Something Student Protesters Should Consider (Cross Post by Request).

ProfANON123 · 2012-05-26T06:19:55.793700+00:00

Actually...anthropologists are the the least worse offenders in the "social science" space...

Most actually do have to learn basic statistics in order to properly assess within their study. They're the closest to a student of economics in my experience...but YMMV ya know...

ProfANON123 · 2012-05-26T06:16:44.587824+00:00

Frankly? It's almost impossible. It depends on so many factors...

You can't look at it as a guaranteed investment either, which is part of the problem.

It's more like hedge funding. Taking a guess on what industries are booming now...which will boom in the future...where demand will be and if the number of graduates can potentially match up...

It's really not that simple, and it's a huge body of statistics you have to be very analytic about.

I mean...if we suddenly become the biggest exporter of fine art...all those media art majors may very well end up profitable...who's to say?

My point is that if we have a free and open education system based on the same ideas as free-software, like what is happening with the wealth of knowledge being released in a pedagogical format with MITs courseware, we put people's education more in their own hands and allow for a much more dynamic and adaptable system to the breadth of varying learning potential in people.

smacksaw · 2012-05-26T06:00:39.674579+00:00

I agree with you entirely, and to some extent my views carry the same dubious outlooks when seeing little process taking place with all of these protests.

I see a body that never intended to be reasonable from the get go, and sprung this protest/strike within a very short period as a pressure tactic. This raise had been on the table for over a year, and the government DID have a fairly unbiased study done in response to the protests in Quebec city a over a year ago.

From 2010: http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101206/mtl_tuition_101206?hub=MontrealHome

I'll try to find you a link to that commisioned study...atm I'm stuck in a google bubble in finding it...

In that time...did they really figure their best course of action was to take to the streets? Did our EDUCATED youth really work within the system instead of simply claiming it to be broke? Frankly, I think we both know the answer to that....

::EDIT:: I will give you this to ponder upon though > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Facal#Out_of_the_legislature

I recommend reading it all and verifying with all citations just to not just take my word for it.

ProfANON123 · 2012-05-26T05:39:39.227902+00:00

Actually I am more for a free, sustainable, scalable and open university.

Certification still has to take place, but the infrastructure is still under construction and demands citizen input, and this is the main driving force behind the hackerspace movement.

That's how DARPA and the Pentagon are working to solve the crisis in the US. They're the ones pushing MIT, Stanford et al. to develop coursera.org

Once people stop thinking of education as some staggered system that ends once you get your degree and start understanding that it's an ongoing process, that's when progress will be made. It has nothing to do with cost. People who have the opportunity to go to university already make bad choices.

You just have to look at all the philosophy majors that will spend hours talking to you about a fucking tree falling in an empty forest, but can't even understand a Pauli matrix and its application when it comes to discussing quantum mechanics.

Then you're surprised they think Gentilly-2 is going to go up in a flaming mushroom...it's sad really.

ProfANON123 · 2012-05-26T05:21:19.689581+00:00

I'm sick of hearing this argument.

I know enough people that are smarter than your average university student, and much more knowledgeable, to know that there's a difference between an actual education and a degree.

You see this guy right here? http://rv6502.com/ He's awesome. He's a fucking triple threat programmer: math, code, and hardware. You know what he's doing right now? He's optimizing the game engine for the new Silent Hill game on PS Vita.

Let's just say that his expertise did not come from dredging too long in the school system.

smacksaw · 2012-05-25T20:31:26.131620+00:00

Interesting...so they have the constitutional right to bare arms...but you agree that it's "a little much" even though they go without ammunition, nor do they intend to break any property.

Second, are they really removing dissent to their views, or simply removing volatile elements from their midst?

I mean I still don't find the protest very useful, nor do I agree with them entirely in their current form. In the beginning the Tea Party started off as an actual movement for responsible spending and accountability in government. Just saying.

smacksaw · 2012-05-25T17:32:31.245328+00:00

I agree as well. A referendum is too much.

But a lobby of students that could convince a judge to stall just so that a focus group could come along and show REASONED response as to why it is such a bad idea, or at the very least have a privileged view of most of the numbers that went into the budget planning...I mean...there's more than simply a referendum.

There's some law professor that keeps going on how due to a pact signed by Quebec in the past, this raise would potentially be illegal...what ever happened to that? I know that any law firm would relish the chance to bolster their coffers and their image by winning a case against the incumbent.

smacksaw · 2012-05-25T17:24:45.353438+00:00

The general population doesn't care much for math.

And in there lies the problem. Our education system in its current form is ill equipped to handle the mass education it needs to tend to...not because someone corrupted it, but because it wasn't inherently designed very well to meet the varying needs of individuals and how they learn.

That's the real issue, and personally, as in this is just my opinion, I would say that I could easily lean to being for the hike because I don't care to see my tax-dollar go into a system where the stats show that people are simply getting pieces of paper and not actually becoming critical thinkers.

But obviously I don't care to be that "manipulative". I want to indoctrinate people into the sciences and the arts...and I am sick of people saying they are mutually exclusive. Any scientist/engineer I know tend to easily see how despite the scientific method, working within the confines of it is just as much art as science.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone outside of the general applied science fields that would happily claim their productions use any form of science, much less seek out to apply any.

smacksaw · 2012-05-25T17:14:05.939472+00:00

First of all, your first paragraph is wrong on every point. I think you should review how proportional representation actually works and stop throwing words around while being either disingenuous or plain ignorant as to what they mean. If you have a problem with it, run in your own area and take those seats for yourself.

You're inherently perverting the system by not using it.

You second point is ridiculous. It's borderline on thought-crime. Just because they can, they will? Common. If I am ready to agree that there are a few bad apples in these mostly-peaceful protests, you have to stop generalizing "oh engineering firm...he's obviously going to corrupt someone"

Basically you're essentially saying every system is fallible because of the human element. No shit sherlock, have a biscuit.

There's a judge for that!(tm)

As for plan nord...are you going to go dig a hole up in the north? No. Do you know how much a kilo of X or Y mineral is worth at the moment and how projected futures are shaping up? No. Do you have any idea how MUCH we have underground, and how little the Plan Nord is actually cutting into it? No.

How do I know the answers to this? Because I know that any sane person who has done their own work and research, their duty as a citizen, to check these things out would immediately see where the real problems lay.

This all comes down to my final point: I never said or, much less INSINUATED that you should take this lying down. On the contrary, I want you to go out there and look it up for yourself. To not just sit there and take ANYTHING as face value.

Furthermore I want you to understand that your rights as a citizen don't just stop at voting every 4 years. There's more for you do to...across the board. Join public oversight committees and lobby to put them in place. Form focus groups that will support those you think have reasoned opinions.

I will say this: for all the shit the Tae Partiers get in the US...they have never resorted to physical violence. They may walk in the streets with their rifles, but they haven't gone around blowing out windows to show their discontent. They understand how the system in teh US works, and they use it to their advantage. The american system is much more than just an election every 4 years, same as use, and it's about time people people got back to work actually using our democratic system rather than expecting it to just work for us without any true oversight.

Banging pots in the street is a parade, not a democratic process.

YouCanTouchMeThere · 1 day

Quick! I have a GREAT idea on how to pay/transfer off the provincial debt in one fell swoop!

smacksaw · 1 day

Haha...work around the system. Of course!

I reject your reality and substitute my own! Sweet lord! Why didn't I think of that?

smacksaw · 1 day

If it's an ideological battle then there should be a referendum, thus this is a voting issue.

Democracy works in the light of due process. Peaceful assembly is not the process just because you have a right to do so. More so if you use it as a pressure tactic and then forego working with said process.

No system is perfect, and to think otherwise is ludicrous, but we DO have a system. You either working with it or you're hindering it.

That's what those in the CLASSE et al. don't understand.

Summum · 1 day

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!

krod3r · 1 day

People are in the streets with AK-47s. U mad bro?

I have been living underground in an RV I buried after lathering it in lead paint. I speak to you by tapping out HTTP requests with these 2 wires I short.

Please bring toilet paper!

oteren · 1 day

FFS...just because they can recuperate your passwords doesn't mean it's stored as cleartext...

They already store your credit card information in a securely recoverable manner...the fuck are you cumplainin' bout willis?

sleav099 · 1 day

You're right...more so if it's a naked protest...we get popped porn.

._.

BobbyBacala · 1 day

That's bullshit. Up to now the only ones who have used mediation has been the government. It's the students that have refused due to their massive tin-foil hatted erections.

When it comes to actual proportional representation, they don't care to play ball anymore? I mean...come on. You're right...all the rectors of all the universities in addition to the government is a lot of people: because the students never intended to have an actual group of mediators from the start. It's not unreasonable to think that you would have to talk to the people actually running these godamn schools, no?

The students had over a year to mobilize a movement through government by forming a lobby or seeking judicial recourse.

As David Suzuki asks in this video, regarding the Occupy campout: "Is this a moment?" His message is clear, nothing is given easily. It takes due process, and if they are serious about it they must follow it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUTDxUicSmo

It's obvious to me that from the start noone was planning to be reasonable on the student's end, and waiting to the last minute to go on "strike" was their best attempt as getting results without any work.

I'm sorry, in a true democracy we have due process. If you're not willing to put in the work and follow it, it stands to reason that you should not be heard.

kylemacmac · 2 days

a) You should look up the definition of a sophism.

b) You quoted a selective passage.

c) Second definition of tautology and...

d) ...I said sophistic tautology. I was just finding a clever way to say circular logic...

e) ...as someone who's comment does not really require to know what your position is in order to perceive a discrepancy in your proposition.

jawndisease · 2 days

In mother russia...irony beats you!

kylemacmac · 2 days

Just because he doesn't share your opinion, does not mean he is lying to you.

Your comment is a sophistic tautology.

mycall · 2 days

Dan Brown...is that you?

mailingliststalker · 3 days

Ha, cereal...everyone knows alphabet soup has better diction.

mailingliststalker · 3 days

You know my shame... :<

mailingliststalker · 3 days

I find it dangerous to claim that this comes from a higher authority without any proof, more-so it being an internal document not meant for dissemination.

Even if I don't agree with some of these points, they could have been posted regardless of the origin.

Downvoted.

Disclaimer: I'm a sysadmin at the Concordia bioinformatics lab.

danukeru

TROPHY CASE

danukeru

TROPHY CASE

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