The closing sentence of the article stuck with me.

QuoteWhen only the children of families with resources beyond the public schools are gaining preparation for the lucrative degrees and secure jobs of the future, public education is failing in a primary duty.

In the future, the elite once again have it all.  Mediocrity and poverty is what the bourgeois want for everyone but themselves.  The pie shrinks.  Music plays and chairs are taken unnoticed while everyone is consumed with dance.

There is contradiction in what people think the primary duties of education are.

The Atlantic author, a member of the professional managerial class attempts to use logic against a document that advocates exactly what the rulers of California desire.  A long document that promotes republican ideals.  Will logic work?



I think not.  The Overton window moved.  Education is not prized as it was.  And everyone thinks they know everything.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 06, 2023, 05:15 PMAnd everyone thinks they know everything.

Except I am the only person who actually DOES know everything about everything. lol

Quote from: NFThese things come in waves, hopefully yours retreats soon.

Unlikely.  Having experienced the Public School system as both a student and 20 years later as a teacher, and in between first got my university education at an elite Ivy league university, then returned to get the education credential thru NYS public SUNY university system and the NYC CUNY system, I have seen nothing besides a steady downward slide in the methods and goals set by the system to bring the students to a "successful" outcome of HS graduation after 12th grade at the approximate age of 18-19. Besides gobbeldygook junk revisions like New Math (now deja vu new all over again), you had the manifestly stupid "No Child Left Behind" program implemented nationwide at the federal level during the Bush1 era with mandated testing and goal for every grade level and every school district to meet.  How can this be accomplished?  You dumb down the tests so a chimpanzee can pass them.  Nobody fails, nobody gets left back, problem solved!

It is inherently impossible to achieve this maintaining a fixed standard, because regardless of "nurture" (aka education), "nature" (aka genetic intelligence) means every kid has a best possible outcome.  To make a physical analogy easier to grasp, every boy can play PeeWee league football, most can play club football in elementary school, fewer can play JV football and fewer still Varsity football in HS, especially in Texas where its more important than the NFL.  Very few can play Collegiate football, especially for a Division 1 NCAA team, and for ALL boys who ever held a Pigskin on the Gridiron, only a microscopic few can play in the NFL.  Maybe that number is .0001%, WAG.

What No Child Left Behind purports to mean is every kid can play on the HS Football team at least, but in reality most boys can go no further than PeeWee or Club teams.  That's why kids used to leave school after 3rd or 6th or 9th grade rather than go further, because it just got too hard, and they didn't need it for the jobs their class of people had available.  The plum jobs were only open to the Elite, including a Commision as an Officer on enlistment to the military, which required a Bachelors degree + ROTC training here in the FSoA.  During the Vietnam War, they needed more Officers and college was a way to delay being drafted, which is when more public universities popped up along with private ones cheaper than the Elite & 2nd & 3rd tier schools built slowly up beginning with Harvard in the 1600s, then Yale etc followed, + 2nd tier like Duke and Notre Dame for the sons (not daughters early on) of the elite members of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  To be fair, Harvard etc were all male as well into the 1950s or so, girls had Barnard, Vassar, Mt.Holyoke etc.

So, if you want to use the wave analogy, is it's more like a Tsunami which rolls in successive building waves until the wave big enough to roll in over the people living in the lowest lying areas drown, while the folks living in Mansions at the top of the hill wave goodbye to them as they get washed out to sea.

Now New Math, circa 1965.  Courtesy of Harvard Math Professor and Folk Singer Tom Leherer.



RE

Wasn't sure where to classify this post ... but since the video title matches the subject title, my head scratching is over 

This does not qualify for "The Game" ... it's a little too tame and does not state things in a penis-goes-into-vagina way such that it would frame the big picture adequately enough, but hey ... it's still progressively adding to the zeitgeist.

From Al Jazeera of all places !   



P.S.
As I recall, RE had a run-in with some Reddit r/Collapse moderators , perhaps not this one, but I'm sure it'll stir up some fond memories ... 

I am getting sick of hearing about the five tech 'bros' who flew the dude in to talk about prepping. 

I hope there are a few cannibals left when the bros come out of the bunker.  If I am one of them I hope I have salt and pepper.  Years ago prepping did not taste as bad as it does now.  Doom was essentially, unknown so divorcing yourself from the ignorant herd and trying to stay alive was fine.  Now my opinion is different.  I understand it is my opinion, but prepping now seems to me like you are turning your back on everyone else.  If a community is prepping together, that is different.

The people in this video are consumers of doom.  Not much understanding of why doom has become a thing.

The vicious circle of late stage capitalism:  With new technology you solve the problems you created by using old technology, and you do it by doing things the same way you already did.

* Everybody here is participating.  That is not the same thing as scrolling.

Quote from: UnhingedBecauseLucid on Feb 18, 2024, 03:38 AMP.S.
As I recall, RE had a run-in with some Reddit r/Collapse moderators , perhaps not this one, but I'm sure it'll stir up some fond memories ... 

It probably would, if I watched the video, but I'm not a surfer of Doomer websites and videos anymore.  I still follow the newz on my own and make my own analysis, but I'm not much interested in what others are doing in response to it.  Definitely not interested in Reddit r/collpse, which was loaded with its own set of self appointed arbiters of truth in doom and quite heavy handed with the censorship and ban buttons.

Quote from: K-DogYears ago prepping did not taste as bad as it does now.  Doom was essentially, unknown so divorcing yourself from the ignorant herd and trying to stay alive was fine.  Now my opinion is different.  I understand it is my opinion, but prepping now seems to me like you are turning your back on everyone else.  If a community is prepping together, that is different.

I'm no longer a prepper myself since at this point I barely have an existence worth living, and once things fall apart mine is a wasted mouth to feed.  Better I am carved up for dinner by the care givers here while there is still meat on my bones.  I desire nothing more these days than a quick and painless death, scraping to stay alive holds no appeal for me.  Survivalism is for the young and healthy, not the old and crippled.

However, I see nothing wrong with younger and healthier people prepping up individually.  On course there are inequities there, since the richer you are, the more you can afford in the way of preps right up to a fortified bunker and private army.  These folks have an advantage going in, but it lasts only for as long as they can maintain the loyalty of those who surround them.  Right now that loyalty can be bought with money, in time only real leadership will buy loyalty.

Below that lofty stratosphere of tech barrons though, prppers who have stores of food in the basement are fine, they'll either share them or they'll be robbed, killed and eaten themselves.  Weapons are fine too, since they'll be needed for protection, but those will last only as long as the ammo does.  Ask the Ukrainians about that problem.

RE

Oh jeezus ... I've not much interest in prepping... I've no progeny to care about. I'll probably just  prep enough to see the "elite" 's smile turn into various expressions of anguish, fear and perhaps, lastly, humility, as their system comes crashing down. I'll probably erect a monument to their stupidity to; but that's about it. 

My interest in collapse is mostly just a fascination of the ... anthropological  kind.
At this point, my sole interest is the progressive penetration of the new reality into the society's collective consciousness and the evolution of this progression.