Heh. You learned that in public school, didn't you?
No, the "state" (in the US) is an institution formed to represent the citizenry (we live in a republic, not a democracy). As such, it is vulnerable to being co-opted by private interests.
Guess what? It has been.
"The state" educating our children is merely a convenient and efficient way for us to educate our children.
No, the state educating our children is a convenient and efficient way for those people who have the power to make sure the children of those people who oppose them agree with them.
It puts, as it were, all the educational eggs in one basket. Public education is a winner-take-all system. Whoever manages to seize the power gets to impose their version of What Kids Should Believe on everyone. That's why it is corrupt.
Why is this? It's probably not as good as it could be, but then again few people participate in school board meetings, where the decisions are made. But that doesn't make it corrupt, just not as representative as it could (should) be.
Why should what I be taught -- while we are doing our legally mandated time -- against my own beliefs? Why does a majority have the right to say to the minority "we're going to indoctrinate you against your will"?
Should the Christian majority have the right to promulgate their beliefs to the children of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, etc? It would be representative of the wishes of The People -- at least in those many places Christians are the majority. But that doesn't make it right.
The schools are corrupt (among other reasons!) because they are given unjust power over the minds of the populace. They are a "bully pulpit". It's not just that they tell you things that if you knew better you might not belief. It's that (1) they have the imprimitur of the state giving them credibility (2) they preoccupy your time for over a decade so you likely won't be exposed alternative views.
For the longest time, liberals turned away from the abuse of human rights, because, bluntly, it advanced our agenda. Yeah, we were brainwashing kids, but we were scrubbing their antiquated superstitions out of them so it was OK. It was our beliefs and attitudes, so it wasn't reeeeeally propaganda. So it amounts to the state telling the people what to think, but they're telling people to think the right things so it's OK, right?
But it's not right. And while well-meaning liberals were being enthralled by this power over the citizens of tomorrow, they failed to note that the conservatives had figured it out, too. Now the two sides (and many factions) are at war over who gets to promulgate their propaganda next.
We trotted right out there on that slippery slope, and Wooooops! We thought we could get away with violating some people's rights without the tables being turned. Oooops. ----------------------------------------------
Education and healthcare should be guranteed to every citizen, because knowledge and well being aren't earned, they're deserved.
There is a difference between a guarantee and an imposition. There is a difference between the right to education and the requirement to attend government approved schools.
If education is a right, how come they can kick you out at 22 if you still don't know how to read? Is it only a right for smart-enough people? Or only young people?
If education is a right, why is there a law that you must attend but no law that the teachers must teach you? Why do they grade you (who are, ostensibly, the customer) instead of the teacher who is the service provider? In what other industry is the customer rated?
If you want education to be a right, and work for that end, go ahead -- but that's certainly not what we currently have in our system of mandatory attendence. ----------------------------------------------
*Sigh*. I didn't say it wasn't a good thing. I said "It made a god of conformity".
Substitute "money" or "chocolate" or any other noun you please for "conformity" above. Think on it.
And how would you know whether or not people are as prone to conformity without a school system to enforce it? What opportunities have you had to observe the alternatives? ----------------------------------------------
a democracy has to preserve at least some capacity for thought in its citizens (elections and all).
Er, you mean that democracies only function to your spec if there is "some capacity for thought in its citizens". Sure, I'd like a smart, issue-oriented electorate, too. But fact is, in a world in which power is disposed of by popular vote, it's obviously in a candidate's best interest (as far as getting elected goes) to keep the populace ignorent and uncritical -- if he can somehow manage it. School boards in conjunction with mandatory schooling provide precisely that power.
(There was a fascinating article about 12 years ago in a mainstream mag called "Why Can't Johnny Think?" which outlined exactly why it's in your average schoolboards members' personal self-interest to keep the electorate docile, ignorent and uninterested.)
You may have noticed there are an awful lot of/.ers who complain about the American electorate. Every time a YRO article hits the main page, you can expect laments about how the general public doesn't see what all the fuss is about as their rights are eroded. Now, maybe you disagree with that sentiment. Perhaps you think the American people are an involved, interested, vigilent electorate passionately participating in the Great Experiment of democracy. OK, then we would have to agree to disagree. But if you do concede that not all is well in the American electorate, I would like to propose an alternate explanation.
I say "alternate" because the standard/. assumption is that the populace is stupid or lazy. My proposal is that they have had been indoctrinated.
Again, please explain. While I have seen more than my share of corruption in individual school administrations, I don't see where the corruption is in the system itself.
Hello? We were discussing WAVE? The product that school administrators argue they need to keep their schools safe?
But of course, that's the tip of the iceberg....
When schools become used as a political tool, it is a Bad Thing. But I'd like to see your evidence that school has become a propaganda tool.
L ies My Teacher Told Me (I'm not suggesting giving amazon.com money, but if you check out the "also boughts" on the bottom of the page you'll get a bunch of books focusing on other academic areas besides US history.) The book is an examination of, among other disturbing things, how twelve of the most popular US history texts used in HS classes were edited to make certain groups in the US look less bad. For example, the Deep South states insisted on a more flattering (of them) depiction of the Reconstruction (following the Civil War.) Similarly, famous people who had (now) unpopular political or religious positions are depicted without reference to, for instance, being communists or deists or supporters of the KKK.
The State has been editing your text books. Get used to the idea.
And what else is the bid to have Oklahoma schools teach creationism but an attempt at state sponsored propaganda? The people who have seized the reins there have an agenda for how they'd like people to think. Don't kid yourself that it's purely a love of Christianity which moves those people. They know that if everyone grows up thinking Christianity is more valid than other religions (which don't get their origin myths put in science text books) and, heck, just as valid as science, and Christianity (as practiced widely) teaches that Christians are better than unbelievers, Christianity becomes a virtuous trait in a candidate -- as has already happened (the Boston Globe had a nice article on it if you hadn't figured it out for yourself). Promulgating Christianity in schools is a good way to make sure eventually only Christians are elected to office.
Oh, that's right, you don't provide any.
Actually, I think I just did. Kindly remove your foot from your throat.
Far better to have a child taught by a trained professional than by someone who, in the end, may well not know much more than the student.
Really? Who'd you learn that from, a trained professional?
There are a growing number of people who have come to the conclusion mass-produced education is of necessarily inferior quality, completely aside from any liberties your government is taking with the content.
But, hey, this is other people. You went to (or are going through) ~12 years of schooling in the US, right? Think for yourself. Look back on your own experience and ask "Hey, did I learn a lot? How does it compare to what I learned on my own? How does it compare to what I learned from other people?" Ask yourself "Did I like being in school? Did it engage my intellect and introduce me to new things? Or did I sit either bored or terrified in most of my classes wishing I could be somewhere else, doing somewhere else?"
If you can answer, "Heck, yes, school was great; I'd go back in a heartbeat; I never felt so intellectually awake; I learned so much!" then more power to you.
If you can't, I ask that you listen to what I have to say with an open mind. If nothing else listen to this:
What they did to you was wrong. They had no right. It could have been different. It could have been better. Having to spend your childhood in a state-run or state-authorized institution being told the state's version of reality was wrong.
Correct. Now, how do you propose to fix the economy such that this is not so?
I don't. We abolished slavery even though it savaged the economy. This is a matter of civil right, of human rights. The fact that fixing the problem would be bad for business is hardly an excuse for business as usual. Efficacy is never a justification for the abrogation of liberty.
Indeed it has. Mainly because it's a hell of a lot safer than our schools at the moment.
I suggest you go speak with some more homeschoolers before speaking for them. Start with a subscription to Growing Without Schooling, or perhaps attend their conference.
But that's a problem with the schools, not the system.
When, precisely then, does a problem with schools become a problem with the system?
But to destroy the idea of state-mandated schooling in whatever form?
Precisely.
That will destroy us more surely than the current system will.
What evidence do you have for that? Or is that just "what everyone knows"?
Can you think of any forces in your life which would benefit by your believing that uncritically?
I suppose it merits pointing out that the nations which are starting to catch up to our lead and even pull ahead all run mandatory schooling programs, most even more restrictive and "fascist" than the ones you find in the U.S.
Oh, don't worry. In three generations (~90years) they'll be in exactly the same boat as we are now. ----------------------------------------------
Do you think that the societal pressures to conform would go away if the schools were abolished?
Yes. Sorry to contradict your religion, but the (all liberal) h.s.ers I know are vastly more resistent to the pressure of others and don't seem to have any need to press others to conform. I've observed what they're talking about: it's one of the reasons a lot of liberals who pull their kids from school do so. They don't want their kids to grow up to be morally vacuous consumer-suits.
And, yes, I believe that conformism is actively encouraged in schools by the choices and policies of the people who work there. Every time a teacher exploits humiliation to control a class or a student, they're really exploiting peer-pressure. It makes a god of conformity.
There will always be a pressure to conformity, but it is greatly exagerated and enforced by the nature of schools and schooling.
But the fact remains that universal, state-mandated and state-funded education has brought historically unprecedented levels of literacy.
Wrong. Factually incorrect. Propaganda of the system. Go read some books on the history of education. Literacy was at a higher rate in the US before mandatory schooling. And I point out to you that al-Andalus under Muslim rule had a higher rate of literacy than we do in the US.
Dude, I don't know how to say this more clearly: You've been lied to. The state has a vested interest in having you believe they're doing a wonderful job. They certainly aren't going to teach you a history which portrays them in a bad light, no matter how true.
Books to read: Lies My Teacher Told Me by Lowen; How Children Learn by Holt; Whatdjaget by Kirschbaum et al. ----------------------------------------------
What this ad for this group has to do with a company setting up a snitch line for kids to tell on each other, I have no clue.
You exemplify the problem in a nutshell!
These things are (sorry) obviously connected. Schools need security because of they way they are stuctured -- in a thousand ways. Start with policies which forbid violent students from being expelled. Or with 30+ children being "supervised" by one adult who is primarily responsible for keeping them quiet and controled. Or with policies about violence which turn the other cheek when one class of people (whites, jocks, etc.) assault another class.
There's been shooting in workplaces, but nobody's crying out for more police among the cubicles or hotlines to report dangerous co-workers. No, schools are different, and we all know the reality of schools yet we, as a culture, persist in denying that they are the savage, oppressive, unjust, violence-breeding places they are.
It is schools administrators and teachers who are the customers of Pinkerton, crying out for WAVE. They WANT these measures in their schools. What Pinkerton kept saying, and you all keep refusing to hear is:
"Yeah, maybe we aren't saints. But you should see who hired us."
It's all well and good to flame Pinkerton for implementing this abomination against rights and liberty. But who commissioned it? Who ordered and paid for it? Who embraced it?
If you don't like it, who is going to make you/your kids -- with the force of law -- submit anyway? The schools are a government organ. The government is getting Pinkerton to do its dirty work for them.
If you don't like what's going on in schools, well, bad news: you're up against The Law. Many states have loopholes through which you can get your kid out of mandatory schooling. But if you don't like the fact that the electorate of tomorrow is going to arrive at the age of majority acculturated to fascism and totalitarianism... What are you going to do? Schools are necessarily fascistic and totalitarian by their design. Maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of running them.
Is Pinkerton evil for doing this? Sure.
But really, folks, why is there no outcry against the schools/governments which use it?
They're the one's with the lion's share of the blame.
The so-called "education" system of the US is a State-run propaganda organ mated to a state-subsidized day-care program. It has nothing to do with "thinking for yourself". Schools exist to promulgate conformity as practice and as virtue.
The admission that large percentages of our population would be in severe financial crisis if the state did not pay for the daily supervision of their children is more an indictment of our economy than an argument for that system's virtue.
The idea that it's the state's job -- even the state's prerogative -- to advance every social good is the very pretext by which they usurp the rights of citizens.
If it is the state which is educating your children, you have already abdicated your responsibility.
The system of mandatory schooling in the US is despicably corrupt. It must end.
But having a propaganda organ to indoctinate the entirety of society is the One Ring of our culture -- it it utterly addictive and utterly corrupting.
So-called liberals -- who would otherwise staunchly support freedom of speach and diversity of creed -- have become enamoured with the possibility of mandating their beliefs by means of this tool. They have become just as fascist as the religious right -- both sides wrestling over control of this power over the populace.
It is left-wing secular homeschooling which has been the fastest-growing form of homeschooling for the last decade. For a reason.
The state-run state-mandated system of schooling must be destroyed before it destroys us.
You end up with a conception of "utility" which is completely tautologous -- ie utility is "that which makes people do what they do"
That's not actually tautologous. Implicit within that statement is the assumption that there is a something which makes people do things. Strage as it may sound, there have been psychological schools (or, at least, school) of thought which challeneged the idea that we actually make conscious decisions of any kind. Skinnerians (IIRC) argued that it's all just post hoc rationalization.
I think they're wrong (and kind of loopy) nevertheless, it does point out that there is an assertion of value in the statement "There is something which motivates people, let's call it utility."
I think you're getting hung up on the idea that calling it utility means something. That calling this motivational attribute "utility" instead of "quality" or "value" or "vorgelspatchny" or any other word imposes some limitation on what it can be. That because it's "utility" beauty, or pleasure, or so forth don't count.
But that's wrong. "Utility" here does not exclude those things (or any other), it embraces them all. Don't get hung up on the word.
What the assertion really boils down to is "people do stuff for reasons" -- which is in contradiction with Skinnerians and some other folks, and thus is non-trivial -- "and those reasons are subjective." Nobody is suggesting those reasons are trivial, simple, easy to discern, non-multiple, never-conflicted or rational. "The heart has its reasons..." &c.
It boils down to "Ya do stuff cuz ya want to." Which is not a tautology at all: it's an important idea about how the mind works. ----------------------------------------------
If you want something more technical than a science museum website, try Durham, William H. Coevolution; Genes, Culture and Human Diversity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 1991. ----------------------------------------------
The MAJORITY of H. sapiens are lactose intolerant from shortly after weaning. The ~80% of caucasians that can digest milk sugar are decidely in the minority of our species. On average, only something like 30% of H. Sapiens over the age of 5 can metabolize lactose.
When the US has shipped donations of powdered milk for "hunger relief" to places like SE Asia and Africa, most of it is thrown away (or, as one anthropologist discovered, used to white-wash walls) because it made the people there very, very sick to ingest it.
Powdered milk is a technology that provides food for those few (mostly caucasian) fortunates who have the genes to use it. It is poison to the rest. ----------------------------------------------
Frankly, I am a more than a little tired of being characterized as "healing", "community building", "peace making", "more cooperative" or any of the other bullshit which boils down to "Girls is nice cuz girls is motherly and nurturing".
I have many fine characteristics, some of which may even pertain to making the world a more touchy-feely place. But, by all reports, my justification for use of oxygen is my finely honed ability to hose idiots down with verbal napalm and a preternatural ability to draw lightning -- attributes in which I have considerable pride.
(Of course, that I should even have to justify my offense in this day and age is itself irritating.)
Mr. Katz, maybe you wish to make the argument that there is a subculture which consists of females of a certain age with certain commonalities of behavior -- instead of straying over the line of bigotry into claiming they are a subculture. i.e. "There's this phenomenon called the 'chickclickers', and it's growing like mad, and here's who they are and why this is interesting" instead of "teenage girls going online now are called 'chickclickers' and are like thusandsuch and will change the net because girls are different than boys."
It is one thing to say "there's this subpopulation with the following interesting traits", and something else to say "female people of this age range are characterized in this way", or even worse say "because they are female they will be thusandsuch way and do thusandsuch things".
It's the fact that you attribute traits to them because they are female (when there's counterexamples running around) and the fact that you conceive of all people of a certain age/sex as having a culture/behavior in common which is gross.
"Chickclickers", hmmm? I like it. We finally have a word for those girls who can't handle the "hostility" of public debate and argument: "chickclicker".
We already have a word for females who can dish it and take it: "women".
Kaa, I don't think what Stephenson was saying (I could be wrong, we got so little from the article) was that invasions of privacy are not a problem, but that the invasions of privacy will be conducted by corporations.
This is Stephenson, author of Snow Crash. Remember how he depicted a world in which governments were irrelevant appendages, and corporations ran everything?
I suspect what he's saying is that we should be more concerned with Big Babysitters not Big Brother: that the abuses of which we suspect governments could just as well be done by companies.
Historically, where government has found itself constrained by law or public pressure, it has often enough found ways to impose its will through the corporate sector.
Someone pointed out the latest example in the Outcast thread. Because the British govm't can't directly censor, all they have to do is make a law which allows "any nut with a lawyer" to sue an ISP into oblivion -- which has precisely the desired effect, since ISPs react by self-censoring (or more properly, client-censoring) for self-preservation.
Meanwhile, consider the history of the United Fruit Company in Latin America. Much easier than declaring war.
The term "Censorship" is over-used these days, especially in Slashdot type forums. Censorship is something that governments do.
A lot of people believe that -- I used to. But if we persist in tha delusion that it's only censorship if a government does it, even while corporations start taking over the prerogatives and powers of governments, we're idiots.
I think maybe that's what Stephenson was talking about.
We didn't need people to talk to, or counsellors, or any of that. We just needed something to escape from the sometimes harsh reality. Computer programming, robotics, astronomy, electronics,just a hobby, any hobby. We'd come home after a hard day at middle school (or head over to Radio Shack in the case of Mitnick:), and get involved in something we were really interested in. It would be our salvation, and it would recharge our batteries for the next day.
You have confused escapism with escape. Escapism is something which distracts you from your misery. Escape is something which removes you from your source of misery.
Escapism is a band-aid. Escape is a solution.
Why should anyone who is being tormented, abused, oppressed be expected to treat the very natural and reasonable symptoms of their distress as an inconvenience, a disorder to be cured?
Would you tell someone to drink alcohol to ease the pain? Would you tell them to self-medicate with illegal pharmaceuticals? It is fundamentally the same thing.
What young geeks need is not escapism, but escape: escape from the schools which imprison them, which imprison their minds.
THERE IS NO REASON A YOUNG PERSON SHOULD BE SUBJECTED TO AN ABUSIVE SITUATION. WHY SHOULD A YOUNG PERSON BE REQUIRED TO ATTEND A SCHOOL IN WHICH THEY ARE BEING THREATENED, BEATEN, HARASSED?
Until young geeks and outcasts have more and better options for LEAVING ABUSIVE SITUATIONS the problem will continue.
By "leaving" I mean "not being in schools they don't want to any more". This is a matter of law, of custom and of economics. Until it is possible for someone to leave school with impunity and pursue non-institutional choices, there is a sword hanging over their head. Until a geek being abused doesn't have to choose "Gee, should I drop out of school and flip burgers for the rest of my life, or should I risk getting my head bashed against a toilet at school today?" he is still a prisoner of the system. ----------------------------------------------
Alas, it is not Pinkerton's job to care why you were depressed, only to prevent your acting out in/against the school.
And if you were a depressed, abused child, you certainly are meeting their criteria. Many of the most violent students (in my experience at least) are/were being smacked around at home.
Being a victim is a threat by Pinkerton's lights. And they're not wrong. But their job is not to fix the problem of hurt or damaged people; it's to prevent the hurting or damaging of an institution. That is part of why they are so scary. ----------------------------------------------
Don't blame teachers and administrators in schools. The problem they face starts much earlier than school - and is down to parenting and home life.
Nonsense. They are complicit in a system whereby a demographic (the young) is deprived of liberty and all rights otherwise guaranteed citizens, and this is done without due process of law, no finding of guilt nor accusation of crime. That violence should errupt in such system should surprize no one. Human nature is not suspended in the young.
A century ago school administrators and teachers collectively agitated for state mandated school attendence laws for the self-serving purpose of guaranteeing themselves work; to this day they obstruct every effort to make that incarceration less burdensome and more humane, because it would deprive them (they feel) of job security. (I live in Boston -- you should see what the teachers' union has been up to this month!)
I have no trouble holding them accountable for the conditions in the institution they built and defend.
Until attendence at state-run or state-approved schools is no longer mandated by law, there will be no "solution" to the problem. ----------------------------------------------
(1) Sure, read it to the CEO. But you do realize that Pinkerton is exploiting this political stunt? That if they don't sell this or some other "defensive" product (they aren't in a position to sell therapy or other remedy to personal problems, only defense of the school), they have no business interest at all?
(2) The thing which most pisses me off about this entire thing, having gone to read their web site, is that they're selling to the schools and parents the myth of students that they want to hear: that it's all the kids' fault. In particular, they have all this nonsense about getting students to take the threat of violence seriously. I assure you, the kids take the threat of violence seriously! That's why most kids bring knives and guns to school in the first place! That's why teasing is so threatening and traumatic -- it's not because your feelings have been hurt, but because you don't know how far or fast the situation will escalate.
The FACT is that it is the teachers and administrators who don't take the threat of violence seriously. They're the ones who turn a blind eye ("kids will be kids") right up to the moment one kid blows another's brains out.
That Pinkerton could so venally cater to the self-serving, responsibility-absolving fantasies of school administrators that it's really all the kids' fault for not taking violence seriously, or not "walking away from fights" is sick and evil.
But, theres's no business in selling schools a product which shows them their deficiencies, or seats responsibility in the school staff. Who will buy a product or service which tells them that they allow violence to be perpetrated against children? Much more emotionally safe to buy a product which puts the responsibility onto the victims themselves. ----------------------------------------------
FYI, I had an acquaintance who decided to get a mutual classmate in serious trouble; he enlisted my aid, and the aid of a number of other kids likely to be considered "reliable witnesses" by the teachers, and the complicity of a bigger kid for "backup". Then he got the majority of the class to help him provoke a fight with the target; the bigger kid stepped in a saved his butt from being kicked. When the principle was called in, all the witnesses were already lined up. We got the kid detention for a week.
Just so you know. ----------------------------------------------
My question: How does the Pinkerton Corp. propose to prevent or at least discourage the use (or threat of use) of its product to silence dissidents in schools?
Quite frankly, most of the "weirdos" are in fact dissidents -- critics of the school system, of the culture of school, or particular teachers' conduct, etc.
Since this product has the potential to wreak havok in someone's life, it almost certainly will be used by teachers and/or peers to threaten or reprise against critics of the status quo.
It will be used against the publishers of underground paper and websites. It will be used against students who refuse to wear fashionable clothing. It will be used against students who do not elect to participate in certain activities, or who participate in the wrong activities.
It will be used against gay and lesbian students. It will be used against pagan, muslim and atheist students. It will be used against students who wear black armbands to school to protest wars or other causes. It will be used against students who refuse to fight, or join gangs, or do drugs.
Do you understand what it is that you are unleashing? Can you put down what you are calling up?
And how will you sleep at night? ----------------------------------------------
Nothing in that article had anything to do with taxation.
Here's my summary of the article:
What the word "regulation" means, contrary to popular opinion, is any method (legal or otherwise) of coercing resource owners to behave in ways contrary to their wont. If we want connectivity providers to remain as open to innovation as the net currently is, we're going to have to force them, since (he gives examples) innovation is not in their best corporate interests. That forcing is as much a form of regulation as imposing a tax. People who complain on one hand about "regulation" meaning "imposing taxes" and then argue that cable companies should be required to avail their customers of alternate ISPs are being ignorent and inconsistent.
His point: geeks are using the rhetoric wrong, and it will burn them in the halls of government.
You, friend, are an accoustic musician, as am I. For us, performing makes much sense.
However, there are such creatures as "recording artists" in truth: artists who use electronic means to produce a recording as their work of art. For such as they, the concept of live performance is an absurdity.
Sorry, just had to play devil's advocate. I am highly sympathetic to your point of view (More Gigs Good!), but it doesn't work for all of what we today consider music. ----------------------------------------------
All right, you whiners. I'm getting tired of the hand-wringing. The answer is Really Simple:
If you don't like what record companies are doing, BOYCOTT THEM.
So long as you whimps keep behaving like your demand for recordings has similar imperative to your demand for oxygen, the record companies will happily dick you around.
Speaka de language. Stop paying them to sue you and your buddies, and be sure to write them and their artists to be sure they know. (A timely fan letter of the variety "I love you, I need you, I want to bear your lovechild, but I can't actually pay for your CDs until..." would probably have a highly salutory effect.)
I finally managed to get into ddj.com and read the bloody thing. I was not impressed.
It wasn't about whether or not there was a scarcity of tech workers. It was about all the political crap which gets wrapped around that "issue", e.g. whether or not the US should allow more foreign workers.
Look:
Yes, most employers are idiots who write nonsensical job descriptions, and then bitch and moan when they can't get applicants.
Yes, most employers are feeble in their failure to exploit the talents of their existing employees through training and other career development programs.
No, the fact that there are currently lots of open IT positions does not mean you should go to college and major in an IT field; it does not mean those jobs will be waiting for you when you graduate.
None of these things really has to do with the scarcity (or lack there of) of high-tech workers.
And, frankly, connect-the-dots prognostication is silly. What no one wants to admit is that we've managed to create an environment (the net) in which the basics of operating a retail establishment (a store) require personal characteristics (facility with abstract thought) of the store workers (geeks) which only a comparatively small percentage of people have.
It would be one thing if ecommerce sites were like brick&mortar stores. Once you put up your KornerMart, it stays built, and you can pay all your architects, construction workers, HVAC experts, etc. and send them home. It would be one thing if new-media sites were like radio stations. Once you raise your KLUE transmitter and plug it in, you can send away the engineers who put up the tower. You can staff your KornerMart, your KLUE station with non-geeks and have your business run.
But an ecommerce site, a new-media site is constantly being reinvented. What's now is passe, so "five minutes ago". The envelop must constantly be pushed.
So long as that is true, you can expect the market demand for geeks to be rapacious. We are the only people who can run their store fronts in cyberspace, the only people who can keep the store open 24/7. They can't do without us, and as they try to expand, they will only need more and more of us. ----------------------------------------------
Come to Boston/Cambridge/Rt128. If you can tolerate working for suits and phbs, you can have all the money you want. ----------------------------------------------
Slashdot Mirror
Heh. You learned that in public school, didn't you?
No, the "state" (in the US) is an institution formed to represent the citizenry (we live in a republic, not a democracy). As such, it is vulnerable to being co-opted by private interests.
Guess what? It has been.
No, the state educating our children is a convenient and efficient way for those people who have the power to make sure the children of those people who oppose them agree with them.
It puts, as it were, all the educational eggs in one basket. Public education is a winner-take-all system. Whoever manages to seize the power gets to impose their version of What Kids Should Believe on everyone. That's why it is corrupt.
Why should what I be taught -- while we are doing our legally mandated time -- against my own beliefs? Why does a majority have the right to say to the minority "we're going to indoctrinate you against your will"?
Should the Christian majority have the right to promulgate their beliefs to the children of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, etc? It would be representative of the wishes of The People -- at least in those many places Christians are the majority. But that doesn't make it right.
The schools are corrupt (among other reasons!) because they are given unjust power over the minds of the populace. They are a "bully pulpit". It's not just that they tell you things that if you knew better you might not belief. It's that (1) they have the imprimitur of the state giving them credibility (2) they preoccupy your time for over a decade so you likely won't be exposed alternative views.
For the longest time, liberals turned away from the abuse of human rights, because, bluntly, it advanced our agenda. Yeah, we were brainwashing kids, but we were scrubbing their antiquated superstitions out of them so it was OK. It was our beliefs and attitudes, so it wasn't reeeeeally propaganda. So it amounts to the state telling the people what to think, but they're telling people to think the right things so it's OK, right?
But it's not right. And while well-meaning liberals were being enthralled by this power over the citizens of tomorrow, they failed to note that the conservatives had figured it out, too. Now the two sides (and many factions) are at war over who gets to promulgate their propaganda next.
We trotted right out there on that slippery slope, and Wooooops! We thought we could get away with violating some people's rights without the tables being turned. Oooops.
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There is a difference between a guarantee and an imposition. There is a difference between the right to education and the requirement to attend government approved schools.
If education is a right, how come they can kick you out at 22 if you still don't know how to read? Is it only a right for smart-enough people? Or only young people?
If education is a right, why is there a law that you must attend but no law that the teachers must teach you? Why do they grade you (who are, ostensibly, the customer) instead of the teacher who is the service provider? In what other industry is the customer rated?
If you want education to be a right, and work for that end, go ahead -- but that's certainly not what we currently have in our system of mandatory attendence.
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*Sigh*. I didn't say it wasn't a good thing. I said "It made a god of conformity".
Substitute "money" or "chocolate" or any other noun you please for "conformity" above. Think on it.
And how would you know whether or not people are as prone to conformity without a school system to enforce it? What opportunities have you had to observe the alternatives?
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Er, you mean that democracies only function to your spec if there is "some capacity for thought in its citizens". Sure, I'd like a smart, issue-oriented electorate, too. But fact is, in a world in which power is disposed of by popular vote, it's obviously in a candidate's best interest (as far as getting elected goes) to keep the populace ignorent and uncritical -- if he can somehow manage it. School boards in conjunction with mandatory schooling provide precisely that power.
(There was a fascinating article about 12 years ago in a mainstream mag called "Why Can't Johnny Think?" which outlined exactly why it's in your average schoolboards members' personal self-interest to keep the electorate docile, ignorent and uninterested.)
You may have noticed there are an awful lot of /.ers who complain about the American electorate. Every time a YRO article hits the main page, you can expect laments about how the general public doesn't see what all the fuss is about as their rights are eroded. Now, maybe you disagree with that sentiment. Perhaps you think the American people are an involved, interested, vigilent electorate passionately participating in the Great Experiment of democracy. OK, then we would have to agree to disagree. But if you do concede that not all is well in the American electorate, I would like to propose an alternate explanation.
I say "alternate" because the standard /. assumption is that the populace is stupid or lazy. My proposal is that they have had been indoctrinated.
Hello? We were discussing WAVE? The product that school administrators argue they need to keep their schools safe?
But of course, that's the tip of the iceberg....
L ies My Teacher Told Me (I'm not suggesting giving amazon.com money, but if you check out the "also boughts" on the bottom of the page you'll get a bunch of books focusing on other academic areas besides US history.) The book is an examination of, among other disturbing things, how twelve of the most popular US history texts used in HS classes were edited to make certain groups in the US look less bad. For example, the Deep South states insisted on a more flattering (of them) depiction of the Reconstruction (following the Civil War.) Similarly, famous people who had (now) unpopular political or religious positions are depicted without reference to, for instance, being communists or deists or supporters of the KKK.
The State has been editing your text books. Get used to the idea.
And what else is the bid to have Oklahoma schools teach creationism but an attempt at state sponsored propaganda? The people who have seized the reins there have an agenda for how they'd like people to think. Don't kid yourself that it's purely a love of Christianity which moves those people. They know that if everyone grows up thinking Christianity is more valid than other religions (which don't get their origin myths put in science text books) and, heck, just as valid as science, and Christianity (as practiced widely) teaches that Christians are better than unbelievers, Christianity becomes a virtuous trait in a candidate -- as has already happened (the Boston Globe had a nice article on it if you hadn't figured it out for yourself). Promulgating Christianity in schools is a good way to make sure eventually only Christians are elected to office.
Actually, I think I just did. Kindly remove your foot from your throat.
Really? Who'd you learn that from, a trained professional?
There are a growing number of people who have come to the conclusion mass-produced education is of necessarily inferior quality, completely aside from any liberties your government is taking with the content.
But, hey, this is other people. You went to (or are going through) ~12 years of schooling in the US, right? Think for yourself. Look back on your own experience and ask "Hey, did I learn a lot? How does it compare to what I learned on my own? How does it compare to what I learned from other people?" Ask yourself "Did I like being in school? Did it engage my intellect and introduce me to new things? Or did I sit either bored or terrified in most of my classes wishing I could be somewhere else, doing somewhere else?"
If you can answer, "Heck, yes, school was great; I'd go back in a heartbeat; I never felt so intellectually awake; I learned so much!" then more power to you.
If you can't, I ask that you listen to what I have to say with an open mind. If nothing else listen to this:
What they did to you was wrong. They had no right. It could have been different. It could have been better. Having to spend your childhood in a state-run or state-authorized institution being told the state's version of reality was wrong.
I don't. We abolished slavery even though it savaged the economy. This is a matter of civil right, of human rights. The fact that fixing the problem would be bad for business is hardly an excuse for business as usual. Efficacy is never a justification for the abrogation of liberty.
I suggest you go speak with some more homeschoolers before speaking for them. Start with a subscription to Growing Without Schooling, or perhaps attend their conference.
When, precisely then, does a problem with schools become a problem with the system?
Precisely.
What evidence do you have for that? Or is that just "what everyone knows"?
Can you think of any forces in your life which would benefit by your believing that uncritically?
Oh, don't worry. In three generations (~90years) they'll be in exactly the same boat as we are now.
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Yes. Sorry to contradict your religion, but the (all liberal) h.s.ers I know are vastly more resistent to the pressure of others and don't seem to have any need to press others to conform. I've observed what they're talking about: it's one of the reasons a lot of liberals who pull their kids from school do so. They don't want their kids to grow up to be morally vacuous consumer-suits.
And, yes, I believe that conformism is actively encouraged in schools by the choices and policies of the people who work there. Every time a teacher exploits humiliation to control a class or a student, they're really exploiting peer-pressure. It makes a god of conformity.
There will always be a pressure to conformity, but it is greatly exagerated and enforced by the nature of schools and schooling.
Wrong. Factually incorrect. Propaganda of the system. Go read some books on the history of education. Literacy was at a higher rate in the US before mandatory schooling. And I point out to you that al-Andalus under Muslim rule had a higher rate of literacy than we do in the US.
Dude, I don't know how to say this more clearly: You've been lied to. The state has a vested interest in having you believe they're doing a wonderful job. They certainly aren't going to teach you a history which portrays them in a bad light, no matter how true.
Books to read: Lies My Teacher Told Me by Lowen; How Children Learn by Holt; Whatdjaget by Kirschbaum et al.
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You exemplify the problem in a nutshell!
These things are (sorry) obviously connected. Schools need security because of they way they are stuctured -- in a thousand ways. Start with policies which forbid violent students from being expelled. Or with 30+ children being "supervised" by one adult who is primarily responsible for keeping them quiet and controled. Or with policies about violence which turn the other cheek when one class of people (whites, jocks, etc.) assault another class.
There's been shooting in workplaces, but nobody's crying out for more police among the cubicles or hotlines to report dangerous co-workers. No, schools are different, and we all know the reality of schools yet we, as a culture, persist in denying that they are the savage, oppressive, unjust, violence-breeding places they are.
It is schools administrators and teachers who are the customers of Pinkerton, crying out for WAVE. They WANT these measures in their schools. What Pinkerton kept saying, and you all keep refusing to hear is:
It's all well and good to flame Pinkerton for implementing this abomination against rights and liberty. But who commissioned it? Who ordered and paid for it? Who embraced it?
If you don't like it, who is going to make you/your kids -- with the force of law -- submit anyway? The schools are a government organ. The government is getting Pinkerton to do its dirty work for them.
If you don't like what's going on in schools, well, bad news: you're up against The Law. Many states have loopholes through which you can get your kid out of mandatory schooling. But if you don't like the fact that the electorate of tomorrow is going to arrive at the age of majority acculturated to fascism and totalitarianism... What are you going to do? Schools are necessarily fascistic and totalitarian by their design. Maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of running them.
Is Pinkerton evil for doing this? Sure.
But really, folks, why is there no outcry against the schools/governments which use it?
They're the one's with the lion's share of the blame.
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Nonsense.
The so-called "education" system of the US is a State-run propaganda organ mated to a state-subsidized day-care program. It has nothing to do with "thinking for yourself". Schools exist to promulgate conformity as practice and as virtue.
The admission that large percentages of our population would be in severe financial crisis if the state did not pay for the daily supervision of their children is more an indictment of our economy than an argument for that system's virtue.
The idea that it's the state's job -- even the state's prerogative -- to advance every social good is the very pretext by which they usurp the rights of citizens.
If it is the state which is educating your children, you have already abdicated your responsibility.
The system of mandatory schooling in the US is despicably corrupt. It must end.
But having a propaganda organ to indoctinate the entirety of society is the One Ring of our culture -- it it utterly addictive and utterly corrupting.
So-called liberals -- who would otherwise staunchly support freedom of speach and diversity of creed -- have become enamoured with the possibility of mandating their beliefs by means of this tool. They have become just as fascist as the religious right -- both sides wrestling over control of this power over the populace.
It is left-wing secular homeschooling which has been the fastest-growing form of homeschooling for the last decade. For a reason.
The state-run state-mandated system of schooling must be destroyed before it destroys us.
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That's not actually tautologous. Implicit within that statement is the assumption that there is a something which makes people do things. Strage as it may sound, there have been psychological schools (or, at least, school) of thought which challeneged the idea that we actually make conscious decisions of any kind. Skinnerians (IIRC) argued that it's all just post hoc rationalization.
I think they're wrong (and kind of loopy) nevertheless, it does point out that there is an assertion of value in the statement "There is something which motivates people, let's call it utility."
I think you're getting hung up on the idea that calling it utility means something. That calling this motivational attribute "utility" instead of "quality" or "value" or "vorgelspatchny" or any other word imposes some limitation on what it can be. That because it's "utility" beauty, or pleasure, or so forth don't count.
But that's wrong. "Utility" here does not exclude those things (or any other), it embraces them all. Don't get hung up on the word.
What the assertion really boils down to is "people do stuff for reasons" -- which is in contradiction with Skinnerians and some other folks, and thus is non-trivial -- "and those reasons are subjective." Nobody is suggesting those reasons are trivial, simple, easy to discern, non-multiple, never-conflicted or rational. "The heart has its reasons..." &c.
It boils down to "Ya do stuff cuz ya want to." Which is not a tautology at all: it's an important idea about how the mind works.
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Shrug. This is a well established fact.
If you want something more technical than a science museum website, try Durham, William H. Coevolution; Genes, Culture and Human Diversity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 1991.
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The MAJORITY of H. sapiens are lactose intolerant from shortly after weaning. The ~80% of caucasians that can digest milk sugar are decidely in the minority of our species. On average, only something like 30% of H. Sapiens over the age of 5 can metabolize lactose.
When the US has shipped donations of powdered milk for "hunger relief" to places like SE Asia and Africa, most of it is thrown away (or, as one anthropologist discovered, used to white-wash walls) because it made the people there very, very sick to ingest it.
Powdered milk is a technology that provides food for those few (mostly caucasian) fortunates who have the genes to use it. It is poison to the rest.
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So, what am I, Mr. Katz, chopped liver?
Frankly, I am a more than a little tired of being characterized as "healing", "community building", "peace making", "more cooperative" or any of the other bullshit which boils down to "Girls is nice cuz girls is motherly and nurturing".
I have many fine characteristics, some of which may even pertain to making the world a more touchy-feely place. But, by all reports, my justification for use of oxygen is my finely honed ability to hose idiots down with verbal napalm and a preternatural ability to draw lightning -- attributes in which I have considerable pride.
(Of course, that I should even have to justify my offense in this day and age is itself irritating.)
Mr. Katz, maybe you wish to make the argument that there is a subculture which consists of females of a certain age with certain commonalities of behavior -- instead of straying over the line of bigotry into claiming they are a subculture. i.e. "There's this phenomenon called the 'chickclickers', and it's growing like mad, and here's who they are and why this is interesting" instead of "teenage girls going online now are called 'chickclickers' and are like thusandsuch and will change the net because girls are different than boys."
It is one thing to say "there's this subpopulation with the following interesting traits", and something else to say "female people of this age range are characterized in this way", or even worse say "because they are female they will be thusandsuch way and do thusandsuch things".
It's the fact that you attribute traits to them because they are female (when there's counterexamples running around) and the fact that you conceive of all people of a certain age/sex as having a culture/behavior in common which is gross.
Knock it off.
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"Chickclickers", hmmm? I like it. We finally have a word for those girls who can't handle the "hostility" of public debate and argument: "chickclicker".
We already have a word for females who can dish it and take it: "women".
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Kaa, I don't think what Stephenson was saying (I could be wrong, we got so little from the article) was that invasions of privacy are not a problem, but that the invasions of privacy will be conducted by corporations.
This is Stephenson, author of Snow Crash. Remember how he depicted a world in which governments were irrelevant appendages, and corporations ran everything?
I suspect what he's saying is that we should be more concerned with Big Babysitters not Big Brother: that the abuses of which we suspect governments could just as well be done by companies.
Historically, where government has found itself constrained by law or public pressure, it has often enough found ways to impose its will through the corporate sector.
Someone pointed out the latest example in the Outcast thread. Because the British govm't can't directly censor, all they have to do is make a law which allows "any nut with a lawyer" to sue an ISP into oblivion -- which has precisely the desired effect, since ISPs react by self-censoring (or more properly, client-censoring) for self-preservation.
Meanwhile, consider the history of the United Fruit Company in Latin America. Much easier than declaring war.
Someone (again, in the Outcast thread) said:
A lot of people believe that -- I used to. But if we persist in tha delusion that it's only censorship if a government does it, even while corporations start taking over the prerogatives and powers of governments, we're idiots.
I think maybe that's what Stephenson was talking about.
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You have confused escapism with escape. Escapism is something which distracts you from your misery. Escape is something which removes you from your source of misery.
Escapism is a band-aid. Escape is a solution.
Why should anyone who is being tormented, abused, oppressed be expected to treat the very natural and reasonable symptoms of their distress as an inconvenience, a disorder to be cured?
Would you tell someone to drink alcohol to ease the pain? Would you tell them to self-medicate with illegal pharmaceuticals? It is fundamentally the same thing.
What young geeks need is not escapism, but escape: escape from the schools which imprison them, which imprison their minds.
THERE IS NO REASON A YOUNG PERSON SHOULD BE SUBJECTED TO AN ABUSIVE SITUATION. WHY SHOULD A YOUNG PERSON BE REQUIRED TO ATTEND A SCHOOL IN WHICH THEY ARE BEING THREATENED, BEATEN, HARASSED?
Until young geeks and outcasts have more and better options for LEAVING ABUSIVE SITUATIONS the problem will continue.
By "leaving" I mean "not being in schools they don't want to any more". This is a matter of law, of custom and of economics. Until it is possible for someone to leave school with impunity and pursue non-institutional choices, there is a sword hanging over their head. Until a geek being abused doesn't have to choose "Gee, should I drop out of school and flip burgers for the rest of my life, or should I risk getting my head bashed against a toilet at school today?" he is still a prisoner of the system.
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Alas, it is not Pinkerton's job to care why you were depressed, only to prevent your acting out in/against the school.
And if you were a depressed, abused child, you certainly are meeting their criteria. Many of the most violent students (in my experience at least) are/were being smacked around at home.
Being a victim is a threat by Pinkerton's lights. And they're not wrong. But their job is not to fix the problem of hurt or damaged people; it's to prevent the hurting or damaging of an institution. That is part of why they are so scary.
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Nonsense. They are complicit in a system whereby a demographic (the young) is deprived of liberty and all rights otherwise guaranteed citizens, and this is done without due process of law, no finding of guilt nor accusation of crime. That violence should errupt in such system should surprize no one. Human nature is not suspended in the young.
A century ago school administrators and teachers collectively agitated for state mandated school attendence laws for the self-serving purpose of guaranteeing themselves work; to this day they obstruct every effort to make that incarceration less burdensome and more humane, because it would deprive them (they feel) of job security. (I live in Boston -- you should see what the teachers' union has been up to this month!)
I have no trouble holding them accountable for the conditions in the institution they built and defend.
Until attendence at state-run or state-approved schools is no longer mandated by law, there will be no "solution" to the problem.
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Two things, Jon:
(1) Sure, read it to the CEO. But you do realize that Pinkerton is exploiting this political stunt? That if they don't sell this or some other "defensive" product (they aren't in a position to sell therapy or other remedy to personal problems, only defense of the school), they have no business interest at all?
(2) The thing which most pisses me off about this entire thing, having gone to read their web site, is that they're selling to the schools and parents the myth of students that they want to hear: that it's all the kids' fault. In particular, they have all this nonsense about getting students to take the threat of violence seriously. I assure you, the kids take the threat of violence seriously! That's why most kids bring knives and guns to school in the first place! That's why teasing is so threatening and traumatic -- it's not because your feelings have been hurt, but because you don't know how far or fast the situation will escalate.
The FACT is that it is the teachers and administrators who don't take the threat of violence seriously. They're the ones who turn a blind eye ("kids will be kids") right up to the moment one kid blows another's brains out.
That Pinkerton could so venally cater to the self-serving, responsibility-absolving fantasies of school administrators that it's really all the kids' fault for not taking violence seriously, or not "walking away from fights" is sick and evil.
But, theres's no business in selling schools a product which shows them their deficiencies, or seats responsibility in the school staff. Who will buy a product or service which tells them that they allow violence to be perpetrated against children? Much more emotionally safe to buy a product which puts the responsibility onto the victims themselves.
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FYI, I had an acquaintance who decided to get a mutual classmate in serious trouble; he enlisted my aid, and the aid of a number of other kids likely to be considered "reliable witnesses" by the teachers, and the complicity of a bigger kid for "backup". Then he got the majority of the class to help him provoke a fight with the target; the bigger kid stepped in a saved his butt from being kicked. When the principle was called in, all the witnesses were already lined up. We got the kid detention for a week.
Just so you know.
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My question: How does the Pinkerton Corp. propose to prevent or at least discourage the use (or threat of use) of its product to silence dissidents in schools?
Quite frankly, most of the "weirdos" are in fact dissidents -- critics of the school system, of the culture of school, or particular teachers' conduct, etc.
Since this product has the potential to wreak havok in someone's life, it almost certainly will be used by teachers and/or peers to threaten or reprise against critics of the status quo.
It will be used against the publishers of underground paper and websites. It will be used against students who refuse to wear fashionable clothing. It will be used against students who do not elect to participate in certain activities, or who participate in the wrong activities.
It will be used against gay and lesbian students. It will be used against pagan, muslim and atheist students. It will be used against students who wear black armbands to school to protest wars or other causes. It will be used against students who refuse to fight, or join gangs, or do drugs.
Do you understand what it is that you are unleashing? Can you put down what you are calling up?
And how will you sleep at night?
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Yes. Not only does information want to be free, it wants to peaceably assemble.
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Nothing in that article had anything to do with taxation.
Here's my summary of the article:
His point: geeks are using the rhetoric wrong, and it will burn them in the halls of government.
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You, friend, are an accoustic musician, as am I. For us, performing makes much sense.
However, there are such creatures as "recording artists" in truth: artists who use electronic means to produce a recording as their work of art. For such as they, the concept of live performance is an absurdity.
Sorry, just had to play devil's advocate. I am highly sympathetic to your point of view (More Gigs Good!), but it doesn't work for all of what we today consider music.
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All right, you whiners. I'm getting tired of the hand-wringing. The answer is Really Simple:
If you don't like what record companies are doing, BOYCOTT THEM.
So long as you whimps keep behaving like your demand for recordings has similar imperative to your demand for oxygen, the record companies will happily dick you around.
Speaka de language. Stop paying them to sue you and your buddies, and be sure to write them and their artists to be sure they know. (A timely fan letter of the variety "I love you, I need you, I want to bear your lovechild, but I can't actually pay for your CDs until..." would probably have a highly salutory effect.)
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I finally managed to get into ddj.com and read the bloody thing. I was not impressed.
It wasn't about whether or not there was a scarcity of tech workers. It was about all the political crap which gets wrapped around that "issue", e.g. whether or not the US should allow more foreign workers.
Look:
And, frankly, connect-the-dots prognostication is silly. What no one wants to admit is that we've managed to create an environment (the net) in which the basics of operating a retail establishment (a store) require personal characteristics (facility with abstract thought) of the store workers (geeks) which only a comparatively small percentage of people have.
It would be one thing if ecommerce sites were like brick&mortar stores. Once you put up your KornerMart, it stays built, and you can pay all your architects, construction workers, HVAC experts, etc. and send them home. It would be one thing if new-media sites were like radio stations. Once you raise your KLUE transmitter and plug it in, you can send away the engineers who put up the tower. You can staff your KornerMart, your KLUE station with non-geeks and have your business run.
But an ecommerce site, a new-media site is constantly being reinvented. What's now is passe, so "five minutes ago". The envelop must constantly be pushed.
So long as that is true, you can expect the market demand for geeks to be rapacious. We are the only people who can run their store fronts in cyberspace, the only people who can keep the store open 24/7. They can't do without us, and as they try to expand, they will only need more and more of us.
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Come to Boston/Cambridge/Rt128. If you can tolerate working for suits and phbs, you can have all the money you want.
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