"That money goes to WORKERS who build the space vehicles and COMPANIES that make jobs. That's economically a Good Thing."
Sure. But the same would be true of spending scadillions on robotic probes. And unlike building manned rockets, which have little economic feedback, I think that spending huge sums on robotic probes would have some economic / industrial feedback effects.
The sole exception would be if the cost and risk of access to space were drastically lowered (a DC-3 for space). That would lead to radical new business opprtunities, and would also permit radical new scientific probes to be created that would make Hubble and even JWST look like toys.
That said, there is nothing in the President's exploration proposal that would lead to such a result. I recognize that your post does not endorse the Bush space plan, and I'm not trying to pin that on you -- but that is the topic of Weinberg's article.
The real cost-benefit comparison
on
The Wrong Stuff
·
· Score: 1
"For the cost of putting a few people in a single location on Mars, we could have robots studying many different landscapes all over the planet."
In the consideration of Moon/Mars exploration, this is the key argument. Don't compare the returns of a few robotic landers and orbiters with the anticipated returns (scientific, sociological etc) of President Bush's proposed manned missions.
Instead, contrast the massive returns that could result from pouring hundreds of billions into robotic exploration. We should not be sending a couple of rovers to Mars, instead we should be producing Mars landers by the hundreds.
Economic benefits? The investments in robotics alone could have some profound economic benefits. I don't see any parallel returns in the manned program. Buy a manned rocket program, you support some engineers and machinists. Buy the equivalent number of robots, you could achieve some industrial / economic feedback that really produces some benefits.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of human exploration. But, as much as I admire Astronauts, it's hard for me to see that the benefits of humans justify the costs.
I didn't say free, I said that some tools aren't there at all. I used to scoff at people who would say "there's not as much SW for Mac as for PC". When it comes to certain tools, they have a point.
The question (and it is a valid one) is whether the tools that are Mac-only, Mac-cheaper or Mac-better (some multimedia production tools come to mind) sell enough Macs to offset the sales lost to VARs who just give up and embrace the dark side. My guess is no, if simply because the VARs don't just do SW development on the PC but they also obviously sell a whole raft of systems that run the custom apps they develop.
What about development tools? Although there are some good signs (Xcode, Xgrid, X11), I still think that Apple needs to do a better job of supporting VARs and developers.
For example, Metrowerks CodeWarrior no longer supports PalmOS development on Mac. And PalmSource does not support the Palm Simulator on Mac. So, to do any serious development for PalmOS, you must get a PC running Windows.
Microsoft seems to understand that small developers are an important part of their base. I don't think Apple is doing enough.
That works for some transactions, but not the small ones that cause me to need to carry coins (parking meters, copy machines, etc do not take credit cards). I'm not trying to conceal where I buy dinner -- I don't mind putting that on my credit card. But it's a big aggravation to have to carry coins, or worse, to have to go find a place to get change. I've missed trains because I forgot to bring change for the parking lot. Grr.
So what I want also requires a massive amount of infrastructure (smart card readers on every parking meter, coin-op copy machine, etc), Point of Sale terminals for paying and adding money, ATM support, etc.
From about a year ago: this article says France has a system like what I want. It's not clear from thaat article whether you can use it for all of the purchases I mentioned, but it's a start.
The card would need to have appropriate security measures that would make it economically impractical to add money to them. Not impossible, just hard enough to make it not worth doing. This probably means that systems strong enoough today would be too weak in a couple of years. So, the ability to upgrade the infrastructure (Point of Sale registers) would be needed. The cards themselves would be some sort of smart card that could be disposed of just like paper money is upgraded occasionally (also to foil counterfeiters).
I don't see any reason why the card would need to be tracked to a particular individual. It seems likely that someone inside the digital cash system (i.e. the bank) could track a particular card, but they would not know who was holding it without spying on them.
There are a lot of practical concerns -- a whole new way to counterfeit. But the big corps and govts are more likely to protect their own asse(t)s well than the Chameleon Card is to protect mine. So, I would rather see the technology perfected in an arena where the risk is borne by those who stand to profit from it.
And they would profit from it in the same way as credit card companies do -- they would take a bite out of each transaction (or just take a bite when I put value on the card).
I don't claim this is as snoop-proof as cash. But it's a lot better than putting my credit card into every parking meter, soda machine, photocopy machine, etc.
Start simple -- digital cash
on
The Universal Card
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I think it would be much easier to start with a simpler problem: digital cash. I would love to have a card that can hold up to about $100 that is anonymous and which I could use for bus fare, parking meters, road tolls, or small purchases like meals. This would be a natural for on-line purchases of paid content (iTunes, archived news stories).
By being anonymous, my privacy would be protected (at least in theory). It would also be completely unconnected to my credit cards and bank accounts, so it could never be used to steal more than $100 from me.
This is not a trivial problem -- it has some of the same problems as voting (anonymity & non-repudiation).
I think this is already being done in Europe. If only the US would catch up.
Look, I don't want to beat a dead horse. But I gave a response, which is that first of all, direct subsidies are not likely to be effective, and second of all, that the proper governments of failed states are the ones responsible for the problems within their countries. If the US chooses to spend money on space exploration or entertainment or cosmetics or whatever, that's our choice. Our money, our choice, our priorities. Those who choose not to participate aren't necessarily stupid or wrong, and I don't think we will say that (though it's *possible* that someone will say "You're either with us or against us").
Even if one feels a general sympathy for those suffering under the misrule of oppressive, incompetent, and rapacious rulers, that does not mean that one is obligated to do something about it. We didn't make the problem, and in some cases, I don't think we can solve the problem.
Many failed states are NOT failed because they lack resources: look at the DRC for example. CIA World Fact Book on Demo. Repub. of the Congo. They have ample resources such as minerals, but the rulers have squandered and stolen the wealth of their countries. Limited resources?
Why not just give ALL of the American economy to 3rd world hellholes? And why stop there -- Europe and Japan have money too. How about the Saudis?
You seem to be assuming that addressing poverty is the responsibility of the US. Why? We have our own problems. And failed states are not failed because of the US. So tell me again why this is our problem?
The leaders of Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Myanmar, Cambodia, etc etc etc are the ones responsible for the well being of their citizens.
The idea of giving 100% of the US DoD budget away is so risible it's hardly worth addressing. Are you an American? Beyond the fact that defense is a Constitutionally mandated function of the federal government, do you think the US and the world would be better off if the US had no military at all? Bollocks.
OK, I'll bite on the off chance that this *is* an honest question.
NASA's annual budget is something like $15B.
There are about 2 billion individuals who survive on less than $2 per day equivalent purchasing power (this may not consider non-wage agricultural production such as gardens, but $2 is obviously very little money).
Give $15B to 2B people -- it's $7.50 per capita. In other words, if direct subsidies are the answer to poverty then NASA's budget would be inconsequential.
That isn't to say that $15B could not be employed to raise the standard of living of many individuals. A "Manhattan Project" to end Malaria would be a boon to hundreds of millions of people. There are other, similar sorts of investments one could make.
Instead of aiming your ire / consternation / disapproval at NASA for 'wasting' money (needless to say they're wasting American taxpayers' money), why not examine the kleptocratic warlords, juntas and strongmen who use food, water and education as weapons against their ethnic, cultural and political foes?
I am fed up with the false dialectic which is peddled on a variety of controversies: guns, violent video games, reality TV, etc. The false dialectic is that a culture can only have two possibilities: either there is a race for the bottom, as media peddlers compete to out-do each other in outrageous behavior. Or, there is some sort of nanny government overseeing what sorts of images and messages can be portrayed in the media -- meaning that books are banned and so forth.
Those advocating "freedom of expression" (actually license) accept no responsibility for their actions, and those advocating censorship accept none either.
So, we are left with an increasingly polarized standoff between those who would impose limits and those who say that any limits are arbitrary and therefore no limits should be imposed. The result is madness.
I think both sides need to acknowledge that the other has some valid points. Would-be censors have got to acknowledge that the Hollywood film 'Code' really cut into freedom of expression. Yet, that did not prevent great films, including controversial ones, from being made during that period.
I don't claim that all mass media are part of the great wasteland. The best contemporary books, TV, music, films, etc are every bit as good as anything produced in any era (at least, where a comparison makes sense -- comparing The Who to J.S. Bach might not work so well).
But the amount of dreck that debases humanity seems to grow and intensify every year. This is something we should be concerned about. Men and women of good will need not participate in such debasement by holding the shares of publicly traded companies engaged in same. Ironically, the New York Post might also fall under this category itself.
Even if the company ultimately winds up refunding or rescinding your money, they still gain some benefit from holding onto your cash. Insufficient cash flow is one of the most important reasons for business failure, but they can effectively gain cash flow by making billing instant and refunds drag on for weeks or months. So your cash becomes their capital.
I had a dispute with TWA (now defunct airline) one time -- due to their error, I was billed twice for a ticket. It took months for them to refund my $800. They can take your money instantly, but they can only return it after months of hassle, phone-tag, "I don't have the authority" etc.
Ironic, that TWA was once the coolest airline (founded by Howard Hughes, and once had the best service). It was unable to adapt to deregulation. Whether their stealth cashflow was a cause or an effect of their weakness is left to the reader to decide.
Thanks for posting the links, Cuda. I just listened to the NPR interview, which was a debate about the "digital divide". The host, Tavis Smiley, seemed to accept the need for computers in schools as an obvious truth, and the other panelist, Shireen Mitchell, felt this was an issue of racial equity of opportunity and educational quality.
Oppenheimer made his case as simple as possible: he doesn't want *any* kids using computers in the classroom until approximately middle school. To paraphrase, he felt that poor schools should not mimic everything that rich schools do, or at least not without considering which parts are effective. He also gave an example where a school with 90% kids of color outperformed a rich school (that strongly used computers) in the same area.
Just because Socrates taught under a tree does not mean we should never go beyond that, but then again it would be unreasonable to replace Socrates with a tree and call it education. This is in effect what is happening in SF. Lay off teachers and buy computers.
The fact that this is precisely what happened to Socrates, is an irony that he might appreciate. Not to mention the fact that he was killed by a plant.
Todd Oppenheimer, the writer of the article, mentions Accelerared Reader. He does not go into detail, but an educational researcher at UC Berkeley said the results were not as impressive as the AR marketers claim.
My question then becomes, in your experience, was it the AR program itself, or the motivation of the teachers (and parents) that made a difference?
Sure, that makes sense. But what some districts are doing (as mentioned in the article) does not.
I don't claim that we should eschew all new methods, only that the technology treadmill has limits. As the article mentions, it makes more sense at higher grade levels, and when used appropriately. PowerPoint for primary education is not necessarily bad, but the article points out that scholarship really has suffered.
How much does a SysAdmin make? Or even a Help Desk Technician? We should not expect teachers (or librarians, for that matter) to do the work of a SysAdmin and a Help Desk if they are not trained AND paid for this level of work.
Now, this of course raises the more significant question, which is why we pay more to SysAdmins and Help Desk Techs than to Teachers who are educating the future of our country...
I pecked about on the US Congress's (web site and was unable to find a roll call of who voted for and against the bill (HR 2417). Maybe it's there somewhere, but then again, maybe the scoundrels did not want anyone to know who supported this bill's intrusive search powers.
This is necessary in a society where the wealth is concentrated in the hands of money lenders. Without this drive, people would be much less inclined to borrow money to buy something immediately. They would rather wish to save their money to buy it later. A certain group of Americans benefits strongly from this trend, and they do control most media outlets. Look for the group involved with media and money lending and you will have your answer....
Now that I am re-reading your post more carefully, the above comments strike me as being code words for accusing some group of people of running some sort of plot. Why don't you be more clear? Who, precisely, is behind this pernicious attack on the fabric of our society? Please provide specific answers, and justify why your answers would not be more simply explained by Adam Smith's economic theory of markets.
Fascism is very much about cultural preservation...
Fascism has nothing to do with cultural preservation. It is about the imposition of an autocratic government and a uniform, often synthetic, cultural ideal on a society by force.
... Fascism is about having leaders who lead because they are the most wise.
And it has nothing to do with wisdom. If fascist regimes were led by the wise, how do you explain Hitler's decision to attack Russia? Was there wisdom in his crackpot theories of genetic superiority?
It may have been a reach for me to say that the arbitrary hierarchy of Columbine was based on a fascist aesthetic, but it certainly has brought some interesting comments into the discourse.
Crap, this is just confirmation that when certain words enter a thread, nothing more can be said. Just not in the way I usually think that is meant. I can't believe I'm wasting my time on this.
I'll try not to put words in your mouth and I'd appreciate reciprocity. I didn't say anything about my "dream". I am not trying to advocate anything except avoiding simplistic analysis of complex issues. In the case of the hypothetical influence of violent video games (and other factors) on actual mass shootings, the simplistic analysis is "X cannot be the critical factor because not all people who associate with X commit these atrocities." Advocates of each hypothetical factor (FPS games, violent movies, goth music, guns, individualism, mental illness etc) can each substitute their pet cause for X and thereby try to dodge responsibility for mass shootings. But that does not answer the question of why these horrible events occur much less how to try to reduce them.
As to your specific arguments, keep in mind that my particular laundry list is not complete, and each item may be applicable in some cases but not in others. There are other factors like parental responsibility that play into school shootings -- for example, the parents' responsibility to know what their kid is up to. However, in the broader sense of mass shootings, that's not always a factor. If you're an adult, by definition your parents are no longer responsible for checking whether you are building bombs in the garage.
As to the fascist aesthetic, I'm not referring to some sort of nationwide universal government/corporate tendency. I'm simply referring to the local phenomenon at Columbine where jocks were supposedly committing what amounted to criminal acts of intimidation, harassment and assault against 'geeks'. These things occur elsewhere, but at Columbine these acts were supposedly committed with impunity and without the slightest bit of attention by the coaches and administrators.
There is a world of difference between letting leaders be leaders and letting jocks act as a mafia. Again, I explicitly did not advocate some sort of communitarian or egalitarian outcome. But I will explicitly say that "zero tolerance" needs to avoid harmless play-acting like kids pointing fingers and saying "bang you're dead" and instead look at trying to control the bullies. Although they cannot ever control 100% of the bullying that is part of growing up, they can make a better effort than seemed to be the case at Columbine.
There is also a world of difference between human diversity (in personality) and social maladaptations and personality disorders and even further on the spectrum, mental illness. Social diversity is when different people like and dislike certain things. Personality disorders are when people lack basic human characteristics like empathy and sympathy. Mental illness is a different category altogether.
For an example of what I mean by a fascist aesthetic, see the documentary film about Leni Riefenstahl. The fascist aesthetic in a nutshell is "that which is strong is beautiful and good". It is an elevation of power above other ideals such as justice, morality, ethics, and individual worth.
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"That money goes to WORKERS who build the space vehicles and COMPANIES that make jobs. That's economically a Good Thing."
Sure. But the same would be true of spending scadillions on robotic probes. And unlike building manned rockets, which have little economic feedback, I think that spending huge sums on robotic probes would have some economic / industrial feedback effects.
The sole exception would be if the cost and risk of access to space were drastically lowered (a DC-3 for space). That would lead to radical new business opprtunities, and would also permit radical new scientific probes to be created that would make Hubble and even JWST look like toys.
That said, there is nothing in the President's exploration proposal that would lead to such a result. I recognize that your post does not endorse the Bush space plan, and I'm not trying to pin that on you -- but that is the topic of Weinberg's article.
"For the cost of putting a few people in a single location on Mars, we could have robots studying many different landscapes all over the planet."
In the consideration of Moon/Mars exploration, this is the key argument. Don't compare the returns of a few robotic landers and orbiters with the anticipated returns (scientific, sociological etc) of President Bush's proposed manned missions.
Instead, contrast the massive returns that could result from pouring hundreds of billions into robotic exploration. We should not be sending a couple of rovers to Mars, instead we should be producing Mars landers by the hundreds.
Economic benefits? The investments in robotics alone could have some profound economic benefits. I don't see any parallel returns in the manned program. Buy a manned rocket program, you support some engineers and machinists. Buy the equivalent number of robots, you could achieve some industrial / economic feedback that really produces some benefits.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of human exploration. But, as much as I admire Astronauts, it's hard for me to see that the benefits of humans justify the costs.
Steven Weinberg... who the hell is he? What does he know about anything? Why should we listen to him?
Oh, wait. Nobel prize for Physics 1979. THAT Steven Weinberg.
Never mind.
I didn't say free, I said that some tools aren't there at all. I used to scoff at people who would say "there's not as much SW for Mac as for PC". When it comes to certain tools, they have a point.
The question (and it is a valid one) is whether the tools that are Mac-only, Mac-cheaper or Mac-better (some multimedia production tools come to mind) sell enough Macs to offset the sales lost to VARs who just give up and embrace the dark side. My guess is no, if simply because the VARs don't just do SW development on the PC but they also obviously sell a whole raft of systems that run the custom apps they develop.
What about development tools? Although there are some good signs (Xcode, Xgrid, X11), I still think that Apple needs to do a better job of supporting VARs and developers.
For example, Metrowerks CodeWarrior no longer supports PalmOS development on Mac. And PalmSource does not support the Palm Simulator on Mac. So, to do any serious development for PalmOS, you must get a PC running Windows.
Microsoft seems to understand that small developers are an important part of their base. I don't think Apple is doing enough.
That works for some transactions, but not the small ones that cause me to need to carry coins (parking meters, copy machines, etc do not take credit cards). I'm not trying to conceal where I buy dinner -- I don't mind putting that on my credit card. But it's a big aggravation to have to carry coins, or worse, to have to go find a place to get change. I've missed trains because I forgot to bring change for the parking lot. Grr.
So what I want also requires a massive amount of infrastructure (smart card readers on every parking meter, coin-op copy machine, etc), Point of Sale terminals for paying and adding money, ATM support, etc.
From about a year ago: this article says France has a system like what I want. It's not clear from thaat article whether you can use it for all of the purchases I mentioned, but it's a start.
The card would need to have appropriate security measures that would make it economically impractical to add money to them. Not impossible, just hard enough to make it not worth doing. This probably means that systems strong enoough today would be too weak in a couple of years. So, the ability to upgrade the infrastructure (Point of Sale registers) would be needed. The cards themselves would be some sort of smart card that could be disposed of just like paper money is upgraded occasionally (also to foil counterfeiters).
I don't see any reason why the card would need to be tracked to a particular individual. It seems likely that someone inside the digital cash system (i.e. the bank) could track a particular card, but they would not know who was holding it without spying on them.
There are a lot of practical concerns -- a whole new way to counterfeit. But the big corps and govts are more likely to protect their own asse(t)s well than the Chameleon Card is to protect mine. So, I would rather see the technology perfected in an arena where the risk is borne by those who stand to profit from it.
And they would profit from it in the same way as credit card companies do -- they would take a bite out of each transaction (or just take a bite when I put value on the card).
I don't claim this is as snoop-proof as cash. But it's a lot better than putting my credit card into every parking meter, soda machine, photocopy machine, etc.
I think it would be much easier to start with a simpler problem: digital cash. I would love to have a card that can hold up to about $100 that is anonymous and which I could use for bus fare, parking meters, road tolls, or small purchases like meals. This would be a natural for on-line purchases of paid content (iTunes, archived news stories).
By being anonymous, my privacy would be protected (at least in theory). It would also be completely unconnected to my credit cards and bank accounts, so it could never be used to steal more than $100 from me.
This is not a trivial problem -- it has some of the same problems as voting (anonymity & non-repudiation).
I think this is already being done in Europe. If only the US would catch up.
The Palm Developer Conference will reveal the details of the new OS. San Jose, CA, Feb 10-12 2004.
Look, I don't want to beat a dead horse. But I gave a response, which is that first of all, direct subsidies are not likely to be effective, and second of all, that the proper governments of failed states are the ones responsible for the problems within their countries. If the US chooses to spend money on space exploration or entertainment or cosmetics or whatever, that's our choice. Our money, our choice, our priorities. Those who choose not to participate aren't necessarily stupid or wrong, and I don't think we will say that (though it's *possible* that someone will say "You're either with us or against us").
Even if one feels a general sympathy for those suffering under the misrule of oppressive, incompetent, and rapacious rulers, that does not mean that one is obligated to do something about it. We didn't make the problem, and in some cases, I don't think we can solve the problem.
Many failed states are NOT failed because they lack resources: look at the DRC for example. CIA World Fact Book on Demo. Repub. of the Congo. They have ample resources such as minerals, but the rulers have squandered and stolen the wealth of their countries. Limited resources?
Why not just give ALL of the American economy to 3rd world hellholes? And why stop there -- Europe and Japan have money too. How about the Saudis?
You seem to be assuming that addressing poverty is the responsibility of the US. Why? We have our own problems. And failed states are not failed because of the US. So tell me again why this is our problem?
The leaders of Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Myanmar, Cambodia, etc etc etc are the ones responsible for the well being of their citizens.
The idea of giving 100% of the US DoD budget away is so risible it's hardly worth addressing. Are you an American? Beyond the fact that defense is a Constitutionally mandated function of the federal government, do you think the US and the world would be better off if the US had no military at all? Bollocks.
OK, I'll bite on the off chance that this *is* an honest question.
NASA's annual budget is something like $15B.
There are about 2 billion individuals who survive on less than $2 per day equivalent purchasing power (this may not consider non-wage agricultural production such as gardens, but $2 is obviously very little money).
Give $15B to 2B people -- it's $7.50 per capita. In other words, if direct subsidies are the answer to poverty then NASA's budget would be inconsequential.
That isn't to say that $15B could not be employed to raise the standard of living of many individuals. A "Manhattan Project" to end Malaria would be a boon to hundreds of millions of people. There are other, similar sorts of investments one could make.
Instead of aiming your ire / consternation / disapproval at NASA for 'wasting' money (needless to say they're wasting American taxpayers' money), why not examine the kleptocratic warlords, juntas and strongmen who use food, water and education as weapons against their ethnic, cultural and political foes?
Tax cuts -- the Bush panacea.
Just a slight change in the lettering...
And their slogan will change from "invent" to "In Bangalore".
I am fed up with the false dialectic which is peddled on a variety of controversies: guns, violent video games, reality TV, etc. The false dialectic is that a culture can only have two possibilities: either there is a race for the bottom, as media peddlers compete to out-do each other in outrageous behavior. Or, there is some sort of nanny government overseeing what sorts of images and messages can be portrayed in the media -- meaning that books are banned and so forth.
Those advocating "freedom of expression" (actually license) accept no responsibility for their actions, and those advocating censorship accept none either.
So, we are left with an increasingly polarized standoff between those who would impose limits and those who say that any limits are arbitrary and therefore no limits should be imposed. The result is madness.
I think both sides need to acknowledge that the other has some valid points. Would-be censors have got to acknowledge that the Hollywood film 'Code' really cut into freedom of expression. Yet, that did not prevent great films, including controversial ones, from being made during that period.
I don't claim that all mass media are part of the great wasteland. The best contemporary books, TV, music, films, etc are every bit as good as anything produced in any era (at least, where a comparison makes sense -- comparing The Who to J.S. Bach might not work so well).
But the amount of dreck that debases humanity seems to grow and intensify every year. This is something we should be concerned about. Men and women of good will need not participate in such debasement by holding the shares of publicly traded companies engaged in same. Ironically, the New York Post might also fall under this category itself.
Even if the company ultimately winds up refunding or rescinding your money, they still gain some benefit from holding onto your cash. Insufficient cash flow is one of the most important reasons for business failure, but they can effectively gain cash flow by making billing instant and refunds drag on for weeks or months. So your cash becomes their capital.
I had a dispute with TWA (now defunct airline) one time -- due to their error, I was billed twice for a ticket. It took months for them to refund my $800. They can take your money instantly, but they can only return it after months of hassle, phone-tag, "I don't have the authority" etc.
Ironic, that TWA was once the coolest airline (founded by Howard Hughes, and once had the best service). It was unable to adapt to deregulation. Whether their stealth cashflow was a cause or an effect of their weakness is left to the reader to decide.
Thanks for posting the links, Cuda. I just listened to the NPR interview, which was a debate about the "digital divide". The host, Tavis Smiley, seemed to accept the need for computers in schools as an obvious truth, and the other panelist, Shireen Mitchell, felt this was an issue of racial equity of opportunity and educational quality.
Oppenheimer made his case as simple as possible: he doesn't want *any* kids using computers in the classroom until approximately middle school. To paraphrase, he felt that poor schools should not mimic everything that rich schools do, or at least not without considering which parts are effective. He also gave an example where a school with 90% kids of color outperformed a rich school (that strongly used computers) in the same area.
So, why is this an issue of race?
Just because Socrates taught under a tree does not mean we should never go beyond that, but then again it would be unreasonable to replace Socrates with a tree and call it education. This is in effect what is happening in SF. Lay off teachers and buy computers.
The fact that this is precisely what happened to Socrates, is an irony that he might appreciate. Not to mention the fact that he was killed by a plant.
Todd Oppenheimer, the writer of the article, mentions Accelerared Reader. He does not go into detail, but an educational researcher at UC Berkeley said the results were not as impressive as the AR marketers claim.
My question then becomes, in your experience, was it the AR program itself, or the motivation of the teachers (and parents) that made a difference?
Sure, that makes sense. But what some districts are doing (as mentioned in the article) does not.
I don't claim that we should eschew all new methods, only that the technology treadmill has limits. As the article mentions, it makes more sense at higher grade levels, and when used appropriately. PowerPoint for primary education is not necessarily bad, but the article points out that scholarship really has suffered.
How much does a SysAdmin make? Or even a Help Desk Technician? We should not expect teachers (or librarians, for that matter) to do the work of a SysAdmin and a Help Desk if they are not trained AND paid for this level of work.
Now, this of course raises the more significant question, which is why we pay more to SysAdmins and Help Desk Techs than to Teachers who are educating the future of our country...
I pecked about on the US Congress's (web site and was unable to find a roll call of who voted for and against the bill (HR 2417). Maybe it's there somewhere, but then again, maybe the scoundrels did not want anyone to know who supported this bill's intrusive search powers.
Has anyone found a roll call anywhere?
Now that I am re-reading your post more carefully, the above comments strike me as being code words for accusing some group of people of running some sort of plot. Why don't you be more clear? Who, precisely, is behind this pernicious attack on the fabric of our society? Please provide specific answers, and justify why your answers would not be more simply explained by Adam Smith's economic theory of markets.
Fascism is very much about cultural preservation
Fascism has nothing to do with cultural preservation. It is about the imposition of an autocratic government and a uniform, often synthetic, cultural ideal on a society by force.
And it has nothing to do with wisdom. If fascist regimes were led by the wise, how do you explain Hitler's decision to attack Russia? Was there wisdom in his crackpot theories of genetic superiority?
It may have been a reach for me to say that the arbitrary hierarchy of Columbine was based on a fascist aesthetic, but it certainly has brought some interesting comments into the discourse.
Crap, this is just confirmation that when certain words enter a thread, nothing more can be said. Just not in the way I usually think that is meant. I can't believe I'm wasting my time on this.
I'll try not to put words in your mouth and I'd appreciate reciprocity. I didn't say anything about my "dream". I am not trying to advocate anything except avoiding simplistic analysis of complex issues. In the case of the hypothetical influence of violent video games (and other factors) on actual mass shootings, the simplistic analysis is "X cannot be the critical factor because not all people who associate with X commit these atrocities." Advocates of each hypothetical factor (FPS games, violent movies, goth music, guns, individualism, mental illness etc) can each substitute their pet cause for X and thereby try to dodge responsibility for mass shootings. But that does not answer the question of why these horrible events occur much less how to try to reduce them.
As to your specific arguments, keep in mind that my particular laundry list is not complete, and each item may be applicable in some cases but not in others. There are other factors like parental responsibility that play into school shootings -- for example, the parents' responsibility to know what their kid is up to. However, in the broader sense of mass shootings, that's not always a factor. If you're an adult, by definition your parents are no longer responsible for checking whether you are building bombs in the garage.
As to the fascist aesthetic, I'm not referring to some sort of nationwide universal government/corporate tendency. I'm simply referring to the local phenomenon at Columbine where jocks were supposedly committing what amounted to criminal acts of intimidation, harassment and assault against 'geeks'. These things occur elsewhere, but at Columbine these acts were supposedly committed with impunity and without the slightest bit of attention by the coaches and administrators.
There is a world of difference between letting leaders be leaders and letting jocks act as a mafia. Again, I explicitly did not advocate some sort of communitarian or egalitarian outcome. But I will explicitly say that "zero tolerance" needs to avoid harmless play-acting like kids pointing fingers and saying "bang you're dead" and instead look at trying to control the bullies. Although they cannot ever control 100% of the bullying that is part of growing up, they can make a better effort than seemed to be the case at Columbine.
There is also a world of difference between human diversity (in personality) and social maladaptations and personality disorders and even further on the spectrum, mental illness. Social diversity is when different people like and dislike certain things. Personality disorders are when people lack basic human characteristics like empathy and sympathy. Mental illness is a different category altogether.
For an example of what I mean by a fascist aesthetic, see the documentary film about Leni Riefenstahl. The fascist aesthetic in a nutshell is "that which is strong is beautiful and good". It is an elevation of power above other ideals such as justice, morality, ethics, and individual worth.