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The people 'releasing things into the environment' say they've analyzed the substance in question and found it safe.
Correct me if I'm wrong but this works much like the rating agencies in that the people assessing are paid by the people having something assessed and have a financial interest in returning favorable (for the customer) results?
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On June 18 2019 06:06 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +The people 'releasing things into the environment' say they've analyzed the substance in question and found it safe. Correct me if I'm wrong but this works much like the rating agencies in that the people assessing are paid by the people having something assessed and have a financial interest in returning favorable (for the customer) results?
Not always, but the rules are still totally bogus. All you gotta do is convince someone "x is similar to y, so as long as we show ____, we should be good". Its a load of shit. The processes big companies go through to qualify a new chemical or manufacturing process is wildly insufficient.
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On June 18 2019 06:06 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +The people 'releasing things into the environment' say they've analyzed the substance in question and found it safe. Correct me if I'm wrong but this works much like the rating agencies in that the people assessing are paid by the people having something assessed and have a financial interest in returning favorable (for the customer) results?
It doesn't work like that at all.
If a lab is going to analyze a sample, they require certification to do the test. This doesn't cut out possible cheating on results, but if a lab gets caught, the certification is gone and the business dies.
I work in an environmental lab in the UK and this sort of shit never happens, because it wouldn't be worth it at all in the long term. Its not as if this client would still use the lab once the certification is gone.
If it'll help I'll relay my exact experience in regards to this. The company I work for has clients ranging from tiny to huge businesses. Although GH is correct that there is short term financial motive to provide them with results that they want, the long term risk would be far too high due to auditing and compliance programs that are very strict (rightly so). This applies with the EPA in the US as much as it does here in the UK.
During an audit, methods are chosen semi-randomly and absolutely everything about the performance of that method for the year is gone through for anomalies (such as different staff on days where results were odd), evidence of poor procedure, recording of results, quality checks etc. etc.
Results are recorded automatically on machines that run samples, and the software is password protected and everything you do is pretty much recorded and kept.
Serious breaches lead to immediate withdrawal of certification. I was speaking to an auditor last year who said the vast majority of these cases are now companies who self refer due to finding problems in their internal auditing. Punishments handed out by the certification issuer are far harsher than if a company voluntarily temporarily withdraws certification while they deal with an issue they have found their selves. Its rare for a company to lose business if they voluntarily withdraw certification for a month or two on a single method.
This isn't to say cheating couldn't happen, but for sure if we ever do a high profile test on something important that method gets audited every single time so its pretty much impossible unless every staff member involved (usually 5-6 people) are in on it.
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I think the distinction should be made that how scientific inquiry happens and how big business operates in terms of studying something is wholly different. Scientific inquiry is a lot more rigorous afaik. Personal, university, and corporate reputations are on the line. Big business can get away with a half truth in their reporting. Hassan Mhinaj just did a bit on internet last night?
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Exxon's internal research had the same findings as non-corporate climate science as early as the mid 70s. While publicly they continued to deny it and fund climate change denial until just 10 years ago.
Now they are no longer denying it and we still have these completely absurd arguments about how ""scientific"" man made climate change is whenever some guy rolls up pigeonholing whatever last book he read into the topic thinking he discovered something that was missed. It's no different than the tobacco story, we're simply not in the entirely accepted effects phase everywhere just yet.
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On June 18 2019 02:28 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 01:22 Pangpootata wrote:On June 18 2019 00:49 Dan HH wrote:On June 17 2019 20:35 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 23:51 Dan HH wrote:On June 16 2019 15:22 Pangpootata wrote:
Anyone with basic statistical or data science ability can see that all existing climate models have pretty bad prediction R2 scores when going forward on real validation data (not past data it has been fitted on). This is due to the multi-collinearity of so many different human and environmental factors, and the large amount of noise in environmental data. Mechanistic models of the greenhouse effect fare even worse. So when "scientists" push climate theories that pin all the blame on greenhouse gases, they aren't following the scientific method at all, which is to make a model based on their hypothesis and use future data to confirm the model accuracy.
There is no reason or fact in the debate about climate change. We have uncertainty about exactly how different human actions affect the climate. The left pushes climate theories based on Baconian inductivism instead of Popperian falsification, pins most of the blame on CO2, and demonizes everyone who disagrees with them. The right says they lack evidence and it can't be proven, so we should continue what we have been doing.
I'd usually avoid taking the bait from epistemology knights attempting to find a technicality that would deem science as unscientific but given the importance of this particular topic and the swathes of unnecessary confusion on the topic, here are the claims and why all of them are falsifiable: 1. Greenhouse gases such as CO2 absorb infrared radiation, trapping heat. This can be falsified by direct experimental evidence such spectroscopic laboratory measurements showing otherwise. 2. Human activity is increasing the amount of GHG in the atmosphere. This can be falsified by measurements from the atmosphere showing GHG not to follow human trends in emissions OR by finding a different source accounting for more of the increase. 3. The amount of radiation leaving the Earth is decreasing. This can be falsified by direct experimental evidence from satellites measuring infrared spectra which would not find drops in outgoing radiation at the wavelenghts at which GHG absorb energy. 4. The Earth is accumulating heat. This can be falsified by direct temperature overall measurements showing otherwise. 5. The GHG increase in the atmosphere is he primary cause of the accumulation of heat. This can be falsified by showing GHG energy absorption to be incapable of accounting for most of the heat increase OR by finding a larger source such as ingoing solar radiation. 6. Where GHG concentrations are decreasing (the stratosphere), temperature is decreasing as well. Again this can be falsified by direct measurements from satellites showing otherwise. The accuracy of climate models has no bearing whatsoever on GHG being the main culprit. In the same sense that the accuracy of a model predicting what traits species of animals will have in the future has no bearing whatsoever on selection being the main culprit of biological changes. Your take betrays a lack of understanding of Popper. AGW is not a hypothesis in his sense of the word, it is theory that encompasses a myriad of hypotheses, each of them falsifiable. The biggest mistake you make is confusing falsifiability with the feasibility of a litmus test. With this mistake, a heliocentric model in the 18th century would be unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. Whereas the different hypotheses encompassing a heliocentric model were entirely falsifiable by various things from shadows to existing mathematical knowledge at the time, despite not being able to go to space and falsify the theory as a whole in one swoop. To this day we are still testing and providing additional proof for some of Enstein's theories and various other well known accepted theories in a way that wasn't technologically possible at the time, but that doesn't mean that the proofs that could be done at the time weren't enough or scientific. The falsifiability attack on climate "science" relies on interpreting the scientific method in very much the same manner that a sovereign citizen interprets a constitution. Yes of course GHG is a factor in the Earth's temperature. You can falsify that GHG affects temperature (which is what all 6 of your points are about), but you can't falsify exactly how much of Earth's temperature change is due to GHG. With so much multi-collinearity with other factors, interactive effects between them, and noise in temperature trends, there is no model or theory that can tell how much of Earth's increased variance in temperature is due to GHG instead of other anthropological factors. The scientific method is to make a hypothesis and test it. In this case it would be to make a model and get good predictions with it on out-of-sample validation data. Climate modelling has wasted a lot of taxpayer money, but produced poor results. My point is that the over reliance on the predictions of "experts" is dangerous to humanity. What is likely to kill us are not the pollutants that we already have theories of harmfulness about. The epistemic risk comes from the things we are releasing into the environment that we do not know are harmful yet. At every stage of scientific history, we have realized that something we were doing in the past has been really harmful. It would be abject foolishness not to understand that the future will be likewise. The "experts" of the past are the fools of the present. The "experts" of the present are the fools of the future. By pinning most of the blame on CO2 (which accounts only for PART of climate change), and claiming that fixing this one thing can save the Earth, leftist political propaganda is exposing us to other risks as well. My argument is that we do not need to know or prove something is harmful to restrict the levels of it in the environment. By increasing levels of what we emit into the environment, we have a finite financial benefit for a possible extinction of humanity which is an infinite loss (think of a payoff matrix like Pascal's wager). The burden of proof should be on the people releasing anything into the environment to prove it is safe, not from other people to prove it is harmful. Decision making under constraints of uncertainty is paramount. Danger comes from unwavering belief in models or theories and over reliance on forecasts from "experts". We do not need to know facts (some of which we can never confirm to be true or false) to make good decisions in life. Please don't quote people if you're going to ignore everything in that quote and keep preaching. Yes you can falsify how much of the increase in temperature is due to GHG by finding the proverbial black swan that accounts for more of it than the clearly observable increase in ppm of the GHGs released by human activity. Yes the scientific method is (partly) to make a hypothesis and test it. The temperature will by x by x date is not a necessary hypothesis to climate science. I have listed you most of the key hypotheses on AGW and how they are tested and how they can be falsified with available tools. The over reliance on predictions of experts has been entirely yours in this discussion. Climate models do not pretend to show anything more than long term trends and don't need to. Both I and Kwark have given you examples of theories whose validity not only does not rely on pinpoint predictions, but where it is absurd to expect one. It would indeed be nice to be able to simulate the universe or the Earth but not being able to do so doesn't mean we can't know anything about them. No one is claiming that eliminating CO2 emissions is going to fix or cool the Earth, it's merely going to reduce the damage. If we cease releasing greenhouse gases (that we have control over) the temperature is still going to increase until it finds a new equilibrium, it will simply find it sooner and at a lower temperature than if we don't. Just like how Pascal's wager is one only the choir finds persuasive, telling people that think climate change is propaganda to put convenience aside just in case is not going to cut it. No wager is necessary when the base statement is irrefutable: we've been moving gases that are good at trapping energy from underground, and precisely because they are good at trapping energy, into the atmosphere where they trap energy from leaving the Earth. The main point is that our confidence level about the exact effects of CO2 is immaterial to climate policy. If you don't really get what I'm saying, let me spell it out in simple terms. Left wing climate argument -> Let's regulate things that our experts have theories about Right wing climate argument -> Let's not regulate because we don't have enough proof What I am saying -> We don't need proof or theory to regulate things we pump into the environment. The burden of proof should be on the people releasing things into the environment. If you see a puddle of water on the floor, do you drink it unless you have proof it is harmful? Or do you not drink it until you have proof it is safe? There are many things that "experts" don't know about. Every couple of years we find out something we have been releasing in the past is harmful, and try to regulate it. Something we don't know is harmful right now is going to kill us in future. Releasing too much CO2 in the atmosphere is bad, but there are many other things we don't know about that might be worse. People need to stop focusing specifically on the theories about CO2, and start creating a general heuristic to protect society against all existential threats. If you wait 40 years and look at how much the scientific conversation about climate change has changed then, you will realize I am right. Actually, just look 40 years into the past and see how much the scientific conversation about climate change has changed already. That's how it already works. The people 'releasing things into the environment' say they've analyzed the substance in question and found it safe. See agricultural companies on roundup or oil companies on CO2 or construction companies on asbestos. Now what? How do you review their purported findings if not through observation, measurement, experiment, formulation, testing? By ""experts"" of course, if you want non experts to do it you have to teach them how to and sadly they become experts in the process, losing their credibility to you. Now if you can't get people to agree on restricting substances that are proven to have a negative effect on people's health, how do you get them to agree on restricting substances by default until their are proven otherwise? Especially since no one has the credibility to prove it either way in the eyes of the public. On this particular topic "Let's not regulate because we don't have enough proof" is not a real position today. It was in the past, but now even Shell has PR initiatives about how to offset CO2 emissions. The position is more akin to "Let's not regulate because we don't know if we can make a dent and the guy next door won't do it" If your only point were that you are an enlightened middleman smarter than the left and right I wouldn't have answered. I answered your more tangible point that AGW is unfalsifiable and unscientific by showing you how each of the hypotheses that it relies on is falsifiable with available tools and how you misrepresented and misapplied the concept of falsifiability. You've ignored all this. Edit: I forgot about the puddle, whether I'd drink from it depends on how thirsty I am and whether there are presumably safer sources around. This doesn't quite work on energy, pesticides, etc largely due to the water analogy not requiring any sacrifices to not drink from the puddle without auxiliary conditions.
That is primarily due to too low of a standard required in proof of safety. It's easy to test that something is not harmful to lifeforms directly. But with the difficulty of testing indirect environmental effects, we need a very high standard of proof on this aspect.
Shell and Exxon have pivoted (large corporations have to take mainstream positions), but your average right wing voter have not. What i am saying exists very much today.
I am hardly a middleman when what i am proposing is even more restrictive than current left wing policy. First order logic - i ban things i find are bad. Higher order logic - how do we protect against things we dont know are bad yet? E.g. we still dont know what is causing colony collapse disorder, amongst other environmental issues.
You misread my stance on GHG caused AGW. Right from the start i have been agreeable that we can prove GHG does warm the earth. What i find unfalsifiable is how much of today's climate change is due to GHG and not some other known or unknown factor.
Your hard-nosed approach on relying on scientific experts is part of the reason why there is this polarized left and right wing situation in the US today. To a religious conservative, he doesn't believe in your expert. His expert is God and it is easier to tell him not to disturb or destroy God's creations. We need climate arguments that do not rely on experts to make decisions.
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there is short term financial motive to provide them with results that they want, the long term risk would be far too high
Greenspan learned he was wrong about this the hard way, I suppose the suggestion is that the scientific community is somehow beyond this?
Not absurd, but I'm skeptical.
A lack of accountability seems to be a pretty universal phenomena when profit is in play. Granted many European countries seem to be leaps and bounds ahead of the US on that front, I'm not sure that translates. The other aspect that comes to mind is the US's frequent habit of legalizing criminal behavior that's profitable.
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On June 18 2019 08:20 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote + there is short term financial motive to provide them with results that they want, the long term risk would be far too high Greenspan learned he was wrong about this the hard way, I suppose the suggestion is that the scientific community is somehow beyond this? Not absurd, but I'm skeptical. A lack of accountability seems to be a pretty universal phenomena when profit is in play. Granted many European countries seem to be leaps and bounds ahead of the US on that front, I'm not sure that translates. The other aspect that comes to mind is the US's frequent habit of legalizing criminal behavior that's profitable.
This is what I would be much more worried about. What exactly does the EPA define as 'safe'?
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On June 17 2019 11:32 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. I'm not on board with putting so much blame on parents (maybe this is something that happens at the schools that teach critical thinking and aren't awful, like the ones most here seemed to attend?) at all but what really confuses me is Show nested quote +GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system That makes absolutely no sense to me? Can anyone explain this "grand conspiracy" as they imagine/interpreted it? If no one can articulate it, can we retract it? Show nested quote +On June 17 2019 11:09 iamthedave wrote:On June 17 2019 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 01:18 iamthedave wrote:On June 16 2019 15:50 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 15:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 16 2019 15:22 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 14:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 16 2019 13:51 Danglars wrote:On June 16 2019 11:31 Pangpootata wrote:
Since we're debating about debates, let us think about what the point of a debate is.
If one is a logical and fair-minded person, the purpose of a debate is to find truth or weigh value judgements. One would go into a debate with an open mind, and be willing to concede to superior points.
But of course in modern western-style democracy this is never going to happen. The optimal heuristic is "I am always correct and I going to keep arguing and never concede no matter what". It's the only way to get elected.
This behavior is true of politicians and true of most average people as well. What percentage of people whom you know always argue fairly?
Televised debates are held by networks for their own ratings, it's commercially motivated. Most people who watch debates have already made up their minds. They will watch it and then proceed to post on the internet about how their candidate is very good and the other one is very bad. Very few actually come in with an open mind.
Hence, the optimal strategy (for maximizing political capital) in a televised debate is to use it as a platform to drum up your own voter enthusiasm. Trump does this very well, he knows that logic doesn't work on most people and he can say anything he wants as long as it fulfills the purpose of getting his supporters emotionally charged up. Trump is actually a pretty skillful political operator, whether by intent or chance. I'm with you on your point about politicians and the political debates among nominees. I'm even a little optimistic with large fields in that political points and lines of disagreement spawn a host of news articles and provoke reading afterwards. I like the increase in exposure to counterarguments even if they're phrased in sound bites. My other point is in weighing value judgments. Like it or not, people will vigorously disagree on what law and society should value. They'll do it to the point where it appears to outside observers that they don't have an "open mind" and are unwilling to concede. The societal values disagreements only scratches the surface on that topic. The largest one is weighing freedom vs safety. Not all policy disagreements stem from big gaps in values, but sometimes the gulf between policies is so large that bridging it in a series of debates is unlikely. It might take over a dozen new individuals debating in some capacity over a period of many years. It's also going to look like somebody's arguing in bad faith, simply because one can't wrap their minds around any of the framework supporting the contrary idea. That relates directly to your point: politicians are better off assuming one conclusion from the priors and debating from that, for example, that increased government control and subsidization of the medical industry is the right direction for prices and availability. It's also a key feature of the American republic. What we can't agree on, we'll take to the ballot box. What most affects me will be decided by state and local, where several states may disagree and have totally different systems and be equally happy with the result. Aristotle pondered these questions thousands of years ago and yet here we are. I think the idea that we can have public debates/discussions where people change their minds based on reason and fact presupposes a population that doesn't exist. That's to say our democracy isn't very good at settling matters of fact in which people maintain false beliefs. Climate change is a pretty good example of that. I wouldn't call it a false belief. In fact, climate change is a good example of facts that are not falsifiable. Based on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, we already know that there will be certain things that math or science can never prove conclusively to be true or false. Anyone with basic statistical or data science ability can see that all existing climate models have pretty bad prediction R2 scores when going forward on real validation data (not past data it has been fitted on). This is due to the multi-collinearity of so many different human and environmental factors, and the large amount of noise in environmental data. Mechanistic models of the greenhouse effect fare even worse. So when "scientists" push climate theories that pin all the blame on greenhouse gases, they aren't following the scientific method at all, which is to make a model based on their hypothesis and use future data to confirm the model accuracy. There is no reason or fact in the debate about climate change. We have uncertainty about exactly how different human actions affect the climate. The left pushes climate theories based on Baconian inductivism instead of Popperian falsification, pins most of the blame on CO2, and demonizes everyone who disagrees with them. The right says they lack evidence and it can't be proven, so we should continue what we have been doing. The most reasonable argument I have read about climate change is the one Taleb makes in his book Antifragile. If there is uncertainty about the impact of our actions, but if there is a small chance it could be catastrophic, we should not do it at all. If I want to release a gas that might harm people, the burden of proof should be on me to proof that the gas is safe, not on other people to prove the gas is dangerous. This is an argument based on decision making under uncertainty, and not based on confidence in the correctness of models from "experts" that consume taxpayer money and produce poor predictions. Been so long since I've seen such a good critique that I just want to acquiesce in entirety to it. I think I will, and just agree. EDIT: Just add that I think we also agree that sort of critical decision making presupposes a population/system we don't currently have (but could)? Yes I agree. The modern education system is designed to indoctrinate people with "facts" instead of teaching critical reasoning skills (probably has been like that since the beginning of time). Well if you think about it, from the beginning of time there really wasn't much of an education 'system'. You had 'clusters' of educated people educating others as best they could using the knowledge they'd acquired; it wasn't until relatively recently that humans invented a proper 'system'. The Greek system - since we're mentioning Aristotle and co - mostly involved a single teacher and classes of like ten rich kids, and even then the quality varied immensely. The situation today is because we've decided on a semi-arbitrary 'standard' of education that we want everyone to have. I don't believe the education system today is the worst; but it could definitely be better. With wild variation depending on which country you live in, of course. Just curious what you're referencing with "the quality varied immensely"? The Greeks - as far as we know - had no real concept of a curriculum, so it mostly came down to whatever your teacher thought you needed to know. I'm sure you can imagine the difference in quality of education (and content) that Therestones down the road and, say, Plato or Socrates would provide. Not saying either of them were employed as teachers per se but it wouldn't surprise me if they were (little details like that are mostly long lost to history). I don't think it's a completely unreasonable assumption, I just thought you might be referencing something specific.
Feels weird to respond to just part of that post so I'll try the rest too: No, no specific reference, just a general area of knowledge of mine. I've studied Greek history extensively for years to help with creative projects, and one of my exes is a legitimate archaeologist who specialises in Greek and Roman history, so I've learned a lot about the real and assumed bits of history and culture about the Greeks/Romans and read a load of books on the subject. The Greeks get a good rap for the high points but people really only think about Athens (a legitimate centre of culture and learning) when they think about Greece, especially when it comes to philosophers. It's kind of like people saying 'The Western World' and thinking America.
It's not an accident that those great thinkers were pointing out the problems with Democracy the day after they invented it, nor that some of the same group considered Democracy to be a dreadful idea.
As to the point about parental blame for education; I agree with you. Socio-economic factors play a larger part. Parents don't encourage their kids to learn at school when they know deep down their kids have no future because of the environment they grow up in.
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On June 18 2019 05:48 Aveng3r wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. Looks like the discussion on this died down a bit but I had one thing to add - My experience with the food that was served all throughout my school years was terribly unhealthy, and I actually went to a good one that did well in all the areas called out above. It was a constant offering of chicken nuggets, tator tots, pizza, you name it. It is amazing that I made it out without a serious weight problem, and I would venture a guess that our school systems are a major contributor to the obesity problem that many adults fight later on in their life.
Especially if physical education isn't being required in certain schools! But yeah, Michelle Obama tried to make sure that students were having healthy alternatives and she got an incredible amount of derision leveled at her by the right.
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On June 18 2019 09:33 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2019 11:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. I'm not on board with putting so much blame on parents (maybe this is something that happens at the schools that teach critical thinking and aren't awful, like the ones most here seemed to attend?) at all but what really confuses me is GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system That makes absolutely no sense to me? Can anyone explain this "grand conspiracy" as they imagine/interpreted it? If no one can articulate it, can we retract it? On June 17 2019 11:09 iamthedave wrote:On June 17 2019 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 01:18 iamthedave wrote:On June 16 2019 15:50 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 15:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 16 2019 15:22 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 14:13 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 16 2019 13:51 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
I'm with you on your point about politicians and the political debates among nominees. I'm even a little optimistic with large fields in that political points and lines of disagreement spawn a host of news articles and provoke reading afterwards. I like the increase in exposure to counterarguments even if they're phrased in sound bites.
My other point is in weighing value judgments. Like it or not, people will vigorously disagree on what law and society should value. They'll do it to the point where it appears to outside observers that they don't have an "open mind" and are unwilling to concede. The societal values disagreements only scratches the surface on that topic. The largest one is weighing freedom vs safety.
Not all policy disagreements stem from big gaps in values, but sometimes the gulf between policies is so large that bridging it in a series of debates is unlikely. It might take over a dozen new individuals debating in some capacity over a period of many years. It's also going to look like somebody's arguing in bad faith, simply because one can't wrap their minds around any of the framework supporting the contrary idea. That relates directly to your point: politicians are better off assuming one conclusion from the priors and debating from that, for example, that increased government control and subsidization of the medical industry is the right direction for prices and availability. It's also a key feature of the American republic. What we can't agree on, we'll take to the ballot box. What most affects me will be decided by state and local, where several states may disagree and have totally different systems and be equally happy with the result. Aristotle pondered these questions thousands of years ago and yet here we are. I think the idea that we can have public debates/discussions where people change their minds based on reason and fact presupposes a population that doesn't exist. That's to say our democracy isn't very good at settling matters of fact in which people maintain false beliefs. Climate change is a pretty good example of that. I wouldn't call it a false belief. In fact, climate change is a good example of facts that are not falsifiable. Based on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, we already know that there will be certain things that math or science can never prove conclusively to be true or false. Anyone with basic statistical or data science ability can see that all existing climate models have pretty bad prediction R2 scores when going forward on real validation data (not past data it has been fitted on). This is due to the multi-collinearity of so many different human and environmental factors, and the large amount of noise in environmental data. Mechanistic models of the greenhouse effect fare even worse. So when "scientists" push climate theories that pin all the blame on greenhouse gases, they aren't following the scientific method at all, which is to make a model based on their hypothesis and use future data to confirm the model accuracy. There is no reason or fact in the debate about climate change. We have uncertainty about exactly how different human actions affect the climate. The left pushes climate theories based on Baconian inductivism instead of Popperian falsification, pins most of the blame on CO2, and demonizes everyone who disagrees with them. The right says they lack evidence and it can't be proven, so we should continue what we have been doing. The most reasonable argument I have read about climate change is the one Taleb makes in his book Antifragile. If there is uncertainty about the impact of our actions, but if there is a small chance it could be catastrophic, we should not do it at all. If I want to release a gas that might harm people, the burden of proof should be on me to proof that the gas is safe, not on other people to prove the gas is dangerous. This is an argument based on decision making under uncertainty, and not based on confidence in the correctness of models from "experts" that consume taxpayer money and produce poor predictions. Been so long since I've seen such a good critique that I just want to acquiesce in entirety to it. I think I will, and just agree. EDIT: Just add that I think we also agree that sort of critical decision making presupposes a population/system we don't currently have (but could)? Yes I agree. The modern education system is designed to indoctrinate people with "facts" instead of teaching critical reasoning skills (probably has been like that since the beginning of time). Well if you think about it, from the beginning of time there really wasn't much of an education 'system'. You had 'clusters' of educated people educating others as best they could using the knowledge they'd acquired; it wasn't until relatively recently that humans invented a proper 'system'. The Greek system - since we're mentioning Aristotle and co - mostly involved a single teacher and classes of like ten rich kids, and even then the quality varied immensely. The situation today is because we've decided on a semi-arbitrary 'standard' of education that we want everyone to have. I don't believe the education system today is the worst; but it could definitely be better. With wild variation depending on which country you live in, of course. Just curious what you're referencing with "the quality varied immensely"? The Greeks - as far as we know - had no real concept of a curriculum, so it mostly came down to whatever your teacher thought you needed to know. I'm sure you can imagine the difference in quality of education (and content) that Therestones down the road and, say, Plato or Socrates would provide. Not saying either of them were employed as teachers per se but it wouldn't surprise me if they were (little details like that are mostly long lost to history). I don't think it's a completely unreasonable assumption, I just thought you might be referencing something specific. Feels weird to respond to just part of that post so I'll try the rest too: No, no specific reference, just a general area of knowledge of mine. I've studied Greek history extensively for years to help with creative projects, and one of my exes is a legitimate archaeologist who specialises in Greek and Roman history, so I've learned a lot about the real and assumed bits of history and culture about the Greeks/Romans and read a load of books on the subject. The Greeks get a good rap for the high points but people really only think about Athens (a legitimate centre of culture and learning) when they think about Greece, especially when it comes to philosophers. It's kind of like people saying 'The Western World' and thinking America. It's not an accident that those great thinkers were pointing out the problems with Democracy the day after they invented it, nor that some of the same group considered Democracy to be a dreadful idea. As to the point about parental blame for education; I agree with you. Socio-economic factors play a larger part. Parents don't encourage their kids to learn at school when they know deep down their kids have no future because of the environment they grow up in.
But parents are ultimately responsible for the person they raise until a certain age. You hear all the time of kids that come from really bad neighborhoods making it out and becoming wildly successful. If you give a damn about your child, you won't let the environment ruin their future. As much as you can control anyway.
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On June 18 2019 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 09:33 iamthedave wrote:On June 17 2019 11:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. I'm not on board with putting so much blame on parents (maybe this is something that happens at the schools that teach critical thinking and aren't awful, like the ones most here seemed to attend?) at all but what really confuses me is GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system That makes absolutely no sense to me? Can anyone explain this "grand conspiracy" as they imagine/interpreted it? If no one can articulate it, can we retract it? On June 17 2019 11:09 iamthedave wrote:On June 17 2019 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 01:18 iamthedave wrote:On June 16 2019 15:50 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 15:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 16 2019 15:22 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 14:13 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Aristotle pondered these questions thousands of years ago and yet here we are.
I think the idea that we can have public debates/discussions where people change their minds based on reason and fact presupposes a population that doesn't exist.
That's to say our democracy isn't very good at settling matters of fact in which people maintain false beliefs. Climate change is a pretty good example of that. I wouldn't call it a false belief. In fact, climate change is a good example of facts that are not falsifiable. Based on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, we already know that there will be certain things that math or science can never prove conclusively to be true or false. Anyone with basic statistical or data science ability can see that all existing climate models have pretty bad prediction R2 scores when going forward on real validation data (not past data it has been fitted on). This is due to the multi-collinearity of so many different human and environmental factors, and the large amount of noise in environmental data. Mechanistic models of the greenhouse effect fare even worse. So when "scientists" push climate theories that pin all the blame on greenhouse gases, they aren't following the scientific method at all, which is to make a model based on their hypothesis and use future data to confirm the model accuracy. There is no reason or fact in the debate about climate change. We have uncertainty about exactly how different human actions affect the climate. The left pushes climate theories based on Baconian inductivism instead of Popperian falsification, pins most of the blame on CO2, and demonizes everyone who disagrees with them. The right says they lack evidence and it can't be proven, so we should continue what we have been doing. The most reasonable argument I have read about climate change is the one Taleb makes in his book Antifragile. If there is uncertainty about the impact of our actions, but if there is a small chance it could be catastrophic, we should not do it at all. If I want to release a gas that might harm people, the burden of proof should be on me to proof that the gas is safe, not on other people to prove the gas is dangerous. This is an argument based on decision making under uncertainty, and not based on confidence in the correctness of models from "experts" that consume taxpayer money and produce poor predictions. Been so long since I've seen such a good critique that I just want to acquiesce in entirety to it. I think I will, and just agree. EDIT: Just add that I think we also agree that sort of critical decision making presupposes a population/system we don't currently have (but could)? Yes I agree. The modern education system is designed to indoctrinate people with "facts" instead of teaching critical reasoning skills (probably has been like that since the beginning of time). Well if you think about it, from the beginning of time there really wasn't much of an education 'system'. You had 'clusters' of educated people educating others as best they could using the knowledge they'd acquired; it wasn't until relatively recently that humans invented a proper 'system'. The Greek system - since we're mentioning Aristotle and co - mostly involved a single teacher and classes of like ten rich kids, and even then the quality varied immensely. The situation today is because we've decided on a semi-arbitrary 'standard' of education that we want everyone to have. I don't believe the education system today is the worst; but it could definitely be better. With wild variation depending on which country you live in, of course. Just curious what you're referencing with "the quality varied immensely"? The Greeks - as far as we know - had no real concept of a curriculum, so it mostly came down to whatever your teacher thought you needed to know. I'm sure you can imagine the difference in quality of education (and content) that Therestones down the road and, say, Plato or Socrates would provide. Not saying either of them were employed as teachers per se but it wouldn't surprise me if they were (little details like that are mostly long lost to history). I don't think it's a completely unreasonable assumption, I just thought you might be referencing something specific. Feels weird to respond to just part of that post so I'll try the rest too: No, no specific reference, just a general area of knowledge of mine. I've studied Greek history extensively for years to help with creative projects, and one of my exes is a legitimate archaeologist who specialises in Greek and Roman history, so I've learned a lot about the real and assumed bits of history and culture about the Greeks/Romans and read a load of books on the subject. The Greeks get a good rap for the high points but people really only think about Athens (a legitimate centre of culture and learning) when they think about Greece, especially when it comes to philosophers. It's kind of like people saying 'The Western World' and thinking America. It's not an accident that those great thinkers were pointing out the problems with Democracy the day after they invented it, nor that some of the same group considered Democracy to be a dreadful idea. As to the point about parental blame for education; I agree with you. Socio-economic factors play a larger part. Parents don't encourage their kids to learn at school when they know deep down their kids have no future because of the environment they grow up in. But parents are ultimately responsible for the person they raise until a certain age. You hear all the time of kids that come from really bad neighborhoods making it out and becoming wildly successful. If you give a damn about your child, you won't let the environment ruin their future. As much as you can control anyway.
I'd be careful mistaking the frequency you hear about it, for the frequency with which it happens.
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On June 18 2019 09:58 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 05:48 Aveng3r wrote:On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. Looks like the discussion on this died down a bit but I had one thing to add - My experience with the food that was served all throughout my school years was terribly unhealthy, and I actually went to a good one that did well in all the areas called out above. It was a constant offering of chicken nuggets, tator tots, pizza, you name it. It is amazing that I made it out without a serious weight problem, and I would venture a guess that our school systems are a major contributor to the obesity problem that many adults fight later on in their life. Especially if physical education isn't being required in certain schools! But yeah, Michelle Obama tried to make sure that students were having healthy alternatives and she got an incredible amount of derision leveled at her by the right.
Usually not for the well-intentioned thoughts behind the change, but for the results. Reduced student lunch participation, higher costs, and food waste. Some of these regulations causing unintentional results are being reformed by the Trump administration.
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On June 18 2019 11:31 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 09:58 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 18 2019 05:48 Aveng3r wrote:On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. Looks like the discussion on this died down a bit but I had one thing to add - My experience with the food that was served all throughout my school years was terribly unhealthy, and I actually went to a good one that did well in all the areas called out above. It was a constant offering of chicken nuggets, tator tots, pizza, you name it. It is amazing that I made it out without a serious weight problem, and I would venture a guess that our school systems are a major contributor to the obesity problem that many adults fight later on in their life. Especially if physical education isn't being required in certain schools! But yeah, Michelle Obama tried to make sure that students were having healthy alternatives and she got an incredible amount of derision leveled at her by the right. Usually not for the well-intentioned thoughts behind the change, but for the results. Reduced student lunch participation, higher costs, and food waste. Some of these regulations causing unintentional results are being reformed by the Trump administration.
I'm not particularly surprised at results that include higher costs; real, healthy food generally costs more than processed mystery meat trash that many cafeterias give to students. As for students throwing the healthy food out or not buying it in the first place, that's a matter of making sure that the food tastes good too, which is totally possible.
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On June 18 2019 13:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 11:31 Danglars wrote:On June 18 2019 09:58 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 18 2019 05:48 Aveng3r wrote:On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. Looks like the discussion on this died down a bit but I had one thing to add - My experience with the food that was served all throughout my school years was terribly unhealthy, and I actually went to a good one that did well in all the areas called out above. It was a constant offering of chicken nuggets, tator tots, pizza, you name it. It is amazing that I made it out without a serious weight problem, and I would venture a guess that our school systems are a major contributor to the obesity problem that many adults fight later on in their life. Especially if physical education isn't being required in certain schools! But yeah, Michelle Obama tried to make sure that students were having healthy alternatives and she got an incredible amount of derision leveled at her by the right. Usually not for the well-intentioned thoughts behind the change, but for the results. Reduced student lunch participation, higher costs, and food waste. Some of these regulations causing unintentional results are being reformed by the Trump administration. I'm not particularly surprised at results that include higher costs; real, healthy food generally costs more than processed mystery meat trash that many cafeterias give to students. As for students throwing the healthy food out or not buying it in the first place, that's a matter of making sure that the food tastes good too, which is totally possible.
As well as being reinforced at home, in the community, and society at large. I know everyone is probably sick of me harping on capitalism, but you'll notice a pattern of our problems often fitting a formula something like:
1. We should do X for the sake of humanity
2. But Y is more profitable
3. We must reform Y so that it is both profitable and in humanity's interest.
4. Corporate oligarchs disagree, prevent reform by purchasing our political system.
5. We need to reform the political system.
6. Return to 1.
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Paul Manafort was stopped from being sent to the bad reputation Rikers jail, by a high deputy of Barr sending a letter.
Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, had been expected to be transferred to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex this month to await trial on a separate state case.
But last week, Manhattan prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country inquiring about Mr. Manafort’s case. The letter, from Jeffrey A. Rosen, Attorney General William P. Barr’s new top deputy, indicated that he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York.
And then, on Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers.
Instead, he will await his trial at a federal lockup in Manhattan or at the Pennsylvania federal prison where he is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for wide-ranging financial schemes, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
A senior Justice Department official said that the department believed Mr. Manafort’s treatment was appropriate, but several former and current prosecutors said the decision was highly unusual. Most federal inmates facing state charges are held on Rikers Island.
nyt
Now maybe it's the start of a campaign putting a stop to sending people to bad prisons, but this intervention is probably not going to happen for the next criminal being sent there, is it?
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On June 18 2019 11:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 10:26 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On June 18 2019 09:33 iamthedave wrote:On June 17 2019 11:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 07:15 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On education, I think why ZeroCool is getting confused is because "indoctrinate" is a very poor choice of wording.
GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system, but a simpler explanation tends to be a much more fitting one.
The education system is simply built to feed the capitalist system. In other words, it's made to maximize working and earning potential. It doesn't specifically "indocrinate" or "brainwash" people, it just maximizes what it values. This is why you see such variability in our education system; I'm in the same boat as ZeroCool, where I received a great education from the public schools in my home town, having quality, passionate teachers that pushed me to think critically and do better. I then went to three different colleges and had the same experiences there, two of which were public.
You see this valuing or devaluing of educational aspects all the time with more conservative and less educated parents; they send their kids to school and want them learning something "relevant". They send them to college and want them to get a degree in "something that makes money". These people see school as little more than a fancy version of technical training where education pushes someone directly down a track to a better paying job.
What the vast majority of people don't get is that this isn't the point of education. Fully realized education is meant to increase critical thinking skills and properly inform a populace so that they can be quality, contributing citizens beyond the ability to work.
There are a slew of problems with our education system, but they come from every part of the political spectrum.
1) Teachers clearly don't get paid enough. There's also way too much administration, just like in most sectors of the workforce nowadays.
2) There is too much standardized testing.
3) There is way too much focus on STEM topics.
4) Class sizes are too big and students are basically on an assembly line, forced to memorize stuff and dance like monkeys in the education system.
5) Parents take basically no responsibility for their children's work ethic or ability to behave in schools.
6) Students are then treated like special snowflakes and excuses like "we all learn differently" are frequently used to justify a student that has no concept of a work ethic due to parents doing nothing but spoiling them constantly.
7) Disparities in funding are enormous.
8) Heavily institutionalized racism still exists in our education system.
9) People complain about their kids doing "useless" stuff (e.g. calculus, advanced science classes, more English classes, etc.) and wanting them to do "relevant" stuff like learning how to do their taxes etc. Never mind the fact that the very generation that removed those classes from our schools are now the ones complaining, and the reason our kids do so much extra classes is because they suck ass at math and reading to begin with.
10) Sex Ed is a fucking joke in this country.
Basically every facet of our educational system has massive problems with it and the whole thing is rotten. A huge part of the blame falls on parents for having 1) no concept of responsibility for how their child turns out and 2) a disgusting sense of "ownership" of a child, seeing it as property and not realizing that a child has a fundamental right to a certain quality of education. The only way to fix this would be a colossal cultural change on par with accepting universal healthcare or doing something seriously meaningful about climate change. I'm not on board with putting so much blame on parents (maybe this is something that happens at the schools that teach critical thinking and aren't awful, like the ones most here seemed to attend?) at all but what really confuses me is GH has was basically amounts to a grand conspiracy about our education system That makes absolutely no sense to me? Can anyone explain this "grand conspiracy" as they imagine/interpreted it? If no one can articulate it, can we retract it? On June 17 2019 11:09 iamthedave wrote:On June 17 2019 01:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 17 2019 01:18 iamthedave wrote:On June 16 2019 15:50 Pangpootata wrote:On June 16 2019 15:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 16 2019 15:22 Pangpootata wrote:
[quote]
I wouldn't call it a false belief. In fact, climate change is a good example of facts that are not falsifiable. Based on Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, we already know that there will be certain things that math or science can never prove conclusively to be true or false.
Anyone with basic statistical or data science ability can see that all existing climate models have pretty bad prediction R2 scores when going forward on real validation data (not past data it has been fitted on). This is due to the multi-collinearity of so many different human and environmental factors, and the large amount of noise in environmental data. Mechanistic models of the greenhouse effect fare even worse. So when "scientists" push climate theories that pin all the blame on greenhouse gases, they aren't following the scientific method at all, which is to make a model based on their hypothesis and use future data to confirm the model accuracy.
There is no reason or fact in the debate about climate change. We have uncertainty about exactly how different human actions affect the climate. The left pushes climate theories based on Baconian inductivism instead of Popperian falsification, pins most of the blame on CO2, and demonizes everyone who disagrees with them. The right says they lack evidence and it can't be proven, so we should continue what we have been doing.
The most reasonable argument I have read about climate change is the one Taleb makes in his book Antifragile. If there is uncertainty about the impact of our actions, but if there is a small chance it could be catastrophic, we should not do it at all. If I want to release a gas that might harm people, the burden of proof should be on me to proof that the gas is safe, not on other people to prove the gas is dangerous.
This is an argument based on decision making under uncertainty, and not based on confidence in the correctness of models from "experts" that consume taxpayer money and produce poor predictions. Been so long since I've seen such a good critique that I just want to acquiesce in entirety to it. I think I will, and just agree. EDIT: Just add that I think we also agree that sort of critical decision making presupposes a population/system we don't currently have (but could)? Yes I agree. The modern education system is designed to indoctrinate people with "facts" instead of teaching critical reasoning skills (probably has been like that since the beginning of time). Well if you think about it, from the beginning of time there really wasn't much of an education 'system'. You had 'clusters' of educated people educating others as best they could using the knowledge they'd acquired; it wasn't until relatively recently that humans invented a proper 'system'. The Greek system - since we're mentioning Aristotle and co - mostly involved a single teacher and classes of like ten rich kids, and even then the quality varied immensely. The situation today is because we've decided on a semi-arbitrary 'standard' of education that we want everyone to have. I don't believe the education system today is the worst; but it could definitely be better. With wild variation depending on which country you live in, of course. Just curious what you're referencing with "the quality varied immensely"? The Greeks - as far as we know - had no real concept of a curriculum, so it mostly came down to whatever your teacher thought you needed to know. I'm sure you can imagine the difference in quality of education (and content) that Therestones down the road and, say, Plato or Socrates would provide. Not saying either of them were employed as teachers per se but it wouldn't surprise me if they were (little details like that are mostly long lost to history). I don't think it's a completely unreasonable assumption, I just thought you might be referencing something specific. Feels weird to respond to just part of that post so I'll try the rest too: No, no specific reference, just a general area of knowledge of mine. I've studied Greek history extensively for years to help with creative projects, and one of my exes is a legitimate archaeologist who specialises in Greek and Roman history, so I've learned a lot about the real and assumed bits of history and culture about the Greeks/Romans and read a load of books on the subject. The Greeks get a good rap for the high points but people really only think about Athens (a legitimate centre of culture and learning) when they think about Greece, especially when it comes to philosophers. It's kind of like people saying 'The Western World' and thinking America. It's not an accident that those great thinkers were pointing out the problems with Democracy the day after they invented it, nor that some of the same group considered Democracy to be a dreadful idea. As to the point about parental blame for education; I agree with you. Socio-economic factors play a larger part. Parents don't encourage their kids to learn at school when they know deep down their kids have no future because of the environment they grow up in. But parents are ultimately responsible for the person they raise until a certain age. You hear all the time of kids that come from really bad neighborhoods making it out and becoming wildly successful. If you give a damn about your child, you won't let the environment ruin their future. As much as you can control anyway. I'd be careful mistaking the frequency you hear about it, for the frequency with which it happens.
And I'd be careful dismissing the vital role parenting plays a part in the development of a child, just because it goes against your position of a failed educational system. You don't want to place blame with the parents for not educating their children at home, but wish to condemn educators who have their hands tied by the system. There are teachers who give a damn but at the end of the day, if the parent isn't willing to put in the same amount of effort some teachers do, then the child is failed on two fronts.
EDIT: I should add that the terms "wildly successful" is relative. They don't have to be ball players or anything, just that they got out of a bad situation and made something of themselves. Whether that be a small business or what have you.
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On June 18 2019 15:07 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Paul Manafort was stopped from being sent to the bad reputation Rikers jail, by a high deputy of Barr sending a letter. Show nested quote +Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, had been expected to be transferred to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex this month to await trial on a separate state case.
But last week, Manhattan prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country inquiring about Mr. Manafort’s case. The letter, from Jeffrey A. Rosen, Attorney General William P. Barr’s new top deputy, indicated that he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York.
And then, on Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers.
Instead, he will await his trial at a federal lockup in Manhattan or at the Pennsylvania federal prison where he is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for wide-ranging financial schemes, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
A senior Justice Department official said that the department believed Mr. Manafort’s treatment was appropriate, but several former and current prosecutors said the decision was highly unusual. Most federal inmates facing state charges are held on Rikers Island. nytNow maybe it's the start of a campaign putting a stop to sending people to bad prisons, but this intervention is probably not going to happen for the next criminal being sent there, is it? Just another example of inappropriate behaviour in an ever expanding list.
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On June 18 2019 06:46 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I think the distinction should be made that how scientific inquiry happens and how big business operates in terms of studying something is wholly different. Scientific inquiry is a lot more rigorous afaik. Personal, university, and corporate reputations are on the line. Big business can get away with a half truth in their reporting. Hassan Mhinaj just did a bit on internet last night?
Pressure to perform is huge in academia and result suffer because of it. Replication crisis happened for a reason: too little time, too little funds, too much expectations of gettig certain results through.
I'd say that regulatory bodies and industries around food and medicine are much more rigorous because they get a pat on the back for being consistent and being able to replicate their results.
Problem there is that everything is standardized and reform (i.e. new methods and systems) is implemented much slower than it should (i.e. conservative attitudes of companies)
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On June 18 2019 19:43 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2019 06:46 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I think the distinction should be made that how scientific inquiry happens and how big business operates in terms of studying something is wholly different. Scientific inquiry is a lot more rigorous afaik. Personal, university, and corporate reputations are on the line. Big business can get away with a half truth in their reporting. Hassan Mhinaj just did a bit on internet last night? Pressure to perform is huge in academia and result suffer because of it. Replication crisis happened for a reason: too little time, too little funds, too much expectations of gettig certain results through. I'd say that regulatory bodies and industries around food and medicine are much more rigorous because they get a pat on the back for being consistent and being able to replicate their results. Problem there is that everything is standardized and reform (i.e. new methods and systems) is implemented much slower than it should (i.e. conservative attitudes of companies)
In academia, if your work is proven to be false and you were dishonest, you are effectively ruined in academia. The department loses funds and who knows what else may happen. You get caught falsifying data at a big corporation and get caught, you're fired. You have a chance to get hired again somewhere else that is willing to overlook that "blemish."
I agree that methods and systems adoption rate is slow and you nailed the reason. Conservative attitudes and that bottom line of the company.
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