Traps set by the machine

[AFK]

It's best not to think about it really. 

[LMNO]

Hey, Illuminatus is a legitimate work of experimental fiction! Don't compare it with trash like that PD thing.

It's times like this I wonder what we're all doing here in the first place.

For some, the PD is like meeting the Buddah in the road.

[TheLastLump]

Hey, Illuminatus is a legitimate work of experimental fiction! Don't compare it with trash like that PD thing.

It's times like this I wonder what we're all doing here in the first place.

For some, the PD is like meeting the Buddah in the road.

Well said.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Bump.  This is good shit.

[LMNO]

It took a fairly predictable turn when we went off on that tangent about education, but I think the first few pages are excellent.

[Requia ☣]

The money game, the idea that more money (above and beyond what you actually need)=better.  One of the stronger traps, as most people only manage to get it by being 100% in tune with the machine.  Corporate drones and artistic sellouts.

looking back on this, it kinda sounds like I mean corporations are the machine.  On the contrary, the 'more profit' demand traps corporations in the machine more than it does people.

[Cain]

I would also qualify my statements by suggesting conscious use of game theory, decision theory, strategy etc by some people and denying them to everyone else (via hiding them in little known disciplines like strategic studies, military history, applied mathematics, analytics philosophy etc) is the issue.

I mean, how can you expect everyone to come to sensible decisions without giving them the tools by which to do so?  If you teach a few people strategic methods of thinking and planning and let everyone else go on without knowing, you're creating a technocratic elite (adept at manipulating people into particular constrained decision areas) whether you intended to or not.

[Placid Dingo]

I can't believe I missed what turned into a semi-education thread.

I think its a bit daft to say the school system is collapsing. I do think though that it could work a lot better. I suggest strongly the two TED videos by Sir Ken Robinson and his book as a blueprint of where we should be moving. Also, for interested people, check out a place called 'High Tech High'.

School IS RIDICULOUSLY important. A firm education is one of the reasons educated nations tend to stay on top. That said, there's a lot to be fixed. One thing is that we live in a world were students are ALWAYS reading writing, communicating etc through mobile phones, ipods, ipads, whatever. Yet we still have analogue schooling, built on an infinite process of delayed gratification. It's not an easy system to be in, but there is a difference that a teacher can make, if they're willing to try.

Cram is half right; it is partly about teaching acceptable behaviour. But in truth, nobody cares if you dye your hair pink or dance in the halls. I actually don't oppose this facet of schooling because this is more about teaching kids, no, if he pushes past you you CAN'T just yell COCK repeatedly down the hall... no, looking at you funny doesn't mean you can break a ruler over his head... yes, i know you want to discuss the porn you saw last night, but there's a time and place for these conversations.

Basically helping kids become socially acceptable enough to make friends, stay out of jail and keep jobs.

Anyway, thats' my 2c.

No its not, (edit) just read more;

Oh yeah, and the ability to read Wikipedia and actually check the footnotes and page histories.  That needs to be taught in schools ASAP along with critically evaluating claims.

YES! There is some of this going on, it's called (or we call it) critical literacy. The main focus is on reading into what the author believes and how that influences the work, but I certainly try to hit this point hard. I tell my students Wiki is a GREAT starting point, but once you've had a flip through, use the reference rather than the article.

OK, as someone who simply did not bother going to school after 3rd grade I have some input, here. Which is that as far as I can see, most of high school is a time-wasting exercise because I learned high school math in 5 weeks. All of it. 3 hours a week.

Nigel, I'm curious, what's the story here?

Okay. So. It seems to me that this argument is about the wrong thing. Maybe its just me.

I have a linguistics degree. I program computers for a living. The most important thing I learned in school? How to learn!

Really, I think it's sort of immaterial WHAT you teach people in school. It's nice if it's something interesting (they'll want to work at it more) or useful later (useful things are always, you know, useful), but they key is not learning (read: memorizing) some equation, but knowing that, if you don't know about a topic, there are ways to find out and if you don't want to look it up every time you need that piece of information, ways to help yourself remember.

I didn't realize that this was the point of education until I'd gotten my degree already, but either I had a happy accident and learned it anyway, the system worked, or I figured it out on some kind of instinctual level (or, I suppose, some confluence of more than one of those).

Here's the wonderful paradox: Schools should teach you how to learn (and, thus, how to think... implied "for yourself"?)... but that's actually BAD for The Machine, right? Thinking cogs are bad, right?

I think The Machine benefits from overtesting because people learn that leaning is hard, and school sucks and thinking is rough work and, man... flipping burgers is easy. If you can be socially engineered into having negative associations with using your frickin' brain, you are going to be easier to tell what to do ("Trust us. We know better..."). So maybe this is why national governments have become so over-emphatic about testing and regulation? They're benefiting from ruining their own educational systems?

I agree with part one, but not part two. The issue is I think that certain types of intelligence (using the term loosely) are valued and some aren't. If you can find complex numerical patterns that's smart. If you can write an essay on history that's bright. If you can right a story that's good. If you can make complex visual art, that's quaint. And if you can spin an intense track on a guitar, well, that'll make a nice hobby one day.

So some kids with some talents get that feedback all the time that they're smart and good, and others don't get that message. and the message a lot of kids get is 'school is hard. its' for smart people. I'm not smart. i can't do smart things.'

This varies by school depending on how effective different messages are.

Also, I LOVE alternative schools, but it's epically a different strokes thing.

AND by way of apology I'm going to add a non education post here too.

[Placid Dingo]

Aesthetics.

It's so easy to fall into the trap of looking different, or like an environmentalist, or a punk, or whatever without embracing the ideology on anything more that a superficial level.

[AFK]

Heh, I remember this.  I think I've argued with Vert about schools as often as I've argued with Rat about drugs. 

[minuspace]

analytic prejudice

[flipdog]

atomised individualism, as was mentioned earlier.

and conventions.