As correctly pointed out by another comment posted overnight in Minnesota's time zone, this blog post is just blogspam of the earlier Chronicle of Higher Education blog post, which was discussed on Hacker News beginning yesterday.
The title of the Slate blogspam piece is even more exaggerated and link-baiting than the title of the Chronicle piece; both titles are factually wrong. Both blog posts overstate the impact of the Minnesota notice to higher education institutions, which has resulted only in a fig-leaf change to Coursera's ToS directed to Minnesota residents, and has had NO effect on Coursera's operation in Minnesota. As noted in my comment on the first thread,
I am a Minnesota resident, I am enrolled in multiple Coursera courses (and two of my children are enrolled in Coursera courses), and I will be speaking to my state legislators about this as a precaution after first speaking to the Minnesota Department of Education about this when business hours begin here. The sun will rise in the east here in Minnesota just like everywhere else today, and all is well with the world. Well, maybe not quite everything is well with the world, as two of the top eleven most active posts on HN just now
are both discussions of this very exaggerated story about Minnesota, neither checked with actual on-the-ground reporting on students currently enrolled in Coursera courses in Minnesota.
ONE MORE EDIT: Thanks to the several commenters (at various comment levels in various subthreads) who suggested policy considerations to bring up with the offices of my state senator and state representative today during the campaign season, and to the commenters who pointed to various possible interpretations of the relevant statutes and possible partisan political considerations related to this issue. I'll digest all that after giving blood today, and send an email to the state Office of Higher Education
> Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.
You have stated that this "has had NO effect on Coursera's operation in Minnesota" and "I am a Minnesota resident, I am enrolled in multiple Coursera courses". Your continued enrollment is clearly in violation of the new TOS unless you are taking the classes from outside your state of residence.
So is Coursera a university? I don't know the exact conditions for an institution to be considered a university but this seems like a bit of a stretch.
The state of Minnesota believes this law applies to Coursera. The Minnesota Office of Higher Education sent a letter to Coursera stating so, so it is reasonable for Coursera to conclude that Minnesota believes this applies to Coursera. Tricia Grimes of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education has publicly stated that letters were sent to "all postsecondary institutions known to be offering courses in Minnesota". She said (http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/minnesota-gives-cours...), "This has been a longtime requirement in Minnesota (at least 20 years) and applies to online and brick-and-mortar postsecondary institutions that offer instruction to Minnesota residents as part of our overall responsibility to provide consumer protection for students."
Maybe someday lawmakers will regard the Internet the same way its native residents do: as a separate place. The right way to look at this problem from a native netizen's perspective: Coursera offers classes "online", and Minnesota residents travel to "online" (not Minnesota) while taking the class.
First of all, just because someone spends 18 hours a day on a computer does not mean they're a "native netizen." That's not a real thing.
Secondly, you're still in [State/Country of residence] when you're online. Just because someone is checking Twitter in a bathroom in Minnesota does not mean they're no longer subject to laws and regulations in Minnesota.
Yes, that is the traditional view of jurisdiction, and the one that legacy territorial institutions prefer.
But it could someday soon seem very quaint and wrongheaded.
The Catholic Church used to claim universal jurisdiction, and some religions still see their laws as perpetually applying to all born to their faith. To the contrary of such claims, richer communities have moved to primarily territorial, largely secular, slightly voluntary (through the ability to choose your residence) sovereign jurisdictional authorities.
This evolution could continue to reach primarily membership/networked, mostly-voluntary, often-overlapping and situationally-contingent sovereign jurisdictional authorities. These might fall back to territorial governance only when the issues involved (property lines, effluents, etc) are themselves territorial.
Educating yourself via the network could be seen as something in a totally non-territorial realm, and thus of no proper interest to territorial authorities. That would leave networked-sovereignty citizens as free to ignore the dictates of overreaching territorial authorities as many today feel free to ignore the Pope or Sharia Law.
First of all, just because someone spends 18 hours a day on a computer does not mean they're a "native netizen." That's not a real thing.
"Native netizen" is a real thing because I said it is. An existence proof only requires the existence of a single instance.
Secondly, it's not about the amount of time spent using a computer (18 hours a day?!), but a state of mind. The corner of my mind responsible for identifying locations perceives "online" as a distinct physical location. If you asked me where I'm from, I could say City A, but if you asked me where I grew up, I would say "the Internet." Answering anything else would feel like lying.
The location of one's body is independent of the perceived location of one's mind. When it comes to the Internet, the second is more important.
Maybe not, but Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, and the other institutions offering courses via Coursera grant degrees. From the update:
State law prohibits degree-granting institutions from offering instruction in Minnesota without obtaining permission from the office and paying a registration fee. (The fee can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, plus a $1,200 annual renewal.)
So this amounts to a relatively small money grab for all practical purposes.
I agree with most of what you say (and thank you also for the link), but not "all is well".
Quite possibly the importance of this law should not be overstated, and I agree with you and your children carrying on with your Coursera courses. But apparently you will be doing so in violation of the law.
Should not unjust laws be protested, if perhaps also disobeyed? I would not exactly be afraid to continue using Coursera in Minnesota, but experience has taught me that law enforcement should never be trusted 100% to be reasonable.
That said, you mentioned that you will be speaking with your state legislators -- you are doing as much to fight this as anyone reasonably could, and for that you have my gratitude. If 10,000 other Minnesotans took the same action as you, this would die as it deserves to.
Marginal Revolution University has stated they plan to ignore the law and continue offering their course in Minnesota. They claim they'll fight to the point of going to jail for it.
If people protest laws they dislike, but not protest against the whole democratically elected dictatorship board with all their laws and regulations, it won't you get anywhere. But once people realise it's not legitimate to aggress against people based purely on "majority rule" with disregard to basic property rights, the government will dissolve.
Property "rights" are a construct that is meaningless without government. In the state of nature, you have no rights as against someone who is stronger who can take from you what he wants.
The creation of property rights is an imposition of the dictatorship of the majority. It tells the strong that they cannot use their natural gifts to further their own interests under the penalty of collective force. If the will of the majority dissolves, property rights are meaningless.
Representative democracy's like the US are not based on "majority rule". The most obvious example being all the presidents that lost the election while winning the popular vote.
>Should not unjust laws be protested, if perhaps also disobeyed?
I, and millions of people around the world, have been disobeying the draconian drug laws for years and it's getting us nowhere. What advice do you have?
For example, I am about to vote to legalize marijuana in Colorado. I don't know whether it will pass, but you can bet that measure would never have been on the ballot were it not for the decades of data--on the medical and social effects of the drug and its criminalization--provided by people breaking the law.
In my experience it has nothing to do with evidence. People are emotional creatures and said emotion pervades every choice they make, whether they think themselves to be rational or not. Incidentally, the rational ones have the most trouble accepting their emotions which in the grand scheme of things makes them among the most ignorant of society.
I think that the changing attitudes are simply due to the old guard dying from old age and disease. When there are sufficiently few people who grew up in the era of hardcore anti-drug propaganda then there will be a policy change.
Oh right, that's why it's not working. So if we all take drugs on the streets then the law will change. Will try this weekend and report back, assuming that I won't be in jail for the next 5-10 years.
Aside from that: I wonder what would happen if all the people in the country who are using marijuana at least semi-regularly were to go to some very public place at the same time and light up a joint.
I think it's pretty obvious what happens when you light up a joint in public (in the US anyway). You may not get arrested every time, but keep it up and you will.
That obviousness surely elevates their response to DH4.
Yes, it is obvious. So obvious that assuming that that's what the grand-grandparent is proposing is either disingenuous or extremely uncharitable.
Instead of a posting a glib response, a reasonable thing to do would be to read the wikipedia article on civil disobedience and realize that a single person randomly disobeying a law in public is not how it works.
Well gee, sorry I didn't refute your argument in the form of a DH6 retort in the form of refuting the central point. What most people on the internet seem to miss is an incredibly profound insight.
We are on the internet. Most of these conversations will go nowhere beyond where the people reading them will take them, which is nowhere. I am not interested in writing essay after essay debating things with people who have no power to change them in the first place. This is a waste of time. The internet primarily exists as a form of entertainment. This may be against the spirit of HN but I would argue that HN is against the spirit of the internet. My proof of this is that the vast majority (99%+) of the internet is nothing like HN.
Anyway, to address your point - numerous people take drugs publically at events like music festivals. The result of this action is a lack of arrests and a lack of policy change.
The point is to overwhelm the system. Public civil disobedience brings the issue to the public. Ghandi didn't protest in private.
What you would want to do are:
1) Bring the issue to the public. Make sure that it ends up on the evening news more often than not.
2) Dispel most of the myths associated with drugs (e.g. all drug users are out-of-control crazed lunatics on a homicidal rampage to kill you and your kids!).
3) Get more people on-board. If more and more and more people are getting arrested very publicly for using drugs, then at some point, the government will have to do something, because they can't afford to have a significant portion of the population in jail.
These are the end-goals. Mostly to change public perception and to get the majority of the population on your side. Then you want to bring the issue to a head.
I will be speaking to my state legislators about this as a precaution after first speaking to the Minnesota Department of Education
It's worth noting the perp is the Office of Higher Education, not the Department of Education: they are separate, cabinet-level bureaucracies. One is not a sub-department of the other.
While I understand that you do not believe this is a big deal, I do not agree. I think this is a major problem. I too am a Minnesota resident and have always felt our state was very educated and progressive. This makes me ashamed to be a Minnesotan.
If you're an employee of the OHE, and you somehow think it's a good idea to go on record defending this silly statute, then you need to be fired. Period. No one at that organization should possibly think applying a decades old statute to a non-degree granting institution is the right thing to do.
Edit: I have contacted the source at the OHE and am waiting for a response. I'm hopeful this was all a misunderstanding, but one can never hope too much for the right outcome when dealing with bureaucracy.
Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.
I don't see how you can make such a determination about a online information site (i.e. one that provides information but not accredited diplomas or degrees.) You can learn all day from Wikipedia, will they ban wikipedia next? This really looks like politicians overreaching on behalf of some frightened post-secondary institution.
From the article's page, commenter Greg Shenaut points out that further reading of MN law would render this political "threat" moot. His comment pasted below:
Bottom line, they should have considered Coursera, since it offers no degrees at all, under their “Private Career Schools” statute (Chapter 141) rather than under their “Private and Public Postsecondary Education Act (136A.61-71)”. The latter act is concerned with (1) degree granting institutions and (2) schools that call themselves universities or colleges as part of their name. Coursera grants no degrees and doesn't call itself anything except “Coursera” (or coursera.org), so it is really bizarre that they decided to regulate it under 136A.61-71.
If they had made the opposite determination, then, under 141.21(10) and 141.35(17), Coursera would probably have been exempted from any need for official approval: “[The Private Career Schools Act] shall not apply to... schools with no physical presence in Minnesota, as determined by the office, engaged exclusively in offering distance instruction that are located in and regulated by other states or jurisdictions”.
This would be far from the first time a bureaucratic functionary has sent a threatening letter to a company only because the functionary misunderstood the law. Given the update at Slate it would seem that the OHE now realizes that the communication was sent in error, and are in damage control mode.
EDIT: Hopefully the person who touched this off has been suitably chastened. Given that this is the civil service it's unlikely they'll be fired.
Reading the article informed me that they are banning Coursera because universities are conducting classes on the site. That's not the case for wikipedia.
Additionally, said universities are referring to themselves as their traditional name (e.g. "stanford university") and not "coursera."
I seem to have missed this detail. However, why is it a problem if Stanford contracts out to some third party to operate a particular course? I enrolled in a local college a few years ago and took courses online. Not one of those courses was located within the college's web site- they were all third parties. Why would I have the expectation that the college doesn't vouch for the validity of the course material?
EDIT after reading the update: I read this as back to square one. Stanford is offering courses via Coursera for free. But Stanford doesn't offer free degrees. Why is that a problem?
MN's opinion seems to be its citizens can't get a degree online from a school outside of MN unless that school is registered with OHE. However, the quoted law speaks to not having a physical presence.
I'm pretty sure that's there to exempt things like seminaries.
>Subd. 4.Statement required; religious nature. Any degree awarded upon completion of a religiously exempt program shall include descriptive language to make the religious nature of the award clear.
Good clarification, pdubs. It seems a university like St. John's might not be exempt, but its School of Theology might be.
If true, it's still strange to me that school with a non-free graduate degree in liturgical studies would be exempt, but an online school offering free courses in science, business, history, etc. would not be exempt.
Liturgical studies by a religious organization are specifically protected under the the 1st Amendment[1][2]. Schooling has been a state domain for a very long time (look at Texas and California's influence on textbooks). The regulating of schools does not violate the US or MN constitution.
I agree it's strange and I'm not sure how the letter of the law is being applied to Coursera, but it seems like this wouldn't even let a qualifying religious program give a B.A. or B.S. in Theology, more you'd be able to get a "certificate of congrats you can be a minister for our church". Also protects VBS and confirmation class type courses.
That would be the basic "state cannot regulate a religious seminary" clause. It would be a 1st amendment case that the state would lose. I find that good not worse.
When are we going to stop the nonsense to stop any disruption to any existing business by making laws against it? Just like in france recently they want to tax Google for referencing the contents of french newspapers on the basis that they are benefiting from their contents to put their ads - this never stops and the politicians are too easy to corrupt.
> They only get lobbied because there is a profit motive.
True. The only why we could get around this is if people only cared for the soiety and not themselfs. This concept was called "New Socalist Man" in the economic debates of the 1920 - 1950 but the simple true is that it is a utopian concept.
> Also lobbing takes money and it only pays if you're making a profit.
Lobbying has a return on investment like any other thing a company can do. The diffrence is that the profit that falls out of lobbying does not come from bigger costumer sadisfaction or rising demand, it comes from state privlages or less competition.
No and no; when we are sufficiently globalized and companies are taxed (fairly) by all countries. In your example, France is pissed off they're not getting a slice of the billion dollar pie because Google sits in the US. Our archaic ideas of "nations" are tied to land masses - not a great partner to a distributable service that can be accessed almost anywhere near the speed of light.
At the risk of derailing the discussion, it's my understanding that the US government is not getting much in corporate taxes from Google either, thanks to a well-established practice of tax-dodging by funneling profits into Ireland.
In the USA, technologically unnecessary government regulation of the wireless spectrum is the only reason the wires confer any sort of monopoly. If the FCC didn't exist, we wouldn't all be forced to use 1940s tech on all non-wifi bands, and our local loop to our ISP would be wireless, fast, and effectively free.
Instead, we have Ma Bell, Part II. I don't see how an evil corporation could have brought about such a situation without the enthusiastic assistance of the state.
Please, leave the wireless spectrum to the mobile devices and use the effectively unlimited spectrum that you get with wires for non-mobile devices. Spectrum is a scarce resource that really does need government oversight!
Yes, and so people would be glad to choose that. And others would prefer to pay for the content (presumably, Coursera wouldn't be the only ones blocked), much like they do with almost everything else. Is there any market where only the cheapest can sell? I doubt it.
I like how that sounds. My only concern is philosophical -- who then sets the agenda? We wouldn't be able to implement democracy without the tyranny of the majority, nor could we exalt any one minority group without the same issue. At least with a for-profit society the motivations are clear.
The first order of business in designing a democracy is figuring out how to mitigate the tyranny of the majority. Read the Federalist Papers. I wrote this a couple days ago: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4658896
To answer your question, the answer is "Everyone." The problem is that while this is technically true already (that's what consent of the governed is), the purpose of democracy is to make it explicit and transparent so that it can be criticized and reacted to.
I can promise you my love of knowledge is bright and receptive. I've read the federalist papers and the writings of many who claim to be the intellectual successors of Hamilton, Jay, and Madison.
If only the US were a democracy instead of a representative republic! But, given the standard human condition, we still coalesce into tribes. Be it based on race, religion, hometown, shared career, you name it, we form blocs. These blocs then either innately or in response to other blocs seek to gain power (heck, that's what political science _is_, the study of acquisition of power, and it's far from a solved question). So the fairy dust solution of "everyone" being the minority represented doesn't really hold true in the real world.
Thus, given these constraints, I conclude a for-profit-society is more transparent and navigable than a profit-for-society. If one were to assume that everyone else lived a profit-for-society life, then one defector would be able to manipulate the entire society to their personal aims. Though I strive to live my personal life to a more noble ideal, I cannot assume everyone else will.
Your proposal is akin to the ideal anarcho-capitalists* have, in that states compete. As I understand the philosophy, judicial systems and police forces are private and distinct. Law is common-law, meaning it's not case based, but rather takes into account the accuser, accused, and the situation. The will of the court is then implemented via by a hired police force. The issue is then when courts and police merge horizontally and vertically. You then have a _de_ _facto_ state. It's unavoidable, and the answer is "Well, you obviously can't have a society where people are like that." This answer ignores the strategic human element. One cannot even call this behavior immoral, as it likely comes about with noble intentions.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I salute your goals.
*EDIT: anarcho-capitalists (ancaps), not socio-anarchists.
> I conclude a for-profit-society is more transparent and navigable than a profit-for-society.
That doesn't follow, though. This is just as much fairy dust as the notion of everyone having a fair and equal say into "the agenda": not everyone is motivated by profit. You can pretend that they are and model them to be such, but you're inevitably incorrect.
Now, you could force them to be for-profit. But if you could do that, you could also force them to be profit-for-society. Why do the former rather than the latter?
> If one were to assume that everyone else lived a profit-for-society life, then one defector would be able to manipulate the entire society to their personal aims.
This is the problem of the demagogue, or "why direct democracy doesn't work". My ideas are an outgrowth of a proposal for education reform precisely because this is the most necessary step. The most effective countermeasure to the demagogue that we know of is a two-pronged response: (1) information saturation, such that any lies or half-truths are easily exposed and (2) critical thinking, such that the demagogue finds zirself useful only for thought leadership, but not thought determination.
And while you might imagine that #1 is being reached by the Internet, and I agree that it has made significant leaps and strides in the right direction, it is not remotely enough. The Internet does not reach enough people, and of the people it reaches, we have filter bubbles and echo chambers.
> Your proposal is akin to the ideal anarcho-capitalists* have, in that states compete.
Absolutely not. Please don't read in things I didn't say. I am not a Social Darwinist, and I'd prefer not to be lumped in with those who are. The paragraphs I wrote in my vision only outline legislative mechanisms; they do not consider changes in the judiciary or in the execution of law.
Guess we should be a for-loss society huh? Or perhaps perpetually stagnate. It's not profit motive here, it's government meddling, protectionism, mercantilism.
It is not mere about depriving people from their right to free information access, it is an attempt to deprive people from their right to grow up, to improve their lives, to learn how they have been cheated and by whom.
For example, to learn that not just those finance guys, but the whole economic science has no clue about what's going on with the economy, except that it is very broken.)
Something is very wrong because people believe in positive rights. Like the right to information access, to improve lives etc. Because to provide positive rights someone must be coerced to do so. And you end up with a huge government that ceases, distributes and tells you how to live.
Enter negative rights. For instance, a right to protect yourself and your property against aggression. You can't take mine, I can't take yours. Now we do not always need anyone else to resolve any conflict between us. (We may ask a judge for help, but it is not required.)
In this case the problem is not with a right to education. Minnesota state violates negative rights of the educator and a student to do what they want with themselves (provided they do not aggress upon property of others).
If you think in terms of negative rights you will see solution to many difficult problems. But if you continue thinking in terms of positive rights, you will get more arbitrary judgements and more aggression.
Positive rights are necessary because many natural rights have been taken away.
I think, as a human born in the U.S. I have a divine right to erect a structure to sleep in and keep the snow off so I don't die. But that right disappeared long ago.
Since the property-owning class (private and government) took that right away from me, they now have an obligation to provide me some things.
Or would you prefer armed revolution where I take back my right to establish reasonable shelter?
You never had a right to establish any shelter. You have a right to appropriate what's unowned or receive something in voluntary exchange.
Now if you stand on a justly owned property (like my house), then you play by the rules of the owner or go away.
If you stand on unjustly owned property (like a forest protected by the state), then you may use part of it as your own provided you do not alter objective properties of this forest that were enjoyed by everybody prior to you. E.g. if you noticeably alter the air quality by cutting it down, prior users of the air may ask you for compensation.
Also, it's a losing strategy to talk about somebody's obligations. If somebody has robbed you, he must 1) compensate what's stolen 2) be punished. He is not obliged to provide you with social security, free speech and fast internet.
While there is some marginal amount of class mobility, property ownership in the U.S. is correlated almost entirely with privilege. The more white/rich/male/citizen/straight/cis/typical-bodied/neurotypical boxes you can tick, the more likely you are to be a property owner.
The fact that you think Mitt Romney owning property is "just ownership" while the children of, say, a non-citizen Native American who came back across the Mexican border in the 90s to his ancestral lands in San Diego county are "just non-property owners" is absurd.
The conflict is only about the definition of property. When we come to an agreement on what is property and what belongs to whom, the conflict will be over.
And once again a service discovers the thorny world of regulation framework that was design for a specific set of circumstances and is being applied like a hammer to an egg.
Exactly. This is what happens in blue states: protectionism and regulation designed to benefit a defined constituency while screwing the majority. This law never would be passed or enforced in Texas.
If not sarcastic it's wildly ignant. Texas special interests ensure that majority of text books are bland, puritanical and contain creationist pseudo-science.
Protection-of-trade laws are also a pretty common feature of "red states" in general; I don't think there's a discernible partisan divide. For example, Utah recently had its laws surrounding regulation of hair braiders partially invalidated (http://www.ij.org/utah-hairbraiding-release-8-9-2012). There was also a famous case in Louisiana over monks selling caskets without a license.
No joke. Thomas Jefferson was removed from history textbook and replaced with Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin because he was a Deist and coined "Separation of Church and State".
The Jefferson thing is a very bad example since he is still covered and mentioned. The issue in question was should he be discussed as an example of an Enlightenment Philosopher and only as relates to political revolutions. That was the previous standard. The previous phrasing constrained discussion in the context of the enlightenment and not the broader context of his political ideas.
When they revise their standards they change a lot of things. Here is the actual change they made. This is found on page 25 of the list of changes to High School Social Studies:
BEFORE:
> explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Thomas Jefferson, and William Blackstone on political revolutions from 1750 to the present;
AFTER:
> explain the political philosophies of individuals such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Thomas Jefferson, and William Blackstone;
and this is from page 42
BEFORE:
> analyze the contributions of the political philosophies of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison on the development of the U.S. government;
AFTER:
> identify the contributions of the political philosophies of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, George Mason, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson, on the development of the U.S. government;
These are the actual changes. When attacking this change one should be aware of what they are. To comment on this without knowing what the changes were, such as the NYT did in their article, is simply ignorant. Unfortunately the quality of their reporting has gone down considerably in recent years and fact checking is clearly not done on many articles. The claim that Jefferson is "being removed from textbooks" is absolutely incorrect and thus a poor example to continue using in criticizing Texas.
Franklin is required to be covered in grades 3, 5, and 8. Paine is required to be covered in grade 8. The proposed standards and their changes are available for reading to all at the Texas Education Agency site. There is no excuse for not educating yourself rather than trying to score points spouting falsehoods as trollbait. Such uninformed comments are the problem. Do you consider yourself educated? What state did you go to school in? They seem to not have required critical thinking. It is exhausting and exasperating to constantly be correcting non-factual statements on the internet by people who haven't bothered to check facts and rely on absurd sources such as the New York Times that are known for repeating lies in pursuit of political agendas. Truth be damned, eh? It's a terrible way to live.
Texas and California ensure that the majority of textbooks are just bland, period.
Those are big dog, major-population states that adopt textbooks at the state level (most states make textbook decisions at the school district level, others do use state-level adoption, but don't have enough population to have much market clout).
To sell well, a K-12 text has to a) not offend Texas and b) not offend California. Good luck with that.
How could they enforce this? If someone from Minnesota takes a class, is Minnesota going to sue Coursera? Fine/jail the student? There's really no option that doesn't leave Minnesota looking bad.
It seems this would hinge on defining coursera as a "college"?
I'm assuming this was legislation passed in order to prevent people creating bogus for-profit universities.
But coursera doesn't charge money or offer accredited qualifications.
So how would this differ from any other educational site, like say stackoverflow?
Does it hinge around the fact that it is unofficially associated with certain existing universities like Stanford etc by using their logos and lecturers?
The FACTS are that Lawrence Pogemiller, director of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education is a Democrat. Pogemiller represented Minnesota Senate District 59. District 59 includes the University of Minnesota, the largest University in Minnesota. So yes, party is relevant to this discussion.
And the FACT is that Lawrence Pogemiller is the one who said that Minnesota does NOT intend to enforce this law against Coursera (overriding the earlier statement from the person in charge of registration), and will be working in January with the legislator and governor to get the law amended to take into these new developments in online education.
If you are intending to try to smear Democrats, you are doing a spectacularly poor job.
Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Coursera doesn't care if you break their Terms Of Service in this regard, so I see no reason they would put up any restriction. Their interpretation is that you can spend up to 49% of your studying time in Minnesota, probably including offline studying which might plausibly happen out of state. They are basically inviting Minnesotans to ignore the law (as we all should!)
It's not the "free" part that is causing the problem – the law is that anyone offering courses has to register and pay a fee to the state, which might seem reasonable for an institution charging tuition. It becomes absurd when they ask that an institution like Coursera ask permission of the state and pay a fee to provide free classes that lead to no degree.
Follow the money. Walden University is based in MN. Find our which politicians received the contributions. But Minnesota people will still continue voting for the same people so even if we did know, it's of no consequence. It's the same reason guys like Jesse Jackson Jr, and Marion Berry keep getting reelected year after year despite their obvious corruption and incompetence.
This is very worrying to me. Not because of the actual ruling itself (which seems fairly unenforceable, unless they're going to get Minnesota-based ISPs to block Coursera), but because of the precedent it sets. What else can states ask their residents not to read or look at? And what are the consequences if they do?
Additionally, while a private resident of Minnesota can happily continue using Coursera (at least for now) without consequence, this could have an impact on Minnesota public schools. If I were a Minnesota public school teacher, I would now be very reluctant to use Coursera in my classroom. All it takes is one student to tell Mommy and Daddy that they got assigned homework from an "illegal website," and there could be a shitstorm. (I realize that Coursera isn't really targeted at school-age kids, but what if it had been Khan Academy?)
Wow, there's a lot of hyperbole going on here. I'm a little disappointed people on HN are falling for it.
It seems pretty clear from reading the article that Minnesota isn't stopping anybody from taking online courses.
But to be officially recognized in Minnesota requires that the entity providing the education is registered as an educational entity in Minnesota. I'm pretty sure most states have laws like this. Here's why: I know nothing about biology, but without laws like this, there would be nothing stopping me from offering classes on biology.
In this case it's obvious Coursera is legit, but in a lot of cases it may not be so obvious.
> I know nothing about biology, but without laws like this, there would be nothing stopping me from offering classes on biology.
What if you did know something about biology, and furthermore you were a really good teacher, and you wanted to post YouTube videos to spread the knowledge for free (like Salman Khan). If the law said you had be registered as an educational institution, you'd first have to navigate the bureaucracy, probably pay some outrageous fees, and you'd probably end up being rejected because you're doing things in a new and innovative way which the law didn't account for. Would you go through all that and try to fight it just to give away some YouTube videos for free?
Probably not, and that would deprive the public of a new opportunity to learn. That wouldn't serve the public interest.
And you're missing the point that if anyone tries any online educational innovation, they can potentially be stopped by every locality in the world shaking them down for money on a dubious pretense, if we let Minnesota set a precedent.
Imagine if people could sell goods and services to each other without the resident government doing a quality check. What a hell that would be.
Wait a second, is this a certified political opinion that I'm replying to? Do you have your Internet politics license? I don't want to be cheated arguing with a low-quality commenter.
First, you're kinda putting words in my mouth. I'm not defending the law, I'm just pointing out that it's not as unjustified as people are making it out to be. The government provides and regulates education for children, it's not entirely unreasonable that they'd have their hand in higher education, too.
Also, it's nice to think that everybody would play nice, but without laws like this there are assholes who would teach people crap. Laws like this don't exist because somebody decided to make an arbitrary law out of nowhere. Apparently it was a big enough problem that the majority of people in Minnesota thought there should be a law...
No, it's absolutely fuckjng deplorable when a government stops the free flow of goods, services, and information to protect archaic business practices.
FYI, this rule has been changed:"Obviously, our office encourages lifelong learning and wants Minnesotans to take advantage of educational materials available on the Internet, particularly if they’re free. No Minnesotan should hesitate to take advantage of free, online offerings from Coursera."
I live in Minnesota. I had never heard of Coursera, but I just signed up for my first course. I had also never heard of BuckyBalls before the government threatened to ban them and ended up buying some. Interesting how prohibition or threat of creates certain desires.
I wonder if they will apply the same restrictions to Udacity which offer course completion certificates? It's worrying that such a harmless mode of learning can be threatened by the stupidity of a few government officials.
An U.S state is making illegal online education before even Iran does? Well, I hope they won't try to enforce this regulation by blocking coursera inside Minnesota, that would start to be really scary.
This is a classic case of a law that needs to be changed. When your country has an education problem, even charging the universities a fee for free courses is simply stupid.
Based on feedback below, I have added my two bits to this conversation
Even supposedly conservative countries are opening up their elite curriculums like this NPTEL effort in India to disseminate the IIT curricula for free on YouTube: http://nptel.iitm.ac.in
Placed in context, this bit of news seems particularly galling!
================
I'm going to try this line again, particularly since tvtropes says: "On its way to becoming a Forgotten Trope, a Seen It All Suicide occurs when a cartoon character, having seen some outrageous sight, proclaims "Now I've seen everything!" and promptly produces a pistol and shoots himself on the spot."
Wat?[0] >>> Now I've seen everything! !Bang! <<< [1]
You're being downvoted because your comment adds nothing to the discussion.
Comments don't need to be completely void of humour, but a comment that is only intended to be a joke isn't appreciated on Hacker News. I'm writing this as a courtesy as you are new here, and no-one has explained your mistake in your other low-value comments.
+1 for taking the time to explain (without too much snark, like the other comrade).
However I merely pointed out that this whole thing is wildly OTT by quoting an old meme.
Other than this what else can someone add in matter like these? It would be presumptuous (in my World view at least) to mouth opinions on how the World ought to be run when it is very clear to me that most of these things are like random chance set into motion where things become apparent only in hindsight. One example of this is the Joshua Bell experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell#Washington_Post_exp...
I don't comment much on topics where I feel I lack enough knowledge to add anything to the conversation, even if I find the post or conversation interesting. As a result, I only really comment on perhaps < 2-3% of the threads I read. I imagine this is similar to a lot of other HNers and it helps keep the signal-to-noise ratio relatively high.
With no snark intended, it boils down to: "If you have nothing to add, don't."
1. >> even if I find the post or conversation interesting
The "interesting" bit is important. There have been (less popular) threads where I have noticed funny for funny's sake comments being left alone. A trending topic is a dangerous topic for comments where your comments will be read by more people who are likely to feel that it does or does not add much "value".
2. >> "If you have nothing to add, don't."
I don't think that sentiment can be expressed any differently, snark or not. :) You could have been more blunt too. I think that point's very valid within the HN subculture.
Irony is, both these takeaways are something that one picks up "after the fact", which in itself is ironic.
How about we downmod this post because "Wat? Now I've seen everything! !Bang!" adds nothing of value to the conversation?
Or we could downmod it because the only thing less funny than an old meme is an old meme that the teller felt the need to pre-emptively explain?
Or... how about downmodding because saying that people would only do so "because they didn't get it immediately" implies that you think they're slow-witted? Insulting your audience is never a good way to get a warm reception.
I preferred the explanation below that explained it all without too much snark. I think being humourous is a definite value add in itself. My two bits.
>> Insulting your audience is never a good way to get a warm reception.
I wasn't insulting anyone. I was going by my own comment's previous reception. A downvote, and nothing else to say why so. You may have a point that I assumed the worst (about people not getting it), but neither does downvote w/o even a cursory explanation.
It is not as if we dropped out of our mothers and learnt to navigate the World A-class, from day-one.
Edit: I appreciate your trying to point out HN culture to me, but it could always be done without excessive snark (IMHO).
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4671196
The title of the Slate blogspam piece is even more exaggerated and link-baiting than the title of the Chronicle piece; both titles are factually wrong. Both blog posts overstate the impact of the Minnesota notice to higher education institutions, which has resulted only in a fig-leaf change to Coursera's ToS directed to Minnesota residents, and has had NO effect on Coursera's operation in Minnesota. As noted in my comment on the first thread,
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672038
I am a Minnesota resident, I am enrolled in multiple Coursera courses (and two of my children are enrolled in Coursera courses), and I will be speaking to my state legislators about this as a precaution after first speaking to the Minnesota Department of Education about this when business hours begin here. The sun will rise in the east here in Minnesota just like everywhere else today, and all is well with the world. Well, maybe not quite everything is well with the world, as two of the top eleven most active posts on HN just now
http://news.ycombinator.com/active
are both discussions of this very exaggerated story about Minnesota, neither checked with actual on-the-ground reporting on students currently enrolled in Coursera courses in Minnesota.
ONE MORE EDIT: Thanks to the several commenters (at various comment levels in various subthreads) who suggested policy considerations to bring up with the offices of my state senator and state representative today during the campaign season, and to the commenters who pointed to various possible interpretations of the relevant statutes and possible partisan political considerations related to this issue. I'll digest all that after giving blood today, and send an email to the state Office of Higher Education
https://www.ohe.state.mn.us/
and to my legislators. Over the weekend, I'll be doing homework in my Coursera courses [smile].