Live data from Hacker News

Children's Railways of the Former USSR

dzd-ussr.ru

31–40 of 102 posts

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#31

I really would have loved doing this as a child. I'm left wondering though if actually working on a railroad would have negatively affected my love of trains I still have now as an adult. Any readers lucky enough to have worked on these railways?

The site claims 1/3 to half of the children involved in running these would eventually end up working jobs related to trains.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm way too much of a simpleton to comprehend your philosophical musings of cosmic proportions, but this I know: students should not be in charge of the WiFi or anything else network related at an academic institution. This is a job for professional, dedicated IT staff.

Pretty obviously I'm the professor, right? The assignment is WiFi AP points and attacking authentication. It's in the syllabus (signed, sealed and approved all the way up to VC). Attacking the institutional access points would definitely not be okay. Where do you suppose professional, dedicated IT staff come from?

Look, I'm sure whatever beef you have with IT staff and admin policy is completely well-founded. But comparing the children's railway to IT limitations preventing graduate students from running their own WiFi networks is absolutely ridiculous. University IT has lots of good reasons for centralizing the administration and allocation of WiFi networks that have nothing to do with "children" (30 year olds) not being "respected". The fact that you can't get an exemption for your practical lab assignment is ridiculous, sure, but it has nothing to do with "children not being shown respect" and everything to do with how large bureaucracies behave in general for any institution, not just universities.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#33

> Then, why is it "Children's?", you might ask. Because it is operated by the schoolchildren, 9-15 years old. This blew my mind, and immediately made me think of John Taylor-Gatto [1] who won numerous teaching awards trying, but ultimately failing, to convince American teachers to show children the same respect. My 30 year old masters students are not even allowed to run their own WiFi network never mind an actual RA…

> This scared the living shit out of governors and politicians who realised such a radical agenda might create young adults able to think and politically organise. Can you provide any examples of this? I'm skeptical of this claim given that Gatto was a prominent Libertarian, which don't really believe in political organization. The Libertarian movement is inherently individualistic. Not to mention his work with a Chr…

The list of scientists, authors, and innovators who were not only Catholics, but Catholic priests is enormous.

Maybe you've met some dopey religious folks, but don't paint with too broad a brush.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#34
post #21

So, these were educational projects, the purpose being to instill in children a sense of responsibility. I'd be interested in hearing about how well it worked. I've lived in rural America and I see a huge difference in maturity between suburban and farm kids. The daily responsibilities of farm life seem to instill a focus and determination that carries into the workplace. The trains project would be a much less immer…

Just curious why do you say it would be a less immersive experience? Running a train system is no small thing. From drawing up time tables to ad hoc rerouting when something inevitably breaks to all the signal and rolling stock maintenance...

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This scared the living shit out of governors and politicians who realised such a radical agenda might create young adults able to think and politically organise. Can you provide any examples of this? I'm skeptical of this claim given that Gatto was a prominent Libertarian, which don't really believe in political organization. The Libertarian movement is inherently individualistic. Not to mention his work with a Chr…

The list of scientists, authors, and innovators who were not only Catholics, but Catholic priests is enormous. Maybe you've met some dopey religious folks, but don't paint with too broad a brush.

Yep, and a lot of them lived back when being accused of heresy by the church was literally a death sentence. So again, not exactly an environment that fostered critical thinking, certainly one that punished speaking out against the church in any sort of way.

Galileo, for example, was condemned on his death bed by the pope and buried in an unceremoniously small room next to the novice's chapel for almost 100 years before he was reburied in the main basilica[0] .

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Death

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of scientists, authors, and innovators who were not only Catholics, but Catholic priests is enormous. Maybe you've met some dopey religious folks, but don't paint with too broad a brush.

Yep, and a lot of them lived back when being accused of heresy by the church was literally a death sentence. So again, not exactly an environment that fostered critical thinking, certainly one that punished speaking out against the church in any sort of way. Galileo, for example, was condemned on his death bed by the pope and buried in an unceremoniously small room next to the novice's chapel for almost 100 years bef…

Galileo was sentenced to house arrest, for disobeying a direct order from the pope to tell geocentrism and heliocentrism were both possible.

This was actually the best scientific conclusion at that time until Foucault proved that the Earth was rotating two centuries later.

Actually, the worst enemies of Galileo were the Aristotelians which teachings were not based on religion. They used the inquisition to stop Galileo.

source: same wikipedia article.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#37
post #27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this system was based on institutionalized, merciless bullying No bullying exist in the US and EU schools, sure.

I think the previous poster is saying that the state was doing the bullying, which is characteristically different.

Right, if people can't elect their leaders, then the leaders must stay in power by other means, such as bullying. Seems rather intuitive to me.

Another way of thinking about it is imagine if the bullies got in power and took over the whole state. What kind of state would it be? One without free elections no doubt

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#38
post #34
post #21

So, these were educational projects, the purpose being to instill in children a sense of responsibility. I'd be interested in hearing about how well it worked. I've lived in rural America and I see a huge difference in maturity between suburban and farm kids. The daily responsibilities of farm life seem to instill a focus and determination that carries into the workplace. The trains project would be a much less immer…

Just curious why do you say it would be a less immersive experience? Running a train system is no small thing. From drawing up time tables to ad hoc rerouting when something inevitably breaks to all the signal and rolling stock maintenance...

At least in my city, the child railway used to be an isolated bit of decommissioned railway. A kilometer or two of a single track to do back-and-forth runs.

While it still had to be great experience (it was closed many years before I was born), it was not that complicated :)

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#39

The steam locomotives (scroll down for color photos) look remarkably like Thomas the Tank Engine: http://www.dzd-ussr.ru/towns/gorky/foto1-eng.html Those photos are from the late 1990s, so maybe the resemblance is intentional.

Thomas the Tank Engine is virtually unknown in Russia, so I doubt it

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#40
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of scientists, authors, and innovators who were not only Catholics, but Catholic priests is enormous. Maybe you've met some dopey religious folks, but don't paint with too broad a brush.

Yep, and a lot of them lived back when being accused of heresy by the church was literally a death sentence. So again, not exactly an environment that fostered critical thinking, certainly one that punished speaking out against the church in any sort of way. Galileo, for example, was condemned on his death bed by the pope and buried in an unceremoniously small room next to the novice's chapel for almost 100 years bef…

Thomas Aquinas (just to name one) was a scholar of the highest order and was absolutely not just pretending to be a Christian. It’s a strange worldview to imagine that Christianity provided no academic contributions to the world. To some extent, it invented academics. This is more or less z

I am not a Christian and was for a long time a fairly militant atheist - but this point is historical fact.

Post reply on HN