> So having an organized thought process and some modicum of intelligence > are probably at least as important as 'knowing how to Google'.
Maybe. From what I can tell, it seems to me that most people have a mental block because they DO see google as some 'magic box', as you say, and have no idea how it works. If they did understand how it works, I believe that would make it possible for them to come up with an organized thought process to interact with it effectively.
> As far as Biology vs Life skills, schools should go ahead and try to present > students with some basic life skills, but there is lots of value in also > presenting a wide swath of human knowledge, as many people end up finding out > about things that they are interested in pursuing, and so on (and because > some basic level of general knowledge is a life skill.).
But that's the problem! What if I'm someone with a natural interest in finance, but I never figure out that I enjoy that stuff until it's too late, because THE STATE said I was required to learn cell biology? The state is selecting the topics that are required, and these are the topics that people are allowed to "accidentally" find out they like. The rest is relegated to electives or, worse, not even available unless you're lucky enough to go to college (eg, finance).
If you could explain to me why cell biology is elevated to a required part of the curriculum while finance is not even available as an elective, I would be very interested to hear it. Saying "some people might find they enjoy cell biology" does not explain it, because the same is true for finance.
My guess is that it has something to do with someone a long time ago thinking we needed to force students to be more science-oriented because we were "falling behind" some Communist country or other scary enemy. But this is exactly why the state has no business setting curriculum; or at least it's a strong argument for competing private curricula.
I tailor the message to the audience, so writing the message and then remembering I need to CC the Legal department & therefore should revise my entire message is going to be pretty annoying.
> IT teaching in schools needs to improve, but from a technical > perspective, not by letting kids spend a couple of hours a week > in school doing what they do at home every night anyway.
Not every kid knows how to effectively use Wikipedia or Google for that matter. I did spend time learning how to effectively search Google (but that's because I'm a geek), and my high school and college study was more efficient worthwhile for it. Even today (3 years after grad), I often get comments like "I don't know how you find the answer to crap so fast" from colleagues. It's not a secret; it's effective use of the Web coupled with an understanding of how to corroborate information you've found.
These are not "automatic" skills. The idea that you SHOULDN'T teach shit that is actually useful (ie, they do in their every day lives) is completely backwards.
We would be much better off right now, for example, if there was a class in the curriculum about personal finance and money management. Everyone must manage money and make finance decisions on a daily basis, but MOST PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS when it comes to personal finance, and that has made the current crisis that much more painful and increased the need for reliance on government.
But I guess if I'm broke because I have no savings and high debt, I can always fall back on my understanding of the functions of each organelle in the animal cell.
How odd. You seem to get it at the beginning of your comment, and then you devolve into not making any sense.
> "Collective" is an abstract idea
Yes!
> When the 'collective' gets to vote, they tend to vote for things that > benefit the collective.
What? You just admitted you understood that the 'collective' is abstract and is really a bunch of individuals. Individuals are not voting for what 'the collective' thinks is right; they are voting for what THEY think is right. And, in in many cases they vote for whatever benefits THEM the most. This is why blue-collar workers are Democrats and executives are Republicans.
> Things like: Police that don't beat people up too often; The ability > to go to the grocery store any time they are open without being > prevented by the state; The free^h^h^h^h ability to marry whomever > you wish.
You just listed a whole bunch of things that have ZERO requirement for any acknowledgment of any collective. If every individual only ever considered their own interests, they would come up with exactly the same voting record.
> All of these things are things desired by the collective
No! They are desired by individuals. There's no such thing as the collective.
> Sometimes the collective is astute enough to vote for > things that aren't desired by the majority
This doesn't even make any sense. What is the collective if not the majority?
> These include things like gay rights, minorities' > right to vote, and so on.
I think you are just misunderstanding what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that an individual will not vote for gay rights unless that individual is gay. I'm saying the individual will not decide their vote after thinking to himself "gee, I wonder what 'the collective' thinks is the right thing".
Anyway, you are picking things that have nothing to do with individual freedom. As much as the social conservatives would like to argue otherwise, two dudes marrying each other has nothing to do with me and zero impact on my freedom. On the other hand, if I were to tell THEM they could NOT marry, then I am limiting their freedom. These are two fundamentally different things.
> it takes only 1/3 or 1/4 of the population to protect their interests.
Please provide an example. Are you talking about ratifying amendments to that meaningless document no one bothers with anymore?
> In all cases, however, these represent the exercise of collective freedoms.
"Collective freedom" is an oxymoron. There are only two options. Either you show your neighbor that what you want is also what they want, or you convince them to want what you want even though it is against their interest. In the former case, there is no need for collective anything, since he is just pursuing what he wants. In the latter, that is you taking your freedom at the expense of your neighbor. Fail.
This collectivism shit sounds great in theory until you actually think about what the reality is. Someone must not get what they want. If that weren't the case, then collectivism would have no purpose and everyone would get what they wanted individually.
I applaud the effort, but voting is a collectivist activity, and therefore only guarantees that everyone equally doesn't get what they want. Freedom and collectivism are different things.
That doesn't mean it's not needed; but let's not equate voting with freedom.
I've seen outrageous examples of red-light runners, and they do occasionally kill people, so I support the idea of the cameras, when done properly
And you're basing that on what? As far as I know, there is zero evidence that these cameras make anybody safer, and it seems like they only incentivize unsafe behavior on the part of the regulators.
Did you just suggest employing market forces to influence behavior? Please hold on while we pinpoint your exact location and dispatch the mob with pitchforks.
Workers are mandated to clear work by a certain time period. In my experience, your characterization is not valid. The truth is that the workers are overloaded with work and can just barely keep up with the mandated clearing deadlines.
While I am no fan of government spending, if you're going to have these programs, investments in efficiency (whether that be IT, business process redesign, or just fixing stupid fucking government policy handbooks) are a good idea.
If we were talking about private industry, this wouldn't even be a discussion; it would have already been done if the cost was less than the benefit.
Great call, genius. And what do you think will happen to the value of the company when all management is ejected?
What is the point of bailing out a company at the cost of $800,000million just to destroy the company's value?
This is exactly why the public has absolutely no business telling businesses how to operate. (Coincidentally, it's also why the majority of businesses FAIL, because the skills necessary to be a businessowner are not as common as we Americans would love to believe.)
> It would be perfectly moral and justified. Their employer does not have > the money to pay them with. What they are paying them with is *my* money. > That is fucking immoral.
Hey, idiot. You gave them the money.
Either they know how to run a business and should continue to exist, or they shouldn't.
If the former, leave them the fuck alone. If the latter, stop giving them taxpayer money.
Actually, in either case, stop giving them taxpayer money.
> $165 million dollars could keep 2200 people employed for a year
How come everyone complains when a PHB thinks every worker is replaceable and equivalent, but also complains when a PHB realizes that every worker is NOT replaceable and equivalent?
These are not fucking replacement parts. These people WERE the various businesses of AIG that the government (aka we) ordered them to sell off. If these employees leave, there is NOTHING to sell off, and we do not get our $800,000m back.
> It's an expression of the injustice that all of us grunts feel > when the executives get all the credit when things go well, and > the grunts get laid off when things go poorly.
If these "grunts" understood good business practices, perhaps they wouldn't be grunts. The government told AIG it would receive taxpayer funds as a LOAN, but would need to divest and sell its component businesses to repay that loan. This is a great way to bridge the gap while we take a "too big to fail" company and turn it into a number of smaller entities that are NOT too big to fail. Good theory.
AIG said: Ok, fine. But who is going to buy AIG's parts? All of our employees know that we're in deep shit and they sure aren't going to be getting raises or promotions right now, and tomorrow they could be laid off, etc. Anyone who is marketable (ie, the good, valuable employees) will be looking elsewhere ASAP.
What, exactly, would AIG be selling if the business (its people) walks out the door to competing companies?
So in order to maintain their business long enough to divest, they came up with this retention plan, AND GOT IT OKAYED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
Then it became public, the media ate it up, and now you're eating it up. It's a cheap shot. It's surface feeding. I would pay $165m to ensure I could repay $180,000m ANY DAY.
Do we seriously not have bigger things to focus on right now?????
> It seems that the cash infusion has already caused a bit of an upturn.
Yeah, and housing prices appreciated for decades, too.
The economy improves when the economy creates VALUE, not when prices appreciate. If you can point to value that has been created by recent moves by the Treasury, then I'll be on board. What you are seeing is the announcement of plans to SOCIALIZE the losses of individual corporations across the backs of every American taxpayer.
* Great for the holders of the losses. * Not so great for the American taxpayer.
Fine, if we're going down that path, then let's be 100% accurate:
Any exchange or lack of exchange of funds (AKA everything) is gambling.
If you purchase a TV today, you are gambling that tomorrow the price will not fall, when you take it home it will be what you expect, and that you will get enough value out of it before it breaks. (Maybe you can take the TV back, but they may not accept the return, or they may charge you a restocking fee. The point is there IS some quantity risk, even though consumers are irrational purchasers and probably do not ever think about it, like a business would.)
If you choose to do nothing with your money, you are gambling that inflation will not whittle away the value of your money before you can use it.
If you are a doctor and you choose to treat a patient, you are gambling that you will not get sued.
You get the idea...
Are casinos gambling when they let you play the slots? No, because they KNOW for 100% certainty that eventually they WILL make more money than they lose. It is a mathematical certainty, even though every pull of the lever could make them a tiny bit of money or lose them a ton of money.
This is not really "gambling." This is risk assessment. Just because the result of individual transactions are probabilistic does not mean entering into the transaction is a gamble.
Earmarks are not a tool for corruption!!! Christ. An earmark is a CLEAR PUBLIC DEDICATION OF FUNDS. If you do not earmark the funds, then they go into a general fund where they can be spent however the bureaucrat in charge sees fit, with significantly LESS TRANSPARENCY.
Congress must stop abdicating its duty to appropriate funds. Earmarks should INCREASE. If you have problems with particular earmarks, then point them out. But if there were no earmarks, you would never even know where the money is going, and you'd have no opportunity to bitch.
Uhhh, what? We already have a cashless society in any meaningful way you can put it. We exchange paper, and a large amount of money exists as numbers in bank account databases and does not even have a paper dollar representation.
What possible value are you attributing to paper money that can be printed at will by a delegated agency of the government?
We have already lost the meaningful battle, which was when we moved off commodity-based money and the government declared that all debts are payable by this paper. Commodity-based money cannot be created by any government agency, without finding more of the commodity (which anyone could do). If the government declares that all debts are payable by plastic, what in god's name is the difference???
> and just look at the growth in the last few years, a "closed garden" web like > they are suggesting would not have hardly any of the growth the free web is > experiencing now.
Good, then let them do it! I always chuckle at things like this where people (not saying you) get fired up. It's the same thing with the Kansas school board. If they want to retard their community, then let them. It will eventually be clear how misguided they were. Forcing everyone to do the same thing with education and openness just allows the dissenters to complain and bitch and moan and say that our "theory" that openness is better and evolution actually has some supporting evidence is wrong.
We shouldn't be afraid of the test. Let communities decide for themselves, and then let's study the results. If they are convinced by the data, fine. If they aren't, who cares?
Slashdot Mirror
> So having an organized thought process and some modicum of intelligence
> are probably at least as important as 'knowing how to Google'.
Maybe. From what I can tell, it seems to me that most people have a mental block because they DO see google as some 'magic box', as you say, and have no idea how it works. If they did understand how it works, I believe that would make it possible for them to come up with an organized thought process to interact with it effectively.
> As far as Biology vs Life skills, schools should go ahead and try to present
> students with some basic life skills, but there is lots of value in also
> presenting a wide swath of human knowledge, as many people end up finding out
> about things that they are interested in pursuing, and so on (and because
> some basic level of general knowledge is a life skill.).
But that's the problem! What if I'm someone with a natural interest in finance, but I never figure out that I enjoy that stuff until it's too late, because THE STATE said I was required to learn cell biology? The state is selecting the topics that are required, and these are the topics that people are allowed to "accidentally" find out they like. The rest is relegated to electives or, worse, not even available unless you're lucky enough to go to college (eg, finance).
If you could explain to me why cell biology is elevated to a required part of the curriculum while finance is not even available as an elective, I would be very interested to hear it. Saying "some people might find they enjoy cell biology" does not explain it, because the same is true for finance.
My guess is that it has something to do with someone a long time ago thinking we needed to force students to be more science-oriented because we were "falling behind" some Communist country or other scary enemy. But this is exactly why the state has no business setting curriculum; or at least it's a strong argument for competing private curricula.
I tailor the message to the audience, so writing the message and then remembering I need to CC the Legal department & therefore should revise my entire message is going to be pretty annoying.
1) decide audience
2) craft message
> IT teaching in schools needs to improve, but from a technical
> perspective, not by letting kids spend a couple of hours a week
> in school doing what they do at home every night anyway.
Not every kid knows how to effectively use Wikipedia or Google for that matter. I did spend time learning how to effectively search Google (but that's because I'm a geek), and my high school and college study was more efficient worthwhile for it. Even today (3 years after grad), I often get comments like "I don't know how you find the answer to crap so fast" from colleagues. It's not a secret; it's effective use of the Web coupled with an understanding of how to corroborate information you've found.
These are not "automatic" skills. The idea that you SHOULDN'T teach shit that is actually useful (ie, they do in their every day lives) is completely backwards.
We would be much better off right now, for example, if there was a class in the curriculum about personal finance and money management. Everyone must manage money and make finance decisions on a daily basis, but MOST PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS when it comes to personal finance, and that has made the current crisis that much more painful and increased the need for reliance on government.
But I guess if I'm broke because I have no savings and high debt, I can always fall back on my understanding of the functions of each organelle in the animal cell.
How odd. You seem to get it at the beginning of your comment, and then you devolve into not making any sense.
> "Collective" is an abstract idea
Yes!
> When the 'collective' gets to vote, they tend to vote for things that
> benefit the collective.
What? You just admitted you understood that the 'collective' is abstract and is really a bunch of individuals. Individuals are not voting for what 'the collective' thinks is right; they are voting for what THEY think is right. And, in in many cases they vote for whatever benefits THEM the most. This is why blue-collar workers are Democrats and executives are Republicans.
> Things like: Police that don't beat people up too often; The ability
> to go to the grocery store any time they are open without being
> prevented by the state; The free^h^h^h^h ability to marry whomever
> you wish.
You just listed a whole bunch of things that have ZERO requirement for any acknowledgment of any collective. If every individual only ever considered their own interests, they would come up with exactly the same voting record.
> All of these things are things desired by the collective
No! They are desired by individuals. There's no such thing as the collective.
> Sometimes the collective is astute enough to vote for
> things that aren't desired by the majority
This doesn't even make any sense. What is the collective if not the majority?
> These include things like gay rights, minorities'
> right to vote, and so on.
I think you are just misunderstanding what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that an individual will not vote for gay rights unless that individual is gay. I'm saying the individual will not decide their vote after thinking to himself "gee, I wonder what 'the collective' thinks is the right thing".
Anyway, you are picking things that have nothing to do with individual freedom. As much as the social conservatives would like to argue otherwise, two dudes marrying each other has nothing to do with me and zero impact on my freedom. On the other hand, if I were to tell THEM they could NOT marry, then I am limiting their freedom. These are two fundamentally different things.
> it takes only 1/3 or 1/4 of the population to protect their interests.
Please provide an example. Are you talking about ratifying amendments to that meaningless document no one bothers with anymore?
> In all cases, however, these represent the exercise of collective freedoms.
Nonsense.
Did you get that off of a Hallmark card?
"Collective freedom" is an oxymoron. There are only two options. Either you show your neighbor that what you want is also what they want, or you convince them to want what you want even though it is against their interest. In the former case, there is no need for collective anything, since he is just pursuing what he wants. In the latter, that is you taking your freedom at the expense of your neighbor. Fail.
This collectivism shit sounds great in theory until you actually think about what the reality is. Someone must not get what they want. If that weren't the case, then collectivism would have no purpose and everyone would get what they wanted individually.
> it's YOUR freedom at stake!
I applaud the effort, but voting is a collectivist activity, and therefore only guarantees that everyone equally doesn't get what they want. Freedom and collectivism are different things.
That doesn't mean it's not needed; but let's not equate voting with freedom.
> Not as bad as Operation Ajax
Or, better known as its more common name, Operation Coup-dot-oh???
I've seen outrageous examples of red-light runners, and they do occasionally kill people, so I support the idea of the cameras, when done properly
And you're basing that on what? As far as I know, there is zero evidence that these cameras make anybody safer, and it seems like they only incentivize unsafe behavior on the part of the regulators.
Did you just suggest employing market forces to influence behavior? Please hold on while we pinpoint your exact location and dispatch the mob with pitchforks.
Not everyone puts their freedom and privacy above safety, you know.
There, fixed that for you.
Nothing about getting rid of cameras affects the government's ability to enforce the law.
Gee, you wouldn't happen to be a democrat, would you?
And if the bias were reversed, what tune would you be singing?
I'm pretty sure you just provided evidence for his point.
Workers are mandated to clear work by a certain time period. In my experience, your characterization is not valid. The truth is that the workers are overloaded with work and can just barely keep up with the mandated clearing deadlines.
While I am no fan of government spending, if you're going to have these programs, investments in efficiency (whether that be IT, business process redesign, or just fixing stupid fucking government policy handbooks) are a good idea.
If we were talking about private industry, this wouldn't even be a discussion; it would have already been done if the cost was less than the benefit.
Great call, genius. And what do you think will happen to the value of the company when all management is ejected?
What is the point of bailing out a company at the cost of $800,000million just to destroy the company's value?
This is exactly why the public has absolutely no business telling businesses how to operate. (Coincidentally, it's also why the majority of businesses FAIL, because the skills necessary to be a businessowner are not as common as we Americans would love to believe.)
Sorry, can you point me to the link explaining how the government is retroactively taking money from union workers for services already rendered?
> It would be perfectly moral and justified. Their employer does not have
> the money to pay them with. What they are paying them with is *my* money.
> That is fucking immoral.
Hey, idiot. You gave them the money.
Either they know how to run a business and should continue to exist, or they shouldn't.
If the former, leave them the fuck alone. If the latter, stop giving them taxpayer money.
Actually, in either case, stop giving them taxpayer money.
> $165 million dollars could keep 2200 people employed for a year
How come everyone complains when a PHB thinks every worker is replaceable and equivalent, but also complains when a PHB realizes that every worker is NOT replaceable and equivalent?
These are not fucking replacement parts. These people WERE the various businesses of AIG that the government (aka we) ordered them to sell off. If these employees leave, there is NOTHING to sell off, and we do not get our $800,000m back.
What did AIG to do fuck us over, again? If we let them fail, it would have nothing to do with us.
Oh, you say they're "too big to fail". Well WE approve mergers and acquisitions, so how do you blame AIG?
If these guys are idiots, they should be out of business. If we decide to invest in them and then complain about the results, WE ARE THE IDIOTS.
> It's an expression of the injustice that all of us grunts feel
> when the executives get all the credit when things go well, and
> the grunts get laid off when things go poorly.
If these "grunts" understood good business practices, perhaps they wouldn't be grunts. The government told AIG it would receive taxpayer funds as a LOAN, but would need to divest and sell its component businesses to repay that loan. This is a great way to bridge the gap while we take a "too big to fail" company and turn it into a number of smaller entities that are NOT too big to fail. Good theory.
AIG said: Ok, fine. But who is going to buy AIG's parts? All of our employees know that we're in deep shit and they sure aren't going to be getting raises or promotions right now, and tomorrow they could be laid off, etc. Anyone who is marketable (ie, the good, valuable employees) will be looking elsewhere ASAP.
What, exactly, would AIG be selling if the business (its people) walks out the door to competing companies?
So in order to maintain their business long enough to divest, they came up with this retention plan, AND GOT IT OKAYED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
Then it became public, the media ate it up, and now you're eating it up. It's a cheap shot. It's surface feeding. I would pay $165m to ensure I could repay $180,000m ANY DAY.
Do we seriously not have bigger things to focus on right now?????
> It seems that the cash infusion has already caused a bit of an upturn.
Yeah, and housing prices appreciated for decades, too.
The economy improves when the economy creates VALUE, not when prices appreciate. If you can point to value that has been created by recent moves by the Treasury, then I'll be on board. What you are seeing is the announcement of plans to SOCIALIZE the losses of individual corporations across the backs of every American taxpayer.
* Great for the holders of the losses.
* Not so great for the American taxpayer.
Please stop encouraging these people.
Fine, if we're going down that path, then let's be 100% accurate:
Any exchange or lack of exchange of funds (AKA everything) is gambling.
If you purchase a TV today, you are gambling that tomorrow the price will not fall, when you take it home it will be what you expect, and that you will get enough value out of it before it breaks. (Maybe you can take the TV back, but they may not accept the return, or they may charge you a restocking fee. The point is there IS some quantity risk, even though consumers are irrational purchasers and probably do not ever think about it, like a business would.)
If you choose to do nothing with your money, you are gambling that inflation will not whittle away the value of your money before you can use it.
If you are a doctor and you choose to treat a patient, you are gambling that you will not get sued.
You get the idea...
Are casinos gambling when they let you play the slots? No, because they KNOW for 100% certainty that eventually they WILL make more money than they lose. It is a mathematical certainty, even though every pull of the lever could make them a tiny bit of money or lose them a ton of money.
This is not really "gambling." This is risk assessment. Just because the result of individual transactions are probabilistic does not mean entering into the transaction is a gamble.
Earmarks are not a tool for corruption!!! Christ. An earmark is a CLEAR PUBLIC DEDICATION OF FUNDS. If you do not earmark the funds, then they go into a general fund where they can be spent however the bureaucrat in charge sees fit, with significantly LESS TRANSPARENCY.
Congress must stop abdicating its duty to appropriate funds. Earmarks should INCREASE. If you have problems with particular earmarks, then point them out. But if there were no earmarks, you would never even know where the money is going, and you'd have no opportunity to bitch.
Uhhh, what? We already have a cashless society in any meaningful way you can put it. We exchange paper, and a large amount of money exists as numbers in bank account databases and does not even have a paper dollar representation.
What possible value are you attributing to paper money that can be printed at will by a delegated agency of the government?
We have already lost the meaningful battle, which was when we moved off commodity-based money and the government declared that all debts are payable by this paper. Commodity-based money cannot be created by any government agency, without finding more of the commodity (which anyone could do). If the government declares that all debts are payable by plastic, what in god's name is the difference???
> Some clients would only view every few months, or even every few years.
Sorry, what? I was following you until this.
K, fine, but then who's going to save you from damnation?
> and just look at the growth in the last few years, a "closed garden" web like
> they are suggesting would not have hardly any of the growth the free web is
> experiencing now.
Good, then let them do it! I always chuckle at things like this where people (not saying you) get fired up. It's the same thing with the Kansas school board. If they want to retard their community, then let them. It will eventually be clear how misguided they were. Forcing everyone to do the same thing with education and openness just allows the dissenters to complain and bitch and moan and say that our "theory" that openness is better and evolution actually has some supporting evidence is wrong.
We shouldn't be afraid of the test. Let communities decide for themselves, and then let's study the results. If they are convinced by the data, fine. If they aren't, who cares?