"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
Reading is the foundation for pretty much everything else, becuase one
*can* learn so much from books. When a kid in school, I wondered why we couldn't just read books an dexplanatory texts, and get tested on that, because most of the teachers I had pretty much just had us read textbooks, and thmselves just read their teacher's handbooks - when I asked "odball" questions (i.e., stuff "normal" kids didn't think to ask, and which had n oanswers in the teacher's handbooks), it caused problems. So, for me, books were the best things. Of course, I also didn't learn to read in school, but at home, so there ya go...
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
What confuses me is that you say you don't understand what I mean when I say group/community, but right there, you use the plural: people.
I use the word "voting", so maybe it'd be more clear if I say "a bunch of people decide that somehting is good for all of them, and decide to take a certain action". You can have a group of clients - in a sense, that group of poeple have formed a "community", albeit a temporary one, because they have conme together out of a shared interest (they will benefit from the building you design).
That's why I get confused by how strongly you reject words like "community". It is possible for a group of individuals to live in proximity to one another, live their lives independently, yet come together when they share a common interest, when there is something that could benefit them all. A community *can* be a stifling mob, but it doesn't
*have* to be.
I certainly don't disagree on that.
I don't want to bring specific people into it, because I'm not the type who easily remembers much of the social stuff. ANd if someone has managed to to do enough for me to actually remember that I find them annoying, I don't want to bring them into it becuase I try to avoid being annoyed
As a general principle, though, one of the big problems with socialist systems in general is that people start thinking of it as being "free", and/or "paid for by the governemnt". People treat things and services and goods much differntly when those thing s are free, or are perceived as being free, than when the tings are paid for outright. THat's just human psychology - something paid for with "hard-earned income" is valued mroe highly than is something which is perceived as something that, so to speak, "falls out of the sky".
You know that as a business person (as do all business people) - freebies are quickly taken for granted.
THat falls under the above-mentioned "problems with socialized systems". Same goes for the following:
"The Starns Factory" effect.
Realistically, yeah, semi-literate (or semi-illiterate) does seem to go a lot further than it used to...
True, but if I didn't go off onto tangents, you wouldn't know it was me =:-o OTOH, given the human penchant for living in groups, I don't know that there is a better way to deal with things. Well, perhaps teh "philosopher king" - was that Plato? - where the ruler is benevolent and highly intelligent... I really do think that most people would be OK with that sort of setup. Although that's a different issue...
I think that, by 10, most kids have a pretty good idea of what they want to do. I also think that it's possible to see abilities by that age. THe prlblem is that, too often, abilities are actually *discouraged* by both families, and worse, schools, due to sociocultural nonsense (such as, gilrs "can't" be engineers or boys "can't" be artists - views which still hold sway among certain segments of society).
If a kid has a knack for fixing engines, hey, why not elt the kid go for it. IMO, part of what's gotten things so FUBARed is the myth that people are identical, or that they "should" be *made* identical. That is just ridiculous.
For that, and other reasons, I don't equate "school" with "educational organization".
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
SOmeone else emntioned the bit about "regulating" the militia - I shouldn't write when I'm this tired, because now I can't recall exactly what was said. But th epoint was that there isn't anything that rejects something like a waiting period, as opposed to letting peole go right in and buy aweapon immediately. That's what I meant by "drop of a hat" - immediately. THe only worry there being if someone is in a drunken rage.
At teh saem time, I was able to go in a buy a handgun. THey did run my license through a criminal database, but that only took about half an hour.
I don't see it in such drastic terms.
I'm not denying anyone anything, but I am saying that safety training would be a good thing. A lot fo people don't know the first thing about gun safety, and frankly, when their house might be 20 feet from my house, sorry but the possibility of having *my* head blown off by someone with no knowledge of gun safety sort-of makes it my business, jsut as it's my businwess if someone has a pitbull trained to be a killer, and lets it run all over the neighborhood.
DOn't put words into my mouth and say I'm "denying" anyone anything - a safety course is jsut that, something to help both th egun owner, and the people who live in hte same neighborhood (since we all can';t live on 5-
10 acre parcels).
After all, why does the otehr person have a right to endanger the safety of others because of refusing to take a safety course? The sword cuts both ways.
Again, I never said that, and it's an extremist comment that sidesteps the rather narrow point - which is that what safety training does is
*reduce the chance* that a person will do something stupid that might harm him/her, and/or others. It's not a gurantee, it's an improvement of the odds. My father taught me gun safety (he was a championship shooter), but not everyone has the benefit of that sort of knowledge. So what is so wrong about teaching people to handle their guns safely?
Apples an pranges. FIrstly, regardless of the person's rac, nobody should cavalierly bring a gun into a schoolroom - if nothing else, you never know when one of the kids might do something unpredictable. That is jsut common sense.
Secondly, of course there is no such thing as eliminating stupidity - the point is to *reduce the chance* that an untrained person, who has no idea whatsoever of what s/he is doing, will harm others.
Sorry, but ignorance is *not* better than training. Note that I said "ignorance" and not "stupidity" - ignorance is simply the condition of not knowing, although it's often used to mean someone who resists learning. THe point is that mere ignorance can be rectified, whereas stupidity is the state of being *incapable* of learning.
I tend to be rather practical. What often causes peroblems is that people latch onto pet theories (a theory being something that has at leeast some basis, however tenuous, in fact) or mere beliefs (a beleif being something that does not require any connection to practical reality), and cling to them, even when they fail repeatedly in the face of practicalities.
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
Well, in my statement, I refer to people who aren't able to school their own kids. I do think that all children should be taught a certain level of reading, writing, and math. How this is done is up to local groups/communities/people to decide.
THe interesting thing is that, when you ask "how should this be handled", you aer, by implication, suggesting that a given person (the one whom you're asking) can make that decision for other people.
All one can do is suggest possible solutions to any given group of people. One suggestion might be a local/community school for kids who can;t be home schooled, anotehr suggestion is that maybe otehr parents will offer to teach the kids with their own kids in certain subjects or X number of days a month. THere are lots of possibilities.
I have never claimed that I have "The Answer", because what works in one area or subculture or otehr sort of group or community simply will not work in another.
All I say is that (1) all children who are capable of doing so should be taught up to a certain achievement level of reading, writing, and math, tho' I also think history is useful, and enrichment studies encourage creative thinking, which is also useful, and can be just plain enjoyable; (2) children should be able to shoose whether to enter an appretiseship, go "tech track", go college prep, or do whatever else is a good way to learn to do what they want to do, or at the very least, to develop their abilities so that they can figure out what sorts of things they might enjoy, whether it be fixing motors, cutting hair, doing scientific research, being and nurse, being a doctor, or whatever; (3) there should be some sort of "grade" or "achievement level" designation, only because employers have to be able to know that an applicant who has reached this grade or that level *will* have a certain set of skills and a certian level of knowledge.
As to "how", again, that should be up to the local community. Once a standard exists (i.e., "by grade 6, tehchild will be able to read and understand X, Y, and Z"), it should be up to the local group/community how to achieve that. If they want to join with otehr groups an dset up a school, fine, let them; if other people want to home-school, let them do that. And so on. I think the main thing is avoiding these massive and ever-growing bureaucracies - those amophous beasts are what demand fancyass signs and mega-stadiums an dso on, and end up turning education into little more than empire-building by bureaucrats, and/or the wish- fulfillment of frustrated adults.
So that's the 'slaughtering' that Amy was talking about?
After we all carry nukes, and all cities are abolished, the guy who's minding his own business is slaughtering 'herd members', whatever those are. Presumably they are people who conform to social conventions "The Number One Poster" does not sanction.
The only thing funnier is what he doesn't hesitate to add to the long list of subjects with which he's totally unfamiliar but ready to judge: higher education. That's sort of like pigs dissing bacon.
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
To be honest, what I think the biggest problem is, is lack of attention to detail. A lot of the jobs associated with medical careare fundamentally about keeping focus on the mundane detail-oriented tasks - in the pharmacy, much of this is related to reading and keeping records, reading labels, double-checking whether the medicines are the correct ones. Oh yeah, and counting units of medicines (pills, vials, whatever).
Same is true in pharmaceutical manufacturing - increasingly, people resist taking correction, or even following protocols, because they see their jobs as a matter of their own personal egos, as opposed to what the jobs actually are (a matter of human helath). If they don't want to do the job, they ought to get out of the field. ((No, I don't have paper references - I get much of this stuff first-hand from people who work in teh biomedical and/or phamaceutical fields.))
I disagree about worker skill - success has to be a blend of *both*. After all, a worker has to have enough skill to work in accordance with protocols/methods, and thosear epart and parcel of business practices. If part of the business calls for the sterilization of a 10,000 gallon fermenting tank, and all plumbing etc. associated with it, between every product run, you have to have workers who both understand *why* this needs to be done, and how to do it. Also, the quality control department's protocols are useless if people are incapable of comprehending and carrying-out those protocols.
What it is, is that people have to know how to do what they're supposed to/need to, and they also have to give enough of a damn about what they're doing (and why) so that they'll do it correctly.
Why do you think, for example, there are so many recalls of meat recently? The manufacturing protocols are well-known - what's lacking is worker skill and/or worker attitude (i.e., whether they give a damn about making sure they follow the protocols).
Why would a neurosurgeon allow the nurse to write a prescription? That's simply not a good practice. But your point was mainly that:
Again, when it comes to the fields of medicine and pharmaceutical development and manufacturing, there is no mystery as to what are the best principles and protocols. THe main pitfall is corner- cutting/carelessness. SOmeone is spending more time on the job thinking about going out to the bar with freinds that evening, rather than concentrating on the job (and, subsequently, the possible harm that their laziness/carelessness can cause to others).
Sometimes, tho', I think that it's the insurance that leads to a greater acceptance of carelessness, at least in some cases. IOW, if someone ucks fup, the thought is, "Well, at least the insurance would cover it".
IMO, the *root* of the problem (in all fields) is that epople spend more time thinking about how to avoid taking responsibility for their foul- ups, than they spend trying to be carefult to not foul-up in the first place. The cuirrent notion seems to be taht saying "Oops, I'm sorry" somehow fixes things like malpractice, vehicular manslaughter, rape, and pretty much everything else. All that regret does is possibly indicate whetehr the person is likely to repeat the action (that is, assuming the perp isn't faking it, whcih really is not a difficult thing to do).
Ultimately, the solution is for people to think less about childish egotism, and more about taking pruide in doing their jobs well - and, for that matter, pride in living responsibly. In recent years, "responsibility" has become a dirty word - people are **FAR** happier being told "suck my a**" than they are with being told "take some responsibility for your actions".
It really is funny listening to Don argue. He loves to argue how stupid "what ifs" are, and how bringing up the extremes is not answering the question. That is until it suits his purposes.
I want my toys and I want them NOW! It's really time to grow up Don and play nice like most adults do. Of course I really truly do welcome you to buy some island, or build one of them fake ones even, and make due with what you've got right on that island. No worries about roads and schools and anything else. Well food might be a problem, possibly electricity, but hey you've got a drafting table right :).
and slaughtering all (what was it again?) (everyone in the herd? conformists?) ( I can't remember the slur.)?
Sounds like you haven't been to Don-U-slavia. (I've decided to tweak the name as this more aptly describes it.) No one has higher education because everyone is home-schooled and then put to work at 12, and no one needs psychotropic prescriptions, and everyone minds there own business until he thinks they aren't living up to their patriotic duty.
(Imagine his posts on an internet designed by a home-schooled twelve year old...hehe. Wait...imagine his computer. Seriously though, doesn't his 'philosophy' remind you of someone....
"Michael Bulatovich" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news4.newsguy.com:
It's my impression that Don, like most people, says extreme things when he's frustrated.
Personally, however much you think certain discussions are a waste, what I see as the most wasteful is name-calling, and time wasted on personal attacks. If you disagree with something someone says, fine, say so, but forgoing a critique in favor of name-calling and all fo this "So-and-so is a such-and-such" behavior is really kind of childish.
Hasn't the discussion already entered that arena long before we even posted our childish remarks? I don't see him treating Amy or even you much better than I have been treated in the past. Your taking my remarks personally, except they weren't aimed at you.
I suspect that too: Instead of some saying, "Hey! I resent that! And this is why:...", and owning up to their own inner emotions, they'll append them onto the subjects like a sticky note and say stuff like, "oxymoron!".
Actually, I think the children might (sometimes, if not always) get it from the adults. You also lob snarl-words of your own in your posts about "third persons", do you? ...You... you fu(îdgñöl you...
Be that as it may, in the context of a discussion, saying what you mean, meaning what you say, conceding when you're mistaken, and generally recognizing the difference between fact and opinion, are essential prerequisites of credibility. IMHO 'discussions' with persons without credibility is useful only as a kind of sparring- a contest of rhetorical skills- but not really otherwise. Discussions with such persons who do not even possess significant rhetorical skills will often just degenerate quickly into something like, "All blue should be abolished, and anyone who doesn't realize that is a plain poo poo head!"
Saying something stupid (whether frustrated or not), and then defending that position just because it's yours (for whatever emotional reasons), is not a discussion IMHO. It's stupidity followed by rationalization. Threatening people who disagree with you is bullying, and I can't stand it. Never could.
As a kid, if I saw some bully picking on someone else, often before I could stop myself, I'd end up 'having words' with the bully. As an adult, I've taken down a couple of big ones over the years, usually on election for that purpose by groups to which I belonged.
Anyone with youngish kids is familiar with the recent efforts to reduce bullying, which identify permissive 'bystanders' as an essential part of the bullying cycle. In a community (something I believe in) we're better off if a bully is marked as such, and if persons who promote violence against others know that they do not have the support of the group, which is what these types really need. Silence can be seen by them, and later by history, as consent for their cruelty.
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
[snipped for bandwidth and brevity]
Insurance is a problem unto itself - part of the mess has to do with peole not reading contracts (and getting independent advice regarding the parts they don't understand), an dpart of it is the company not keepign to its contracts, or else making contracts deliberately vague in some areas.
But a fundamental problem, which also realtes to insurance, is that it sued to be considered wise to keep enough in savings and investments to pay off at least *most* of one's debt in case of an emergency. Nowadays, it seems that if you do so (as opposed to conspicuously wallowing in a seemngly-endless cacaphony of material posessions), most people consider you to be a freak, a psycho, or some just plain dangerous =8-O
It also seems to me that the increased reliance (usually due to being forced into fthat reliance by governemntal policies established, IIRC, during the Nixon administration) upon insurors/HMOs has played a hug epart, and IMO the largest part, in creating the current combination of inflated costs and inflated insurance rates - and concommitant decreasing coverage, because those inflated costs are exceeding even the insurance companies' ability to keep up with them.
I never paid my doctor with a chicken (I'm not THAT old!! ) but I do remember the days of "cash up front". And, even though $20 back then took much longer to earn than does $20 today (due to the deflated value of the dollar), the fact is that we did manage - and my family was by no means well-off. THe otehr fact is that family physicians were more willin gto let a patient either pay by installments, or even, on some occasions, provide service to the children of people who had fallen on particularly hard times and accept payment whenever the people could pay.
Yeas, I know full well that medicine is more advanced now (I worked in medically-related fields for several years, so I'm not a total ignoramous about the subject), but the problem is not only with advanced diagnostics
- it's with a system that encouraces overcharging and has inflationary practices pretty much built into it.
Most people either cannot or will not learn from history or past wisdom, but what pops into my "Jurassic" mind is Aesop's fable about the grasshopper and th eants. What it is, is that there are currently *far* more grasshoppers than there are ants, and when Winter comes, trouble will follow.
It might be that enough people are trying to figure things outm, and a disaster might be avoided, but it's just as likely that the "grasshoppers" will learn to organize, not to do anything constructive, but rather, to pillage the ant colonies.
THere is a science-fiction book titled "The Postman" - there was a bad movie adaptation fo it with Kevin Kostner as the lead, but go back to the original book. It deals with the same sort of opposing forces (constructive action versus destructive action).
Warm Worm wrote in news:finqs6$8e9$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:
Worst, IMO, is the namke-calling. "YOu're so stupid!" "No, *you* are stupid!" I've seen it degenerate to a kindergarten-level.
Weel, part-yes and part no. Kids are just that, kids, andnot miniature adults, which nmeans that their brains have not yet finished developing, which in turn means reduced impulse control. Part of child-rearing is the process of teaching them impulse-control, in ways that are approriate to their mental age (soem kids do mature a bit mroe quickly than average, others a bit more slowly - even kids are individuals).
When a 3-yr-old becomes frustrated and hits someone else, it's not a amtter of "evil", it's that impulse control is not inborn/instinctive, meaning, it has to be taught.
Problems arise when the parents themselves are emotionally underdeveloped and act upon mere impulse. One of the worst things for kids is to grwo up in an atmosphere of incinsistency. One such inconsistency is, for example, if a child is punished for hitting, when teh parents themselves are physically abusive, using size, strangth, and/or aggressiveness as methods of attempted control over others. Another major problem is that nonsense of having something be a horrid sin one day, and jim-dandy the next.
IOW, agression (poor impulse control - which includes silly name-calling) will manifest at some time or another in nearly all children; what makes for a reasonable person, or a putz, is what adults, esp. parents, do, how they react, when that manifestation occurs, AND how those actions realte to their (the adults') own behaviors.
It is not "nature *versus* nature", it is "nature *plus* burture".
"Michael Bulatovich" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news4.newsguy.com:
As I've emllowed with time, my increasing reaction tothose who make their attacks personal is to say "Well, that's your opinion, enjoy stweing in your own juices, but as for me, I'm OH..."
I'm not saying that I perosnally approve of extremism/stupid statements, not at all. It's mostly that, as I've gotten older, I've become less reactive, mostly becase I don't have enough spare energy to squander. One of the side benefits is that it allows my more rational mind a bit more of a chance to step in and say, "hmmmm, now just *why* is that person saying something stupid, when it's clear that s/he is not a stupid person?"
My assessment of DOn (sorry to talk about you in th ethrid person, DOn, it's just the specific situation here) is that he is not a stupid person, but he sometimes peaks from emotion rather tahn from logic. As do we all, at some time or another. Many people react badly to that, but the longer I've corresponded here with him, the more I realize what's going on.
I've sometimes chided others (including Don) for resorting to name- calling, and IIRC, you were one of the recipients of such verbiage. Just as I assess you as being an intelligent person who sometimes says impulsive things, I also assess Don as being similar in that regard.
Noen of which changes the fact that, IMO, name-calling is childish and only closes off communication/idea-exchange.
Furthermroe, I've found, in general, that if one can get past all of that and pose a question which tries to address the *root* of the frustration that's causing the impulsiveness, things calm down and additional ideas are revealed.
Nothing wrong with that, and I've also had a strong tendency to do the same (often too strong for my own good), but I'm not convinced that this is the same sort of situation. Given that I'm not good with things social, I don't know how to explain the difference, jsut that I do see a difference (at least, on my better days ;) ) between bullying, and someone who is just blowing off steam. Again, tho', the main reason I'm (finally) learnign to even see the difference is, as I've said, I simply don't have enough energy to waste it on fighting/upsets/bellicosity/etc. any more than is absolutely necessary. IOW, it takes a whole huge hell of a lot for me to get really *angry* wioth someone - yeah, I get irritated, sometimes POed, but that usually lasts all of about 10 minutes, and is quickly forgotten. For me to *remember* I'm angry with someone takes a great deal of effort on the other person's part.
Obviously, that approach doesn't apply to, or work for, everyone, but I'm me, not everyone.
As above. Meanwhile, I do hope you are not implying that I'm some sort of "violence enabler", becasue that would be rather an insult, becasue it would be defamatory (i.e., a flasehood, a lie, an attack).
Again, goign back to the opening statements, you said somethign about Don's "threats" (I assume you're referring to his thing about "culling th eherd" or some such similar statement). THat is not techinically a threat, becasue he did not say that any one specific person ought to be culled - it's acerbic, aggressive, an dmisanthropic, but I can't comndemn it because I've sometimes had similar fleeting thoughts. But I'm fundamentally a peaceful person who jsut sometimes becomes angry, even emotionally hurt, and distressed when treated ill by others, or when it seems as though other epople's orneryness is intentionally designed to put obstacles in to other people's paths. Maybe part of that is the Asperger's, maybe part of it is due to having been abused as a kid, maybe part of it is just being "milky in th efilbert", I don't kow, tbut th eessential fact is that, no matter how misanthropic I sometimes biol over into being, I *_never_* would intentionall harm another person, unless it was self-defense and even at that, only if I felt like I was backed into a corner and had no other option than to defend myself. As for Don, I've been reading his posts for a couple eyars I guess, at this point, and my impression is that, at the core, he's ntoall that much different. I'd feel mroe comfortable being in a room with Don and a bunch of guns, than I'd feel being in a room with most "average" people and a butter knife. Yeah, sometimes he says things that do sound kind of stupid - btu I can't think of anyone I know who has never said anything that sounded stupid. When he says something like that, maybe I'll say something like, "THat is beneath you to say that", or maygbe something a bit stronger (I've done so more than once), and I've doen the same with other poeple as well.
I just don't think he is quite the monster that it *seems* (intentionally or not) you're making him out to be, just as you're not the dwibble he sometimes amkes you out to be.
If I'm some sort of "permissive 'bystander' (i.e. violence enabler)" because of sometimes being able to see past the smoek'n'heat to try and find some light, well, all I can say is that the fefinition of the phrase IMO would require revision.
WHat cracks me up the most is that here I am, officially declared barely fit to participate in human society, saying this stuff to the people who are considered of good standing in society...I'm the "nut job", and yet, looking at "normal" poeple in society, I see so much insanity...
It's not aimed at anyone in particular. Provision of an safe arena is important for that sort of thing to flourish. That's what I believe, and it guides my actions.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
----------------------------------------------------------- Isaac Davis: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Y'know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, y'know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.
Socialite: There is this devastating satirical piece on that on the op-ed page of the Times, it is devastating.
Isaac Davis: Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.