Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mardoc]

In the high school I work at only the second item on your list ("Discipline focused on administrative effects like detention and permanent record, rather than anything an unmotivated kid would care about) is true. It's possible to create a good working environment in a bad neighborhood school.

Well, yes, of course it is.  It's only policy, not anything innate about the neighborhood.  It's the ideology that's the problem, not the people.

That's very US-centric.

No.  US has extremes in all directions.  We have schools like I described, schools like you described, schools where poor kids are educated up to the level where they win national academic competitions, a whole variance of quality on rich kids too.  Maybe France is smaller and unified enough that you don't have extremes...but maybe your school isn't one of the bad ones where teachers flee.

But there literally isn't anything you can say about all the schools in the US that will be true.  There's always an exception.  It's a large part of why people talk past each other, Darrell's school focused on equality and my school focused on equality will interpret the premise differently, with different resources, different levels or types of parental support, and turn out totally differently.

There is little appetite for incremental, one step at a time improvements.

There's not much appetite for incrementalist rhetoric, but if you look at the actual changes in US society, they were all incremental (except for that one war, and even it didn't change as much as they purported to).  There's a reason we've got the oldest constitution in the world...

[ipecac]

Employers don't want a degree.  They want the best people.  Two generations ago, it used to be that 10% of the population graduated college and that mostly lined up with the amount of productive professional jobs that exist.  When 50% of the population has a degree, that is no longer a sufficient signal.  Nor does it mean that 5x more jobs will materialize.

I gather that employers in the US used IQ tests, but that was ruled racist. College degrees was then used to evaluate applicants, but as you say that's becoming a less useful signal over time. It'll be interesting to see what they'll use next.

[Krill]

There's a reason we've got the oldest constitution in the world

Nope, oldest written, but not oldest.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Employers don't want a degree.  They want the best people.  Two generations ago, it used to be that 10% of the population graduated college and that mostly lined up with the amount of productive professional jobs that exist.  When 50% of the population has a degree, that is no longer a sufficient signal.  Nor does it mean that 5x more jobs will materialize.

I gather that employers in the US used IQ tests, but that was ruled racist. College degrees was then used to evaluate applicants, but as you say that's becoming a less useful signal over time. It'll be interesting to see what they'll use next.

As I said they will just refuse to accept certain colleges because the transfer system is a total joke. 

I did a little research and the court actually ruled that it's not okay to use your own test because it's trivially easy to rig it. You can use a 3rd-party test just fine.

[Bacchus]

There's a reason we've got the oldest constitution in the world

Nope, oldest written, but not oldest.

Even for the written ones, it's pretty hard to beat the charters of the City of London, all of which are still in effect.

[Coeurva]

There's also the (written) Corsican Constitution of 1755, which is older than the American one, though that republic was not recognized by other governments as widely as the United States were in time. The Serene Republic of Genoa sold its right to possession of the island to France soon afterwards.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I've thought about it more and Trump doesn't have what it takes to leverage Muller and budget issues to take over. So all that's blocking the DEM's road to 2024 DACA vs. Border Wall + Freedom Caucus. Unlike other budget issues it's very public so it makes folding hard. All the other budget issues would just end in a team folding.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Shutdown at 50% @PredictIt. It would be only the first step if it happens.

[MJW (ya that one)]

DEMs fold. The real deadline is a couple of months away. Let's see what happens then.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Edit: They just went home. See you Friday