They were asked what this filmed individuals problems were and if they should be committed. There was a very clear correlation between years of learning/practicing psychology and they number of mental ailments attributed to the filmed man. With the psych undergrads less than 10% thought the man had problems and only a few thought he needed committed. While the psychiatrists rated over 75% thought he had multiple problems with over 50% saying he needed committed. Years of experience != infalibility, it only equals effeciency at what you've done in the past.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
Mr(s). Guidence Counselor - "Timmy, this program here, Mosaic, says you will become a homicidal maniac by age 17. Well mister, this is going in your permanent record."
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
(see full version in reply to something else)
objectivity is still, to a large degree, dependent on the school administrators who fill out the forms for this:
rank gabe the geek 1-5:
sociability
introverted
...
the point being that the administrator is going to be biased -- and so there is virtually no way to make the program apply equally: they are likely to overlook things that people they see as "normal" did, while the "weird ones" are likely to get slammed.
so, basically, how the program works and what it does to a school is dependent on the school administrators/teachers/counselors -- the same people as before. if this helps alleviate their fears, then perhaps things will change for the better in those schools still dominated by fear.
Lea
> I'd rather have a computer doing the initial
/floored/. reason: it doesn't see anything. the people who see things are the school administrators, who may or may not have biases against particular students. you think they won't know or won't figure out fairly quickly what makes a child "disturbed" to the program? and, as impartial as they will try to be, it's not hard to be swayed when you already think someone is disturbed, to push them a bit over the edge in the ratings, purposefully or no.
> finger pointing. A machine doesn't discriminate
> on anything other than what it 'sees.' People
> are far less objective.
if it really worked like that, I'd be absolutely
I'm not quite sure about the program. It looks exactly like an old DOS program that I had where you ranked people 1-5 on things like intellegence, introvertedness, etc, and it came up with a profile. the technology in itself isn't bad -- and these people sound like they know what they're doing. however (and you knew that had to come in somewhere), it sounds like a pathetic substitute and surrogate for teachers, counselors, and administrators... and what this program does to a school is ultimately determined by them.
Lea
Now we have the question of Constitutionality thrown in here. In theory the Constitution applies to everyone, in practice don't count on it ever helping you.
Next consider what schools really are, schools are voluntary. You don't want to be in school? Stop going. Now you have just placed some legal burdens on your parents as the government requires them to ensure that you are educated until you are 16 or 18. They can 1) get in legal trouble, 2) home school you, or 3) find a helpful local person, probably at the courthose, who will cheerfully try to get a judge to send you away to juvenile detention, or whatever your state does. Note that option three isn't strictly Legal, but these days, what is?
If you are gifted and are on good terms with your parents, drop out. it's the best thing you can ever do for yourself. The only issue is that it becomes difficult to get a diploma after you do this, and we all know how important that little piece of paper is, don't we?
See that "Preview" button?
I find Jon's writings informative and insightful, but I wonder about one thing. Why is there always an implied correspondance of "geek" with "goth" in his writings? I know a few goths who are very intellegent and antisocial, in other words, stereotype geeks. The vast, vast majority are as dumb as toast. they usually aren't even non-conformist, they've just imprinted differently than "normal" people. they're "Daring to be different" just like everyone else, and they are doing it by finding the largest group of people who all 1) look similar, and 2) look nothing like the other large quasi-coherent group of people.
P.S. check this website.
See that "Preview" button?
I am reminded of the "two minutes of hate" in 1984 -- where everyone gets together and screams their rage at their enemy ( in this case, the enemy is the "geek profiler" ). Thanks for adding something a little different to the debate (-;
Generally I like Jon's stuff. I can see why he's gone into incandescent rant mode here. He suffers from the curse of believing that people will act rationally, given a chance to reflect.
What Mosaic does is irrelevant. It is just a technical justification do continue doing what the majority really want to do anyway, but can't justify otherwise. It's an artificial way to produce evidence. Drag any student in front of a 'psychological testing machine' and you'll likely get an angry reaction. He scored an 8! Great, now we can punish him, like we always wanted.
US Culture is simply no longer capable of rational discourse or action. Jon has gone to fury because he doesn't want to admit this. Which is funny, because that's the problem. Somewhere, you guys picked up a massive superiority complex, and so you can't actually admit that there's anything wrong with America(TM). The taint is everywhere. It's part of your cultural doctrine.
And since America is perfect, by axiom, then any yawning pit of hollowness inside your soul must be your problem, and anyone shouting "No! This is all wrong!" must be silenced. Because they might be right. And you don't want to think about that.
At least, that's the majority view. And you can't change it, either. It's deep-seated, and reinforced every time they go through the daily American grind or shop at the strip-mall with their babyboomer friends. Something sucked all the life out of your country in the last few decades. I think it was rampant capitalism, or maybe the cold war. Russia seems to have suffered a similar, though more spectacular, fate.
Russia is actually an interesting example. Now that their country has obviously collapsed, they're free to go into crisis-management fix-it mode, and make some of those hard choices. They may very well come out of this strong and vibrant. That would be irony.
So, just do what the physicists do. Wait for the old generation to die, and a new one to take it's place. The kids are the future. Well educated and flexible, they'll rebuild your sagging culture.
Oh, that's right...
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
Yep, more overreaction. The people producing Mosiac are not idiots, they're not get rich quick merchants and they have actual experience producing software that is used to evaluate threads made to federal judges etc. The book "The Gift of Fear" written by the founder is most interesting. He certainly does not think that just because you are different you are dangerous.
It is likely that the program will be able to successfully identify people who will act violently. And this is a very good thing.
The two obvious problems are false positive results, and the way those "identified" are treated. Unfortunately that's going to be in the hands of the same sort of people who thing evolution is a bad idea.
I think the program itself is a very good idea. It even probably works. What needs careful handling is who gets profiled and what happens to those that the program "identifies". That's where people's efforts need to be concentrated instead of on pointless venting against profiling.
development.lombardi.com
In my freshman year in High School, I took a very exhaustive psycological test to see where I should be putting my educational energies....i.e., What my strengths were, What I should consider doing as a career, etc. It took a long time and covered so many things that seemed to me at the time to have no bearing on my life what so ever....but, it was supposed to be the most highly regarded test of its type at the time.
What did it tell me? It told me I should be a Truck Driver or a Chicken Rancher[HONEST TO GOD....a chicken rancher)! Out of thousands of careers(I saw the list), it spit that out! I didn't know what to say at the time.
All I can say is I am glad I didn't subscribe to its opinion of me. I am now 28 and happilly a Unix Systems Administrator breaking 6 figures a year.
So what is my pointless? Psyc tests are all good and well, but we are all different, generalizations are bad, and have been the blunder of many empires( not to mention the ruin of lives, families, and futures). M-2K can only lead to bad things.
ARGH! I should have reread my previous post one more time before submitting it! It reads like I'm disagreeing with the post I followed up to, when in fact I agree with and merely wanted to expand upon one of the author's points ...
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Acessing Defense Data, Defendent 000000.
...
... and the young lives they will harm, possibly even destroy. If the overreaction on the part of school and government beaurocrats after the Colombine incident (not to mention numerous other witch hunts in recent history) is any indication, I think it is absurdly naive and optomistic to expect this sort of test to be applied in anything even remotely resembling an approprate use. Frankly, I find this sort of institutionalized stamping and labelling of children to be a far bigger threat to their ability to grow up and become productive members of society (whatever disadvantages they may start out with) than an entire army of drug dealers combing the hallways for new customers would be.
Accessing Prosecution Data, Defendent 000000.
Processing, Defendent 000000
GUILTY
Pupil: "I know my rights! I have a right to an attourney, and a real court of law!"
Administration: "You're a problem child. You don't have any rights."
This is a paraphrase of a scene from a Max Headroom episode ("Blanks"). I always considered this to be one of the less realistic, and less prophetic episodes of the show (many of the other themes, such as organ theft, pervasive monitoring and security, and economic crimes carrying heavier punishments than violent crimes, have come true a scant 10-15 years later to varying degrees).
Funny, how that which we least expect to _ever_ be tolerated, has now become accepted, even defended, in a forum where one would expect people to be more acutely aware of just how destructive this kind of thing can be. It isn't about geeks, it's about all of us (and this includes geeks). Geeks may be marginally more vulnerable, being slightly outside of the mythical, homoginized average, but everyone is a potential victim of the misuse of this kind of thing, and if history is any indication, misuse is exactly what we can expect.
Labelling children as "troubled" or not, with or without the adjective "potential", is destructive. People have a tendency to live up (or down) to the expectations society has for them. Even a potentially troubled child can end up being a positive influence in their school and community with the right support and expectations. I fear, however, that the label this screening will place on many children will make that kind of positive outcome much more difficult, if not impossible. In many cases it will probably insure a negative outcome where such would not have been the case otherwise. Then, of course, there are the inevitable false positives
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I don't think Katz is overreacting to this issue. It is yet another lame attempt by clueless administrators who don't think they are a pointy-haired boss to automate the process of managing increasingly desocialized kids.
Kids at Columbine who are the typical wide receivers for jock abuse report that nothing has changed at that school, in terms of the jock hierarchy, or the lack of non-jock support from authority figures.
And now, let's use an Automated Solution(TM) to this problem of understanding why these kids are increasingly fantasizing about blowing the place up and taking all the teachers with them.
Back when I was younger and more foolish, I worked for the Aerospace Industry. I thought it would be cool to actually be one of those people who build rockets. And yeah, it was fun for a while. But working for Federal agencies really sucks. You have no rights, and no allowances are made for 'different' behavior.
I was once required to take a psych test from the security department, which consisted of me sitting in a sound-proof room at a desk with a phone. This phone was connected to a computer that would use a voice generation program that asked me a series of Lifestyle questions. I was to press the star button for yes, and pound button for no answers. I was instructed to answer as quickly as possible, but, of course, truthfully.
The object of the test was, ostensibly, to gauge subconscious reactions to these questions, in order to ferret out people who might be potentual security risks. You know, people who might be using drugs (oh, only the illegal kind... caffeine, alcohol, and prozac are on the approved list), blackmail sufferers, people who can't manage their own finances, religious crackpots, and the like.
I found the questions to be insulting, and nothing that someone would ask me to my face, such as:
"Do you ever hear disembodied voices?"
"If a friend betrayed you, could you forgive them?"
"Have you ever considered experimenting with a homosexual relationship?"
"If you witnessed a coworker stealing office supplies, would you report them?"
I was so angry at the ridiculousness of the whole thing that, by the end, I was randomly answering and wasn't even listening to the questions.
The security guy who ran the tests came over after the test was done, and asked my opinion of the procedure. He was grinning, and I could see that he probably had a technology woodie that he'd have to deal with after I left.
I said that it was the stupidest waste of government money I had ever witnessed. The questions asked were transparent enough that anyone with half a brain could give whatever answers they wanted, and the system would not be able to detect that they were diverging from their own real answers. Why in God's name did the company drag me away from the work I was doing, in order that I might be a lab rat for some fat boy's techno-security fantasies???
His face went from Mr. Happy to insulted Nazi in about a quarter of a second. Apparently, the time for giving honest answers had passed.
Folks, we have got to just say Eat My Shorts to these kinds of dehumanizing Fascist tactics to categorize us as in compliance with Federal standards of behavior or not. Every day that we allow such imbecillic activities to erode our civil liberties, we crawl closer to an Orwellian state from which there will be no escape.
Forgive me, but I thought that the US constitution acts to protect against this sort of discrimination.
It does apply to all citizens, adult and 'child', does it not?
C-x C-s
...for the GREEN trash bage to be effective. Many a scorpion have died because of this oversight. Careful out there, kids!
The General's oversight in this matter is disturbing.
they're doing it for the good of the kids. The fact that they're clueless and making a bad situation worse is unfortunate, but ultimately they're on the side of the angels.
That is the single most encompassing excuse to do anything. "It's for their own good." If you keep saying that, where does it stop? "We sterilized these mentally defective people for their own good." "Sorry, Billy, we have to put you under guard for your own good" "We killed those people because they were different, and could never fit in. It was for their own good."
Yes, I'm mostly exaggerating. I'm trying to make a point. It frightens me that a government can do anything they want, just by saying it's for the good of the people. If they can convince themselves "It's for their own good", or "it's for the good of the people", that's when I'd be watching my back. Ever read 1984? I hope so.
This world is getting more Orwellian all the time.
-- Karma is for people who think they matter.
Yep, more overreaction. The people producing Mosiac are not idiots, they're not get rich quick merchants and they have actual experience producing software that is used to evaluate threads made to federal judges
I guess it is mostly criminals who makes threats to judges, right? (Or why else would they be in a courtroom...) So this program can predict criminals to some extent. Now, how can anyone believe it will work on schoolkids too? They are younger than the usual criminal and have a very different mindset from an adult. Teenagers are in the (usually slow) process of breaking free from their parents, and is naturally opposed to adults in general. They are also immature. This natural kid attitude may clash with a program made for criminals, because adults, unlike kids, aren't supposed to be opposed to society. Criminals however are unusually (for an adult) opposed to society, and quite a few are unusually immature as well. See the problem?
In other words, yes.
What's worse about a tool like this is that mere possession of it can lead to accusations of liability on the part of the school in the event of a violent episode. If the software predicts that Johnny is going act out violently and no preventative action is taken, the school could very easily become a target for legal action if something happens. As a result, school administrators will be encouraged to take action in situations which don't warrant it, and to take the strongest action possible. Past experience with school administration has convinced me that the opposite threat - that of a wrongly accused child's parents threatening the district - won't scare administrators away enough to prevent this.
Mosaic is bad, cops are bad, metal detectors are bad, etc. What do you think needs to be done to stop this growing trend of violence? Mosaic, cops, metal detectors, etc., may not be the solution, but at least the schools that use these are recognizing that there is a problem. I may be a little naive but I believe in the basic goodness of all people cops, teachers, & students. So of course some of your analogies seem a little far-fetched to me. Why would a security gaurd blame a kid for trying to stab someone with a screwdriver unless the student was doing something stupid (i.e. holding it in threatning manner). Thanks for reading my thoughts.
Mosaic 2000 isn't out to get the geeks; the school adiministators are. They are buying into Mosaic 2000. If Mosaic 2000 performs as well as claimed, it should help to vindicate the geeks. However, since Mosaic 2000 comes from dealing with trained law enforcement, it'll likely have some trouble adjusting to clueless school administators who will add their own bias to any of Mosaic's questions (which will be revised to limit bias). Of course, with the records already kept on students, that has been a problem -- its not new.
So, the problem is with the administators, not Mosaic 2000. Given time, Mosaic 2000 may actually help geeks by rating them as non-threats. Mosaic 2000 is made to be an objective tool. Its the administators that have been so unobjective as to bring it into the schools. Hopefully it'll show them just how wrong they really are.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
...off you lie your ass off. I'm still in High School. I have had several suicide tests / depression tests already and the first term isn't over. When Mosiac comes around, I do 1) lie my ass off and say what they want to hear from a "normal" kid OR 2) Do what I did on all the other tests which is fill in every answer and stick a big ole MYOB on the bottom. When the teacher asks you what the hell you think you're doing and that this is serious you ask "Why, this was supposed to be an annonymous test, why are you looking at mine? If you didn't look at mine, how do you know this?" That gets them pretty mad, but eh, its funny to watch them try to come up with an answer >:)
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
The problem that I can see with this is that we don't know who is defining "disturbed" or "violently inclined," and we don't know what their definition will be.
Certainly, the inclination to show up at school with a propane-based fuel-air explosive device would be "violent." What about stuffing the freshman geek into a locker? The infamous "screaming wedgie?"
The "jocks" have what are commonly called "harmless" methods of blowing off steam. When a jock perpetrates violence on fellow students (i.e., the "screaming wedgie" and/or locker-stuffing) it's usually laughed off. Even in college, the "jocks" are granted privileges that even the "normal" students don't get. (How many Arizona State University football players does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but he gets four credit hours for it.)
Which one is more "violently inclined": the student who daily gives more than two wedgies, and weekly stuffs more than three students into lockers, or the hapless geek who's been stuffed into the locker three times a week for several months and brings a gun to school to make sure it doesn't happen again because the administration laughs at him every time he brings the problem to them?
Where is the line drawn?
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
Idea: test Mosaic *first* by using it within the United States Postal Service. See how many "unbalanced" or "violently inclined" people are working there.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
I'm worried now. I really am. My school wouldn't hesitate for an instant to deploy Mosaic-2000 - it's Conformist Heaven. Athletes and the like get exemptions from classes (excused due to "stress from games and practices"), and I get lectured for telneting home to check my mail. The "popular" people get away with outrageous dress code violations (yes, we have one, and I loathe it), whereas the "fringe" people get nailed for having untucked shirts. You get the idea.
We can't let this get worse. This has to be stopped.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
Just from what I have read so far I can tell it's a personality profile type program.
Such programs have been around for personal use for a long time. They all come with a disclammer stating that the program isn't reliable.
It'll be based on the preconseptions of the auther.
If a psycologest feels his own basic personaly profile program isn't reliable then consider the reliablity of an indepth personality profile program writen by a security company.
I don't actually exist.
Maybe it is because I am not now and have never been a high school student. But aren't there already psychological tests being deployed in schools? Ad do you think the results are checked manually? OK, I got it! Let's imagine Katz's picture of near future. ... improvement... I am trying to be polite here ) but, I think Katz is either overreacting, or ( and this is more probable ) is just missing the good days when he was SO POPULAR because of his "Voices from the Hellmouth" coverage. He appears to be naive enough to try to ride on the same story again without having as much as even a new detail to the already covered material.
An empty room with a table secured to the floor in the center. On the table there is a terminal and one of the walls looks like it is made of black glass. Behind the terminal there is a weakly, thin teenager in glasses who is sweating and wimpering, but answering the questions on the screen. The questions which have been pretty inocent at first soon get very personal and then self-incriminating, and there seems to be no right answer.
"If you had a shotgun, which parent would you kill first?
A. Mother.
B. Father.
C. School principle first then both of them"
And behind the wall of glass ( which is surely one way transparent sits the evil teacher behind the evil Mosaica 2000 computer and the screen flashes red and in huge letters it says "GEEK". Teacher laughs evilly and rubs his hands and presses the "...
No, it is not going to work like that. BAsically as far as I understand this is one more psychological test which was tailored to detect certain kinds of emotional disorders among particular age group. Yes, the idea of somebody making critical desicions based solely on the results of a psych test is apalling, but in that case why don't you pull in suicide tests mentioned by some other slashdotter? You can abuse those if you take results without thinking. As they say "For every good idea there will be an idiot who will develop it into an absurdity" Yes, I think that educational system needs a lot of improvement (
Sorry kids. No 1984 today. Big brother is tired and is going to sleep.
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
P.S. Those dead students? What's a bigger tragedy, dozens of students dead, or dozens of students being asked to leave their high school a year before they graduate because some yahoos shot up the school in their outfit, were weird, and made the cheerleaders nervous?
Are you completely insane?!? I don't care how many people they unjustifiably throw out of school, it's only a fraction of the tradgy of a dozen kids getting murdered!
I'm speechless... doumbfounded... agast that you would think something like that...I'm going to just presume that you weren't thinking too well when you said it.
I think that a dozen kids being killed is only a fraction of the tradgedy that our society could produce two kids who couldn't come up with a better way of dealing with the issues that motivated them other than to go on a shooting rampage...
Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for the families, but I really think it's about time we (humanity) start working together as a team, or we're destined to fade cheerfully into obscurity. Part of working as a team means acknowledging the fact that we as a society are responsible for things like Columbine, instead of placing all the blame on the attackers and their families.
I don't see a computer analyzing program as much of a solution. It strikes me as another means to avoid talking to kids (whether you're their parent, sibling, uncle, pastor, coach, teacher, whatever.) This reminds me of that program I heard on NPR about the hourly grading system where a school system in the midwest set up a voice-mail system so parents can call in and check their kids grades every hour. Whatever happened to asking your kids about their grades? Bah...
Where is Chad C. Mulligan when you need him?
It sounds like the people who designed this test looked at several incidences and then asked questions to see if the test takers show any of the same trends noted in the previous violent incidents. In other words they are looking to see if the answers kids give are what they would expect a violent persons to be given what they know of violent people. This is not a reliable way to design a test. It relies far too much on the designer's opinion and accurate self-reporting.
The most accurate psychological tests, the best predictors, are tests that are given to several groups and then the answers that each give are correlated to their behavior-even if the answers have nothing to do with the behavior. If a large percentage of the target group answers in a certain way, then a person who answers in a similar way will be pegged as part of the group. One example is the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Index. (By the way if someone wants you to take that test, don't take it and get a lawyer, fast.)
So let say the question "Do you like pink flowers?" is on the test and 90% of the violent people answer yes, and fewer of the non-violent people answer no, then people who answer yes get a point towards being in the violent group. This kind of scoring makes for far more accurate tests and helps eliminate bias in testing. Because the results can be repeatedly be re-interpreted as you learn more about your test subjects actual tendencies.
One downfall is that if it is really accurate, then you want to test those that are not now violent, but later get violent. A person's answers may well change after such an incident happens in their life. You want to base your answer profile on kids about to commit acts of violence. So you have to find a significant population like the one that you are looking for to hone the test scoring on. Properly done this means giving the tests to thousands and then waiting to see how their behavior actually is.
I don't see how this test could have been done this way. It looks more like a sham, an excuse to isolate a group based stereotypes. As bogus and dangerous as racial profiling. It may well become something of a self fulfilling prophesy if applied improperly.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
I've said before: all technology has two sides.
Face recognition has really cool applications, such as more intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. It also is perceived as a threat due ot the fact that you could (in theory) be recognized just about anywhere that digital video cameras are.
The Internet has allowed us to communicate and exchange ideas in a quicker, more efficient manner than ever before. People wonder about whether geeks are starting to show symptoms "similar to those of autism".
The Mosaic-2000 issue cuts two ways. If it's written well, and used well, it could be *very* helpful in identifying children who *do* need help-- and that's definitely something good. When either one of these conditions is taken away, though, it is likely that kids are going to suffer.
The real reason that geeks react so strongly is because of an inherent belief that exposing kids to more potential pressure is bad. Geeks seem to hold this belief very dear, perhaps because of hideous memories of hellish high school experiences. But geeks aren't the only ones.
All kids are going through hell during their teenage years. They're learning to act independently of their parents. They are worrying about college or work. They are in a pressure cooker as they physically, emotionally, mentally, and often academically mature. It's a tough time. And a system like Mosaic, when not used properly, puts *all* these kids at risk.
So the question is: is the chance of "healthy" kids suffering bad enough to overshadow the chance of "unhealthy" kids getting help?
Some say yes-- any chance of suffering is large enough to cancel out the benefits of the latter. Others say no-- we can minimize the risk of the former.
Since the system is being deployed, I think that it's almost a moot point. Apparently, enough people say that the potential for bad does not outweigh the potential for good. For those who disagree, we've entered the realm of damage control-- how do we minimize the chance of a particular kid being forced to suffer unjustly?
Well, for starters, there's education. Let the administrators know that the software is *not* a piece of screening software to be used for labelling and pigeonholing (is that a word?) students. Secondly, we need to verify the validity of the software. Now, I doubt Mosaic-2000 is gonna be opensourced, but we can at least perform periodic statistical tests. If the numbers fall outside an agreed-upon "acceptable" range, then the software is scrapped until the numbers become "acceptable" again.
Listen, I'm not saying I'm a supporter of this software. I wouldn't want it deployed if I could stop it. But it's happening. So we need to do our best to reduce the chances of the software's misuse. Maybe we can at least maximize the good while we minimize the bad.
Is Katz (and others who have "sounded the alarm" over Mosaic) overreacting? Maybe. But there is value in examining the worst possible outcome of any new tool. It helps to be prepared for the bad things that might emerge as unintended consequences of things like Mosaic, even if they never occur.
It's a bit hasty to assume that it's going to single out the people who are different
No it's not. That's what it's meant to do. The important part is to distinguish between the different-but-harmless person (the geek or goth who listens to loud music or dresses funny), and the different-and-dangerous person (the geek or goth who blows up abortion clinics or shoots up the school). Can Mosaic do that? I don't know.
Mosaic is a tool. It can be used for good or evil. Please use only for good.
Unintended consequences are inevitable. Unforseen consequences are not.
I've been very sympathetic to Katz and his advocacy for alienated youth in the past. I still think that mature adults (and by this I do not atuomatically mean that adolescents are immature, merely that there is a perspective that comes with time; the one and only quality of wisdom that youth necessarily lacks) need to reach out to teens, to embrace them as they are and welcome them into the family of adulthood.
"Being different" isn't, for the most part, really different. Instead it arises from a basic desire to establish an identity, a unique personhood, especially in the face of a sort of commercial conformity that some young people embrace and others despise.
What is sad and tragic is that each attempt to create an identity is immediately co-opted by the marketing machine and sold back on MTV (and every other media outlet).
This leads to a sort of vicious cycle where youth goes to greater and greater extremes in the natural quest to be not their parents, teachers, or other adult authorities. Once targeted marketing made the great discovery that younger people are less careful with their money than older people, what would have been unthinkable now appears on prime-time TV. Look at how long it took the "hippe" youth culture to move to the mainstream. Compare that with any youth trend today from Goth to body-piercing. It's instantly a product.
I, for one, think we (meaning adults, or if you prefer, people over 30) should be a lot less uptight over teen identity, and a lot more concerned about the commercial debasement of our self-expression.
That said, I think Katz is hitting off the mark here. This "screening" is a bit unfortunate, but I see it as an effort to identify young people who might need a concerned adult in their lives. It's far from ideal, but in a world where otherwise healthy, affluent children are killing themselves and sometimes killing others, its about damned time adults and institutions started to pay attention to young people. If this tool becomes a way to make contact and start listening to the real emotional needs of young people, then it is a good tool. If it becomes a way to sort young people into the "good" ones and the "bad" ones, it's a bad tool.
Basically, I think Katz is jumping before there is something to jump on.
As for me, my approach to young people is: Respect them. Listen to them. Involve them. Love them.
Any youth who is respected, listened to, involved, and loved is unlikely to kill himself/herself or others. The rest they have to figure out for themselves.
But Katz' articles, all of which struggle to reference the degredation of geeks will continue. Why? Lot's of egos to be stroked here, I'm afraid.
Blar.
Pardon me, but just what in the fuck are you talking about?
Nowhere in his statment (which I thought was actually rather amusing) did he ONCE mention Jewish people. Not ONCE.
You, sir, are full of shit.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Indeed you are correct. It is I who was mistaken. No doubt we are both full of shit.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
What freedoms do metal detectors restrict?
Maybe the freedom to do basic things, like participate in your government, and travel, and be educated, without submitting to search?
What freedoms do armed guards restrict?
Maybe the freedom to not be under constant evaluation by said armed guard as a potential threat? (it's a bit disconcerting when an armed man is watching your every move)
Of course it's ok just so long as those doing the metal detecting and armed guarding agree with you on what is and is not acceptable behavior. But if there's ever a difference of opinion, you're not in much of a position to do much of anything.
The very people who are being victimized, ignored, and abused by the idiots(*) that run the Imperial Federal School System are about to be victimized again, cast out of society altogether, by those same idiots running a computer. Garbage in, Garbage out.
Let's take this a step further, and ask, Why?
Why would fedgov and its minions want to ostracise the Smart People, remove them from society and cast them into some vast Down Below?
(1) to make it easier to indoctrinate the sheeple that are left?
(2) to remove the geeks' easy access to the Net, which is their source of power, their way to be heard?
And no, I think the assumption that computer profiling is a Bad Thing in general is a safe one; just try to go buy an airline ticket with cash sometime. Particularly if your name is Rodriguez or Al-Shabaar.
(*) As for my assertion that the school system is run by idiots, the latest stats out of Princeton, the folks who give the SAT and the GRE, indicated that folks who indicated they were going into Education scored at the bottom of the heap among majors, even below General Studies. (Engineers were at the top, followed by us CS geeks.) Maybe it doesn't fit the technical definition, but I gua-ron-tee your average Slashdotter could run logical circles around your run of the mill high school teacher...
I'm sorry, for all the fun and profit we get from these silicon hearted beasts, it is a bad idea to let them be the judge of us, just on principle. Don't care how good it is, not only will somebody eventually fall thru the cracks, but it will lull parents into a false sense of security and make their abandonment of parental responsibility nearly complete. And those are the things that WILL happen even if not one single solitary soul gets mis-labelled by this thing.
The Jews have a saying that was formed in the hell that was the Holocaust: Never Again. I suggest we join them in the spirit of that saying, and study up on our early 20th century history, lest we repeat it Real Soon Now. Like in about two months.
And before you flame me as alarmist, anal retentive, or just plain out in left field, go study the material, and know whereof you speak. The truth will set you free.
ObConstructiveIdea: Get your kids OUT of the public indoctrination facilities. Move to a place where you can afford to either teach them yourself or have them schooled privately. See to it that they have the best education you can get them... it's too late for us, our generation, to fix what ails the current American society. The best we can do is fight a holding action and allow the Old Guard to die off, and our children to carry the torch forward. Instill in them a love for Truth, Justice, and the old-fashioned American Way as Jefferson et al originally envisioned it, accepting those who are Different Than Us, and the importance of passing that heritage on, and eventually, gods willing, this country will survive.
If we don't, I wouldn't give a fig for our future in fifty years.
o/~ we won't wait any longer / we are stronger than before o/~
Katz has outdone himself this time...
The idea that we are "elevating the unthinking deployment of computer technology as a social -- and profit-making tool to make intuitive judgements in educational environments that often confound experts with years of training" is laudable. (oops! I meant laughable.)
Katz is the sort of journalist that makes his living from preying on paranoia. This has not changed in the many years that I have read him. I work with a journalist of the same caliber, but his angle is that there are communists everywhere, just like in 1984. The patter hardly changes from the left to right wing, and it is all just pablum for minds too weak to chew on real facts.
If they started a program for weeding out all of the geeks from high schools, there would be no students left to teach. And if this program does bring to bear the brunt of administrators on the "different" students, it will probably be for the best anyway. Most of this "different" behaviour is brought about by the need for attention in many cases. As the old saying goes, "Bad attention is better than no attention."
Also, teachers are generally not prepared to make these assertions without an aid, and neither are the counselors. Are these the "experts" that he mentions?? Let's face it the average School counselor was lucky to make it out of college, and if they were smart enough to find their bahoutney with both hands, they would have found a real job that would pay them a living wage. Why is Mr. Mackey on South Park so funny?? He's too darn accurate M'kay?
I for one am glad that these people will now have the tools to help them guide their students. They will now also be able to differentiate between "true" violent behaviour and a cry for attention. Even the cream of the crop in the mental health field uses computer aided tools to assist in the evaluation of illnesses. (Indeed, the profilers for the FBI use... M-2K.)
As is pointed out in White's "The Orginaztion Man" the people responsable for educating our children are generally the least capable of doing so. If we can give them tools to assist in their task, I am all for it.
However, this is a situation that is equivalent to saying "Well, he can't figure out how to use a hammer, give him a nail gun." Yes, but make sure that he understands that the nail gun is dangerous if used improperly, and don't let it be used witout some safety supervision.
I guess that Katz is also against Radar guns in the hands of the Highway patrol?? If it weren't for these little gadgets, they could pull you over whenever they wanted to just by saying, "He looked like he was going 75, please step out of the car sir so that the dog can sniff around."
These tools are much the same. The counselor calls the parents and says: "Your little Johnny seems like a violent Psycho because he doesn't like football." The parent says: "What did his tests say??" Counselor: "Well, intelligent but precocious, with a disregard for authority. But no violent tendancies..." Parent: "Good, then stuff it." What can I say, I love America!
The real and present danger here is that the computer will have it's word taken for law, and that incomplete information inputted by incompetent imbeciles instigates immoral and inexplicable inconvenience for those involved. (Woo Hoo! Aliteration!) We must remember that these are just tools. A hammer would never build a house, but in the right hands, it can make the process easier.
It would certainly be an improvement from the days back when, when I was sent to see my counselor (The one responsable for students L-Z) because I read too fast. I was informed that by not reading at the same pace as my classmates, I was being antisocial. What was that Vonnegut story about the people that wore ear plugs so that nobody could hear better than anyone else, and bad glasses so that nobody could see better than anyone else, etc...
The only true shame is that these same school boards that will use this system, probably have no computer tools to help teachers teach better, to help students learn better, or to monitor which teachers are liable to risk the psyche of one of their students "by pouring their derision upon anything we did, exposing any weakness no matter how carefully hidden by the kids...".
So when your local school board starts proposing software to stop violence, ask them what software they have to help start and continue learning. If they say "Encarta", buy your kid a gun.
~Jason Maggard
"And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention"
But my understanding (and I could be wrong) is that this Mosaic program will be helping school administrators figure out who could be emotionally disturbed. You don't know that it will only pick Goths, or kids who are online too often, or anything like that. By what they've said it will try to determine people who are depressed and have access to guns. The very things you said are leading to problems.
More importantly though. Stop shooting everything down. There will always be something wrong with anything done if you look for it. The world is not perfect. There is no perfect solution to the "gun problem". The 1st amendment says US citizens can have them, but they kill people, but
If you keep saying no to all the suggestions made, then you must have a better idea. What is it? Stop being negative and do something positive for a change. If you know kids so well suggest a method for keeping them safe from others.
-cpd
Suppose you could identify a set of personal characteristics and say "90% of killers are in this category." This is unlikely: but even then it still wouldn't follow that most people in that category are killers.
So what do you do? Unless a reasonable proportion of the positives are true positives, the program isn't really very useful. The danger would be that the school would target all the positives to avoid litigation, even though most positive kids were quite safe.
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
I wonder often whether this world would exist in its state without the few, the intelligent, the brave, the exceptional. If it were by the people who listen to what Mosaic 2000 has to say.. I guess not. Do they really think that conformity is excellence?
~mina
I'm out of my mind, leave a message.
Would you want the ability to buy a house, get a job, anything in your life to be in the hands of your worst enemy?
That's a distinct possibility if you're gathering data on individuals based on other people's perceptions of that person. It's pretty useless at best, and DANGEROUS at worst.
When I was in middle school, I had a teacher that hated me for some reason. Everyone caught on, and I could successfully get blamed for anything that happened in class. If that teacher had had control of someething like this, I would have been out on my ass. No future for you!!
I'm not particularly paranoid, but boy, this really worries me.
"It was me against the world, I was sure that I'd win.... but the world fought back, punished me for my sins" - Social D
OK, I made an analogy that seemed to sail over people's heads.
Computers are used to evaluate personality tests for jobs, acceptace for mortgage applications. You fill them out. Now, had that responsibility over to someone who hates you. You won't get that job, you won't get that mortgage. No house, no living.
As for that teacher that hated me and how that couldn't affect the m-2k scenario: remember that the ADMINISTRATION, not the student, fills out the evaluation.
That particular teacher almost got me suspended for 'participating' in a near-riot fight. Several students told him I was there, so he told the principal I was there. The only thing that stopped me from getting suspended was that another teacher told the principal that I was with her. Nothing happened to the teacher.
On the other hand, in high school the vice principal in charge of discipline loved me because I never caused trouble, unlike my brother. He actually stopped me from getting suspended once. If he had been in charge of adminstering the test, I would have passed with flying colors no matter what.
Sorry for the apparent confusion.
"It was me against the world, I was sure that I'd win.... but the world fought back, punished me for my sins" - Social D
This Mosaic program could be a nightmare or it could be a tool used to get help to the kids who need it most. The problem is that we don't know which it will be - has anyone tried to find out? Maybe with a few phone calls and emails, Slashdot could ask more than the standard questions a New York Times reporter would ask, and get the answers we want. If this thing is gonna be used for good, not evil, then good for them. And if it does turn out to be a nightmare, what then? So far, people haven't really talked about what the average /. reader can do - is there anything we can do, or are we just the quake playing zombies with itchy trigger fingers the media seems to think are infesting the schools?
Touch The Puppet Head
I'm a recent graduate of highschool, though I still work at one. I personally am appalled at this idea. First of all, lets face it, students lie. Especially if there is a fear of getting in trouble. If I was given a test that is supposed to identify the "violent" students I would fear that if I was identified as one of those students I would get hassled or get in trouble, and thus I would lie on the test and present myself as someone who is always spewing daisies and roses and wouldn't hurt a fly.
;)
;)
If I was in a particually f*ck'em up mood I would answer the test as insanly as possible, making everyone freak out. If the question is stupid, such as "Do you play role playing games" I would answer that I live role playing games, I play them instead of sleeping at night, and that I am one with "fill in a role playing character here". If it is a question of how I would react to someone bullying me I would answer something like ripping their toes off one by one and shoving them down their throat then hanging them upside down from the flagpole by their feet and watching their blood pour down on them. Needless to say, I'd turn some heads.
Tests are highly inaccurate, especially when you're trying to use general questions to find non-general answers.
The second point (okay, so I've already covered more than one point so far, I never keep track of these things) is why? Will the students be forced to take this test? (If the answer is no, then I expect hardly anyone to fill out the test, why work if you dont have to?. ) Why should students be forced to fill out a test with personal information and to what good does it do the school? If I get treated differently or excluded from things based on my answers to the test then it is discrimination. If that's the case, then we really haven't made it that far in all these years. Sure we allow (politically incorrect, not meant to be offensive to anyone) blacks, asians, mexicans, etc into our schools now and we dont limit them from doing things, but instead we limit people that fail a certain personality test and treat them different. Basically as a friend of mine puts it so well "Same sh*t, different toilet).
Am I a geek? Yes, but why should that matter? I'm at school because a) I have to be and b) to learn, I'm not at school to have people try and decide if I am violent or not (a personal subject) through impersonal means.
I personally am a nice guy, I'm not violent at all, and I am not insane (been told many times I am craZy with a capital Z though), I don't do drugs, I'm not an alcoholic (dont drink), I'm not gang banger/skin head/racist/body piercer/etc. I'm the type of guy mothers wish their daughters would date, yet I would be the first to be singled out based on this test if I answered honestly, because I'm different. I like role playing games, I'm a longer, I don't like crowds, I cringe at the thought of public speaking, and I'm very emotional. I was teased and tormented in school when I went to an actual school, and I still get it now at times because I work at a school still (kids can be so cruel), but I also know the consequences of my actions, and I know the value of a human life. I was brought up with values and morals, and with real parents, not with the Telivision/Internet/etc to try and act as a parent. I was brought up being taught what is right and what is not, and also being shown by example. Things like the V-chip and filtering software just give parents one less thing they have to do with their kids, and one more thing to screw the kid up in life.
That's not to say this is always why a person does something. Face it folks, life is unpredictable. You may get it right 99.9% of the time, but there is always that one person or that one time when it is different. I liked the idea of having somewhere to call if someone threatens you or if you for some reason think someone is going to do something drastic but thats as far as we need to take it. Other than that just keep your eyes and ears open.
Enough rambling, just remember, just because I'm different doesn't mean I'm going to rip your toes off and feed them to you.
Mr. Katz:
/. and I think that's wrong.
OK, M-2K sounds like a bad idea for use outside of threat evaluation by law enforcement in very specific situations.
While geeks are no doubt affected by this nonsense, everyone affected by this is not a geek, and not all geeks are. The old-fashioned, stereotypical pocket protector-wearing geeks are probably still safe. There are lots of Goth-type people and other groups who wouldn't know a mouse from a hole in the ground who ARE affected. You play this up to make it seem more topical for
Even more to the point, by calling for "geek unity" (for lack of a better term). By uniting together to form a group to protect themselves, you form nothing but a NEW clique, and you water down the driving force of geekdom (and for many of these other groups) -- individuality. Once this new clique forms, groupthink begins to emerge, and geekdom flounders. You're basically advocating a group to protect itself by divesting itself of it's quintessence. Geeks won't get picked on if they just stop doing what it is that gets them picked on. Great solution.
Further, you nitpick every attempt made by the world at large to prevent violence. I understand that you have legitimate issues with curtailing free speech and freedom of expression for youth (or anyone), and these are always issues for society to deal with. At what price freedom? But in your polemics about "the man" you rail against the injustice heaped upon youth by well-meaning, if misguided adults. So I ask -- what positive do you have to contribute to the debate? Put yourself in the position of an educator or parent. List 10 practical steps that a school could take to guard against this violence. That's all. Be constructive, contribute.
Mr. Katz:
/. and I think that's wrong.
OK, M-2K sounds like a bad idea for use outside of threat evaluation by law enforcement in very specific situations.
While geeks are no doubt affected by this nonsense, everyone affected by this is not a geek, and not all geeks are. The old-fashioned, stereotypical pocket protector-wearing geeks are probably still safe. There are lots of Goth-type people and other groups who wouldn't know a mouse from a hole in the ground who ARE affected. You play this up to make it seem more topical for
Even more to the point, by calling for "geek unity" (for lack of a better term). By uniting together to form a group to protect themselves, you form nothing but a NEW clique, and you water down the driving force of geekdom (and for many of these other groups) -- individuality. Once this new clique forms, groupthink begins to emerge, and geekdom flounders. You're basically advocating a group to protect itself by divesting itself of it's quintessence. Geeks won't get picked on if they just stop doing what it is that gets them picked on. Great solution.
Further, you nitpick every attempt made by the world at large to prevent violence. I understand that you have legitimate issues with curtailing free speech and freedom of expression for youth (or anyone), and these are always issues for society to deal with. At what price freedom? But in your polemics about "the man" you rail against the injustice heaped upon youth by well-meaning, if misguided adults. So I ask -- what positive do you have to contribute to the debate? Put yourself in the position of an educator or parent. List 10 practical steps that a school could take to guard against this violence. That's all. Be constructive, contribute.
The point that laetus is trying to make is that by adding such devices to schools kids are becoming desensitised to them. The next generation wont question why for example we need soldiers on every street corner to stop violence. Everytime we are subjected to random searches for contraband we are giving up a small amount of freedom. I have no problem with metal detectors in places where they are appropriate.
It it open source?? if so what we should be figting about it wether it is going to be GPLed' or under the BSD liscence. ;) (OW OW Quit throwing stuff at me)
I am very worried indeed. After Columbine it's obvious that they will target people who different. People in control are always afraid of diversity because that breaks up control they have over a group!
Are you really willing to surrender basic rights for that little bit of extra security?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
--
Full Time Idiot and Miserable Sod
Full Time Idiot and Miserable Sod
Nothing is real but the pain
This is truly scary, and (for the first time) I actually enjoyed reading a Katz piece. What scares me the most is the possible legal precedent here. Does having an "unfavorable" profile on Mosaic (NCSA should really sue over copyright infringement, but that's another rant) give the school administrators the right to constantly monitor/track/watch certain students? Is the innocence of students not being presumed? Katz also brings up a good point about the "socially acceptable" clique. I've seen more people fall off of the cliffs of sanity because of alcohol-related accidents/deaths/pregnancies/etc than I've ever seen due to Doom or wearing all black or d&d. Will the alcoholic-suv driving-future frat boy get a "questionable" score because of his weekend partying habits? Probably not. Will the shy gothic kid that likes to read alot and play duke nukem? Most likely. Who's the _real_ threat here?
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
i've heard of this company and the software they develop. they did one for domestic abuse cases and it looks like it works great. they can pretty accurately predict from a questionaire how likely a spouse is to get beaten. they've been able to use it with battered women to convince them to leave their husband/boyfriend/other by saying, "according to the statistics, if you say he has [insert act] before then he would have no remorse to [insert even worse act], and a x% chance of killing you soon." The only questions is whether or not the schools will test everyone or just those with "violent tendencies", who usually are labelled as such because they're non-confirmists. I hope the schoolds will do the right thing, but i'm sure there will be lots of cases where decent kids will be tested while some violent jock/prep/whatever gets away with anything because he conforms....
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
I can see it now. "If mosaic couldn't realize johnny was a psycho what chance did we have?"
Since your UID is smaller than mine, I can only conclude that you're trolling. -s20451 (410424)
It is likely that the program will be able to successfully identify people who will act violently. And this is a very good thing.
Try this phrase : "Innocent until proven guilty".
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Jon Katz, you have, as usual, written an article that clearly falls under the category of FUD. This article does not describe Mosaic-2000, but instead seeks only to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about this program.
Why can't you, before you write this, give some factual data about your subject matter? How many real facts have you given us about Mosaic-2000? How will it be used? What are the motivations behind Mosaic-2000? What is its primary use? It turns out that its primary use is to profile those who have made threats, not those who are "different."
How is this article any different to the Microsoft Linux Myths page?
I would also like to know where your research comes from, Jon. Quoting unreferenced statistics is not quality journalism.
Where does this data come from? It doesn't reflect any of the following references (try searching for +youth +"violent crime" +statistics" in AltaVista):
Youth and Crime - What the Statistics Show
I'd also suggest that your reliance on teens for quotable material is not necessarily good. As someone else pointed out, many (if not most) teens have an "us versus them" view of the government, schools and parents. This would especially hold true for your "different" group of teens.
Now, I'm not saying that I like the idea of Mosaic-2000, but after all, it is just an expert system to assist those who are already doing this job (which most of them probably don't enjoy in the slightest, despite what the teenagers under their responsibility think).
Jon, research your articles! Don't just write to get a reaction.
There have been a lot of comments about metal detectors, makeshift weapons (e.g. screwdrivers) and profiling systems (Mosaic-2000). Most people agreed that these were bandaid solutions. And a lot of people felt threatened or restricted by these solutions.
Now the question I want to ask you is why do we need these solutions? Why do people need to worry about violence? All the solutions that have been presented so far attack the symptoms, not the cause of this problem.
I can liken this to an HIV/AIDS victim. The doctors treat all the symptoms, the common colds, the flus, and whatever other diseases that can attack as a result of the HIV infection, but they don't actually attack the root cause of the problem, which is the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. This virus, of course, basically causes the human immune system to fail. So the patient can live for a while, but eventually they'll die from complications of some sort. If and when AIDS is curable, it'll be curable by treating the source of the problem: the HIV virus itself, not any of the subsequent diseases.
So, to fix this problem in the schools, and society as well, we really need to look at the origin of the problem. I ask you, what's the problem?
Moasic-2000 may not ask such questions, nor
make indications on 'fringness' or 'geeknes'
But KnockOff0.2(tm) will do. And because it is
cheaper, a lot of Schools will buy it.
And all Schools will skimp on the Training that any such Programm would require in order to use it sensibly.
This is a piece of software, that follows the same patterns as any other software. Does anybody learn netiquette when having training for their e-mail Software? (in case they do at all)
I think that somebody should tell american legislators that nacism means separation of the unwanted and does not _start_ with the mass killing of inocent.
- a 6' 220 lbs german who went to an american high school and told the quarterback to his face that he does not want the slot in the opening offensive lineup.
I think the real problem is that paranoid people will feed the machine. Thus the whole system will be couloured by their prejudices. And these prejudices will then be applied on the kids. The result will be called "objective", since it come from an object, not from a person.
---- "Wherever you go, there you are." (Buckaroo Banzai)
How about the right to carry a pocket knife? I used to have a pocket knife with me since the age of eight (I still do now, 28 years later). I dont see anything uncommon with that. Here in Europe it is even possible to attend a audience of the pope with a swiss army knife in the pocket.
-- "Wherever you go, there you are." (Buckaroo Banzai)
I got through high school by not saying anything. Then when I got to college I began to regret never saying anything. There's a certain value in speaking your mind regardless of the consequences.
However there's the catch-22.... in high school you're a minor under the control of your parents and you suffer consequences that you won't suffer as a legal adult.
I guess its a matter of deciding what you want more. To be honest and truthful, or to quietly make your way through and when you get your chance, then say something. Idealism demands that we say something but reality often tells us that being deceiptful is often the only way out.
I lie to my clients all the fucking time because they make it necessary. I don't feel good about it but I try to remember that if I had it my way things would be clean, good and honest.
Such is life on a degredaded universe.
Dr. Fardook drfardook@evilconspiracy.com
(then my book reviews wouldn't have so many spelling errors)
...have teamed up to
/.ers thinking it was a software bicycle or a software grilled cheese sandwich.
Quoth the Katz:
develop a software program that will be tested in
20 schools around the country in December.
Ooh, good thing he clarified, I wouldn't want
How about replacing "a software program" with "software"?
ok, so maybe i regularly packed semi-automatic weapons at the Chess Club and Debate Team meetings. the only bastard who ever took one from me though was the bully in the Computer Club who hogged the 2400 (we only had a half dozen Apple ][e's and one modem).
--
-- ken williams
Of course, this lead to a large group of second-class citizens who had little say in what would happen to them, and very little opportunity to do anything with their lives (why hire someone who might someday blow up the place when all the other applicants won't?)
And now to the topic at hand: what worries me is the ease with which people seem to accept that this test will not only be fair, but be a good thing. And they're probably right about some things. It probably will do a good job of weeding out those who are prone to violence. But what then? Do we have the right to treat some people differently because they might act violently later? Not because they have been in the past, but because they might?
I always thought one of the great things about the United States was that there was opportunity to overcome the disadvantages you start with, whether they be poverty, disabilities, prejudices against your race, sex, creed, etc. Why is a disposition to violence treated differently?
G0del
Besides, your reasoning seems a little circular here - geeks are picked on because they're potentially dangerous, and they're potentially dangerous because they're picked on.
I'll agree that different is not necessarily good, and going with the flow is undoubtedly easier. However, that doesn't make different bad, neither does it make going with the flow the right thing to do. Examples of significant innovations in civilization made by people going against the flow are left as an exercise for the reader, they are too numerous and too obvious to list here.
I guess it's possible your whole post was meant as a joke, but if so, considering how close it is to the attitude of so many of the people I grew up with, I didn't find it funny at all. And if it is serious, what are you doing reading "News for Nerds", anyway?
G0del
I know, I know, don't feed the trolls. But it was just so tempting, I couldn't resist!
As much as I think this sort of thing is a load of horseradish (and boy am I glad I was out of school before any of it really started), I'm not worried for our young budding geeks and outcasts.
It will only be a matter of time before the "secrets" of this program, and/or any number of workarounds will be discovered. I'd be surprised if there already aren't geeks young and old currently prodding at pirated and other copies of this program, looking for just those holes.
Pretty soon they'll have results and they'll be widely available to those who know to look for them. You can't tell me that even the wealthiest of schools will spend the money or resources to stay ahead of the defeat/re-release curve by re-purchasing, upgrading, and re-installing this stuff as the curve progresses.
If kids at one school can decipher the barcodes on their name tags, and if software crackers can develop keygens as fast as software companies can release new versions of their crippleware, I'm sure we'll have _no_ problem getting around some hastily-developed Electronic Behaviour Control System.
Surviving as a young geek has always included a little well-aimed civil dis'.
Romulus
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
It doesn't matter how it works. Remember, GIGO. All it can possibly look for is previously-identified indicators--in other words, for things we already know about. It doesn't matter what the selection factors are.
Quite correct.
I can still remember when I was in highschool how they were so hopped up about this new program that would identify for the students what they were good at and what their future held.
I got social worker.
Needless to say I chose programming instead.
If they can't even build a computer that can play chess intelligently, how can they expect to build a computer to root out "troubled kids"?
"it's too easy for guards to become nannies! It's too easy for a guard to abuse the power and start cracking down on being different!" I don't think this will happen because, as I said before, of the very well defined line between being a criminal and just being different. And you can always punish a guard for abusing his/her power.
You seem to have forgotten the hellmouth stories already.
Don't you remember the student who was taken to the office by security guards (rather than simply sent by the teacher) because she was wearing (GASP) a TRENCHCOAT!
You're basing your entire argument on the assumption that the system will work and will not be abused.
Experience teaches otherwise.
As far as metal detectors in the schools go, they're only a temporary solution to a serious problem. Unless you can deter the students from bringing weapons in the first place, you're simply going to have rule upon rule upon rule, further restricting the students' rights and their confidence.
I used to carry a swiss army knife with me to school because it was just so handy to have around (and I still carry it with me). In today's school I'd probably be expelled and sent to heavy counselling.
As you further spiral down this slippery slope, you add computer profiling to weed out the bad seeds before they sprout. Then mode of dress is added, then choice of recreational activities, then what you do in your spare time.
At the end of this slope is a very rigid and inflexible school environment where everyone is paranoid of someone who says or does or appears to think that is different from the rest. This person, who is doing things differently, is at risk. The people who behave like everyone else would NEVER go to violence, so we're okay with them but WHOA watch out if you behave differently!
Oh, and incidentally, I once buried a bunch of chickens as a child (Don't ask me why. I don't know). I also experimented with explosives.
The amount of torment our cat went through before I reached the age of 15 I no longer care to think about.
My "potential" for violence would probably have been off-the-scale, even though I had a very hard time bringing myself to hit my fellow man no matter how much he deserved it.
One big problem I'm seeing here is that most of these arguments are heavily colored with American moral thinking, which is flawed to begin with.
his is a valid point, don't I have the option of telling my daughter "metal detectors are a necessary evil, they infringe on your privacy but I think the deterrent affect they provide is more important"?
They don't really provide that much of a deterrant.
If someone has decided that they will attack someone else, but there is a metal detector, they won't simply say "Oh well. Guess I can't do that now". They will do it when the guy is walking home from school, or during lunch break.
They will break into the equipment room and get a bat or a golf club.
You may be bringing down the number of shootings that occur INSIDE of the school, but you certainly are not bringing down the number of shootings themselves.
About the best you could do is stop the victims from bringing weapons to defend themselves.
One thing that leaps to mind is the recent legislation in South Africa that makes it legal to shoot car thieves.
Strangely enough, car theft dropped sharply after that.
Remember: They prey on the weak.
For example:
Oh, so it was in the LA Times was it? Wow! it MUST be true then! Of course since we don't have access to the newspaper (since it's 3 years old!) I guess we'll just have to take their word for it.
It gets even better:
Can the system brand a student as dangerous?
Give me a break! If they have to do this much spin-doctoring on their own site, what makes you think their system is all that it's cracked up to be?
And now my personal favorite. They really like using very small and simple words and oversimplified concepts:
Hmm.. I see... So since I am a member of a gun club in my local community and recently bought a colt for the cowboy shoots, play D&D (the occult! oh no!), listen to goth and heavy metal music, and really hate my teacher and write bad poetry about him, I'm in the high risk category.
And since I'm behaving erratically (wearing dark clothes and all), I get sent so that MOSAIC can "guide" school officials in "establishing that I do not pose an elevated risk of violence."
Have a look at their site
http://www.gdbinc.com/mosaic2000.htm
It's the most disgusting shit I've seen yet.
Katz has it all wrong -- the Mosaic system will probably put an end to geek profiling.
Geek profiling happens when clueless administrators lump all of the "different" kids into the same category. The Mosaic system will (hopefully) expertly sort through these "different" kids -- separating out the kids who are truly dangerous from the harmless geeks.
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
While obviously fallable administrators may automatically associate the non-mainstream with violence, an objective program such as this, written by a department with knowledge in this area, could be more reliable. When everyone here was reacting to the assumption that it was computer games and geek culture that leads kids to kill, many people stated that whatever contempt they had for the system, they wouldn't go and kill anyone. There is clearly a difference between someone who would kill and someone who wouldn't. Although I may be overly optamistic, if they study and pick out this difference then mosaic-2000 could actually identify real symptoms of violence instead of just geek stereotypes.
Don't get me wrong though. I still think it is a bad idea. Computers aren't perfect and it can't be 100% and even if it were 99 (yeah, right) I'd feel sorry for the 1% that were ostrasized falsely because no one bothered to question the computers evaluation. Besides the fact that it bothers me because it is way to big-brotherish.
this is a good point. While this one company and their product may be useful and upstanding, the same can't be said for their inevitable competitors. When you pass the task of determining risk onto a machine you get a very cold, stark picture of reality. While this may be acceptable for insurance companies, I would rather not see such a system implemented in high school, ever.
+&x
Harrison Bergeron
Is that the one where they strap scrap metal to the guy to make him weaker, and interrupt his thought process with loud music every few seconds to make him dumber? I could never remember the name of that one.
+&x
There is only one way to beat back the violence that is destroying our children. We must attack it it's very root, destroy any of the underlying factors that make violence possible. It is only through a complete eradication of violence that, uh, well, schools will be, um, safe. Everyone chant together now "Kill the Violence, kill the violence, kill the violence."
-----
"I think it's a wonderful tool that has a great deal of potential, and I hope it's properly used by the schools," said Andrew Vita, associate director of field operations for the ATF, which has used the Mosaic approach to investigate abortion-clinic bombings.
"I hope it's properly used by the schools" Yes, I'm sure most will have the extra time and funding to get counselors extensive training with a black box that spits out your violence quotient. Wow all the way from 1 to 10, I'd hate to be on the line of 7 (angry, but safe) and 8 (will blow up school if left unmodified).
Nothing like getting an institution like ALCHOHOL, TOBACCO and FIREARMS, involved with the kids. I can't wait to see how they deal with a standoff with some high schoolers...
Jon, it looks like you've become the voice of the disenfranchised geek. Congrats, represent them well, maybe a voice will be heard above the braying of Britney, LFO, and Insane Clown Posse. Luckily most of the social disruption sorts itself out by college, y'know, that part of education without metal detectors, violence aptitude tests, and orange jumpsuits (or whatever your school colors may be)
+&x
Repeat After Me:
I would rather be FREE than SAFE. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe. I would rather be free than safe.
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
Let's not use technology to identify and quantify the qualities that would tend to make someone violent. Instead, let's depend upon underpaid civil servants with their superhuman impartiallity to pick out the problem cases. Then the teachers (who, by the way, are at the root of all student evils to begin with) can suggest to parents that there may be something wrong happening their precious child.
My brother has a child whose teacher has repeatedly stated that the child needs professional attention. My brother's solution? He is going to homeschool. "There ain't nothin' wrong with my child. The stupid teacher don't know what she's talkin' about." (Yes people, I started life as a redneck.) Imagine his reaction when the teacher informs him that in her professional opinion, his child has the potential to be deadly violent. And remember no matter how well trained she is, without documented facts it is still just an opinion. I found the quote from the principal justified. He can now say, "I teachers think your kid might be violent, and we have a computer profile to back us up. Now, get the child help, or we will!"
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
calming the nerves of worried parents" is absolutely NOT "a perfectly valid reason" to invade the privacy of kids with unproven technology
You make the mistake of thinking that children have a "right to privacy". When someone other person or thing is respnsible for your actions then you have no right to privacy. Parents have a right to search their childrens rooms, schools have a right to search their lockers etc..etc. Simply put, their is no invansion when there is no right.
It is not a valid reason to spend time and money categorizing, separating and splitting kids into profile groups, rather than actually providing them with the support they need to be unique individuals.
You stop the children from categorizing each other on sight by requiring uniforms in schools, this has already been proven to lower gang violence in metropolitan schools. But you would probably disagree with me saying that children have a right to wear what they want to wear to school.
It seems that once again, issue must be taken with Katz's [sic] article. Though the primary focus of it one can find no actual fault with, there seems to be an underlying current of fanaticism ( possibly idealism ) that permeates all of his articles, and this one is no different.
Beginning with his initial argument and defense of the geek 'Hollow Man', I can find nothing to actually disagree with ( read: am I looking for something to disagree with in the first place? ), and heartily agree that an evaluation system to be used in schools does indeed mirror such "dark future" societies as portrayed in 1984, or more appropriately, Brave New World.
What I do find overreactive, and almost insulting, is the quick method by which Katz jumps to conclusions, finding fault with the media/American public who he claims to be overreacting to the Columbine incident. Follow me, if you will, with this line of reasoning: Katz writes an article that attempts to cause an immediate ( read: overreactive ) opinion in the reader to assault a situation which he believes is the product of overreaction. Fighting fire with fire, perhaps? Or is he simply following the guidelines of "sensationalistic journalism" as applied to the geek culture?
Further on, I again feel as if my intelligence is being insulted by the way in which he asks if the Mosaic 2000 program will be used to scout out members of other groups that he takes offense with. Yes, I do indeed have no love of school bullies or [literal] religious fundamentalists. However, this section seems to almost depart from the message of the article and attempt to be a "rallying cry" against the various "persona non grata" of the geek community. To be more clear: His fingering of school bullies and religious fundamentalists ( I wonder, does this include Buddhists, Islamics, Native Americans, Shinto[ists(?)], Gaians, Wiccans, etc. who might not follow the precepts set by science, or is it only Christians that he finds distasteful? ) only seems to again use sensationalism as a means of raising your (ire or interest).
I sincerely hope that, as any geek should, persons who read this article step back and think for themselves before formulating an opinion. One must remember that in an opinion article, the opinion stems from the fact that it is the author's opinion only, and one which does not necessarily inherit wisdom or truth based on the sheer merit of publication.
net_shade
"I could float off the floor if I wished to. But I do not wish to because the Party does not wish me to." - Abridged,
When are people going to learn that fucked up families and M.I.A. parents are the root of this "violence wave" that has come about. And that blaming and pointing fingers at guns, schools, games, internet, movies, etc, etc. is not going to fix anything.
Sure you can evaluate someone till your blue in the face, but what then? Do you send your kid, who may or may not want to kill everyone, to a therapist and fuck them up even more because you as a parent don't want to deal with it?
It's just another example of a society that doesn't want to take responsibility for it's actions. And parent's who don't want to "deal" with raising their kids so they dump the liability on the schools and communities. Just like Columbine, if something happens, everyone sues the crap out each other and points fingers and nothing changes, the cycle is never broken. Can you believe that the mother of one of the gunmen is suing the sheriff's office claiming that she would never have let her son hang out with the other killer if she'd been properly informed. Once parents realize that their actions influence their children more than any video game ever could then I think we'll begin to see a change in our children's behavior.
-colin.s
If this is really a big issue (which I personally feel it is), then just lie through your teeth whenever a gummint agency gives you one of these personality tests. Bring your portable RNG & bubble in what it gives you. Honesty to tax collectors (or BATF agents) is a sign of a weak mind.
I find nothing wrong with lying in situations like this. And the "it's for your own good" reasoning is, pardon me, total fucking bullshit. In fact, I think that in this situation lying is MORE good than telling the truth. There is no reason for governments to give you a psychological evaluation, especially when the only criteria is "you are under voting age."
Fuck that. I'm with Katz on this one. And I don't really care if he is overdramatizing the situation, because the idea of the USG giving sweeping personality exams scares the hell out of me. These are the same people that, believe it or not, were responsible for killing a bunch of people in Waco. Remember that? And we're supposed to let them give our youth psychological evaluations? No, I just don't think so.
Innocent until proven guilty,
- Rev"calming the nerves of worried parents" is absolutely NOT "a perfectly valid reason" to invade the privacy of kids with unproven technology. It is not a valid reason to spend time and money categorizing, separating and splitting kids into profile groups, rather than actually providing them with the support they need to be unique individuals.
Now, lets talk about the science (or lack thereof), here. This software is developed from interviews with violent kids. This means that its use as a predictor is problematic. The statement "most violent kids exhibit characteristics a, b, and c - therefore most kids that exhibit characteristics a, b, and c are violent" is as much a logical fallacy as saying that "most rapists are male - therefore most males are rapists."
It's the smart ones you have to watch out for.
And a violent smart kid would lie on the tests. They are worthless.
Then again, I told the truth on such tests when in the service, and they tried to tell me I was suicidal. Yeah, ok, whatever!
Somtimes plans crash and kill their pasengers.
Sometimes people go crazy and kill their fellows.
They don't usually stay crazy for very long and without access to weapons they can't do much harm.
Easy access to lethal weapons is the real problem.
History is being made on slashdot and I'm sure some future historian will use this material to find out how we're thinking right now. So thanks slashdot for letting me speak to my children
IIRC there was a Maxx Headrom (sp?) about this topic. A man was arrested for a crime that they didn't have evidence to convict him, but his 'profile' fit. He just happened to have certain knowledge that made it plausible for him to do the crime.
With this sort of technology innocent until proven guilty goes out the door.
This space for sale
I don't know, it sounds more like Goth profiling to me, if you want to put a label on it. I doubt they are going to place someone in counseling for writing a kernel device driver at home. Geeks are sometimes outcasts, true, but not all outcasts are geeks. Just because someone plays Doom or Quake doesn't categorize them as a geek. When did wearing black trenchcoats and all black in general start becoming a geek fashion statement?
I understand that Katz wants to appeal to the slashdot crowd and make the story seem to apply to them, but it just seems that he is making a big stretch to call this "Geek profiling". I am afraid it is the Goth community that will end up getting the worst treatment from software like this, not geeks. It is still, in my opinion a bad thing to do, and will probably end up backlashing and causing more problems, but I doubt most geeks in school will see the effects of it, unless they are goth.
Gee, who woulda thought wearing black would put you in counseling.
Your generosity is perhaps commendable in an abstract sense, but misplaced here. The government and its school system have perpetrated so many abuses and idiocies that the default has shifted: any prudent person assumes that they are in the wrong unless and until they prove otherwise. Extending a presumption of good faith and competence is as foolish as hiring somebody who just got out of prison for embezzlement as your accountant.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
From the article...
>Why not get to the really dangerous people loose
>in schools, maybe programming Mosaic to hunt down
>and identify religious fanatics such as those who
>believe in the literal truth of the Bible and
>reject Darwin and evolution? Aren't they a threat
>to school science programs?
First off, just because you have a religious faith (of any sort) and may not believe in Darwinism, does not instantly make you a fanatic OR dangerous. And doesn't mean do you necessarily object to the teaching of the theory of evolution.
If you pay attention to the contextual clues, I think you'll find that he was being faecetious.
Katz, as is his wont, has flown into a paranoid frenzy, his mind full of hysterical visions of every kid with a Marilyn Manson t-shirt being subjected to Orwell's Room 101 treatment.
The problem will not be that every kid with a Marilyn Manson t-shirt is subjected to this.
The problem will be that any kid with a Marilyn Manson t-shirt could be subjected to it.
Paranoia is a conditioned response. Too bad we've been conditioned so much.
Any case of a wide spread, automated system to catigorize people into "acceptable" and "dangerous" is a Bad Thing(tm).
I don't care how it works, or what it outputs, I just don't want people's answer to a set of questions to result in a psycological profile that will affect their lives and follow them for an indefinate length of time!
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I bring a laptop to school every day. I don't know what a metal detector would do to my laptop and I don't want to know. If my school had a metal detector and armed guards, and actually took it seriously, my school entry procedure would be as follows.
The only solution would be for me to get to school 20-30 minutes early every day, and if that's not restricting my freedoms....
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
and I really should use the preview button, sorry.
George
I believe it's titled "And Then There Were None" about what happens when a coercive militaristic starship lands on a planet settled by followers of Ghandhi.
Useful abbreviations from the story:
myob: mind your own business
fiw: freedom, I won't
off topic, too.
George
I'm not going to pay it, so I can't read Jon's linked source first hand.
Oh well, there's no sense in trying to evaluate something firsthand, let's just give in to the hysteria.
George
Hey, this AC read the article, and maybe it's not an anti-geek tool, but an anti-violence tool.
George
How about the right to carry a pocket knife?
The kid killing kid that I referred to used a knife. If the 12 year old had known she had to walk through a metal detector to get to school, maybe she wouldn't have carried a knife.
George
So you have no problems with your kid setting off the metal detector because she has a house key in her pocket and having armed guards rummage thru her backpack, purse, pockets, etc.? Your daughter will probably grow up to be a good little sheep. Or a rebel, and who could blame her?
Don't I have the choice of telling my daughter how to get through a metal detector without setting one off?
"Put your keys in the plastic bin, walk through the detector, pick up your keys."
In a similar vein:
"Drive just over the speed limit, don't drive erratically, don't run red lights, and you won't get pulled over, since you're white. You can even drive with 1/4 oz of marijuana and never be picked up."
"Don't smoke a joint in front of a police office, unless you want to get arrested for a political statement."
It's not a question of freedoms in this case, it's a question of "learning environment". Why don't you have armed guards in your house, mandated by the government? You'd be much safer, and it wouldn't be impinging on your freedoms, would it?
If several times a week there were fights and violence in my house and a murder every few years, and I didn't want to get caught up in that, yeah, I might consider armed guards in my house.
I'm thinking metal detectors with unarmed guards is silly, anybody wanting to do a Gotterdammerung on their school wouldn't be deterred by a stern glance and a warning beep.
I suppose the proper solution is to chicken out and move to the suburbs, where student on student violence doesn't occur (I'm being sarcastic, I live in the city, and I think Columbine,etc showed that the cities don't have a monopolyon violence).
George
First off I don't know if this Mosaic thing is good or bad since no one knows how it works and what criteria it uses.
You can get a good idea how it works by looking at the web page, http://www.mosaic2000.com, but that takes work.
Ok granted metal detecters can be useful but what he is saying is that when our kids grow older they will no longer feel threatened by their loss of privacy.
This is a valid point, don't I have the option of telling my daughter "metal detectors are a necessary evil, they infringe on your privacy but I think the deterrent affect they provide is more important"?
I am married and we are planning children. I for one do not want my children to become mindless cows not aware of the killing hammer behing the next turn.
Good for you, remember this conversation when your children go off to school, and think if you want your 12 year old to be a foot soldier in the war against metal detectors, or if you prefer him/her to grow up first and then decide his/her own fate.
Well, I for one will teach my daughter not be a mindless cow. I'll tell her why her school has metal detectors and why I'm in favor of them, why we have a large dog, why someone took her pumpkin from the garden, etc.
How does being in favor of metal detectors in schools make me a mindless cow? Is it the same as being in favor of DWI laws make me a humorless prude?
George
I have no problem with metal detectors in places where they are appropriate.
This is my point!
The city high schools my daughter will attend are unfortunately dangerous, a short term band aid is metal detectors, a longer term one is reducing the poverty in the city.
Does laetus have kids? Where does he/she send the school if he/she does?
George
Statistically your home is far more likely to be the site of a fight or murder than your childs school. IT hasn't happened yet, just as the people being tested have not YET done anything violent. But it MIGHT, so shouldn't you let the government put armed guards in your house JUST IN CASE?
Really?
Where did you get statistics comparing the rates of violence and murder in an inner city high school versus a white, middle class home with two parents and no guns?
Or are you comparing all schools (including placid suburban schools) and all households (including those with single parents, guns, substance abuse, etc).
George
There are not fights several times a week and a few murders a year in each school. Those statistics are for larger areas. There is about 1 fight a year in my school and never a murder.
I'm glad for you, but I'm talking about the Rochester, New York, City Schools. There are fights in the schools, there are murders every few years there, though mercifully it has been about 3 or 4 if I recall since the last one.
George
Novel concept, I went to Gavin De Becker's web site and from this article> I found a list of profiling characteristics.
Dr. McGee had over 60 categories of information on classroom shooters and about 80 inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, arrayed in spreadsheets and tables. And here was where he caught me. As the slides displaying this information commenced flashing on the big screen at the front of the darkened auditorium, I began noticing an eerie congruence between his profile of the school shooter type, and the actual traits of the boy who had murdered my son... member of alienated group; appearance of normality to adults; negative self-image and unstable self esteem; average to above average IQ; covert vandalism and dishonesty; distrustful and secretive with adults in authority; interest in real and fictional violence in the media; motive vengeance and achievement of power; mixed personality disorder with paranoid, antisocial and narcissistic features... the list went on. The fit was uncanny. McGee told us, for example, how in their fantasies, school shooters pre-select victims, witnesses, time, place, location, means and course of action. I recalled testimony from the criminal trial to the effect that my son's killer had repeatedly and publicly rehearsed his fantasy of shooting up the dining hall at the evening meal.
And this interesting characteristic:
These kids were middle class male Caucasians averaging 16 years of age, who felt socially isolated and who had ready access to guns. Other kinds of information were surprising. These kids were NOT drug addicts or alcohol abusers, and they had no documented history of severe mental illness. Aside from an occasional preference for dark or camouflage clothing, they presented a normal appearance to adults. They were not pierced, tattooed scary looking kids, and they were not high-profile trouble makers. They were, generally, of above average intelligence.
Hmmm, can we categorize these as geek or goth characteristics?
characteristic geek goth
alienated group maybe maybe
appearance of
normality to adults maybe no
negative self-image
and unstable self
esteem* maybe maybe
average to above
average IQ presumable maybe
covert vandalism and
dishonesty** maybe maybe
distrustful and secretive with
adults in authority maybe maybe
interest in real and fictional violence
in the media *** maybe maybe
motive vengeance and achievement
of power no no
mixed personality disorder
with paranoid no no
ready access to guns no no
* this sounds like a typical adolescent, GH
** does cracking count?
*** does AP history count?
You can make almost any adolescent fit these characteristics, but maybe in summation they mean something.
You'll notice a lack of computers in the mix, too.
I had to fudge some of the Goth stuff, not really knowing any Goths anymore.
George
If this "Mosaic" software asks questions like "Do you spend more than 15 minutes a day on the Internet?", "Do you use IRC, MUDs, or chat rooms on a daily basis?" and uses the answers to those questions to judge whether or not a kid could be potential "trouble", that's a Very Bad Thing.
It doesn't.
Students will probably never see Mosaic, it's for administrators.
From the NYTimes and Gavin De Beckers's web site it asks questions like:
What kind of access to firearms does the student have?
__No known possession of a firearm
__Friends known to have ready access to a firearm
__There are firearms in the home
__There are firearms in a home frequented by the student
__The student owns his own firearm
__The student recently acquired a firearm
I'm guessing from the context of the web site, but if student Joe Geek was just dumped by his girlfriend and he sent her a threatening invitation to the prom (ala Go with me or it will be an unforgettable Prom, and your last prom!) and Joe Geek just bought a gun, maybe Mosaic-2000 will flag him.
George
The list: ...
armed guards at school entrances, hallways, etc.,
metal detectors,
Speaking as a parent who will be sending his daughter to a school district where kids have killed kids, I'm fine with metal detectors and armed guards.
What freedoms do metal detectors restrict? The freedom to bring a crowbar to school in your backpack, just in case you need to pry open an air vent?
I also had to pass through a metal detector when I did jury duty, and when I went to the airport. I don't feel particularly threatened or impinged, or even less free.
What freedoms do armed guards restrict? I just hope they're better shots than the Columbine wusses.
George
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
The list:
This is really so sad. Maybe you don't see what I see, but I see a generation of young Americans becoming accustomed to and desensitized to the tools of a police state.
When they graduate and enter the world at large, they will be coming from a heavily-restricted environment and perhaps will be less willing to question lawmakers and special-interest groups who would propose laws that restrict our freedoms in the name of safety.
Some hope?
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
A family friend's son got suspended for two weeks when he was in fifth grade for telling the teacher "I want a blow job out of town!" when he didn't even really know what the phrase meant. I can see explaining to the kid that you shouldn't repeat what's on bathroom walls, but TWO WEEKS OF SUSPENSION?!
There's also the whole issue of my SCA group's heavy fighters and fencers losing their practice site because the idiot suburban school district we were supposed to use decided that legal adults engaging in a martial art in a safe and supervised fashion after school hours is still a violation of their zero-tolerance for weapons policy.
If an unbroken epee is a "weapon," I'd hate to see what a "threat" is to these folks. Hell, I had a bad day at work and was joking about wanting to burn everything on my desk. I'd never actually DO it, but had I said that in a school, it'd have been a threat, probably
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
There are generally two problems with profiling IMHO: the profiles are too general, and they are frequently based off of stereotypes rather than data. And right now this has affected my life and the lives of my friends in some ways I'm plenty pissed about:
1. Lots and lots of well-meaning friends telling me to break up with my boyfriend because he supposedly fits the profile of an abuser (divorced parents, "troubled" high school years, slightly erratic job history, and what could be called a "fascination" with weapons). I *know* that the only way he'd ever hit me is if I take up SCA heavy weapons or he takes up fencing and we're BOTH wearing armor. And yet the concerned inquiries persist. Meanwhile, the piece of slime that abused my housemate for two years set off no such alarm bells -- his parents were still together, and did I mention he's gay?
2. Carload of guys coming back across the border from a Canadian fencing tourney. Four young white long-haired males. All their stuff gets picked through for any possible sign of drugs, and their fencing foils almost get confiscated.
3. Another friend of mine (this one female) who fences was given a lot of grief by her doctor at her last checkup because he was absolutely CERTAIN that she was being abused. Now, mind you, this doctor knows that she and her husband are both highly skilled fencers, but just based on her age and the newness of the marriage, he made rather an ass out of himself asking repeatedly if she was being abused. *sigh* What a pain in the neck that must've been.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
We're not that far away from this dystopian
ideal. We really aren't.
This has been a trend for a while, only now has
it gotten bad enough for people to sit up and
take notice.
If we were really honest we would just merge
juvies with high schools, and be done with it.
Perhaps someone will propose it as a money
saving measure.
Yeah...I don't know if I buy the hypsterism either. Katz does seem to provoke some interesting conversation, but like the very media he scorns he is just as sensationalistic and hyped.
/they/ have common sense and reason. Unfortunately it does seem that a program like this /might/ actually give an excuse to those who are already punishing people wrongfully to do it more so...so there may be legitimate fear in that.
Katz says that the people who make this product have already proven their legitimacy in many real world cases. He also goes on to ask if it will be used to pick out bullies, etc. Well, I hope it IS. I hope it IS used responsibly. No matter what the program says, it is up to the administrative staff and faculty to decide what to do. We have to hope
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
You assume that the software will be used the way that GDB says it should be used. I read that Katz does not. I don't think that his fears are unfounded.
For one thing, how many schools are going to spend the money on the software and the training? How many schools will defer the "decisions" that GDB refers to completely to the software?
When the hype says it's "a method for evaluating students who make threats," what do they mean by threat? Can the combination of being a Doom player, Anthrax fan and losing your temper in Social Studies class lead to a recommendation for therapy?
Katz may be assuming the worst, but I don't think the answer is to assume the best. This sort of tool will be abused by bureaucrats that are just as paranoid as Katz.
Now, I don't mean to defend this guy, since I don't remember the story too well anyway. But I always felt that it was the activists who were racist, not the official. Because they apparently believe themselves that black people are monkeys, when they saw someone call a bunch of black people "monkeys", they assumed it was because they were black.
So Mr. Katz, do you believe that being "violent" is equivalent to being a "geek"? Apparently you do, because although the MOSAIC folks have only said that the program is intended to detect violence, you assume that they're looking for "geeks".
If, in fact, a test which is designed to detect violent students happens to flag a lot of geeks, then frankly, maybe geeks are violent. But I don't think this is the case, so it is unfair to imply that this is "geek profiling".
You know, I don't mean to flame, but I have found all of Katz's recent articles to be fundamentally flawed, and apprently many
(Disclaimer: I think MOSAIC-2000 is a very, very, bad idea. I just disagree with this particular objection. For the real problem here, see Jerf's comment and my response to it.
MSK
After the string of school shootings that ended at Columbine, school systems decided that we needed to do something. I agree. I believe that that something is to train and hire personnel that will solve the problem of school violence. Generally speaking, when a computer program is created to do something that is supposed to be done by a person it is because the people want to do something on the cheap. If we need profilers working at the school, so be it. But let them be people and not "Mosaic."
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
See this Washingt on Post story Quote:
That January, during one of their nocturnal pranks, Harris and Klebold were arrested on juvenile charges of felony burglary for stealing from a van. They got the lightest sentence available: a diversion program, with the charges expunged after 10 months of counseling and community service. In fact, their own light sentence has provoked questions among some parents that school officials were lax not only toward athletes, but toward all sorts of student misbehavior.--Lorraine Adams and Dale Russakoff, Washington Post Staff Writers
) Why would having a computerized test, even if it worked, change matters? I suspect that the "violence-prone students" will simply be forced to attend useless anti-violence classes one or two days a week, while suffering the taunts of fellow classmates "Oooh, look it's Violence Bob. Oooh, I'm scared he's going to kill me... Come on, take swing at me, Bob..."
Since nothing constructive is actually done about proven violent students, nothing useful will actually be done about students "caught" by MOSAIC. But it will let people think that the school's are doing something to protect our children, and that's really its job, isn't it?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
They are not looking for "geeks", they are looking for violently inclined kids. Most people realize that has little to do with geeks! There is something mentally wrong with violent students, and this profiling has, and does work in identifying them. It is not as simple as, "You are different or weird... therefore you must be violent and a danger to society". Gimem a break.
If it actually works like they say it does, then it is definately a good thing. It will help with safety, allow them to help the violent kinds, and REDUCE the geek profiling that is taking place in the schools. It'll show the administrators that being different is not what makes kids dangerous.
Who knows... maybe we'll be lucky and they'll find out that the "spoiled, get away with anything" jocks are more dangerous than the geeks and other outcasts could ever be.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Is it me, or is this an overreaction to the Mosiac article we've already seen?
We don't know how it works yet. We don't know what factors it considers important, and which it doesn't. It's a bit hasty to assume that it's going to single out the people who are different, the "geeks" as Katz likes to call anyone who's not a conformist.
Perhaps they've actually done something GOOD with this program. Perhaps they've found more of the real issues that can influence violent and troubled kids. How do we know this tool isn't a good thing, finding people in danger before something happens?
If it turns into just another geek profiling tool, then I'll gladly join in the chorus about how bad it is. But I'm not going to do that until I know that's how it's working.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
If Mosaic2000 is used as described in the NYTimes article, to separate the potentially dangerous threatmakers from the posers, I have no problem with it. It is rational police triage, or would you rather they use their "discretion"?
IANAL, but assault is the crime of threatening violence. Battery is doing it.
Now if Mosaic2000 is used otherwise, attempting to correlate non-criminal behaviour (wearing trenchcoats) with future criminal activity, it is almost certainly unconstitutional (1st and equal protection ammendments). All public schools are government bodies to which at least the state constitutions apply, if not the Federal.
-- Robert
> For example, they will ask you two differently
> worded questions about the same topic.
>
> Would you describe yourself as punctual? Yes/No
> Would you describe yourself as patient? Yes/No
Personality Profiling 101:
Knowing how to spot these kinds of questions is a very useful life skill, whether in a Geek Profiling situation or a job interview. For an excellent example of the "ask the same question different ways" techique in action, and for an opportunity get some practice, play with this version of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter.
First, answer with "the truth" - your honest answers to the questions. Then, when you've read your results and realized that the questionnaire is only measuring "yes/no" answers along four orthogonal axes, try to give the "right" answers for an "all-yes" or "all-no" score on the axis of your choice.
Advanced class:
Note that someone who scores "perfectly" - with zero inconsistent answers, less so on Kiersey, but probably more so on something more sophisticated, like Mosaic, is likely to be spotted as a liar. Humans are inherently fuzzy things, and some degree of internal inconsistency is to be expected. Doublethink is normal.
If your answer to "Do you believe in non-violence" is "yes", and your response, 10 questions later, to "What if you saw your wife boinking the milkman" is "I'd ask them to please stop and put their clothes on before inviting them both out to dinner to rationally discuss our differences of opinion on marital fidelity", it could well be as much of a red flag as "I'd cut them into little chunks with my big mofo chainsaw and cook and eat them both, and then throw her goldfish in the microwave for dessert! Muhahahaha!".
(In my obviously-contrived example, a "right" response to the wife question would be "umm, that'd totally such, uh, I dunno, I hope I wouldn't like, freak out completely or anything", particularly if your other answers "If some bozo cut me off in traffic, I'd just let him get up ahead and get busted for speeding, he's worth making a fuss over" are generally consistent with nonviolence.)
Katz's articles seem to be getting more incendiary and less informed every time...
The program (which none of us has seen anyways) sounds like it is a lot more sophisticated than Katz suggests. It appears to have been utilised in reputable places, and has a lot of expertise behind it. I got the impression from the original article that this tool used a lot of factors and comparative information to judge what school administrators input about a student. It says that it differentiates between those who are just making threats and those who will carry through on threats. If that's true, it sounds like it might be useful.
I certainly didn't get the idea that geeks would be singled out by this tool -if used correctly- and persecuted. I think clueless teachers/counselors might create a profile for a geek/non-coformist, but it sounds like this program is designed to judge such a person unharmful. Of course, all this is dependant on the fact that Mosaic 2000 works like it says it does and that administrators use it properly. And mistakes could still be made. And confidential profiles could be disclosed or not discarded or whatever...
But I hardly think it's worth the uninformed FUD, that Katz is spreading. We all need to learn a little more about this program before we judge it. Sure I'm wary of it, but at this point, hardly panicking.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Would you want the ability to buy a house, get a job, anything in your life to be in the hands of your worst enemy?
Um... whoah... buy a house?? get a job??? where did you get the impression that this program will affect those things?! This program is supposed to identify who among the students who make threats is likely to carry through! As I stated, there would be concerns about confidentiality and what was done with this information after you left the school.
However, I think you've picked up on too much of Katz's FUD. A single teacher would likely have very little ability to change the output of such a program ... it's not going to rate you based on how much your teacher's dislike you! I imagine such a teacher would have to make up a lot of imaginary incidents before it could rate someone unharmful as dangerous. And besides, it's a program designed to help identify possible problems... if it's used properly (and isn't that the REAL issue here?) it will allow administrators to find out who isn't a threat and whose actions need to be taken seriously.
Of course it could be abused, like EVERYTHING school officials control. The point is, that the program might be useful or at least harmless if used PROPERLY. That's always an issue though, and if they didn't have the program, they'd have soemthing else. Better to use a program that has a knowledge base behind it to judge a student, than an educator who doesn't know much about what indicates an actual threat, as opposed to a perceived one. This is a tool like any other. If abused it will cause harm, if used properly, it could help. If you're so worried, go find out more about how it's worked and been used in the federal court system and at Yale. Neither the original article nor Katz's feature offer much more than speculation and opinions.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Most of the geeks at my school are morons and possiably dangerous, and should be taken out of the general population. I'd feel safer knowing that this test is doing its work, and possiable instigators are being watched.
We allready have a well established system of hazing and harassment in high school. All an administrator has to do is find the students who are routinely bullied, and watch them to find your future killers.
Listen up geeks. You are being picked on for a REASON. Different is not nessicarily good, and anyone with any intelligence knows that it's easier to go with the flow. Stop trying to be different.
I know this is going to be tough for some readers, but life just isn't fair. There's just not anything you can do about it.
If the test is written by even a halfway decent pysch then it certainly won't just flag "geeks", however it will tend to pigeon hole people based on certain categories (ie. potentially violent, poor impulse control, violent fantacies, etc.) so working from a statistical view many people who don't fit in the non-violent category, but who are not a threat are going to get flagged (ie. a person with a bad temper who none the less will not ever act in a violent manner) there is no computer based test for this and if most administrators are like mr.cover my ass from the article:
"immediate virtue would be in producing detailed documentation of its evaluation of a troubled student so that doubting parents could no longer challenge an administrator's judgement as too subjective."
Look angry parent look the computer says your kid is crazy too, if the parents are angry it probably means they care and if they care then the kid is not in trouble. You can't tell me that the columbine boys had a decent homelife.
if anything you want more subjectivity
responsible administrator:
Hmmmm this kid seems to identify with violent cultural images and he is agressive in his speech,but he's just insecure, he's ok.
computer: subject is violent, extreminate, exterminate.
and of course all this leads to the greatest pitfall of all: "it's a computer it can't be wrong"
and lastly I've always wanted to know this: what person with any kind of sense would find a goth violent? or scary or a threat? No disrespect my goth brothers and sisters, but you guys are really not scary nor do you seem that non-conformist (everyone in black fishnets and eyeliner, ooh individual) and by the way I was consumed by image and subculture in highschool so I'm not saying I was any different.
Also can we just put the blame the media stamp on this. School violence sharply down in the last sevreal years etc. more kids killed choking on lego pieces every year.
Parents: do your kids seem weird and alienated? they are! all teenagers are. DO they dress funny?
good, trench coats are cheaper than abercrombie and fitch (jockware). Do they like computers? great then you can retire rather than work for the rest of your life.
is there a point out logical cotradictions preview button that I'm not getting? fsucking crashscape.
Well, they are getting all kids out of the norm, or that behave differently, no doubt there.
But what schools are made for, in first place, if not exactly to making that: assure that we all think and act alike?
It is that that schools do, and had ever done. Nothing strange there.
-><- no
Also, let's not forget about the good ol' racial/economic stereotypes. These have the same opportunity to be misused in this type of software. This kind of software in general is a BAD idea and will hurt EVERYONE DIRECTLY as well as INDIRECTLY via overall quality of life degridation. Anyway, I've begun to ramble and will not cease and desist.
Lib.BENCH the only site you'll ever need!
"Sports is not the antichrist here... and yes, football IS a sport. As little as I personally value it, that sport brings in a lot of money for the highschool... money that is also funneled into educational projects and clubs."
Yup, there is truth in what you say. Physical education is part of a balanced curriculum. But surely you understand that football (and I enjoy watching football occasionally myself) has been elevated to a position of artificial importance?
If the school football team wins a victory, it's a big deal. Time is even taken from classes to rally spirit prior to the game and celebrate victory afterwards. Team heroes often get laid. Buses are provided to transport the team. There is even an officially endorsed team of attractive females to encourage the male football players and spectators by shouting and wearing skimpy outfits. This sport is valued so highly that regular occurrences of paralysis and maiming in children do not derail it. Where exactly is the social value in paying so kids can act violently with the full approval of their peers and parents? And they think DOOM is desensitizing?
When the school's debating team or chess team (assuming they still have one) wins, where is the recognition or encouragement? Why do they have to provide their own transportation to the match? Why do students laugh at their victories (at least until some team hits the state or national finals -- then suddenly they're "our geeks")? Seems this kind of rivalry would benefit commercial sponsors much more in the long run, but as you say, there is *no* money in it at all.
Testing students for violent thinking thru a test, then sending them out to actually break bones on the gridiron, or cheer such mayhem on, seems a little contradictory to me.
If it were up to me, I'd can the test and keep football. But I'd also get the money completely out of all kinds of football but professional. *Especially* high school football -- because engaging in a dangerous sport for *any* reason other than the love of it is the wrong reason.
Money to fund sports and other competitions needs to come from somewhere. Why do I have the feeling that most of it goes to adminstrators with fat salaries and corrupt vendors of materials with sweetheart deals? Maybe because throwing more at the problem does absolutely nothing for students?
I think it's time we consider a federal standard for education with individual schools only responsible to themselves and that standard. That eliminates untold bureaucrats, promotes choice in education, and keeps deals for materials very small and hard to control or corrupt.
This is stooooopid!!!
When will it end. Yet another head-shrink, who's probably NEVER written a line of code in his life, thinks he can use a software company to crawl inside the heads of people who operate on a level so far above his own he can't even imagine.
How he got any geeks to go along with this and write the software I don't know. Perhaps they're COBOL programmers...
Has it occured to the people who came up with this half-witted idea that psychological tests like this are ridiculously transparent?
For example, that briggs-meyers personality test; you know the one that tells you if you are:
Introvert or Extrovert
iNtuitave or Sensing
Thinking or Feeling
Perceiving or Judging
Now, if *I* answer HONESTLY, I come out INTP. But I can easily make my restlts come out ESFJ, or ISTJ, or ENFP, or any damn thing I want.
So, suppose the ACLU *doesn't* throw a fit and keep this tied up in court till we're all dead of old age. And suppose that the PHAs DO use it to sift through the high school population looking for geeks.
They're not going to find any. Geeks are, by definition, too smart to fall for this crap.... unless they want to.
This test will find:
A) Violent people who are also idiots. These are more likely to blow themselves up building their pipe bombs, or forget which end of the gun you point at their target.
B) Smart asses like me, who are not actually violent, but who greatly enjoy messing with the heads of anal retentive reactionary administrator types.
Meanwhile, the rest of the geeks, are safely hidden away, due to the ridiculous transparancy of standardised tests. As are the INTELLIGENT violent people, who might actually pose a threat to *others* someday (as opposed to just themselves).
Sigh....
Time to dig out those old Marilyn Manson T-Shirts and KMFDM CDs....
john
Imagine all the people...
As opposed to my standard, long-winded comments that will never have any kind of effect on the way people think, and serve no other purpose than to make me feel better. I think I'll just tell a "short" story.
First someone please define normal for me!
In junior high school, I played football(badly). I was never put on to the feild for any thing but to be a practice dummy for the more popular kids on the team. I was not well liked by the other players and was picked on constantly, in the locker room, in the showers, in the hall ways, wherever.
I love football. My dad who would've been proud of anything that I chose to do with myself, was extremely proud of me for making the team in the first place, being that he was a former starting quarterback for his high school football team.
I stayed with the team for the rest of junior high. At the end of Nineth grade we moved. Thinking that I could make a fresh start at things , I decided that I would not try out for football at my new school. This didn't make things any better. I went from one school where football was like the second greatest thing a student could play, to a town that lived and breathed high school football.
It was not long until I had redeveloped the same reputation of being an oddball that I had had in junior high.
High school was hell! If my few friends needed me
they could find me in the computer lab or in the band room. I could not understand why I was shunned by the rest of the school. I did everything right just like my dad had, but I failed miserably.
Six months before graduation I went into my garage, stood on a chair, and put a rope around my neck. I probably hung there for five minutes or so before my brother found me and cut me down.
I spent the next two weeks in the hospital. My brother could not understand why someone he looked up to and respected would try to take his own life. My father didn't understand why I thought that he had thought that I was a failure.
While I was in the hospital my father told me that I had succeded where he had failed. I was graduating in the top 5% of my class, and had been accepted to college with a full ride. Where he had been lucky to graduate high school at all, and even though he had gone to college on a football scholarship, he was forced to drop out when he couldn't keep his grades high enough and lost the scholarship.
Six months later I walked across the stage to accept my diploma. The assembly who had cheered for most everyone previously stayed quiet. With the exception of my father, cheered in spite of everyone.
Today I'm an Info Systems Director. I now make $75,000 a year at a small town health care establishment. I have been happily married for seven years this November, and I have two children.
Last april I went to my 10 year high school reunion. While no one really remembered me, I still had the rather pleasant oppertunity to see how all my piers had turned out in the last decade.
Most of the football team, in fact most of the graduating class were stuck in blue collar or dead end jobs, unhappily and prematurly married with childeren, or alone and unhappy.
The world is a funny place.
Les Tolbert
You forget that people are going to be deciding what to put into the machine.
:)
Yes, but geeks are going to be the ones who actually program the machine. Unless they're traitors to their own kind, they'll know what to do.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
I agree with most of your points, but think you need to forego a little of your animosity... did someone lose a girlfriend, or get beaten up a few times? :)
Sports is not the antichrist here... and yes, football IS a sport. As little as I personally value it, that sport brings in a lot of money for the highschool... money that is also funneled into educational projects and clubs.
Playing a sport in highschool is just as valuable to a student as joining an academic club, national honors society or any other extra-curricular activity. You learn a lot of things while involved in a sport... including, but not limited to:
Organizational skills
Teamwork
Strategy
Elation and Disapointment
Interaction on Many Different Levels
Discipline
These experiences and skills prove highly valuable in college and when entering the work force... no matter what field your interest lies with.
Sorry to bring back unpleasant memories.
I have nothing against sports, I wrestled in high school, I enjoy watching football and baseball, I like playing soccer, I hold a first degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. HOWEVER none of that should be state sponsored school administered activity. It should be a seperate thing, ie the REC Department that most counties have.
In my high school the football team was allowed to have as many fund raising events as it chose, as well as getting money from ticket sales and directly from the school. Every year the team got new uniforms, new pads, new shoes, new helmets, new everything. The wrestling team, the baseball team, and the volleyball team got nothing. We brought in money from ticket sales, bu were only allowed to have 1 fund raising event per year. Other sports got shafted for football. NONE of these sports should be school sponsored activities. They should all be overseen by the Recreational department which is funded by the parents of the kids playing the sports and the ticket sales for the games.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I believe it should be a scool's responsibility to sponser extra-curricular activities. This includes sports. Would you suggest the schools also stop supporting theatre and putting on school plays? A lot of money goes into this extra-curricular activity as well.
I bitched and moaned in high school and college about how the football and basketball teams got the royal treatment as well. But I am now able to see around that. Football and basketball are simply the nation's most popular sports. By fostering good teams, schools increase more than just ticket sales. The whole school benefits from this notoriety.
I wish to peanuts that other sports were more popular however... but that is the way it is right now.
yes, I do think they should not be putting on plays. An elective theatre class would acceptable, which was a regular class and where everyone brought their own materials for set design and such. And if they wanted to have a play, free of charge, then that would be fine too.
I don't mind Phys Ed as a class. If we have Phys Ed, why do we need football??
Oh, and many counties in Georgia have seperate Arts programs like ARTS Oglethorpe (my county) which put on plays and are funded by the community.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Why'd you have to ruin an otherwise good post with uninformed speculation like this?
Spend a few weeks in my old high school. Maybe you'll understand my bitterness then. Our assistant principle was the former Agriculture teacher (Farming, yay...) I refused to memorize the political creed of an organization called the Future Farmers of America, because I wasn't a member of the organization. For that I was failed in his class and he continued to single me out throughout my high school career. Of course, I brought it on myself by believe the course description of a class called AgriSciTech. I thought it would have to do with geneticly enhanced plants, and things like that. Instead we memorized the parts of a cow, pig, etc... Worst waste of time in my life. Schools do NOT like to lose their funding, the government funds the schools, the schools do what the government says. The government responds to the loudest voices. If the loudest voices say 'We are helpless, we need you to step in and make our decisions for us' then that's what will happen, everywhere.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
How is your stereotyping of all schools based on your personal experiences in any way different than someone saying "The violent kids today all play Doom, therefore all Doom players must be violent!"? You are saying "My school forced me to do shitty things that I didn't like..therefore all schools will do the same thing." Both of these statements are taking a single data point (or a very small subset of data) and extrapolating them to the world at large. Both of these statements are patently and unequivocably wrong.
I agree, you had 5 intelligent points to your original post, then you blew it with the speculation. Just because you are bitter doesn't excuse you from being called to the carpet on the exact same thing (stereotyping/profiling) that this thread seems to be up in arms about.
I kind of expected the bitterness to be apparent and taken for what it was, my bitter raving about the school that opressed me. But, if you read through all of those hellmouth stories you'll see that my subset isn't all that small...
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
OK, I have to do this to clear up some obvious misconceptions concerning Mosaic 2000. Most of this IS redundant, but it has been scattered through the thread and ignored. Hopefully when it is put into one post together more people will read it and realize it.
1. Students DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS regarding Mosaic. The Administrators answer questions regarding known behavior and then program gives suggestions for how best to approach the person in questions.
2. Mosaic CAN NOT do anything on its own. All of the input and output will be determined by the same old biased administrators as far as Who to do things to. Mosaic just legitmizes that and tells them How to do what they would be doing anyways.
3. There is NO WAY to refuse to participate in this except by removing yourself from a school where it is present.
4. You CAN NOT fool this program without massively altering your exterior personality because you have no direct contact with the program.
5. This WILL be abused by the school system to stop parents from protesting their blatant formation of a militaristic regime.
6. The best way to stop this is to have your parents get in touch with some lawyers as soon as it gets implemented in the school system and GET A COPY of the program. Then make sure you ask the administrators what answers they gave to the questions asked, do it yourself and see what it comes up with. Also, check their answers since we know they don't know jack.
Hopefully this will stop a lot of people from screaming 'LIE TO THE TEST!' and whatnot.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Of course, they never did this with the group of kids who cause the biggest problem in schools: perfectly well adjusted boys and girls who mercilessly harass other students, or minorly troubled students who beat up other students.
really, people, the solution is to teach kids to play nice, not to alienate them.
Who knows what effect growing up in a police state will have on America's future?
This is exactly the point of what France (i think) is thinking of doing (making all government software require open source). To STOP these "closed" proprietary programs where nobody is quite sure how they work. I tend to trust a system I can think about more than one that is hidden from me.
Beacuse we are watching you...
Jon, a suggestion here. I'm not saying it was but this aricle could have been written by cut + pasting the comments about MOSAIC2K when it was a news item. Slashdot readers have expressed this and much more, and that makes it seem pretty unworthy of being a feature. A little journalistic integrity goes a long way, skip the stuff we've beaten into the ground and use the REPLY button like we do, unless its against /. rules. That way you can post your opinions timely and get busy on writting about something else.
If it actually works like they say it does, then it is definately a good thing. It will help with safety,
allow them to help the violent kinds, and REDUCE the geek profiling that is taking place in the
schools. It'll show the administrators that being different is not what makes kids dangerous.
Well spoken, and something I did not even think about.
By demanding a "leave us kids alone" attitude, you only further the inclination of teachers to stereotype the weird and different ones. Instead of fearing these kids, teachers need to (and I believe that this testing might help take away that fear) learn to work with them, and promote the talents that they do have.
HOWEVER none of that should be state sponsored school administered activity. It should be a seperate thing, ie the REC Department that most counties have.
I believe it should be a scool's responsibility to sponser extra-curricular activities. This includes sports. Would you suggest the schools also stop supporting theatre and putting on school plays? A lot of money goes into this extra-curricular activity as well.
I bitched and moaned in high school and college about how the football and basketball teams got the royal treatment as well. But I am now able to see around that. Football and basketball are simply the nation's most popular sports. By fostering good teams, schools increase more than just ticket sales. The whole school benefits from this notoriety.
I wish to peanuts that other sports were more popular however... but that is the way it is right now.
To be honest, I do not even enjoy watching football in the slightest... and I laughed pretty hard at the interpretation of the school providing teams with scantily clad girls :)
I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, and I go to my school's homecoming football game every year because I enjoy drinking beer outside with my friends. I might glance at the game once or twice.
But, I am definitely in the minority on that... the fact is that football drives schools... money and attention from football drives schools. I am for football scholarships because I like the idea that (hopefully) some of those lugs will actually get an education... and in the meantime, they are helping pay for the education of numerous others (football = revenues = more scholarships).
I am however, a huge advocate of Division III athletics. At this level, athletic scholarships are illegal... and the kids that decide to play sports do for the pure love and enjoyment of the sport. That is great, and I do wish things were more like that across the board... but I do not think that is very realistic.
This is why I would want this going on well before my child was ever in highschool.
Christ, when I was in highschool I lied my ass off on every single test I could take:
Q: How often do you freebase?
A: Daily
I would like these tendancies to be identified while they are still forming... I just see the chances of adequatly adressing them as being much higher.
Would I kill a person? I don't know. Certainly not out of anger. I am not an angry person.
Perhaps out of good humor?
I would have done the same thing in high school.
While I have no problem with testing being done, this testing should be implemented at a much younger age than high school. Most kids have learned to lie way too well by high school age. And it is much more difficult to council a high schooler (not saying a waste of time mind you).
But if there are problems, they can and should be identified WAY before high school. I just see much more value to counciling at a younger age, when a lot of habits are still being formed.
5. In order to perform #2, remove the football program from the school and instead funnel all of that money to the teachers.
:)
6. Do not give special treatment to students based on sports.
7. Return to a institution of LEARNING instead of socializing and playing football.
I agree with most of your points, but think you need to forego a little of your animosity... did someone lose a girlfriend, or get beaten up a few times?
Sports is not the antichrist here... and yes, football IS a sport. As little as I personally value it, that sport brings in a lot of money for the highschool... money that is also funneled into educational projects and clubs.
Playing a sport in highschool is just as valuable to a student as joining an academic club, national honors society or any other extra-curricular activity. You learn a lot of things while involved in a sport... including, but not limited to:
Organizational skills
Teamwork
Strategy
Elation and Disapointment
Interaction on Many Different Levels
Discipline
These experiences and skills prove highly valuable in college and when entering the work force... no matter what field your interest lies with.
Sorry to bring back unpleasant memories.
It would be nice to get a response.
While I actually enjoy most of Katz's posts, I have found myself vehemently disagreeing with him when the subject of highschool is brought up... ever since the end of the original Hellmouth series (those had merit).
But this idea that parents/teachers/councilors/adminatrators are just trying to keep kids down is simply ludicrous. The one that made me laugh probably the hardest was "Go to the movie theatre and take a kid to see South Park day". I trully believe that the vast majority of parents and teachers really do have kids' best interestes in mind, and that they do know better than most teenagers.
When I was in highschool, Katz would have been a hero to me... I knew it all, and everything was so unfair and no one understood me blah blah blah. But now I am a little older, and I continually suprise myself when I think "Yah know, my parents actually did know what they were talking about". While Katz may have the teenage anthem down well, he fails to rally those of us that have gotten over that phase.
It was pointed out before that this is not "geek profiling".
Christ, this makes it sound like the questions being asked are similar to:
Do you like computers for more than the occasional game or internet and e-mail?
Do you play any role playing games?
Do you have acne?
Are you skinny or over-weight?
Do you play sports?
It is not that simple! If you have ever taken an abnormal psych, or even a college level psych class you would know this.
They are not looking for "geeks", they are looking for violently inclined kids. Most people realize that has little to do with geeks! There is something mentally wrong with violent students, and this profiling has, and does work in identifying them. It is not as simple as, "You are different or weird... therefore you must be violent and a danger to society". Gimem a break.
That a universal method for testing kids may be implemented is not what I am concerned with. The real concern should be what do they do with these kids if they have been profiled as violent?
When considering that, I believe we come to the real problem and potential for harm and abuse.
I don't see how this program unfairly targets geeks. We can't really make any conclusions about it when we don't even know all the questions on there.
Profiling can be very effective if the questions are properly designed. Of course, this relies on the questions being asked to the "potential threat". It's hard to tell from the articles whether the questions are answered by an adminstrator based on what they know, or if they sit the kid down in front of the computer and have them take a test. Some of the questions (availability of guns) would be hard for anyone else to answer, but they'd be very awkward to ask someone. Therefore the student would probably lie, in which case a computer would not be effective - you need an experience psychologist who can sort of "read" the subject.
I got a bit sidetracked - this program doesn't seem to specifically target geeks - the questions that we've seen are just related to violence in general. Unless there are questions like "Do you read Slashdot?" you can't really say it's aimed at geeks.
teach ALL kids to respect others and don't give certain ones special privilages just because they make the school look good.
LRJ
Anyone know what this is used for here? I'm a student here, and AFAIK there haven't been any terrorist threats lately. Of course, maybe that's just what "they" want us to believe...
Can your IM do this?
This doesn't affect just geeks, and I think the problem is Katz tries to personalise it too much in order to engender a stronger response; that's fine, there's nothing sinister about it, writing is all about manipulating the reader, all that differs is how subtle (or not) you make it.
There is a sizeable quantity of social risk to Mosaic and it's ilk. To make the point, consider the effect Columbine had on schools in its immediate wake. Suspicions were inevitably raised; people were scared, confused, and generally made paranoid by the whole thing. So, you had people feeling suspicious of anybody displaying behavioural traits associated with the columbine incident. This made things very uncomfortable for a whole lot of people.
Then Mosaic comes along, just in time to cash in on the remnants of the Something Must Be Done response. Any initiative, concept, tool, whatever, will be accepted if they allay fears of a repeat occurrence, regardless of whether or not they actually work (For an example of this, look at the recently proposed bill in the UK to lock up severely personality disordered people without trial even if they haven't committed a crime). The upshot of this is you're not going to be able to dissuade people much from using this software.
Now, you'll have people running this software, operators. They will not be trained in psychology. They don't realise that psychology is a soft science. They don't know that even trained psychologists can't can't make an accurate diagnosis (and they freely admit this), since what's being tested for has absolutely no somatic symptoms whatsoever. They don't know that many psychologists refute the very idea that such a thing as "potential for violence" exists as a mental disorder that is "testable for". They just get a machine that gives them an answer, maybe a risk from 1 to 5.
There's the quote from one of the teachers about this; the software's "immediate virtue would be in producing detailed documentation of its evaluation of a troubled student so that doubting parents could no longer challenge an administrator's judgement as too subjective." This belies the kind of problem being faced. People think because it's a computer doing the work, there won't be mistakes; there won't be false positives. This is blatantly wrong. The subjective element still exists; simply because it is applied uniformly does not make a difference; it exists inherently in the rules of the evaluation procedure.
There is a place for tests like these, but such information should only be made available to qualified psychologists in the field. These are the only people with enough training, experience, and knowledge to interpret the data correctly.
There are massive privacy concerns with a system such as this. Due to the precise nature of the thing you're testing for, tests aren't going to be very successful, and this has been exemplified by any number of attempts to formulate a reliable automated (ie test-based) diagnosis process for severe personality disorders; figures for false positives are estimated at between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 (according to the Royal College of Psychiatry). That said, you can gather a lot of information about a person if the questions are answered accurately, since it will contain explicit questions such as "I worry about loneliness often -- agree or disagree (on a scale of 1 to 5)" "I often do things impulsively" etc etc. There is a significant amount that can be deduced from this, and you are basically talking about one of the most fundamental invasions of privacy you can imagine; to require the provision of this highly personal information is to me abhorrent.
It would appear that the best way of avoiding provision of this information would be to fill in false answers... not noticeably false, or perhaps simply to automatically choose the lowest "risk" category for each question. There are checks which can compensate for false answers, but they're not as good as is made out, and they have an even lower rate of accuracy than a correct one, so nobody's going to be able to prove you filled it out wrong, especially since a lot of the questions will be subjective. I'd certainly also wonder about the legal grounds of requiring people to fill out these tests (truthfully at least), but unfortunately legal grounds become somewhat fungible in the wake of a high profile disaster like Columbine.
NP
Can you sum it up in a word? *No.* In a noise? *Whuuuurghhhhh!*
Whilst I agree that there's no point having a security system that wouldn't stop an armed person (hence the need for armed guards) armed guards themselves are a source of firearms!!
There are enough shootings of police by their own firearms that they have specific courses against this for "Firearm Retention". Now I have no idea what level of armed security guards you are putting in a school but will they be better than the police? And will the children at a school compare with the elements of society a police officer meets...
To reiterate, unless security guards are well trained you are putting a source of firearms within the school.
Oriental Hero "I want to live in a city where the Police don't shoot you" Jean Charles de Menezes
If I were a student in a high school today, presented with this Mosaic 2000 rubbish, and if I were as itchy as I was when I really was in high school thirty years ago, I'd fake up such a pack of threatening answers that I suppose the administrators would take me for a combination of Klebold, Harris and Charles Manson, with a dash of Gavrilo Princip thrown in for variety's sake. I would not be able to restrain myself gigging those sociologist morons. No doubt the idiots grading my test would get all worked up and I might even end up in all kinds of trouble, but I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
... and doctor the sources of the tool in such a way that it flags jocks rather than geeks! Give them of their own medicine. And it will impress the chicks too.
Say no to software patents.
I had read about this before and the only thing
:)
that comes to mind is:
If they condition an entire generation to
accept this nonsense then later on they wont
question it when applying for jobs, apartments,
and so on. This society is reaching the point
that the conspiracy nuts began to seem more
sane than the government and other "authority"
figures. It smacks to me as desparately trying
to control what you cannot control anymore.
After all, we have managed to lose the war on
Drugs, we are winning the war on Poverty by
making more poor people.
And now the War of the Different!
This reminds me of the computer selection process used by a British university a while back. Because it was "computerized", it was believed it "couldn't discriminate"... until it was found that one of its rules was to mark down the scores of people with very long names. It was very non-discriminatorily weeding out people with names like Chandrasekhar and retaining people with names like Smith. Face it, Mosaic-2000 is just CyberSitter, only it will weed people.
Far from calming the nerves of worried parents, this thing will just reinforce the prejudices of the authors. Any school that lets it in the door should be subjected to a blizzard of FOIA requests to see exactly what they're doing with it, and then sue the district and the company into oblivion as soon as discrimination can be proven (either in actions or in recommendations). This thing has to be shut down.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
If you're given this test and told to take it, don't. I think that's a pretty simple solution. Just say no. People can only discriminate against you if you let them.
Look at most political discussion today. Two major parties, arguing endlessly on the same issues. Abortion, gun control. People seem to think that politics is two-sided, that you're either right or left wing. It's not. The reason people at large don't realize it is because there aren't enough "nuts" like Katz, who transcend the wing system with "radical" opinions.
We need more nuts, I say. Not just "geeks are oppressed by American society" nuts, but all kinds of nuts. We need all kinds of nuts: anarchists, syndicalists, communists, and anything else you can think of, named or not. Maybe then, people will see more possible solutions to problems than what the Demicans and Republicrats propose. Maybe then, when I tell people I'm a libertarian, they won't confuse "libertarian" with "very liberal" and call me a communist.
In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -Carl Sagan
Translation: "the immediate virtue will be that I won't be responsible anymore when the wrong decision is made. I can just say, hey look what the computer said."
How can a mediocre administrator turn something like that down? I'd like to point out by the way that I don't think this is a "test." It's based on data the teachers and adminstrators subjectively choose to enter or leave out of the database. Including information based on rumours. And believe me, playing politics/spreading rumours/character assassinations are a huge part of being in high school.
It really annoys me that this will lessen administrators' responsibilty to be objective by laying the "decision" on the computer--which can't be blamed for anything--even though the data being entered might be subjective anyway. I'm sure this software will be worth every penny for the peace of mind that this will buy them.
This software could be a useful tool if used by smart, open-minded, objective administrators that really care. But it seems to me it's more likely to be used by mediocre administrators to cover their asses. Now, consider the administration at your (or your children's) high school. Which category do they fall into? Objective or CYA?
numb
?syntax error
http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/1021met1haunted.ht m
http://members.xoom.com/ciscokid/rant.html
http://www.geeknews.net/lhs1.htm
http://www.geeknews.net/Prep/school.htm
http://www.geeknews.net/Prep/football.txt
The above should say alot and make people think in another light.
Don't forget to check out geeknews.net and phester.org
-Ellis of Geeknews.com
Jon, you are too much. I can only compare you to that apalling "How to turn off geeks" column in WWN we all ranted about last week. Your article in summary:
October 27, 1999, cyberspace. Frightened Geeks deluge Slahsdot with cries for protection from the ATF and its mind sucking death profiler. Reports one geek "we know we haven't seen the weapon yet, but we're sure it's meant to discriminate against us!"
Another "I don't need a white paper on its effectiveness to know something will hurt me and my kind."
Scrappy
If this "Mosaic" software asks questions like "Do you spend more than 15 minutes a day on the Internet?", "Do you use IRC, MUDs, or chat rooms on a daily basis?" and uses the answers to those questions to judge whether or not a kid could be potential "trouble", that's a Very Bad Thing.
However, I've heard a little bit about these sorts of software before and from everything I've heard, they're the end result of years and years of reasonably well-designed and well-executed research and instead they ask questions like "Do you express your anger or frustration by torturing or killing small animals?", "Have you ever been physically abused by parents or family members?", "Do you feel more comfortable expressing your anger and frustration with violent acts?" These are questions that might legitimately be used to determine whether or not someone might "need help."
Even so, I'm still not convinced of the scientific validity of these tests because anyone of average intelligence can pretty well skew the results of the test by guessing what sorts of answers the test "wants to hear" since they are invariably of the "answer on a scale of one to ten whether you agree with this statement, with one being completely no and ten being completely yes." The "scoring" on these tests are simply average scores for the various answers from control groups and psychotic mass murderers (or whatever) and your tendency towards either "normalcy" or "psychotic mass murder" is simply based on who's scores yours most resembles.
(I've been forced to take these sorts of "Personality Assessment Tests" by annoying employers and potential employers in the past and at the very get-go make sure I inform them that I don't believe they are valid tests of ethics, morals or personality and that I *will* "fail" it and then proceed to answer in the most outrageous way possible. Employers who know me well then ignore the test; those who don't and rely on the test to judge me I don't want to work for anyway.
Some good skeptical analysis on these sorts of tests and links to more of same can be found here.)
Further, there is still the troublesome point that these "survey" answers are going to go into some Permanent Record someplace, which just emphasizes the fact that I feel this is a horrible invasion of privacy to begin with.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Perhaps what we really need to do is not to identify which kids might be so dissatisfied with our current educational system as to become violent. Perhaps we need to do two other things, instead. Number one, figure out what's wrong with the kids who are such sheep as to be satisfied without question with a system where they have largely the same freedoms as prisoners. Number two-overhaul this system!!! Are we afraid that if we give kids freedom to be themselves all along, more of them might actually become people who are able to question what's going on the world and who are confident enough to take steps toward change, perhaps making the world a better place thereby? If we gave our kids respect and freedom as people all along, perhaps a lot fewer of them would feel the need to express themselves through gangs or drugs or violence. How many of the things that are considered routine at all levels of educational institutions in this country (actions of adults toward kids, as well as actions of kids toward each other) are things that we would consider offensive, disrespecful, or belittling, as well as affronts to our dignity, personal freedom, or constitutional rights if they were things we, as adults, had NO CHOICE but to take without question or recourse?
Millions of kids go to school every day and don't get shot. Statistically speaking, they're more likely to die on the bus ride home. And this stuff isn't new either-- the biggest school massacre in U.S. history was a bombing in the 20s.
What's the solution? Well, metal detectors, and locker searches, and psyche test, etc.. Remember the kids who pulled the fire alarm to get everyone outside? They used the school's own security infrastructure to increase the odds of killing someone. Do you think that you can deal with such a truely pervasive threat by increasing paranoia?
The media has taken the school bully and elevated him to mythic proportions. Reality does not mesh with this view. The soution is to just let it go. Keep your wits about you and your eyes open. The last thing that we need is a false sense of security provided by (gasp!!) software. It's like the old "how do you stop a bull from charging?" joke.
------
Since you brought it up, Expert systems? I think that Dell's 24 hour support line is a pretty good example of one: "Please jiggle the wire to the monitor. When your are finished press 1. Did that fix your problem press 1..." geez.. expert systems? bah!
There's an awful trend in this country to give computers responsiblity for things that we cannot or won't do ourselves.
I guess the idea is to dis-empower teachers and principals over the course of several decades, and then make up for that by providing a means of arbitrary decision-making (the computer). It's a great strategy, and I've seen it work very well at Universities. It has a tendency to leave the victim in a helpless state-- you have no person to complain to-- no one to blame.
Would you let a net-nanny watch your kids? Would you let a computer drive your car? (And if you were in an accident, would you sue the software company?)
The real Problem is that people have unrealistic and unjustified fears about school shootings.
Some facts:
1. The crime rate in America has been going down for the last 30 years or so. Don't look at the overall numbers like they report on the news! Look at the per capita rate. (i.e. crime/population)
2. You're more likely to get killed on your busride home than shot at your desk.
(btw.. missing children is the same story. By the time you weed out the kids who ran away, kidnapped by a parent, etc. it's only a handful that go missing each year.)
People need to face their fears and take responsibility for their actions, and not make computers do their dirty work for them. The media needs to stop pretending to be objective and start offering real solutions.
Can the M-2K software really deliver? Especially in the High School context? I keep thinking about the old adage about "you can't make something idiot proof 'cause idiots are so damn clever" and wondering how long until this software ends up in the hands of a bureaucrat with an agenda (or a quota).
But what really worries me about this article is the way it fights hyperbole with hyperbole.
The media and politicians have been using (and abusing) the vote-less and voice-less youth as scapegoats for some time now, because it sells papers and gains votes. Since critical thinking is not terribly common, few people question assertions by polititions or speculations by media types. Everything we've heard about High Schools in the post-Columbine media feeding frenzy has been exageration, speculation and outright fabrication desing, not to protect "our children", but to sell more deoderant.
From the media, one would think that walking from home room to first period history ranks right up there with playing Russian roulette. But violent crime by youths (20 or younger) has been on a steady decline since the 70's. (Meanwhile, violent crime amongst adults has been steadily escalating at an alarming rate.) The same general trends apply to drug use, alcohol use and so on (down somewhat for younger people, up dramatically for adults). I read a book a couple years ago called "Framing Youth" and the author pointed out that a child was actually safer in school that he/she was at home since deaths from abusive/negligent parents outnumber the school-shooting deaths by a factor of five to one.
But kids are an easy target. It's hard to argue (in our sound-bite based system of public discourse) against anything that will "protect our children", even if it means totally abandoning any pretense of constitutional rights for those kids.
But the same thing is being done here from the other direction.
In 8.3K of text, maybe 500 bytes are verifiable facts, while the rest is speculation. Will this software really be used for "geek-profiling"? Maybe. But maybe not. Will the use of such software further ostracize an already beleagered group? Maybe. Probably even. But we can only speculate at this point.
I have no doubts that the introduction of this software into ANY sort of general use should send strong warning signals to anyone concerned with individual freedom. But the way to address those concerns is with facts; without them, all we can do is bleat like the "protect our children at all costs" types.
Questions I'd like to see answered are things like; How does it work? What checks and balances (if any) will prevent the administrator's biases from coloring both the "evidence" and the interpretation of the results? What sort of accuracy does it claim (and how does it back those up)? How EXACTLY will it be used? Even if it does identify violent tendicies with complete accuracy, will that "evidence" be enough to justify a "preventative" policy when our entire justice system was built on the assumption that "justice" must FOLLOW whatever infraction? (Proving that someone is "capable" of violence is no more proof that they WILL be violent than passing a driver's test proves that the driver WILL follow the speed limit.)
Way back in high school, my journalism teacher said something that has stuck with me since; "Anyone can take an interesting story and make it sound important, but a journalist takes something important and make it interesting." While Mr. Katz has brought up some interesting topics, he seems to miss the important part...
Whoa, almost as wordy as the original article... sorry.
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
Might I draw the attention of moderators to the fact that the above piece of Anti-Semitic bullshit has been up for twenty minutes now, and that this reflects rather badly on all of us?
jsm
I am undoubtedly full of shit, but I must protest that in this instance, you are in fact mistaken. The post to which mine is attached did indeed mention the Jewish people, and it has now been moderated to -1 (thanks). I would surmise that you have your threshold set to 0 or above, so to you it appears that my post is attached to an entirely different one.
jsm
A friend of mine tried to fight these kinds of things all through high school. He put together his own publication and despite many confiscations, threats, and discipline attempts he distributed it, led protests, and made students heard. He runs a webpage called http://www.youthpower.net where he currently helps students at other schools, collects and distributes stories, and continues to fight for youth power.
Short answer: It looks like it probably will be either useless or a very bad thing.
Long answer:
For those of you who took probability and statistics, feel free to check/correct/laugh at my numbers here....
Something funny happens when you test for rare events in a large population, which I'll try to illustrate below:
I don't know how accurate Mosaic-2000 is, so I'll talk about a ficticous test, called Mysaic-2000.
Assumptions (based on very little):
1) Mysaic-2000 gives a false positive result 5% of the time. A false positive occurs when Mysaic-2000 predicts a dangerous person, when the person is in fact quite harmless. (I have grave doubts that any psyco-sociological profile is anywhere near this accurate).
2) Mysaic-2000 gives a false negative result 1% of the time. A false negative occurs when Mysaic-2000 predicts a safe person who is actually quite dangerous.
3) Genuinely dangerous people are about 1 in 1000. Seriously dangerous here - violent, nasty, willing to use hardware, not just their fists.
Question: given that someone has been ranked "seriously dangerous" by Mysaic-2000, what are the odds that they actaully are?
In a population of 100,000 people.....
100 seriously dangerous.
99,900 not seriously dangerous.
Apply Mysaic-2000 to find out who they are, and here's what you'll get:
Of the 100 seriously dangerous people, there will, on average, be 1 false negative (1% false negative rate). 99 of them will by "caught" by Mysaic-2000.
OF the 99,900 safe people, there will, on average, be 4,995 false positives (5% false positive rate).
So, in a population of 100,000, 100 of whom are genuinely dangerous, Mysaic-2000 will find 5,094 genuine baddies (4,995 + 99).
The answer to the above question is this:
Given that you have tested positive as a genuinely dangerous person by Mysaic-2000, the odds that you truly are such a person are 100 in 5094. About 1 in 50, or 2%.
How the hell did we get such a meaningless result? We're testing for a rare event, that's how. A few false positives among a population of mostly-negatives adds up really quickly.
I doubt Mosiac-2000 is actually so accurate it only gives a false positive 5% of the time. Profiling just isn't that accurate when applied to large populations. I don't know how rare really dangerous people are, but the simple fact is that, by and large, most people aren't dangerous. Really dangerous people are *rare*.
What's being turned loose here will either be an electronic witch hunt, under the guise of rational, objective data analysis, or a flop. Hope (or pray, or do whatever it is you do to cope with dire potential consequences) that it turns out a flop.
"A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five." -Groucho Marx
The most repeated comment about Columbine was that it "was never expected." Having been the visitor to the counselor's office more than once in my high school career, I knew what answers to give to get out of there quick. All of the students were given "personality" or "aptitude" tests to evaluate their potential. To make my point, the results of one test told me to look for work in the fast food or carpet cleaning professions. The next test said I should be an engineer or computer programmer. I think the infamous Columbine duo would have seen right through the test and given answers that would've protected their anonymity. This test will only catch the really dumb ones, who will probably blow themselves up, i.e. recent MIT incident. I know I probably would've faked it out. We will never know what causes people to snap. Usually it can never be traced to one particular instance in time. It usually is the result of continued abuse, trauma, or stress over a period of time. Every time I hear about Columbine, I think about the movie "Falling Down", and how Douglas' character snapped. Then I think about how close I've come to being him...but I haven't. Not yet at least. What is my point? Look for the source of the stress, not the results of it.
Fast, cheap, correct. You get to pick two.
I don't know how I'd react to this were I still in high school. This time of life is already hard enough to get through; trying to find out who you are, what kind of things you're interested in, who your "crew" is. What this is going to do is drive a wedge further between the high school 'cliques'. Those who are ridiculed and ostracized will be more so, and those who are favored and priviledged are more so as well.
Another thing that this brings to mind:
As understaffed as schools tend to be (I assume most are equal or worse off than mine, which was a "preppy white upper class high school") they will most undoubtedly have student "office assistants" helping with this program. It tends to be the case that most of these office assistances tend to be the more "popular" people. What kind of security and privacy will exist in this program? As if it's not bad enough to be ridiculed for who you are, then they will also be ridiculed for being on the "watch list"
In conclusion, this is something that, if implemented (which I believe to be a bad idea) needs to be done with the utmost of privacy and care.
Charlie, who's very very glad he is no longer in a high school, so he would not have to be subjected to being on the school's "list"
-- .sig files go when they die?
Child: Mommy, where do
Mother: HELL! Straight to hell!
I've never been the same since.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
the US government is proud to present... :)
SNMP module for humans (tm).
let the US government manage those pesky thoughts, attitudes and behaviour of yours directly, without having to bother the least of bit about it!
check your word transfer stats and make shiny MRTG graphs out of it!
bothered about getting a job, getting a date, or getting rich? let the US government deal with those bothers for you!
yours now for only 19.95$. soon to be bundled with every microsoft product to replace the old model
The ignorant policymakers strike again.
My high school had a school psychologist and I think most schools do.
Really this program is just another tool. Psychologist like to give people tests I guess. There's no reason why you shouldn't have a test that's given on the computer. This is the way of the future.
It's futile to say that psychologists can't give tests. And it's futile to say that people can't give tests on the computer.
That said, I must confess that psychologists give me the creeps also. They are the dentists of the mind. Who knows what they are really asking when they show you a blurry picture of a nekkid woman and ask you, "what do you see?"
I always lie on tests coz, dang it, my mind is private property. stay out.
error 27
Not surprisingly, there is a website, www.mosaic2000.com, promoting Gavin de Becker Inc. and its products. The site describes Mosaic-2000 as follows:
This sounds good; they're not suggesting you run all the kids in the school through it to magically find all the killers. Instead, when threats are made, you use the system as an aid in trying to figure out how serious the situation is. This is even better; they're not just asking the machine to evaluate people. Instead, they're using it as one part of a process primarily conducted by humans (trained ones, one hopes). It sounds like Mosaic is really just an expert system intended to be used as a guide in a counselor's evaluation.In summary: typical Katz paranoia.
I'm not sure if this "profiling" of our youth is a good or bad thing. I worry that some individuals who are guilty of nothing but being individuals will be hurt by this. However I feel that the LARGER issue is the question: Willl it make a difference? Are we wasting time and money for something that will not be enforced?
My girlfriend works as a Music Teacher for a MD school district; and she could tell you right now which children will be the "problem children" (the ones most likely to be violent, in jail, or who need real professional help). These are children who are sent to the office every single day (many times more than once per day) for major behavioral issues. All the other teachers know who these disfunctual and disruptive children are. They even spread the word and warn each other about them. They even try to get them removed, disiplined, or helped with loud voices; but nothing gets done. My girlfriend is even frightened of one of these children whom she describes as potentially INSANE!. However this child remains in the classroom a threat to the saftey and learning of the other children.
At one of these highly covered mass shootings the police had been warned to keep an eye on the one perpetrator. His father was trying to get him psyciatric help. Yet he was able to enter the school grounds and gun down his classmates.
Before we impliment this un tested program to identify "problem children", We need to determine what we are going to do with the ones that we will find!!
Hey what can I say i'm weird
But I don't agree with Jon's assumption that this is tantamount to open season on Goths. I think this, instead, is something even more sinister.
This is profiling.
If you're an American you've seen the TV show. Breathless blonde babe bumbles across crime scenes developing "profiles" of serial killers. She's pretty, TV cops are always heros, isn't profiling a wonderful tool that the police can use to protect us from bad guys?
The profiling technique used by technologies like Mosaic depends upon the premise that answers to certain questions can be good (or even absolute) predictors of specific tendencies or behaviors. For example, consider the question I just asked: "Isn't profiling a wonderful tool that the police can use to protect us from the bad guys?" Your answer to the question is almost an absolute predictor of whether you are white or not.
Police departments across the U.S. have begun to use computers and statistics packages to study patterns of crime. In some instances it has been a tremendous boon to fighting crime. In other instances it has been a particularly heinous tool of racial oppression. Here's how:
Several years ago the Pennsylvania State Police noted a big increase in drug shipments through northeastern Pennsylvania. They examined their arrest records to identify common patterns--and from those common patterns they identified a "criminal profile" of a likely drug smuggler. Based on that profile, state troopers started stopping cars on I-80 that met the profile--and obtaining search warrants to search vehicles based on no other evidence than that the vehicle and the driver met the profile.
What was the profile?
That, argued the police, was sufficient probable cause to stop any and every single black man with an air freshener on I-80.
In recent months the New Jersey State Police have also admitted to specifically targeting black men on the New Jersey Turnpike. The crime of "DWB"--Driving While Black--has been a joke in the black community for many years. Based on discovery from a civil rights suit, the New Jersey State Police, and Gov. Christie Whitman, admitted that the cops were specifically targeting blacks.
In theory profiling can help identify potential suspects. In practice, profiling has become a synonym for leaping to conclusions based on scant evidence. And the ability of many police departments today to filter database lists makes the potential for baseless profiling positively scary.
For example, let's do a little profiling. Let's identify common characteristics of dangerous personalities, and see who fits. Here are some common characteristics of mass murderers:
Now--who might fit that profile? How about a white, male, 41-year-old man with a wife and no kids. He's a graduate of an Ivy League university, where he majored in Philosophy. He has not found work in his field, but instead has dabbled in several businesses. He runs a very small ISP (mostly as a labor of love) but depends upon his wife's income. He spends an inordinate amount of time online, playing games and emailing friends on the Internet. He is widely known on the Internet, and is viewed as a leading figure in an underground Internet community. He is regarded as a "hacker" and in his online writings he is proud of the term. He has recently become interested in guns, and right-to-bear-arms politics, and cheerfully characterizes himself as a "gun nut."
We're talking, of course, about that dangerous criminal monster, Eric S. Raymond.
In Pennsylvania you register with the county sheriff to get a license to carry a concealed weapon. (I do not own guns, but I am told by a gun-owning friend/employee that a "carry" permit and a handgun permit are the same price--so everybody gets the carry permit.) In Pennsylvania you also pay an income tax to your local municipality and/or your local school district. And, in Pennsylvania, utilities have to provide all sorts of information to the government about who they serve, in what counties, and so forth.
I don't think it would be much of a stretch for the Chester County District Attorney to get a list of gun owners, and cross-ref that list with a list of people with multiple phone lines. And it wouldn't take much effort after that to establish which of those multiple-phone line gun owners had web sites. And you can't spend much time on ESR's web site without noticing "Eric's Gun Nut Page". Given the profile, the DA would be justified (or so he might think) in telling the township police where ESR lives that a potential maniac is living nearby.
And since we're putting up posters about sex offenders (even one-timers convicted forty years ago) on every telephone pole, why not notify the community of gun-totin', Web-usin', multiple-phone-line-ringin' threats to society?
Or maybe--just maybe--we should conclude that computer profiling is not just bad, not just unconstitutional, but evil. And stop it, before we lose what "inalienable" rights we have left.
John Murdoch
Drifting back towards the point... that anyone even considering that sort of thing in a nominally democratic country is ludicrous. I seriously doubt that this is in the best interest of the people, or that the majority of the people agree with it. If Orwell were alive today, he'd turn in his grave. (The same goes for Karl Marx, mind you.)
The test itself is of a genre known as 'subtle psychological evaluations'. As the original article noted, these tests are very, very hard to beat, if not impossible. But there is one fatal flaw in all these tests; the frame of reference.
The people who write these tests must make certain assumptions about social norms. After all, this is a social interaction evaluation we are dealing with. What are those assumptions? Even if the assumptions are statistically valid for the population of this country there are two issues that immediately come up.
What if the student did not originate in this country, or was not raised according to the 'average' norms of this country?
A statistical norm can only be applied to a group with any real certainty of accuracy, and even then the accuracy is the margin of error inherent in statistics. Nothing in statistics is guaranteed. This norm can not be used to evaluate an individual with any degree of certainty at all. In fact, these tests are about as useful, in terms of accuracy on an individual,as a polygraph.
The researchers who create these tests know all this, and are careful to ensure that those who are paying for them ( a testing company, not the school ) know it too. The problem arises when the vendor withholds this information, or buries it in fine print from the end users, in this case the school administrators. The administrations are, then, using these tests without the full knowledge of their limitations or rules for interpretation. Now lets look at who is interpreting the tests - the school administrators. As a group, these people have proved pretty conclusively that they do not want to be bothered with hard questions - they want an easy answer to everything. An easy, simple answer... that is usually wrong. Don't believe it? In Texas, a youngster was set upon by 3 large bullies. He defended himself as best he could, but was suspended along with the bullies due to the district's 'zero tolerance ' policy. In Florida, a girl who was approaching her menstrual cycle took pills to school, available over the counter at any pharmacy for this time for women, and was promptly suspended for drug violations. These policies abound in the United States.
Therefore, in my view, the school administrations have shown they are unwilling to confront tough questions with thought and work....they are
1. Unwilling to put forth the effort required to understand the real meaning of the results of these tests.
2. Unqualified, in general, to understand these results without expert guidance, and this is virtually never requested, because, in the eyes of administrators, this might cause them to be perceived as less than all-knowing.
3. Adept at taking things out of context. I would be surprised if this test was used properly by any school.
The reality is that we can expect this test to be used as a profiling tool to ease the conscience and burden of the school administrators of actually having to think. After all, they would say that previous behaviour is a good indicator of future behaviour... and this is exactly their past record on using tools to 'reduce violence'
I am a high school senior right how. I am not the most social and high achieving person among my peers. The only things I am really good at are English (writing, etc) and Computers (programming, etc). I have never been a crowd guy.
About three to five years ago, you would have thought that I was very "troubled" kid. If you asked me if I ever wanted to kill anyone, I would have ranted about who I wanted to kill, and maybe when and where I wanted to kill him (or her!). I was picked on a lot from 4th-8th grade and it was very tramatic on me. I could go off and do anything at an unexpected time.
However, KiLL someone? For ReaL? That is a major negative. I could rant and talk all I want about everyone I hated and how I wanted to kill them, but it would have never crossed my mind to even lift a finger at a single person (even though I could whoop da ass of everyone who did mess with me during those five daunting years).
That is why this bothers me, becasue they think that a computer program thought up and written by a bunch of pencil-pushing corporate guys can determine who is "troubled" and who is not. This has go to be the most absurd and insane thing I have ever heard of anyone doing.
But, can you beat the great Public Relations behemoth? No, it's about as hard as taking down the entire Borg collective (even though it was done, don't you agree it was hard? And how many years it took for someone to do it!).
To this little proggie, i whistle songs of "bah".
yeah
P.S. Those dead students? What's a bigger tragedy, dozens of students dead, or dozens of students being asked to leave their high school a year before they graduate because some yahoos shot up the school in their outfit, were weird, and made the cheerleaders nervous?
Are you completely insane?!? I don't care how many people they unjustifiably throw out of school, it's only a fraction of the tradgy of a dozen kids getting murdered!
I'm speechless... doumbfounded... agast that you would think something like that...I'm going to just presume that you weren't thinking too well when you said it.
I mean, are they planning to f o r c e kids to take this profile? CAN they force kids to take the test? I'm not sure if it's even legal to get them to take the test without their knowledge about the test's purpose.
As long as the options are clearly presented to the people that are to be subjected to the test, then this isn't as bad as it seems, I'd think. Either avoid it, or lie repeatedly so that it dosn't make any sense, just like we do with anonymous email accounts at uhmmmm Hotmail or someplace. For all Hotmail knows I could be a 93 year old widow with 15 kids and 200 grandchildren living in the Ozarks.
I'd take it that it's somewhat more difficult to skew the answers on one of these tests, but geeks are smart, no?
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
At one point in the past, wasn't there a program that used neural networks to make doctor type decisions (ie what's wrong with you) and other types, ie expert systems? Those seem to have gone nowhere, and for good reason. This type of system has proven time and again that humans are in the best position to make these calls, and by setting up a computer to do it, we're just asking for problems.
If I wasn't mad as hell and feeling like an outcast before, being pegged by this thing would do it.
Hmmm...What have we here. John Katz going alarmist on us again. Well at least there are some constants in the Universe. Funny how he makes the logical leap between a program that may help people to identify the potentially violent and schools "enforcing widespread conformity". Who says that if even if a student is identified as "potentially violent" that this neccesitates the school to exert pressure to change their behaviour. As usual it isn't the tool that's a problem. What also royaly ticks me off is that Katz makes himself out to be "spokesperson for the different". I suspect most of us were persecuted in one way or another for "being different". Most of us survived without resorting to violence or having a spokesperson.
A persons behavior has many roots to under lying past/present situations. Part if the NAZI/WITCH HUNT like attitude that the "SO CALLED" normal people adapt when addressing those who are different in a social group is do the THAT group or persons lack of understanding and TRUE empathy for others around them. I like to see it as a mask that we wear to shield our selves from reality if we choose to do so. How can a person accept me if they can not understand my past experiences?? Is this not WHO we are, for without a past we have no experience to base a reaction to NEW(present) situations?! U are right to say that treatment is not always a counsler or therapist, rather a normal person like U and I that can take the time to help include those who want to be accepted. If we just single the needy(Geeks.. whoever) out and send them off to be "HELPED" by some one else, then all we do is reinforce thier belief that they do not fit in. I agree ACTION needs to be taken by those involved and not to be pawned off on someone else.
What bothers me though is that this software really seems to be desinged to Identify dangerous thought, and that scares me far more than any "geek profiling" program (software or otherwise) would. This comes dangerously close to policing people for things that they haven't done and have no intention of ever doing, and weather your a geek or a jock or a prep, or a socialite, or a Streight-A student without much time for socilising outside of other Streight-A students, that should scare you.
There's another thing that bothers me as well, and that is that this software is desinged to warn of possible "Dangerous" behaviour. Who the fuck decides whats dangerous. Some of Katz's Ideas of danger scare the hell out of me, and I don't think that I trust many other people to define danger for me. And thats the crux of my objection, "Danger" is a word like "Indecent," poorly defined, and variable.
Another issue that troubles me is one that Katz pointed out, there has been a steady decline in violence over the last decade, not only among youth, but among almost every sector of American society. Yet all this attention, is being payed to the so called "youth violence epidemic." This is the most clear case of the government and the media feeding off of the publics fears and steriotypes to turn a profit and crack down on more of people's essential freedoms. I know its been said time and time again, but if we allow to this to happen who know where it could lead. If this happening in High school doesn't scare you just think that you may have to submit to a mental screening test like this the next time you take an interview at one of those nice high paying silicon vally jobs that everyone on slashdot but myself seems to have. Thought profiling on a widespread level is scary man.
I guess we're going to skip the burning books part and go straight to burning people.
Since my knowledge of psychology is only rudimentary, I may be completely wrong, but I would imagine that there are only so many ways that one could ask the kind of loaded questions that would be required to get this kind of information about someone. Otherwise they would have to re-invent the set of indicators that they used for every permutation of the test. Would it not be a simple task to compile a set of answers to generic forms of these loaded questions based on a selection of "profiles?" A "cheat sheet," if you will, for the test. These cheat sheets could be posted as HOWTO documents, allowing the enterprising testee to show up, at their choice, as Antichrist Herself, the next Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, or Droopy the Dog.
Just my few grams of copper and zinc.
This system has the potential to be a great tool for system administrators. With many schools having over 1,000 students they need as many tools as possible to determine who is a potential threat to themselves and others. However, this system must not be allowed to make the decisions for the administration. Any school that gets this system, their administration better have the authority and will to overrule any and all judgements made by it. Otherwise it will become a mockery of its intended purpose. But with that authority and the willingness to use it, Mosaic will probably help in cutting school violence, as administrations will be able to track down the few kooks out of their hundereds of students alot faster.
The problem here is that by the time such a program becomes universally adopted by the public schools, it'll be way the hell too late for the victims, and from my look at the http://www.gdbinc.com/mosaic2000.htm site, I expect that there will be some. How many people here who are expressing faith in this unproved piece of software have even bothered to check out what its DEVELOPERS have to say about it? The thing of most concern here is that Mosaic 2000 was designed without substantial input from students... or teachers. I suppose that we should be happy that one token student and one token teacher were allowed to participate in the Mosaic 2000 advisory board. Due diligence in sanity-checking the initial assumptions on which an expert system is programmed is far more important here than it is in most cases, and I don't see this here. From the description provided by the developers, I think that the assumptions underlying Mosaic were an exercise in groupthink... from the kind of people who design the kinds of environments which make Littletons not only possible, but inevitable.
y2k info - http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/y2k.html
Tech Public Policy stuff
"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither"
- Jefferson
How soon does our young Republic forget the significance of such words. I am 17, and a senior in my high school. Though I will most likely not see the results of such overreactions, I am deeply moved by the fact that we *allow* such things. Yes, we. Don't forget that bureaucrats do these things because no one stops them. They use powerful tools of deception that distort the reality of the situation. I would place a bet that the bureaucrats who run our schools would have loved to have this much power over us a long time ago, but until now, any attempts that were so obviously about nothing but control would have met most ardent opposition. The shootings, such as Columbine, provide a convienient excuse to deploy such things, and they WILL be used for more than anti-violence precautions.
How many precedents do we need before we realize that such far-reaching powers will be abused? The school systems as a whole already have a piss-poor track record for their treatment of people who are different. Schools do not only teach the subjects of their curricula, they also indoctrinate conformity and obedience.
Does anyone else find it strange that subjects such as mathematics, physics, and other sciences are taught formulaically and not conceptually? Though I earned A's throughout the class, I was so frustrated in Chemistry I and Chemistry II because the teacher gave us a formula and showed us how to plug numbers into it and nothing more. I took the initiative of figuring out for myself what I was actually doing, such that instead of memorizing a formula I could instinctively figure out how to arrive at an answer by reading the problem. This is a much faster process, one that involves the use of logic and critical thinking.
Why do schools (and we are talking about Honors and Advanced Placement classes here) not teach students how to think, especially how to think critically? It goes beyond a lowest-common-denominator approach, and insinuates that they are afraid of what we would do if we were no longer sheep. The majority go along with it, after all, it is all they have been exposed to all of their lives. It is people like me, the ones who DO think critically, that clash with the school system so much because we resent their efforts to place themselves upon the pedestal of becoming our shepherds. I am not afraid whatsoever to voice my opinion; no matter what the punishment, my most deeply held beliefs yield to no one--after all, if they can be bought or coerced, what do they mean? I have clashed many times with teachers who wanted me to follow their example and never think for myself, and I have always prevailed because I will not back down and I have made myself quite versed in exactly what powers they have and do not have. Knowing your freedoms and expecting nothing less makes you far more of a threat to them than any gun-toting fuckup.
In the end, they fear us, thus they seek to control us. It shows in their teaching methods, their willingness and indeed their eagerness to substitute fairness and human judgment with blanket rules & regulations, (such as the lovely zero-tolerance policies) machines, and superficial pigeonholing. Katz was quite right in saying that they have pointed the finger at everyone but themselves. They target all the superficial symptoms of violent minds, but they purposefully do not seek the roots, lest they topple their own tree of deceit and fear.
I for one will not sit idly by whilst my freedoms are eroded. I am exquisitely aware of these issues, but my brethren to come will be from a climate which adjusts them to such actions. My school has not become an example of such Draconian measures as of yet, and I intend to speak with the administrators such that my voice is heard. Perhaps I will print up papers on this, and post them where they will be noticed, so that if these things ARE instituted, my fellow students cannot claim ignorance. Awareness is the key issue here. If all else fails, civil disobediance and perhaps outright sabotage of these systems (which, judging from the competency levels of my school officials, their systems will not be difficult to compromise) will send a message that this is not the right solution. There are many who will say that I should not show such strong resistance to what could be for my own good. To this, I answer that no matter what those who consider themselves in loco parentes may say, I know what is for my own good and what is not. Preventing violence is a worthy goal, one that will not be met by the usual tactics of blanket regulations and non-thinking bureaucrats. The school officials need to get personally involved, they need to get to know the students and show that they care about them and about what happens in their lives, that they are not despots looking for rebellions to crush. This is the only way real change will be effected. No tool that minimizes human involvement will ever solve the very human problems that can be caused by the daily abuses that happen at school at the hands of teachers, peers, and administrators.
- Byron