I'm 82 years old. When I was young, an American high school diploma was roughly equivalent to a college degree in most fields today. I was an above-average high school student, but wasn't valedictorian of my 13-student class. My small school offered a debate course, which I didn't take. One day in my sophomore year, all students observed in the study hall a debate on a subject that wouldn't be permitted in high schools today: segregation. My town wasn't segregated. Blacks attended my school and could patronize any business open to whites. I knew segregation existed elsewhere, but I didn't think about it because my interests at that age were confined mainly to girls, cars, and popular music. The two best debaters took the pro-segregation side. I doubt that they favored segregation, but debaters were taught to argue both sides of an issue persuasively. The two on the anti-segregation side were less skilled and, consequently, seemed to have the initial disadvantage. I thought the better debaters made as good a case as could be made for segregation, but the other side won because justice was on their side. On that day, I formed my first political opinion. From that day forward, I was a civil rights advocate. I missed the first third or half of my senior year and, to graduate with my classmates, had to carry a heavy course load, which included a correspondence course in American history. The course's authors didn't want students to merely memorize dates and events. They wanted students to think. I had to write and submit argumentative essays taking one side or the other of political issues that arose throughout history. From watching the debate I mentioned above, I inferred that my chances of getting a decent grade on my essays would be greater if I took the side I could best defend. So before I wrote a word, I'd debate myself on the issue. I'd make the best case I could for one side. Then I'd try to refute that case and make the best case I could for the other side. I'd argue the matter back and forth until one side emerged victorious. Then I'd write my essay supporting that side. Eventually, I realized I was consistently taking the side supported by people the textbook authors called “liberals.” So I decided I was a liberal. I didn't realize those “liberals” are today called “classical liberals” or “libertarians.”
As years passed, I was confused by the fact that I kept disagreeing with my “fellow liberals” on economic issues and tended to agree with people who called themselves “conservatives.” My confusion was cleared up in 1976 when, at the Nevada Jaycee Fair, inside the Las Vegas Convention Center, at the Libertarian Party booth, out of curiosity, I took a “Find Your Political Position” test consisting of 20 statements, 10 each on personal freedom and economic freedom. I was instructed to indicate whether I agreed or disagreed with each statement. Depending on my responses, I'd be classified as liberal, conservative, moderate, authoritarian, or libertarian. I scored 100% libertarian. I don't know who was more surprised—me or the man who gave me the test. I'd been unaware that anyone else agreed with me on all those issues. He said I was the first person he tested who scored 100% libertarian. At first, he thought I'd read some books by libertarian authors. But I hadn't. Eventually, I figured out why the libertarians and I agree: After high school, I attended one year of college, where I took two logic courses. The only position on the test that was logically consistent was pure libertarianism. All other positions on the test, except for pure totalitarianism, were inconsistent mixtures of libertarianism and authoritarianism. Even pure totalitarianism is internally inconsistent. That's because, under pure totalitarianism, whatever is not prohibited is required. But one totalitarian might prohibit what another would require, so they'd disagree on all policy issues. For example, one despot, fearing assassination, might prohibit possession of firearms by his subjects, while a nearby, less powerful tyrant required all his subjects to possess firearms to defend his territory from his aggressive neighbor. But, unlike the two dictators, two pure libertarians would consistently agree that individual possession of firearms should be neither prohibited nor required.
I attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as a middle-aged student. I didn't expect to do well because I hadn't attended school for many years, but I was amazed to discover that I had little competition from younger classmates, most of whom were surprisingly poor students. Typically, I was the top student in my class. It didn't seem to matter how big the class was. A couple of classes had over 100 students. After the final exam in one class of about 200 students, many students asked the instructor to see how many questions they'd missed. He was overwhelmed with requests, so he advised about half of them to check with me. He said, jokingly, I assume, that he intended to use my test sheet as an answer key to grade the other final exams. One course I took had many sections. My instructor proudly informed me that one of her students got the highest score in all the sections; that student was me. Another instructor said I'd scored higher than anyone else he'd taught in that course during his career. I graduated summa cum laude in the top 1% of my class. Recall that I reported earlier that I was not valedictorian of my 13-student high school class. My experience indicates that students today would learn more useful information if they didn't waste time on “woke” ideology and concentrated more on the basics. Those are often called the three R's: reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. I'd add a fourth R: reasoning.
The Russian/Soviet multidisciplinary approach helped them be very competitive in Olympic competitions. Whereas parents in American would chose their child’s sport (baseball or football) and focus their training solely in that sport Russian athletic prospects (selected by schools not by parents) had to all do several types of training: so everyone including burly weightlifting prospects had to learn some ballet, play chess, do some team sports and some individual sports. Only after observing where each individual had comparative advantage would prospects then be assigned to a specific sport. But the weightlifter would have acquired some knowledge of balance from his exposure to ballet and some exposure to strategic thinking from playing cheese. Whereas the poor American kid being trained just to be a slugger in baseball might develop rotator-cuff injuries while still in adolescence.
You're spot on. I learned to play chess too in my childhood by the way. Overall I love my multidisciplinary education, because of it I'm almost omniscient on the background of extremely ignorant American Woketards...
This mirrors my opinion and people used to understand and appreciate this type of intelligence and self-education. Unfortunately "school" education morphed into programming and stifling minds rather than expanding them. I watched this happen from 1991 when my child entered "the school system" in California. I was lucky enough to have my brilliant mother around to ask questions and the difference of 32 years in educational content became apparent and highly-rated private schools were safer but not much better. The schools have been producing socialist brainwashed idiots for decades - and one of their mantras is if you haven't graduated college you are nothing. They cannot understand the difference of what people knew with a high school education compared to the dei babysitting of today☹️
The term “expert” is a term d’art co opted by “academics” to validate their stranglehold on “education” and credentialing as a reward for paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition to keep the scam running
To me an “ expert” is a hard scientist doing experimentation and publishing seminal, repeatable scientific findings NOT SOCIAL SCIENCE UNPROVABLE THEORIES THAT ARE MORE OPINION AND CONFIRMATION BIAS THAN TRUE SCIENCE
I love when lawyers get “expert” witnesses to validate their case and the “experts” provide the answer each lawyer pays them to provide
Experts are those who read the books and theories of other “experts” none of whom really do true science
The entire academic model is built on passing along the approved narrative to students who claim expertise because they can regurgitate what is in a book published by other experts who regurgitate what they read from others. It’s a Potemkin village and Ponzi scheme
You're actually 200% spot on. It's 100% replacing of knowledge with credentialism.
I recall when I was writing my Master's thesis I was forced by my teachers to back up almost every sentence by links and quotes from 'experts in the field' as if my own thoughts were worth of nothing and were just garbage. It pissed me off incredibly.
What's the point of writing MY Master's thesis if I have to regurgitate what others including my teachers said there? I would understand this attitude with some complex terms or theories but every fucking sentence? Fuck this shit.
Also, professionals are often 'bought' and therefore will say whatever their sponsors want them to say. The skilled amateur is at least more likely to be giving an unbiased opinion.
It seems that many "Westerners" prefer not to rely on their innate common sense when discussing controversial subjects. Rather they prefer to quote the opinions of "experts" and "authorities" to support their discourse so that if they are closely questioned they can quote the opinion of others and avoid criticism of their own judgement. It is a bit l;ike "hedging your bets" but in reality is a failure of moral character.
There are also people full of pride who think they are experts on a certain topic only because they have an opinion on it😂
Just curious about your Russian education: are there many private schools ..say classical schools that focus on the basics and heavy in literature and history? Or are public schools good? Or just depends on the school? I would think that communism very much influenced world history education in Russia.
So you read Dostoevsky in Russian, then? I wonder how different the English translation is from Russian. Some pretty funny parts but not sure how much is due to the actual wording vs just the situations. I’m trying to get through it😂
Depends on the school but it's possible to find good public schools, they're usually called gymnasiums to distinguish both from regular public schools and from private school. I attended such a high quality gymnasium.
Yeltsin era in 90s cleared Russian education from Communist propaganda so I was lucky here too. Now I think there's new imperialist Putin propaganda in schools.
Overall, multidisciplinary approach, large volumes of knowledge and quality teachers is a very good mix. We only had problems with English teachers, no good ones, I learned English later myself by listening to and translating English rock songs, reading books in English and watching movies with subtitles.
I'm 82 years old. When I was young, an American high school diploma was roughly equivalent to a college degree in most fields today. I was an above-average high school student, but wasn't valedictorian of my 13-student class. My small school offered a debate course, which I didn't take. One day in my sophomore year, all students observed in the study hall a debate on a subject that wouldn't be permitted in high schools today: segregation. My town wasn't segregated. Blacks attended my school and could patronize any business open to whites. I knew segregation existed elsewhere, but I didn't think about it because my interests at that age were confined mainly to girls, cars, and popular music. The two best debaters took the pro-segregation side. I doubt that they favored segregation, but debaters were taught to argue both sides of an issue persuasively. The two on the anti-segregation side were less skilled and, consequently, seemed to have the initial disadvantage. I thought the better debaters made as good a case as could be made for segregation, but the other side won because justice was on their side. On that day, I formed my first political opinion. From that day forward, I was a civil rights advocate. I missed the first third or half of my senior year and, to graduate with my classmates, had to carry a heavy course load, which included a correspondence course in American history. The course's authors didn't want students to merely memorize dates and events. They wanted students to think. I had to write and submit argumentative essays taking one side or the other of political issues that arose throughout history. From watching the debate I mentioned above, I inferred that my chances of getting a decent grade on my essays would be greater if I took the side I could best defend. So before I wrote a word, I'd debate myself on the issue. I'd make the best case I could for one side. Then I'd try to refute that case and make the best case I could for the other side. I'd argue the matter back and forth until one side emerged victorious. Then I'd write my essay supporting that side. Eventually, I realized I was consistently taking the side supported by people the textbook authors called “liberals.” So I decided I was a liberal. I didn't realize those “liberals” are today called “classical liberals” or “libertarians.”
As years passed, I was confused by the fact that I kept disagreeing with my “fellow liberals” on economic issues and tended to agree with people who called themselves “conservatives.” My confusion was cleared up in 1976 when, at the Nevada Jaycee Fair, inside the Las Vegas Convention Center, at the Libertarian Party booth, out of curiosity, I took a “Find Your Political Position” test consisting of 20 statements, 10 each on personal freedom and economic freedom. I was instructed to indicate whether I agreed or disagreed with each statement. Depending on my responses, I'd be classified as liberal, conservative, moderate, authoritarian, or libertarian. I scored 100% libertarian. I don't know who was more surprised—me or the man who gave me the test. I'd been unaware that anyone else agreed with me on all those issues. He said I was the first person he tested who scored 100% libertarian. At first, he thought I'd read some books by libertarian authors. But I hadn't. Eventually, I figured out why the libertarians and I agree: After high school, I attended one year of college, where I took two logic courses. The only position on the test that was logically consistent was pure libertarianism. All other positions on the test, except for pure totalitarianism, were inconsistent mixtures of libertarianism and authoritarianism. Even pure totalitarianism is internally inconsistent. That's because, under pure totalitarianism, whatever is not prohibited is required. But one totalitarian might prohibit what another would require, so they'd disagree on all policy issues. For example, one despot, fearing assassination, might prohibit possession of firearms by his subjects, while a nearby, less powerful tyrant required all his subjects to possess firearms to defend his territory from his aggressive neighbor. But, unlike the two dictators, two pure libertarians would consistently agree that individual possession of firearms should be neither prohibited nor required.
I attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as a middle-aged student. I didn't expect to do well because I hadn't attended school for many years, but I was amazed to discover that I had little competition from younger classmates, most of whom were surprisingly poor students. Typically, I was the top student in my class. It didn't seem to matter how big the class was. A couple of classes had over 100 students. After the final exam in one class of about 200 students, many students asked the instructor to see how many questions they'd missed. He was overwhelmed with requests, so he advised about half of them to check with me. He said, jokingly, I assume, that he intended to use my test sheet as an answer key to grade the other final exams. One course I took had many sections. My instructor proudly informed me that one of her students got the highest score in all the sections; that student was me. Another instructor said I'd scored higher than anyone else he'd taught in that course during his career. I graduated summa cum laude in the top 1% of my class. Recall that I reported earlier that I was not valedictorian of my 13-student high school class. My experience indicates that students today would learn more useful information if they didn't waste time on “woke” ideology and concentrated more on the basics. Those are often called the three R's: reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. I'd add a fourth R: reasoning.
The Russian/Soviet multidisciplinary approach helped them be very competitive in Olympic competitions. Whereas parents in American would chose their child’s sport (baseball or football) and focus their training solely in that sport Russian athletic prospects (selected by schools not by parents) had to all do several types of training: so everyone including burly weightlifting prospects had to learn some ballet, play chess, do some team sports and some individual sports. Only after observing where each individual had comparative advantage would prospects then be assigned to a specific sport. But the weightlifter would have acquired some knowledge of balance from his exposure to ballet and some exposure to strategic thinking from playing cheese. Whereas the poor American kid being trained just to be a slugger in baseball might develop rotator-cuff injuries while still in adolescence.
You're spot on. I learned to play chess too in my childhood by the way. Overall I love my multidisciplinary education, because of it I'm almost omniscient on the background of extremely ignorant American Woketards...
My hilarious mistake (typo): “playing cheese!” 😆
Yeah, I noticed actually, and I love cheese too!😉
This mirrors my opinion and people used to understand and appreciate this type of intelligence and self-education. Unfortunately "school" education morphed into programming and stifling minds rather than expanding them. I watched this happen from 1991 when my child entered "the school system" in California. I was lucky enough to have my brilliant mother around to ask questions and the difference of 32 years in educational content became apparent and highly-rated private schools were safer but not much better. The schools have been producing socialist brainwashed idiots for decades - and one of their mantras is if you haven't graduated college you are nothing. They cannot understand the difference of what people knew with a high school education compared to the dei babysitting of today☹️
It's replacing of actual knowledge with credentialism. It's a pure evil.
Yes. That is a perfect description. We can be The Tin Man or The Cowardly Lion.
The term “expert” is a term d’art co opted by “academics” to validate their stranglehold on “education” and credentialing as a reward for paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition to keep the scam running
To me an “ expert” is a hard scientist doing experimentation and publishing seminal, repeatable scientific findings NOT SOCIAL SCIENCE UNPROVABLE THEORIES THAT ARE MORE OPINION AND CONFIRMATION BIAS THAN TRUE SCIENCE
I love when lawyers get “expert” witnesses to validate their case and the “experts” provide the answer each lawyer pays them to provide
Experts are those who read the books and theories of other “experts” none of whom really do true science
The entire academic model is built on passing along the approved narrative to students who claim expertise because they can regurgitate what is in a book published by other experts who regurgitate what they read from others. It’s a Potemkin village and Ponzi scheme
You're actually 200% spot on. It's 100% replacing of knowledge with credentialism.
I recall when I was writing my Master's thesis I was forced by my teachers to back up almost every sentence by links and quotes from 'experts in the field' as if my own thoughts were worth of nothing and were just garbage. It pissed me off incredibly.
What's the point of writing MY Master's thesis if I have to regurgitate what others including my teachers said there? I would understand this attitude with some complex terms or theories but every fucking sentence? Fuck this shit.
This is correct. “Expertism” is a fundamental flaw in decision making.
It's basically shifting responsibility for our lives from our shoulders on ‘expert’ ones. Laziness and stupidity.
Also, professionals are often 'bought' and therefore will say whatever their sponsors want them to say. The skilled amateur is at least more likely to be giving an unbiased opinion.
Good point too. All experts agree with whoever funds them usually.
It seems that many "Westerners" prefer not to rely on their innate common sense when discussing controversial subjects. Rather they prefer to quote the opinions of "experts" and "authorities" to support their discourse so that if they are closely questioned they can quote the opinion of others and avoid criticism of their own judgement. It is a bit l;ike "hedging your bets" but in reality is a failure of moral character.
That's a good point too but I believe narrow expertise as opposed to multidisciplinary approach is a problem too.
There are also people full of pride who think they are experts on a certain topic only because they have an opinion on it😂
Just curious about your Russian education: are there many private schools ..say classical schools that focus on the basics and heavy in literature and history? Or are public schools good? Or just depends on the school? I would think that communism very much influenced world history education in Russia.
Oops, Crime and Punishment I mean
So you read Dostoevsky in Russian, then? I wonder how different the English translation is from Russian. Some pretty funny parts but not sure how much is due to the actual wording vs just the situations. I’m trying to get through it😂
Dunno, I haven't read him in English, only in Russian, so Idk about translation difference…
Wow! Very impressive!
Thanks!
Depends on the school but it's possible to find good public schools, they're usually called gymnasiums to distinguish both from regular public schools and from private school. I attended such a high quality gymnasium.
Yeltsin era in 90s cleared Russian education from Communist propaganda so I was lucky here too. Now I think there's new imperialist Putin propaganda in schools.
Overall, multidisciplinary approach, large volumes of knowledge and quality teachers is a very good mix. We only had problems with English teachers, no good ones, I learned English later myself by listening to and translating English rock songs, reading books in English and watching movies with subtitles.
Selecting an expert that agrees with you.
A favorite Woke hobby.
Proof
Where is your proof