U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr

> Not letting people discuss this and instead insisting that that no, communism can't be given any mental space when to accurately describe the reality of the system we currently have requires knowing how it affected us throughout history strikes me as somewhat shortsighted.

Kindly point out where I said that. You can't. Because I did not.

General education is invaluable and good for society. Indoctrination is worthless and detrimental to society.

Topics --all possible topics-- should be covered fairly. We should not be ignorant of society.

However, there is a time and a place for this. Our secondary schools do a horrible job of graduating well-educated young adults. The average US high school graduate comes out with no marketable skills and deep ignorance across a range of topics.

As I mentioned in my other post, I had the experience, as a kid, of living in multiple cultures. As my family travelled back and forth, I would come in and out of the US educational system. The contrast was, well, jarring. I received a classical education outside of the US and what I would call "minimum viable education" in the US public school system. I was reading Plato, Kant and Descartes, while my US counterparts were, well, fucking off.

Today, I have to supplement my kids' education by exposing them to such topics. For example, we recently devoted a whole month to discussing and exploring Descartes' Meditations.

This is stuff that should be covered in high school. Universities should be devoted to what the person wants to study and the professional field they have chosen. This is particularly true in a system where a year of university schooling costs between $30K and $50K.

There are at least two ways to look at this: One, we could graduate people a year earlier --and with far less debt-- if we focused on what matters. The other is to say: If I am going to pay $50K for a year in school, the courses I take outside of those directly related to my major should be my choice. If I do not want to take humanities and focus on another year of specialized engineering coursework, that should be my choice. It's my money.

Last I checked, there are no job postings out there (in tech fields) that list specific non-tech coursework as requirements. It is OK for people to study anything they want outside of their major --with an emphasis on "they"-- not forced. We are making people spend tens of thousands of dollars on stuff that, in most cases, has zero career value.

One might say: Not so, a general education has career value!

Correct. Then, do a good job of delivering as much of that during primary and secondary education. If general education at a university level has value --return on investment-- the MARKET will make that decisions and students will willingly CHOOSE and seek that coursework...because it will be of value to them. And, of course, they could also choose to take those courses any time after graduation as they see fit and as the realities of their career might demand. The market should decide everything outside of core major requirements, it should not be imposed in any way.

The reality is that guns will protect you because 1) the sheer count of citizens is substantially and necessarily higher than military, and 2) citizens themselves are a critical part of the spoils of war. Poll Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria for more information. Disarming is an essential predicate for coercion.

While they don't track other people everywhere at once, the media does record what people say or do and you as an individual have little control concerning what's published about you and how and to what degree other will react. But this form of recording isn't generally called spying, even if the circumstances are disadvantageous or even dangerous to the subject being recorded. When it comes to the media, the general understanding is that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public area. I don't see why it would be different for government. In addition, the government needn't set up these cameras when it can simply request footage from third parties such as Nest and/or its end-users. The person "violating" your expectation to privacy in a public setting is your fellow private citizen whether for occupational or security-related reasons. The same is true for public posts on the Internet. There is nothing that forbids the government from copy and compiling information that's publicly available to all.

You're asking me what crime would be enough for me but not answering my question of if there's one that's enough for you? Cause for sure, murder. Quite likely others. It scales with family distance too of course.

Where's your line?

> Kindly point out where I said that. You can't. Because I did not.

I interpreted you as being upset that a class about Karl Marx being required, which I interpret as about communism, as being unacceptable. Am I wrong in that assumption? What's your complaint here?

> I was reading Plato, Kant and Descartes, while my US counterparts were, well, fucking off.

> Today, I have to supplement my kids' education by exposing them to such topics.

And you're unhappy about them being exposed to Marx? I'm not sure what your actual complaint is, since you think I didn't address it clearly earlier, but it sure sounds like you want the education system to expose students to only specific works, since you've given examples of what's okay (above) and what isn't (information about Karl Marx).

> Universities should be devoted to what the person wants to study and the professional field they have chosen.

That is not the sole purpose of universities, as much as you want it to be. There's a reason why there's a "general education" part of the curriculum. That's also the part of the curriculum you'll see both classes about Marx and about Descartes, unless you major deals with them specifically.

> There are at least two ways to look at this: One, we could graduate people a year earlier --and with far less debt-- if we focused on what matters. The other is to say: If I am going to pay $50K for a year in school, the courses I take outside of those directly related to my major should be my choice. If I do not want to take humanities and focus on another year of specialized engineering coursework, that should be my choice. It's my money.

There are plenty of schools that function exactly as you want. Trade schools. They teach you a specific trade. There are plenty that do computer science, as well.

Why are you trying to make universities trade schools? Universities are for continuing general education and choosing a focus. As much as you want them to be a trade school, that's not what they are.

> Last I checked, there are no job postings out there (in tech fields) that list specific non-tech coursework as requirements. It is OK for people to study anything they want outside of their major --with an emphasis on "they"-- not forced. We are making people spend tens of thousands of dollars on stuff that, in most cases, has zero career value.

No, but they list four year universities, with the understanding that means you've also gone through the general education portion of the school, and have not failed out of general math and English classes and should have a base level of competency. Those jobs that don't expect that may not require a university.

Knowing that someone is competent enough in the general fields a university requires to be able to communicate in text in long-form has value. It has value in explaining intricate details and concepts to others in a way they can understand, it allows for a base level of knowledge in how to categorize data into a form that may work for documentation. It allows for people to have thought about others that may not have similar life experiences so they can communicate with them more accurately rather than making base assumptions that may be very wrong due to complete inexperience with certain topics.

> . If general education at a university level has value --return on investment-- the MARKET will make that decisions and students will willingly CHOOSE and seek that coursework...because it will be of value to them.

The market very clearly wants college graduates, and college includes general education, so I'm pretty sure the market has spoken. I'm not sure what benefit it does you to completely ignore the evidence at hand because it goes against your view that this education is useless and nobody wants it. Businesses want it, or they would advertise for trade schools or some other equivalent. Students want it because businesses want it (and in some cases because they like the idea of learning more).

The entire market is clearly built around wanting exactly this thing you think has no value and isn't wanted by the market, so I'm very confused by your reasoning.