Comment Re:How much more is wasted by advertising (Score 1) 200
But at least it's fairly easy to avoid wasting bandwidth on that.
But at least it's fairly easy to avoid wasting bandwidth on that.
So me hiring someone to do the supreme court approved time shifting for me is not ok? Because that's essentially what's happening here.
Just how many industries will we allow the content industry to ruin in its death throes before we finally get wiser?
A nice idea, but how do you want to know before allowing them to start?
Certain fields of study already have certain requirements. Almost universally you need a university entry diploma, for some specific ones (like medicine) you need diplomas that included certain specific courses (e.g. Latin).
What would do a LOT more good is if students were informed what they get themselves into with certain fields. A lot of them have VERY odd expectations from what studying X would be like. I'm pretty sure you could lower the drop out rate of psychology/psychiatry students if they knew that a good 90% of the whole shit was statistics. Likewise, a lot of people start studying CS thinking they'll be taught programming. Knowing how to program is a prerequisite, though, instead a good 80% of the stuff you'll be studying is math related.
A lot of dropouts happen due to false expectations. I think there should be mandatory orientation days, that should take care of a lot of that first semester dropouts.
Then the boost should not be getting them into a college, dumping a truckload of tuition debt onto their back only to have them drop out or, if they're actually lucky enough to actually have a K-12 ed worth the money (i.e. outside the usual "ghetto schools"), eventually end up in a job that pays them almost enough to eventually recover their college cost.
The fact THAT they're by no means as well connected also means that they will be indentured servants after getting them through college. The whole "affirmative action" bull is nothing but the creation an insidious trap for the "smarter niggers". It's ingenious, you get educated slaves. And they're even happy about it.
No, that's not the solution. You can't fix in college what you fucked up before. If you really want to aid disadvantaged people, you have to start earlier. Way earlier.
Also, how the hell would gay marriage affect anyone (provided they're not gay, in which case it might have a positive effect, unless they're happy that they can NOT marry their loverboy... but I digress)?
Affirmative action may well affect anyone negatively who isn't part of whatever group gets pulled ahead.
What is your goal? If you want to raise the level of education, paying people more will not solve it. Rather, make education affordable or even free, as it is in most of Europe.
Make the brain the decider who gets what job. Not whether daddy can afford to put him into an Ivy League, no matter what a pea brain rich boy may be.
It seems to work allright for the Swiss.
Actually, you're not. You'd be a racist if you said that $group can't get a job otherwise because they aren't bright enough to go to college.
I'm all for a leg-up program to get people into college, btw. I think the decision whether you may have a college degree should not be made by what's in your wallet but what's in your brain. With more people being able to start college, colleges would have a far lower incentive to carry duds through 'cause they need the money.
That's what I love about our universities. My tax money pays for your education here. So we have a LOT of initial students, with most of them dropping out before reaching a degree. Our universities have plenty of "material" to work with, weeding out 95% of the herd is no problem. And that's what most universities in Europe do today. Nobody holds your hand or carries you through, if you know how to organize yourself and get your act together, you might have a chance. If not, well, so be it.
Not only is it racist (by definition). Anyone belonging to a group of people who gets pushed ahead with "positive" racism/sexism/whateverism will have to work against the stigma that s/he didn't get that job because of qualification and ability to work but just because of belonging to that group.
Equality has to be the goal. Competition on equal ground is what makes the capitalist system strong and a powerhouse of productivity. Protectionism and favoritism weakens it. Whether that's affirmative action, "too big to fail" or nepotism.
Science and religion try to answer very different questions. Science tries to find the answer to "how". Religion tries to find the answer to "why". They may appear similar, but their intention is a completely different one.
Well, there's value in either. If they fit, they reinforce a theory and tell us that we're on the right track.
I don't say it's an irrefutable fact. It's just better by some magnitude to "a wizard did it".
The Bible is a lot like many other SciFi stories. It works out well in its own little universe, the suspense of disbelief only becomes hard if you try to fit it into reality.
Science cannot prove anything. For a proof, you have to have the all encompassing, absolute truth. That's not what science is about, though. Most people don't seem to understand it. Science is the way. Not the goal. Science gives you an explanation. The best explanation we have at the moment maybe, but it never claims that there will never ever be a better one in the future. We might find out something that changes everything.
When I tell you that the hammer you hold in your hand will fall on your foot if you drop it, it will most likely be true. The reason for this is, according to our current understanding, gravity. Gravity, that is the currently established theory, is a force that makes every mass attract every other mass in the universe, according to the laws Newton formulated. We even have pretty accurate formulas that can tell you just how strong these masses will attract each other.
This theory is "good enough" for a lot of things. It was at least enough for us to leave our home planet and travel to the moon that orbits it. And, just in case some Moon-landings-deniers will butt in, can we at least agree on having sent some probes there? If not, I'll settle for stuff like the ISS which also relies on Newton being at least kinda-sorta correct.
But then there's Mercury. And Mercury is, well, it isn't quite orbiting the way it should. For the longest time we thought that there must be another planet closer to the sun, because that Mercury didn't fly right. Something had to disturb its orbit. And for quite a while the working theory was that there's another planet, closer to the sun, that we just cannot observe because it's SO close to the sun that it disappears in the corona and we can't see it.
Until about a century ago that Einstein dude came and said something about heavy masses actually not only affecting other masses but actually light and hell, even time. At first that sounds completely out of whack, but then we made some observations, and that also explained why Mercury keeps wobbling like that.
So our new working theory is that relativistic model on top of Newton's. And it fits pretty neatly. It's actually like that this part is "done". There is no unexplained stuff anymore, everything's wrapped up neatly. Of course, there are a lot of other theories still under heavy construction. That dark matter/dark energy thing alone is a bit one. Maybe we will find it. Maybe some new Einstein will come along and give us a neat discovery that allows us to formulate (and test!) a new theory that suddenly makes that dark matter/energy go poof just like that "innermost planet" went away when the wobbling Mercury was explained by relativity that worked far better than the old theory of that phantom planet.
Science will never present an ultimate, final proof. It offers a working theory. Something that is, according to the currently available information, good enough at explaining what we observe. One day a better theory will come along and we will adjust our working theory, and it will fit our observation better. That's an ongoing process, one that will most likely never come to an end, at least as long as we don't stop wanting to know more about the world that surrounds us.
Where there's a will, there's a relative.