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True story: Thirty-something odd years ago I was asked as an undergraduate to meet with the Board of Trustees at a prestigious research university, the name of which rhymes with Wans Blopkins. I had no idea why I was sitting at a ginormous conference table with the people who controlled the largest non-governmental employer in the state of Maryland.

Turns out that the very old, very rich, white dudes wanted to inquire about the state of ethics on the undergraduate campus and for some odd reason I was chosen.

At that time, I had already developed a near autistic capability for speaking my mind without any consideration for the consequences, so I responded with “What ethics?”

What I had seen from other undergrad was a dog-eat-dog environment that was built around shifting the Bell Curve in order to leverage their own relative performance for advantage in med school applications. People would steal textbooks from high performers, outright cheat, and otherwise seek to game the system. For non-personal ethics, the biomedical engineering department had dedicated classes, but as we all know and have seen recently, the purpose of bioethics is to find novel ways to justify moral atrocities. These were no different.

There were more examples, but the Board seemed uninterested and moved on. I suppose they felt that they needed to go through the motions for some unstated purpose.

I mention this because as the years have passed, the situation has certainly not improved and it is now reflected in society-altering events and policies. The premier medical school in the country did not even attempt to develop therapeutics for COVID. It actively promotes gender transitioning for minors. The school of public health has been behind some of the most oppressive social policies of the past two decades. Everything is about feathering ones own nest at the expense of the taxpayer, consequences be damned.

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founding

"At that time, I had already developed a near autistic capability for speaking my mind without any consideration for the consequences, so I responded with “What ethics?”

Solid gold. I'd like to buy you a beer. Lol.

I almost got kicked out of my fraternity twice and university twice for this type of free thinking you perfectly tagged.

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That's four badges of honor in my book, and an honorary degree from my Alma Mater, the University of Individuality.

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founding

University of Individuality*

Spectacular!

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This habit is what I refer to as my once-a-decade career suicide attempts. Takes me about a decade to mix the frustrations with the upper level management exposure when asked a question about a particularly dumb decision or strategy and... out comes the brutal truth exposing their systemic culpability. I am truly shocked I survived the COVID-1984 gauntlet with my job (and my vax exemption) intact. Thank God that did not happen in my 20's or 30's...

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founding

Yeah. Exactly. I know what you mean.

You're exactly the guy I would want to do business with.

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"The school of public health has been behind some of the most oppressive social policies of the past two decades."

Well, that's because Public Health = Socialist Health.

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"Well, that's because Public Health =" Government Health

Get the whole set:

- Government Schools

- Government Assistance

- Government Transportation

and unfortunately

- Government Property

Bumper sticker idea: We don't care because we don't have to turn a profit to stay in business.

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We HAVE the "whole set".

Which is the root cause of of that giant flushing sound you hear as your grandkids future swirls around the bowl.

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Well, this definitely isn't as cool as when I had the whole McD's characters glass set.

I recall breaking Grimace. Purple was my favorite color. This made me sad.

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If purple was my favourite colour I too would be sad.

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You get me *nods*

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For me, Public Health = Public Harm

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Same difference

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This is one your best, Gato. And considering the vaulted level of your content, that is saying something. I was as indoctrinated as they come as a young person; eager to please authority, and believing what the media and government said, but due to unrelated circumstances I dropped out of high school my junior year. Got a GED. For decades I felt I was deficient for not getting a degree. Then I went to work in a field that was populated by the degreed, and I was startled to recognize the lack of curiosity, skills, and even basic grammar I’d learned in elementary school. Whereas I was a voracious reader, delving in to a variety of subjects that intrigued me, many of them read little, if at all. I began to question the government during W’s time in the Whitehouse, and really began waking up in earnest when Obama ran for office. And they seemed to fall for every lie their political party and the media told them. Most of my coworkers seemed incapable of considering an alternative viewpoint. All of them bought into the global warming narrative. As I recognized how easily controlled they were, I realized that I had been saved by avoiding those additional years of indoctrination. I succeeded in having a career and held my own against all those with the coveted degrees. I was able to handle every project handed to me, even if I had no experience or training in the products. I did circles around many of my degreed coworkers. Finally it occurred to me that my lack of a degree was an advantage, not a handicap.

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I often wonder whether that group could be reached no matter the approach. There's a reason why advertising has developed as it has, why prices virtually always end in 99, why even the tone of a "news" report is what it is -- because it achieves the most measurable results among the widest set of the population.

Everyone knows someone who dated the wrong person, and there's not a thing that can be said to them to effect a change. It has to be discovered on their own, usually through some painful and/or expensive lesson. Everything else I mentioned above seems to function the same way, and the only thing that really seems to vary is the severity of the lesson required to break through.

I'm sure I have my own blind spots, but none of that broad population manipulation works on me. Maybe it's some minimum level of cynicism. Maybe it's the willingness to be wrong and actually acknowledge it. I don't know. Ultimately it seems to work best on the intellectually lazy.

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We really need a place a place people can go and learn the actual truth about subject s. Like just the basics, medicinal herbs and weeds growing all around us, (should learn this growing up) like washing yarrow leaves and putting it on a cost or bee sting. Peppermint for an upset tummy, Basil for pain relief,.....these are basic things. Basics of real mathematics, Euclidean space is not hard to understand, Atoms are 99.99999999...% space. What to do with emotions and how to make happiness. These are all basics that our society are losing because we were never taught. We have to keep putting the basics out there. How to write, print and form a story. History,.....omg where do I begin. It has to culminate into knowing that the present day overlords are weak minded psychopaths that don’t want us around anymore. THEY CANT HAVE THEIR AUTHORITY QUESTIONED. But if we want a rational world we have to raise rational children.

Let’s face it,....we are all programmed. Which program would make a better less degraded world?

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Yep. Autodidactery for the moment. Research. Glean. Discern. Teach your friends, family. Impart knowhow in random encounters. For now….

Well said & much needed!

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Jun 27, 2023·edited Jun 27, 2023

"Autodidactery for the moment."

--

"Self-taught, are you?" Julian Castle asked Newt.

"Isn't everybody?" Newt inquired.

"Very good answer.

- Kurt Vonnegut from "Cat's Cradle"

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Autodidactery has been my thing for many years. Served me well.

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Where do you find your information on herbs?

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The best place is “The home grown herbalist “. Doc Jones. Now he’s a veterinarian that has healed a lot of people and used some of his remedies on humans with success. He also has courses you can take. He tells stories of using some of his herbs for different things that you would normally use them for and how it turned out. A true healer.

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What does this say about the healing profession when they will participate in morally objectionable behavior?

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Don't forget that for millenia the"healers" were the priestly, shamanic class, the same individuals one consulted for potions and spells to harm one's enemy. Their esoteric knowledge could be used for good or evil. The same is true of modern science-based healers..

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Jun 27, 2023·edited Jun 27, 2023

GREAT question!

🤔…

The answer seems to be in the question itself. It says exactly that: The “healing profession” participates in morally objective behavior.

They have become immoral; their immorality produces harm.

“Healing profession” has become a misnomer.

Healing is outside their purview.

Nor do they claim to ever attempt to heal. That fact is known by them — it is a GIVEN. It is accepted and practiced by them. They eschew the very idea. They do not heal; they do do harm.

They are professional harmers. I suppose in their terms this is all in keeping with their moral ethos, so in their terms, they would consider themselves to be moral.

We just permit them to wear that outmoded term, “healing profession”.

We should stop using that term to describe them.

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The sickening profession? On so many levels... :-(

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Put a post about the Hippocratic Oath & how it’s changed below ;))

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I used the term to underline the irony. Right in their oath is the assertion to do no harm. The precautionary principle is built right into it. Their main directive if not to heal is then to not do more harm than good.

Do I have any allergies? It’s a constant question I get from nurses, doctors, and other specialists as they determine even diagnosis.

I think we should continue using the term and holding them to account for it. That includes getting to the bottom of all possible side and long term effects of any treatment.

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Thanks for your response.

I had heard that many doctors no longer use the old Hippocratic Oath. I found a very enlightening piece!

Here is an excellent article on the ancient Oath of Hippocrates and the several modern oaths variously used by Med Schools and Med Assocs.

You can read a good overview and compare the different oaths used here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5755201/

The Physician's Oath: Historical Perspectives

— Rachel Hajar, M.D.*

Many modern oaths now used apparently no longer contain any semblance of the part of the original Hippocratic Oath saying “do good; do no harm”. They additionally do allow for such now common practices as euthanasia and abortion (which one would presume to be quite…er…harmful) Are privacy and informed consent also excluded from some of these? …Any others we ASSUME are in their ethical precepts?

They can be seen in the piece above.

Perhaps so many of our MDs are not violating the oath they took at all. A good question to ask them, I think! — medical ethics have certainly changed — Boy! Have we been naive!

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Time to go back to what the Code of Hammurabi said about physicians?

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Harrison Koehli at Political Ponerology:

When you have 100 candidates and only 5 positions, who will get them? Unfortunately, it probably won’t be the most competent. Not only have our institutions changed the criteria—race, sex, and political ideology now often trump competence. The ones who get ahead in this highly competitive environment will also be those most willing to break the rules and game the system, i.e., the most psychopathic.

https://ponerology.substack.com/p/in-the-margins-the-rise-of-the-precariat

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My grad school mentor said that in her post doc at Harvard, lab members literally locked up their work with their own locks because otherwise lab members would sabotage it.

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We are witnessing the revolt of the personality disturbed.

The coup? So far, yes.

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Nineties through the oughts, my perception as well

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Sounds mighty similar to a place that rhymes with Jail. (Might be closer to that word meaning as well.)

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Anonymous tweet:

Yale tour guide to friends of mine: “I’m proud to say Yale is only 40% white.”

My (white) friends: “Should we just leave now?”

Tour guide: “Oh, no! I didn’t mean it that way.”

My friends: “Yes you did.”

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I agree! Would have been fun to see the expression on that exttemely inept tour guide's face when "your friend" shot back "yes you did". I believe I would have not been so polite.

Yale believes they are the end all. They've bought up most of New Haven and all of the surrounding city's hospitals. They have placed their many satellite medical facilities everywhere. The University and the Medical School have sought omnipotence. In my humble opinion they are being driven by megalomaniacal fiends.

Very troubling.

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The “long march through the institutions” continues, led by the most arrogant fools. “Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity.”

—Rick Rigsby

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TY Gaye and to Rick Rigsby!!

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Sounds absolutely correct and also appalling!

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Yes, but I’d have loved to have been there.

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I attended an Ivy League university that rhymes with Dunceton in the 1970s during the final days of the era of American academic excellence. A few years ago I asked the university to remove my name from their list of alumni because it was too embarrassing to have their mail delivered to my home. Their once informative alumni publications had become filled with delusional rants about structural racism, climate change and gender fluidity. In 2020 the university announced that it was a racist institution, which prompted the DOJ to investigate it for taking federal funds under false pretenses. Since Dunceton was not racist when I was a student there it must have been a recent decision on their part and I wanted no part of it. Alumni should disavow these corrupt institutions. It is well past time for a Reformation and a dissolution of these decadent academic monasteries.

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Now that you mention Wans Blopkins, I must say that indoctrination camp always appeared to have been behind some of the most nefarious goings-on for the past three years. It’s no accident that every time I dug around, it was somewhere in the litterbox.

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I have seen a similar collapse of ethics taking place in the humanities. As you said, "Everything is about feathering one's own nest at the expense of the taxpayer...." I can only add that it's also at the expense of unwitting parents. I was a faculty member at a large research university whose name rhymes with Blueniversity of Blitzburgh. It's as Woke as they come.

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These "names" are cracking me up!

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Brilliance... I for one welcome the collapse of the indoctrination engine.

I can't remember where I read it (should have bookmarked it) but some major tech company was low-key not hiring graduates from Ivy league universities because the quality of the education was too low. Instead of a Stanford degree being a marker of exceptionalism, it's become a marker of indoctrination, incompetence and sub-par education because grades are racist and tests are from the patriarchy.

Eventually the free market will sort this out, I believe, even if it takes longer than any of us want.

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Only one of my very smart kids did uni. She's had the worst employment struggles.

Fortunately, it will be quite awhile before any other family will be in the market for higher ed, I think.

It will be a delight to see the cockroaches scatter. But we need to know where they end up

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I graduated from a University back in the eighties. Over the past year in addition to freelancing I have sought more gainful employment, but I don’t think my university education has done me many favors. I do think that in some of my college literature classes I learned critical thinking, but was that due to the principles of the university or the teacher in the class?

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Eyes on!

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That’s key actually. Very good point.

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Jordan Peterson and Victor Davis Hanson discussed this on Jordan’s podcast #325.

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I listened to that podcast when it came out. Maybe that's where I heard about tech companies not hiring ivy league grads.

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Remember when employers provided their own training?

This was a fascinating article about education, employment, mediocrity, and complex systems:

https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/

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Just finished reading the article you linked. Top notch. Sad to see they are affiliated with the cartoon villains at WEF. How embarrassing.

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i wonder if they see that WEF and friends are contributing directly to the entire situation they describe.

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Wow! Great link! Thanks for sharing this.

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Thank you.

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You might have watched this excellent interview where Victor David Hanson mentioned it.

https://youtu.be/SUC2Xk2YW9M

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Yes, definitely could be. I listened to that when it came out

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Superb discussion. Totally agree with everything you said.

When I applied for medical school, I interviewed with some PhD head of curriculum design/fuzzy job description type at the school I ultimately attended. She asked routine questions, one of which was what did I think were the traits that made a good doctor. Most of my response was the usual stuff - compassion, dedication, intelligence, a desire to help others, self-discipline. Then I said that a doctor should also be a creative person, an original thinker, in order to solve difficult problems in clinical scenarios and in research, sometimes one needs to think outside the box. She did not like this response. She looked perplexed, literally laughed in my face, nervous laughter, like this was the craziest thing she had ever heard. She said “ I’m not sure that’s really useful.” She didn’t elaborate. I was somewhat taken aback, but smiled and looked pretty. In looking back over my education and long career, I realize that was always the message from the institutions I attended. Stay in your lane. Don’t be too creative. Don’t be too smart either, you’ll make us look bad. Excel, but excel on our terms. That’s the norm in the university. The fact is that the academics are generally a petty group and will smash you if they feel threatened. They like titles and other trivial perquisites and having young people around to lord it over. There are of course wonderful exceptions to this, but by and large the academic orthodoxy is just that. Creativity, inventiveness, and curiosity are often suppressed in favor of political correctness and career oriented institutional asskissing. It’s a good thing when

the academy is scrutinized. COVID revealed a lot of incompetence, dishonesty, and cruelty within the ranks of the professoriat and administrations of universities. Time for a change.

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Universities complain about the silos between departments (since I was an undergrad in the 1980s) but they haven't figured out (because of lack of willpower) how to solve that. They don't actually want multidisciplinary thinkers.

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It’s all about protecting turf. Academics are territorial animals.

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Yes and no. Faculty tend to be the ones complaining. But they gave up shared governance in the 1980s (because the institution wanted more free money), so they can only hand-wring now.

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I did a double major as an undergrad. One in biology, one in a liberal arts discipline. Two different planets. My assigned advisor was an English professor who I really liked, but he knew nothing about getting into medical school, so I had a second advisor, a bench research scientist, for that. He was basically a somewhat nefarious, useless institutional toady, who discouraged me more than he helped me, but it worked out. The faculty at a lot of the “best” places are coddled primary donnas who couldn’t survive,let alone thrive, outside of academia.

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I did a double honours in biology and math. Completely disjoint sets of courses.

I totally agree with the assessment about survival skills though. My PhD advisor was super well networked but didn't have any contacts outside academia. "So what if I don't want to be faculty?" posed a conundrum for him (he was deeply concerned about grads having options when they finish).

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Math? You’re smarter than me then. In my surgical training I found that telling them you didn’t want to be just like them - academic surgeons- was a risky proposition. Some of it depends on where you are. The more prestigious the institution, it seems the more they want you to emulate them.

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*prima not primary

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What a joke---all those new majors in 'interdisciplinary studies' coming out in the late 60's, 70's

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That just created a new silo marked "interdisciplinary studies".

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I have been wondering whether secondary schools do this too--in fact a friend had said to me (because I offered my own students a weekly after-school extra help session, while other teachers only participated in a for-pay session--lots of kids in the noisy library)--"XXX, You'll make the rest of us look bad."

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I had “homework help” at 7:00 each morning. I had literally phoned all the parents to let them know about it, because many students were dropped off early so parents could get to work on time.

Other teachers pooh-poohed my efforts as a waste of time, (which, inevitably, it was. I lost out to basketball.)

I received no support from Admin, or my department head, or other math teachers.

I wonder if it would have turned out differently in another state, or another country. 😕

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What you find out is even if they would never do what you are doing, because they lack imagination, gumption, compassion, whatever it may be, they don’t want you to do it because it does make them look like exactly what they are. So they try to drag you down to their level. And this comes from not promoting a culture of excellence, but instead creating sinecures for mediocrities. Don’t change. Make them look bad in the nicest way possible. It does happen in fancy prep schools. I can tell you that much.

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"...they don’t want you to do it because it does make them look like exactly what they are. So they try to drag you down to their level."

Drug addicts and gang members act the exact same way.

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I left in Jan. '21. Toxic waste dump it had become.

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Hope it worked out as a good move for you.

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OMG! My late wife became a special ed teacher. She had previously worked as an executive running a department in a company. She became burned out and decided to teach and sought her Masters in the uni. As an intern teacher she treated kids as if they were perfectly capable of learning and was good at classroom management. Some other teachers not knowing she was a "intern" thought she was already a "master" teacher. Others complained that she was "doing too much", showing them up. She regularly fought with administration. Printers were an issue, she bought her own. Who know how much we spent producing class materials. We hardly cared about the money or the salary so that was already an issue. (Second careers often allow a freedom not possible earlier). When the 2008 collapse doubled and tripled her classroom sizes, she simply gave up because she felt totally ineffective. Administration finally drove her away.

Teaching was once a profession, today just another job. Worse, perhaps a job for those incapable of real creativity. Administration cares little about the students, only the budget numbers and the powers. Not sure how this came to be but it isn't helpful to kids, particularly those that need competent guidance.

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"I’m not sure that’s really useful.”

*head desk*

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Giusto, è una grossa minchiata.

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La minchiata c’è omnipresente.

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I think that when academia was disconnected from anything physical and real (late 19th to early 20th century dep. on nation) it lost touch with reality.

The pettiness you observed stems, in my opinion and experience, from a disconnect from realness. When duels and bouts and wrestling and other feats of strength were a natural part of the life in universities, the academics were more grounded in reality: you don't do the passive-aggressive run-to-the-HR-kommissar-routine when it will get you laughed out o the street, you challenge your opponent instead.

Of course, this was back when universities and academia hadn't been feminised.

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It corresponds to a general loss of the concept of being honorable and preserving one’s reputation. While that notion can be taken too far, now what we have is a bunch of fearless ninnies, who scream insults at people on social media and in public which in the past would have gotten them a serious thrashing at best. Getting in a few scuffles as a kid is a valuable learning experience. Part of life.

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Yes.

Just look at the first women "breaking into traditionally male fields" to use feminist newspeak: they were as good or better than themen they competed against.

In other words, they received actual equal treatment. Any man knows that he has to fight to get ahead, toget recognition and that he has to compete against the othermen to get anywhere, even his fair dues.

(Insert image of wolves jostling for the best pieces of a downed prey animal.)

That's why the women born in the 1850s up until the 1940s often were quite awe-inspiring when they became chemists, mechanics, engineers, architects, police, and so on - they stepped up to bat and knocked it out of the stadium.

And most all men rejoiced and admired them, just as the tough independent girl in every class/school was admired by the boys and besmirched by the othergirls.

If anything, feminism and societal-cultural feminisation/emasculation especially has been nothing than an attack by the mediocre bitter middle-class women who neither dare to try and excel against competition nor have the ovaries to own up to their own inability and either settle or "embiggen" themselves.

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"besmirched by the othergirls". Females are really good as passive-aggressive stuff. We men lament "they don't fight fairly".

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Jun 28, 2023·edited Jun 28, 2023

I feel sorry for the girls that dare to challenge the matriarchy. They are almost always shunned by the coterie of the alpha-girl once she decides the strong 'lone wolf'-girl needs to be made an example of.

25+ years teaching, seen it so many times. Almost the worst part is, it seems to be more or less inviible to female teachers. Perhaps an equivalent to male teachers' tendency to to downplay boys' bullying?

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I love everything about this post. I am an unschooler. My kid was unschooled. I work in Academia but never attended college. I see what is happening and truth lives in egm’s words. Define “educated.” Can you? Learning happens everywhere all the time. You can’t box it up and slap a diploma on it.

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Nor should it be boxed up, it should be ongoing and constantly challenging.

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Jun 27, 2023·edited Jun 27, 2023

Indeed.

For example, TIL _autodidactery_ means "self taught" or, at least, not formally.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/autodidactic

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"Learning happens everywhere all the time."

Yes

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I’m increasingly convinced it all comes down to fiat money. If you aren’t connected and, to some extent, corruptible, it is extremely difficult to get rich these days. I realized I was going to have to choose between a life of integrity or a sinecure. It wasn’t really a choice because I’m not a good candidate for the latter, but watching my household real wages *lose* every year against monetary inflation, while insane energy policies drive the cost of living to stratospheric heights, is depressing and distressing.

I can understand the temptation to grab what you can and bar the gates. When the money is corrupt, corruption is what will make money, and corruption starts within.

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Yep! When the money is fake the rest of the economy is doomed to follow.

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"Dr Peter Hotez. Will you please report to the Dean's office. Dr Peter Hotez, please report to the Dean's office."

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THE poster child for this essay.

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This reminds me somewhat of the movie Finding Bobby Fischer, where the highly ranked chess master instructor gets so incensed because the kid keeps playing chess in the park with the hustlers. "Gutter chess", not our sort, young man. But the kid picks up techniques and risk taking strategies that prove invaluable in competition and ultimately wins out.

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great essay. I see the same trend in “broadcast media”, local news, mainstream media, etc. where the good people get sick of the BS and leave for adjacent fields or small business. unfortunately, the Fed govt. stands ready to prop up all failed businesses as long as they continue to serve the Fed govt. so i don’t think they go away quickly, unfortunately, but hopefully become quickly irrelevant.

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I wonder if broadcast media is already being propped up. I don't think they get as many eyes as we are led to believe.

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I homeschooled my three who are now young adults. I myself went to an arrogant university and didn’t want that or public school indoctrination for mine. They are grads of or currently attending Liberty University. LU is being flooded with refugees from the woke colleges who want to learn practical, marketable skills. My oldest graduated with a degree in graphic design and my middle kid is thriving in computer science.

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I sure hope you're right, gato. It feels like we have been running circles around the "experts" for years but also just running in circles for years.

The end of the age of idiots can't come fast enough.

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The root goes deeper.

My dad was a Marine Corps sergeant, God rest his soul. He told me that if you gave him a child before the age of five, that he would teach that child things that you would never break him of. Daycare has raised several generations of Americans. When my dad was a child daycare was considered a communist plot. It is a communist plot, but few realize it. The majority of the population has acquiesced the rearing of their children to the State in exchange for convenience and money, and then wonder why their children are foaming-at-the-mouth commies.

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Another silver lining to COVID hysteria?

The elites/credentialed class went SO overboard they eviscerated any and all trust in every utterance they make.

How can anyone with an IQ above 80 (and probably well below) not be filled with a deep and abiding cynicism for ALL the (former) institutions of power in our society?

They behaved like lying whores (redundant?) these last three plus years. It’s been disillusioning--but truth is not necessarily supposed to comfort.

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I live in a (non-western) country where the average IQ is about 100, but they still all believe in the institutions of power. It's not about IQ, it's about access to information. And it's about internalizing that your buddy Jack, who has a PHd from Harvard, isn't as smart as you think he is -- that's a very, very tough thing.

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College is where we learn how to walk talk and think like the Elite. We learn that work is for the proletariat- Not for us.

Learning a skill is simply a way to express that we are of a lower caste. Who cares that it makes us happier? Who wants contentment and fulfilment when we can join the Elite? Seriously! Don't be fooled by this "reputation" business!

There, I've said my piece. The rest is up to you.

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Universities:

Overrated, overpriced, underwhelming.

Go STEM.

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But STEM education is quickly being infiltrated, too, by DIE, SEL, and other NON-STEM-related ideals.

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I work in an e-commerce outfit where, on our staff of 14 developers, two of them do not have a college degree at all. They're both fantastic.

It'll be a bit harder for some fields - most of us don't have a 5-mW He-Ne laser in their basement (mine is in the volcano laBORatory) - so we'll have to find other ways to finance, share, and collaborate.

We will. I think there's desire.

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I went to three semesters of college trying to figure what I wanted to be. I left when I realized that what I wanted to be was uneducated. They all sounded like bull shitters to me. I don’t like bull shit so becoming a bull shitter was not an option. Eventually I became a firefighter, after 13 years of trying a lot of other hard jobs. It’s been a good life, I’m well paid and I have savings, investments and a looming retirement in 5 months. Unfortunately, being a firefighter has been co-opted by educators, experts who seem to think that redefining smoke as “particles and products of combustion” somehow makes putting a fire out to be some sort of educated magic. It ain’t. Put the wet stuff on the red stuff.

Firefighters now have continuing education requirements, as much as 54 hours a year where I am. That does not include EMS continuing Ed, which is another 40 hours for basic EMTs and 80 per anum for EMT paramedics. Add in heavy rescue or EOD (bomb) technician and it keeps growing. I won’t miss it.

The reputation economy is not new, in the days of old, everyone either owned a small business (or farm) or you worked for someone who did. And those businesses only survived if they developed a good reputation. I welcome the return to reputation value!

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Excellent post!

"...among the most credentialed who spend the most time in school, is not illumination but indoctrination and capture?"

You nailed it!

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