non_radical_centrist
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User ID: 1327
non_radical_centrist
3m ago
When am I allowed to mace a hobo?
I don't have much to say in regards to the story and when you morally/culturally would be allowed to, but make sure you're aware of when you'd be legally allowed to if nothing else. Some places would charge you with something if you use mace against a person even in self-defense.
non_radical_centrist
2d ago
I agree with your take in spirit, although I think you're a little too negative on how much the West produces. We still produce plenty of real wealth. And it shouldn't be underestimated just how expensive logistics is, deciding where to move resources and then actually moving them can take a lot of people to do.
But that said, I think burdensome regulations and taxation that's overly focused on redistributing the pie instead of making the pie bigger limit us a lot. It should be far easier than it is to build dense housing when you have such high prices. We need to and should be increasing housing supply much more than we are currently able to.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
Very disappointing.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
Canada already has some streaming, although I agree more would be good.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
I'm sure it could be improved but I just don't have any specific ideas from improving it. Maybe some additional streaming, to separate more kids capable of college work at 13 from the kids who definitely can't
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
Ideally the PE classes would go over stretching and doing exercises that improve kid's fitness and be overall structured, not just recess.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
If anything I think putting bureaucrats in charge of making sure kids get a minimum of an hour of running around a weekday, instead of that hour being spent culture like many of the proponents of English classes want, is putting much less power in the hands of bureaucrats. Let parents decide what classics their kids read, the schools can just make kids get some active time.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
What do you mean by how they work? I think a lot of the practical operation of computers (opening programs, navigating file systems) are easily integrated into other classes. If you mean more literally how they work (binary, memory, CPU clocks, adders, etc) then that seems more esoteric to me than a lot of other stuff you describe as wanting to be optional.
I was thinking a standard Python 101 class. At the end of it, they should be able to do the easiest problems on LeetCode. I think having a basic idea of how websites and software one level of abstraction down work would be good for people.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
Now, you could argue that grammar isn’t all that important, but if it is, I don’t see how you’re going to teach it in history class. Or take metaphors and figurative language.
If they're still at that level, they aren't really ready for Shakespeare either. I am talking about replacing Shakespeare and To Kill a Mockingbird with history. Below that, fiction is fine.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
I'm not so much viewing teachers as substitute parents here as I am viewing them as baby sitters. Good baby sitters make sure the kids get some time to run around. So should schools. Physical training probably has some of the least possibility of indoctrination of anything schools could have classes on.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Maybe this is just my American education but I was required to take both History and English classes though High School. Not clear to me that events having actually happened necessarily gives it more value. The freedom of fiction seems like it gives more opportunity to explore particular issues and themes with more precision than can commonly be encountered in real world events.
I'm of the opinion that exploring issues and themes in fiction was basically entirely useless to me. Where as learning about the history of single payer healthcare, or the lead up to WW1, or any number of topics in history, were at least very slightly useful because they provide context to modern politics.
I'm wondering here if there's some specific class named "Science" that students are required to take? My recollection of high school is that we had to take one "Science" class per year but the classes were all themselves themed around specific sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc) so you had freedom in choosing what you were interested in.
For grade 9 and 10, we had general science classes that taught a bit of each, then grade 11 and 12 we were given our choice of all 3.
What would be the content of a grade 10 computer science course that would be useful? Maybe it's because I have a CS degree but I struggle to think of what I could teach someone about computer science in a single year that would be useful for them in general life, unless it was some kind of tech-support-esque class.
I think learning to think logically and understand a bit about how computers work would be valuable, at least as much as most highschool classes. I might just be over valuing because it was one of my favorite classes though.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
On the first point, it'd be great if we could expect parents to ensure kids got access to physical activity. In previous generations kids for the most part were fit enough without schools intervening. But today, that's not happening. Parents should make sure their kids go to sports or are otherwise fit outside of school, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not happening. And given that fitness has such a vast variety of positive benefits, I think the government should intervene to make people fitter, and school's the best way to do it.
On the second point, I 100% agree and that's my exact belief as well.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I hear a lot of stories about schools being overly pushed to just graduate students, or getting rid of advanced classes and basic classes and putting the smart and dumb kids together. I want to stop that. Kids who aren't literate yet should be pulled away from the advanced classes and keep being given literacy classes until they are.
50 minutes of half assed sports is a hell of a lot better than nothing in my opinion.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
To be clear, when I say history class, I don't mean rote memorization. I mean it would be like the English classes you liked with books like Dune, just instead of Dune it'd be Winston Churchill's biography or some other non-fiction book. Lots of primary sources would be used still.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I think epistemics isn't really that useful in day to day life. For the vast majority of people in the vast majority of situations, just going off intuition is more effective. I think an elective of epistemics would definitely be good, and maybe it'd be better than one of the lower priority courses like science, but it's much lower priority than literacy or physical fitness.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I think you can teach grammar and reading comprehension about historical subject matter that's real instead of fiction. The benefit of fiction is that it's entertaining and kids will pay attention to it more, but you lose that benefit with stuff like Shakespeare that the slow kids won't pay attention to either
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
To be clear, I do want mandatory English until kids are literate and can write an understandable five paragraph essay. Not just a single standardized test on graduation. But the English classes that come after literacy is achieved, where you analyze Shakespeare to talk about how peasants ignoring their king leads to natural disasters, should be entirely optional.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
People with a classical education could also talk all about the Roman Republic and French Revolution. We can't teach everything, and I'd much prefer to double down on stuff that's real than stuff that's fiction.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I’m going to do a write up of how I think education curriculum should be reformed. For context: I went through highschool in Ontario, Canada. The way it worked was from kindergarten to grade 8, we’d have a set curriculum every kid in the grade followed, with lots of english and math classes, some science classes, history, geography, French, and gym, and one each of art, music, and health classes a week. Then starting in grade 9, which is highschool, we are given two elective choices, where we choose a minimum of one between art, drama, and music, and the second may also be a general technology course or a general business course. Each year of high school there are more electives choices offered and fewer mandatory courses, with the priorities of what the school system requires us take being the same as elementary school. There were also choices between more difficult and easier options for some classes like math, english, and science as well. Universities and colleges would also require higher level math and sciences for STEM programs too, and there is a standardised literacy test needed to graduate.
I think a lot of people when talking about school want to just add more requirements without thinking about what to cut. It’s very easy to say “all kids should learn to program” or “all kids should have PE every day”, but if you’re adding you either have to keep kids there longer, or cut something. First, I think the elementary school program is basically good, I wouldn’t change anything there. Maybe take a little of time out of science and add it to more PE.
For highschool, I would start more drastically reworking it. First, I would basically replace English with history in the mandatory curriculum for everyone who is literate. Learning about Shakespeare and studying themes in classic novels, while not completely useless, is less useful than learning about real historical events. You gain the same “critical thinking” skills analysing what motivated the people in WWI to conflict as you do analysing what motivated the people in Hamlet to conflict, plus it actually happened, giving it substantially more value. The same english classes will be kept as optional electives, like how history is optional in higher grades now. Science will only be mandatory in grade 9, and computer science will be mandatory in grade 10.
Gym class will be mandatory every year. There is a crisis in how unfit people are today. I recently joined the military. They have drastically reduced requirements, shortening basic training from 13 weeks to 8 weeks, and the weighted march from 13km to 5km. Because people weren’t fit enough to pass. A great many jobs, even today, still require physical fitness, and gym class offers more professional preparement than just about any other possible class other basic literacy. On top of that, being healthy is just healthy, and that’s good for every single person.
There will be extra emphasis on making sure every single person who graduates is literate and numerate. I wouldn’t really require anything else to hand out a highschool diploma, but if they can’t do basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, they don’t get the diploma. They’re stuck in adult night classes until they can or they give up. Ontario high schools also require 40 hours of volunteer community service which I like and anywhere else that doesn’t have that should implement it.
It might be a good idea to have a class on how to get the most out of AI too because it’s looking like that’s becoming an ever more important skill, but it’s changing so fast I don’t know.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Touch grass. I think a fair amount of gender ideology is concerning, but the main risks are a) biological males in women's spaces like prisons and sports leading to danger for biological women, and b) children getting permanent medical decisions made that they will regret.
For you personally, there really aren't any downsides to working with trans people. Sometimes you have coworkers who are lazy or who are assholes, and those are both much worse than a coworker who's trans
non_radical_centrist
8d ago
There is some minor diversity like some of the senior officers and ladies maids improbably being black, but I didn’t think it was really a ‘woke’ picture.
I don't think that was particularly unlikely at all, France had a number of black mixed race people in it, including in the upper class. For example the famous author Alexandre Dumas' father was mixed race and a French general.
Personally I didn't like the movie, it really did feel like it made a buffoon out of Napoleon, who got cuckolded and is very insecure about his success. I would've preferred that it either double down on being a period piece romcom, or to have been properly about Napoleon's battles and conquests, instead of being a weird romance interspersed with battle scenes.
non_radical_centrist
9d ago
I recently got a nicer mouse that has 8 extra buttons you can customize. I have to say it's very nice and I fully recommend it. I also got bands for my glasses so they don't slip off, and it's also been nice having them not slip at all
non_radical_centrist
11d ago
I would recommend the game. As far as card games go, it's among the most free to play friendly there is, you can easily craft a new top tier deck every couple weeks for free. And you only really need one high tier deck to climb high although you may want multiple if you enjoy variety.
It's more complex than Hearthstone and is lighter on the RNG. But it's not as complex and has less craziness than Yu Gi Oh or MtG.
non_radical_centrist
13d ago
I like weird combos and nonsense too. I almost exclusively play decks I've made myself. In the past before rotation I'd play a crappy Vlad deck that never got past diamond. After rotation I got into Masters 0LP playing a Shyvana deck and a Galio deck.
My recent success has been with a Nidalee transformation deck that I'm at 400LP with and rank 300. Part of it is just that the current meta really favours it, I was playing the same deck on the previous patch and was at about 50 LP and about rank 4000. Then the patch before that I peaked at about 300LP rank 500 with the deck. Decks that it has a lot of trouble with like Jarvan Shen, Frostbite, and Lurk just haven't been as common. Plus Janna was nerfed making that match up easier too though it can still easily go either way.
The two biggest skill expressions are a) figuring out what would be the worst card for your game plan your opponent could have and what would be the best response you have assuming he has it, and b) figuring out when you have have no winning moves if he does have that card so might as well play the best move assuming he doesn't. I'm pretty rarely surprised by my opponent playing a card lately
Hardcore History is very entertaining but isn't the most accurate podcast out there. I still enjoy it but would consider it a more intro to history stuff.
Revolutions by Mike Duncan is probably my favourite overall history podcast, very polished, has different seasons of content covering different revolutions, accurate and not particularly biased delivery.
The History of Rome, also by Mike Duncan, is also quite good but was his first podcast and not as polished. But if you love Rome, it's a good one.
The History of the Byzantine Empire is a solid spiritual successor to the History of Rome.
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