or is anyone else concerned about the implications of this law and its interaction with a corporation's on-line presence? It seems too easy to justify false claims in on-line discussions/reviews with this sort of thing. Maybe I misread this article, and it really does just apply to individual people and not businesses, but I didn't see that anywhere.
We need to start at the top and prioritize real risks and feasible enforcement.
How do you expect to do this? My priorities on what is important and what are real risks aren't the same as yours. This would just create a cycle of break it down, build it up, break it down. Which is, I believe, what we already do, correct? So what are our other options? Again, I like the idea of what you're saying, but the implementation seems to be impossible.
First off, that's an opinion piece. No thanks, so assume I did not RTFA.
Second off, if you took those classes as your general education requirements, that's less a mistake of the institution, and more of a mistake on your part. I finished two advanced degrees with only one BS class (because I felt I deserved it). I looked at the course book, found classes that were somewhat relevant, or at least sounded interesting, and took them.
Anyone who blames universities and colleges for forcing them to take bullshit classes are, in reality, people who just coasted through college. You don't have a prescribed degree track outside of basic writing, math, science and your core requirements. Everything else is in your hands to pick.
It's about self-efficacy and self-advocacy. You don't want to take the history of rock-and-roll for your humanities credit as an accounting major? That's fine, look for the history of economics, or the European history that deals with the precursors to the French revolution. Take a minute to make friends with a professor and set up an independent study to fill that requirement. Then you can study EXACTLY what you want to study.
In other words, stop blaming other people for your failures.
Sorry to bait you into this, but so many people piss and moan about these kinds of classes, and then sit there passively when their individual advising human asks them what classes they want to take. OR, they simply don't open the college handbook to see the fucking plethora of options available to them. Stop complaining about how mean the world is to you, and how the system uses you, and start thinking about ways to use the system.
How do they keep getting elected? What other choice do we have? When all sides of the issue are bought and paid for by the same people, what, seriously, what choices do we have? It's not that they don't represent us, it's that they represent where the money is coming from.
Think about it - to a politician, $1 = 1 voice. So, I have around 10,000 in savings. If I give all of that, my voice becomes stronger than my neighbor's, regardless of where I stand. I can influence media, I can influence protests, I can send letters. My neighbor can't do any of that, because he's just trying to make it to supper tonight.
From their point of view, the politicians are representing The People. It's just that the money involved is so freaking skewed that The People are no longer represented fairly in these initial steps. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if (in the US at least) our representatives are truly at a loss as to why their approval rating is so low. I hope I did a good job of explaining my views on that. It's hard to get into words sometimes.
I know that none of that may transfer into this instance in the EU, but I believe that the same rules apply there. Money = power, power = money. The commissioner probably sees the interests groups with the most money, and probably believes that they represent the general public's views.
The problem is that his charitable works usually come with an agenda attached to them. So, it's less good for the sake of good, and more good for the sake of making the world how I think it should be.
I still like that he's charitable, don't get me wrong, I just wish that for once, a b-b-b-b-b-billionaire would just give just for the sake of it. It's not like they don't already control the world.
We're moving in to milk it dry, wait for the infrastructure to rot out, and then move on like locusts to another country we can develop, exploit, and then impoverish.
It's called shock economics - was popular in the 80's and 90's on the international scene (I think they re-branded it and call it austerity now). It is a theory based on breaking unions, abolishing the middle class, privatizing everything in the interests of global companies, and creating two distinct classes of folks - rich and poor. Many of it's proponents and architects came from the University of Chicago. . . . And it seems that they've turned their sights on our country in the last ten years.
There's a book out called the Shock Doctrine - it's about the IMF's and US's involvement in South America, Europe and the Middle East, and our policy of shocking an economy back to health. It's older at this point, but it's main ideas are still relevant, and startlingly similar to what we have going on in places like Greece, and the early stages of what's happening here in the US. Privatize (for a profit for my buddies), because private industry does it soooo much better. What's that? Health care - NOPE. Living wage? NOPE. Suck on that po' folks. But I digress. It's a good book, and is just the start of the rabbit hole.
What always gets me are that the people who spout that 'think of the children' stuff are, generally, well-meaning, successful folks. Why are they successful? Because they did all of the dangerous stuff they preach against, and had a bad time. They hold onto the bad memories, and just flat out ignore the fact that all those broken arms, bb-gun battles and random kid adventures are the things that turned them into who they are.
to grind away at "why don't we totally defund public education, it's clearly not working".
I was finishing my masters degree with this conversation started, in earnest, on the national level. I thought to myself, "Well, it can't be that bad, there's just a few wingnuts that believe that."
Flash forward - now when you read the news, watch television, or do anything except talk to a teacher, you hear about how piss-poor the US educational system is. My opinion is that private enterprise has already sucked up as much money as it can from the larger portions of government money (energy, food, transportation, communications and banking), so they have set their sights on their latest cash-cow to bleed out (see shock-economics and its impact on South America for examples of what they really want to do - we just have controls in place to stop that scale of greed, so they settle for playing by the legal rules). What's the best way to do that? Swing public opinion using news outlets, and let the masses cut their own throats.
I, for one, welcome our new upper-upper-upper class overlords, and am excited to see the new and fascinating changes that will take place for people living in poverty! We won't have to worry about 'class warfare', because we simply won't learn about that option. If you want to go full-blown tin-foil hat, consider this: We are already accused of indoctrinating our children to the 'myth of US superiority' on a regular basis. What if that changes to 'the myth of the superiority of rich folks'? Pair that with the recent articles about genetic research and altering genes to make perfect babies, and what do we get? Two, distinct types of humans - the ruling elite and the working monsters.
Oh, man, I'm going to be a kick-ass Morlock.
As a side note - I don't believe that it will go that far, but I firmly believe that this type of story is part of a conscious, concerted effort to dismantle public education.
while some women will just say "little interest", others who have considered it
That was actually my argument. It's not that they choose to NOT be in CS. It's that the choice isn't ever considered because of the state of the internet/culture. It's not that I didn't choose this thing, it's that I was conditioned by forces out of my control to never even think about it as a valid option for my future. Sexism/discrimination isn't (usually) overt.
Yes, being poor sucks, been there and done that too and didn't get the t-shirt because I couldn't afford it. But you can survive.
Have you been poor enough that members of your family take turns skipping meals because there's not enough for everyone? Have you been poor enough that you have had to drink water from streams or ponds around your house because the 'city water' got turned off? Not being able to afford new Nikes does not equal poverty.
Anybody worth a damn won't be making minimum long.
This implies that there are an infinite number of jobs in every area of the country for all workers. This is not the case. As hard as it is to believe, some people still harbor prejudice against minorities, women, and people in poverty. As hard as it is to believe, many employers don't look to pay their employees much, in order to 'maximize profits'. These things all make it harder to move up.
And is it really too much to ask people, for whatever reason, earning at the bottom to work a second job, live with roomies, move back in with the parents, whatever until they can work their way up the skill level tree a bit or fix whatever problem other is keeping them in the low earning part of the job market?
This implies that you've never actually lived in poverty. Second jobs are implied. So are third jobs. Roommates bring drama, and in poverty stricken areas, drama generally leads to law enforcement issues. No one wants that. Parents? Okay, that tells me your parents are married, or separated, but are still alive, and want to be in your life. What about the poor kid who has parents that resent his hard work, and cut ties when he goes to junior college? What options exist there?
I know that it's entirely too liberal and hackneyed to say that bootstrapping doesn't exist. It does. People move up every day, few, few people. The problem is when someone who lives in situational/temporary poverty equate not being able to wear designer clothes with chronic hunger. Let me try to explain myself in story form:
A single mother works two jobs to support her three kids after the father goes to jail on drug charges. She lives in government housing, and has food-stamps to help out. She goes to college to become a nurse, to make decent enough money to support her family. In the mean-time, her kids never see her, because she's working 70-80 hours a week and going to school full-time. Her kids don't see that their mom is making good choices for them, they see that she's not there, and the pusher at the bottom of the stairs is. He offers them easy money, just dropping little packages off around town. Arrest records are arrest records, regardless of ignorance, and most arrest records, especially drug related, impact future employment options.
I did a terrible job of setting up a chronic poverty scene. But I hope you get the point. Sometimes, just sometimes, bootstraps aren't there.
Quite honestly, the problem isn't that people in poverty can't go anywhere, or that they can. The problem is that the people who dialog about it and make laws/regulations related to issues of poverty are either people like me, who have come from abject poverty, and vaguely remember what it was like, or worse people who feel morally righteous enough to make choices for someone based on bias and prejudice. The problem isn't that they can't pull themselves up, the issue is that they don't have a voice in the national stage, because they're mostly just trying to get by.
No. For one of two reasons: (a) It's more fun to guess, or (b) If we ask, then women have to be involved, and that's just not fun anymore.
Seriously, though, how do you ask 1/2 the population why they didn't choose something when, realistically, it may not have even been a conscious choice? Why didn't you choose to be a rocket scientist, seal trainer, glass blower, welder, photographer, astronomer, musician . . . . ..
Do you know why they teach to the lowest common denominator?
Let me tell you a story that happened just this year:
We have an autistic student in the grade directly below the one I teach. Low-functioning, highly aggressive and combative, generally a disruptive force in the classroom. When we present the principal, then superintendent, then school board with evidence, research and suggestions, they all agree that he needs to be in a self-contained classroom. Realistically, what this kid is getting != what he's taking away from every other student during the day. So, we call a meeting with the parents, special needs advocate and a ROE representative just to cover all of our bases. What do the parents also bring to the meeting? A lawyer. A lawyer from ~ 600 miles away from the nearest urban center (yes, the words big city lawyer come to mind). Why? Because if we pulled their child away from his friends (he has none), then they would sue fast, sue hard, and sue often.
In this day of reduced spending, teachers being paraded around like well, like someone that's paraded around for public scorn, what choice did we have?
Realistically, the other 25 sets of parents should be able to say, "no, you assholes, your child does not get to sap mine." BUT, because we can't tell anyone about what specifically transpired in these meetings using names and what-not, no one knows. All they know is that there are 25 little kids that already hate school, because of one precious little snowflake.
First off - everyone exists to justify their own existence. Do you blame the teachers for wanting to keep their jobs, not be ostracized publicly when their scores tank, and well, keep their jobs?
Anyway - so NCLB sucks; that's not news. What would you have them do instead? People demand metrics about how their little precious baby learns, but no one is willing to pay to have it done correctly. People demand top-rate education, but no one is willing to fund it outside of mandatory fees (and even then only if coerced).
There's something in there about cake and eating it, I think.
Really, though, how would you change it? Don't just pose problems, pose solutions - you never know who might read this stuff.
Critical reasoning skills = critical thinking skills. Parents are just as vital in the equation here as teachers. Yes, teachers have a job to do there, but, in my opinion, this shows a failure of the culture, rather than education.
From early on, we're conditioned to be mindless little consumers. Why think about problems when you can take a pill and make them all go away? Why consider alternates to problem solving when you can just spend the problem away.
You want mindless drones, you get mindless drones.
How to counteract this? Get rid of those freaking standardized tests, for one. Invest heavily in the arts in primary grades, and cross-teach the arts/sciences. Bring connections between drawing and engineering, math and music. And finally, take the politics out of my classroom. I don't need you to tell me how to teach. I take P.D. courses every year, have two advanced degrees, and years of experience telling me that I can generally figure out what's best for each. and. every. individual. student.
That's what I can't wait for - the jumping the shark moment in digital rights. The point at which they say that ownership of music format of any kind is illegal, and that we have to either stream it or pay a leasing fee per month.
North American's, and Europeans partially are not yet used to prefab houses.
What? If you have been anywhere outside of suburbia, manufactured homes (pre-fabricated homes) are abundant in the US. A local manufactured house maker has one listed at roughly the same square footage as the IKEA one (IKEA = 742 sq. ft., Local = 768 sq. ft.) for MUCH less. The IKEA is $116 per square foot. The local is $56 per square foot. That includes kitchen and two bathroom appliances, bedroom furniture, washer/dryer, and water heater. That's a difference of around $60 per square foot for beds and trinkets and crap.
If you have ever been out of suburbia, you would see that not only are manufactured houses (in the forms of pre-fab homes or house trailers) popular, they are everywhere.
The problem with pre-fab construction is that it is in my experience alone cheaper in materials and construction quality than stick built. That's all well and good for the shed I put my lawn-mower in, but not for the tallest building in the world.
(I also have a pretty good rant about how suburban folks and urban folks are artificially inflating the prices for housing -- $150,000 for 700 square feet, $900/month for a two bedroom 600 square foot townhouse? Really? But that's for a different discussion)
Realistically, how much sway do newspapers, magazines, and television have on young folks? Who will be ruling the world in 30 years?
If governmental agencies don't become relevant now, they'll be obsolete in 30 years (it's a bit of a hyperbole, but still, the point stands).
And your metaphor doesn't match your case. Your metaphor is equal to give them an inch, they take a mile. They already have the mile. They want to make sure you drive the speed limit they set instead of the one that popular vote believes is best.
Organizations have always known that they have to control communications to control the people. What governmental organizations are just realizing is that they need to take a bite of the wild-west shoot-em-up that is the internet if they want to remain relevant, and able to influence our thoughts and lives in any way.
Think about it - what good is an organization like the UN, who makes sure that counties can peaceably talk out their differences (in theory), work through international issues and work toward the global good (again, theory), if individuals can make their own choices on a global scale? IMO, it's all about self-preservation.
I've always wondered this, but my own investigations have proved futile:
Sorry to break this to you, they don't hate you for your freedom
So, if they don't hate us for our freedoms (I'm with you on this point - that's the whitewashed, political reason), what do they hate us for? Is it our economic policies? Our military strategies? What is it?
Because I'm at a total loss, and I can't get any real information about this in the states. Why did the Islamist extreme folks start wanting us dead? Who kicked that off, and what the hell is it all about?
Slashdot Mirror
So your argument is that someone should be wrongly convicted because a bunch of other people probably were guilty?
Pair that with the 'you shouldn't be pro-privacy laws unless you have something to hide' argument, and you've really got something that'll turn heads!
or is anyone else concerned about the implications of this law and its interaction with a corporation's on-line presence? It seems too easy to justify false claims in on-line discussions/reviews with this sort of thing. Maybe I misread this article, and it really does just apply to individual people and not businesses, but I didn't see that anywhere.
We need to start at the top and prioritize real risks and feasible enforcement.
How do you expect to do this? My priorities on what is important and what are real risks aren't the same as yours. This would just create a cycle of break it down, build it up, break it down. Which is, I believe, what we already do, correct? So what are our other options? Again, I like the idea of what you're saying, but the implementation seems to be impossible.
First off, that's an opinion piece. No thanks, so assume I did not RTFA.
Second off, if you took those classes as your general education requirements, that's less a mistake of the institution, and more of a mistake on your part. I finished two advanced degrees with only one BS class (because I felt I deserved it). I looked at the course book, found classes that were somewhat relevant, or at least sounded interesting, and took them.
Anyone who blames universities and colleges for forcing them to take bullshit classes are, in reality, people who just coasted through college. You don't have a prescribed degree track outside of basic writing, math, science and your core requirements. Everything else is in your hands to pick.
It's about self-efficacy and self-advocacy. You don't want to take the history of rock-and-roll for your humanities credit as an accounting major? That's fine, look for the history of economics, or the European history that deals with the precursors to the French revolution. Take a minute to make friends with a professor and set up an independent study to fill that requirement. Then you can study EXACTLY what you want to study.
In other words, stop blaming other people for your failures.
Sorry to bait you into this, but so many people piss and moan about these kinds of classes, and then sit there passively when their individual advising human asks them what classes they want to take. OR, they simply don't open the college handbook to see the fucking plethora of options available to them. Stop complaining about how mean the world is to you, and how the system uses you, and start thinking about ways to use the system.
How do they keep getting elected? What other choice do we have? When all sides of the issue are bought and paid for by the same people, what, seriously, what choices do we have? It's not that they don't represent us, it's that they represent where the money is coming from.
Think about it - to a politician, $1 = 1 voice. So, I have around 10,000 in savings. If I give all of that, my voice becomes stronger than my neighbor's, regardless of where I stand. I can influence media, I can influence protests, I can send letters. My neighbor can't do any of that, because he's just trying to make it to supper tonight.
From their point of view, the politicians are representing The People. It's just that the money involved is so freaking skewed that The People are no longer represented fairly in these initial steps. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if (in the US at least) our representatives are truly at a loss as to why their approval rating is so low. I hope I did a good job of explaining my views on that. It's hard to get into words sometimes.
I know that none of that may transfer into this instance in the EU, but I believe that the same rules apply there. Money = power, power = money. The commissioner probably sees the interests groups with the most money, and probably believes that they represent the general public's views.
Or he's just a dick. One or the other.
Describe what you believe are filler classes, please.
The problem is that his charitable works usually come with an agenda attached to them. So, it's less good for the sake of good, and more good for the sake of making the world how I think it should be.
I still like that he's charitable, don't get me wrong, I just wish that for once, a b-b-b-b-b-billionaire would just give just for the sake of it. It's not like they don't already control the world.
We're moving in to milk it dry, wait for the infrastructure to rot out, and then move on like locusts to another country we can develop, exploit, and then impoverish.
It's called shock economics - was popular in the 80's and 90's on the international scene (I think they re-branded it and call it austerity now). It is a theory based on breaking unions, abolishing the middle class, privatizing everything in the interests of global companies, and creating two distinct classes of folks - rich and poor. Many of it's proponents and architects came from the University of Chicago. . . . And it seems that they've turned their sights on our country in the last ten years.
There's a book out called the Shock Doctrine - it's about the IMF's and US's involvement in South America, Europe and the Middle East, and our policy of shocking an economy back to health. It's older at this point, but it's main ideas are still relevant, and startlingly similar to what we have going on in places like Greece, and the early stages of what's happening here in the US. Privatize (for a profit for my buddies), because private industry does it soooo much better. What's that? Health care - NOPE. Living wage? NOPE. Suck on that po' folks. But I digress. It's a good book, and is just the start of the rabbit hole.
At which point they are no better than the giant corporations/media conglomerates they once sought to replace.
What always gets me are that the people who spout that 'think of the children' stuff are, generally, well-meaning, successful folks. Why are they successful? Because they did all of the dangerous stuff they preach against, and had a bad time. They hold onto the bad memories, and just flat out ignore the fact that all those broken arms, bb-gun battles and random kid adventures are the things that turned them into who they are.
to grind away at "why don't we totally defund public education, it's clearly not working".
I was finishing my masters degree with this conversation started, in earnest, on the national level. I thought to myself, "Well, it can't be that bad, there's just a few wingnuts that believe that."
Flash forward - now when you read the news, watch television, or do anything except talk to a teacher, you hear about how piss-poor the US educational system is. My opinion is that private enterprise has already sucked up as much money as it can from the larger portions of government money (energy, food, transportation, communications and banking), so they have set their sights on their latest cash-cow to bleed out (see shock-economics and its impact on South America for examples of what they really want to do - we just have controls in place to stop that scale of greed, so they settle for playing by the legal rules). What's the best way to do that? Swing public opinion using news outlets, and let the masses cut their own throats.
I, for one, welcome our new upper-upper-upper class overlords, and am excited to see the new and fascinating changes that will take place for people living in poverty! We won't have to worry about 'class warfare', because we simply won't learn about that option. If you want to go full-blown tin-foil hat, consider this: We are already accused of indoctrinating our children to the 'myth of US superiority' on a regular basis. What if that changes to 'the myth of the superiority of rich folks'? Pair that with the recent articles about genetic research and altering genes to make perfect babies, and what do we get? Two, distinct types of humans - the ruling elite and the working monsters.
Oh, man, I'm going to be a kick-ass Morlock.
As a side note - I don't believe that it will go that far, but I firmly believe that this type of story is part of a conscious, concerted effort to dismantle public education.
while some women will just say "little interest", others who have considered it
That was actually my argument. It's not that they choose to NOT be in CS. It's that the choice isn't ever considered because of the state of the internet/culture. It's not that I didn't choose this thing, it's that I was conditioned by forces out of my control to never even think about it as a valid option for my future. Sexism/discrimination isn't (usually) overt.
Yes, being poor sucks, been there and done that too and didn't get the t-shirt because I couldn't afford it. But you can survive.
Have you been poor enough that members of your family take turns skipping meals because there's not enough for everyone? Have you been poor enough that you have had to drink water from streams or ponds around your house because the 'city water' got turned off? Not being able to afford new Nikes does not equal poverty.
Anybody worth a damn won't be making minimum long.
This implies that there are an infinite number of jobs in every area of the country for all workers. This is not the case. As hard as it is to believe, some people still harbor prejudice against minorities, women, and people in poverty. As hard as it is to believe, many employers don't look to pay their employees much, in order to 'maximize profits'. These things all make it harder to move up.
And is it really too much to ask people, for whatever reason, earning at the bottom to work a second job, live with roomies, move back in with the parents, whatever until they can work their way up the skill level tree a bit or fix whatever problem other is keeping them in the low earning part of the job market?
This implies that you've never actually lived in poverty. Second jobs are implied. So are third jobs. Roommates bring drama, and in poverty stricken areas, drama generally leads to law enforcement issues. No one wants that. Parents? Okay, that tells me your parents are married, or separated, but are still alive, and want to be in your life. What about the poor kid who has parents that resent his hard work, and cut ties when he goes to junior college? What options exist there?
I know that it's entirely too liberal and hackneyed to say that bootstrapping doesn't exist. It does. People move up every day, few, few people. The problem is when someone who lives in situational/temporary poverty equate not being able to wear designer clothes with chronic hunger. Let me try to explain myself in story form:
A single mother works two jobs to support her three kids after the father goes to jail on drug charges. She lives in government housing, and has food-stamps to help out. She goes to college to become a nurse, to make decent enough money to support her family. In the mean-time, her kids never see her, because she's working 70-80 hours a week and going to school full-time. Her kids don't see that their mom is making good choices for them, they see that she's not there, and the pusher at the bottom of the stairs is. He offers them easy money, just dropping little packages off around town. Arrest records are arrest records, regardless of ignorance, and most arrest records, especially drug related, impact future employment options.
I did a terrible job of setting up a chronic poverty scene. But I hope you get the point. Sometimes, just sometimes, bootstraps aren't there.
Quite honestly, the problem isn't that people in poverty can't go anywhere, or that they can. The problem is that the people who dialog about it and make laws/regulations related to issues of poverty are either people like me, who have come from abject poverty, and vaguely remember what it was like, or worse people who feel morally righteous enough to make choices for someone based on bias and prejudice. The problem isn't that they can't pull themselves up, the issue is that they don't have a voice in the national stage, because they're mostly just trying to get by.
No. For one of two reasons: (a) It's more fun to guess, or (b) If we ask, then women have to be involved, and that's just not fun anymore.
Seriously, though, how do you ask 1/2 the population why they didn't choose something when, realistically, it may not have even been a conscious choice? Why didn't you choose to be a rocket scientist, seal trainer, glass blower, welder, photographer, astronomer, musician . . . . . .
Google search "Michelle Rhee". Enjoy your trip down the rabbit hole.
Do you know why they teach to the lowest common denominator?
Let me tell you a story that happened just this year:
We have an autistic student in the grade directly below the one I teach. Low-functioning, highly aggressive and combative, generally a disruptive force in the classroom. When we present the principal, then superintendent, then school board with evidence, research and suggestions, they all agree that he needs to be in a self-contained classroom. Realistically, what this kid is getting != what he's taking away from every other student during the day. So, we call a meeting with the parents, special needs advocate and a ROE representative just to cover all of our bases. What do the parents also bring to the meeting? A lawyer. A lawyer from ~ 600 miles away from the nearest urban center (yes, the words big city lawyer come to mind). Why? Because if we pulled their child away from his friends (he has none), then they would sue fast, sue hard, and sue often.
In this day of reduced spending, teachers being paraded around like well, like someone that's paraded around for public scorn, what choice did we have?
Realistically, the other 25 sets of parents should be able to say, "no, you assholes, your child does not get to sap mine." BUT, because we can't tell anyone about what specifically transpired in these meetings using names and what-not, no one knows. All they know is that there are 25 little kids that already hate school, because of one precious little snowflake.
First off - everyone exists to justify their own existence. Do you blame the teachers for wanting to keep their jobs, not be ostracized publicly when their scores tank, and well, keep their jobs?
Anyway - so NCLB sucks; that's not news. What would you have them do instead? People demand metrics about how their little precious baby learns, but no one is willing to pay to have it done correctly. People demand top-rate education, but no one is willing to fund it outside of mandatory fees (and even then only if coerced).
There's something in there about cake and eating it, I think.
Really, though, how would you change it? Don't just pose problems, pose solutions - you never know who might read this stuff.
bashing commence.
Critical reasoning skills = critical thinking skills. Parents are just as vital in the equation here as teachers. Yes, teachers have a job to do there, but, in my opinion, this shows a failure of the culture, rather than education.
From early on, we're conditioned to be mindless little consumers. Why think about problems when you can take a pill and make them all go away? Why consider alternates to problem solving when you can just spend the problem away.
You want mindless drones, you get mindless drones.
How to counteract this? Get rid of those freaking standardized tests, for one. Invest heavily in the arts in primary grades, and cross-teach the arts/sciences. Bring connections between drawing and engineering, math and music. And finally, take the politics out of my classroom. I don't need you to tell me how to teach. I take P.D. courses every year, have two advanced degrees, and years of experience telling me that I can generally figure out what's best for each. and. every. individual. student.
But this is all just my opinion.
Then the riots start.
North American's, and Europeans partially are not yet used to prefab houses.
What? If you have been anywhere outside of suburbia, manufactured homes (pre-fabricated homes) are abundant in the US. A local manufactured house maker has one listed at roughly the same square footage as the IKEA one (IKEA = 742 sq. ft., Local = 768 sq. ft.) for MUCH less. The IKEA is $116 per square foot. The local is $56 per square foot. That includes kitchen and two bathroom appliances, bedroom furniture, washer/dryer, and water heater. That's a difference of around $60 per square foot for beds and trinkets and crap.
If you have ever been out of suburbia, you would see that not only are manufactured houses (in the forms of pre-fab homes or house trailers) popular, they are everywhere.
The problem with pre-fab construction is that it is in my experience alone cheaper in materials and construction quality than stick built. That's all well and good for the shed I put my lawn-mower in, but not for the tallest building in the world.
(I also have a pretty good rant about how suburban folks and urban folks are artificially inflating the prices for housing -- $150,000 for 700 square feet, $900/month for a two bedroom 600 square foot townhouse? Really? But that's for a different discussion)
Realistically, how much sway do newspapers, magazines, and television have on young folks? Who will be ruling the world in 30 years?
If governmental agencies don't become relevant now, they'll be obsolete in 30 years (it's a bit of a hyperbole, but still, the point stands).
And your metaphor doesn't match your case. Your metaphor is equal to give them an inch, they take a mile. They already have the mile. They want to make sure you drive the speed limit they set instead of the one that popular vote believes is best.
This comment from User:Poity, further down, does a MUCH better job of explaining my thoughts.
Holy piss that's terrifying, because it makes complete sense. It's a way to squash anything and everything. Someone mod parent up.
Organizations have always known that they have to control communications to control the people. What governmental organizations are just realizing is that they need to take a bite of the wild-west shoot-em-up that is the internet if they want to remain relevant, and able to influence our thoughts and lives in any way.
Think about it - what good is an organization like the UN, who makes sure that counties can peaceably talk out their differences (in theory), work through international issues and work toward the global good (again, theory), if individuals can make their own choices on a global scale? IMO, it's all about self-preservation.
Terrorist - someone I don't agree with - probably lives somewhere sandy.
Troll: someone who I don’t agree with - probably lives in a basement somewhere.
Sorry to break this to you, they don't hate you for your freedom
So, if they don't hate us for our freedoms (I'm with you on this point - that's the whitewashed, political reason), what do they hate us for? Is it our economic policies? Our military strategies? What is it?
Because I'm at a total loss, and I can't get any real information about this in the states. Why did the Islamist extreme folks start wanting us dead? Who kicked that off, and what the hell is it all about?