kdragon

"There's a reason education sucks, it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners, now. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying,­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.

But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

You know what they want? Obedient workers,­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club." - George Carlin

There's your answer to why.

The answer to how involves more details, but it basically has to do with pacifying the concept of critical thinking from our education system and all facets of american culture, and replacing it with rote learning. It's a lower form of intelligence, which is great for passing arbitrary tests and producing the obedient workers who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork.

The best thing you can do for a child is teach them how to think and learn for themselves. Grow their critical thinking skills and get them into programming or engineering. Teach them empathy. Oh, and buy them a bitcoin.

Have you ever thought about building tax software for the other side of the fence i.e preparers? I'd love a chat about why the existing competition sucks and what's truly missing from the software market for tax professionals.

> Second-guessing the motives and truth of this woman's story does nothing but undermine her, and undermine the confidence of others who may have similar stories (at GitHub or elsewhere).

What the heck are you talking about? The story is hearsay at this point and armchair warriors are jumping to conclusions behind the anonymity of the internet.

Second-guessing the motives and truth? Do you work at Github? Is this person your co-worker?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not just that grass-fed beef is higher in Omega 3, but lower in Omega 6. So it's not just about Omega 3 intake, but the ratio between the two.

It's this kind of thinking that really irks me. "Well, my $100 still adds up to $100, so it's all there."

Yeah, you money is there. Maybe it holds the same value as yesterday, or tomorrow. But over time, your taxes will go up, prices of things you buy will go up, inflation will rise, and the spending power of your $100 will become less and less.

Every bank failure, financial meltdown, and economic downturn robs your money of value. When a meltdown happens, and the FED has to prints more money to cover it up, your dollar loses value. When the price of merchandise goes up, because fees go up, because bank insurance premiums rise, because they keep losing your money, your dollar loses value.

It may happen slowly and indirectly, but make no mistake, you are losing you money. The best way to cook a frog is to do it slowly, so the frog doesn't jump out of the pot.

I think the macbook pro has been one of the easiest laptops to take apart and service. There's no locking screw hidden underneath the keyboard that requires a plastic bezel snapped out of place (prone to breaking) in order to get to a hard drive or something. You simply take out all the bottom screws, and the entire lower shell is removed to expose everything, even the mainboard.

It's a wonderful design, however Apple has since decided to solder the SSD and memory to the mainboard, making them non-serviceable. This is not a choice made to make the device more beautiful or more affordable. They did it to be greedy.

We as consumers can have all three if we demanded it, but there's money to be made cutting corners and most people don't understand how to vote with their dollars.

Because the bill that awarded them the funding was written in a way where there were no repercussions for not doing so.

Oh, you're going to enjoy this read. A story that happened just recently:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/LAPD-Los-Angeles-Pol...

LEOs and DAs have no problem paying for false testimony, whether it's to cover SOD or not. They can use taxpayer money and there's no real repercussions for getting caught.

Innocent people are routinely murdered by police in my area, with no justification or repercussion. The lucky ones who survive get million dollar settlements in taxpayer money. The cops never face serious punishment. We had a group of LEOs literally beat a defenseless man to death, captured in full audio and video, and they got off scot free. Look up Kelly Thomas.

> Your MLK example would be more convincing if it actually worked.

That has nothing to do with my example. I don't believe you are really that naive.

adul·ter·at·ed: to corrupt, debase, or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior substance or element;

You could have easily looked this up. You are being purposefully obtuse and it's not fooling anyone. I'll call a spade a spade.

It's not just about shame, but political assassination and public ridicule. The right kind of narrative could destroy, not only Obama's personal prospects after his presidency, but everything else he worked on during his presidency, including healthcare reform. The political fallout of a large enough scandal could damage the perception of the entire political party, and the balance of power to shift. The political fallout from Clinton's scandals happened during his second term, affected leadership in the House of Representatives, and the outcome of the 2000 Presidential campaign.

It's not about feeling shame. It's about political assassination and public ridicule.

Many important political figures have been involved with adulterated sex and illegal drugs. Mass surveillance can uncover these scandals and use them as leverage to coerce and blackmail. The FBI put MLK under mass surveillance, uncovered evidence of his sexual deviancy, and sent him threatening letters in an attempt to suppress his civil rights activism.

The NSA very likely have secret information to blackmail President Obama and other important political figures. Daniel Ellsberg agrees with this sentiment (which he mentions in his recent reddit AMA), and Russell Tice confirmed this possibility when becoming an NSA whistleblower in 2006:

"On June 19, 2013, Tice claimed while being interviewed that the NSA had spied on Barack Obama while he was a senator, along with monitoring federal judges, ranking military officials, and other members of Congress, saying he himself had seen and held papers ordering such actions.[12][13] He went on to say, "This thing is incredible what NSA has done. They've basically turned themselves—in my opinion—into a rogue agency that has J. Edgar Hoover capabilities on a monstrous scale on steroids"."

Remember, this has already happened very recently in our nation's history, during J. Edgar Hoover's direction of the FBI:

"Hoover became a controversial figure, as evidence of his secretive actions became known. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.[4]"

This part of american history needs to be shouted from the mountain tops. "The Burglary" and COINTELPRO need to be mandatory teaching subjects in our schools. It's not a conspiracy theory to suspect NSA of controlling politics and activism through blackmail and coercion. This is exactly what has happened before with Hoover's FBI, and there's every reason to believe this is happening again with the NSA.

I agree with your conclusions. This firm's service isn't being sold because it works, they are selling it because somebody is willing to buy it. Fear and paranoia are an invitation to the entrepreneur.

But.. but.. it is radio communication! Using radio waves! If scientific facts not define what is legally considered 'radio communication', by what arbitrary rules is this defined?

So when a google engineering team stores unwanted, unencrypted radio communication by accident (and is entirely open about it) the courts seem so eager to throw the book? But when the U.S Government coerces telecom companies to aid in massive unconstitutional wiretapping on a global scale, congress is willing to step in and grant retroactive legal immunity to all parties?

Am I taking crazy pills??

Basically we are publicly subsidizing education. Will it be worth it? Well, history has shown education to be a better investment than subsidizing the risks of private institutions. I'm betting it will be.

I get your point at least. While one could argue that student loans are in a speculative bubble (in regards to their actual value), existing bankruptcy laws prevent the bubble from bursting.

Part of the collateral for student loans is, technically, your economic freedom. It's easier for banks to assume you will pay the principal of your debts, when government is the acting collection agency. It's very difficult to escape garnished wages.

However, if something changes and people have a way to shed their student loan debts, I think the bubble will pop very quickly.

Virtually all auto accidents are because of human error, and computers can handle any situation with lightning-fast (literally) reflexes.

If driver-less cars become the norm, the practical need for toddler car seats will cease to exist.