Programing's getting better you know...

[Richter]

It was a simple idea at first.  School 'em good.  Crank the kids through education good and hard, make sure they have attentive, demanding, but fair mentors, and you'll get a very functional critically thinking individual spat out into society.

Like all myths of "The Good old Day" though, this is false.  Yeah, it'd have been nice, but Atlatean crystal capacitors, Egyptian levitators, and Tesla's last 3 or 5 designs would have been too, and were just as real.  Nope, the school systems were jsut as full of sex crazed punks and apathetic teachers as ever.  Maybe they were more about the quality of education, and not jsut factory - packing mandated bits of info.  Then came the Program.

Think this was a speil about education?  Nope.  The program came along with morse code and punch cards.  It was reducing informatio to it's barest peices, it's quickest most efficient expression.  Reports, dossiers, knowing your people, and working with them (Rather than them jsut working FOR someone (thing)), made this analog approach necessary.  A human was only expected to directly interact with so many other humans, and they could all learn / work / get along, or FUCKING ELSE.

Then came the Programing.  1 or 0, yes or no, on or off, knows it or does not know it answers.  Quirks, specifics, caveats, or common issues were not reported.  They weren't counted, they weren't wanted for the people addicited to the shiny new stream of data, and the groups adopting and using them did their best to beleive they didn't exist.  The education went from testing to ensure people could UNDERSTAND, APPLY, and USE their knowledge to if they could find it out of A,B,C or D on a Multiple - choice card.  The State mandated exams followed.

Then came the great dumbing down.  The questions were too hard, the requirements too rigid, the decision too final when the 1 for a person inevitably tottered over to a 0.  So, de-nutting themselves for the sake of inclusives, they made allowances.  They hijacked "mindfullness" off the eastern thinkers, and tried to blend it in.  Binary Zen, Yes of No Buddha.  All they got was a program that didn't know what it was looking for.  You've seen the inevitable results.

I'm talking to you, TGRR, and I wouldn't be suprised if LMNO has seen them too.  That Safety bloke you keep mentioning, he sound slike he knows him some book, but he needs to have mastered the forbidden arts of knowing, influencing, and workign with people, while contrasting it with the virtue of "I will not step on my compatriot's toes".  The Cult of the Salesman has sacred monopoly on those skills, and they'll try to eat any of us that they find using them.   

EoC,  you know the ones I speak of, since your line of work, by necessity, cannot employ someone who is only competent accordign to The program.  It has to weed them out like the plauge.  Is 80% accuracy really acceptable when you're slinging around ambulances?

How does one fix these checklist immitations of people?  Well, it sounds as if they are learning by default, if they can pay attention.  The lessons come hard once you're set in your ways, and it's bludeoning will instruct like a falling I - Beam.  (They're wearing their required hard hats, right?) 

[LMNO]

[I_Kicked_Kennedy]

If this is the oppressive system you suggest, shouldn't we call it a "We-beam"?

[Jenne]

Then came the great dumbing down.  The questions were too hard, the requirements too rigid, the decision too final when the 1 for a person inevitably tottered over to a 0.  So, de-nutting themselves for the sake of inclusives, they made allowances.  They hijacked "mindfullness" off the eastern thinkers, and tried to blend it in.  Binary Zen, Yes of No Buddha.  All they got was a program that didn't know what it was looking for.  You've seen the inevitable results.

My favorite part. 

[Richter]

If this is the oppressive system you suggest, shouldn't we call it a "We-beam"?

Could you clarify a bit?  If you mean the "We-Beam" as the attempt to make it a more people friendly, less impersonal sort of Program, the that's certainly apt. 

I wasn't so much going for a rant about an "oppressive system" either.  ("Oppressive system" too often gets plastered on any bureaucratic event that someone doesn't like, or a percieved impersonal act.  SNL's "I threw is on the ground" skit is a perfect example of how the term gets bandied about.)  My intent was more to dig into the inability of any "Efficient" data handling system to describe a person.  (A Certified "Master Carpenter" who can't work with others, coordinate work on a large project, or change a lightbulb when needed is a good example of this.)

[I_Kicked_Kennedy]

Don't think too much about the question. Your soliloquy was great; it just reminded me of a high school teacher who made us read Anthem, then gave us a multiple question test on it. When a particularly astute classsmate noted the irony by drawing a paralell to the first part of the book, the teacher acted as if she did it by design... then told us we had ten more minutes.

[Richter]

Hah! Sounds about right, and thanks.  As for the question, I'm always inclined to ask when I'm curious.  (Whether for making more better rant in future if it was delivered as legit criticism, or having a good tiff if it was jsut ball-busting.) 

[Whatever]

Then came the great dumbing down.  The questions were too hard, the requirements too rigid, the decision too final when the 1 for a person inevitably tottered over to a 0.  So, de-nutting themselves for the sake of inclusives, they made allowances.  They hijacked "mindfullness" off the eastern thinkers, and tried to blend it in.  Binary Zen, Yes of No Buddha.  All they got was a program that didn't know what it was looking for.  You've seen the inevitable results.

My favorite part. 

THIS!

[Richter]

In retrospect, "Binary Zen" sounds a LOT like the title of a William Gibson novel.

[Eater of Clowns]

Been digesting this one for a while, Richter.  Good stuff.

Of course now you have to write Binary Zen.

[Juana]

This is fucking great and I really fucking wish you weren't right. My favorite history teacher in college so far gives multiple choice only under protest. He prefers essays because they show what you really know.

[Richter]

One of my favorite and most demanding teachers  WOULD do multi-choice, but he made them downright EVIL.  It wasn't a question based on rote memory, they demanded comprehension and application.  Being presented with a fictional proposition put before the continental congress and trying to suss out if Jefferson, Adams, Franklin or Washington would have been more likely to propose it was one of my favorite examples.  You had the opportunity to defend your answer too.