I was never much of one for clothes. If my girlfriend wasn't always buying them for me, she says I'd be wearing rags and not even noticing it. She's probably right. If I prefer anything, it's shirts without logos and blue jeans.
However, uniforms are one of the goals of all the worst fascists. How many different uniforms were there, in the nazis ideal world? Didn't matter what job you did, there was a uniform for it. Obviously, the nazis also liked to breath air, but that doesn't make "air breathing" bad. On the case of uniforms though, I have to wonder if it truly is a bad idea. Especially considering that it's mostly an attempt to prepare students for their corporate uniforms in the factory.
Even if you came up with another reason to wear them.
150 years ago, a parent would have made sure that the child was wearing something acceptable, and they didn't have to all wear identical uniforms to do so. If the uniforms are unnecessary, then why do it? You seem to miss the distinction between "dress code" and uniform.
As for discipline, you are scaring me. Ever stop to think why (alot of the time, anyway) people force themselves to do unpleasant things? Maybe because other people are forcing them? Of the 6 soldiers that died in Iraq yesterday, how many of them were true volunteers, and how many felt forced to enlist because of the dismal job market?
Happened several times in my small hometown, also in nearby ones. The reason that it hasn't happened in say, LA or NYC, because there never were small little functional school buildings to tear down and waste. You still haven't read the book though, have you?
Seems your biggest problem is "haven't RTFA". Who's trolling?
Read the book. Gatto makes the case, that yes, the waste of usable buildings has ocurred nationwide. Should I repeat the effort? Should I paste a chapter long excerpt? Did you even bother to check if there were such a chapter (which would be the least you could do... obvious you're another retard who likes to comment without RTFA, as it were) ? I'm not a statistical methodologist, I couldn't prove his numbers in a way most would accept, if I wanted to. But I can confirm anecdotally, that at least where I'm from, it happened not once, but twice.
As for your other "minor" points, I never said that 1% is the perfect ratio. I said it wouldn't be a bad goal to work towards though, considering that there are more non-teachers than teachers. You seem to believe though, that layers of non-productive bureaucratic fat are good, or at least necessary. You know what, if possible, I'd settle for a reduction from 51% to 25%. No reason to stop there, though.
My bet was "how much do you want to bet that schools use 75% of their copier paper for memos and internal office use, as opposed to assignments and handouts for students?". I've now made it as clear as I believe possible, if you still don't understand it, too fucking bad. The number is an exaggeration (I'd be shocked myself if it literally hit 75), but what if it's just 60, or 52%? What if it's only 41%? Aren't those a little high, just so that some bureaucrat can "manage" his little flock of teachers?
I don't take everything Gatto has said as gospel. Rather, he said things that were obvious, that in part I knew before, only confirming what was hard to deny. Before, it was possible to believe that maybe I just had incredibly shitty luck, Gatto says it's happening everywhere.
I do have problems with some of the stuff he says. I don't like the tinfoil hat guys myself, and I don't believe that the trilateral commission assassinated JFK on orders from templar knights against the wishes of a Roswell gray in a tank of fluid who's been secretly been giving advice to Alan Greenspan (for example). However, Gatto, throughout his entire book, is *constantly* saying "this isn't necessarily the work of a conspiracy" and "don't think of this as a conspiracy" and other stuff... as if he is deadly afraid of being one of the tinfoilhat guys I've attempted to describe.
It is both a little eery and little discouraging that he continues like that, through much of the book. But then, you have no clue what I'm talking about, since you haven't RTFA.
Good question, even if you're not expecting a serious answer.
Cut them off, because I would never be able to compete with Everquest. Because I'm trying to cater to a niche of customers, rather than everyone.
Those customers being people who would pay $40-75 a month for a premium experience. People who will play in character, and whose style of gameplay tends to be constructive plot-wise, rather then the destructive bullshit you have now.
Everyone tells me it won't work, can't work. But even 1000 subscribers would mean a crapload of money, maybe just enough to support a few people dedicated to making it the best.
A even mix of college and k12 books. Unless they still study social studies in graduate school.
Updates aren't as important. I doubt more than 15% of any subject has undergone revision in the past 20 years.
Hardly common? Haven't read the book. This is my own personal experience, in a small hick town, and it's not one school building, but two. Happened in neighboring towns, I'm sure, but I can't name the actual buildings.
Haha. If schools are managed like corporations are, how much you want to bet that 75% of the copier paper budget goes to memos, and other administrative uses?
Yes, why not edge back to 1%? It wasn't impossible then, shouldn't be now. Even if we don't reach that goal, and progress made toward it is good. For some reason, people like yourself can't imagine things running without being "managed". That's the core of the problem though.
You're used to believing true whatever is most convenient to your pre-concieved notions. Me, I simply want to know. Sometimes it's painful, as it is now, other times not such a big deal. I won't bother to ask you to refute anything Gatto says specifically, you don't need to do that to believe bullshit. If I were generous, I'd just write you off as another "product" of the schools Gatto explains...
Comparing it to Moore's bullshit? I suppose that's as good an excuse as any to not read the book, or if you do, to dismiss it without learning anything.
I don't want to be bullying the world around for diminishing resources 30 years from now, and if that's what you want, I don't want to live in the same country as you. Just no place else to go.
If there is a deity worthy of that word, who says it has to be "all-powerful" ? Omnipotence is more for the hicks that need to convinced to worship it...
Well, most people who claim to believe in one from what I've seen.
That's not a very good answer though, is it. I'll concede that a great many belive things about deities that are absurd and logically untenable. but don't let those ijits keep you from exploring the ideas.
As for the existence of a god explaining the origin of the universe... again, I'm not sure that's what it would explain. But it might explain other things, things important to both you and I, and every other person on this planet in some manner other than intellectually.
Heck, it's not even necessarily anti-scientific... maybe god is the distributed bacterial mind that Greg Bear writes about (haha).
Books don't last long? I'm always coming across 1970s (and sometimes earlier) school textbooks at flea markets, auctions and thrift stores. The damn things last forever, and I have trouble throwing them out (no room to keep them, no one wants them though).
Revisions can be supplemented with pamphlets, even the internet if everyone wasn't so careful with IP.
If buildings fall down so quick, why were perfectly fine buildings destroyed or emptied twice in my small hometown (only one historical, the other was built in 1967), to make way for bigger million dollar schools, that my mom could barely pay our property tax to pay for?
Supplies? I don't have kids, so I've not really checked... how much do pencils cost nowdays? $100 per box of 5?
Staffs do need to be paid. Read about how the american school system went from 1% management at the turn of the century to 51% management/administration by the 1990s. Read his book, and find out that in 20 years of him teaching, school enrollment stayed the same, but rooms all filled up (used as offices for non-teachers). Stranger still, (read carefully) the schools were only being half-utilized back then... they'd keep class sizes too big, and leave rooms locked and half-empty.
Starving for funds? Read about the Kansas school district, that by judicial fiat, got virtually unlimited funds, and things still didn't improve.
I read this book, and as incredible as some of it seems, it had the ring of truth. Sometimes I wonder about the people who can't see truthes as easily, I'm hoping that for you it's simply that you haven't read it yet.
Read the book. Gatto goes over this too, and makes a case why it wouldn't work, even if the teachers' unions, corporate-funded think tanks, and lying politicians allowed it... which they won't. He even explains why they won't.
The U.S. was a fine country to live in, even before this century of domination came about. Our education system then was still fine and capable enough to make it so that even these hick farmers unconcerned with world domination read (and Gatto suggests understoof much better) classic literature that most modern readers can't force their way through.
Maybe Dubya gets off on being a world power, but I'm not sure that serves most of the rest of us.
Read the book. Gatto says himself the school system works perfectly, it just has non-obvious goals (which aren't all that different from your world-domination quasi-fascist goals).
Lies. 18 yr olds were shopowners, and parents. They seemed to do just fine then, you need to read Gatto's book.
Most people, even the young ones, didn't work the factories and sweatshops that you're probably imagining. It's even said that asking someone "who they worked for" was an insult... most were proud to work for themselves, doing whatever it was that they did.
My own grandfather became a father at age 18. He likes to play the hick, the dufus... but you'd never meet a more capable man. Hard to imagine him much different when he was young, except for less experience.
1) The rich kids know who the poor kids are, and the poor know who the rich kids are. The rich kids will still treat the poor kids like shit. Dressing them all up won't change it, but it just might put a little more financial pressure on the parents of said poor kid... now instead of buying whatever reasonably priced clothes that they can, they are forced to spend money on clothes that a bureacrat told them the child must where. 2) This is a problem that can be fixed without uniforms. 3) Discipline is self-control, how can people learn self-control by allowing a bureacracy even more control over these kids?
Personally, I find it difficult to believe that the entire universe can be dismissed as some random accident, with all effects in it reducible to physics only slightly beyond what we can currently calculate.
I'm not some nutjob that believes in ghosts, fairies, or other crap like that. But it's hard to believe there is nothing "supernatural" at all. Things are just too complex. Mind you, I don't believe that any of the religions I've learned of explain things better than raw science.
If there is a deity worthy of that word, who says it has to be "all-powerful" ? Omnipotence is more for the hicks that need to convinced to worship it...
Now, as for atheists, they do seem awfully religious for people who profess no belief in gods. All the same irrational, emotional responses. Besides, your arguments could just as easily prove that people are agnostic from birth. A position (that when chosen for reasons other than its diplomatic convenience) that is perhaps a bit more intellectually honest, I'd say.
You won't even bother to read this book, so I'm not sure why I'm responding.
How is it self-evidently moronic? You can't think of reasons why some would see this as a profitable scenario (in a non enlightened self-interest sort of way) ? More to the point, you can't see how this would be gratifying to those that are rich beyond belief, and wish to control men as if they were puppets?
The trouble I have with this, is that I still can't believe it. It's all the worst conspiracy-theory bullshit that I've laughed at over the years, with an extra side of "simply unbelievable".
And yet, the more I read, the more I try to research all this, the less I can find to dispute it.
I agree. The right business plan, and you wouldn't have to accept every single subscriber.
I've never been able to work out the numbers though. Say I hired you fulltime, to do dungeonmaster duty on such a game. Just what sort of salary/wages should you earn, if you do the job well?
Also, assuming you had some kickass tools (multiple monitor setup, and custom apps that let you keep track of many players at once), just what do you think is possible?
Yes, the potential is great. If I hinted that it was otherwise, then that was a mistake. Certainly, it's greater than someone else creating a space saga from scratch, because everyone can identify with this immediately. But think of the potential of the TNG movies, before the first one came out, and how that was just ruined. It couldn't have been worse if Berman had just aimed his ass at the screen, and painted it with explosive diarrhea.
Playing a Harry Muddesque character does seem appealing, btw.
You might like the game I'm working on, should I ever finish it. It's more of a multiplayer RTS than MMORPG, but the gist of the game is you get to design your own starship (for those that don't care to, will be quite a few pre-designed). And, most importantly, you and friends can cooperatively crew such a ship, you might pilot it while the other person mans the guns. Even hoping to add VoIP... email me if you'd like to beta test (assuming you use linux).
Just wanted to draw more attention to this post, before ijits moderate it into oblivion. Not only is this post 90% serious in my opinion, it's accurate. I could not think of a better example of what MMO gameplay devolves to.
Someone figures out how to get rid of this crap, andit would revitalize MMO games.
Paramount hates Star Trek, and is obsessed with ruining the franchise. An MMORPG where everyone insists on being a captain or admiral, where no story can take place, and they can make up more "iso" words.
Aren't they being sued for a Star Trek related game contract gone awry already?
Only so much money was ever issued. Let's make that $1 million, to keep things simple. The Fed is a private corporation, yet issues this money to the entire United States, as a loan. They'll want interest, so now we all owe $1.05 million. Even if we all take up a collection, and give it all back... we still owe the $0.05 million... lather, rinse, repeat.
So, you may be able to pay off your individual loan to the bank... but doing so leaves even less money for others to pay off theirs.
The first stirrings of this I heard, were from a black democrat, forget his name, NY representative I believe. This is before the invasion, it was his ill-concieved "game of chicken" to shame Dubya into backing down, even if he described it differently.
So I won't deny that there are democrats in on this.
But I get the impression that both parties are paving the way for it. In some ways, I'm glad I just turned 30.
Slashdot Mirror
I was never much of one for clothes. If my girlfriend wasn't always buying them for me, she says I'd be wearing rags and not even noticing it. She's probably right. If I prefer anything, it's shirts without logos and blue jeans.
However, uniforms are one of the goals of all the worst fascists. How many different uniforms were there, in the nazis ideal world? Didn't matter what job you did, there was a uniform for it. Obviously, the nazis also liked to breath air, but that doesn't make "air breathing" bad. On the case of uniforms though, I have to wonder if it truly is a bad idea. Especially considering that it's mostly an attempt to prepare students for their corporate uniforms in the factory.
Even if you came up with another reason to wear them.
150 years ago, a parent would have made sure that the child was wearing something acceptable, and they didn't have to all wear identical uniforms to do so. If the uniforms are unnecessary, then why do it? You seem to miss the distinction between "dress code" and uniform.
As for discipline, you are scaring me. Ever stop to think why (alot of the time, anyway) people force themselves to do unpleasant things? Maybe because other people are forcing them? Of the 6 soldiers that died in Iraq yesterday, how many of them were true volunteers, and how many felt forced to enlist because of the dismal job market?
Not very bright, are you?
Happened several times in my small hometown, also in nearby ones. The reason that it hasn't happened in say, LA or NYC, because there never were small little functional school buildings to tear down and waste. You still haven't read the book though, have you?
Seems your biggest problem is "haven't RTFA". Who's trolling?
Read the book. Gatto makes the case, that yes, the waste of usable buildings has ocurred nationwide. Should I repeat the effort? Should I paste a chapter long excerpt? Did you even bother to check if there were such a chapter (which would be the least you could do... obvious you're another retard who likes to comment without RTFA, as it were) ? I'm not a statistical methodologist, I couldn't prove his numbers in a way most would accept, if I wanted to. But I can confirm anecdotally, that at least where I'm from, it happened not once, but twice.
As for your other "minor" points, I never said that 1% is the perfect ratio. I said it wouldn't be a bad goal to work towards though, considering that there are more non-teachers than teachers. You seem to believe though, that layers of non-productive bureaucratic fat are good, or at least necessary. You know what, if possible, I'd settle for a reduction from 51% to 25%. No reason to stop there, though.
My bet was "how much do you want to bet that schools use 75% of their copier paper for memos and internal office use, as opposed to assignments and handouts for students?". I've now made it as clear as I believe possible, if you still don't understand it, too fucking bad. The number is an exaggeration (I'd be shocked myself if it literally hit 75), but what if it's just 60, or 52%? What if it's only 41%? Aren't those a little high, just so that some bureaucrat can "manage" his little flock of teachers?
I don't take everything Gatto has said as gospel. Rather, he said things that were obvious, that in part I knew before, only confirming what was hard to deny. Before, it was possible to believe that maybe I just had incredibly shitty luck, Gatto says it's happening everywhere.
I do have problems with some of the stuff he says. I don't like the tinfoil hat guys myself, and I don't believe that the trilateral commission assassinated JFK on orders from templar knights against the wishes of a Roswell gray in a tank of fluid who's been secretly been giving advice to Alan Greenspan (for example). However, Gatto, throughout his entire book, is *constantly* saying "this isn't necessarily the work of a conspiracy" and "don't think of this as a conspiracy" and other stuff... as if he is deadly afraid of being one of the tinfoilhat guys I've attempted to describe.
It is both a little eery and little discouraging that he continues like that, through much of the book. But then, you have no clue what I'm talking about, since you haven't RTFA.
Good question, even if you're not expecting a serious answer.
Cut them off, because I would never be able to compete with Everquest. Because I'm trying to cater to a niche of customers, rather than everyone.
Those customers being people who would pay $40-75 a month for a premium experience. People who will play in character, and whose style of gameplay tends to be constructive plot-wise, rather then the destructive bullshit you have now.
Everyone tells me it won't work, can't work. But even 1000 subscribers would mean a crapload of money, maybe just enough to support a few people dedicated to making it the best.
A even mix of college and k12 books. Unless they still study social studies in graduate school.
Updates aren't as important. I doubt more than 15% of any subject has undergone revision in the past 20 years.
Hardly common? Haven't read the book. This is my own personal experience, in a small hick town, and it's not one school building, but two. Happened in neighboring towns, I'm sure, but I can't name the actual buildings.
Haha. If schools are managed like corporations are, how much you want to bet that 75% of the copier paper budget goes to memos, and other administrative uses?
Yes, why not edge back to 1%? It wasn't impossible then, shouldn't be now. Even if we don't reach that goal, and progress made toward it is good. For some reason, people like yourself can't imagine things running without being "managed". That's the core of the problem though.
You're used to believing true whatever is most convenient to your pre-concieved notions. Me, I simply want to know. Sometimes it's painful, as it is now, other times not such a big deal. I won't bother to ask you to refute anything Gatto says specifically, you don't need to do that to believe bullshit. If I were generous, I'd just write you off as another "product" of the schools Gatto explains...
Comparing it to Moore's bullshit? I suppose that's as good an excuse as any to not read the book, or if you do, to dismiss it without learning anything.
I don't want to be bullying the world around for diminishing resources 30 years from now, and if that's what you want, I don't want to live in the same country as you. Just no place else to go.
If there is a deity worthy of that word, who says it has to be "all-powerful" ? Omnipotence is more for the hicks that need to convinced to worship it...
Well, most people who claim to believe in one from what I've seen.
That's not a very good answer though, is it. I'll concede that a great many belive things about deities that are absurd and logically untenable. but don't let those ijits keep you from exploring the ideas.
As for the existence of a god explaining the origin of the universe... again, I'm not sure that's what it would explain. But it might explain other things, things important to both you and I, and every other person on this planet in some manner other than intellectually.
Heck, it's not even necessarily anti-scientific... maybe god is the distributed bacterial mind that Greg Bear writes about (haha).
Books don't last long? I'm always coming across 1970s (and sometimes earlier) school textbooks at flea markets, auctions and thrift stores. The damn things last forever, and I have trouble throwing them out (no room to keep them, no one wants them though).
Revisions can be supplemented with pamphlets, even the internet if everyone wasn't so careful with IP.
If buildings fall down so quick, why were perfectly fine buildings destroyed or emptied twice in my small hometown (only one historical, the other was built in 1967), to make way for bigger million dollar schools, that my mom could barely pay our property tax to pay for?
Supplies? I don't have kids, so I've not really checked... how much do pencils cost nowdays? $100 per box of 5?
Staffs do need to be paid. Read about how the american school system went from 1% management at the turn of the century to 51% management/administration by the 1990s. Read his book, and find out that in 20 years of him teaching, school enrollment stayed the same, but rooms all filled up (used as offices for non-teachers). Stranger still, (read carefully) the schools were only being half-utilized back then... they'd keep class sizes too big, and leave rooms locked and half-empty.
Starving for funds? Read about the Kansas school district, that by judicial fiat, got virtually unlimited funds, and things still didn't improve.
I read this book, and as incredible as some of it seems, it had the ring of truth. Sometimes I wonder about the people who can't see truthes as easily, I'm hoping that for you it's simply that you haven't read it yet.
Read the book. Gatto goes over this too, and makes a case why it wouldn't work, even if the teachers' unions, corporate-funded think tanks, and lying politicians allowed it... which they won't. He even explains why they won't.
The U.S. was a fine country to live in, even before this century of domination came about. Our education system then was still fine and capable enough to make it so that even these hick farmers unconcerned with world domination read (and Gatto suggests understoof much better) classic literature that most modern readers can't force their way through.
Maybe Dubya gets off on being a world power, but I'm not sure that serves most of the rest of us.
Read the book. Gatto says himself the school system works perfectly, it just has non-obvious goals (which aren't all that different from your world-domination quasi-fascist goals).
Lies. 18 yr olds were shopowners, and parents. They seemed to do just fine then, you need to read Gatto's book.
Most people, even the young ones, didn't work the factories and sweatshops that you're probably imagining. It's even said that asking someone "who they worked for" was an insult... most were proud to work for themselves, doing whatever it was that they did.
My own grandfather became a father at age 18. He likes to play the hick, the dufus... but you'd never meet a more capable man. Hard to imagine him much different when he was young, except for less experience.
Gatto himself suggests that. Again, people need to read the book, even if they decide to disagree with it beforehand.
1) The rich kids know who the poor kids are, and the poor know who the rich kids are. The rich kids will still treat the poor kids like shit. Dressing them all up won't change it, but it just might put a little more financial pressure on the parents of said poor kid... now instead of buying whatever reasonably priced clothes that they can, they are forced to spend money on clothes that a bureacrat told them the child must where.
2) This is a problem that can be fixed without uniforms.
3) Discipline is self-control, how can people learn self-control by allowing a bureacracy even more control over these kids?
Personally, I find it difficult to believe that the entire universe can be dismissed as some random accident, with all effects in it reducible to physics only slightly beyond what we can currently calculate.
I'm not some nutjob that believes in ghosts, fairies, or other crap like that. But it's hard to believe there is nothing "supernatural" at all. Things are just too complex. Mind you, I don't believe that any of the religions I've learned of explain things better than raw science.
If there is a deity worthy of that word, who says it has to be "all-powerful" ? Omnipotence is more for the hicks that need to convinced to worship it...
Now, as for atheists, they do seem awfully religious for people who profess no belief in gods. All the same irrational, emotional responses. Besides, your arguments could just as easily prove that people are agnostic from birth. A position (that when chosen for reasons other than its diplomatic convenience) that is perhaps a bit more intellectually honest, I'd say.
You won't even bother to read this book, so I'm not sure why I'm responding.
How is it self-evidently moronic? You can't think of reasons why some would see this as a profitable scenario (in a non enlightened self-interest sort of way) ? More to the point, you can't see how this would be gratifying to those that are rich beyond belief, and wish to control men as if they were puppets?
This link is also enlightening, from a different perspective.
The trouble I have with this, is that I still can't believe it. It's all the worst conspiracy-theory bullshit that I've laughed at over the years, with an extra side of "simply unbelievable".
And yet, the more I read, the more I try to research all this, the less I can find to dispute it.
I agree. The right business plan, and you wouldn't have to accept every single subscriber.
I've never been able to work out the numbers though. Say I hired you fulltime, to do dungeonmaster duty on such a game. Just what sort of salary/wages should you earn, if you do the job well?
Also, assuming you had some kickass tools (multiple monitor setup, and custom apps that let you keep track of many players at once), just what do you think is possible?
Yes, the potential is great. If I hinted that it was otherwise, then that was a mistake. Certainly, it's greater than someone else creating a space saga from scratch, because everyone can identify with this immediately. But think of the potential of the TNG movies, before the first one came out, and how that was just ruined. It couldn't have been worse if Berman had just aimed his ass at the screen, and painted it with explosive diarrhea.
Playing a Harry Muddesque character does seem appealing, btw.
Offtopic:
You might like the game I'm working on, should I ever finish it. It's more of a multiplayer RTS than MMORPG, but the gist of the game is you get to design your own starship (for those that don't care to, will be quite a few pre-designed). And, most importantly, you and friends can cooperatively crew such a ship, you might pilot it while the other person mans the guns. Even hoping to add VoIP... email me if you'd like to beta test (assuming you use linux).
No, you have to hate it. There's not much lifeblood left to suck, the only reason you'd continue would be to kill it.
Just wanted to draw more attention to this post, before ijits moderate it into oblivion. Not only is this post 90% serious in my opinion, it's accurate. I could not think of a better example of what MMO gameplay devolves to.
Someone figures out how to get rid of this crap, andit would revitalize MMO games.
Star Trek for the TI99-4a. With the voice synth peripheral.
Paramount hates Star Trek, and is obsessed with ruining the franchise. An MMORPG where everyone insists on being a captain or admiral, where no story can take place, and they can make up more "iso" words.
Aren't they being sued for a Star Trek related game contract gone awry already?
Only so much money was ever issued. Let's make that $1 million, to keep things simple. The Fed is a private corporation, yet issues this money to the entire United States, as a loan. They'll want interest, so now we all owe $1.05 million. Even if we all take up a collection, and give it all back... we still owe the $0.05 million... lather, rinse, repeat.
So, you may be able to pay off your individual loan to the bank... but doing so leaves even less money for others to pay off theirs.
The first stirrings of this I heard, were from a black democrat, forget his name, NY representative I believe. This is before the invasion, it was his ill-concieved "game of chicken" to shame Dubya into backing down, even if he described it differently.
So I won't deny that there are democrats in on this.
But I get the impression that both parties are paving the way for it. In some ways, I'm glad I just turned 30.