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DBlanK posted:Free Speech and Free Market should be able to course correct everything. So you are saying you essentially want to expand the concept of Reddit to all mass communication, and possibly into childhood education?
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Dec 27, 2014 06:35
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Smerdyakov posted:I'm a bit behind in this thread: have we already ruled out guaranteed minimum income, free college education, making it legal for unions to strike during the life of the contract, end the drug war, ban private prisons, and cutting the absurd subsidies to private industry and/or partially nationalizing all the resource extraction companies? People get nervous when the term "nationalization" comes up, but that's because it's usually done by incompetent goons that have no business running a food truck, much less an industrial economy. I've said this in other threads, locked-in tuition rates at public universities is a state-level policy which decreases the rate of growth in higher educational tuition and fees. Folks don't give a poo poo about incremental policy success, they want big, showy, flashy action with zero sustainable impact.
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Dec 27, 2014 06:40
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Create a Super PAC who's intentions are to promote a national convention to overturn citizens united, set house term limits, develope antitrust and Dodd-Frank type amendments. Also, if you seriously want to hit th where it hurts, become informed purchasers. Americans purchasing power is more powerful than it's voting power. Don't support products or services from companies that work against your best Interests.
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Dec 27, 2014 07:47
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on the left posted:So you are saying you essentially want to expand the concept of Reddit to all mass communication, and possibly into childhood education? Reddit uses a simple up or down vote to determine popularity of a post? And is there any sort of filtering mechanism for who you get posts from, or what type of posts? The communication system I am proposing is loosely based on the concept of sociocracy. The long and short is you have circles/cells/hubs that connect together. Each circle nominates a rep, and reps form a pseudo spokescouncil. You can also have virtual circles based on trust/popularity. A person makes a proposal (action/idea, product/politician endorsement) It is presented to the people you know and trust. With the empathetic connection to give a poo poo about what you are saying. Together you decide if its worth passing on. If so, it goes up to the hub, and back out. The process repeats, filtering and facilitating grass roots viral spread. Of course there will always be ingenious out of the box ideas that no one will get to start off with, and these may need to filter into expert groups, which can then be passed to more central hubs, but it still requires that the proposal be vetted by the network. Some level of critical mass/tipping point criteria would determine use of the limited resources such as mass media. To aid in building consent, we record how many people viewed the proposal, how many people are for or against it, not sure, etc. You could even go as far as building virtual sub networks of the people who are against the proposal to try to find a new proposal that they can agree to. Complete transparency allows people to update and reconfigure their connections as desired. The expert system could also be directly embedded in the filtering process, by tagging proposals based on their type, and then adding the weight of trusted experts, with a persons trust level in particular areas also being determined by the network. I guess its like a neural net, only the human brain remains part of the filtering process, so no singularity overlord.
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Dec 27, 2014 08:10
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DBlanK posted:Reddit uses a simple up or down vote to determine popularity of a post? It seems like the end result is that popular, good-looking, and successful people would effectively run society, which brings you back to the original problem of how to avoid a class system.
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Dec 27, 2014 08:22
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on the left posted:It seems like the end result is that popular, good-looking, and successful people would effectively run society, which brings you back to the original problem of how to avoid a class system. If most people make up their minds on most issues from "experts" or people "they can trust", there isn't much difference between that and oligarchy., even with popular consensus that can easily be subverted by demagogues. I like the idea of pure democracy, but unfortunately I don't think such a system can be implemented successfully until there is a radical change in humanity as a species. Which is my own personal gay opinion: class systems are a natural result of us being products of biological evolution, and removing class systems entirely will require a fundamental change in human biology. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 08:33
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on the left posted:So you are saying you essentially want to expand the concept of Reddit to all mass communication, and possibly into childhood education? Gentlemen, I propose...a system of distributing attention.
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Dec 27, 2014 08:46
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SedanChair posted:Gentlemen, I propose...a system of distributing attention.
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Dec 27, 2014 08:54
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:This, and also the fact that, as with any "pure democracy" proposals, citizens will need to actually be engaged in the political process and have a clear understanding of the multitude of issues that relate to them either directly or indirectly. This form of sociocracy is even worse than direct democracy because you have a feedback loop where the most popular viewpoint is given more media exposure, which in turn will make it more popular, even if only temporarily.
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Dec 27, 2014 09:07
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TheImmigrant posted:It's unlikely in London, with safe and affluent as parameters. Feel free to prove me wrong. If I had a hundred loving grand I'd flee to the poorest-rear end area possible in my 86 corolla and build that poo poo like crazy for myself gently caress London gently caress affluent areas whatever E: I am thinking like houseboat on a mud beach and a 12 gauge and a gently caress ton of hallucinogenics. Carl Hiassen style.
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Dec 27, 2014 09:25
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Armani posted:If I had a hundred loving grand I'd flee to the poorest-rear end area possible in my 86 corolla and build that poo poo like crazy for myself gently caress London gently caress affluent areas whatever The dream of every goon.
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Dec 27, 2014 09:34
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SedanChair posted:The dream of every goon. No, goons want that plus anime loving no just give me gator to hunt goddamn it's delicious E: hunt it with my corolla
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Dec 27, 2014 10:25
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My Imaginary GF posted:I've said this in other threads, locked-in tuition rates at public universities is a state-level policy which decreases the rate of growth in higher educational tuition and fees. Folks don't give a poo poo about incremental policy success, they want big, showy, flashy action with zero sustainable impact. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-15/cost-of-college-degree-in-u-s-soars-12-fold-chart-of-the-day.html Given the 1200% increase in cost for something that hasn't fundamentally changed in the last 35 years, I'm not really impressed with the successes of incremental policy that resemble something Mugabe would put together. The Germans have offered university education for free or nearly for free for generations--are they on the brink of collapse due to their reckless economic populism? Maybe they just found a few pennies behind the couch, or maybe they figured out you can pay for a lot of poo poo when you're not funneling trillions of dollars of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of defense contractors. computer parts posted:Depends on your opinion on the legality of waterboarding I suppose. Apples and oranges there; corporal punishment after a fair trial is reasonable, whereas waterboarding is torturing a random mixture of POWs and totally innocent people in order to get coerced confessions and other unreliable information with no plans to ever put them through the legal process. LookingGodIntheEye posted:Which is my own personal gay opinion: class systems are a natural result of us being products of biological evolution, and removing class systems entirely will require a fundamental change in human biology. Stephen J Gould said: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” 99% of the human race descended from slave/peasant/proletarian stock that was once considered incapable of self-government, learning to read, or ever doing anything beyond basic manual labor. We probably shouldn't be so confident that everyone's at full potential and we're totally done reordering society, since that's what every ruling class has thought throughout history and consistently been proved wrong. A class society is defensible if it's adequately permeable and allows for both upward and downward mobility on merit, but the wider the gap between the classes, the less permeable it becomes for large numbers of people who are merely "more capable than who's there already" and not "undeniably extraordinary."
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Dec 27, 2014 10:40
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Smerdyakov posted:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-15/cost-of-college-degree-in-u-s-soars-12-fold-chart-of-the-day.html There hasn't been a 1120% increase in costs. After inflation, the real increase in the price of college has been a mere 400% in tuition and fees and 260% when we consider room and board as well. This is roughly 100% more for tuition than private nonprofits have increased, while the overall price increase has stayed similar. In the last 30 years, 48 states in the USA have slashed their real expenditures on higher education (without increasing their amount spent to account for the increases in enrollment), and the federal government spending is- well, the DoEd budget tables are difficult to parse, but it has increased to keep pace with increasing enrollements, although the majority of provided federal aid is loans (roughly half of all students get Pell grants, but Stafford loans give out more money overall) and thus only displaces the cost to after graduation. So in other words, we have slashed money spent on higher education (to the point where Alaska might well fully privatize its colleges by 2030 and several others not far behind) and offloaded the majority of that cost onto students. We are getting what we have paid for.
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Dec 27, 2014 15:22
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Effectronica posted:There hasn't been a 1120% increase in costs. After inflation, the real increase in the price of college has been a mere 400% in tuition and fees and 260% when we consider room and board as well. This is roughly 100% more for tuition than private nonprofits have increased, while the overall price increase has stayed similar. In the last 30 years, 48 states in the USA have slashed their real expenditures on higher education (without increasing their amount spent to account for the increases in enrollment), and the federal government spending is- well, the DoEd budget tables are difficult to parse, but it has increased to keep pace with increasing enrollements, although the majority of provided federal aid is loans (roughly half of all students get Pell grants, but Stafford loans give out more money overall) and thus only displaces the cost to after graduation. Not to mention that colleges now use students as a conduit for federal loans. No one incurs any risk with student loans, other than students. Loan originators incur no risk, as the federal government guarantees the loans. Colleges get whatever ridiculous tuition they demand, and facilitate debt serfdom for legions of 18-year olds who'd never be approved even for financing on a used car. At 22, those students are left with a $160,000 piece of shitpaper, stating that s/he has memorized the collected works of Frantz Fanon, and is therefore qualified to pull espresso at Starbucks. I'm not much of a radical, but I'd love to see a few college admins, especially those from for-profit joints like Phoenix or Devry, lined up against a wall and shot first in the kneecaps.
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Dec 27, 2014 15:40
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Impose dramatic constitutional reforms that consolidate states into regional administrative blocks - each regional government then has a new framework of labor and election laws that take full advantage of the more perfect forms of communication available. The rigid 40 hour work week with a pension is dead - the future is people working flexible part time jobs managed through the internet. But such an infrastructure must be legally and technically implemented by government - to prevent abuse and simplify tax collection and economic statistics.
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Dec 27, 2014 15:48
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Smerdyakov posted:
The reason waterboarding is deemed illegal is due to the 8th Amendment.
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Dec 27, 2014 16:43
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Seems like locking some guy up in solitary for twenty years is more hosed up than giving some dude a lashing. I was friends with a girl from KSA in a com class who gave a persuasive speech about why corporal and disfiguring punishment is good and I gotta say that she made a strong case.
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Dec 27, 2014 17:07
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Miltank posted:Seems like locking some guy up in solitary for twenty years is more hosed up than giving some dude a lashing. I was friends with a girl from KSA in a com class who gave a persuasive speech about why corporal and disfiguring punishment is good and I gotta say that she made a strong case. Well, on a comparative scale, corporal punishment might be better than solitary, but the inherent issue with both of them is that they are only really intended as a deterrent. This means that while they are great at stopping crimes committed for social reasons, they completely fail at dealing with crimes committed for economic ones. They are both hosed up and only lead people being punished by them into recidivism.
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Dec 27, 2014 17:56
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VerdantSquire posted:Well, on a comparative scale, corporal punishment might be better than solitary, but the inherent issue with both of them is that they are only really intended as a deterrent. This means that while they are great at stopping crimes committed for social reasons, they completely fail at dealing with crimes committed for economic ones. They are both hosed up and only lead people being punished by them into recidivism. I thought that they were preventative and the deterrent was just a bonus? Cutting off a thief's hand will make it more difficult to steal in the future. Locking up a violent offender keeps him away from the public he was victimizing. *edit* removing an eye, castration, severing the spine are all preventative too. Punishment fitting the crime and all that.
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Dec 27, 2014 18:01
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TheImmigrant posted:Not to mention that colleges now use students as a conduit for federal loans. No one incurs any risk with student loans, other than students. Loan originators incur no risk, as the federal government guarantees the loans. Colleges get whatever ridiculous tuition they demand, and facilitate debt serfdom for legions of 18-year olds who'd never be approved even for financing on a used car. At 22, those students are left with a $160,000 piece of shitpaper, stating that s/he has memorized the collected works of Frantz Fanon, and is therefore qualified to pull espresso at Starbucks. For-profit colleges are pure poo poo, but blaming colleges for raising tuition when direct funding has been slashed and enrollments are increasing (for reasons that are ancillary and outside of the power of colleges to change) is ridiculous. Many of them are chasing elite status and anticipating a barring of college to the majority of people, but this is once again a fairly rational action given the perceived powerlessness of universities against these grand changes, not that the typical administrators would do poo poo to change the world if they could.
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Dec 27, 2014 18:08
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Effectronica posted:For-profit colleges are pure poo poo, but blaming colleges for raising tuition when direct funding has been slashed and enrollments are increasing (for reasons that are ancillary and outside of the power of colleges to change) is ridiculous. Many of them are chasing elite status and anticipating a barring of college to the majority of people, but this is once again a fairly rational action given the perceived powerlessness of universities against these grand changes, not that the typical administrators would do poo poo to change the world if they could. Both are an issue for public universities, although the funding cut definitely hurts the most. IIRC for the UC system (California) there's more senior management than lecturers. e: 
computer parts fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 18:23
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computer parts posted:Both are an issue for public universities, although the funding cut definitely hurts the most. I've never understood exactly what it is these "senior management" at UC do all day. Are most of them just managing each other?
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Dec 27, 2014 18:43
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bartlebyshop posted:I've never understood exactly what it is these "senior management" at UC do all day. Are most of them just managing each other? It takes a large team of Senior Marketing and Diversity Mynygers to make $160,000 of nondischargeable debt for a BA in Postcolonial Queer Marxist Critical Studies seem like a good idea.
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Dec 27, 2014 18:58
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bartlebyshop posted:I've never understood exactly what it is these "senior management" at UC do all day. Are most of them just managing each other? They insulate the sr. executive management from insider trading and student bullshit.
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Dec 27, 2014 19:00
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TheImmigrant posted:It takes a large team of Senior Marketing and Diversity Mynygers to make $160,000 of nondischargeable debt for a BA in Postcolonial Queer Marxist Critical Studies seem like a good idea. Haha it's funny because knowledge that doesn't serve the glorification and enrichment of our capitalist overlords is garbage and anyone who seeks it should suffer.
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Dec 27, 2014 19:29
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bartlebyshop posted:I've never understood exactly what it is these "senior management" at UC do all day. Are most of them just managing each other? For the UC system in particular there's probably a lot of coordination between the sister schools that has to go on. In addition, you have things like setting up promotions for the university (advertising to students, etc), revenue generation from the alumni base, etc. I imagine a big part of it these days is also trying to appeal to minorities; I remember my university has a "Director of Diversity" who does whatever. Even if you only focus on school related stuff, the big push right now is for departments to coordinate classes to teach students better (i.e., if you're an engineer they want it so your math class actually teaches things engineers would know, or if you're a history major your english class should be to teach how historians write, etc). That coordination also requires some additional administration, although i doubt it requires the degree that we have now. e: Here is a list of (more or less) all of the jobs at my university: http://employees.tamu.edu/compensation/titles-salaries/non-classified/?index=D#titles Everyone with an "E" in the FLSA column is paid a six or seven figure salary (and doesn't really interact with students). computer parts fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Dec 27, 2014 |
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Dec 27, 2014 19:37
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Mornacale posted:Haha it's funny because knowledge that doesn't serve the glorification and enrichment of our capitalist overlords is garbage and anyone who seeks it should suffer. Does he think it's worthless because it involves women and minorities or because the results disagree with him ideologically? Trick question. Lemmy is God. bartlebyshop posted:I've never understood exactly what it is these "senior management" at UC do all day. Are most of them just managing each other? Pretty much the same kind of thing as the vast array of middle managers in the private sector.
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Dec 27, 2014 19:40
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on the left posted:It seems like the end result is that popular, good-looking, and successful people would effectively run society If they do not, then they are no longer Popular. LookingGodIntheEye posted:citizens will need to actually be engaged .... and have a clear understanding .... LookingGodIntheEye posted:"experts" or people "they can trust" ... subverted by demagogues. on the left posted:you have a feedback loop where the most popular viewpoint is given more media exposure If your concern is feedback within the network itself from the Popular people, keep in mind its an iterative dynamic process, and the popular people can only talk to the people who trust them, and you trust them because they are representing your moralistic ideals, and if they make statements that do not, then you unsubscribe your trust for that particular topic/domain. The system will potentially fracture into sub networks but it would be based on topic, rather then assuming you can create a full platform that everyone in your party can agree with. In addition, the reps will actually be representing and working for their people, with real time feedback capabilities, through an engaged network of people dedicated to the creation of true representation. In the case of a product, or politician, you simply put the handful of best ideas out there, and then let the individual choose. An educated choice free of propaganda and full of collective wisdom. However, in the case where it's an idea that requires action, say mass action, then we need to focus on the ones where we are in agreement, and or take turns building each others barns.
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Dec 27, 2014 19:47
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computer parts posted:Even if you only focus on school related stuff, the big push right now is for departments to coordinate classes to teach students better (i.e., if you're an engineer they want it so your math class actually teaches things engineers would know, or if you're a history major your english class should be to teach how historians write, etc). That coordination also requires some additional administration, although i doubt it requires the degree that we have now. There's a bunch of noise-making about this going on at my school, it's been going on for years, yet nothing ever seems to happen? For a coordination problem that mostly boils down to "the lecturer who teaches Physics 1 every year needs to talk to the profs in Biology about what medical physics/biophysics the kids need" it seems like this shouldn't be hard/shouldn't require this many people. I guess they had some people involved in that push to create the new, terrible proposed UC logo.
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Dec 27, 2014 19:48
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bartlebyshop posted:There's a bunch of noise-making about this going on at my school, it's been going on for years, yet nothing ever seems to happen? For a coordination problem that mostly boils down to "the lecturer who teaches Physics 1 every year needs to talk to the profs in Biology about what medical physics/biophysics the kids need" it seems like this shouldn't be hard/shouldn't require this many people. That part isn't hard, what gets hard is "you're teaching Physics 3 which uses elements from Math 2 and 3, and all of those classes are taught by 3-4 lecturers each, so you have to come together and make sure all of those lecturers know which elements should be emphasized in Math so that students don't struggle in Physics." And then repeat every year because you might find that some methods work better, or some lecturers retire so you need new ones, or you decide that what you focused on wasn't really that important, etc. It's a legitimate concern but again that's in the same way that health care is a legitimate concern in the US; we don't need to pay three times as much for it.
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Dec 27, 2014 19:52
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gently caress your couch OP. We're going to kill the 1%. Nah, just to be safe kill the top 5%. ...btw I mean the global 5%. I'll die too, but I'll die with a smile knowing that D&D finally got Robesperrie'd in the most best way possible.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:03
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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This chart, this chart is much better than the one from Bloomberg I referenced and gets us into grips with the actual problem. The expansion of the bureaucracy is a form of corruption and also a bribe. All 8000 of those senior management have pretty cushy jobs and bring home at least middle class salaries, and since they don't really a lot to do, they can coordinate very effectively to protect their interests. I went to a state school that one of the cheapest in the nation, and it's raised tuition by 7% a year since I graduated. The prestige issue is also a killer, since college presidents like getting big new buildings, state reps like bringing pork back to their district, and construction industry lobbyists like getting juicy new contracts. They pretended to ask the alumni and the faculty for suggestions, but mysteriously all they came up with was "ask for more money from the government" and "make student loans even easier to get." No one suggested firing people or cutting salaries, unless of course the salaries being cut were for adjunct faculty or student employees. This was an allegedly screaming left-liberal college with a tradition of radicalism and DIY, with no sports teams and a total student population of less than 4,000, so I can't imagine how hosed up it is in a flagship state U where nobody really knows everyone that works there or what they do.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:34
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Mornacale posted:Haha it's funny because knowledge that doesn't serve the glorification and enrichment of our capitalist overlords is garbage and anyone who seeks it should suffer. No, because pursuing expensive hobby BAs enriches wealthy higher-ed industrialists, and creates an underclass of debt serfs. The notion that a degree, any degree, is always a good thing is genius marketing by the higher-ed industry. One of my best friends graduated with a PoliSci degree at 22, and languished professionally through most of his 20s. At 30, he earned a welding certification. Within two years, he was earning six figures in the Midwest, and enjoying a vastly-improved quality of life. You can learn theory through reading and discussion, neither of which need cost a cent. All knowledge is good. To think that knowledge can only be validated by a $100,000+ piece of paper is folly, pushed on us by the educational-industrial complex.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:35
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TheImmigrant posted:No, because pursuing expensive hobby BAs enriches wealthy higher-ed industrialists, and creates an underclass of debt serfs. The notion that a degree, any degree, is always a good thing is genius marketing by the higher-ed industry. You may be right in the current climate, although it's of great assistance to study deep subjects with the assistance of experts. If you really want to be a professional historian, a history degree is a good idea, whether or not you could acquire the knowledge another way and despite your arguments about validation. The real point is, an education shouldn't require financial suicide to obtain.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:39
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TheImmigrant posted:All knowledge is good. To think that knowledge can only be validated by a $100,000+ piece of paper is folly, pushed on us by the educational-industrial complex. This "after the revolution" thinking, and isn't good advice for a person who is actually 18 years right now rather than a member of a future society. You get a degree because it'll let you get your foot in the door for other things, not because it's actually necessary. For instance, if you want to go to medical school you have to have a college degree, even if your actual degree was in creative writing and you learned all the pre-med stuff working in a lab or something.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:40
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DBlanK posted:Free Speech and Free Market should be able to course correct everything. Also, we should have our Workers construct Cottages on all suitable tiles that aren't around our Wonder City, our Military City, or our Great Person Farm.
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Dec 27, 2014 20:44
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DBlanK posted:Expert advise must have a scientific vetting process, and a system of measurement that is not simply based on GDP numbers, but moralistic ideals, like the promotion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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Dec 27, 2014 21:03
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Smerdyakov posted:This "after the revolution" thinking, and isn't good advice for a person who is actually 18 years right now rather than a member of a future society. You get a degree because it'll let you get your foot in the door for other things, not because it's actually necessary. For instance, if you want to go to medical school you have to have a college degree, even if your actual degree was in creative writing and you learned all the pre-med stuff working in a lab or something. Isn't that more of an argument for state schools and against private liberal arts colleges though? It doesn't cost $100,000 to go to your state's public university, even if they slashed the public contribution to the bone (like in Michigan).
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Dec 27, 2014 21:06
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computer parts posted:Isn't that more of an argument for state schools and against private liberal arts colleges though? It doesn't cost $100,000 to go to your state's public university, even if they slashed the public contribution to the bone (like in Michigan). Uh, actually it costs about that much if you're in state and quite a bit more if you're out of state. if you want to go to a private liberal arts college you're looking at a minimum of 200k. Of course there are lots of good deals out there and scholarships and stuff, but on average the system of hugely inflated tuition offset by letting 18 year olds borrow six figure sums seems like a terrible idea for a lot of reasons. 
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Dec 27, 2014 21:30
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