Tag: experiential education
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How to do empathy
Journalists have zero empathy, can’t grasp the needs and desires of a reader who doesn’t belong to the same caste and clique. Here’s a beautiful example of understanding how a stranger thinks! Joke seen on Quora: Two statues, a male and female, stood in Central Park for 50 years. One day a genie came along…
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What does it mean?
This recent upload at Periscope Films is pushing college education, mostly aimed at law school and police careers. It was meant to be shown in high school classes. Key statement: “25 years ago, only 1 out of 12 high school students went on to college. Today, 1 out of 3 go on to college. What…
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Did science as entertainment continue?
Yesterday’s mention of symphonies that wear out the bass drum and the eardrum with endlessly hammered final movements reminded me of Peter Schickele’s classical parodies. Schickele mainly focused on the finicky excesses of Baroque Purists. I was a finicky Baroque Purist, so I appreciated his work. This led to a broader thought about science as…
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Reprint again on Russian tech
Apparently China has busted our idiotic monopoly on job-destroying AI, which might bust the AI stock bubble. The bubble was bound to pop anyway, and some observers thought it would pop soon. All stock bubbles pop when the inflators want to cash out. Of course the Chinese effort might not live up to its claims;…
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Math teacher’s joke
Seen on Quora. A math teacher met one of his former students in a parking lot. The student parked his Lamborghini next to the teacher’s old Chevy. The surprised teacher said to him: “How can you own a car like that? You were a lousy student.” The ex-student replied: “You see this office building? I…
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If this is a war, I’m on the other side
Defending Deepstate indoctrination in the worst way: = = = = = START QUOTE: There is a major war on the humanities and any form of multidisciplinary thinking and human formation, if you haven’t noticed in the past 24 hours—advocates of the kind of lame, siloed educational system that manufactures STEM students on assembly lines…
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Work, not logic
Perfect example of the standard “conservative” and Catholic stupidity about education. “Kids should be taught basic epistemology and logic in primary school before they get access to the Internet”. Precisely wrong. Tyrants LOVE logic and philosophy. The JOB of philosophy is to help tyrants lie and kill. Logic happily defends all sorts of destructive shit.…
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Lazy is best.
Following on this item and this item on the importance of MECHANICAL government. = = = = = Good businesses and good rulers are LAZY as well as mechanical. The two go together. When you make a process mechanical it’s affordable and easy to use. When everything is custom-made and ’boutique’, everything is expensive and…
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New thought on universities
An article on men losing interest in universities pulled my attention back to one of my basic themes. Universities were NEVER meant for everyone. They arose from two parallel institutions, the monastery or seminary for priests, and the finishing school for aristocrats. Both have the same function. Both refine and certify elites, religious or secular.…
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Platonism
Saw this letter to the editor in New “Scientist”. = = = = = START QUOTE: Research has shown that if you show two dogs an unequal treat, they know and react with anxiety. So isn’t basic morality hardwired in some species? Wouldn’t we be one of these? As soon as we appreciate quantity, we…
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‘Flipflop’ is the stupidest insult
Terminally tired of ‘flipflop’. Anywhere else but politics, changing your mind is a sign of LEARNING. Fuck around and find out is the definition of LIFE. Learning is EXACTLY seeing that one course of action fails, and trying a different course. Science is EXACTLY experimentation. Try something, measure results carefully, do something different if the…
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Lesson in skill-estate
I must admit one item from the Olympics is worth thinking about. Most competitors are expensively equipped and sponsored, with highly specialized custom-made gloves and clothes and helmets. They perform all the expensively trained moves. The shooting contestant from Turkey showed up in T-shirt and jeans, no ear protectors or goggles, looking like he just…
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Reprint on Soviet skill-estate
Linked in previous item, worth reprinting. = = = = = START 2014 PARTIAL REPRINT: What’s the moral of the story? Self-sufficiency. (1) When kids are educated through HANDS and MUSCLE MEMORY, they gain a deep and unremovable knowledge. Soviet math and science education did this. American math and science education relied on rote memory,…
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Metaupflation
Bloomberg does a good job with brief Features describing an interesting trend in business. Here they discuss upflation, which is a new name for a VERY OLD tradition. Packaged grocery items, in the ad or on the package, suggest new ways to use the biscuit mix or soup or tomatoes or scouring powder. These suggestions…
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I never understood…
Vintage.es has a picture of Martha Stewart during her honeymoon in 1961, sitting on the trunk of a Mercedes 190, wearing a dress she made. She looks confident and happy, prosperous but not arrogant. I watched her TV show once or twice in the 90s and got the same impression. Old rich, confident and easygoing,…
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