[flagged]
They vaccinate for all sorts of diseases. Covid is no different. It’s a risk and threat to them being functional as an organization.
[dead]
U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
111–120 of 280 posts
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
On June 1, 2022, the Marines tweeted out a helmet with rainbow bullet tips for Pride Month: https://globalnews.ca/news/8888090/marines-rainbow-bullets-p... is one such link, you can find others. The US Army 2021 video, "Emma, The Calling," is exactly what I described: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8-Yslv4PME And the "Army sees sharp decline in white recruits." https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/01/10/army-se…
It's funny how "1984" style of Ministry of truth is alive and well and many of them pretend it's just fiction.
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#113Less people being willing to go fight and die in pointless wars is at least a small positive sign for society.
Neutrality is support for might makes right. Choosing to be neutral is to say that the strongest party should win. Not being prepared to be violent makes you harmless. Having the capacity for violence and choosing not to use it makes you peaceful. If you speak softly, but don't carry a big stick, then you are just speaking softly. Might might not make right, but it determines who gets to make the rules.
[dead]
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#114I am a well educated individual. I did not have to work very hard at all for a well paying job after college from a respected company. I have skill sets that are absolutely in demand, particularly in areas the military would like. When China re-colonized Hong Kong I gave strong thought to joining the military. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I similarly felt called to join the military, if not to fight for Ukraine, to p…
[dead]
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#115A bit of sensationalism going on. They still have to pass a standardize test that mostly proves they have an IQ suitable for military service. There are people that could be a great soldier/servicemember that didn’t make it through high school. Some will flourish under a military environment that failed out of high school. I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow infer…
The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. People not having that knowledge means they will not be able to participate. It's not about whether they will be smart enough to learn; it's about the fact that they will have to be taught. There's no foundation to build on, there's no axiomatic knowledge we can rely on. People who haven't graduated high scho…
Lots of people fail to graduate because of a single failing grade in a single class senior year. Or they get suspended/expelled in their last months. Those people certainly didn't miss out on years of education.
Then there are folks like me. I dropped out of kindergarten. I didn't do any structured schooling until I was 16 when I passed a GED and ACT test then went to college for Computer Science and Physics. My GPA in college was 3.89 and I've been a highly competent software engineer for ~20 years. Nothing that I missed from high school has held me back in any significant way.
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#116Less people being willing to go fight and die in pointless wars is at least a small positive sign for society.
Neutrality is support for might makes right. Choosing to be neutral is to say that the strongest party should win. Not being prepared to be violent makes you harmless. Having the capacity for violence and choosing not to use it makes you peaceful. If you speak softly, but don't carry a big stick, then you are just speaking softly. Might might not make right, but it determines who gets to make the rules.
> Neutrality is support for might makes right. Choosing to be neutral is to say that the strongest party should win.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Are you saying that the US has historically been taking a neutral position? I suppose they haven't been prosecuting any particular vision with their pointless wars, but that seems a bit weird.
But no question not having any power to back up their whims will defang the US and make them victims of external actors. Hopefully the threat of this happening is enough to reign in the warmongers in the US government and make them negotiate towards a pro-US policy instead of the anti-random-victims strategy to date.
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
“The problem is that a high school education represents literally years of knowledge a person has accumulated. People not having that knowledge means they will not be able to participate.” The problem is, if you aren’t there on graduation day, you don’t get that proof of paper saying you know what you know. So before you go and put people down without context in their lives, you should be aware that there are dozens…
> The problem is, if you aren’t there on graduation day, you don’t get that proof of paper saying you know what you know. A flat tyre, or the flu, on graduation day doesn’t mean the last X years of your life have been wasted and you don’t get a diploma…
A failing grade or too low attendance score, for a single required class does though. Granted it's possible to return and complete the credit but lots of people, for lots of different reasons, never do it.
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#118A bit of sensationalism going on. They still have to pass a standardize test that mostly proves they have an IQ suitable for military service. There are people that could be a great soldier/servicemember that didn’t make it through high school. Some will flourish under a military environment that failed out of high school. I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow infer…
>I don’t really like people assuming somebody that didn’t graduate high school are somehow inferior or stupid people. I took it the opposite way. High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve. The top side may be extremely competitive, but the bar for passing high school is meant to be low. Someone who can't pass that and doesn't have developmental issues likely have environm…
> High schools are designed to provide a bare floor of knowledge a citizen should achieve.
That's a bold claim. Can you back it up?
On the flip side, an actual path to citizenship is military service.
https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-milita...
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#119I am a well educated individual. I did not have to work very hard at all for a well paying job after college from a respected company. I have skill sets that are absolutely in demand, particularly in areas the military would like. When China re-colonized Hong Kong I gave strong thought to joining the military. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I similarly felt called to join the military, if not to fight for Ukraine, to p…
> When China re-colonized Hong Kong I gave strong thought to joining the military. In 1997?
In 2019 when China fully claimed legal supremacy over Hong Kong, not only in violation of international law, but in violation of the wishes of the people of Hong Kong themselves.
China used colonial policies such as forced immigration (requiring Hong Kong to accept Chinese settlers), forced public expenditure for the benefit of the colonizer (bridge), linguistic domination (via forced changes to education), political pre-selection (Chinese approval of candidates), violent put down of dissent, rewriting history in school books, etc.
Equivocation and appeals to history to justify domination of a people who do not wish to be dominated are standard tactics. "Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood," "We are all kievan rus, we are one people." "Ukrainian identity is artificially created by the west."
China asserted itself as the authority in Hong Kong with force over a people who largely saw themselves as distinct from mainland China. China then used policies of oppression, assimilation, and settling in an attempt to destroy hong kong self rule and ultimately the idea of Hong Kong-ness (in favor of chinese-ness) against the wishes of indigenous residents. To me, that is colonialism.
Re: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect the real issue is that a high school diploma doesn't represent a signal anymore at the low end. Many failing students simply got passed through grade to grade. If a high school diploma has no value as a signal, requiring it throws out eligible people for no reason whatsoever.
^ This. Schools are doing a piss-poor job of educating people. Only 20% of schools can muster a 70% proficiency score, with the vast majority being much worse. What this indicates is a startlingly large number of students are receiving an education that holds no value whatsoever. Further, as already mentioned by someone else, the military will still use its own test as a means to determine where to place a recruit.
Isn't this the parents' faults? Educators can only mold so much with what they're given.
This seemed apparent to me when I was in school. I can't imagine it's changed much.