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I’ve often told my creative friends, who at times get depressed about dead end jobs, that it’s just a chance of the time period we live in.

I’m a naturally academic person, with a knack for critical thinking. I’ve never been taught how, formally. But my career has brought that out, and let me hone it in a way I enjoy.

Had I been born earlier, and not by all that much, it would be me struggling in a world primarily driven by manual labour. It’s crazy how the world only ever tried to replicate what it feels it needs.

Look at the rise of “artisan” food. I put that word in quotes, because whilst I appreciate and respect the skills involved, I find it a bit pretentious. I’m not adverse to paying more for tastier, arguably healthier (fewer preservatives) food. I try to use my local Butcher, rather than the Supermarket for my meaty goodness, because it tastes better, and I can get specific cuts easier, and have it partially prepared for me.

I don’t frown upon food mass production, or those that make use of it (I have just stuffed my face with McDonalds). I just appreciate I’ve the option to choose.

I’m happy to say this new found, albeit (me included) slightly pretentious market for hand made stuff has enabled said creative friends to make at least some kind of living from their natural talents and developed skills. Sure, some still have a minimum wage job to provide stability, but they’re able to supplement that from their hobby.

I mean, I can take pretty much any of my friends in a debate, because that’s pretty close to my job. But ask me to build more than a flatpack whilst following the instructions, and I’m bollocksed.

And we need an education system better able to identify and nurture talents. As someone who went through the Comprehensive System, a lot of the Naughty Kids were, in actual fact, just bored out of their minds, because they were being taught things out of useful context.

Example? A kid may be a natural at woodwork and electrics. Those of course involve maths. But they way I was taught maths was overly abstract. Sure, I used to be able to do simultaneous and quadratic equations, and enjoyed doing so. But that knowledge withered, because it’s never, to this day, been of any relevance at all to my professional life. Little beyond relatively simple algebra has been.

This of course can lead to kids feeling disenfranchised and useless quite early on. That’s something very hard to turn around in an adult.

Or, you could set up the education system in a way as to theach them in, i do not know, apprentieceship system? Adding in additional systems to allow for entry into higher schooling in the specific realm of their job?

Logistics is a huge issue in regards to this.

To do it effectively, you are going to have to accept you are paying a teacher a teaching salary to teach to only 4 students in some areas. This goes against the current break even point of needing 17 in each classroom at least, more in some areas...

Basically, either education needs limitless funding, or a bigger change is needed where students go to live away from family at specific institutes around the country to acquire their tailored education. This brings in even more issues and costing problems though...

I agree to the above, but I'm fundamentally unsure on how to implement it fully tbh.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/791467.page#10909959


I think its time we took school to its own place!

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Logistics is a huge issue in regards to this.

To do it effectively, you are going to have to accept you are paying a teacher a teaching salary to teach to only 4 students in some areas. This goes against the current break even point of needing 17 in each classroom at least, more in some areas...

Basically, either education needs limitless funding, or a bigger change is needed where students go to live away from family at specific institutes around the country to acquire their tailored education. This brings in even more issues and costing problems though...

I agree to the above, but I'm fundamentally unsure on how to implement it fully tbh.

Erm, we run such a system, quite successfully infact.
it isn't that difficult, infact it is just medieval guild system left over adopted into industrial era with strengthened sylabus and in cooperation with the companies, which form groups to discern skills they need of future workers in such a way and either Pay into the system additionally or have apprentices in their companies to teach.

It isn't magic.

Intelligence is a skill; like other skills people are born with a talent for it, and they can nurture or squander what they have. And I will die on that hill.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Logistics is a huge issue in regards to this.

To do it effectively, you are going to have to accept you are paying a teacher a teaching salary to teach to only 4 students in some areas. This goes against the current break even point of needing 17 in each classroom at least, more in some areas...

Basically, either education needs limitless funding, or a bigger change is needed where students go to live away from family at specific institutes around the country to acquire their tailored education. This brings in even more issues and costing problems though...

I agree to the above, but I'm fundamentally unsure on how to implement it fully tbh.

Erm, we run such a system, quite successfully infact.
it isn't that difficult, infact it is just medieval guild system left over adopted into industrial era with strengthened sylabus and in cooperation with the companies, which form groups to discern skills they need of future workers in such a way and either Pay into the system additionally or have apprentices in their companies to teach.

It isn't magic.

But it can be percieved as socialist, so here in the US it may as well be.

Socialist? When companies quite literally Form groups of Interests provide experts and work out according to their job what they (students) need for job x
At most it is corporatist?

You are applying logic, which is an extremely limited resource in the US.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
You are applying logic, which is an extremely limited resource in the US.

There are plenty of logical people in the USA, 9th, unfortunately we have a system being played against us.

As a person occasionally capable of logical thought, I must say that the movie Platoon got it right. Hell is the impossibility of reason.

Conspiracy Theories are done by people who are pure skeptics.

It's really that simple.

They ignore facts, assume knowledge is unknowable, and deny the senses. As a consequence, they don't know what the burden of proof is, or how evidence works, or how probable/possible/certainty work epistemologically.

 BuFFo wrote:
Conspiracy Theories are done by people who are pure skeptics.

They might call themselves skeptics, but all their behaviors are basically the opposite of actual skepticism XD

Saw a claim that Q has been doxxed. Apparently it’s the founder of 8Chan?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Saw a claim that Q has been doxxed. Apparently it’s the founder of 8Chan?

Yeah. I mentioned it pages ago as a conspiracy theory about the conspiracy theory that the person posting as Q was actually the owner of 8Chan and his son, who also own Q's PAC. Is there some new information?

Hard to say. I saw it on a Facebook group (Things Woonatics Say), so I can’t be sure when the images shared were first put online.

 BuFFo wrote:
Conspiracy Theories are done by people who are pure skeptics.

It's really that simple.

They ignore facts, assume knowledge is unknowable, and deny the senses. As a consequence, they don't know what the burden of proof is, or how evidence works, or how probable/possible/certainty work epistemologically.

That's not how skeptics behave- that doesn't even make any sense. A proper skeptic is all about proof, evidence and knowledge.

The word you're looking for is 'believer,' in the Fox Moulder sense. What they 'want to believe' overrides everything else.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Saw a claim that Q has been doxxed. Apparently it’s the founder of 8Chan?

Well that makes the obsession with pedo rings that the Qultists have even more ironic, as 8chan was/is rife with child porn and threads for paedophiles.

It's almost like being the scum that even 4chan doesn't want makes you a completely awful human being.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Saw a claim that Q has been doxxed. Apparently it’s the founder of 8Chan?

Well that makes the obsession with pedo rings that the Qultists have even more ironic, as 8chan was/is rife with child porn and threads for paedophiles.

It's almost like being the scum that even 4chan doesn't want makes you a completely awful human being.

Makes one wonder if that very fact is what kicked off the whole QAnon thing in the first place. Poster having either connections or inferences to those who are now accused by the CT...

CT?

Not Online!!! wrote:
CT?

In a thread about Conspiracy Theories, I never thought that abbreviating Conspiracy Theory into CT would cause confusion. So, yeah, I meant Conspiracy Theory.

 Just Tony wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
CT?

In a thread about Conspiracy Theories, I never thought that abbreviating Conspiracy Theory into CT would cause confusion. So, yeah, I meant Conspiracy Theory.

Wellp.

Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics, because they "drink their own kool-aid" and fail to doubt their own positions or premises as consistency would dictate.

In this way, most might claim to be skeptics, but really their comportment has more in common with cynicism or contrarianism, than any sort of rigorous skepticism. Why make a call to skepticism then? Well, likely because it is the more "intellectually defensible" position, since many skeptical arguments are fairly hard to deal with from an epistemological standpoint.

The "key" though, I think, is that their entire epistemological paradigm lacks any sort of developed theory of what justification is, or should be. So, it isn't just doubt that is a problem, in-itself, it is doubt for the sake of being contrarian, or for self-serving interests like ideology and so on.

So, where a skeptic might express doubt as to what happened in a given case, or doubt that a supplied explanation is sufficient, the conspiracy theorist uses the epistemological gap there to insert all sort of personal bias, ideological rhetoric, economic interest, or just plain notions of intellectual superiority (among other possible things). The problem there is not doubt in-itself, but rather the incoherent way in which it is being used to "justify" the rest of the behavior.

 H wrote:
Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics

the difference is falsifiability: A skeptic can be convinced with enough evidence, a conspiracy theorist can't.

Mario wrote:

 H wrote:
Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics

the difference is falsifiability: A skeptic can be convinced with enough evidence, a conspiracy theorist can't.

hmm

That is a bit iffy though especially in regards to religious conspiracy theories.
As noted in the article, astrology can be falsified, yet also be accurate, yet is considered Pseudo science.

Proof of god , /existence of god is quite similar.

 H wrote:
Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics, because they "drink their own kool-aid" and fail to doubt their own positions or premises as consistency would dictate.

In this way, most might claim to be skeptics, but really their comportment has more in common with cynicism or contrarianism, than any sort of rigorous skepticism. Why make a call to skepticism then? Well, likely because it is the more "intellectually defensible" position, since many skeptical arguments are fairly hard to deal with from an epistemological standpoint.

The "key" though, I think, is that their entire epistemological paradigm lacks any sort of developed theory of what justification is, or should be. So, it isn't just doubt that is a problem, in-itself, it is doubt for the sake of being contrarian, or for self-serving interests like ideology and so on.

So, where a skeptic might express doubt as to what happened in a given case, or doubt that a supplied explanation is sufficient, the conspiracy theorist uses the epistemological gap there to insert all sort of personal bias, ideological rhetoric, economic interest, or just plain notions of intellectual superiority (among other possible things). The problem there is not doubt in-itself, but rather the incoherent way in which it is being used to "justify" the rest of the behavior.

A very good explanation of the difference between a Wisdom-8 'skeptic' and a Wisdom-18 skeptic.

Or just 12+ really, but you get the point.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Mario wrote:

 H wrote:
Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics

the difference is falsifiability: A skeptic can be convinced with enough evidence, a conspiracy theorist can't.

hmm

That is a bit iffy though especially in regards to religious conspiracy theories.
As noted in the article, astrology can be falsified, yet also be accurate, yet is considered Pseudo science.

Proof of god , /existence of god is quite similar.

Astrology is not accurate, astrology is vague.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Mario wrote:

 H wrote:
Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics

the difference is falsifiability: A skeptic can be convinced with enough evidence, a conspiracy theorist can't.

hmm

That is a bit iffy though especially in regards to religious conspiracy theories.
As noted in the article, astrology can be falsified, yet also be accurate, yet is considered Pseudo science.

Proof of god , /existence of god is quite similar.

Astrology is not accurate, astrology is vague.

Meh, Kuhn did disagree with propper on astrology partially and considering that Debate and others still rage on ...

Not Online!!! wrote:

Mario wrote:

 H wrote:
Well, I guess you could use a colloquial notion of conspiracy theorists as "skeptics" but they aren't really coherent skeptics

the difference is falsifiability: A skeptic can be convinced with enough evidence, a conspiracy theorist can't.

hmm

That is a bit iffy though especially in regards to religious conspiracy theories.
As noted in the article, astrology can be falsified, yet also be accurate, yet is considered Pseudo science.

Proof of god , /existence of god is quite similar.

Oh man, astrology is a hoot. All of those humans have a component of their personality determined by blank are lots of fun to read about. Most of it is explainable by confirmation bias, or the personality archetypes being presented in ways that we want to believe we are.

My favorite is the blood typing personality theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_personality_theory#:~:text=The%20blood%20type%20personality%20theory,from%20white%20people%20in%20Europe.

It's more seductive pseudo science than astrology because there is a genetic component to it.

The 16 personality type seems more effective because it doesn't try to claim where ti originates, just goes with types- but it's still very jarring when someone introduces themselves as an INFJ or whatnot.

I saw an interesting video, I think by James Randi, which talked about mediums. He said one interesting element is that many mediums will read a persons reaction to questions and comments and craft their replies around that. However the key wasn't that they'd have to make perfect guesses. In fact many times they'd get more guesses and information wrong than right. However the person undergoing the reading will often focus on the correct elements far more so and remember them. So walking away they remember the things the medium "got right" whilst forgetting or overlooking the bits they got wrong.


Of course some of this is in the personality of the medium and how they conduct the reading and such. There is indeed quite an art to it, but there's also an element of the person being read either being unaware of the art of cold-reading and/or having some belief before they go into the process.




The latter can be easily bolstered by confirmation bias through things like Television. There were loads of TV shows that were "real" in style that used mediums and such - heck almost every crime drama has at least one "medium helps find the criminal" episode. Throw in a few of the "ghost story" type shows and a person can get the impression that there IS something behind it all.

 Overread wrote:
I saw an interesting video, I think by James Randi, which talked about mediums. He said one interesting element is that many mediums will read a persons reaction to questions and comments and craft their replies around that.

On this point may I recommend a fiction book called "Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks" which was written in homage to James Randi and his relentless persuit of conspiracy theorists, frauds, quacks and liars.

 Henry wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I saw an interesting video, I think by James Randi, which talked about mediums. He said one interesting element is that many mediums will read a persons reaction to questions and comments and craft their replies around that.

On this point may I recommend a fiction book called "Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks" which was written in homage to James Randi and his relentless persuit of conspiracy theorists, frauds, quacks and liars.

That sounds Like fun, will give it a go when i Find time.