Was anyone harmed or endangered? Assuming the answer is no, then the question is: if self-improvement is unethical, then what are ethics good for?
If ethics are good, then harmless self-improvement can't be unethical. If ethics are neither good nor bad, but just a set of valueless rules or tenets, then the question can only answered by the ethical standard's author. And there's no evident reason anyone else should care one way or the other.
So your point is: someone is going to take the money, no matter what. (Because we're all victims who can't take care of ourselves.) Lawyers deserve the money more than doctors.
Why should anyone suddenly care about what hurts the economy?
- Environmental trolls harm the economy by stopping commerce and development, often with zero benefit to the environment. - Malpractice lawsuit trolls raise the cost of health care, which is bad for the economy. - Government union trolls continually seek to provide fewer government services for a higher cost, which is bad for the economy. - Education union trolls do the same for education, which is bad for future productivity and bad for the economy. - Disability lawsuit trolls, who sue businesses for such evils as having signs a few inches too high or too low, cause harm to those businesses and the economy. - Defense appropriation trolls, who spend government money in thinly-veiled giveaways to crony companies, take money from productive enterprise and funnel it to non-productive uses. This hurts the economy. - The same goes for green energy grants to cronies, arts-related grants to cronies, and transportation appropriations to build vanity projects. - Shareholder lawsuit trolls, who sue because their stock went up or down, cause harm to businesses and the economy. - Race grievance trolls, who tell companies to spend their time meeting workforce racial quotas instead of producing goods and services, hurt the economy. - Class action lawsuit trolls, who sue for millions and then settle the lawsuits for millions of dollars for the lawyers and a $1 off coupon for their clients, hurt the economy. - Farm trolls, who have convinced the government to write them checks not to farm, hurt the economy.
Clearly the patent system needs some reform to rein in the patent trolls. But what about all the rest of the trolls that hurt the economy? Can we reform them too please? Or are we all just pretending to care about the economy this time as an insincere talking point?
Well that's all great and everything, but I'm really curious about what your proposed alternative is? I hear calls for 'small government' all the time, but I wonder what you would replace all the functions of 'big government' with?
"All" of the functions? Nothing should replace all the functions. Some of that stuff is pointless. Other stuff should be left the same.
For instance, who would fix the roads?
State and local governments, contracting road builders. Just like now, but with less US Federal Government involvement. Because roads are local and regional, and our national road system is completed.
Schools would be what? Community-run, so that they teach only what the local community happens to think. Grow up in (please, no geographical corrections!) the bible belt and expect to hear nothing about Evolution during your education.
Whatever. Why don't you mind your own business? You teach your children whatever you want, and they'll teach their children whatever they want.
Or are you endorsing censoring content and imprisoning teachers for teaching beliefs other than yours?
Yes, every government has eventually fallen. Except for the ones that haven't, but of course they just haven't fallen yet. And thus your prediction is always true.
Hooray for things that are true.
Your notion that home-schooling is remotely even a possibility for 90% of the population is a bit strange too, unless I'm mis-understanding your suggestions. It's a bit like suggesting that everyone should learn to maintain their own car, and that the garage down the street is an instrument of oppression.
I've noticed that everyone has their choice of many different garages, with no government forcing them to pay for the big government garage whether they get good service there or not. Garages don't seem oppressive -- if I don't like one, I just don't go there, I can take my business somewhere else. The education system is not like that at all.
You talked a little earlier (or later, I've been scrolling around alot) about your school experiences not being happy ones. I'm sorry to hear that, my experience was different. I had good teachers, and once I found which things I was actually interested in I learned alot. University was even better. My experience of the education system here in New Zealand, now that I have three young children in Primary School, is that the teachers are universally motivated, passionate, hard-working and that I'd damn glad to get the kids out of the house every day.
Yeay for New Zealand. I hear a lot of governments in other countries tend to work a lot better than the US. We have unique problems here.
But that doesn't "keep the old system around," and it certainly doesn't do anything to fix the problems with it.
I don't think it can be fixed. People have tried hundreds of things in hundreds of places and the schools are still bad for poor kids in poor neighborhoods. Why should we believe in this elusive "fix"?
Because if you think that you can realistically buy a measurably better education at a private school in the vast majority of the country for what public schools spend per student, you're kidding yourself.
There are lots of places where public schools cost more than $12000 per child per year. Some spend more than $18000. Get a few families together and they can easily pay for a teacher for 8-10 children. And that's just the simplest example. Government schools are very, very expensive, so competing with them on price and quality is no problem.
Anyone who thinks that flinging wide the gates of school choice and encouraging everyone in America to pick The Best Option For Their Kid is actually going to provide a good education for everyone—or even a better education for anyone but the wealthy—is deluded...
Wealthy people already get a good education for their kids. They move to wealthy neighborhoods. All the senior teachers want to teach at their schools. Poor kids in poor neighborhoods get stuck with whoever is left. This is the current system.
You're focused on serving the system. Therefore, anything that doesn't serve the system isn't worth thinking about. Will something that doesn't serve the system help kids? That's completely not the point. Helping kids without serving the system is not the point.
I want to help kids escape the failing system and find a place they can learn. Education reform within the system has had 30-40 years to try hundreds of different things. I don't see why we should sacrifice any more children waiting for the next hundred schemes to fail. Someday maybe it will be enough for you.
Until then, I don't see much basis for discussion.
Thanks, but I'll pass.... If you aren't, how about you stop thinking that what works for you will work for everyone?
That was the first point in the plan. Go ahead and pass. If it doesn't work for you, go back to the government system and the people there will continue to go through the motions until they get their pensions.
You appear to have no substantive criticism of my plan at all. And yet, as expected, you still want to say no to all the parents and kids who want a better education.
If one child doesn't get "some" education, it's magically "the dark ages". Stop spreading FUD.
An obvious compromise for FUDsters like yourself would be this: Keep the old system around for everyone who likes one-size-fits-all government, and allow the rest of us to take, say, 80% of the per-child expense and pay for schools and teachers that we think will do a better job. Poor folks too.
If the school costs less than this amount (most will, because it's an unjustifiably large amount) and if the kids can prove they've learned the standard curriculum material by passing some tests, then the parents can keep half the savings. Schools where the students can't pass the tests end up being ineligible in future years.
This gives everyone a direct monetary incentive to learn the material and keep costs low. The legacy government schools provide the "dark ages" insurance to satisfy you and the rest of the FUDsters. The tests provide proof that the schools aren't just warehousing the children. The poor get a possible new income source. And since the new schools are more-or-less regulated only by the test outcomes, there should be a lot more jobs available for poor folks at the schools -- because they won't need a certification -- and there should be a lot more teachers (or at least "helpers", many of whom will get better and better over time and eventually be promoted to "teacher") per child.
So there you go. Better, cheaper, more freedom, more convenience and flexibility, more jobs for poor folks, more poor folks who suddenly care about education, accountability for results, guarantees all perfectly intact.
And if you have public schools, then having a system for them is a good thing, because otherwise those who can do the least about it will once again draw the short sticks.
There's that argument again: We have to maintain this inefficient, extremely expensive, oppressive system that keeps poor kids from getting a reasonable education because... otherwise poor kids won't get an education.
Looking above I see people saying you are full of bullshit and questioning your sanity...
Because they mostly can't form a cogent defense of the school "system". It feeds them, so they're loyal to it. But loyalty to your paymaster isn't related to facts or reason or ethics. That's why we see the nevermind how many people the system hurts, you're a stupid poopy-head comments.
So we're never allowed to ask what "making a difference" means. I see. That's some great critical thinking you have there.
Your whole post is one strawman after another. I offered zero Jefferson quotes, denounced no one as lazy, let no one starve, addressed healthcare not at all, and equated Pol Pot with exactly zero other things or people.
I agree that some libertarians do state their case poorly. Some of them are dicks, particularly some of the Ron Paul fanatics. And quotes are rarely persuasive or interesting, especially the 1000th time to read the same line.
I wish these guys would get better at this. Because we need more people making the case against centralizing power, against using government to steal your neighbors' money so you can spend it without earning it, and against using force to manage others' lives.
The purpose of a system is the to make results less the result of chance and fortunate circumstances and more predictable.
It doesn't work for kids in poor neighborhoods. It's a failure, and an extremely expensive one. But people who defend the school "system" generally don't care about kids in poor neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, homeschoolers don't, in general, have the problems you claim to be worried about. Home schooled kids get a better education than government schooled kids. It doesn't take an institutional setting to have learning standards -- anyone can do it.
There's been no name-calling. Please learn to read the posts you're responding to.
"The system" is an extremely expensive failure that hurts children. The people who defend "the system" have offered zero ideas, including you. Parents should have other options to spend their education dollars.
I was responding to someone who was saying the PRC had the best system of choosing leaders. And I said basically what you said: that there's no long-term record -- that a few years don't prove that the PRC (or anyone else) can succeed "consistently".
It's an argument against government power. You don't want bad leaders to have power over you. And every nation eventually gets bad leaders.
You should learn to follow the discussion. Click on the "Parent" links to see the context. Then your posts won't be so nonsensical.
I wonder if you feel that way about bridges or medicine. The answer is the same. You train because mistakes are expensive. If you're building your own toy programs, go ahead and skip the training. Who cares if they don't work? If you're building air traffic control software, then the rest of us would appreciate if you knew what you were doing.
Because someone with training will never make a mistake. I understand.
Perhaps learn from the all those who came before, made mistakes, and figured out general strategies for not doing it again.
It's actually an interesting question. I've seen plenty of backlash against people who read something and want to apply it, as if practical experience is the only way to learn something. Think about that for a minute. If that's true, the implication is that we can never go beyond what one person can figure out in one lifetime. Nonsense, if you ask me. Billions of people have come before us and learned things. Use them.
So it's impossible to gain knowledge from others outside of formalized training. Books can only be read if they appear on a syllabus, I guess. I need to quickly go and hide all my books.
Shouldn't the people taking the money by force and herding everyone into institutions against their will be the ones who have to prove it's justified? Since when do I need stats to support the idea of leaving innocent people alone?
I know. It never works out. I'm trying to convince people to stop empowering the destroyers.
But they're all too convinced that they know the answers about how their neighbors should live their lives. They want to empower the government to force "the right" choices.
Because centralizing power can never go wrong if you're really, really sure of yourself and you always elect the right leaders and always make the right choices. Or something. It'll all work out because we are different -- better -- than everyone else in history who tried something similar. Everyone else in history was just stupid, like our neighbors who need us to tell them how to live their lives.
No, I went to public school. And I remember it. It was not worth the time they took from me -- time I'll never get back. I learned about the pointless mediocrity and waste and bureaucracy of institutional government schools firsthand.
I envy the kids I knew who were taught at home. Their teachers cared about them.
And yeah, you can save money with economies of scale. But then, if you're a government school, you can spend your savings 100 times over on nonsense that doesn't help anyone learn anything.
Your arguments are all simply that since our public education system has problems, we should delete it entirely...
And rebuild it piece by piece, adding back only the things that serve the parents and help the students learn, leaving out everything else about "the system" that only serves "the system". So we end up with schools that primarily teach and students that primarily learn instead of a "system" that's primarily about politics and payroll.
The PRC has arguably had a few good years. So have lots of other places... before their leadership changed and everything fell apart. You can't show they've "consistently" made good choices in the long term for many more decades. Every other example from history indicates things will probably go badly for them eventually. There aren't many (any?) examples of permanent, stable societies.
So we have to have this huge, oppressive, inefficient, incredibly expensive system that doesn't teach kids from poor neighborhoods much of anything because... poor kids won't learn otherwise.
And what of those people who can't afford to hire an entire teacher for their child? I suppose they don't matter?
They should just hire a principal. And a superintendent and a dozen assistant principals. And a few oversight boards. And janitors and nurses and lunch counter workers and secretaries and coaches and counselors and bus drivers and security guards and lawyers. And build a few big new buildings. That will make everything cheaper. Then they can use the savings to hire a teacher.
Since home-schools teach better than institutions, as shown by the relative performance of home-schooled vs. government-schooled children, it seems pretty clear that people can do it better themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Think about what a good person would do. Do that. Imagine what you want to see from the people around you. Try to be like that.
This is not hard. You're already 80% of the way there, and better than probably 95% of your "nerd" peers.
And make some non-nerd friends.
Was anyone harmed or endangered? Assuming the answer is no, then the question is: if self-improvement is unethical, then what are ethics good for?
If ethics are good, then harmless self-improvement can't be unethical. If ethics are neither good nor bad, but just a set of valueless rules or tenets, then the question can only answered by the ethical standard's author. And there's no evident reason anyone else should care one way or the other.
So your point is: someone is going to take the money, no matter what. (Because we're all victims who can't take care of ourselves.) Lawyers deserve the money more than doctors.
Why should anyone suddenly care about what hurts the economy?
- Environmental trolls harm the economy by stopping commerce and development, often with zero benefit to the environment.
- Malpractice lawsuit trolls raise the cost of health care, which is bad for the economy.
- Government union trolls continually seek to provide fewer government services for a higher cost, which is bad for the economy.
- Education union trolls do the same for education, which is bad for future productivity and bad for the economy.
- Disability lawsuit trolls, who sue businesses for such evils as having signs a few inches too high or too low, cause harm to those businesses and the economy.
- Defense appropriation trolls, who spend government money in thinly-veiled giveaways to crony companies, take money from productive enterprise and funnel it to non-productive uses. This hurts the economy.
- The same goes for green energy grants to cronies, arts-related grants to cronies, and transportation appropriations to build vanity projects.
- Shareholder lawsuit trolls, who sue because their stock went up or down, cause harm to businesses and the economy.
- Race grievance trolls, who tell companies to spend their time meeting workforce racial quotas instead of producing goods and services, hurt the economy.
- Class action lawsuit trolls, who sue for millions and then settle the lawsuits for millions of dollars for the lawyers and a $1 off coupon for their clients, hurt the economy.
- Farm trolls, who have convinced the government to write them checks not to farm, hurt the economy.
Clearly the patent system needs some reform to rein in the patent trolls. But what about all the rest of the trolls that hurt the economy? Can we reform them too please? Or are we all just pretending to care about the economy this time as an insincere talking point?
Well that's all great and everything, but I'm really curious about what your proposed alternative is? I hear calls for 'small government' all the time, but I wonder what you would replace all the functions of 'big government' with?
"All" of the functions? Nothing should replace all the functions. Some of that stuff is pointless. Other stuff should be left the same.
For instance, who would fix the roads?
State and local governments, contracting road builders. Just like now, but with less US Federal Government involvement. Because roads are local and regional, and our national road system is completed.
Schools would be what? Community-run, so that they teach only what the local community happens to think. Grow up in (please, no geographical corrections!) the bible belt and expect to hear nothing about Evolution during your education.
Whatever. Why don't you mind your own business? You teach your children whatever you want, and they'll teach their children whatever they want.
Or are you endorsing censoring content and imprisoning teachers for teaching beliefs other than yours?
Yes, every government has eventually fallen. Except for the ones that haven't, but of course they just haven't fallen yet. And thus your prediction is always true.
Hooray for things that are true.
Your notion that home-schooling is remotely even a possibility for 90% of the population is a bit strange too, unless I'm mis-understanding your suggestions. It's a bit like suggesting that everyone should learn to maintain their own car, and that the garage down the street is an instrument of oppression.
I've noticed that everyone has their choice of many different garages, with no government forcing them to pay for the big government garage whether they get good service there or not. Garages don't seem oppressive -- if I don't like one, I just don't go there, I can take my business somewhere else. The education system is not like that at all.
You talked a little earlier (or later, I've been scrolling around alot) about your school experiences not being happy ones. I'm sorry to hear that, my experience was different. I had good teachers, and once I found which things I was actually interested in I learned alot. University was even better. My experience of the education system here in New Zealand, now that I have three young children in Primary School, is that the teachers are universally motivated, passionate, hard-working and that I'd damn glad to get the kids out of the house every day.
Yeay for New Zealand. I hear a lot of governments in other countries tend to work a lot better than the US. We have unique problems here.
But that doesn't "keep the old system around," and it certainly doesn't do anything to fix the problems with it.
I don't think it can be fixed. People have tried hundreds of things in hundreds of places and the schools are still bad for poor kids in poor neighborhoods. Why should we believe in this elusive "fix"?
Because if you think that you can realistically buy a measurably better education at a private school in the vast majority of the country for what public schools spend per student, you're kidding yourself.
There are lots of places where public schools cost more than $12000 per child per year. Some spend more than $18000. Get a few families together and they can easily pay for a teacher for 8-10 children. And that's just the simplest example. Government schools are very, very expensive, so competing with them on price and quality is no problem.
Anyone who thinks that flinging wide the gates of school choice and encouraging everyone in America to pick The Best Option For Their Kid is actually going to provide a good education for everyone—or even a better education for anyone but the wealthy—is deluded...
Wealthy people already get a good education for their kids. They move to wealthy neighborhoods. All the senior teachers want to teach at their schools. Poor kids in poor neighborhoods get stuck with whoever is left. This is the current system.
You're focused on serving the system. Therefore, anything that doesn't serve the system isn't worth thinking about. Will something that doesn't serve the system help kids? That's completely not the point. Helping kids without serving the system is not the point.
I want to help kids escape the failing system and find a place they can learn. Education reform within the system has had 30-40 years to try hundreds of different things. I don't see why we should sacrifice any more children waiting for the next hundred schemes to fail. Someday maybe it will be enough for you.
Until then, I don't see much basis for discussion.
Thanks, but I'll pass. ... If you aren't, how about you stop thinking that what works for you will work for everyone?
That was the first point in the plan. Go ahead and pass. If it doesn't work for you, go back to the government system and the people there will continue to go through the motions until they get their pensions.
You appear to have no substantive criticism of my plan at all. And yet, as expected, you still want to say no to all the parents and kids who want a better education.
If one child doesn't get "some" education, it's magically "the dark ages". Stop spreading FUD.
An obvious compromise for FUDsters like yourself would be this: Keep the old system around for everyone who likes one-size-fits-all government, and allow the rest of us to take, say, 80% of the per-child expense and pay for schools and teachers that we think will do a better job. Poor folks too.
If the school costs less than this amount (most will, because it's an unjustifiably large amount) and if the kids can prove they've learned the standard curriculum material by passing some tests, then the parents can keep half the savings. Schools where the students can't pass the tests end up being ineligible in future years.
This gives everyone a direct monetary incentive to learn the material and keep costs low. The legacy government schools provide the "dark ages" insurance to satisfy you and the rest of the FUDsters. The tests provide proof that the schools aren't just warehousing the children. The poor get a possible new income source. And since the new schools are more-or-less regulated only by the test outcomes, there should be a lot more jobs available for poor folks at the schools -- because they won't need a certification -- and there should be a lot more teachers (or at least "helpers", many of whom will get better and better over time and eventually be promoted to "teacher") per child.
So there you go. Better, cheaper, more freedom, more convenience and flexibility, more jobs for poor folks, more poor folks who suddenly care about education, accountability for results, guarantees all perfectly intact.
Because hospitals can't qualify their own surgeons before they hire them. We should leave that to government bureaucrats.
And if you have public schools, then having a system for them is a good thing, because otherwise those who can do the least about it will once again draw the short sticks.
There's that argument again: We have to maintain this inefficient, extremely expensive, oppressive system that keeps poor kids from getting a reasonable education because ... otherwise poor kids won't get an education.
Looking above I see people saying you are full of bullshit and questioning your sanity...
Because they mostly can't form a cogent defense of the school "system". It feeds them, so they're loyal to it. But loyalty to your paymaster isn't related to facts or reason or ethics. That's why we see the nevermind how many people the system hurts, you're a stupid poopy-head comments.
So we're never allowed to ask what "making a difference" means. I see. That's some great critical thinking you have there.
Your whole post is one strawman after another. I offered zero Jefferson quotes, denounced no one as lazy, let no one starve, addressed healthcare not at all, and equated Pol Pot with exactly zero other things or people.
I agree that some libertarians do state their case poorly. Some of them are dicks, particularly some of the Ron Paul fanatics. And quotes are rarely persuasive or interesting, especially the 1000th time to read the same line.
I wish these guys would get better at this. Because we need more people making the case against centralizing power, against using government to steal your neighbors' money so you can spend it without earning it, and against using force to manage others' lives.
The purpose of a system is the to make results less the result of chance and fortunate circumstances and more predictable.
It doesn't work for kids in poor neighborhoods. It's a failure, and an extremely expensive one. But people who defend the school "system" generally don't care about kids in poor neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, homeschoolers don't, in general, have the problems you claim to be worried about. Home schooled kids get a better education than government schooled kids. It doesn't take an institutional setting to have learning standards -- anyone can do it.
Stop spreading FUD.
There's been no name-calling. Please learn to read the posts you're responding to.
"The system" is an extremely expensive failure that hurts children. The people who defend "the system" have offered zero ideas, including you. Parents should have other options to spend their education dollars.
I was responding to someone who was saying the PRC had the best system of choosing leaders. And I said basically what you said: that there's no long-term record -- that a few years don't prove that the PRC (or anyone else) can succeed "consistently".
It's an argument against government power. You don't want bad leaders to have power over you. And every nation eventually gets bad leaders.
You should learn to follow the discussion. Click on the "Parent" links to see the context. Then your posts won't be so nonsensical.
I wonder if you feel that way about bridges or medicine. The answer is the same. You train because mistakes are expensive. If you're building your own toy programs, go ahead and skip the training. Who cares if they don't work? If you're building air traffic control software, then the rest of us would appreciate if you knew what you were doing.
Because someone with training will never make a mistake. I understand.
Perhaps learn from the all those who came before, made mistakes, and figured out general strategies for not doing it again.
It's actually an interesting question. I've seen plenty of backlash against people who read something and want to apply it, as if practical experience is the only way to learn something. Think about that for a minute. If that's true, the implication is that we can never go beyond what one person can figure out in one lifetime. Nonsense, if you ask me. Billions of people have come before us and learned things. Use them.
So it's impossible to gain knowledge from others outside of formalized training. Books can only be read if they appear on a syllabus, I guess. I need to quickly go and hide all my books.
Shouldn't the people taking the money by force and herding everyone into institutions against their will be the ones who have to prove it's justified? Since when do I need stats to support the idea of leaving innocent people alone?
I know. It never works out. I'm trying to convince people to stop empowering the destroyers.
But they're all too convinced that they know the answers about how their neighbors should live their lives. They want to empower the government to force "the right" choices.
Because centralizing power can never go wrong if you're really, really sure of yourself and you always elect the right leaders and always make the right choices. Or something. It'll all work out because we are different -- better -- than everyone else in history who tried something similar. Everyone else in history was just stupid, like our neighbors who need us to tell them how to live their lives.
No, I went to public school. And I remember it. It was not worth the time they took from me -- time I'll never get back. I learned about the pointless mediocrity and waste and bureaucracy of institutional government schools firsthand.
I envy the kids I knew who were taught at home. Their teachers cared about them.
And yeah, you can save money with economies of scale. But then, if you're a government school, you can spend your savings 100 times over on nonsense that doesn't help anyone learn anything.
Your arguments are all simply that since our public education system has problems, we should delete it entirely...
And rebuild it piece by piece, adding back only the things that serve the parents and help the students learn, leaving out everything else about "the system" that only serves "the system". So we end up with schools that primarily teach and students that primarily learn instead of a "system" that's primarily about politics and payroll.
The PRC has arguably had a few good years. So have lots of other places ... before their leadership changed and everything fell apart. You can't show they've "consistently" made good choices in the long term for many more decades. Every other example from history indicates things will probably go badly for them eventually. There aren't many (any?) examples of permanent, stable societies.
So we have to have this huge, oppressive, inefficient, incredibly expensive system that doesn't teach kids from poor neighborhoods much of anything because ... poor kids won't learn otherwise.
And what of those people who can't afford to hire an entire teacher for their child? I suppose they don't matter?
They should just hire a principal. And a superintendent and a dozen assistant principals. And a few oversight boards. And janitors and nurses and lunch counter workers and secretaries and coaches and counselors and bus drivers and security guards and lawyers. And build a few big new buildings. That will make everything cheaper. Then they can use the savings to hire a teacher.
Since home-schools teach better than institutions, as shown by the relative performance of home-schooled vs. government-schooled children, it seems pretty clear that people can do it better themselves.