Aye, some jobs did shift over borders. But the only way to compete with that is to lower our standard of living, and that's not really a good alternative.
And some jobs simply can't be off-shored. Specifically teachers, since that is the topic at hand. (In theory you could have some sort of crazy teleconference teacher with a uneducated goon to keep order, but that's kinda out there.) So that argument doesn't exactly work in this case.
As for the 8 hour day and minimum wage for everybody, that's not exactly universal. A LOT of people work more then 8 hours, and thankfully most get paid overtime for it. Some don't. That's the joy of being "exempt". And there are still those not paid the minimal wage: Waitresses and people conned into commission jobs come to mind, but there's also weird exceptions like dock workers. Which includes all DHL truckers by some loophole reason. And the minimum wage regularly undergoes political attack. So these are things that the unions got us, but are still not universal or guaranteed for the near future.
And thank god that those union pensions are still around. Oh wait.
It will indeed be interesting what the future brings. I'm also interested in what you would see as the next version after unions. What's the alternative?
I dunno if a tariff, (a tax on imported services and products) is the best thing for being globally competitive. Protectionism doesn't really jive with globalism.
Also, taking the whole idea, and then "compromising" so only the tax-cut for corporations is left seems to be the default plan of late.
Way to tie (young-earth) creationism to religion rather then to the fringe nutcases. Religions, and specifically Christianity, on the whole are perfectly fine with evolution.
But I've got some questions for you. First off, your public education was bad, so you're afraid about applying for a Master of Science due to a lack of math and engineering principles? Aren't you forgetting, you know, getting a Bachelors of Science first? I think most universities offer calc classes.
Secondly, you complain about shoving all the kids into the same class AND point out in the very same paragraph that AP classes which do EXACTLY what you're suggesting suffer from the same short-comings. Amazing. Now tracking students, in terms of setting them on the "you're smart" track or the "you're doomed to salt mines" track, is definitely a idea. It's one that needs to be explored and tested and carefully implemented. Like, oh I dunno, with AP classes, magnet schools, honors programs and whatnot. Expanding those programs could be a good idea. But we're gonna take this slow, ok?
But oh yeah, it's teaching creationism that's destroying kids' ability to do Math, Physics, etc. A few minor points of contention between religion and science are to blame for why kids are completely turned off.
Well yes, that is, in part, to blame. It's certainly not the entire reason. Nothing on a sociological scale is that simple. But it certainly doesn't help to teach them internally inconsistent facts.
But your alternative, to bust up the teachers' unions, probably isn't going to help get good teachers into the field. Making teaching a good-paying job is more likely to do that, and busting their unions is a sure-fired way to do the opposite. I think your idea needs work. Perhaps if you had a better grasp of calculus.
Well sorta. In the same way that attacking the trucker's union doesn't directly affect the truckers or attacking the steelworker's union doesn't directly affect the steelworkers.
Unions help raise the pay for their field. Go ahead, argue that one.
Now, I'll admit that if a union gets too powerful, the leadership and organization can be just as bad and corrupt as business leaders and corporations. It's a balance. But if you are fundamentally against unions, then you have issues or you have no sense of history.
There's no point sending humans up into space when probes can do a better job. There's plenty of places to go and plenty of unknowns left to discover, but probes are a hell of a lot cheaper, do a better job, and don't complain much about not coming back.
I don't see the point in sending humans up until: a) We need more versatility then robotics can deliver, which doesn't seem likely. b) The whole purpose is to have humans in space, like nationalistic showboating or tourism. c) We're going for sustainable colonies off planet, WOO!
Also, Columbus wasn't planning on living in China, he just wanted to trade for a bunch of goodies, come home, and sell them for a buck.
Those guys were playing with once-in-a-lifetime white elephants, not prerelease prototypes of consumer goods.
Well you're kinda right about people not traveling in space for fun and profit, but I certainly consider early NASA's work to be the pre-release prototype for consumer goods. It's just that the consumers sent up satellites rather then humans.
You can't discount early space travel as a white elephant. I enjoy my GPS, google maps, Hubble photos. Rural internet, sat phones, and xm are nice for other people I guess.
Well there's the definition of faith where you believe something for no good reason. That's the typical usage. But then there's "the Faith" where you capitalize it and refer to it as a proper noun. As in "he's a man of the Faith" ie, he's a priest. Christians have latched some special meaning to that sort of usage. Like how they differentiate Thor and Zeus as gods, but there is the one and only capital God man himself. (But hey, maybe this is a regional thing in the midwest). So when you said "science is a Faith" rather then "science requires faith" it makes it sound more like a religion. Which is silly.
yet you insist that rejecting it is not an act of faith.
I'm not rejecting solipsism so much as calling it pointless. Useless. I'm saying that the act of getting others to question reality is detrimental to society and calling science a faith due to that reason is balls-to-the-walls retarded. Trying to disprove solipsism is a waste of time, really now, stop being silly. The best I can do is define reality in term of... well, what appears to be here. To give Plato and his shadows the middle finger and, well, this is just the "looks like a duck" line of thought again.
You are angry at me for assaulting science but I have done no such thing.
Ah, well, let me point it out for you. It's the first sentence of this thread. Claiming that science is a Faith, and that doing so is reasonable, is an assault on science. Perhaps you're unaware, but there are people out there who actively distrust colleges, higher learning, scientists of any sort, and the field they represent. Willful ignorance. Indeed, there is a culture of ignorance. "I don't know and I don't want to know". Many of these people claim a strong religious belief and view anything that calls to questions that belief as evil. Many times I've seen these sort try to equate religion and science on some level to try and have them compete with each other. This is a ludicrously bad idea.
For example, they would say that since in Christianity (a Faith), believing that Jesus walked on water or the world was made in 6 days requires faith JUST LIKE science requires faith to believe in reality, both are equally valid viewpoints. If you can't see how that's an assault on science, I'm afraid I can't help you.
So please, instead of saying that "science is a Faith", in the future please say that "belief in anything/everything/reality requires some faith". Because when you single out science and make it sound like a religion, it makes you look like a dick.
Hey, congratulations. That's great. Welcome to reality. Others on this page seem to have a problem with that.
Of course I don't have proof to fight solipsism, don't be silly. Although you don't need to have faith to get past it. You can still be aware of the possibility of the whole "Matrix" scenario and continue on with the understanding that the probability of that is negligible due to a severe lack of evidence. And THAT would be scientific.
But even past that blunder, you chose to assault science specifically. And so you summoned up my nerd rage and that's why I'm generally being a dick to you.
It's not that I don't care about this viewpoint, it's that you unfairly applied it to specifically to science when it should have been applied to everything. Because if you assume you need faith to get past solipsism, then everything is a Faith.
That banana? A Faith
The wind? A Faith
Your left arm? A Faith
The Ottoman Empire that got split up after WWI? A Faith
That guy hitting you with a cluebyfour? That there's a Faith. Preach it brother.
Of course the message kinda losses something when it applies to literally everything (except yourself, arguably). If by some mental or philosophical gymnastics you defined everything in, out, and sideways of existence to be a duck, then what does that mean? A: Nothing.
Perhaps this is just a misunderstanding of a bit of terminology or language nuance. Perhaps you didn't mean it's a Faith, but rather that it takes some faith. Which it does. Because at some point you just have to accept some axioms or assume the horse is a sphere.
How so? It seems like it would do the opposite by allowing good science without fear of political reprisal.
It's pretty simple: It also allows bad science without fear of political reprisal. You know "Teach the Controversy"?
Right now, if a teacher preaches that god will smite little Timmy for the heresy of saying the world isn't flat, you can go to the principle and get him fired. For being a crazy and teaching your kid lies.
With this bill, as long as the teacher sticks to the oh-so-thinly-veiled "Intelligent Design", the parents can't affect his job.
And this is Tennessee, so evolution will probably defined as part of the anti-religious doctrine, and hence won't fall under the umbrella of this bill.
I'm actually kind of torn. On one hand, I want to believe in humanity and trust that the majority of humanity will beat out the fools and liars, so that we wouldn't need this. On the other hand, in TN, I'm not so sure about the odds and maybe this sort of shield is needed. And then on my mutant third hand, TN is exactly the sort of place I would expect teachers to abuse this.
hmmm. Well you're right, we had progress in cybernetics, DNI, memristors, quantum computing, stem-cells, and I just remembered the magic that is carbon-nanotubes. There is certainly potential there and hope for the future.
As for actual REALIZED progress, as opposed to potential progress, from your list all I can really get behind is 3D printing. Which is awesome. It was one of those things I thought was pure science fiction until I saw it for myself.
I just can't feel excited about gadgets. CTR to LCD isn't groundbreaking. Sure, the proliferation of mobile phones and cameras could have vast social impact. But so far I haven't seen blogs from Honduras children. Although... Maybe cellphones were vital to the Arab uprisings. I guess we have had photage from the riots whereas before we'd only have what came out of Reuters.
As for Craig Venter's mad genius, I say go for it. Come on, what's the worst that could happen? (DUN Dun dun!)
My mother used this. She broke her ankle and it wasn't healing right. The doc prescribed a device that emits an ultrasonic pulse. You know, like ultrasound looking at babies, but with no sensor. That's not, you know, super-science. The astonishing part is that it seems to help bones repair themselves.
That is, indeed, kind of a neat scientific advancement.
Unfortunately, it's completely offset by the fact that the device prescribed to my mother was $12,000. With insurance, it cost my father $200. It has batteries sealed into the box. They didn't want it back. It was disposable. A $12,000 DISPOSABLE medical electronic device. You can pick one up retail for ~$100. The actual ultrasound emitter costs about $5 from radioshack.
You know those dystopian sci-fi books where the awesome gimmick like eternal-life-pills or global surveillance is only used and abused by the rich and powerful? Yeah.
Of course not, I'm shooting you down using basic common sense. Not scientific in the least.
If you liked "The Matrix", that's fine, it's a pretty good movie despite Keanu's acting. But if you think Plato really had something going with this shadows metaphor, you think that science is a capital F Faith because you haven't gotten over your solipsism, and you feel the need to convince others to feel the same way, then please kindly GTFO. Because you're not helping anyone in the least.
However if my senses do not reflect an underlying reality then everything is pretty much useless now isn't it?
Indeed, I'd go so far as to define reality by what our perception and reasoning can infer about it.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and is otherwise complete indistinguishable from a duck, then it is in fact... a duck.
If, for some mystical reason, it's actually a rottweiler, I'm sorry but in reality it is STILL a duck. If it bites you like a rottweiler, then it is distinguishable from a duck, and it's not a duck.
Seriously, you philosophy wannabes need to get over your solipsism.
You know what? This is awesome. The other day I was a little down and pessimistic that the aught years didn't really seem to have the leaps and bound of progress that decades in the previous century did. I mean, jets, radar, space travel, computers, the Internet, medicine, manufacturing, plastics and other materials. I dunno, maybe I wasn't paying attention or something. But it seems like between 2001 and 2010, the biggest move forward was lolcats and smartphones. And for as awesome as smartphones could be, mostly they're just expensive toys.
But with this and other such recent news of progress I feel like this is actually going somewhere. We'll have direct neural interfaces of one shape or another within my lifetime.
If I tell my son to make his bed, I have 'faith' he will do it. Thats because he has a long history of doing it when I ask.
If there is a "because" that is grounded in logic, reason, and fact, then it's no longer "faith".
But if you accept the subtle wordplay, then I'm a man of the faith when it comes to death and taxes.
ehhhh, I think it's a bit of a nuance, but he said "science", not "scientists". The scientific proof of hideous cancer-chemical needs to be neutral. Scientists themselves can be political.
But I have to say that if a scientists gets passionate, media-hungry, and has an agenda, then I'd say he's bound to be biased and probably delivering faulty results. I would trust him less. Of course, I'd trust others to either disprove or verify his results. Yay peer-review and all that.
I too would love to see more science in politics, but it should be the politicians trusting the scientists that tell them the neutral facts of reality.
Yeah, you see this a lot when dealing with religion and philosophy. Someone stretches the meaning of a word to it's breaking point and tries to pass it off as insight. I started to frequent some boards to try and explain some of the common misconceptions. To have a real conversation with these types, you have to start out by clarifying the definitions of half the words they use. You'd be surprised and saddened by some of the mental gymnastics they take to try and keep a internally consistent worldview.
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Aye, some jobs did shift over borders. But the only way to compete with that is to lower our standard of living, and that's not really a good alternative.
And some jobs simply can't be off-shored. Specifically teachers, since that is the topic at hand. (In theory you could have some sort of crazy teleconference teacher with a uneducated goon to keep order, but that's kinda out there.) So that argument doesn't exactly work in this case.
As for the 8 hour day and minimum wage for everybody, that's not exactly universal. A LOT of people work more then 8 hours, and thankfully most get paid overtime for it. Some don't. That's the joy of being "exempt". And there are still those not paid the minimal wage: Waitresses and people conned into commission jobs come to mind, but there's also weird exceptions like dock workers. Which includes all DHL truckers by some loophole reason. And the minimum wage regularly undergoes political attack. So these are things that the unions got us, but are still not universal or guaranteed for the near future.
And thank god that those union pensions are still around. Oh wait.
It will indeed be interesting what the future brings. I'm also interested in what you would see as the next version after unions. What's the alternative?
You're clinging to the piano top in the sea of ignorance. The human form (or even the mammalian one) is not the best to emulate.
I dunno if a tariff, (a tax on imported services and products) is the best thing for being globally competitive. Protectionism doesn't really jive with globalism.
Also, taking the whole idea, and then "compromising" so only the tax-cut for corporations is left seems to be the default plan of late.
But I've got some questions for you. First off, your public education was bad, so you're afraid about applying for a Master of Science due to a lack of math and engineering principles? Aren't you forgetting, you know, getting a Bachelors of Science first? I think most universities offer calc classes.
Secondly, you complain about shoving all the kids into the same class AND point out in the very same paragraph that AP classes which do EXACTLY what you're suggesting suffer from the same short-comings. Amazing. Now tracking students, in terms of setting them on the "you're smart" track or the "you're doomed to salt mines" track, is definitely a idea. It's one that needs to be explored and tested and carefully implemented. Like, oh I dunno, with AP classes, magnet schools, honors programs and whatnot. Expanding those programs could be a good idea. But we're gonna take this slow, ok?
But oh yeah, it's teaching creationism that's destroying kids' ability to do Math, Physics, etc. A few minor points of contention between religion and science are to blame for why kids are completely turned off.
Well yes, that is, in part, to blame. It's certainly not the entire reason. Nothing on a sociological scale is that simple. But it certainly doesn't help to teach them internally inconsistent facts.
But your alternative, to bust up the teachers' unions, probably isn't going to help get good teachers into the field. Making teaching a good-paying job is more likely to do that, and busting their unions is a sure-fired way to do the opposite. I think your idea needs work. Perhaps if you had a better grasp of calculus.
Well sorta. In the same way that attacking the trucker's union doesn't directly affect the truckers or attacking the steelworker's union doesn't directly affect the steelworkers.
Unions help raise the pay for their field. Go ahead, argue that one.
Now, I'll admit that if a union gets too powerful, the leadership and organization can be just as bad and corrupt as business leaders and corporations. It's a balance. But if you are fundamentally against unions, then you have issues or you have no sense of history.
There's no point sending humans up into space when probes can do a better job. There's plenty of places to go and plenty of unknowns left to discover, but probes are a hell of a lot cheaper, do a better job, and don't complain much about not coming back.
I don't see the point in sending humans up until:
a) We need more versatility then robotics can deliver, which doesn't seem likely.
b) The whole purpose is to have humans in space, like nationalistic showboating or tourism.
c) We're going for sustainable colonies off planet, WOO!
Also, Columbus wasn't planning on living in China, he just wanted to trade for a bunch of goodies, come home, and sell them for a buck.
Those guys were playing with once-in-a-lifetime white elephants, not prerelease prototypes of consumer goods.
Well you're kinda right about people not traveling in space for fun and profit, but I certainly consider early NASA's work to be the pre-release prototype for consumer goods. It's just that the consumers sent up satellites rather then humans.
You can't discount early space travel as a white elephant. I enjoy my GPS, google maps, Hubble photos. Rural internet, sat phones, and xm are nice for other people I guess.
Cash not good enough for ya?
Some houses use chicken wire with the lathe and plaster. Same effect. They have to answer their phones on the patio.
yet you insist that rejecting it is not an act of faith.
I'm not rejecting solipsism so much as calling it pointless. Useless. I'm saying that the act of getting others to question reality is detrimental to society and calling science a faith due to that reason is balls-to-the-walls retarded.
Trying to disprove solipsism is a waste of time, really now, stop being silly. The best I can do is define reality in term of... well, what appears to be here. To give Plato and his shadows the middle finger and, well, this is just the "looks like a duck" line of thought again.
You are angry at me for assaulting science but I have done no such thing.
Ah, well, let me point it out for you. It's the first sentence of this thread. Claiming that science is a Faith, and that doing so is reasonable, is an assault on science. Perhaps you're unaware, but there are people out there who actively distrust colleges, higher learning, scientists of any sort, and the field they represent. Willful ignorance. Indeed, there is a culture of ignorance. "I don't know and I don't want to know". Many of these people claim a strong religious belief and view anything that calls to questions that belief as evil. Many times I've seen these sort try to equate religion and science on some level to try and have them compete with each other. This is a ludicrously bad idea.
For example, they would say that since in Christianity (a Faith), believing that Jesus walked on water or the world was made in 6 days requires faith JUST LIKE science requires faith to believe in reality, both are equally valid viewpoints. If you can't see how that's an assault on science, I'm afraid I can't help you.
So please, instead of saying that "science is a Faith", in the future please say that "belief in anything/everything/reality requires some faith". Because when you single out science and make it sound like a religion, it makes you look like a dick.
Hey, congratulations. That's great. Welcome to reality. Others on this page seem to have a problem with that.
Of course I don't have proof to fight solipsism, don't be silly. Although you don't need to have faith to get past it. You can still be aware of the possibility of the whole "Matrix" scenario and continue on with the understanding that the probability of that is negligible due to a severe lack of evidence. And THAT would be scientific.
But even past that blunder, you chose to assault science specifically. And so you summoned up my nerd rage and that's why I'm generally being a dick to you.
It's not that I don't care about this viewpoint, it's that you unfairly applied it to specifically to science when it should have been applied to everything. Because if you assume you need faith to get past solipsism, then everything is a Faith.
That banana? A Faith
The wind? A Faith
Your left arm? A Faith
The Ottoman Empire that got split up after WWI? A Faith
That guy hitting you with a cluebyfour? That there's a Faith. Preach it brother.
Of course the message kinda losses something when it applies to literally everything (except yourself, arguably). If by some mental or philosophical gymnastics you defined everything in, out, and sideways of existence to be a duck, then what does that mean? A: Nothing.
Perhaps this is just a misunderstanding of a bit of terminology or language nuance. Perhaps you didn't mean it's a Faith, but rather that it takes some faith. Which it does. Because at some point you just have to accept some axioms or assume the horse is a sphere.
As a gamer, I couldn't care less about *any* award show.
I dunno, I'm a pretty big fan of the independent game festival, and seeing who won what. Usually nukes a week or two of productivity for me.
My word, what a horrible event. Who was/is this terrorist that will/did bring such a backpack onto the train/plane?
My condolences to the victims. Hopefully they'll live the remainder of their lives happily. If only there was something we can/could do for them.
Fitting though, for the death of a star.
Get his man a turtleneck, joint, and a public television slot!
Yeah, I'm actually with Anon on this one. Too far dude. You're getting as bad as they were.
How so? It seems like it would do the opposite by allowing good science without fear of political reprisal.
It's pretty simple: It also allows bad science without fear of political reprisal. You know "Teach the Controversy"?
Right now, if a teacher preaches that god will smite little Timmy for the heresy of saying the world isn't flat, you can go to the principle and get him fired. For being a crazy and teaching your kid lies.
With this bill, as long as the teacher sticks to the oh-so-thinly-veiled "Intelligent Design", the parents can't affect his job.
And this is Tennessee, so evolution will probably defined as part of the anti-religious doctrine, and hence won't fall under the umbrella of this bill.
I'm actually kind of torn. On one hand, I want to believe in humanity and trust that the majority of humanity will beat out the fools and liars, so that we wouldn't need this. On the other hand, in TN, I'm not so sure about the odds and maybe this sort of shield is needed. And then on my mutant third hand, TN is exactly the sort of place I would expect teachers to abuse this.
hmmm. Well you're right, we had progress in cybernetics, DNI, memristors, quantum computing, stem-cells, and I just remembered the magic that is carbon-nanotubes. There is certainly potential there and hope for the future.
As for actual REALIZED progress, as opposed to potential progress, from your list all I can really get behind is 3D printing. Which is awesome. It was one of those things I thought was pure science fiction until I saw it for myself.
I just can't feel excited about gadgets. CTR to LCD isn't groundbreaking. Sure, the proliferation of mobile phones and cameras could have vast social impact. But so far I haven't seen blogs from Honduras children. Although... Maybe cellphones were vital to the Arab uprisings. I guess we have had photage from the riots whereas before we'd only have what came out of Reuters.
As for Craig Venter's mad genius, I say go for it. Come on, what's the worst that could happen? (DUN Dun dun!)
My mother used this. She broke her ankle and it wasn't healing right. The doc prescribed a device that emits an ultrasonic pulse. You know, like ultrasound looking at babies, but with no sensor. That's not, you know, super-science. The astonishing part is that it seems to help bones repair themselves.
That is, indeed, kind of a neat scientific advancement.
Unfortunately, it's completely offset by the fact that the device prescribed to my mother was $12,000. With insurance, it cost my father $200. It has batteries sealed into the box. They didn't want it back. It was disposable. A $12,000 DISPOSABLE medical electronic device. You can pick one up retail for ~$100. The actual ultrasound emitter costs about $5 from radioshack.
You know those dystopian sci-fi books where the awesome gimmick like eternal-life-pills or global surveillance is only used and abused by the rich and powerful? Yeah.
Of course not, I'm shooting you down using basic common sense. Not scientific in the least.
If you liked "The Matrix", that's fine, it's a pretty good movie despite Keanu's acting. But if you think Plato really had something going with this shadows metaphor, you think that science is a capital F Faith because you haven't gotten over your solipsism, and you feel the need to convince others to feel the same way, then please kindly GTFO.
Because you're not helping anyone in the least.
However if my senses do not reflect an underlying reality then everything is pretty much useless now isn't it?
Indeed, I'd go so far as to define reality by what our perception and reasoning can infer about it.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and is otherwise complete indistinguishable from a duck, then it is in fact... a duck.
If, for some mystical reason, it's actually a rottweiler, I'm sorry but in reality it is STILL a duck. If it bites you like a rottweiler, then it is distinguishable from a duck, and it's not a duck.
Seriously, you philosophy wannabes need to get over your solipsism.
Anything else is the product of the human ego and insecurity in one form or another.
Does that include religion?
You know what? This is awesome. The other day I was a little down and pessimistic that the aught years didn't really seem to have the leaps and bound of progress that decades in the previous century did. I mean, jets, radar, space travel, computers, the Internet, medicine, manufacturing, plastics and other materials. I dunno, maybe I wasn't paying attention or something. But it seems like between 2001 and 2010, the biggest move forward was lolcats and smartphones. And for as awesome as smartphones could be, mostly they're just expensive toys.
But with this and other such recent news of progress I feel like this is actually going somewhere. We'll have direct neural interfaces of one shape or another within my lifetime.
It's just kind of exciting to look forward to.
If I tell my son to make his bed, I have 'faith' he will do it. Thats because he has a long history of doing it when I ask.
If there is a "because" that is grounded in logic, reason, and fact, then it's no longer "faith".
But if you accept the subtle wordplay, then I'm a man of the faith when it comes to death and taxes.
ehhhh, I think it's a bit of a nuance, but he said "science", not "scientists". The scientific proof of hideous cancer-chemical needs to be neutral. Scientists themselves can be political.
But I have to say that if a scientists gets passionate, media-hungry, and has an agenda, then I'd say he's bound to be biased and probably delivering faulty results. I would trust him less. Of course, I'd trust others to either disprove or verify his results. Yay peer-review and all that.
I too would love to see more science in politics, but it should be the politicians trusting the scientists that tell them the neutral facts of reality.
Yeah, you see this a lot when dealing with religion and philosophy. Someone stretches the meaning of a word to it's breaking point and tries to pass it off as insight. I started to frequent some boards to try and explain some of the common misconceptions. To have a real conversation with these types, you have to start out by clarifying the definitions of half the words they use. You'd be surprised and saddened by some of the mental gymnastics they take to try and keep a internally consistent worldview.