I always point out that many twitter users are addicts, and as long as they get their hit of mean tweets they won't go anywhere.
Look at how many celebrities stomped around and bellowed "I'M MOVING TO MASTODON" then after a month or two their twitter account is active and their mastodon account isn't.
Reminds me of windows in the 90s. Everyone hated it, but everyone kept on using it anyway.
Look at how many celebrities stomped around and bellowed "I'M MOVING TO MASTODON" then after a month or two their twitter account is active and their mastodon account isn't.
Reminds me of windows in the 90s. Everyone hated it, but everyone kept on using it anyway.
Individual schools and therefore individual teachers need parents because both need students. Even with the wastefulness of the state, even they won't waste money on teachers who are sitting around doing nothing because there's no students.
Parents have a lot of options. They can pull their kids out of a particular school. They can move to be in a better school area. They can choose a catholic school or a private school. They can even homeschool. Teachers are not entitled to do whatever the hell they want, especially not as agents of the state. A lot of people forget that schools are state institutions and teachers are state employees who get access to people's children by government fiat.
There's a lot of reasons to exercise those options.
There are American cities where the overwhelming majority get a piece of paper saying they graduated from high school but the kids can't read, or write, or do arithmetic, or balance a budget, or do their taxes. Some people say that's because of COVID lockdowns (implemented by the state and endorsed by teachers unions), but things were looking pretty dire before COVID. It's gotten worse, but it's gone from bad to worse.
Despite the absolute failure at the one thing that the schools are supposed to be there to do in the first place, many teachers waste time promoting their pet political causes and various pathological social contagions. In other words, state actors who have people's kids by mandate of the state and paid for by taxpayer dollars are using their privileged position to indoctrinate children politically. It doesn't even matter which indoctrination it is -- neither left wing indoctrination nor right wing indoctrination are acceptable to many people under such circumstances. Teachers ought to be spending that time achieving their core mission of preparing students for the long lives ahead of them.
We're in a global economy. It isn't the postwar period where every other country on earth had bombed itself to smithereens. Take a look at what schools in societies that aren't suicidal like the west are teaching their kids, and compare it to what the supposedly enlightened west considers an acceptable standard. The level of mathematics, of science, of reading and writing, of foreign languages. It's no wonder people from many of those cultures are outcompeting westerners overwhelmingly by every metric. They're tightening up their standards and we're loosening ours.
The best teachers I ever had weren't the teachers I liked the most. Often, the teachers infuriated me, because while many of the teachers I liked the best were lax and let me coast to top marks, the best teachers I had were tough and forced me to become more prepared for what the future brings. One computer teacher was the only teacher to ever push back on my tech skills and point out if I couldn't balance those with soft skills then they were worthless. One was such a pain, she forced me to neatly show all my work so it could be understood by someone else. Guess what? That's a professional skill and a life skill as painful as learning it was. One report writing teacher forced me to throw all my bullshit English classes out the window and tighten up my writing to be concise (he says in the post that's too long didn't read). Not one of the best teachers I ever had had time to indoctrinate me into their political worldview because there isn't a lot of time and there's a lot of material to cover.
And if teachers aren't pushing my son to excel like that, then they aren't working for me and I have no use for them. I'll homeschool if I have to because it's a competitive world out there and I'm a failure if I let him fail just because it was too much work to help him succeed in life.
In total, Arizona's recent switch to a set educational stipend for children seems like a home run to me. Schools will have to compete for dollars they aren't automatically entitled to, and if the public school system can't deliver the level of service parents demand, then alternatives can be directly funded with that money instead of parents and kids being forced into a system that has no incentive to excel.
One of the biggest things I'd be concerned with is the obvious free rider problem. Money is a fungible commodity, so how do you prove that the money set aside for a hypothetical child's education is being spend on education and not on a parents own selfish desires? I think that it would be inequal not in terms of socioeconomics but in terms of the quality of the parents who are given that power. An economically poor and socially disadvantaged parent who nonetheless cares deeply for their child could spend the money on a great education, but an economically rich and socially privileged parent could take the money and piss it away on nonsense (or on something actively harmful) and the kid in the early example would get a benefit and the kid in the latter example would be harmed. Unfortunately, we have to give parents the benefit of the doubt despite that. Notwithstanding school there are good parents and bad parents and we know from the literature that the effect is so overwhelming that everyone who cares should be screaming from the rooftops for fathers to stay with mothers and to be actively engaged in early childhood development.
Parents have a lot of options. They can pull their kids out of a particular school. They can move to be in a better school area. They can choose a catholic school or a private school. They can even homeschool. Teachers are not entitled to do whatever the hell they want, especially not as agents of the state. A lot of people forget that schools are state institutions and teachers are state employees who get access to people's children by government fiat.
There's a lot of reasons to exercise those options.
There are American cities where the overwhelming majority get a piece of paper saying they graduated from high school but the kids can't read, or write, or do arithmetic, or balance a budget, or do their taxes. Some people say that's because of COVID lockdowns (implemented by the state and endorsed by teachers unions), but things were looking pretty dire before COVID. It's gotten worse, but it's gone from bad to worse.
Despite the absolute failure at the one thing that the schools are supposed to be there to do in the first place, many teachers waste time promoting their pet political causes and various pathological social contagions. In other words, state actors who have people's kids by mandate of the state and paid for by taxpayer dollars are using their privileged position to indoctrinate children politically. It doesn't even matter which indoctrination it is -- neither left wing indoctrination nor right wing indoctrination are acceptable to many people under such circumstances. Teachers ought to be spending that time achieving their core mission of preparing students for the long lives ahead of them.
We're in a global economy. It isn't the postwar period where every other country on earth had bombed itself to smithereens. Take a look at what schools in societies that aren't suicidal like the west are teaching their kids, and compare it to what the supposedly enlightened west considers an acceptable standard. The level of mathematics, of science, of reading and writing, of foreign languages. It's no wonder people from many of those cultures are outcompeting westerners overwhelmingly by every metric. They're tightening up their standards and we're loosening ours.
The best teachers I ever had weren't the teachers I liked the most. Often, the teachers infuriated me, because while many of the teachers I liked the best were lax and let me coast to top marks, the best teachers I had were tough and forced me to become more prepared for what the future brings. One computer teacher was the only teacher to ever push back on my tech skills and point out if I couldn't balance those with soft skills then they were worthless. One was such a pain, she forced me to neatly show all my work so it could be understood by someone else. Guess what? That's a professional skill and a life skill as painful as learning it was. One report writing teacher forced me to throw all my bullshit English classes out the window and tighten up my writing to be concise (he says in the post that's too long didn't read). Not one of the best teachers I ever had had time to indoctrinate me into their political worldview because there isn't a lot of time and there's a lot of material to cover.
And if teachers aren't pushing my son to excel like that, then they aren't working for me and I have no use for them. I'll homeschool if I have to because it's a competitive world out there and I'm a failure if I let him fail just because it was too much work to help him succeed in life.
In total, Arizona's recent switch to a set educational stipend for children seems like a home run to me. Schools will have to compete for dollars they aren't automatically entitled to, and if the public school system can't deliver the level of service parents demand, then alternatives can be directly funded with that money instead of parents and kids being forced into a system that has no incentive to excel.
One of the biggest things I'd be concerned with is the obvious free rider problem. Money is a fungible commodity, so how do you prove that the money set aside for a hypothetical child's education is being spend on education and not on a parents own selfish desires? I think that it would be inequal not in terms of socioeconomics but in terms of the quality of the parents who are given that power. An economically poor and socially disadvantaged parent who nonetheless cares deeply for their child could spend the money on a great education, but an economically rich and socially privileged parent could take the money and piss it away on nonsense (or on something actively harmful) and the kid in the early example would get a benefit and the kid in the latter example would be harmed. Unfortunately, we have to give parents the benefit of the doubt despite that. Notwithstanding school there are good parents and bad parents and we know from the literature that the effect is so overwhelming that everyone who cares should be screaming from the rooftops for fathers to stay with mothers and to be actively engaged in early childhood development.
Turns out that catering to 1% of the population isn't actually good for recruitment since they only make up 1% of the population.
A lot of people my age like to say stuff like "I want to either save the world or destroy it". It speaks to a desire to do something meaningful whatever it is.
The thing nobody is told is that there's a heroism in trying to excel in mundane ways. Seeing the literature on fatherhood and its effects on both boys and girls for example, being a good dad is a personal sacrifice that statistically speaking is overwhelmingly likely to cause good in the world in the future and prevent bad in the world in the future.
While that's one example it isn't the only one. Being an exceptionally good friend. Being an exceptionally good brother or sister. Being an exceptionally good son or daughter. Being an exceptionally good employee or employer. It's really hard but it does have an outsized impact on the world.
One key is that we shouldn't compare ourselves solely to our peers or even to the best of our peers. We should imagine what someone better than the best would be like and strive for that.
You aren't likely to get a medal for being a mundane hero. You aren't likely to become a billionaire and get to shake the president's hand. On the other hand, the impact you have will ripple out over the rest of humanity and just as negative things have a shadow, positive things cast light on the future.
The thing nobody is told is that there's a heroism in trying to excel in mundane ways. Seeing the literature on fatherhood and its effects on both boys and girls for example, being a good dad is a personal sacrifice that statistically speaking is overwhelmingly likely to cause good in the world in the future and prevent bad in the world in the future.
While that's one example it isn't the only one. Being an exceptionally good friend. Being an exceptionally good brother or sister. Being an exceptionally good son or daughter. Being an exceptionally good employee or employer. It's really hard but it does have an outsized impact on the world.
One key is that we shouldn't compare ourselves solely to our peers or even to the best of our peers. We should imagine what someone better than the best would be like and strive for that.
You aren't likely to get a medal for being a mundane hero. You aren't likely to become a billionaire and get to shake the president's hand. On the other hand, the impact you have will ripple out over the rest of humanity and just as negative things have a shadow, positive things cast light on the future.
No, the stuff that gets their attention is helping to get people elected who "weren't supposed to win" or organizing protests they're not paying for.
The latest scheme from the US federal government involves them taking control over everything up to and including the equipment to get onto the Internet, all the way out to setting individual websites TOS. With that level of control, they can break a lot of stuff. As it is, if you're on the wrong ISP then you can be stuck behind carrier grade NAT. If the federal government swoops in and breaks enough stuff, it can break the Internet for sure, and nothing will save it.
Unfortunately, good times help us forget that bad people can make times infinitely bad. If the federal government directly controls your internet right at your connection to the ISP, they can start making things infinitely bad. There might be workarounds, but they'll be really limited. You and I probably couldn't have this conversation on a broken enough Internet, even if we start implementing a sort of private WAN to get around the broken Internet.
Unfortunately, good times help us forget that bad people can make times infinitely bad. If the federal government directly controls your internet right at your connection to the ISP, they can start making things infinitely bad. There might be workarounds, but they'll be really limited. You and I probably couldn't have this conversation on a broken enough Internet, even if we start implementing a sort of private WAN to get around the broken Internet.
At the rate we're going globally, the Internet as we know it will be dead in 15 years.
Am I saying there will be no Internet? Of course not. You'll be able to go on a heavily regulated facebook or a heavily regulated youtube, or your heavily regulated banking website. But if things don't change, then the fediverse will be dead, regulated out of existence because the little guy won't be able to or won't want to follow all the new Internet regulations.
Meanwhile, people will continue to tilt at windmills as the media (both left and right) sends people on quixotic quests to distract us from the reality of what's happening.
Everyone please play attention to Trump and the gays, Israel and Ukraine, pay no attention to the fact that we're nationalizing the Internet at an alarming rate and will use that control to silence anything not deemed halal by the establishment.
Am I saying there will be no Internet? Of course not. You'll be able to go on a heavily regulated facebook or a heavily regulated youtube, or your heavily regulated banking website. But if things don't change, then the fediverse will be dead, regulated out of existence because the little guy won't be able to or won't want to follow all the new Internet regulations.
Meanwhile, people will continue to tilt at windmills as the media (both left and right) sends people on quixotic quests to distract us from the reality of what's happening.
Everyone please play attention to Trump and the gays, Israel and Ukraine, pay no attention to the fact that we're nationalizing the Internet at an alarming rate and will use that control to silence anything not deemed halal by the establishment.
I'd like an inexpensive city runner that I don't need to insure, don't need to spend much money maintaining, and can do my normal errands in all kinds of weather, but also a full size car for whatever I need a long distance people hauler for. For most tasks I just need something that'll get me a few blocks away to the store, and I've got the option to take the big guy if I want.
I also own more than one wrench, not just a crescent wrench that'll do everything but also a box wrench set.
I also own more than one wrench, not just a crescent wrench that'll do everything but also a box wrench set.
Really, how many presidents throughout history would have faced the summer of love riots and had a giant pile of bodies and prisons filled with people held on trumped up federal charges?
We know that the present president would at the very least have the latter, because he did exactly that. Not to mention Washington DC was under martial law the moment the took office in a massive show of military force (which is how democracies work, you use the army to silence dissent... right?)
As you pointed out, that's not a politically partisan thing either -- both parties have plenty of actual authoritarians, actual fascists who want to combine state and corporate power to control the world. Like the people in government (not just elected officials, the people in bureaucratic positions that tend to keep their jobs between elections) using government pressure to silence dissent on big tech sites. That should be concerning for anyone who doesn't like the taste of boot leather on their tongues.
Thankfully, I think desantis showing his true colors and taking stuff people might agree with and pushing it off the slippery slope is a career limiting move, but many of the authoritarians out there don't get a similar reckoning.
We know that the present president would at the very least have the latter, because he did exactly that. Not to mention Washington DC was under martial law the moment the took office in a massive show of military force (which is how democracies work, you use the army to silence dissent... right?)
As you pointed out, that's not a politically partisan thing either -- both parties have plenty of actual authoritarians, actual fascists who want to combine state and corporate power to control the world. Like the people in government (not just elected officials, the people in bureaucratic positions that tend to keep their jobs between elections) using government pressure to silence dissent on big tech sites. That should be concerning for anyone who doesn't like the taste of boot leather on their tongues.
Thankfully, I think desantis showing his true colors and taking stuff people might agree with and pushing it off the slippery slope is a career limiting move, but many of the authoritarians out there don't get a similar reckoning.
China and India are the west's environmental painting of Dorian Gray. We pretend we're so good because we get them to burn the fossil fuels instead and just import the final product so we can pretend they didn't just burn the fuels for us.
That's not just environmentally unsustainable, it's not economically unsustainable. You get materials from one country and ship them to another country, what role does the third country play? "Oh well we're designing and managing everything!" Yeah, good luck with that. As if the entire country running the factories can't figure this stuff out without our help and eventually do.
That's not just environmentally unsustainable, it's not economically unsustainable. You get materials from one country and ship them to another country, what role does the third country play? "Oh well we're designing and managing everything!" Yeah, good luck with that. As if the entire country running the factories can't figure this stuff out without our help and eventually do.
Have you been to a dealership lately? At the rate we're going the choice won't be between a limited range car and a full size vehicle, it'll be between a limited range car and walking.
An f'in minivan is 70 grand. That's nuts.
An f'in minivan is 70 grand. That's nuts.
I've said it a lot before, if we're going to do EVs, we need to reconceptualize what a vehicle can be. Trying to replace our internal combustion with a primitive simulation isn't going to help.
Tomorrow we could have governments pass laws to make it easy to build, sell, own, and drive tiny city cars with a limited range and speed that could be manufactured right now and sold for less than $5,000 and could charge on a standard 120v receptacle. If this was the pressing emergency people are pretending it was, it could reduce transportation energy requirements massively, and quickly. Instead the same people claiming we're in a crisis and need to eat bugs and live in pods will claim we couldn't possibly allow these things that might actually make people's lives better, because it was never about anything they claim it's about.
Tomorrow we could have governments pass laws to make it easy to build, sell, own, and drive tiny city cars with a limited range and speed that could be manufactured right now and sold for less than $5,000 and could charge on a standard 120v receptacle. If this was the pressing emergency people are pretending it was, it could reduce transportation energy requirements massively, and quickly. Instead the same people claiming we're in a crisis and need to eat bugs and live in pods will claim we couldn't possibly allow these things that might actually make people's lives better, because it was never about anything they claim it's about.
One of the many ignorant ideas these people have is that people from third world countries will continue to flock to western countries.
They're only going to come if there's something worth coming for.
They're only going to come if there's something worth coming for.
No, See uncle Adolf was saying "death to THE jews", these guys are saying "death TO the jews", it's completely different! No problem at all!
"lest we forget" they keep saying. We forgot. This isn't what my grandfather suffered for. He didn't watch his best friend die right in front of him so we could have an authoritarian with a French name instead of an authoritarian with a German name telling us what to do, he fought so his grandkids could be free.
Remember that always.
Remember that always.
A lot of companies don't realize your last game sells your next game.
Bethesda last put out fallout 76 and ten thousand Skyrim re-releases.
Bethesda last put out fallout 76 and ten thousand Skyrim re-releases.
Yeah, it's about a meter actually. I've used it for figuring out distances for ordering material.