Silverman Memorial Lectures on Due Diligence

[sylvester]

OK, I'm going to assume you are posting from the BRD.

Originally Posted by Nelson

Where I am posting from is irrevelant.

Yes, it is. As a person who lived on both sides of the Atlantic I can explain this to you.

USA has a terrible problem with their public educational system. The people who under the German education standards would be either forcibly institutionalized (psychiatric) or unceremoniously directed toward the apprenticeship-level education (Gesell?) are allowed to drag themselves through the general purpose high-schools and even universities! This is a grave disaster to the US education system and the educators working there. I understand that you don't believe me. I wouldn't believe it myself until I saw it myself with my own eyes!

On this board we have at least two regular posters (from the USA) who would benefit more from the psychiatric care than they benefit from any mathematic or computer science education. Yet their post count here is in 4 digits, so they must have attracted some responses. I see this as a symptom of a grave failure, far beyond the reach of this forum.

Presonally, I'm in the private industry, and we have the legal right to put mentally troubled people back on the street after their 90 days probationary period. I'm sensing that Mr Silverman was somehow involved in the public education, where no such right exists anymore. Thus I'm comisserating with him.

If you keep sticking to the personal response styve of Mr. R.D.Silverman (or if you keep holding on to your strawman argument) then I'll say that you are simply missing the point of this discussion.

Thanks.

[jrk]

Originally Posted by sylvester

USA has a terrible problem with their public educational system.

Indeed. It is much too de-humanizing, dragged out, repetitive, boring & repressive. (Before you imply anything about me, I'm an HS graduate with honors and a college graduate.)

Originally Posted by sylvester

The people who under the German education standards would be either forcibly institutionalized (psychiatric) or unceremoniously directed toward the apprenticeship-level education (Gesell?) are allowed to drag themselves through the general purpose high-schools and even universities! This is a grave disaster to the US education system and the educators working there.

You want to force people into psychiatric institutions depending on their schooling performance?

If there's any reason why anyone must "drag themselves through" education, it is because most of public education is nothing but a training exercise in conformity. It does not foster creativity. It isn't very interesting (which is why some drop out), except for those who have a tendancy to become managers.

Originally Posted by sylvester

I understand that you don't believe me. I wouldn't believe it myself until I saw it myself with my own eyes!

Believe what? That there are still places in the world which are so backward as to force people into hospitals in order to make them conform to your standards? I'm increasingly afraid that my part of the world may someday be as backward also.

Originally Posted by sylvester

Presonally, I'm in the private industry, and we have the legal right to put mentally troubled people back on the street after their 90 days probationary period.

That's good. I like that you have the right to disassociate with people who aren't up to your standards. But giving support to force them into public institution is another thing.

Originally Posted by sylvester

I'm sensing that Mr Silverman was somehow involved in the public education, where no such right exists anymore.

I agree that schools should have a right to prevent graduation if the student did not meet expectations. That is the only right they should have.

[jrk]

Originally Posted by sylvester

I definitely understand that the GIMPS effort will still bennefit from the involvement of dumb-asses who are are control of multiple SSE2-capable computers. Thus I really understand the need to avoid chasing them out. At the same time we want to preserve the sensible signal/noise ratio on this board.

How can we achieve that?

I'm glad that you feel benefitted by their contribution.

I guess you could restrict forum registration to those GIMPS members that have at least 1000 GHz/days, or something...

[sylvester]

Originally Posted by jrk

You want to force people into psychiatric institutions depending on their schooling performance?

Thank you very much for pointing the weakness of my argument. Instead of forced institutionalization (psychiatric) I should have used established a legal guardianship.

I understand the laws governing the legal guardianship have been recently changed in the USA (or maybe just California.) Many people are unhappy with the changes. The recent story from my county (not country!) is that of a Professor at University of California in Irvine (a neurosurgeon at that!) that had transferred all the family savings to the Nigerian 419 scammers. All that before his family managed to get him legally declared as a ward. Dura lex, sed lex.

Thank you again for clearly pointing a weakness of my argumentation.

PS. I don't want to change my original post, but I want to state that I'm in awe of German-style vocational education. It is really good at quickly and cheaply directing people to a school that will give them some real marketable skills. It does all that without precluding them from the possibility of personal and professional growth. Thus the people that may have had problems when young, but responded to a treatment or a therapy, are not excluded from the further advance in the society.

PPS. If I may suggest a further direction for this (sub-)thread: how about discussing the effects of the semi-forced administration of psychotripic medications to the problem students? I really have no experience of that, not even third hand, but I hear it is a problem.

PPPS. I just learned that the German rules regarding legal guardianship had also been changed in mid-nineties. So let's just state that my experience of Germany predates 1994.

[sylvester]

Originally Posted by jrk

Believe what?

I want to thank you again for giving me an opportunity to clarify myself.

I have personally seen:

(1) California high-school graduates who are incapable of writing (mentally incapable, not physically incapable of holding a pen or typing on a keyboard)
(2) baccalaureate-level graduates of a California university that were incapable of correctly solving the basic arithmetic test that is administered in Canada to all the winners of the Canadian lotteries.

I want to humbly apologise for dragging this thread into the strawman-argument territory. But I sense this as a really important issue in the 21st-century society, and I don't want the discussion to get dropped.

Please bash on me as much as you can, because I really want to strenghten my argumentation skills.

Thank you again for your contribution.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Moderator Note: I am moving all the Silverman-vs-the-World sideshow/flamewar posts to their own special thread. I ask all the hijackers of the current thread to take their ideological soapboxes and megaphones over there.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Originally Posted by sylvester

I want to publicly thank E.W.Mayer,PhD for regaining his composture and replacing the four-letter-word with the above quote. I was getting afraid that the blood pressure of the people crucial to the GIMPS effort was getting to high for their own good.

This board is certainly getting inundated with messages that are indistinguishable from the plain old trolling. We really may need some official pollicy about how to deal with extremely stupid posts.

I definitely understand that the GIMPS effort will still bennefit from the involvement of dumb-asses who are are control of multiple SSE2-capable computers. Thus I really understand the need to avoid chasing them out. At the same time we want to preserve the sensible signal/noise ratio on this board.

How can we achieve that?

Originally Posted by sylvester

I want to humbly apologise for dragging this thread into the strawman-argument territory. But I sense this as a really important issue in the 21st-century society, and I don't want the discussion to get dropped.

Two quick thoughts:

1. I haven't seen much flaming or trolling in these forums in the years that I have been here
2. Hijacking threads is boorish

One thing that doesn't scream out for attention but is still significant is that although this thread has had about a dozen viewers all day, very few people have contributed to it. That is a measure of the self moderation and desire for quality communication that exists here already, albeit silently.

Generally on the occasions that a person veers off the stated purpose of a thread, at least in these forums in my experience, they wait to see that interest in the original topic has died and check to see that the segue is relevantly suggested by subtopics of discussion or other information already present in the thread. Otherwise spawning a new thread is better form. This calls for more explicit mention than normal because this thread is already a spawn of previously hijacked thread and has already required moderator attention.

Here is an example of someone who diligently checked if a thread of my creation was open to meandering into related topics:

Originally Posted by Brian-E

OK, I see you want to "move the goalposts" of your thread and now discuss the consequences of burning coal for national energy requirements.

One thing to note is that not a single person so far in this thread has defended coal-burning power stations. Everyone who has commented on them has done so negatively. There seems to be a clear consensus that alternative methods are needed - and the question up until now was whether nuclear power was a suitable alternative.

My opinion is the this thread had some interesting things in it and I would have liked to see it marinate for a few days to see what people had to say. Sylvester, I feel you would be best served in looking over your messages, selecting a few key points and create a thread with a topic incorporating them.

Originally Posted by sylvester

Please bash on me as much as you can, because I really want to strenghten my argumentation skills.

Thank you again for your contribution.

The best subforum for a thread of that sort IMHO is Soapbox.
Regards,
Ross

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by sylvester

Thank you very much for pointing the weakness of my argument. Instead of forced institutionalization (psychiatric) I should have used established a legal guardianship.

I understand the laws governing the legal guardianship have been recently changed in the USA (or maybe just California.) Many people are unhappy with the changes. The recent story from my county (not country!) is that of a Professor at University of California in Irvine (a neurosurgeon at that!) that had transferred all the family savings to the Nigerian 419 scammers. All that before his family managed to get him legally declared as a ward. Dura lex, sed lex.

Thank you again for clearly pointing a weakness of my argumentation.

PS. I don't want to change my original post, but I want to state that I'm in awe of German-style vocational education. It is really good at quickly and cheaply directing people to a school that will give them some real marketable skills. It does all that without precluding them from the possibility of personal and professional growth. Thus the people that may have had problems when young, but responded to a treatment or a therapy, are not excluded from the further advance in the society.

PPS. If I may suggest a further direction for this (sub-)thread: how about discussing the effects of the semi-forced administration of psychotripic medications to the problem students? I really have no experience of that, not even third hand, but I hear it is a problem.

PPPS. I just learned that the German rules regarding legal guardianship had also been changed in mid-nineties. So let's just state that my experience of Germany predates 1994.

You think people shouldn't be able to run their own lives simply because they are idiots and get hoodwinked? OMG. Something just doesn't sit right with me about German education, if I understand your words correctly. It sounds as if they take the decision out of the individual's hands, so to speak, and decide for them what they are capable of doing in life, regardless of what the person wants to do, and they have no choice except to follow the "track" set for them by the officials where they live just to make it "easier on everybody involved". That would make me want to scream if I lived in such a society. If you don't have a problem with students lives basically being chosen for them, if that's how it really works as it sounds, why would you also care about students being given drugs to control problem behavior? It is in the same league if you ask me, just a bit more fair because you're not making them do what some official or government office is best for them in their whole lives.

[henryzz]

Originally Posted by Nelson

Perhaps, if most of those who know better would rate themselves by their own crank-o-meter they might be a lot more pleasant to be around.

I personally know that a year ago I did ask some questions that were totally stupid. I can see that now. I have been able to learn from the few threads I started that didnt cause flame wars and I now(hopefully) post better questions.
What RDS posts does not help people go along this process but actually discourages them from asking questions and so learning.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by only_human

Two quick thoughts:

1. I haven't seen much flaming or trolling in these forums in the years that I have been here

Perhaps you haven't recognized some of the trolls.

I successfully trolled BobS in the recent thread about running NFS on late-90's hardware. To his credit, he only bit once despite follow-up provocation.


Paul

[only_human]

Originally Posted by xilman

Perhaps you haven't recognized some of the trolls.

I successfully trolled BobS in the recent thread about running NFS on late-90's hardware. To his credit, he only bit once despite follow-up provocation.


Paul

I wouldn't call a mild provocation between two people that are familiar with each other to the extent possible here over time as trolling. Bear baiting maybe.

[wblipp]

Am I the only one amused by the symmetry of the positions?

Dr. Silverman is unhappy with the posting behavior of some people and demands they change.

Jwb is unhappy with the posting behavior of Dr. Silverman and demands he change.

William

(For those who prefer long posts, imagine several paragraphs on stowing thrones and Albert Ellis stories about irrational expectations - I find long posts boring, so I try to err on the side of being too terse.)