You changed the goalposts. 3 species may have died out, but you don't know the cause. It could have been environmental, because of the end of the ice age.
"Then of course, you have the historicaly recorded incdeces in south america involving the incla, maya, toltec, and olmec peoples."
Your argument is ridiculous. Their practices were eminently sustainable, and let to their culture being sustained for thousands of years with no depletion of natural resources. The depletions you cite, you can't prove were caused by American Indians. You're pushing a model for ideological reasons and ignoring any contradictory data, such as the fact that at first contact with North American Indians, the ecology was as plentiful as when they arrived in North America. Or more so, because of the end of the Ice Age.
Like Lord Kelvin saying (giving the full quotation from wikiquote):
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
Of course Kelvin also calculated the age of the earth as being between 20 million and 400 million years. So quantification can often lead to wildly incorrect conclusions.
I think your model has led you to unwarranted assumptions. From wikipedia: "The archaeological record indicates that it was not unusual for ancient Pueblo peoples to adapt to climatic change by changing residences and locations."
The hills were full of gold when the white man got to California, despite the Miwok living there for millennia. And Powell encountered indians living in the Grand Canyon...
When the white man got to North America, they found the environment as full of resources as the Indians had found it when they got there over 10,000 years before.
The article makes a lot of incorrect assumptions. For example: "I’ve noticed that proponents of MOOCs tend to not be in higher education." And yet the founders of MOOCs are in higher education: Andrew Ng, Sebastian Thrun, Anant Agarwal.
Another assumption: "MOOCs rely on automated grading to evaluate student progress." There are other methods, i.e. peer review. I find reviewing others' assignments, on which I've worked myself, very educational.
The comparison to correspondence courses is misguided, since MOOCs allow for real-time interaction with other students via the forums, and immediate feedback on assignments. So while I'm interested in a question, while it's fresh in my mind and perhaps I was debating which of two answers to choose, I can get the instructor's idea of what the answer should be right away. Then if they aren't too strict about enforcing the ridiculous honor code I can challenge the instructor's idea, if I want, on the forums.
The author assumes that MOOCs can't provide "the skills that we actually want students to gain in a liberal arts environment: creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking." But I've found a lot of all three in the forums. In physical classrooms, I didn't find very much, because there were too many distractions involved with what clothes I was wearing, who was sitting next to me, not being able to see the blackboard, missing something the instructor said, waiting while the instructor erased the board, etc.
Point 3 about credentialing reinforces the idea that what universities are really selling with their degrees is the assurance that the graduated student is properly submissive to authority and will conform to whatever arbitrary, ethically-challenged commands a greedy, selfish, control-freak boss throws his way.
The article's discussion of MOOC forums is contrary to my experience. I have found very good and creative discussions in the forums, and participation by the instructors (not in all classes, but in quite a few). Some TAs are also very active and helpful and can clear up mistakes made in the videos, for example. The author's point about there not being enough qualified people in advanced topics, again, does not agree with my experience. I find that there are a lot of very advanced students taking these classes, with advanced degrees in the subject, and very willing to help others.
As for point 5, I rarely felt I got individual attention from any physical class I took. I feel much less constrained to ask questions on a discussion forum than I ever felt in a classroom or instructor's office.
In conclusion, I think you discount unfairly a lot of learners.
Bans just encourage the righties. Instead, leave them alone and encourage more responsible behavior with subsidies that don't come from taxes so the teahadists can't even complain about that. The key is driving home the economic point that Cheney was right, Reagan proved deficits don't matter.
What? I got to learn neural networks from Greg Hinton, and Quantum Computation from Umesh Vazirani, and got to interact with TAs and other students much more than I did in any traditional classroom.
Gary Burton in the Jazz Improvisation MOOC noted that in classes he teaches in physical classrooms, the students rarely talk to each other outside of class. But in MOOCs there is a lot of peer interaction on the forums.
The problem is that involves all that messy, yucky face-to-face human contact. Why can't you join some open source project via the internet to get experience, or start your own?
The real problem is the assumption that employment is the goal. The goal should be the advance of knowledge and technology. Individuals can advance knowledge and technology without being employed; MOOCs should focus on that.
First, get rid of the honor code, which is designed with employers and credentials in mind. Forget the employers, concentrate instead on education and how best to get the students to advance knowledge beyond what the instructors know. Often quiz or homework questions highlight interesting problems that lead to further questions and the potential to explore much further, but the honor code effectively prevents discussions that might lead to advancement. But if employers aren't going to look at MOOC credentials anyways, why try to cater to them by enforcing an archaic honor code?
Second, encourage students to work on problems that haven't been solved. Include problems that the instructors don't know the answer to, and let students collaborate openly on the forums in trying to solve them. Take the polymath.org approach rather than trying to enforce an artificial scarcity of knowledge by censoring students who want to help others solve problems on the forums.
Inflation seems to be a psychological phenomenon. There are some ways of dealing with it. Israel used indexing to handle double-digit inflation over several decades, and still uses indexing now. Brazil used a "fake" currency to defeat its hyperinflation in the 1990s, getting people to think in terms of the "real" which remained constant, and ended its hyperinflation in a short time.
I guess my point is that we give capitalism a chance to work, with the idea that competition will drive down prices even if there's a subsidy. If it doesn't work and instead psychology takes over and creates an inflationary spiral, we can use tested methods of dealing with that diseased psychology.
Spies live lies. They voluntarily put themselves in danger. At least Snowden releases his information publicly, so spies that might be affected know their cover's blown. If they don't already have an escape plan, they might want to start making one.
The citation of Greece is silly because Greece foolishly gave up control of its own currency when it joined the EU, and the EU is inexplicably committed to austerity and punishing its southern members. It's economic hegemony, Germany controlling other nations with finance this time instead of military force.
Mexico is not like the US because the US 1) has the world's reserve currency and 2) does not produce the innovation that the US does. American Exceptionalism means we innovate more and therefore our faith and credit is better and others look to our currency as a means to measure their own. Our focus should be on innovation and the advance of knowledge, not finance. As long as we keep producing things others want and imitate, we can create as much money as we feel like.
Zimbabwe suffered some environmental catastrophes, and its government abrogated essential American freedoms such as speech. Freedom of speech is essential for a democracy such as the US to function.
There is no economic need for the US to cut social benefits. The Fed can fund the government's entitlement spending. We should create a Basic Income to give each individual a choice whether they want to enter the free market, or develop their own ideas outside of a company, using the unprecedented communication tool that is the internet to collaborate with others on an ad-hoc basis. The government, and private businesses, can hold challenges to stimulate innovation. This is already happening, with Google bug bounties, the Netflix Prize, X-Prizes, kaggle.com, challenge.gov, DARPA challenges, etc.
By the way did you know that the US is the world's third largest producer of gold? Not that it really matters of course.
Isn't capitalist theory that competition will drive prices down towards the cost of production level?
If capitalism doesn't work as advertised, then just index everything. If the producers make the price $28, make the subsidy $28. If the producers then raise their prices out of spite, raise the subsidy. Continue doing this until the producers drown in their money, or 3D printers make on-demand production possible for individuals.
The inflation rate is psychological, influenced by things such as war or OPEC political decisions rather than the money supply. Why else would the US have experienced its highest rates of inflation when the money supply was increasing at its slowest rate in the past 100 years?
Why haven't we had hyperinflation despite the doubling or tripling of the Fed's balance sheet in the past few years? Why did housing prices increase despite the Fed's raising interest rates in the mid-2000s?
Clearly, your quantity theory of money is more faith than fact.
The money is created, by the Fed which expands its balance sheet by adding a liability that it can fulfill itself. The Fed buys govt bonds and returns the interest to the Treasury, and keeps the loans rolling over forever (as it does for banks). So the govt borrows at zero cost.
If the cost of producing the bulbs sinks below the subsidy, then govt can contract to make the bulbs and sell them for below the subsidy.
Let the Fed fund the govt by expanding its balance sheet to buy govt bonds, and keep the loans rolling over forever while returning the interest to the Treasury. Zero-cost borrowing.
Govt should subsidize the bulbs they want people to use, instead of banning what they don't think people should use. Simply give people refunds or credits towards bulb purchases.
Did our ancestors imagine they were giving the Federal government the right to ban speech? And yet the second president did.
The point being, these "originalist" arguments are silly because there were as many arguments about what the Constitution granted during the very first administrations as now.
US officials discussed doing three things: 1) demonstrate the nuclear bomb before an international team of scientists 2) warn the Japanese before using it and 3) use it only on a military target. But Truman ultimately chose to go for the maximum psychological impact.
I don't think opportunity cost works like that. Did science suffer because Newton spent a lot of his time on alchemy? Or was Newton's alchemical researches part of the way he thought about the world, and so contributed to his advancements to science?
Slashdot Mirror
You changed the goalposts. 3 species may have died out, but you don't know the cause. It could have been environmental, because of the end of the ice age.
"Then of course, you have the historicaly recorded incdeces in south america involving the incla, maya, toltec, and olmec peoples."
I specifically said North America.
Your argument is ridiculous. Their practices were eminently sustainable, and let to their culture being sustained for thousands of years with no depletion of natural resources. The depletions you cite, you can't prove were caused by American Indians. You're pushing a model for ideological reasons and ignoring any contradictory data, such as the fact that at first contact with North American Indians, the ecology was as plentiful as when they arrived in North America. Or more so, because of the end of the Ice Age.
Like Lord Kelvin saying (giving the full quotation from wikiquote):
Of course Kelvin also calculated the age of the earth as being between 20 million and 400 million years. So quantification can often lead to wildly incorrect conclusions.
I think your model has led you to unwarranted assumptions. From wikipedia: "The archaeological record indicates that it was not unusual for ancient Pueblo peoples to adapt to climatic change by changing residences and locations."
The hills were full of gold when the white man got to California, despite the Miwok living there for millennia. And Powell encountered indians living in the Grand Canyon...
When the white man got to North America, they found the environment as full of resources as the Indians had found it when they got there over 10,000 years before.
The article makes a lot of incorrect assumptions. For example: "I’ve noticed that proponents of MOOCs tend to not be in higher education." And yet the founders of MOOCs are in higher education: Andrew Ng, Sebastian Thrun, Anant Agarwal.
Another assumption: "MOOCs rely on automated grading to evaluate student progress." There are other methods, i.e. peer review. I find reviewing others' assignments, on which I've worked myself, very educational.
The comparison to correspondence courses is misguided, since MOOCs allow for real-time interaction with other students via the forums, and immediate feedback on assignments. So while I'm interested in a question, while it's fresh in my mind and perhaps I was debating which of two answers to choose, I can get the instructor's idea of what the answer should be right away. Then if they aren't too strict about enforcing the ridiculous honor code I can challenge the instructor's idea, if I want, on the forums.
The author assumes that MOOCs can't provide "the skills that we actually want students to gain in a liberal arts environment: creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking." But I've found a lot of all three in the forums. In physical classrooms, I didn't find very much, because there were too many distractions involved with what clothes I was wearing, who was sitting next to me, not being able to see the blackboard, missing something the instructor said, waiting while the instructor erased the board, etc.
Point 3 about credentialing reinforces the idea that what universities are really selling with their degrees is the assurance that the graduated student is properly submissive to authority and will conform to whatever arbitrary, ethically-challenged commands a greedy, selfish, control-freak boss throws his way.
The article's discussion of MOOC forums is contrary to my experience. I have found very good and creative discussions in the forums, and participation by the instructors (not in all classes, but in quite a few). Some TAs are also very active and helpful and can clear up mistakes made in the videos, for example. The author's point about there not being enough qualified people in advanced topics, again, does not agree with my experience. I find that there are a lot of very advanced students taking these classes, with advanced degrees in the subject, and very willing to help others.
As for point 5, I rarely felt I got individual attention from any physical class I took. I feel much less constrained to ask questions on a discussion forum than I ever felt in a classroom or instructor's office.
In conclusion, I think you discount unfairly a lot of learners.
Bans just encourage the righties. Instead, leave them alone and encourage more responsible behavior with subsidies that don't come from taxes so the teahadists can't even complain about that. The key is driving home the economic point that Cheney was right, Reagan proved deficits don't matter.
You would be free to buy the old bulbs, and others would be free to choose to buy the new ones at an affordable price. Nothing would change for you.
Perhaps you missed the second part?
What? I got to learn neural networks from Greg Hinton, and Quantum Computation from Umesh Vazirani, and got to interact with TAs and other students much more than I did in any traditional classroom.
Gary Burton in the Jazz Improvisation MOOC noted that in classes he teaches in physical classrooms, the students rarely talk to each other outside of class. But in MOOCs there is a lot of peer interaction on the forums.
The problem is that involves all that messy, yucky face-to-face human contact. Why can't you join some open source project via the internet to get experience, or start your own?
The real problem is the assumption that employment is the goal. The goal should be the advance of knowledge and technology. Individuals can advance knowledge and technology without being employed; MOOCs should focus on that.
First, get rid of the honor code, which is designed with employers and credentials in mind. Forget the employers, concentrate instead on education and how best to get the students to advance knowledge beyond what the instructors know. Often quiz or homework questions highlight interesting problems that lead to further questions and the potential to explore much further, but the honor code effectively prevents discussions that might lead to advancement. But if employers aren't going to look at MOOC credentials anyways, why try to cater to them by enforcing an archaic honor code?
Second, encourage students to work on problems that haven't been solved. Include problems that the instructors don't know the answer to, and let students collaborate openly on the forums in trying to solve them. Take the polymath.org approach rather than trying to enforce an artificial scarcity of knowledge by censoring students who want to help others solve problems on the forums.
Inflation seems to be a psychological phenomenon. There are some ways of dealing with it. Israel used indexing to handle double-digit inflation over several decades, and still uses indexing now. Brazil used a "fake" currency to defeat its hyperinflation in the 1990s, getting people to think in terms of the "real" which remained constant, and ended its hyperinflation in a short time.
I guess my point is that we give capitalism a chance to work, with the idea that competition will drive down prices even if there's a subsidy. If it doesn't work and instead psychology takes over and creates an inflationary spiral, we can use tested methods of dealing with that diseased psychology.
Spies live lies. They voluntarily put themselves in danger. At least Snowden releases his information publicly, so spies that might be affected know their cover's blown. If they don't already have an escape plan, they might want to start making one.
Why aren't we treating Snowden like Rove? Rove was criticized a little but not indicted.
The citation of Greece is silly because Greece foolishly gave up control of its own currency when it joined the EU, and the EU is inexplicably committed to austerity and punishing its southern members. It's economic hegemony, Germany controlling other nations with finance this time instead of military force.
Mexico is not like the US because the US 1) has the world's reserve currency and 2) does not produce the innovation that the US does. American Exceptionalism means we innovate more and therefore our faith and credit is better and others look to our currency as a means to measure their own. Our focus should be on innovation and the advance of knowledge, not finance. As long as we keep producing things others want and imitate, we can create as much money as we feel like.
Zimbabwe suffered some environmental catastrophes, and its government abrogated essential American freedoms such as speech. Freedom of speech is essential for a democracy such as the US to function.
There is no economic need for the US to cut social benefits. The Fed can fund the government's entitlement spending. We should create a Basic Income to give each individual a choice whether they want to enter the free market, or develop their own ideas outside of a company, using the unprecedented communication tool that is the internet to collaborate with others on an ad-hoc basis. The government, and private businesses, can hold challenges to stimulate innovation. This is already happening, with Google bug bounties, the Netflix Prize, X-Prizes, kaggle.com, challenge.gov, DARPA challenges, etc.
By the way did you know that the US is the world's third largest producer of gold? Not that it really matters of course.
Isn't capitalist theory that competition will drive prices down towards the cost of production level?
If capitalism doesn't work as advertised, then just index everything. If the producers make the price $28, make the subsidy $28. If the producers then raise their prices out of spite, raise the subsidy. Continue doing this until the producers drown in their money, or 3D printers make on-demand production possible for individuals.
Can you say "hyperbolic paranoia", before you start hyperventilating?
The US has never had hyperinflation, despite printing greenbacks and an exponential increase in the money supply.
The inflation rate is psychological, influenced by things such as war or OPEC political decisions rather than the money supply. Why else would the US have experienced its highest rates of inflation when the money supply was increasing at its slowest rate in the past 100 years?
Why haven't we had hyperinflation despite the doubling or tripling of the Fed's balance sheet in the past few years? Why did housing prices increase despite the Fed's raising interest rates in the mid-2000s?
Clearly, your quantity theory of money is more faith than fact.
Sounds like you've been indoctrinated with obsolete, feudal economic theory. Check out http://stephaniekelton.com/2013/05/31/what-happens-when-the-government-tightens-its-belt/ if you want to educate yourself.
The money is created, by the Fed which expands its balance sheet by adding a liability that it can fulfill itself. The Fed buys govt bonds and returns the interest to the Treasury, and keeps the loans rolling over forever (as it does for banks). So the govt borrows at zero cost.
If the cost of producing the bulbs sinks below the subsidy, then govt can contract to make the bulbs and sell them for below the subsidy.
Let the Fed fund the govt by expanding its balance sheet to buy govt bonds, and keep the loans rolling over forever while returning the interest to the Treasury. Zero-cost borrowing.
Govt should subsidize the bulbs they want people to use, instead of banning what they don't think people should use. Simply give people refunds or credits towards bulb purchases.
Did our ancestors imagine they were giving the Federal government the right to ban speech? And yet the second president did.
The point being, these "originalist" arguments are silly because there were as many arguments about what the Constitution granted during the very first administrations as now.
Put spies lives in danger? Isn't that what they agreed to when they became spies?
US officials discussed doing three things: 1) demonstrate the nuclear bomb before an international team of scientists 2) warn the Japanese before using it and 3) use it only on a military target. But Truman ultimately chose to go for the maximum psychological impact.
I don't think opportunity cost works like that. Did science suffer because Newton spent a lot of his time on alchemy? Or was Newton's alchemical researches part of the way he thought about the world, and so contributed to his advancements to science?