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Comment Re:ADHD does not exist (Score 2) 148

45 percent of students at the law school cited have mental issues? That defies belief.

Not really. The rate of students with mental issues in psychology is apparently even higher. The thing is that a lot of criminally-minded are attracted to the study of law and hence they cheat and think that is fine. That is a whole mental issue in itself.

As to a solution, see my other posting: https://slashdot.org/comments....
Yes, that requires better teaching. But that would be a really, really good idea anyways.

Comment Re:I see something like that as well (Score 1) 148

The whole idea of giving better conditions to people with whatever issues is deeply flawed in academic education. I am not testing to be "fair" or "inclusive" or anything like that. I am testing to make sure everybody that gets that degree has the skills and and mental abilities and some basic knowledge to go with it. Anybody that does not cut it, for any reason, must not get that degree, period.

Also note that "hard work", gets you nothing. Some get there without hard work, some get there with it, some do not get there despite working their asses off (which usually is a sign that admission conditions were broken).

If you are blind, autistic, have ADHD or anything, but you _still_ can get that degree on merit, I am willing to reduce or eliminate any artificial conditions that are not or not very relevant in practice and that make it harder for you to get that degree. But if you have limitations that make it impossible for you to get the degree on merit, you will not get that degree as far as I am concerned. You are still welcome to learn and participate as a guest, but that is it.

An academic degree is not a participation trophy and must never be one or things go to shit. A degree is a certification of skill, mental ability, some starting knowledge and the ability to learn by yourself. Consequentially, most people are not able to get one. Otherwise we could just accept "stupid" as a disability and give degrees to anybody and thereby make them all completely worthless.

Comment Re:This is what classism looks like (Score 1) 148

No. I am disowning nothing. You are just incapable of understanding text. Obviously to anybody not utterly dumb (unlike you), one civilization will simply be replaced by another one, hence your claim of "without" is complete nonsense. "The civilization" does not exist. All we have is instances of "a civilization".

Comment Re:This is what classism looks like (Score 1) 148

The insane here is you because you have trouble understanding reality. You also lack understanding and insight into human history.

Incidentally, you are also pretty dumb, because

Just pause and consider what places without it look like.

was never stated or implied by me. That is all you making crap up.

Comment That is bullshit (Score 1) 59

Ruby is a programming language you can do real stuff with. That makes it "serious". If you apply higher standards, then no language really qualifies anymore.

C? Too easy to screw up. Python? Too easy to make an extreme mess. Rust? What a "secure" language without a spec? How does that work? Java? Ever tried to write something compact and readable? And so on.

The same applies on one or the other form to any known programming language. They are all defective in major ways. CS/IT as an engineering discipline is not old enough to have left that phase behind. Maybe in 100-200 years it will be.

Comment Re:This is what classism looks like (Score 1) 148

I do have to say that nothing of value will be lost, because a society that allows people to get incredibly rich or incredibly powerful is pretty much broken. Sure, there are some people that can handle being rich or powerful without turning into assholes (or worse) respectively there are some people that turn out to be decent people when money and/or power makes them reveal their true self, but most people that want power or money are defective and assholes just by wanting that. We have a few stellar examples of that at the moment.

Hence a society that allows this lacks working self-regulation mechanisms and destroys itself when the right combination of assholes comes along. And no, democracy does not prevent it, too many people are too dumb and too easy to manipulate and understand nothing. We have some nice examples of that in current politics as well.

Comment I see something like that as well (Score 3, Insightful) 148

There is also a very easy way around it and one that is pedagogically sound: Give students generous time in exams. I do that routinely because I think the "time" angle in skills test (and IQ tests) is nonsense in mental tests. Somebody that can understand and use a thing is vastly superior to somebody that cannot do it. Whether they can do it fast or slow does really not matter much or at all. Hence what happens with my "more time" students is that they do not get any specific advantage, most do not even take the extra time on my exams. The ones with real issues are all fine with that and I guess these are the only ones I see here.

Of course, this requires exams that actually test insight and skills, not just memorization (which is mostly worthless anyways today) or training. And these take much more time to make and much more time to correct and (gasp!) the person making the exam actually has to have a real clue about their subject! It is surprising how often that is not the case in academic teaching.

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