I do know of Ramanujan, and I've always considered that his "humble" beginnings were over-hyped. Much of his mathematical education is self-taught (from text books no less), he hated going to school and he failed at non-Math subjects, and he is a bit off-topic here seeing as how we are talking about pedagogy and not Mathematicians per se. The "Stereotypes about Mathematicians" is contrived on your part.
My statements are empirical and consistent with my experiences with teachers in general, whether they be corporate trainers or college or high school teachers. People tend to merely lecture and give out assignments and consider that to be teaching. Granted that people who actually take formal classes on the subject of teaching learn a lot of theory. Unfortunately most people seem to take up teaching because they consider it a fairly easy, middle class profession and much more entertaining than riveting widgets on an assembly line.
Listen Troll; I did learn math on my own; outside of school, and I am still learning. And yes I did teach (informally) people who couldn't learn because of inadequate teachers. People at school and in the work place have often asked me for help because they know they can't get the answers from the professionals. I have learned next to nothing in school. Most everything I know I have learned in my own free time.
I do know one thing; I am very good at teaching (though I know schools would not hire me because I don't have the token degrees) and I've been in formal learning environments for a large chunk of my life. Calling my observations "tripe" is just Flamebait; don't be a negative example to your profession, don't be arrogant and condescending like your other colleagues. Teach and inspire instead of calling people names and casually dismissing decades of thoughtful observation.
Maybe if you'd bothered to learn a little math
Maybe if you could learn to teach and spread this knowledge to your colleagues then there would be much educational waste and incompetency. Spend less time Trolling and more time learning to teach. Or better yet find a profession that you are good at.
It's the Protestant Work Ethic that if it is easy (or easier to do) then it is somehow bad. Like all learning tools, this may be used for cheating, just like a butcher knife can be used to murder somebody. If I could have had feedback that was quick and easy when I was in school then I probably would have excelled at Mathematics instead of dropping it as soon as possible. Tools like this are great for people who can't afford tutors and who don't have family members who are educated enough to help them with their homework.
Math, I have heard it said, is the great (social/economic) equalizer, but experience has demonstrated that only people who are lucky enough to have exceptional teachers or middle class families will have the environment to excel. A well written software program cannot ignore you, no matter how poorly you are dressed or who your friends and enemies are.
Teachers who worry about cheating obviously don't have the skills to assess their students abilities.
The first think I would do in this guy's situation is to sue the city...
There has to be a way of punishing the guilty without punishing the tax payer. Suing your own government is just kicking yourself in the ass. It solves nothing, makes lawyers rich, gives some money to the victim, and likely does nothing to the perpetrators of the crime who committed the offense. In the case of the police, they will be looking after each other (like in the Jeffrey Dahmer case where the police officer who was responsible for sending a naked juvenile to his death was re-hired [after being fired by public outrage] and promoted through union pressure).
Perhaps this is your own preconceptions and prejudices being expressed here. I never mentioned nor implied altruism. To teach or to learn has nothing (fundamentally) to do with altruism. Being a good teacher, for example, means being able to teach children despite any learning obstacles or disabilities that may exist. Money is just a tertiary reward. As I've stated, it is a short term solution for the long term problem. It will help some. One must ask oneself the motivation behind the money principle however. Businesses (generally) don't reward people for being productive, they reward people for being dishonest and sociable. I could bring up Enron and those hundreds of companies that have been in the news for the last decade of scandals as examples. And fifty years ago it was the same. Doing a job, whether it be teaching or otherwise, does not have to be altruistic.
Again, as I've stated already, paying people for marks won't help them in the business world, and it is only a tertiary benefit to teaching. If a person has a learning disability for example, paying them money won't fix the learning disability, but extra attention and focused exercises will benefit. Money is never a bad thing; it has been suggested that people pay criminals a salary of ~$80,000.00 a year to motivate them not to commit crimes (because that is cheaper than keeping them in jail). Unfortunately simple solutions like this only treat the symptoms of the problem in a very tertiary way.
Putting pupils in a Skinner Box would be more effective. Handing out money is Pavlovian, and as the science of psychology has taught us, we can better re-enforce behaviors when the rewards are not so obvious and predictable.
...they won't learn for the sake of learning
Then don't force them. "Learning" is highly over-rated, though the Montessori method and home schooling has been found to be far more effective because of the individual attention each student receives. Most people IMHO have wasted most of their lives in school because they will have forgotten all but the most basic of things learned (basic math and basic reading skills). Most people will graduate from college and university with a very tenuous grasp of the subject matter. They will have a token degree which large companies can use for screening purposes. That's about it. People take for granted the way things are and are too stubborn to change their way of thinking.
You know why "open source" works? It is because there is (generally) no money exchanged. More security exploits get fixed when they are brought into the open than when they are dealt with in a proprietary way. If you thank your mother-in-law for an excellent turkey dinner by giving her a twenty dollar bill then this will also not likely lead to the expected results that an economist with his supply-and-demand equations would predict. Money is a useful tool, but it isn't a panacea, and it doesn't work in all situations. That being said, if people want to hand out money then fine. It certainly will help motivate students to become more efficient at cheating and thus help prepare them in the Real World. I only ask people to realize that their expectations and mythologies that they preach are usually bogus. I wish people could be more honest and intelligent, but that is something that cannot be fixed.
So you'd work for no pay, just the satisfaction of a job well done? Sweet. I have a great job for you.
You're being an obvious Troll, or are just being stupid and thoughtless. I of course never said that I would work for free. Money, however, is a very weak motivational tool (except for the very shallow of mind). Most people work because of necessity. This is my excuse. Outside of the financial marketplace of work I do what other people consider to be "work" for more important reasons. And when I am at Work, I have already stated that my efforts go towards helping the company and being honest, and not just working for free or to score bonus points or Employee of the Month status. I'll leave that up to you people who have been conditioned to chase the dollar.
While the rest of your arguments are reasonable, this one is pretty dumb. Getting money is motivation for almost anyone whether or not they are competitive. The fact that the kids are making it competitive is just additional motivation on top of that.
So you think I'm dumb then, because I was never motivated by money, either at home through allowances nor in the workplace.
As an example, at work (I'll give you the call centre example) I would always follow the rules of puting the customers information in the database, logging all of the steps needed to solve a problem, and solving a problem. I would also use my own time to help other employees. This was done despite the fact that my statistics were bad (I kept the customer on the phone to solve their problem instead of hanging up on them or giving them bogus information to keep my talk time down). I was given less hours, no promotions and very small pay raises for my efforts even though the money-motivation factor was there. I've had many types of jobs and it was all the same; the harder I worked the less respect I received in the work place. On the other hand, people who worked for the Money (i.e. they went drinking with the boss, cut corners to improve their "efficiency", lied, cheated, stole and had an all around positive attitude towards Work and Management, all did very well financially).
On a more casual basis I never could understand, that when people played sports and other games they would get upset if they lost. I obviously wasn't smart enough to realize that people play to win and not to socialize, have fun, exercise, etc. I have never understood this. I am not intellectually capable of understanding this type of mentality.
At school I have also had very low grades (mainly C's and D's in high school) and yet most of my free time was spent reading and learning about biology, psychology, history, computers, etc. Marks for me were never a motivating factor, nor was the deeply propagandized belief that high marks in school would lead to high salaries in the "business world". Yes, I know I am dumb. I've been told this hundreds of times before, there is no reason to remind me.
I won't even get into allowances, but lets just say I never got any because I was never motivated by money. I was never intelligent enough to be persuaded by the psychology of money. When Pavlov rang the bell I never started to drip saliva from my mouth.
Yes people will always think I'm stupid. When I die there will be nothing to show for it.
When they get the checks, there's that competitiveness -- 'Oh, I'm going to get more money than you next time' -- so it's something that excites them," said Rose Marie Mills, principal at MS 343 in Mott Haven.
It does absolutely nothing for students who are uncompetitive or who view competition as something negative. It also hastens the failure of those who are already disadvantaged. If you can't compete (successfully) because of your home life or other circumstances, then this will just re-enforce the failure.
Again this is another example of incompetency getting promoted to leadership positions. If you need to pay people to achieve, then you aren't a very good teacher. If you want to merely train people to be good robotic workers in industry then schools need to focus less on the "3 Rs" (reading, writing and mathematics) and more on direct vocational training.
I do suspect that this protocol is a direct result of the school principal trying to meet and exceed quotas. Of course I could be wrong, but it seems more often than not that these short-sited, pop-psychology social engineering methods are often used as a gimmick for career advancement.
Daniel Judge, Cavalin's statistics professor says, "Most students think that things should be harder than they are and they put these mental blocks in front of them and they make things harder than they should be.
I've heard it before. It's not the teacher's inability to teach, but it is the student's fault. The "Fear of Math" syndrome. People need to wake up to the reality that success is largely based on environment. If people, for example, don't have access to astro-physics books, then they are unlikely to be astrophysicists. And educational attainment has more to do with one's parents and up-bringing than with one's own inherent intellectual ability.
I'd be more impressed if this child didn't have access to books and preferential treatment from parents and teachers and succeeded on his own to become an astrophysicist. I would also prefer to see professor Daniel Judge fired from his job for his inability to teach students.
It seems that there are ways around this for both the producers and consumers and that this is just the trend of China being Nanny State China.
This is a very major problem. I don't know why you used the word just. This is a very disturbing trend that started with the Great Firewall of China.
It's sad and pathetic that foreign governments don't mind this censorship as long as it coincides with their own politically correct tastes:
...says a foreign industry official familiar with the plan. "I don't think anyone would oppose the (government's) stated objective" of blocking pornographic and violent content, "but people are really concerned about the way it's being implemented," he said.
Like the article you posted earlier on "rape-ware" games, it appears that people are more than willing to censor if there are scape-goat exceptions in the witch-hunting memes of their censorship. Of course all of these political organizations (like The Ethics Organization of Computer Software) are unethical. It will always be easy to spot morally dubious political groups, because their calling card will be children, and their bandwagon will be the Moral Majority.
Can you tell me your definition of "fall in love" and "incompatible mates"
I didn't have a formal definition for "fall in love", perhaps I could describe it as a deep emotional attachment (of a romantic nature). "Incompatible" means that they don't have much in common except perhaps for their attraction to each other (which may be more physical in nature than is apparent). In the USA at least, most people marry each other largely through arbitrary circumstances like being physically attracted to each other (all things being equal) without much thought put into their overall psychological compatibility.
For example, John Gottman (a Psychologist with a degree from MIT in Mathematics), wrote a treatise called The Mathematics of Divorce where he can easily predict whether couples will be compatible with each other. He noticed that if video taped couples show signs of Defensiveness, Stonewalling, Criticism, or Contempt for each other in their conversations then their marriage has over a 90% chance of failure. Seems fairly common sense to me, but not to people who end up getting divorced. People don't have the brightest light bulbs sometimes, it makes me embarrassed to be human.
Believe it or not, most doctors are motivated by curing or ameliorating the suffering they see so much of.
People don't often believe what they preach. If there was some scientific evidence to back up your claim instead of merely a testimonial then I would take your comment more seriously. I would posit that there are probably some doctors who have achieved the pinnacle of Maslow's "hierarchy of needs", but I've generally gotten the impression that people choose the medical profession for the status and money that it offers. And motivation unfortunately does not beget competence.
After reading your posts on this subject and your subsequent Karma I can only conclude that you are suffering from Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. You should consult your nearest online pharmacy.
The drug companies are the ones who get the money. The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.
There is generally a consultancy fee (i.e. you have to go to the office to be diagnosed). Doctors also (apparently) make money through online diagnosis of various diseases that require narcotics and sedatives, etc.
I can't help but feel that this is just a marketing ploy for the profession that will encourage more FDA approved "happy pills" and psychiatrists visits. Putting medical labels on different emotional states is logically dubious. I'd prefer to live with my depressive realism in peace and without the psychological burden and stigma of being labeled "mentally ill".
I don't want people to think that I am against psychiatry however (I'll leave any antagonisms for the Scientologists to dish out). There is certainly a continuum of emotional and mental states, most of which are totally illogical (i.e. people often "fall in love" with incompatible mates, which is illogical and perhaps should be labeled a mental illness?). Everybody hallucinates, it's just that most people do it when they are asleep and forget about it unless their REM sleep is interrupted. The "mentally ill" merely fall outside of the normal bell curve for such states.
There is quackery in all professions unfortunately, and all are in the business of making money.
Thanks for the comment. I didn't assume that your post was a slight. The problem (in general) is that it can be very hard to tell what people's motivations are in terms of written communication. And yes I agree my post could have been worded better. Sometimes I'm just lazy, and sometimes (with typo's I need to proofread almost every post anal retentively) the signals between my brain and my fingers get crossed. And sometimes rules we learn in elementary school are not accepted as Law by the professionals (like not starting a sentence with "and", though I'm sure this post may have a high likelihood of being modded down by English teachers). I've always been better at theory than practice:P
I'll point out that I noticed another excessive apostrophe that I'll leave in for good measure; just because it doesn't matter.
I think I speak for all the grammar nazis here when I say my head just asploded.
It's ironic. I've taken linguistics courses at school and have always been keenly interested in the use of language, so I thought I would share some of my insights (I'm also interested in psychology). I've gotten labeled a Troll and had both posts down-modded, even both posts were both correct and were not "controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant", and there was certainly no intent, which is one of the fundamental differences of defining a troll from a non troll). I could only assume it was by people who consider themselves "grammar Nazis". To quote Will of Good Will Hunting; "People amaze me!".
Telemarketer: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service. Sienfeld: Gee, I can't talk right now. Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later. Telemarketer: Uh, I'm sorry we're not allowed to do that. Sienfeld: Oh, I guess you don't want people calling you at home. Telemarketer: No. Sienfeld: Well now you know how I feel.
To elaborate on what the AC posted. The phone company knows who makes calls, but the end user doesn't. The phone company just doesn't care and won't respond to complaints unless they are forced to by the police or government. The police won't get involved unless they get complaints from the phone company. The government won't get involved unless...
Notice a trend here? These have been my personal anecdotal experiences anyways.
...Because its a lot easier to convict them and a whole lot easier to find out what they are doing wrong and how to fix it. With a do not call list, its possible that they accidentally dialed the wrong number, didn't have an up to date version, etc. Then the mess that is the do not call list adds to the problem.
A simple string would take all excuses away and make it simpler for the FTC to do its job.
Your solution requires warrants. These are only easy to get if somebody accuses you of being a pedophile or a Muslim extremist or somebody who posts blogs that are critical of your local police department.
How about making it so all telemarketers have to register a certain caller ID that say would be (C)*insert name of company here*, then it would be trivial to block all corporate calls. Thus making it easy to have a caller ID filter to purchase to block all telemarketer calls. This would be a lot easier than the do not call list, more effective and wouldn't censor anyone.
The problem here is that you need the cooperation of the phone companies and the police (not a criminal matter I know, but if they are motivated enough...) and government here. These agencies don't have much motivation for pissing off political donors.
And your solution is just another excuse for phone companies to provide yet another billable service. The do-not-call list should instead be made effective instead of just being another political exploit to appease the masses.
Slashdot Mirror
I do know of Ramanujan, and I've always considered that his "humble" beginnings were over-hyped. Much of his mathematical education is self-taught (from text books no less), he hated going to school and he failed at non-Math subjects, and he is a bit off-topic here seeing as how we are talking about pedagogy and not Mathematicians per se. The "Stereotypes about Mathematicians" is contrived on your part.
My statements are empirical and consistent with my experiences with teachers in general, whether they be corporate trainers or college or high school teachers. People tend to merely lecture and give out assignments and consider that to be teaching. Granted that people who actually take formal classes on the subject of teaching learn a lot of theory. Unfortunately most people seem to take up teaching because they consider it a fairly easy, middle class profession and much more entertaining than riveting widgets on an assembly line.
How is flipping through pages of tables the skill?
If you have the tables memorized, then you must be smart. Memorizing tables isn't as easy as some people would think.
Listen Troll; I did learn math on my own; outside of school, and I am still learning. And yes I did teach (informally) people who couldn't learn because of inadequate teachers. People at school and in the work place have often asked me for help because they know they can't get the answers from the professionals. I have learned next to nothing in school. Most everything I know I have learned in my own free time.
I do know one thing; I am very good at teaching (though I know schools would not hire me because I don't have the token degrees) and I've been in formal learning environments for a large chunk of my life. Calling my observations "tripe" is just Flamebait; don't be a negative example to your profession, don't be arrogant and condescending like your other colleagues. Teach and inspire instead of calling people names and casually dismissing decades of thoughtful observation.
Maybe if you'd bothered to learn a little math
Maybe if you could learn to teach and spread this knowledge to your colleagues then there would be much educational waste and incompetency. Spend less time Trolling and more time learning to teach. Or better yet find a profession that you are good at.
It's the Protestant Work Ethic that if it is easy (or easier to do) then it is somehow bad. Like all learning tools, this may be used for cheating, just like a butcher knife can be used to murder somebody. If I could have had feedback that was quick and easy when I was in school then I probably would have excelled at Mathematics instead of dropping it as soon as possible. Tools like this are great for people who can't afford tutors and who don't have family members who are educated enough to help them with their homework.
Math, I have heard it said, is the great (social/economic) equalizer, but experience has demonstrated that only people who are lucky enough to have exceptional teachers or middle class families will have the environment to excel. A well written software program cannot ignore you, no matter how poorly you are dressed or who your friends and enemies are.
Teachers who worry about cheating obviously don't have the skills to assess their students abilities.
The first think I would do in this guy's situation is to sue the city...
There has to be a way of punishing the guilty without punishing the tax payer. Suing your own government is just kicking yourself in the ass. It solves nothing, makes lawyers rich, gives some money to the victim, and likely does nothing to the perpetrators of the crime who committed the offense. In the case of the police, they will be looking after each other (like in the Jeffrey Dahmer case where the police officer who was responsible for sending a naked juvenile to his death was re-hired [after being fired by public outrage] and promoted through union pressure).
They aren't altruistic
Perhaps this is your own preconceptions and prejudices being expressed here. I never mentioned nor implied altruism. To teach or to learn has nothing (fundamentally) to do with altruism. Being a good teacher, for example, means being able to teach children despite any learning obstacles or disabilities that may exist. Money is just a tertiary reward. As I've stated, it is a short term solution for the long term problem. It will help some. One must ask oneself the motivation behind the money principle however. Businesses (generally) don't reward people for being productive, they reward people for being dishonest and sociable. I could bring up Enron and those hundreds of companies that have been in the news for the last decade of scandals as examples. And fifty years ago it was the same. Doing a job, whether it be teaching or otherwise, does not have to be altruistic.
Again, as I've stated already, paying people for marks won't help them in the business world, and it is only a tertiary benefit to teaching. If a person has a learning disability for example, paying them money won't fix the learning disability, but extra attention and focused exercises will benefit. Money is never a bad thing; it has been suggested that people pay criminals a salary of ~$80,000.00 a year to motivate them not to commit crimes (because that is cheaper than keeping them in jail). Unfortunately simple solutions like this only treat the symptoms of the problem in a very tertiary way.
Putting pupils in a Skinner Box would be more effective. Handing out money is Pavlovian, and as the science of psychology has taught us, we can better re-enforce behaviors when the rewards are not so obvious and predictable.
...they won't learn for the sake of learning
Then don't force them. "Learning" is highly over-rated, though the Montessori method and home schooling has been found to be far more effective because of the individual attention each student receives. Most people IMHO have wasted most of their lives in school because they will have forgotten all but the most basic of things learned (basic math and basic reading skills). Most people will graduate from college and university with a very tenuous grasp of the subject matter. They will have a token degree which large companies can use for screening purposes. That's about it. People take for granted the way things are and are too stubborn to change their way of thinking.
You know why "open source" works? It is because there is (generally) no money exchanged. More security exploits get fixed when they are brought into the open than when they are dealt with in a proprietary way. If you thank your mother-in-law for an excellent turkey dinner by giving her a twenty dollar bill then this will also not likely lead to the expected results that an economist with his supply-and-demand equations would predict. Money is a useful tool, but it isn't a panacea, and it doesn't work in all situations. That being said, if people want to hand out money then fine. It certainly will help motivate students to become more efficient at cheating and thus help prepare them in the Real World. I only ask people to realize that their expectations and mythologies that they preach are usually bogus. I wish people could be more honest and intelligent, but that is something that cannot be fixed.
So you'd work for no pay, just the satisfaction of a job well done? Sweet. I have a great job for you.
You're being an obvious Troll, or are just being stupid and thoughtless. I of course never said that I would work for free. Money, however, is a very weak motivational tool (except for the very shallow of mind). Most people work because of necessity. This is my excuse. Outside of the financial marketplace of work I do what other people consider to be "work" for more important reasons. And when I am at Work, I have already stated that my efforts go towards helping the company and being honest, and not just working for free or to score bonus points or Employee of the Month status. I'll leave that up to you people who have been conditioned to chase the dollar.
While the rest of your arguments are reasonable, this one is pretty dumb. Getting money is motivation for almost anyone whether or not they are competitive. The fact that the kids are making it competitive is just additional motivation on top of that.
So you think I'm dumb then, because I was never motivated by money, either at home through allowances nor in the workplace.
As an example, at work (I'll give you the call centre example) I would always follow the rules of puting the customers information in the database, logging all of the steps needed to solve a problem, and solving a problem. I would also use my own time to help other employees. This was done despite the fact that my statistics were bad (I kept the customer on the phone to solve their problem instead of hanging up on them or giving them bogus information to keep my talk time down). I was given less hours, no promotions and very small pay raises for my efforts even though the money-motivation factor was there. I've had many types of jobs and it was all the same; the harder I worked the less respect I received in the work place. On the other hand, people who worked for the Money (i.e. they went drinking with the boss, cut corners to improve their "efficiency", lied, cheated, stole and had an all around positive attitude towards Work and Management, all did very well financially).
On a more casual basis I never could understand, that when people played sports and other games they would get upset if they lost. I obviously wasn't smart enough to realize that people play to win and not to socialize, have fun, exercise, etc. I have never understood this. I am not intellectually capable of understanding this type of mentality.
At school I have also had very low grades (mainly C's and D's in high school) and yet most of my free time was spent reading and learning about biology, psychology, history, computers, etc. Marks for me were never a motivating factor, nor was the deeply propagandized belief that high marks in school would lead to high salaries in the "business world". Yes, I know I am dumb. I've been told this hundreds of times before, there is no reason to remind me.
I won't even get into allowances, but lets just say I never got any because I was never motivated by money. I was never intelligent enough to be persuaded by the psychology of money. When Pavlov rang the bell I never started to drip saliva from my mouth.
Yes people will always think I'm stupid. When I die there will be nothing to show for it.
When they get the checks, there's that competitiveness -- 'Oh, I'm going to get more money than you next time' -- so it's something that excites them," said Rose Marie Mills, principal at MS 343 in Mott Haven.
It does absolutely nothing for students who are uncompetitive or who view competition as something negative. It also hastens the failure of those who are already disadvantaged. If you can't compete (successfully) because of your home life or other circumstances, then this will just re-enforce the failure.
Again this is another example of incompetency getting promoted to leadership positions. If you need to pay people to achieve, then you aren't a very good teacher. If you want to merely train people to be good robotic workers in industry then schools need to focus less on the "3 Rs" (reading, writing and mathematics) and more on direct vocational training.
I do suspect that this protocol is a direct result of the school principal trying to meet and exceed quotas. Of course I could be wrong, but it seems more often than not that these short-sited, pop-psychology social engineering methods are often used as a gimmick for career advancement.
Daniel Judge, Cavalin's statistics professor says, "Most students think that things should be harder than they are and they put these mental blocks in front of them and they make things harder than they should be.
I've heard it before. It's not the teacher's inability to teach, but it is the student's fault. The "Fear of Math" syndrome. People need to wake up to the reality that success is largely based on environment. If people, for example, don't have access to astro-physics books, then they are unlikely to be astrophysicists. And educational attainment has more to do with one's parents and up-bringing than with one's own inherent intellectual ability.
I'd be more impressed if this child didn't have access to books and preferential treatment from parents and teachers and succeeded on his own to become an astrophysicist. I would also prefer to see professor Daniel Judge fired from his job for his inability to teach students.
You said;
It seems that there are ways around this for both the producers and consumers and that this is just the trend of China being Nanny State China.
This is a very major problem. I don't know why you used the word just. This is a very disturbing trend that started with the Great Firewall of China.
It's sad and pathetic that foreign governments don't mind this censorship as long as it coincides with their own politically correct tastes:
...says a foreign industry official familiar with the plan. "I don't think anyone would oppose the (government's) stated objective" of blocking pornographic and violent content, "but people are really concerned about the way it's being implemented," he said.
Like the article you posted earlier on "rape-ware" games, it appears that people are more than willing to censor if there are scape-goat exceptions in the witch-hunting memes of their censorship. Of course all of these political organizations (like The Ethics Organization of Computer Software) are unethical. It will always be easy to spot morally dubious political groups, because their calling card will be children, and their bandwagon will be the Moral Majority.
I'd ask them if their political views are left or right wing.
Nurse != Secretary (Score:1)
I think this has more to do with Management not being able to properly bill insurance companies. Because profit is more important than human lives.
Fear and hate are (the new) normal. Everything that is good is bad.
The positive expectation of life is that it is temporary.
Can you tell me your definition of "fall in love" and "incompatible mates"
I didn't have a formal definition for "fall in love", perhaps I could describe it as a deep emotional attachment (of a romantic nature). "Incompatible" means that they don't have much in common except perhaps for their attraction to each other (which may be more physical in nature than is apparent). In the USA at least, most people marry each other largely through arbitrary circumstances like being physically attracted to each other (all things being equal) without much thought put into their overall psychological compatibility.
For example, John Gottman (a Psychologist with a degree from MIT in Mathematics), wrote a treatise called The Mathematics of Divorce where he can easily predict whether couples will be compatible with each other. He noticed that if video taped couples show signs of Defensiveness, Stonewalling, Criticism, or Contempt for each other in their conversations then their marriage has over a 90% chance of failure. Seems fairly common sense to me, but not to people who end up getting divorced. People don't have the brightest light bulbs sometimes, it makes me embarrassed to be human.
Believe it or not, most doctors are motivated by curing or ameliorating the suffering they see so much of.
People don't often believe what they preach. If there was some scientific evidence to back up your claim instead of merely a testimonial then I would take your comment more seriously. I would posit that there are probably some doctors who have achieved the pinnacle of Maslow's "hierarchy of needs", but I've generally gotten the impression that people choose the medical profession for the status and money that it offers. And motivation unfortunately does not beget competence.
After reading your posts on this subject and your subsequent Karma I can only conclude that you are suffering from Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. You should consult your nearest online pharmacy.
The drug companies are the ones who get the money. The doctors only get free golf trips and paperweights with drug logos on them.
There is generally a consultancy fee (i.e. you have to go to the office to be diagnosed). Doctors also (apparently) make money through online diagnosis of various diseases that require narcotics and sedatives, etc.
I can't help but feel that this is just a marketing ploy for the profession that will encourage more FDA approved "happy pills" and psychiatrists visits. Putting medical labels on different emotional states is logically dubious. I'd prefer to live with my depressive realism in peace and without the psychological burden and stigma of being labeled "mentally ill".
I don't want people to think that I am against psychiatry however (I'll leave any antagonisms for the Scientologists to dish out). There is certainly a continuum of emotional and mental states, most of which are totally illogical (i.e. people often "fall in love" with incompatible mates, which is illogical and perhaps should be labeled a mental illness?). Everybody hallucinates, it's just that most people do it when they are asleep and forget about it unless their REM sleep is interrupted. The "mentally ill" merely fall outside of the normal bell curve for such states.
There is quackery in all professions unfortunately, and all are in the business of making money.
Thanks for the comment. I didn't assume that your post was a slight. The problem (in general) is that it can be very hard to tell what people's motivations are in terms of written communication. And yes I agree my post could have been worded better. Sometimes I'm just lazy, and sometimes (with typo's I need to proofread almost every post anal retentively) the signals between my brain and my fingers get crossed. And sometimes rules we learn in elementary school are not accepted as Law by the professionals (like not starting a sentence with "and", though I'm sure this post may have a high likelihood of being modded down by English teachers). I've always been better at theory than practice :P
I'll point out that I noticed another excessive apostrophe that I'll leave in for good measure; just because it doesn't matter.
Best regards,
UTW
I think I speak for all the grammar nazis here when I say my head just asploded.
It's ironic. I've taken linguistics courses at school and have always been keenly interested in the use of language, so I thought I would share some of my insights (I'm also interested in psychology). I've gotten labeled a Troll and had both posts down-modded, even both posts were both correct and were not "controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant", and there was certainly no intent, which is one of the fundamental differences of defining a troll from a non troll). I could only assume it was by people who consider themselves "grammar Nazis". To quote Will of Good Will Hunting; "People amaze me!".
Telemarketer: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service.
Sienfeld: Gee, I can't talk right now. Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later.
Telemarketer: Uh, I'm sorry we're not allowed to do that.
Sienfeld: Oh, I guess you don't want people calling you at home.
Telemarketer: No.
Sienfeld: Well now you know how I feel.
To elaborate on what the AC posted. The phone company knows who makes calls, but the end user doesn't. The phone company just doesn't care and won't respond to complaints unless they are forced to by the police or government. The police won't get involved unless they get complaints from the phone company. The government won't get involved unless...
Notice a trend here? These have been my personal anecdotal experiences anyways.
...Because its a lot easier to convict them and a whole lot easier to find out what they are doing wrong and how to fix it. With a do not call list, its possible that they accidentally dialed the wrong number, didn't have an up to date version, etc. Then the mess that is the do not call list adds to the problem.
A simple string would take all excuses away and make it simpler for the FTC to do its job.
Your solution requires warrants. These are only easy to get if somebody accuses you of being a pedophile or a Muslim extremist or somebody who posts blogs that are critical of your local police department.
How about making it so all telemarketers have to register a certain caller ID that say would be (C)*insert name of company here*, then it would be trivial to block all corporate calls. Thus making it easy to have a caller ID filter to purchase to block all telemarketer calls. This would be a lot easier than the do not call list, more effective and wouldn't censor anyone.
The problem here is that you need the cooperation of the phone companies and the police (not a criminal matter I know, but if they are motivated enough...) and government here. These agencies don't have much motivation for pissing off political donors.
And your solution is just another excuse for phone companies to provide yet another billable service. The do-not-call list should instead be made effective instead of just being another political exploit to appease the masses.