Comment Worse than a bad zombie movie! (Score 1) 170
print("{} than a bad zombie movie".format(x))
I tend to start with accepting reality as shown by current science -- at least that that is a good approximation. Metaphysical stuff about the past is beyond experiment and the best we can do is extrapolate backwards from the present given a long list of assumptions.
The important thing is: how do we live in this reality? A consequence of our evolved nature, are a number of selfish and tribalistic traits -- we have not yet go to the point of seeing ourselves as part of one big organism called Life, and thus don't properly concern ourselves with the suffering of others in the same way we don't put our hand in a fire because we know it will hurt. Once you take that and start thinking it through, the natural consequences bear a great similarity to a lot of the teachings we find in various ancient spiritual teachings (Bible, Taoist and Indic stuff). Then you start to see what these ancient teachings are going on about, and how in the hands of those who were taught them formally but didn't understand as fully as the greats of the distant past, distorted understandings through centuries of Chinese whispers.
We need to see life and humanity as a whole, and ourselves as parts in that. We need to serve the whole primarily, not our individual selves, nor priorities personal success, or that of our genes or families or tribes etc. above that of the whole. If you try to give this whole an intuitively graspable personal nature (just like a child sees his teddy bear), so as to related to this whole on more than a dry intellectual level, you end up with concepts that look a lot like the ancient idea of the 'one true God'. Identifying our selves with this whole, just as you consider your arm you (if I hit your arm, you would naturally say I hit you) changes your perspective, and from that perspective ancient religious teachings have a clear (and important) message that is lost on most modern people, religious or otherwise.
The inspired free rational thinking of one generation becomes the dogma of a later generation. That's already happened with spiritual teachings in the form of what we call 'religion'. It is happening again with science. The cause is human nature and psychology (maintaining understanding is much harder than merely copying words and appearing charismatic and learned to a naive audience, and so evolutionary pressure tends to favour the latter as a strategy for being successful -- the only problem is when one of those pesky individuals who actually understands what the stuff is supposed to be about comes along and tries to explain it -- then they nail him to a lump of wood and build a new religion around his teachings.) Science needs to learn about its future from religion, because religion is what modern science will become unless people are far more careful than they are these days.
Ok. Let's think for a moment. What can a piece of paper with 2(i) in Physics do, on its own? Nothing, that's what.
What can a student capable of getting a 2(i) in Physics on their own merit do? Probably quite a bit.
What can a student capable of only getting a 3 in Physics on their own merit do? Probably less.
Exams are meant to test what a student has learned. If someone can't add up or multiply, having a first class maths degree to their name doesn't change that.
Judging people by qualifications is a shortcut to assessing their actual ability. But if qualifications are unreliable, and cheating makes them unreliable, then we have to revert to actually assessing what people can do, and ultimately by methods that are not written exams: rather the throw-em-in-the-deep-end sink-or-swim type tests. This takes more effort and resources, for no material gain. Hence everybody loses.
But cheating and corruption are the natural destination for a system which prizes exam results and pins career prospects on the back of them, rather than on genuine ability.
did the metastable false vacuum come from?
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker