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US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

reuters.com

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Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#181
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, "there are two oceans between us and any potential aggressors" is no longer a viable defensive posture. If you're gonna be drawn into a war today it's unlikely to come with years of lead time.

Logistics in 2020 aren't much easier than they were in 1920, or in 1820. And the lead time for ICBMs to kill ~ a billion people has been ~40 minutes for the past 40 years.

The 82nd airborne division can be in planes on it's way to drop anywhere in the world 18 hours after a phone call from the White House.

The Russian equivalent is called the CRRF, and has a similar force mix for obvious reasons.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#182
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever funding goes to military displays at sporting events can be cut for once. We never had flyovers and 7th-inning-stretch-salutes-to-heroes 20 years ago.

The argument that always comes up is that those flights are necessary because they're flight time required for training and public events are recruiting tools since we have a volunteer force. However, reducing the number of pilots/planes mean fewer training missions and reducing the military headcount reduces the need for recruitment.

Now you're moving the goal posts. Whether paying for flyovers out of the training budget makes sense is orthogonal to how big a military we should have.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

janitor-student relationships? server-student relationships?

The lunch lady is a time honored and well known source of wisdom for those who get to know her.

Even if that's true, why would it not be true about the new school cook? Kids get new teachers every year and seem perfectly able to bond with them.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if pedagogy is a deep and rich field and you can't as easily absorb information without the guidance of a knowledgeable mentor. Who would have thought?

I don't know, after a few months of home schooling, I'm pretty sure that mentor could be an AI.

Sounds like you need to seriously consider how well you're doing.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is probably far fetched, but gamified learning where you have to imput your result and you immediately see the correctness is already possible.

I think you could go much further. We should work out how to monitor and test a students progress, push them harder if they are ready, or roll back a bit if we detect they missed something. On Khan Academy where everything is multiple choice, my kids started guessing rather than knowing the answers. It was up to me to notice the problem and take things back a step, and work out where they got lost.

> We should work out how to monitor and test a students progress

What you're describing is called "teaching".

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much would be appropriate? What weapons systems should be canceled? Serious question. I would agree that $800B seems ridiculously high, and yet it's not easy to tease apart what should be cut.

There is hundreds of millions in over the top research. Some of which is good stuff that moves us forward, but do we really need a Boeing X37 separate from NASA? Are we really getting our research money's worth when no one is allowed to know about, talk about, or otherwise leverage technologies developed? One of my favorite parts about Apollo and Kennedys involvement specifically is the very deliberate choice to make…

The X37 probably isn't a particularly good example.

It almost definitely has nefarious abilities, but it's main purpose is probably materials science they can't test on the ISS (military gear)

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#187
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that always comes up is that those flights are necessary because they're flight time required for training and public events are recruiting tools since we have a volunteer force. However, reducing the number of pilots/planes mean fewer training missions and reducing the military headcount reduces the need for recruitment.

Now you're moving the goal posts. Whether paying for flyovers out of the training budget makes sense is orthogonal to how big a military we should have.

If flyovers come out of training budgets it's not a cut. The whole premise was reducing unnecessary programs. That has a clear knock-on effect of reducing the need for headcount and recruiting.

I'm not a fan of constant military displays at sporting events, but the argument is usually shut down very quickly as required flight-time and as recruitment. I was trying to turn that into a more productive direction.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#188
post #2

You know who’s not laying off anyone? The military. Local funding of schools is ridiculous. Education benefits the whole nation. Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions.

> You know who’s not laying off anyone? The military

I would not bet about it. Military robots are in the way. Even if the budget is increased, machines eventually will replace a lot of the current people.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lunch lady is a time honored and well known source of wisdom for those who get to know her.

Even if that's true, why would it not be true about the new school cook? Kids get new teachers every year and seem perfectly able to bond with them.

Consider perhaps part of the reason kids can adapt to new teachers each year is because there's consistency among the other members of the community, and that swapping the entire community out each year might be detrimental to their experience. Also, not all kids adapt that well to new teachers.
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