Your ideology is flawed. Human beings are not divided into two camps, "Good" and "Bad." You do not slice the pie in two and and discard everyone in the "Bad" camp. If you do, and do so honestly, you will find in short order that you have discarded everyone who ever lived, or ever will.
Humans are complicated creatures with many flaws and nobilities. Because of Washington's actions in both the revolution and his presidency, a vast number of people enjoyed far more freedom than they would have otherwise. Also because of Washington's actions, some people had to endure a life a brutal slavery. Neither of these aspects is untrue, or erases the other from history by its existence. History, and humans, are often messy and uncomfortable. Stop trying to pretend otherwise. It is possible for Washington to be both a hero of freedom and a disappointing oppressor at the same time. This is the paradox of the human condition.
You're not enlightened. You haven't discovered some grand, hidden truth that all the world must know by pointing out that respected historical figures were flawed. We know. We've always known. We respect them anyway, because they did good as well as bad, and the good was a big deal.
You did a much better job than I did explaining why Washington is a risky person to associate with when trying to convey the idea of freedom. His legacy in that regard is too messy.
And you're absolutely right - I am not enlightened.
apparently washington was also generally a bad military strategist and tactician, racked by uncertainty and indecisiveness. he happened to get lucky in a couple crucial battles, otherwise we may have had no idea who he was. so luck strikes again, and washington the symbol is more relevant than washington the man.
Bingo. Fuck this gaslighting. The vast majority of pollution in general, and CO2 in particular, comes from industry, not individuals. Tossing trash everywhere and running gas through your bus-like SUV like a maniac is an asshole move, and your neighbors don't appreciate it, but it doesn't move the needle much on actual environmental issues. Big companies and big foreign nations are where the CO2 is coming from. They have a stranglehold on congress thanks to their money, so good luck forcing change. But in the meantime let's stop wringing our hands over "lifestyle changes". They don't matter.
> Bingo. Fuck this gaslighting. The vast majority of pollution in general, and CO2 in particular, comes from industry, not individuals.
Military (which I'd argue is in fact Industry) up until recently, actually; but somehow that gets swept under the rug. Moreover, when Industry loses a significant case in which they are forced to pay for their blatant environmental misconduct they can intimidate, and retaliate against the counselors [0] in some grotesque way to put a chilling effect on those who want to do the same.
I intermittent fast eat meat only 3 times a week and try to maintain a 5;1 plant to animal protein ratio, lowered my carbon footprint in many ways for 16 years now (from farming in large scale regenerative farms to living in towns where I don't need a car) and have been reducing my consumption more and more as I get older--it does nothing for me and I'm pretty utilitarian about my purchase and will prefer to buy used over new. In many ways I'm pretty sure my actions have made me (individually) carbon negative.
But, as you mentioned, the conclusion you realize after living this way is that Industry can essentially null all of the actions I've taken in a day of operation as it's activity in terms of GHG emission, pollution or wide-scale contamination of the environment. This is why I think Ecocide [1] should be enforced to all including corps as well as Governments and individuals (directors of investor's funds) and Hedgefunds who have benefited from these events. Anything short of this is political theater and will ensure that business as normal is maintained--COP26, Bilderburg et al are examples of how State and Cooperate power exempt themselves from all the things they decry are responsible for these impacts at scale.
With that said, I place greater confidence in the ingenuity of Humans to create solutions to these problems. Incentivizing this is what we should be doing instead of continuing to bail out failed business models from megacorps via infinite QE.
Exactly. But at the same time we can’t wash our hand at the grassroots level. We have to continue to be environmentally conscious and put pressure on industry.
They ARE anti-white propaganda. This isn't hyperbole, it's simply descriptive of the facts. Maybe they weren't at some point, but a new crop has taken over the reigns, and pretty much all of those groups have embraced wokeness, intersectionality, "white man bad" etc. Hell, forget "diversity groups": we live in world where Google deliberately tampers with Image Search results to downplay white people and promote literally anyone else. We're DROWNING in anti-white propaganda. And yes, sooner or later, there's going to be a backlash.
How long can a country endure if it continues to cripple learning, muzzle truth and persecute some of its most talented and capable individuals in the name of childish, incoherent ideology? Not long.
The stage of history doesn't care how many followers you have on Twitter, or how many people's lives you can destroy in the name of your religion masquerading as science. In the coming years, the US MUST LEAD. It must shake the slop from itself and rise to the role of world leader again, not just with guns but with minds, because the battlefield of the future is a battlefield of the mind. If it does not rise, China or Russia will be glad to.
Either "wokeness" dies, or the US dies. It's that simple.
"How long can a country endure if it continues to cripple learning, muzzle truth and persecute some of its most talented and capable individuals in the name of childish, incoherent ideology? Not long"
Are you talking about modern "wokeness" or are you talking about the while history of the United States as a primarily Christian state? Because I still feel more crippled, muzzled, and persecuted by us Christian morality/ideology than any recent up surgance in "wokeness".
Not parent poster but I would guess that there's now hundreds of thousands of students going through institutions like MIT who are being indoctrinated, who will be coming to a work force near you real soon. They will be demanding (and I've seen this already first hand) for everyone to fall into line with the wokeness. Spineless leaders will listen to them and fear them, and as we have seen already, do as they demand.
You'll have to educate me on who Deltron3030 are and what "Crises precipitate change" means. Is there something in the song's lyrics that is relevant here?
Before every great change there is a crescendo of the status quo. The lyric is from a future dystopian song that is unrelated, in the concrete sense. The quote, however, in my own interpretation the quote expresses that when things reach a fever pitch, when things become unpalatable for general society, the pendulum will swing back in the other direction.
Yes, obviously in order to make an apple pie you must first create the universe. In order to be gifted you must first be born, have a basic level of food and shelter, be mostly free of disease and so on. That's not a relevant point of discussion here. We're discussing a case where all things are equal.
"But all things aren't equal!" You scream. "Those evil white people grew up in the lap of luxury while the poor, repressed minorities had a life of scraping, miserable poverty!"
First, this isn't always true. There are poor white people and middle-class (or even rich) minorities, and to suggest that every minority is hopelessly disadvantaged because they all grew up in the ghetto is its own kind of racism. But second, this is a separate discussion. To answer the question "Are some people naturally gifted?" you have to adjust the other variables to equal first in order to tease out the answer to that specific question. Having discovered that yes, indeed they are, you can then conclude that this CONTINUES TO BE THE CASE in situations where "privilege" is not equal. The fact that some people are handicapped or helped by their economic or racial background does not magically erase the fact that they are ALSO helped or held back by their innate intelligence, and tendency to understand or not understand specific concepts.
Some people are smarter than other people, in a way that has nothing to do with economics or racism, but is purely biological luck. In direct contradiction to your assertion, THIS is self-evident, in the same way that "Things fall to the earth when dropped". and "Eventually, everyone dies" are. To deny this is to deny basic, readily-observable and reproducible reality, in a way that suggests either disingenuousness or mental illness.
Everyone is not equal, never has been, and never will be. It is an inherent property of the randomness of nature that some members of a species end up with abilities superior to others, completely independent of economics, race, social class, or any other human construction. Stop pushing this inane Harrison Bergeron gibberish.
It's well-established that radical leftists, the people who scream "Racist!" at anyone they can find, are ironically some of the most racist people in existence. Their whole ideology demands that they infantalize, disempower and rob of agency the very people they claim to fight for, so they can be more effective victims. And of course, anyone who doesn't fit their narrative (like Asians) gets kicked to the curb.
The people who preach the loudest often do so to overshout their own past. It’s no coincidence that the loudest proponents of cancel culture have a history of bigotry, racism and bullying. Today, this the most effective way to bully someone.
Most recently this was seen with the organizer of the Netflix walkout, who has a history of racist tweets, primarily anti Asian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7wMZ_R_anw
An ex of mine is as radical and as left as it’s possible to get, in that she self-identifies as a “revolutionary Marxist”. She goes on marches, she wants to defund the police, to ban the existence of billionaires, and the world to be a series of anarcho-communist collectives.
For all the flaws and wishful thinking that I can see in her politics, infantilising and disempowering those she goes on protest marches to help is not among them. She absolutely keeps quiet and listens to anyone having a bad time — proper active listening — even though when she does speak up for them her voice is exactly the stereotype of extreme volume and energy the rest of the world has for Americans in general.
More accurate title: "California seeks to turn Math education into anti-white, anti-intelligence propaganda devoid of any connection to reality. Few remaining sane people in state protest fruitlessly."
These people are monsters. They're literally tearing apart civilization (education of children is foundational) for the sake of their doomed ideology. If you can't see the parallels to the Soviet Union, you're either already drinking the kool-aide or incomprehensibly dense.
To be fair to Soviet Union (I'm from USSR/Russia), they were actually the reverse in that area, there were gifted programs, gifted schools where you would be tracked if you were good, competitions for school kids in many subjects (from history to physics) that would also track you to gifted schools or could earn an automatic college admission, etc. AFAIK even the classes in regular run-of-the-mill schools would sometimes be "semi-tracked", with most of the smarter/better behaved kids ending up in some classes and the less smart/worse behaved kids in others for the same age group, without any other differences (i.e. lessons would be more or less the same). Soviet Union was an evil empire, but it was not entirely dumb.
The modern progressives, on the other hand, are evil AND dumb.
I feel bad for kids that will be the subjects of these social experiments. And if (when) the results aren't good, can you trust ideologically driven administrators to change their methods? [[it would be great if it ended up working well for the kids, but it's a huge risk especially at a public, state level]]
I was lucky enough to grow up in a system where gifted math kids could take classes at the local university, and from what I've heard this is common in various CA school districts as well. Hopefully, that won't be discouraged as I found it to be a huge positive being both much more interesting and good prep for university. It seems like the resources are widely available (in semi-rural/urban areas, and now online) to support kids with different learning speeds, styles, and interests. Holding back individuals, purely for the sake of raising the average, if that is their intention, is sick- learning isn't a zero-sum game, but should be the opposite.
i agree with your new title, but also agree with the commentator below. Soviet Russia excelled in STEM which makes California public school education a tragic joke.
Russian School of Mathematics is very popular in Bay Area.I think there are branches all over the states(not sure). They exist solely for 'math enrichment of K-12 students'. The after school programs are tough and come highly recommended.
There is also 'Singapore Math' that I am not very familiar with but its supposed to be based on the very challenging Singapore Math curriculum.
Yeah imagine a country getting freaked out over a few dozens of millions of dead and going crazy and passing a bunch of insane laws and having its politics go insane. It’s not like that doesn’t describe post 9/11 America.
The timing was a bit different though: first the country got crazy, then it passed a bunch of insane laws, then a few dozens of millions died, then they started WW2 (Molotov–Ribbentrop pact), and then a few more millions died.
I don't think denial of reality is something that would be strongly associated with SU, and not because it was not prevalent there, but because of its prevalence everywhere else.
No, Soviet Union only got these programs in 1960s, when it started to suffer fully from its sciences being based on the "scientific Marxism-Leninism" and unable to catch up with advances in the West.
The old internet was largely user-agnostic. It involved a bunch of tools that were genuinely just tools, that people could use as they liked. As a result, all kinds of communities sprung up, and there was a lot of humanity on the net.
New internet is dominated by tech giants, who want to make money. In order to do this, they fuck with their user's minds at every opportunity. As a result, no "tool" is really a tool anymore. Google search doesn't exist to serve you. Same with maps, or Gmail. Same with Facebook, Twitter and on and on. These are not tools. They're machines to collect data on you, so you can be understood, so you can have crap sold to you. Or, more sinisterly, so you can be controlled in any number of ways.
A shadow of the old internet still exists, spread across fragmented digital ghettos here and there. Places run by humans, rather than SV companies. Places whose aim is still community, education, or just genuine fun, rather than running endless non-consensual psychology experiments on their users. But who knows how much longer any of these will endure. Most are already showing cracks.
"Feels like" being the key phrase. The reality of the modern Internet means there's no need for GPT3: You don't need AI that can write like a human when humans are being pushed by market forces to write like robots.
Humans are complicated creatures with many flaws and nobilities. Because of Washington's actions in both the revolution and his presidency, a vast number of people enjoyed far more freedom than they would have otherwise. Also because of Washington's actions, some people had to endure a life a brutal slavery. Neither of these aspects is untrue, or erases the other from history by its existence. History, and humans, are often messy and uncomfortable. Stop trying to pretend otherwise. It is possible for Washington to be both a hero of freedom and a disappointing oppressor at the same time. This is the paradox of the human condition.
You're not enlightened. You haven't discovered some grand, hidden truth that all the world must know by pointing out that respected historical figures were flawed. We know. We've always known. We respect them anyway, because they did good as well as bad, and the good was a big deal.