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Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

avalon.law.yale.edu

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Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#51

Post by eitally »

patio11 wrote: post #25
eitally wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100% (it's not my choice.)

You have my sympathy. (Two years managing an outsourcing operation in India working from specs Bablefished from Japanese. And being told by my Indians that my translations were wrong because Babelfish, Yahoo, and Google outvoted me. And having to justify to management why I was billing months of overtime to debugging in a project where a math error would be national news and where RC1 was delivered in a state where i…

I'm not sure if my situation is better or worse. In our case they don't even bother trying to clarify specs. :-)

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#52

Post by eitally »

kiba wrote: post #35
eitally wrote: post #2

It's amazing how much the wonders of technology and readily accessible information have screwed up the value many children in the past 3ish generations (my marker for the beginning of the decline is WWII reconstruction). A "renaissance man" now is a dilettante. In Jefferson's day it meant having both broad and deep knowledge. One could argue that the advances of science have made this impossible in modern times but I…

>>I think this is the biggest incentive for the non-school movement, as well as the increase in other alternative [to governmental SOLs] programs. Those parents value an education for what it allows their children to contribute creatively, not just use the tools of others before them. Apparently, you missed makerzine, maker faire, 3D printers, harry potter fanfiction, and hackaday. You also did not get the memo that…

No, I didn't miss those things, nor have I missed other great stuff like the Khan Academy or MIT's OCW. My beef is with structured education -- especially in the US -- and the fact that the immediate gratification provided by technology hinders more than helps many children.

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#53

Post by wazoox »

eitally wrote: post #2

It's amazing how much the wonders of technology and readily accessible information have screwed up the value many children in the past 3ish generations (my marker for the beginning of the decline is WWII reconstruction). A "renaissance man" now is a dilettante. In Jefferson's day it meant having both broad and deep knowledge. One could argue that the advances of science have made this impossible in modern times but I…

  >  A "renaissance man" now is a dilettante.
I'm a proud dilettante. Heck, I've read all the books Jefferson mentioned :)

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#54

Post by Gormo »

mmodahl wrote: post #26
eitally wrote: post #2

It's amazing how much the wonders of technology and readily accessible information have screwed up the value many children in the past 3ish generations (my marker for the beginning of the decline is WWII reconstruction). A "renaissance man" now is a dilettante. In Jefferson's day it meant having both broad and deep knowledge. One could argue that the advances of science have made this impossible in modern times but I…

"Fortunately, literacy, though it consumes its own oral antecedants and, unless it is carefully monitored, even destroys their memory, is also infinitely adaptable. It can restore their memory, too." Ong, Walter J.. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2003: 15. We need not limit our knowledge and view of the world to what fits in our brain. We do, however, need to make sure that what we are putting into our br…

If only that could give us 30x the retention and depth of understanding.

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#55

Post by pfedor »

loewenskind wrote: post #48
jamesseda wrote: post #10

I don't know who this guy thinks he is, but Learning French is waste of time.

wtf? Learning another language is never a waste of time. If nothing else, it will help you learn your own language better.

Learning another language requires so much time and effort that it is almost always an effort misplaced unless the language is English.

Learning a language is a few years of hard work. I have a friend who is an assistant professor in Germany and he's toying with an idea of learning German, but he mentioned to me that he was wondering whether learning a programming language, say C++, wouldn't be a better use of his time. To which my answer was: By expanding the amount of effort required to learn to speak German, you wouldn't be able to just learn C++; the comparable thing would be to go from knowing nothing about programming, to knowing enough to be able to land a job as a Software Engineer in any company in the Silicon Valley.

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#56

Post by Andrewski »

brudgers wrote: post #37
lionhearted wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/ It's possible to do nuanced analysis of that era, Jefferson's beliefs, his treatment of his slaves relative to other slaveowners, the fact that he freed them on his death, and the things he wrote about in his letters to contemporaries - if you read his letters, he constantly questioned slavery and had misgivings about it, but it was the norm for the era. You could make inte…

Washington freed his slaves upon his death. More than 100 of Jefferson's were auctioned off to pay debts. Including children.

That's terrible. Children weren't hardly worth anything at auction!

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#57

Post by loewenskind »

pfedor wrote: post #55
loewenskind wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf? Learning another language is never a waste of time. If nothing else, it will help you learn your own language better.

Learning another language requires so much time and effort that it is almost always an effort misplaced unless the language is English. Learning a language is a few years of hard work. I have a friend who is an assistant professor in Germany and he's toying with an idea of learning German, but he mentioned to me that he was wondering whether learning a programming language, say C++, wouldn't be a better use of his ti…

What a useless point of view. English wont always be the dominant language. What will people like you do then?

Is everything a waste of time unless you can directly make money from it? Learning a language teaches you so many things. Things about your language, gives you insight into other cultures, etc., etc.

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#58

Post by mhartl »

lionhearted wrote: post #22
jberryman wrote: post #20

Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world look…

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/ It's possible to do nuanced analysis of that era, Jefferson's beliefs, his treatment of his slaves relative to other slaveowners, the fact that he freed them on his death, and the things he wrote about in his letters to contemporaries - if you read his letters, he constantly questioned slavery and had misgivings about it, but it was the norm for the era. You could make inte…

I agree with you that the parent comment detracts from the discussion and deserves its downvotes. Nevertheless, Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy, as exemplified by the Declaration of Independence, was obvious even to some of his contemporaries. For instance, in his Strictures upon the Declaration of Independence [1], former Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor Thomas Hutchinson wrote the following:

--

I should therefore be impertinent, if I attempted to shew... in what sense all men are created equal; or how far life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness may be said to be unalienable; only I could wish to ask the Delegates of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, how their Constituents justify the depriving more than an hundred thousand Africans of their rights to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in some degree to their lives, if these rights are so absolutely unalienable...

--

Evidently, Jefferson doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt simply because lots of people back then had slaves. His positive reputation today rests on a much simpler and sturdier foundation than his intellectual accomplishments or (dubious) moral fiber, namely, military victory. We mustn't forget the lesson contained in the aphorism "The winners write the history books", which is that the winners write the history books. Jefferson (and the Patriots) won; Hutchinson (and the Loyalists) didn't.

[1] Thomas Hutchinson, Strictures upon the Declaration of Independence, 1776. http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&...

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#59

Post by pfedor »

loewenskind wrote: post #57
pfedor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning another language requires so much time and effort that it is almost always an effort misplaced unless the language is English. Learning a language is a few years of hard work. I have a friend who is an assistant professor in Germany and he's toying with an idea of learning German, but he mentioned to me that he was wondering whether learning a programming language, say C++, wouldn't be a better use of his ti…

What a useless point of view. English wont always be the dominant language. What will people like you do then? Is everything a waste of time unless you can directly make money from it? Learning a language teaches you so many things. Things about your language, gives you insight into other cultures, etc., etc.

You have only this many five-years projects left to complete in this life. If you really prefer learning a foreign language to learning quantum mechanics, or computer programming, or how to play a piano, by all means don't let me stop you.

Re: Thomas Jefferson's Letter to His Nephew Peter

#60

Post by loewenskind »

pfedor wrote: post #59
loewenskind wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a useless point of view. English wont always be the dominant language. What will people like you do then? Is everything a waste of time unless you can directly make money from it? Learning a language teaches you so many things. Things about your language, gives you insight into other cultures, etc., etc.

You have only this many five-years projects left to complete in this life. If you really prefer learning a foreign language to learning quantum mechanics, or computer programming, or how to play a piano, by all means don't let me stop you.

You can do more than one at the same time. You can even learn more than one language at the same time so long as they're not too close to each other.
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