People keep asking me, and I haven’t really had an answer, but now yeah, I’m thinking I’m back.

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Joined 1 month ago
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Cake day: March 18th, 2025

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  • One of the articles sourced by Snopes is this NYT article, which I think highlights one of the major problems with teaching:

    Across all school subjects, teachers receive a pale imitation of the preparation, support and tools they need. … the overall picture is of a profession struggling to make the best of an impossible hand.

    And across all subjects, the neglect shows in students’ work. In addition to misunderstanding math, American students also, on average, write weakly, read poorly, think unscientifically and grasp history only superficially.

    Teachers almost universally bear the brunt of a toxic society from all sides. Children with poor behavior, Parents who promote it, Administrators who ignore it, and almost everyone incentivized by shit laws like No Child Left Behind to keep skating those kids through every step of the way - find any excuse to pass the problem child on to the next year, conjure any reason to get Brad that sports scholarship even though he can’t multiply fractions.

    Our entire society has venerated ignorance for half a century, and we’ve become exceedingly efficient at it. Few places are as protective and proud of their bad reputation as the USA.





  • The only things that really impress me are the things I have zero ability in at all: drawing character sketches of my roleplaying characters, composing music…

    Do you suppose that is the result of Gell-Mann Amneisa?

    You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues… and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

    You know how to program, so you know the AI sucks at programming. You know it sucks at poetry, synthesis research, etc etc. You don’t know how to draw, but do you suppose the AI is good at drawing?


  • They are looking for every possible way to take that away from you.

    You have a 401k? They’re crashing the stock market to make you dependent on your job for longer.

    You have a mortgage? Maybe you already paid off your house? Crash the housing market to send your mortgage underwater or decimate your nest egg.

    Do you plan on relying on medicare for healthcare when you’re old and retired? I hope not. That’s next.

    Maybe you can afford private healthcare? Destroy the CDC and the FDA to make sure you get sick from preventable diseases, so that you need to pay more for that healthcare.

    Whatever net worth you think you have, Trump, Musk, and MAGA will take it. You’re just a pocketbook to them.