I would say what matters even more is the fact that parents care about their child's education in the first place. Both my parents are teachers, and from what I have gathered from them, the worst problem children come from families who don't care. I'm referring to parents who don't check their kid's report card, doesn't see to it that homework is getting done, and sometimes isn't even bothering to make sure the kid is actually at school at all. A child quickly learns from this attitude that their academics don't matter, and thus most of them stop putting any effort into it.
Home-schooled children by definition have parents who care, be it for religious reasons or not. And really, even an education mutilated by religious concerns is still better for a child then absolutely no education at all, which is what happens for some in public schools. Instead of crying about parents caring enough to intervene in their child's education, I think we need to worry much more about the children who have no one to care for them at all.
Odd that you mention that, because my mother worried about the exact thing when I was younger. When going through a foreign airport while we switched flights, she told us to keep quiet; she figured if me and my brother started going on about some video game, the only word out of the conversation that'll easily get recognized is "bomb" (or variations thereof), and the airport security would freak. That was pre-9/11, oh the fun it must be now...
I could be sued for breaking a rib while saving their lives.
Have to call shenanigans on this one... My CPR instructor actually directly stated 1. This probably can and will happen, and 2. You can't get sued unless the person in question dies, even if you aren't certified or whatnot, due to there being "Good Samaritan Laws" - read, this guy just saved your ass, stop whining about it.
Has anyone noticed that the most "modern", "advance", "civilized", and "liberal" nations in the world have a decreasing fertility rate, while the barbarians continue to breed? Has anyone noticed the invasion of those "civilized" nations taking place all around us?
Uhhh... have you also noticed the shockingly high rates of disease, starvation, and infant mortality in some of these very same nations with insane birthrates?
Interestingly I observed this in one of my sister's friends. The first pig he raised was named Elmo; subsequent pigs received names such as Porker, Bacon, and T-Bone.
Oh yeah, and as a sidenote, if I remember my US history correctly, all of the above happened on a fairly regular basis before the introduction of the secret ballot. We aren't talking hypotheticals here - there are unscrupulous businesses and politicians out there, and if we can do a little to protect ourselves from them, then we should.
You get rid of the tenure system, you get rid of the ability for teachers to speak freely
I agree whole-heartedly with you on this point, but I must then ask: why is it teachers in K-12 education get tenure too? Last I checked, these teachers are explicitly NOT supposed to be able to say whatever the fuck they want in a classroom, because they are instructing minors. I also don't remember the last time high school teachers were expected to publish research papers that could contain controversial theories/opinions.
In other words, the tenure option was intended for university professors, not the rest of the education system, and we might've been better off if we had kept it that way.
I would disagree about Magic's balance being because of player choice. The idea of players arranging options is no different then a "skill-based" system that several RPGs sport. It is not impossible for such a system to break. It has done so in Magic, and in RPGs, usually by someone finding some "perfect" combo of options which everyone else automatically copies. Some examples include Necropotence decks way back when, and Ravager Affinity in the Mirrodin block.
Its also still entirely possible for a single option to be overpowered. In the case of Magic, this can be loosely defined as cards that change the game into a question of which player pulls it first (and yes both players will have it because its so damn awesome). Examples include Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Will. There are even less extreme cases like Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall which are not game-winners, but cross the line by being such good enablers.
Ironically though, even Magic has its holy trinity: Aggro, Combo, Control. Pretty much EVERY and I repeat EVERY deck that has won a high-level tournament can be placed into one of these 3 categories, or on rare occasions a combination of two.
Never a single deck on top is also blatantly false; there's several occasions where Wizards has point blank admitted that to be so, and banhammered cards because of it. One particularly memorable example was the days of Mirrodin Block and Ravaffinity, in which half the decklist in question literally got banned in one go.
You are correct in that Magic tends to stay balanced, but that is solely because its so damn old. Try playing a game with only cards from when it initially came out(Alpha, Beta, would probably would have to use proxies to test this one), you'll find its so horribly fucked up broken that its beyond obscene. The balance of Magic comes from the experience of its current design team, not because "there are so many cards".
But, I think his point wasn't so much that our lack of caveman skills is a bad thing, but rather, that we have come to accept a certain amount of dependency on others. The real question then becomes, how much dependency is too much?
However, I don't think its unfair to make the conjecture that there's fewer guys that have to worry about women going for a free ride then there are women who have to worry about men that don't plan on supporting the children they produce.
That's all easily cured by people being willing to critically evaluate the source of what they're reading, and acknowledging that perhaps Fox News, CNN, or whoever else does have biases in the information they provide, and then perhaps making an effort to hear the other side. Unfortunately that is apparently too much work for most people...that, or they would rather believe the lies anyway.
Either way, blaming technology will get us nowhere. We created the tech, and we have a choice of how to use it. It is no one's fault but our own if we choose poorly.
I had a few teachers do the "reward effort" thing. In response, instead of actually putting a lot more effort in, my fellow students and I found it was much more efficient to simply fake it and simply make it look like we had put lots of "effort" into our assignments, even when we had it.
Furthermore, even if we students did honestly work harder as we should, that doesn't necessarily mean we are learning more. Do you seriously expect a teacher to be like..."Oh, you got all your problems wrong and didn't show your work, and clearly still have no grasp of what you're doing, but you studied really hard, so I should give you an A"? No.
I do agree that talent is a bit over-rated; I have a vague feeling I was a victim of this sort of over-nuturing in my younger years. Yes I say victim, because I was lucky enough to learn math concepts with little effort, and of course my teachers tended to jump up and down over what a smart little child I was. However what this did do was teach the poor habits you find so reprehensible. I learned that things were supposed to come easy, and that I wasn't supposed to have to work hard to learn stuff. Now while I did shake that gross mis-conception toward the end of high school (just in time for college thank god), there is a distinct possibility others didn't.
To me its sounding like rewards can't be a function of a single variable; you can't pass out rewards for just effort or just talent. Ideally you could reward students for actually learning things, but given that determining whether a student is learning so is so difficult, I'm not holding my breath.
I've heard PotBS is crap...which makes the story all the more sad. I mean couldn't at least get yourself addicted to a *decent* MMO?
(And yes I'm a total hypocrite when saying this as I have once again allowed my friends to con my way back into the load of fail that is Ragnarok Online...)
Outside of that extreme, I'm much more horrified by the parents who use guilt and passive-aggression to "discipline" their kids than the ones who spank their ass and then say what's done is done.
Tell me about it. My significant other's father is pretty much just that, and then some. Unsurprisingly he has some serious psych issues.
most students with anything going for them academically and intellectually will attend four-year colleges
Although your general argument is correct, I must point out that there are some academically motivated students that end up at community colleges anyway: I am one of them. My family does not have the financial resources to send me to a university for the full 4 years, and more then a few of my fellow students are in precisely the same situation.
I do notice many of the behavior and problems the GP has pointed out, and they indeed annoy me at least as much if not more.
Speak for yourself. I'm a girl with fairly little interest in having kids, but my significant other I have a feeling might be. I might be willing to reproduce for his sake, but I have made it abundantly clear to him that if he wants to have some offspring, he's going to be the one with more care-taking duties. And you can be sure I'm not going to be putting my career on hold either.
Okay, so women are designed to procreate. And men aren't? Its not news that people have kids. What is news is that (apparently) women do not enter STEM because they have kids, but that isn't stopping men. Does it thereby follow that men in science careers have fewer kids? Or is it that having a family is usually ends up more time-consuming for a woman because women are expected to be the primary care-givers?
I don't necessarily agree with either explanation, but simply wish to point out that it could be either one, or both, or something else entirely.
Slashdot Mirror
I would say what matters even more is the fact that parents care about their child's education in the first place. Both my parents are teachers, and from what I have gathered from them, the worst problem children come from families who don't care. I'm referring to parents who don't check their kid's report card, doesn't see to it that homework is getting done, and sometimes isn't even bothering to make sure the kid is actually at school at all. A child quickly learns from this attitude that their academics don't matter, and thus most of them stop putting any effort into it.
Home-schooled children by definition have parents who care, be it for religious reasons or not. And really, even an education mutilated by religious concerns is still better for a child then absolutely no education at all, which is what happens for some in public schools. Instead of crying about parents caring enough to intervene in their child's education, I think we need to worry much more about the children who have no one to care for them at all.
Odd that you mention that, because my mother worried about the exact thing when I was younger. When going through a foreign airport while we switched flights, she told us to keep quiet; she figured if me and my brother started going on about some video game, the only word out of the conversation that'll easily get recognized is "bomb" (or variations thereof), and the airport security would freak. That was pre-9/11, oh the fun it must be now...
I could be sued for breaking a rib while saving their lives.
Have to call shenanigans on this one... My CPR instructor actually directly stated 1. This probably can and will happen, and 2. You can't get sued unless the person in question dies, even if you aren't certified or whatnot, due to there being "Good Samaritan Laws" - read, this guy just saved your ass, stop whining about it.
Has anyone noticed that the most "modern", "advance", "civilized", and "liberal" nations in the world have a decreasing fertility rate, while the barbarians continue to breed? Has anyone noticed the invasion of those "civilized" nations taking place all around us?
Uhhh... have you also noticed the shockingly high rates of disease, starvation, and infant mortality in some of these very same nations with insane birthrates?
Actually since they recently added the ability to grow flowers, I was wondering what level unlocks Poppies...
Interestingly I observed this in one of my sister's friends. The first pig he raised was named Elmo; subsequent pigs received names such as Porker, Bacon, and T-Bone.
Oh yeah, and as a sidenote, if I remember my US history correctly, all of the above happened on a fairly regular basis before the introduction of the secret ballot. We aren't talking hypotheticals here - there are unscrupulous businesses and politicians out there, and if we can do a little to protect ourselves from them, then we should.
You get rid of the tenure system, you get rid of the ability for teachers to speak freely
I agree whole-heartedly with you on this point, but I must then ask: why is it teachers in K-12 education get tenure too? Last I checked, these teachers are explicitly NOT supposed to be able to say whatever the fuck they want in a classroom, because they are instructing minors. I also don't remember the last time high school teachers were expected to publish research papers that could contain controversial theories/opinions.
In other words, the tenure option was intended for university professors, not the rest of the education system, and we might've been better off if we had kept it that way.
I hate to say it, but all the "informing" isn't going to do a lick of good, because the almighty public isn't listening.
I would disagree about Magic's balance being because of player choice. The idea of players arranging options is no different then a "skill-based" system that several RPGs sport. It is not impossible for such a system to break. It has done so in Magic, and in RPGs, usually by someone finding some "perfect" combo of options which everyone else automatically copies. Some examples include Necropotence decks way back when, and Ravager Affinity in the Mirrodin block.
Its also still entirely possible for a single option to be overpowered. In the case of Magic, this can be loosely defined as cards that change the game into a question of which player pulls it first (and yes both players will have it because its so damn awesome). Examples include Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Will. There are even less extreme cases like Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall which are not game-winners, but cross the line by being such good enablers.
Ironically though, even Magic has its holy trinity: Aggro, Combo, Control. Pretty much EVERY and I repeat EVERY deck that has won a high-level tournament can be placed into one of these 3 categories, or on rare occasions a combination of two.
Never a single deck on top is also blatantly false; there's several occasions where Wizards has point blank admitted that to be so, and banhammered cards because of it. One particularly memorable example was the days of Mirrodin Block and Ravaffinity, in which half the decklist in question literally got banned in one go.
You are correct in that Magic tends to stay balanced, but that is solely because its so damn old. Try playing a game with only cards from when it initially came out(Alpha, Beta, would probably would have to use proxies to test this one), you'll find its so horribly fucked up broken that its beyond obscene. The balance of Magic comes from the experience of its current design team, not because "there are so many cards".
But, I think his point wasn't so much that our lack of caveman skills is a bad thing, but rather, that we have come to accept a certain amount of dependency on others. The real question then becomes, how much dependency is too much?
Godwin'd.
Haven't I seen this (word-for-word) post before...
Hmmm. Some AC really thinks he's got a point to make...
However, I don't think its unfair to make the conjecture that there's fewer guys that have to worry about women going for a free ride then there are women who have to worry about men that don't plan on supporting the children they produce.
That's all easily cured by people being willing to critically evaluate the source of what they're reading, and acknowledging that perhaps Fox News, CNN, or whoever else does have biases in the information they provide, and then perhaps making an effort to hear the other side. Unfortunately that is apparently too much work for most people...that, or they would rather believe the lies anyway.
Either way, blaming technology will get us nowhere. We created the tech, and we have a choice of how to use it. It is no one's fault but our own if we choose poorly.
the downside is endless distraction for those who lack self restraint.
That may be so, but I think a more reasonable response to that would be to develop some self-restraint instead of simply blaming the internet.
That's all well in good but...
I had a few teachers do the "reward effort" thing. In response, instead of actually putting a lot more effort in, my fellow students and I found it was much more efficient to simply fake it and simply make it look like we had put lots of "effort" into our assignments, even when we had it.
Furthermore, even if we students did honestly work harder as we should, that doesn't necessarily mean we are learning more. Do you seriously expect a teacher to be like..."Oh, you got all your problems wrong and didn't show your work, and clearly still have no grasp of what you're doing, but you studied really hard, so I should give you an A"? No.
I do agree that talent is a bit over-rated; I have a vague feeling I was a victim of this sort of over-nuturing in my younger years. Yes I say victim, because I was lucky enough to learn math concepts with little effort, and of course my teachers tended to jump up and down over what a smart little child I was. However what this did do was teach the poor habits you find so reprehensible. I learned that things were supposed to come easy, and that I wasn't supposed to have to work hard to learn stuff. Now while I did shake that gross mis-conception toward the end of high school (just in time for college thank god), there is a distinct possibility others didn't.
To me its sounding like rewards can't be a function of a single variable; you can't pass out rewards for just effort or just talent. Ideally you could reward students for actually learning things, but given that determining whether a student is learning so is so difficult, I'm not holding my breath.
I've heard PotBS is crap...which makes the story all the more sad. I mean couldn't at least get yourself addicted to a *decent* MMO?
(And yes I'm a total hypocrite when saying this as I have once again allowed my friends to con my way back into the load of fail that is Ragnarok Online...)
Outside of that extreme, I'm much more horrified by the parents who use guilt and passive-aggression to "discipline" their kids than the ones who spank their ass and then say what's done is done.
Tell me about it. My significant other's father is pretty much just that, and then some. Unsurprisingly he has some serious psych issues.
You do know he's probably joking...
right?
most students with anything going for them academically and intellectually will attend four-year colleges
Although your general argument is correct, I must point out that there are some academically motivated students that end up at community colleges anyway: I am one of them. My family does not have the financial resources to send me to a university for the full 4 years, and more then a few of my fellow students are in precisely the same situation.
I do notice many of the behavior and problems the GP has pointed out, and they indeed annoy me at least as much if not more.
Speak for yourself. I'm a girl with fairly little interest in having kids, but my significant other I have a feeling might be. I might be willing to reproduce for his sake, but I have made it abundantly clear to him that if he wants to have some offspring, he's going to be the one with more care-taking duties. And you can be sure I'm not going to be putting my career on hold either.
Simple question: are those young doctorate students the primary care-giver for their kids?
Chances are the answer is no - most of their time is spent working, while kids are taken care of by their spouse.
Note that this is probably true regardless of whether said young doctorate student is male or female.
Okay, so women are designed to procreate. And men aren't? Its not news that people have kids. What is news is that (apparently) women do not enter STEM because they have kids, but that isn't stopping men. Does it thereby follow that men in science careers have fewer kids? Or is it that having a family is usually ends up more time-consuming for a woman because women are expected to be the primary care-givers?
I don't necessarily agree with either explanation, but simply wish to point out that it could be either one, or both, or something else entirely.