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Arthmoor

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I do so love the persecution act. Very endearing. And you say it so convincingly, too, just like it was actually true.
Because it is.
Which is all to say that your argument would appear to boil down to "I never really wanted to go to college in the first place and I watch too much Fox News, so this is how I'm going to rationalize."
And you just proved me right.
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Oh, I don't really care if you did or didn't go to college. I mean, shit, Dad only had like two years, and I'm consistently surprised when it turns out I know things he doesn't[1].But, and this is the same thing I got on to you about with F:NV, if you're going to talk shit about something I expect you to know how it actually works in reality, and you don't seem to be showing a lot of signs that you understand what the fuck you're talking about.Also you've basically called Sigurd and me worthless and told us we don't know what's what in our own disciplines, so that's a great place for agreement, I guess.[1] - Larger point here, actually. Like AndalayBay, I wasn't actually one for school myself. I'm pretty terrible at it. But it turns out that learning things on my own is pretty super cool. One of the things college helped me with is it gave me a set of tools to help me learn effectively on my own, but it's not the only way. I'll catch up to my Dad's reading level some day. But not today.But it's the willingness to learn, the willingness to critically examine that's important.

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Indoctrination? Since when? Definition of Indoctrination: One person forcing another person's viewpoint on something to match their own.Personally, I feel that this is a pretty gross violation of the Scientific Method, which at the Masters/PhD level, is basically what the entire education process is built on. The Scientific Method encourages you to have your own viewpoints, and to share these viewpoints with the world as you experiment with them and find evidence to back them up.No one in Science would ever say "it is this way because I say it is, live with it or go home." Everything is built off of knowledge, and nothing is left to someone's personal opinions. If you have an opinion, test it. If it works, THEN tell it. And then expect the rest of the world to scrutinize your work for any flaws, which you then correct. All the while, building on your initial findings.See also: modding.Indoctrination is the opposite of that: it discourages you to have your own viewpoint because, to the person performing the indoctrination, "I am smart and you are dumb, therefore my opinion is the one that matters."See also: the dipshits in your mod comments demanding you make your mod the way they want it.Or to put it another way:What is the difference between the Creator and the Parasite?*dashes off before anyone can hang him for the Ayn Rand reference*

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But' date=' and this is the same thing I got on to you about with F:NV, if you're going to talk shit about something I expect you to know how it actually works in reality, and you don't seem to be showing a lot of signs that you understand what the fuck you're talking about.[/quote']We've been over this before though, and your opinion on the subject is no more valid than mine.
Also you've basically called Sigurd and me worthless and told us we don't know what's what in our own disciplines, so that's a great place for agreement, I guess.
I called career academia worthless. If you're going to get on me about not knowing what the fuck I'm talking about.....
Indoctrination? Since when?
Roughly the late 1920s or so.
The Scientific Method encourages you to have your own viewpoints' date=' and to share these viewpoints with the world as you experiment with them and find evidence to back them up.[/quote']Indeed it does. And in using that exact principle, I've determined the left isn't interested in an honest dialogue unless you agree with their every point. Since the left runs the university system....
Indoctrination is the opposite of that: it discourages you to have your own viewpoint because, to the person performing the indoctrination, "I am smart and you are dumb, therefore my opinion is the one that matters."
... this is precisely what I've experienced in life. The last 6 years of K-12 was nothing but being beaten over the head with "I know this shit, you don't, listen, or fail". Also, ya'll probably aren't aware, since I didn't mention it, but I did spend a year in a junior college. Only to have exactly that same attitude pounded over me. I left. Couldn't deal with it. So yes, I think I know what indoctrination is. I've experienced it. It happens in the working world too, which is utter shit. Though usually the company's desire to make money overrides management politics enough to keep it from being too much of a problem.
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I called career academia worthless. If you're going to get on me about not knowing what the fuck I'm talking about.....
Maybe you missed the parts in your post where you called most degrees worthless and evidence of indoctrination. We know Andalay has a "real" degree' date=' but I'm history and library science, and Sigurd's (last I checked) a PhD candidate in English (do I have that right?), which would seem to fall under all three of your possible definitions.Unless you have a rather greater use for history degrees than you've shown in the past, I'm pretty sure I got the reading comprehension part of this test correct, thanks.
... this is precisely what I've experienced in life. The last 6 years of K-12 was nothing but being beaten over the head with "I know this shit' date=' you don't, listen, or fail". Also, ya'll probably aren't aware, since I didn't mention it, but I did spend a year in a junior college.[/quote']Actually I did know, because you told me back in the day, but I think your error here is thinking that both K-12 and CC are accurate stand-ins for a university education, which isn't the case, which I think is the collective argument most of us have been making.[edit] Also perhaps relevently, I suppose there's an argument to be made as to whether our collective personal political discourse on your blog has shifted anybody's opinion on any issue at all whatsoever, but that may be neither here nor there. Certainly I've seen plenty of mind-changing political discussion elsewhere, but.
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Are you making a career out of it? If not, then you need not include yourself. Last I checked, you're not working in a university for the sake of working in a university. I'm sorry if this offends either of you, but you and the other two are all trying to convince me it's perfectly OK to voice an opinion on the matter. Well, clearly you don't' actually think this is the case. I'd say why, but I'd just get the same profanity laced outbursts you've given me on it before, so I'll refrain from that to spare everyone the spectacle of it.Given that I've done more than just base my opinion on my own limited exposure to a total shit system, I think I'll just stand by that and call it a day. Other opinions on the subject from sources I trust corroborate my own experience on it. You guys can all chuckle or something if you want, because in hindsight, sure, I probably should have gone and played the game back in 1989, cause it sure as hell won't happen in 2012 considering how much farther to the left the entire system has gone.Yeah, well, our collective exchanges on the blog have probably just been largely entertainment. Which is really all any "news" source is these days, and most of what I end up discussing there originates as a news story of some sort.

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And here I thought I was doing pretty good at avoiding the New Adventures of Profanity Rabbit this time around.I'm not really following your first paragraph there at all.

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*strikes what he was going to say*Nevermind. I think it's time to back out before I say something everyone will hate.

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So in other topic-derailing news, I got super bored on Saturday, picked up the whole Hunger Games trilogy, and read it in one go. Surprisingly good, considering the whole YA thing. My only gripe is that Katniss has terrible taste in guys.Heavier than the YA in my day, too, I'm thinking.

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YA?Also, the movie was really good. Much better than I thought it would be.

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I think we'll check out Dark Shadows. All the trailers I've seen are just hilarious. And I do love Johnny Depp.

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YA = Young Adult. Middle school/HS teens, essentially.Apparently popular with them, too, considering the four copies I stuck on the holds shelf today.

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...and now vodka, the Ken Burns series on Prohibition, and I are in the same room. Achievement unlocked.Speaking of, Burns apparently knows his jazz. I don't even like jazz very much, and I want the soundtrack.

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Well, looks like I missed out on my chance to rant about how much I hate English as a subject. Although, I'll need to upload a picture of the silver unillamba I've made for a work in progress visual representation I'm making as part of an assessment task at the moment. My (half-assed) attempt to replicate the silver unicorn from Blade Runner didn't work to well. It also raises the question of why an artwork is a compulsory part of the English syllabus in year 12.Also, having just watched the Battle of Blackwater in the Game of Thrones TV series, I'm really surprised by how much work they went to for a major battle in a TV show. Although, despite the fact that the entire episode was concerned with fighting, they still managed to work in some rather undressed prostitutes. In fact, I sometimes think the series would be better titled 'Game of Bones'.

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Get me started some time on the overrepresentation of math and English and the under representation of history and civics in American high school.Also get me to talk about how we used to throw down with coloring in Spanish II at some point, if you want truly pointless.

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Too bad I don't get HBO and don't know anyone anymore who does. That Game of Thrones show looks like it would have been cool.

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Its generally pretty well done (maybe they take the sex element a bit too far sometimes, although I can live with that). Probably helps that the author is heavily involved though, and presumably the shows other creators are hardcore fans.

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So what you are saying is you revile a system of which you have no experience?Come now, there are bad universities in the US (there are too many universities in the US, actually, like the UK) and academia can be very nasty if you put forward an unpopular theory that threatens established scholarship because a lot of people can be discedited. Having said that, if men like Niall Ferguson can get jobs at prestigious American institutions you can't honestly say the entire system is riven with lef-wing corruption.Unless what you mean is that American academics go to the UK and develop dangerous ideas like "Universal Healthcare". Then I can't help you, it could be that the experience of living over here is what changed their minds and not some Communist mindcontrol.

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Nope. I'm saying I revile a system with which I *DO* have experience. One does not need to attend in order to see what the institution is about.Citing a guy who takes pride in being influenced by Karl Marx isn't really helping your argument :P That makes the guy pretty damned left wing, even by European standards.And no. American academics go to England and bring back dangerous ideas like "Sharia law works, you should try it here, look how well it went there". The communist mind control isn't really in play since these are the academics guilty of practicing it, rather than being victimized by it.

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Nope. I'm saying I revile a system with which I *DO* have experience. One does not need to attend in order to see what the institution is about.Citing a guy who takes pride in being influenced by Karl Marx isn't really helping your argument :P That makes the guy pretty damned left wing' date=' even by European standards.And no. American academics go to England and bring back dangerous ideas like "Sharia law works, you should try it here, look how well it went there". The communist mind control isn't really in play since these are the academics guilty of practicing it, rather than being victimized by it.[/quote']If you haven't attended a institution of higher education, especially in the last ten years, you don't really have experience. Further, the American situation cannot be that different to the British one because of the free flow of Academics across the pond.Niall Ferguson is not Left wing, I'm sorry but this is the man who went to the US because he considers domestic politics here too Left wing and it stifles his scholarship (so he says). Just because someone is influences by Marx's economic philosophy doesn't mean they share he politics - and Ferguson certainly doesn't.Of course, Marx' politics were based on his reading of history - which was basically wrong. His concept of Class War is an anachronistic reading of history in light of the 19th Century Urban contet - and he never said anything relevent to the rural poor - people like the ones I grew up with.The thing is - you have to read Marx and study his thought seriously to appreciate that, and the VAST majority of academics do. There are very few Communists in universities today for that reason."Sharia Law" isn't something you can stop - because you can just right it into Civil contracts, which is all that happened in the UK. Nobody is suggesting Sharia enter into Criminal Law or Statute.
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Niall Ferguson is not Left wing
His bio says otherwise, so... yeah.Can we please drop this subject before things get out of hand again with the whole "your opinion is invalid" argument?
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Niall Ferguson is not Left wing

His bio says otherwise' date=' so... yeah.

Can we please drop this subject before things get out of hand again with the whole "your opinion is invalid" argument?[/quote']I've said my piece on the subject, and I stand by my point that if you want to civilise the next generation of little barbarians you have to send some of them to do liberal arts courses and not just STEMI have to say though, if you think Niall Ferguson is Left Wing pretty much no-one is Left Wing.Take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_FergusonThacharite, supported Iraq War, rails against the "de-Christianisation" and inferred rise of Islam in Europe, thinks Colonialism (especially British) was overal a good thing,Seriously - there is nothing this man ever says which is Left of Thatcher, ever.

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I think you're forgetting that "right wing" in Europe doesn't have any correlation to "right wing" in America. You're all leftists on our scale, even Thatcher :P

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Niall Ferguson is not Left wing

His bio says otherwise' date=' so... yeah.

Can we please drop this subject before things get out of hand again with the whole "your opinion is invalid" argument?[/quote']

I've said my piece on the subject, and I stand by my point that if you want to civilise the next generation of little barbarians you have to send some of them to do liberal arts courses and not just STEM

What? First, by the time kids are going to university or college, you're not sending them anywhere. They'll go if they want to go. Second, they are either civilized or not by the time they make that decision.After suffering through English and history courses in public school and high school, I can tell you the damage is done by that time. If you're lucky you will have had teachers that encourage and demonstrate the beautiful things in the arts and don't completely destroy them like they did for me. It wasn't until I got married and had a husband who showed me the cool side of history that I even took a look. I despised English and history because I had teachers that stripped out any joy in learning about them and made them a dull monotonous drudgery. Oh, and you had better agree with their opinion when analyzing books in English class too. Christ I had a fucking teacher that made fun of me in front of the whole class because I hadn't read the sequel to Fifth Business, which was not part of the curriculum I might add, so I had no idea that a particular passage was a metaphor for something and not simple fact. And it was the second time I had to read that stupid book because I had studied it previously at another school. And guess what? The previous guy's take on it was somewhat different. Surprise surprise. And since I hated it the first time, I wasn't about to read the sequel.Yes arts are important. Obviously. But universities and colleges are places where you discuss and debate them. You don't gain your first experience with them. Or develop a love for them. They will broaden your experience and expose you to new ideas. But you don't have to study liberal arts to get that.In fact if Amadaun were here she'd tell you how all they succeeded in doing was taking a passion and pretty much ruining it for her.
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