4 ms·

>That's the way it's always been. That's the way it has to be. My sarcasm detector may be off so if it was, please forgive me. Why must it continue to be that

>That's the way it's always been. That's the way it has to be. My sarcasm detector may be off so if it was, please forgive me. Why must it continue to be that way? It's possible we must expect and accept that children from broken, impoverished, or abusive homes will just be, well, screwed in comparison to their better off peers. Can't we instead look for a better way? - Improve the funding and education of our public schools (particularly by the decoupling of property taxes being the primary source of school funding). - Take a hard look at our current minimum wage and find a way to make it easier for hard working people to make ends meet, allowing them more time to nurture and teach their children. Giving up on hard luck children is by extension giving up on our societies future. To me at least, thats simply untenable.

brighton36 7y ago
Because exceptionalism requires knowledge asymmetry, relative to the mean. I think it's definitional that You can't have a macro-scale program that delivers exceptional results to all participants. I don't think mediocre is unacceptable. But, I do think the country's achievement systems do. And yes, we should look for better systems. I don't think funding will improve the education system much, unfortunately. Probably we would be better off spending that money reducing the number of single parent families. (Somehow...)
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  I think I get the downvotes, although there is some truth. If everybody is exceptional, nobody is. For better or worse, we still live in system where parents are responsible for their kids wellbeing. You can't just outsource good parenting to school teachers. Just because somebody has this high paying job and doesn't have time for your kids at all, the reality won't reshuffle itself to make them feel like success. Do your god damn job as a parent, and don't just throw money at the problem. On the other side, we all would benefit from good quality education for everybody. I mean proper benefit for whole mankind for generations, golden age and whatnot. Currently, in many places which prefer predatory mindset (looking at you too, US), its everybody for themselves, fuck the rest, the higher I am above everybody else the better I am off. Well, not really if you actually want to live in society. Otherwise you end up walled in your luxury home like in South Africa, with private security, but afraid to go out after dark, carrying guns everywhere, high crime rate etc.
  - brighton36 7y ago
    People don't want to hear what they don't want to hear. The downvotes are reasonable. The vote count has little to do with truth, and much to do with affirmation. I agree that we all benefit from a high quality education for the children. I think you're describing 'Bellum omnium contra omnes'. And yes, we seem to be heading in that direction in much of the world.
- ElFitz 7y ago
  Depends; you can could consider the mean to that of the whole world, or the whole of History, and seek exceptionalism relative to that. In case, we would seek to have a macro-scale program delivering exceptional results to all of our current participants.
  - brighton36 7y ago
    If we consider the mean to 'that of the whole world' then, our task is done. A child from today needs to merely watch television for an hour a day, in order to be wiser than the average human being across time. School would be unnecessary. Your last sentence isn't reasonable. We would test the performance of participants in your proposed program, and a bell curve would immediately arise.
    - ElFitz 7y ago
      > A child from today needs to merely watch television for an hour a day, in order to be wiser than the average human being across time. Depends what you mean by wiser. It really seems we absolutely don't have the same definition. > Your last sentence isn't reasonable. We would test the performance of participants in your proposed program, and a bell curve would immediately arise. So what? Nowhere did I say it would deliver equally exceptional results to all the participants. Just that it's goal would be to deliver exceptional results to all current participants, compared to the means of the rest of the world and all of human history. How does your inevitable bell curve contradict or invalidate any of it? How does having internal variations invalidate any of it?
thereisnospork 7y ago
>we must expect and accept that children from broken, impoverished, or abusive homes will just be, well, screwed in comparison to their better off peers. It is worth noting that a world where children from broken, impoverished (etc.) homes are not disadvantaged is a world where one cannot advantage one's own kids. There is of course a strong argument for significant societal investment in keeping children from broken homes from raising broken homes of their own.
- keenmaster 7y ago
  If every kid had an equally advantaged upbringing, the world would be a better place. The metaphorical pie would grow rather than just be subdivided more. Furthermore, the gains would be somewhat non-linear. There are many benefits to having a larger network of people on the same psycho-intellectual wavelength. Contributions from the marginal additions to the network would propagate back and forth across the network, adding value along the way in a manner that transcends the self. That is a strong case for greater state involvement and expenditure in setting our youth up for success, especially disadvantaged youth. It’s also a strong case for easing off of our property tax-based system for allocating school revenues, which naturally results in very different school quality. Even if you’re cynical about how much the government can do, let’s say that 20% of disadvantaged youth that otherwise would have led terrible lives instead become productive citizens and parents as a result of stringent, uncompromising education reform. That 20% will break the cycle for their kids, and after a few generations, the baseline level of parenting in this country will be improved by a good amount.
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    If every kid has an equally advantaged upbringing then by definition a crack-whore[1] is as good a mother as anyone's. I'm no social-psychiatrist but I'd wager 'wanting to provide better for one's offspring' ranks just behind 'food' and 'sex' as primal motivators. Please don't take this as an argument against taking steps to improve education and opportunity[2], only that anything approaching true flatness would represent a massive disruption of social order and motivation. [1] Literal. [2] I agree with most of your suggestions; educated persons are valuable.

brighton36 7y ago

Because exceptionalism requires knowledge asymmetry, relative to the mean. I think it's definitional that You can't have a macro-scale program that delivers exceptional results to all participants. I don't think mediocre is unacceptable. But, I do think the country's achievement systems do. And yes, we should look for better systems. I don't think funding will improve the education system much, unfortunately. Probably we would be better off spending that money reducing the number of single parent families. (Somehow...)

saiya-jin 7y ago
I think I get the downvotes, although there is some truth. If everybody is exceptional, nobody is. For better or worse, we still live in system where parents are responsible for their kids wellbeing. You can't just outsource good parenting to school teachers. Just because somebody has this high paying job and doesn't have time for your kids at all, the reality won't reshuffle itself to make them feel like success. Do your god damn job as a parent, and don't just throw money at the problem. On the other side, we all would benefit from good quality education for everybody. I mean proper benefit for whole mankind for generations, golden age and whatnot. Currently, in many places which prefer predatory mindset (looking at you too, US), its everybody for themselves, fuck the rest, the higher I am above everybody else the better I am off. Well, not really if you actually want to live in society. Otherwise you end up walled in your luxury home like in South Africa, with private security, but afraid to go out after dark, carrying guns everywhere, high crime rate etc.
- brighton36 7y ago
  People don't want to hear what they don't want to hear. The downvotes are reasonable. The vote count has little to do with truth, and much to do with affirmation. I agree that we all benefit from a high quality education for the children. I think you're describing 'Bellum omnium contra omnes'. And yes, we seem to be heading in that direction in much of the world.
ElFitz 7y ago
Depends; you can could consider the mean to that of the whole world, or the whole of History, and seek exceptionalism relative to that. In case, we would seek to have a macro-scale program delivering exceptional results to all of our current participants.
- brighton36 7y ago
  If we consider the mean to 'that of the whole world' then, our task is done. A child from today needs to merely watch television for an hour a day, in order to be wiser than the average human being across time. School would be unnecessary. Your last sentence isn't reasonable. We would test the performance of participants in your proposed program, and a bell curve would immediately arise.
  - ElFitz 7y ago
    > A child from today needs to merely watch television for an hour a day, in order to be wiser than the average human being across time. Depends what you mean by wiser. It really seems we absolutely don't have the same definition. > Your last sentence isn't reasonable. We would test the performance of participants in your proposed program, and a bell curve would immediately arise. So what? Nowhere did I say it would deliver equally exceptional results to all the participants. Just that it's goal would be to deliver exceptional results to all current participants, compared to the means of the rest of the world and all of human history. How does your inevitable bell curve contradict or invalidate any of it? How does having internal variations invalidate any of it?

thereisnospork 7y ago

>we must expect and accept that children from broken, impoverished, or abusive homes will just be, well, screwed in comparison to their better off peers. It is worth noting that a world where children from broken, impoverished (etc.) homes are not disadvantaged is a world where one cannot advantage one's own kids. There is of course a strong argument for significant societal investment in keeping children from broken homes from raising broken homes of their own.

keenmaster 7y ago
If every kid had an equally advantaged upbringing, the world would be a better place. The metaphorical pie would grow rather than just be subdivided more. Furthermore, the gains would be somewhat non-linear. There are many benefits to having a larger network of people on the same psycho-intellectual wavelength. Contributions from the marginal additions to the network would propagate back and forth across the network, adding value along the way in a manner that transcends the self. That is a strong case for greater state involvement and expenditure in setting our youth up for success, especially disadvantaged youth. It’s also a strong case for easing off of our property tax-based system for allocating school revenues, which naturally results in very different school quality. Even if you’re cynical about how much the government can do, let’s say that 20% of disadvantaged youth that otherwise would have led terrible lives instead become productive citizens and parents as a result of stringent, uncompromising education reform. That 20% will break the cycle for their kids, and after a few generations, the baseline level of parenting in this country will be improved by a good amount.
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  If every kid has an equally advantaged upbringing then by definition a crack-whore[1] is as good a mother as anyone's. I'm no social-psychiatrist but I'd wager 'wanting to provide better for one's offspring' ranks just behind 'food' and 'sex' as primal motivators. Please don't take this as an argument against taking steps to improve education and opportunity[2], only that anything approaching true flatness would represent a massive disruption of social order and motivation. [1] Literal. [2] I agree with most of your suggestions; educated persons are valuable.