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Goodbye, MIT

city-journal.org

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Re: Goodbye, MIT

#21

Post by mattnewton »

ipaddr wrote: post #12
sokoloff wrote: post #3

I feel genuinely conflicted about these topics. Part of me says “I agree with the letter authors completely. People should experience equal opportunity, equal Justice, and equal responsibility.” Another part of me says “that’s literally impossible (or incompatible) with different families raising their children with different circumstances.” Overall, I lean pretty strongly towards individual families raising their ch…

The answer and the future is kids will be raised by the state and given an equal playing field. This frees parents to work/spend and ensures the only advantage exists at the gene level. We can selectively breed those traits away . The problem is we sent kids to school in the first place and ask them to follow a system designed for the average student but not the most typical.

> The answer and the future is kids will be raised by the state and given an equal playing field.

Except for the parents powerful / wealthy enough to opt out of this system for one with more resources, who will, just as we do today.

Who is going to die on a hill to pass legislation banning private schooling and forcing a state monopoly on raising children? We would need generations of culture shift before many people could even debate the idea without involuntarily shuddering in horror.

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#22

Post by Mindless2112 »

ipaddr wrote: post #12
sokoloff wrote: post #3

I feel genuinely conflicted about these topics. Part of me says “I agree with the letter authors completely. People should experience equal opportunity, equal Justice, and equal responsibility.” Another part of me says “that’s literally impossible (or incompatible) with different families raising their children with different circumstances.” Overall, I lean pretty strongly towards individual families raising their ch…

The answer and the future is kids will be raised by the state and given an equal playing field. This frees parents to work/spend and ensures the only advantage exists at the gene level. We can selectively breed those traits away . The problem is we sent kids to school in the first place and ask them to follow a system designed for the average student but not the most typical.

"The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations." [1]

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/268/510

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#23

Post by sokoloff »

Pensacola wrote: post #16
sokoloff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that won’t do it. Kids show up to kindergarten with wildly different abilities to even “take turns” and participate conversationally. Kids who had less adult conversational interaction as toddlers won’t get the same out of school even with the teachers being in rotation. There’s disagreement as to whether the gap is 30 million words, but it seems quite likely to be well into the millions. https://www.edutopia.or…

All of these replies seem to co-mingle the concepts of equal opportunity and equal outcome. The foundation of a free society is personal responsibility. Personal outcomes in such a system are pretty much guaranteed not to be the same (equal), since different people will use their freedom in different ways. Sucks for kids of irresponsible parents, who truly don't have self-autonomy. But then again, our society is full…

You raise a very fair question of “when does someone have the responsibility for turning their opportunity into their outcome and how quickly does that responsibility ramp from 0% theirs to 100% theirs?

Could it ever begin before conception? Could it ever begin before birth? At 6 months of age? At 1, 2, or 3 years of age? Is it 100% “on them” at 12, 16, 18, or 21?

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#24

Post by robbmorganf »

doomrobo wrote: post #18

> MIT’s leadership apparently took umbrage at his statement of these simple facts: that George Floyd “had not lived a virtuous life” (based on his multiple criminal convictions) Surely the authors know that "statement of facts" has the ability to completely alter the interpretation of the rest of the content. Key questions are: why is this fact relevant in this context, what is the author conveying by bringing this i…

Clarification: when you say "reader", do you mean the reader of this linked article, or the reader of the chaplain's statement?

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#25

Post by doomrobo »

robbmorganf wrote: post #24
doomrobo wrote: post #18

> MIT’s leadership apparently took umbrage at his statement of these simple facts: that George Floyd “had not lived a virtuous life” (based on his multiple criminal convictions) Surely the authors know that "statement of facts" has the ability to completely alter the interpretation of the rest of the content. Key questions are: why is this fact relevant in this context, what is the author conveying by bringing this i…

Clarification: when you say "reader", do you mean the reader of this linked article, or the reader of the chaplain's statement?

reader of the chaplain's statement

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#26

Post by jgwil2 »

Pensacola wrote: post #16
sokoloff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that won’t do it. Kids show up to kindergarten with wildly different abilities to even “take turns” and participate conversationally. Kids who had less adult conversational interaction as toddlers won’t get the same out of school even with the teachers being in rotation. There’s disagreement as to whether the gap is 30 million words, but it seems quite likely to be well into the millions. https://www.edutopia.or…

All of these replies seem to co-mingle the concepts of equal opportunity and equal outcome. The foundation of a free society is personal responsibility. Personal outcomes in such a system are pretty much guaranteed not to be the same (equal), since different people will use their freedom in different ways. Sucks for kids of irresponsible parents, who truly don't have self-autonomy. But then again, our society is full…

> But then again, our society is full of compassionate safety nets for such kids.

That really depends on what you are referring to by "our society." If you're talking about the US, many would dispute that characterization.

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#27

Post by jimbob45 »

swader999 wrote: post #15
ipaddr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer and the future is kids will be raised by the state and given an equal playing field. This frees parents to work/spend and ensures the only advantage exists at the gene level. We can selectively breed those traits away . The problem is we sent kids to school in the first place and ask them to follow a system designed for the average student but not the most typical.

Canada tried that. It didn't go so well. Probably the worst thing you can do for society.

Feel free to expand. As a US-based individual, I’m not likely to ever get the perspective of a Canadian on this topic.

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#28

Post by aaomidi »

ipaddr wrote: post #12
sokoloff wrote: post #3

I feel genuinely conflicted about these topics. Part of me says “I agree with the letter authors completely. People should experience equal opportunity, equal Justice, and equal responsibility.” Another part of me says “that’s literally impossible (or incompatible) with different families raising their children with different circumstances.” Overall, I lean pretty strongly towards individual families raising their ch…

The answer and the future is kids will be raised by the state and given an equal playing field. This frees parents to work/spend and ensures the only advantage exists at the gene level. We can selectively breed those traits away . The problem is we sent kids to school in the first place and ask them to follow a system designed for the average student but not the most typical.

Or communal life where kids are raised by multiple parental figures and not the state.

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#29

Post by markus_zhang »

sokoloff wrote: post #8
markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think to achieve equal opportunity it makes sense to make education equal. But how to make education equal? Instead of setting up quotas maybe we should simply switch teachers. Let the teachers rotate among schools so that every kid gets a random selection of teachers and every teacher gets a random selection of students. At the same time, should also try to minimize the number of private schools, either through le…

Even that won’t do it. Kids show up to kindergarten with wildly different abilities to even “take turns” and participate conversationally. Kids who had less adult conversational interaction as toddlers won’t get the same out of school even with the teachers being in rotation. There’s disagreement as to whether the gap is 30 million words, but it seems quite likely to be well into the millions. https://www.edutopia.or…

Yeah you are right, it's really difficult to do that. In the dreamland everyone gets to discover what they are good at and explore possibilities, but in the real world we all struggle to feed the family :/

Re: Goodbye, MIT

#30

Post by Kye »

swader999 wrote: post #15
ipaddr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer and the future is kids will be raised by the state and given an equal playing field. This frees parents to work/spend and ensures the only advantage exists at the gene level. We can selectively breed those traits away . The problem is we sent kids to school in the first place and ask them to follow a system designed for the average student but not the most typical.

Canada tried that. It didn't go so well. Probably the worst thing you can do for society.

There's probably a middle ground between stealing kids to indoctrinate them and some mutually beneficial, culturally-inclusive system of education.
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