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Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

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351–360 of 406 posts

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#351
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

See, I hear techies grumble about education constantly. Our education system is teaching the wrong skills or not challenging students or just an elaborate babysitting racket. I hear teachers, on the other hand, complain that after decades of trying everything they can, they've realized that they cannot help students unless those students have safe, stable, supportive home lives. It's easy to say we should introduce c…

Yes this is a problem that certainly deserves attention.

But the education issues also apply to the other five in six children who do have food security. The education problem is one that affects anyone who does not have access to the best private schools.

When I say fix education, I don't mean teach people programming or whatever skills or knowledge that might give them a marginal leg up. Those things are becoming increasingly less valuable.

I mean teach people how to be well adjusted people, teach them soft skills of empathy and understanding others, teach them why and how to continuously improve themselves, teach them how to identify areas where they can contribute to society without waiting for a teacher or boss to tell them exactly what to do.

Without these abilities, more and more will fall into the poverty trap as the need for worker bees diminishes.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#352
post #38
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

There's been a YC RFS for Education for a long time; it's #7 on the list. YC has had some success in the space with companies like Clever, and for awhile had a sister-program dedicated solely to K-12 startups.

Good point.

But I think its worth bringing up again as it is seemingly at the root of all the issues surfaced by the Trump presidency, which is the main driver of this new RFS

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#353
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

As long as education is controlled by government, directional decisions will be made politically. Try bringing up the idea of shrinking class sizes by eliminating the football program at your next town-hall and see what happens. The only lasting solution will be to allow true market competition for education to replace the centralized top-down system we have. Yes, it's a libertarian pipe dream. No, I don't want to he…

>You cannot know what a free market in education would look like, because we've never tried.

Why doesn't the time before public schools existed constitute a try? Seems to me humanity had centuries to millenia of a free market in education: anyone was free to offer or purchase as much education as they could afford.

It wasn't very nice.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#354
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

See, I hear techies grumble about education constantly. Our education system is teaching the wrong skills or not challenging students or just an elaborate babysitting racket. I hear teachers, on the other hand, complain that after decades of trying everything they can, they've realized that they cannot help students unless those students have safe, stable, supportive home lives. It's easy to say we should introduce c…

None of those are particular hard. Start by ending snap and using the money to increase the number of meals in schools to three a day. Second those meals must be some protein, some veggies and potatoes, pizza, etc are not food.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#355
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

I have found the current education methods to amazingly effective. I can literally sit down and choose any subject of interest and become well versed in it with not much more than a time commitment. And since you can get up to speed on a whim, you can stay as current for job market purposes as necessary. In fact, my current educational interest of the past several months, which wasn't even career motivated, has alrea…

Access to knowledge is not at all the problem.

Lack of "soft skills" is the problem. We are taught or force fed knowledge, but not taught how to be well adjusted people.

You were lucky, for some reason you came to understand the value of personal development and self education. This is something that needs to be taught to everyone. In the world.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#356
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education and News are two sides of the same coin. At some point the majority of the adult population makes the decision to learn about the world from entertainment companies. We should reanalyze what news and continuing education mean, relative to each other. https://theconversation.com/ and http://www.worldcrunch.com/ make good starts, as do aggregators like http://www.aldaily.com/ and https://redef.com/ As far as…

As a teacher, I would kill for a collaborative curriculum and assessment tool. A "backend" service for creating, managing, and personalizing curriculum materials would go a long way to mitigate the absolutely astounding amount of redundant labor that goes on in schools ( you're really creating a comprehension quiz for To Kill a Mockingbird from scratch? ). Contrary to popular belief - even here on HN - teachers are c…

Hey check out Common Curriculum [1] they are part of the way there.

[1] http://www.commoncurriculum.com/

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#357
post #34

Education should be on this list. The root of all these problems stem from a lack of effective education. 1) The current methods are highly ineffective for teaching By getting more effective at teaching children, and helping them to self educate, we get better informed citizens who can interpret news more accurately and effectively participate in democracy. 2) The current goals for education do not align with current…

I believe the curriculum has always been based on the ideal of the "well-rounded citizen" aka a liberal arts education. That includes the sciences, math, philosophy, government, history, languages, art, and sports.

None of those subjects are particularly relevant for factory work. Even at the height of manufacturing, high schools were geared towards universities – because 10 is not the age where you want to make the decision that someone has or doesn't have the potential to be a judge/chemist/artist.

Calls to more closely align education with the perceived needs of the future economy seems misguided:

- You don't actually know what will be needed 15 to 20 years in advance (including the time it takes to develop a curriculum and teach teachers)

- It reduces citizens to their role in the economy

- It doesn't work. History is at least somewhat exciting. Teaching the filing of tax returns (a staple of such discussions) is completely removed from a 16-years reality. When it becomes relevant after college, it will be completely forgotten and possibly obsolete.

The current system is very much geared towards teaching modes of thinking, learning and similar meta-skills. History and philosophy, for example, are possibly the most important to understand current affair (but have often been decimated by a drive towards the sciences). Throw in a bit of statistics and you'll also have a good foundation for entrepreneurs.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#358
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree. And some men want to be stay at home dads, and sometimes both parents want to work, and sometimes there's a single parent who's falling apart trying to do everything. I wish we could agree that all those choices are valid, and allow some social safety nets that make it possible. I think it goes back to what you said first. We need to agree on some core values. I don't want any more of my money going to peo…

>"children belong to the collective" I grew up in post-communist Europe. In the past, we had state propaganda that told children to turn in their parents[1], among other wonderful products of that line of thinking. So I'd be very careful with ideas like this one. (I still support mandatory vaccinations and/or sane defaults.) >Lets send a clear message: If your children are your own and do not belong to the society, t…

I think the sentiment is better expressed by the greeks: "It takes a village to raise a child".

One possible model may be to enlarge the "nuclear family" to groups of friends. Get five couples who enjoy each other's company together, and everyone can work 80% (4 days) while two people are home each weekday for childcare/housework etc.

Many other models are possible and it would be best to make it as easy as possible to experiment. Relevant factors may be:

- a universal right to flexible work schedules, at least for larger companies (10+) where changes balance out

- Mixed-zoning housing allowing the creative use of space. Which also helps with:

- Neighbourhoods designed for street life, where you can actually meet neighbours and build these (real) social networks, and where children can explore. When I was 6 or so, I became friends with two families in my neighbourhood. One owned a bookshop which became my personal library. The other was a graphics designer and a racing car driver where I learnt computers and mechanics (and got to drive in a Formula 1 car). I was often invited for dinner at these families, or just hung out when they had guests, and I learned more from listening to adults debating the topics of the day than anywhere else.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm down-voting you, here's why: Instead of claiming that we can't have that discussion, why not try to have that discussion ?

Okay, I'll bite. How do the workers so recently unemployed by the automated machines gain ownership of those machines in a way that does not entirely remove the incentive for building them?

As production costs approach zero, many industries will resemble intellectual property with it's 0 marginal costs more closely.

In the IP space, we have an example working perfectly with the communist maxim "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need": Open Source Software.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#360
post #30

A category of applications that I'd like to see YC helping along are those things that could help ordinary people run for office. The things off the top of my head I can see technology helping with: * Leveraging social networking to generate social permission for people to stand for office, which I think is the most important obstacle facing people who might consider running --- far more so than money. * Using techno…

Check out liquid democracy.
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