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Staredit Network -> Serious Discussion -> Failure of the Democratic System in America
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Lithium on 2006-11-26 at 04:58:48
I would say class no longer exists except for the family name and numbers of $ you would gain a month, the total number of value in money you withhold right now either by land, cash, money, business.

On number 2, that would be discriminating against these "Gay couples". Actually classifying the normal heterosexual marriage and gay marriage ( although considered "civil partnership thus, not a marriage". ) is somewhat psychiatric sexual discrimination. Which, still is being debated.
All the rights? I wouldn't say that. Say that your partner is sick to death in a operation. The partner isn't able to view the partner's operation; which was the ironic problems back then. Now, I don't know. I'am not a UK citizen.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by green_meklar on 2006-11-26 at 11:49:36
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In a way I agree with green_meklar that it is a broken education system that rears an ignorant and undereducated population. However, I don't think that the government actually tries to do this; it just is a hopeless failure at fixing the education system.

It would be nice to think so. But unfortunately, as we know, the government has a lot to gain from keeping people stupid and ignorant. Additionally, there are some very good education systems which the government has failed to address for decades, despite overwhelming statistical evidence for their effectiveness.
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Bush didn't do much good to the school with the No Child Left Behind Act, but he didn't hurt them much either, and it was clear that he personally did care about the schools.

Maybe that's exactly what he wants you to think. This is the problem with believing stuff like this: What if someone wants you to believe that for their own twisted agenda, and you just don't know it? I'm sure there are lots of other things politicians have 'personally cared' about but which never really got fixed.
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Every other year a crackpot scientific article is published alleging that while America students fail in comparison to, for example, Japanese students in any standardized measure of test, American students are "more creative", "under less pressure", and "have higher self-esteem".

Again, where are these reports coming from? Someone has to be paying for them to be written up and published, which means someone with lots of money has something to gain from publishing BS. Whether it's the government or some set of sadistic corporations, we can tell all is not right with the world, so to speak.
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So if the democratic system in America is failing, then what shall we resort to? Communism? Anarchy?

Communism is an economic system rather than a political system, so it is not relevant in deciding what we should change representative democracy into. Personally, I would suggest starting towards meritocracy. At the very least, knowledgeable, intelligent people should get more votes than ignorant, stupid people. If this isn't enough, we should probably go beyond voting completely and just put society's most intelligent (and moral) people in positions of power, based on psychological tests rather than votes from the general public.
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And if the people here are stupid, then my what are we going to do? Shoot them all? Deport them to another country? Spend billions of dollars trying to make education stricter, thus making school not enjoyable but excruciating?

Making education stricter is not necessarily a result of improving it. There are many things that could be done to educate people without harming them.
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Oh that's right, our rights! We're being deprived of our daily rights everyday aren't we? So that means journalists and newsreporters are being controlled by the government and are not free to say whatever they desire to say? Oh and all the Churches, Synagogues, and temples here; are they being shut down by our Government? Is our government forcing religion/secularism upon us?

The media being allowed to say whatever it likes? Well sure, of course it's allowed to say whatever it likes. And what it likes to say is what people with money and agendas pay it to say.

Religious organizations being shut down? On the contrary, they're being allowed to stand around pretty much untaxed while all other organizations have to pay the government to remain in existence. If anything, the government is biased towards religion.

Forcing religion on us? They're coming close enough. From what I've heard, government officials and court witnesses in the United States both still have to swear somethingorother 'under God'. And of course, there's all this teaching creationism in schools nonsense.
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0. Voter apathy is a problem because it means when, for example in the UK's last General Election, that the turnout was about 60% and 50% of them voted for the Labour party, that only 30% of the electorate voted the ruling party in.

No, they did it with the help of all those people who decided the Labor Party wasn't bad enough to vote against.
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2. It might not be truly Libertarian, but it is far more so than it has been in the past. I don't see any mass movements for nudism, for example.

Uh...what? How is that not an example to the contrary?
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3. I disagree - perhaps in the US it's like that, but not here. Besides, I'm sure that a biased media encourages voter cynicism anyway, unless the electorate is composed of morons (which is perhaps the problem).

It's part of the problem, anyway.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Hofodomo on 2006-11-26 at 13:28:48
Making education stricter still won't necessarily make people care more, ya?

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The media being allowed to say whatever it likes? Well sure, of course it's allowed to say whatever it likes. And what it likes to say is what people with money and agendas pay it to say.


I think you hit that point on the nose. Money has a huge influence in this country's politics...
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Centreri on 2006-11-26 at 13:29:50
Stricter improves discipline, not intelligence. Better education system and teachers improves intelligence.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Deathawk on 2006-11-26 at 16:26:07
If kids actually had discipline, they might be able to learn something in school, instead of throwing paper balls around class, and talking to their friends. ~.~, although that's not really a problem in honors classes..
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Rantent on 2006-11-26 at 17:29:21
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Stricter improves discipline
But creating stricter rules for those who previously had relaxed rulings creates uprising. You either have to do it from day one, or not at all.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by DT_Battlekruser on 2006-11-26 at 19:05:55
QUOTE(Centreri @ Nov 26 2006, 10:29 AM)
Stricter improves discipline, not intelligence. Better education system and teachers improves intelligence.
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If kids actually had discipline, they might be able to learn something in school, instead of throwing paper balls around class, and talking to their friends. ~.~, although that's not really a problem in honors classes..


Quite the response. Make education actually matter rather than mandating it simply by law, and maybe students will feel compelled to try.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Deathawk on 2006-11-26 at 19:11:30
It does matter, though. There is a reason some people are taking Pre Calc as a sophomore, and some are taking Geometry :\ And it's not coincedential that those people are going to get into better colleges, ending up making more money..

That's not always true though, but for the most part.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Centreri on 2006-11-26 at 20:07:13
Yeah, stricter does affect intelligence; but not directly. There's also a chance that it won't help at all.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by green_meklar on 2006-11-26 at 20:32:23
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Stricter improves discipline, not intelligence. Better education system and teachers improves intelligence.

Exactly.
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If kids actually had discipline, they might be able to learn something in school, instead of throwing paper balls around class, and talking to their friends.

Meh. From what I can tell, discipline isn't nearly as good a way of keeping a kid's mind on the subject as interest is. That's the key: Keep the kids more interested in the subject than in talking about [insert pop culture reference here] with their friends. This will take different teaching methods and possibly better or differently trained teachers, but I think it's one of the important steps to having a good education system.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Deathawk on 2006-11-26 at 22:16:29
Sometimes, you have to stuff you don't always enjoy doing, and the people without discipline, I guess just don't understand that. Doing hours of homework will never be fun, it just won't(Unless you think doing hours of that type of stuff is fun.)


I'm not saying that a new teaching method wouldn't help, because it definately would. Maybe a more universal style of teaching would be nice, because there are definately too many teachers in your school that if you get them, you are unlucky, and some teachers are too easy. The transition between them is pretty hard ~.~
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Hofodomo on 2006-11-26 at 23:11:44
It's probably because of the grade inflation...

"I don't care what I actually learn, as long as I get the A and keep my GPA up for college", right?

This is largely the thought of "honours" and "AP" kids...
Report, edit, etc...Posted by PoSSeSSeDCoW on 2006-11-26 at 23:26:46
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It's probably because of the grade inflation...

"I don't care what I actually learn, as long as I get the A and keep my GPA up for college", right?

This is largely the thought of "honours" and "AP" kids...


It's largely the thought process of the majority of students. To most students, high school is another meaningless obstacle to real life and real money.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Hofodomo on 2006-11-27 at 00:13:26
Yeah, and when you think about it, the whole bulk of advanced high school mathematics and sciences were implemented to beat the Russians in the space race...
Report, edit, etc...Posted by DT_Battlekruser on 2006-11-27 at 01:04:18
No, this is precisely why American schools are failing.

People purport this "must get an A" mentality as somehow damaging our education system, and figure it's better for students to get C's and somehow "be more creative".

Let me bring it to you. Grades matter. To get an A you have to learn. You can't D-pass a class and actually be learning. There's no honor or use is saying "f*** school". Not wanting an A, amazingly enough, doesn't make you smarter.

Yes, grades get inflated. Teacher are desperate not to fail students. Does that mean grades don't matter? No. Set your self higher standards. Actually. TRY.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by CaptainWill on 2006-11-27 at 05:28:57
Grades are very inflated here - at GCSE level 70% was an A, and in terms of raw marks in tests, that was sometimes as low as 55%.

At A level it was better, with an A being 80% and the material generally being a lot harder, but we still get 'A-LEVELS ARE GETTING TOO EASY' crap from the media every year around results time.

I think that we have to face facts and realise that there will always be people who really don't want to learn academic stuff; people who will always put in near to 100% and compete with their peers for results; people who are clever but lazy/uninterested by the curriculum and either do well because they're so smart anyway, or fail because they don't do any work etc. etc.

We could assess people psychologically from a fairly early age and put them in a school with people like them and tailored to their 'needs,' but then we come to the thorny obstacle of free choice.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Lithium on 2006-11-27 at 07:04:10
No. We must make standards of work requirements higher. Even for normal labor works, a drop out cannot get a job?
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Deathawk on 2006-11-27 at 07:20:52
No gang or whatever is going to stop you from joining because you're a highschool drop out. That'd probably lead to a lot more crime and violence ~.~ because as CaptainWill said there will always be people that don't want to do academic stuff.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by JaFF on 2006-11-27 at 14:31:45
QUOTE(Centreri @ Nov 26 2006, 09:29 PM)
Stricter improves discipline, not intelligence. Better education system and teachers improves intelligence.
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Culture improves intelligence. Discipline is always good - you may not be smart, but if you put enough effort into something, you'll get it.
QUOTE(DT_Battlekruser @ Nov 25 2006, 09:10 AM)
A broken education system passes people into moderately decent jobs without ever requiring them to develop any kind of higher thinking processes.

I think not only the education system matters here.

People actually have more problems because our life is getting so "easy". The simpler our existance is, the less problems we have. So with all those problems around a medium stupid person, would he care about something he feels no connection with? All the politics are too far away from the people, that's why we have apathy, as CaptainWill said. When people lived in small villages, they felt that they are important, because they all gathered and voted on all important matters.

QUOTE(CaptainWill @ Nov 25 2006, 12:18 PM)
4. The nature of entertainment has made people retreat into their personal lives.

I think that's because because able of transferring a lot of information very fast.

QUOTE(DT_Battlekruser @ Nov 25 2006, 09:30 PM)
Ignorance is bliss.
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Amen.

QUOTE(TheDaddy0420 @ Nov 26 2006, 05:53 AM)
I think this ignorance comes from companies advertising their products.

I think anti-culture makes people stupid in the first place. Only the stupid ones fall for the advertisments.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Hofodomo on 2006-11-27 at 18:00:22
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To get an A you have to learn


Perhaps that's what's it's like in your system, but based on personal experience, I completely disagree.

I go to a well-funded suburban school in Mason, OH (of Cincinnati).

This is especially prevalent throughout the honours kids....
What is it that you learn? How to evaluate an intergral? What the definition of several vocab words are? How an English teacher likes his/her essays, so you can get an A on them?

Even if the student learns them, they're not done in a way that's meaningful, and they won't make the student care anymore than the world around them than they already do.

This makes you so die-hard for grades, that you forget what you're actually here for. And like I said, learning to evaluate functions may increase your problem solving skills, but it won't increase how much you actually care about the world.

It's intellectual knowledge vs. experience and wisdom. And it's very hard to get both in school.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by DT_Battlekruser on 2006-11-27 at 19:20:02
QUOTE(Hofodomo @ Nov 27 2006, 03:00 PM)
This is especially prevalent throughout the honours kids....
What is it that you learn?  How to evaluate an intergral?  What the definition of several vocab words are?  How an English teacher likes his/her essays, so you can get an A on them?

Even if the student learns them, they're not done in a way that's meaningful, and they won't make the student care anymore than the world around them than they already do.
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And you're definitely in a position to judge that what they teach you in school is worthless. Amazing enough, not learning how to evaluate an integral or the definition of several vocabulary words is not a secret path to "wisdom".

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We could assess people psychologically from a fairly early age and put them in a school with people like them and tailored to their 'needs,' but then we come to the thorny obstacle of free choice.


If there was actually a way to change American culture and society so that grades mattered to people, we might get somewhere.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by green_meklar on 2006-11-27 at 20:22:37
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Doing hours of homework will never be fun, it just won't

What if your homework was, say, playing StarCraft?

See? It doesn't make sense to assume that homework is absolutely guaranteed to be boring. It's just that the homework we have right now happens to be boring.
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People purport this "must get an A" mentality as somehow damaging our education system, and figure it's better for students to get C's and somehow "be more creative".

Let me bring it to you. Grades matter. To get an A you have to learn. You can't D-pass a class and actually be learning. There's no honor or use is saying "f*** school". Not wanting an A, amazingly enough, doesn't make you smarter.

Yes, grades get inflated. Teacher are desperate not to fail students. Does that mean grades don't matter? No. Set your self higher standards. Actually. TRY.

Well, it's not quite as simple as all that. Grades only matter if at least one of two conditions is fulfilled:
1. The grading system is valid and accurate.
2. Good marks are necessary to be successful later on in life (get a good job, etc).
The second is most certainly true, so grades matter in that sense. The first is usually true to some extent, although it is seldom completely true and there are cases in which it is outright false.
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I think that's because because able of transferring a lot of information very fast.

No, I would say more likely because it has become so realistic (compare books with movies and computer games).
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Hofodomo on 2006-11-27 at 22:07:04
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Amazing enough, not learning how to evaluate an integral or the definition of several vocabulary words is not a secret path to "wisdom".


I never made that insinuation. My main point, for the whole time has been: kids nowadays care too much about the GPA/grades for college. There are a few teachers I know (2 social studies and 1 English come to mind) that teach their students to care about learning and exploring ideas in general...and my social studies teacher gave me a B. I did poorly on the tests at first, but I came out with a significantly better understanding of government and simpler politics.

But all in all, way to much emphasis is placed on the grade aspect, rather than the learning aspect. But what about your parents? Do they place pressure on you to "get good grades"? That's another part of where this GPA craze comes from. The mentality's really "what do I need to do to get the A" versus "let's just see what I can learn and remember 20 years down the road",

Yes, grades matter because colleges says they matter, and that's the sad reality. There's some top ranked private universities in this country that would rather see a C in a hard class, and the student demonstrating a willingness to learn, than an A in an easier one. They see the problem...

And why do you think colleges like MIT don't even give you grades for freshmen year? They want you do go away from the "get the A" mentality and try new things...high school, unfortunately, just doesn't allow that.

The thing is, don't misinterpret me for saying "everybody get C's and just chill...."
No, there's obviously something that grades can't measure (but it's reality and that's just simply unfortunate).
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Oo.Zero.oO on 2006-11-27 at 22:07:53
I think being stricter improves discipline, but only if you add it on slowly or if there used to it. Its like going on medicine for the first time you may want to start slow and get off slowly.

Getting an A in some classes is hard. I try and try in Biology and I get a C I can take algebra and get an A without trying because it comes natural. I think schools should make students take a semester of political science or something like that, that teaches children about our politics today. Instead of those no child left behind things that teachers always yell at maybe cut them a little and ad a new program.

I believe there is classes. They may not be labeled, but there there. If classes grow to far apart there should be a class struggle to keep things less seperated. Obviously the ones who work for the high people as a whole should get more than the people up high. Bourgiouse vs. Proleriat, and Proleriat would win if enough believed in the cause.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by DT_Battlekruser on 2006-11-27 at 22:58:27
QUOTE(Hofodomo @ Nov 27 2006, 07:07 PM)
The thing is, don't misinterpret me for saying "everybody get C's and just chill...."
No, there's obviously something that grades can't measure (but it's reality and that's just simply unfortunate).
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Saying "stop caring so much about your grades" is tantamount to that.

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I never made that insinuation. My main point, for the whole time has been: kids nowadays care too much about the GPA/grades for college. There are a few teachers I know (2 social studies and 1 English come to mind) that teach their students to care about learning and exploring ideas in general...and my social studies teacher gave me a B. I did poorly on the tests at first, but I came out with a significantly better understanding of government and simpler politics.

But all in all, way to much emphasis is placed on the grade aspect, rather than the learning aspect. But what about your parents? Do they place pressure on you to "get good grades"? That's another part of where this GPA craze comes from. The mentality's really "what do I need to do to get the A" versus "let's just see what I can learn and remember 20 years down the road",


Care too much about their grades? In AMERICA? I can't tell you just how many people there are around me that don't give a damn about grades, and it's mentalities such as these which drive these people.

I never wanted to point fingers but I think I've been forced into it. What culture do yonder scientists say is "too focused on grades" and all that? And yet what culture carries an unerring stereotype of intelligence and success in the business and scientific world? Riddle me that.

QUOTE(Oo.Zero.oO @ Nov 27 2006, 07:07 PM)
Getting an A in some classes is hard.
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Maybe I need to look harder...
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