The standards of public education really are dropping

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 3:46 am

I enjoy my job, but sometimes I absolutely love it.

We found the url for a proxy site that people had been passing around, so blocked it. All of a sudden, about ten PCs find "Oh, the proxy is blocked".

A student who has already been banned twice sent an email asking if we could unblock it. Yeah sure, and why don't we give you admin access too? Seeing as you asked nicely. Yeah right.

Then a student was found trying to download mp3s. The site was blocked. He actually sent an email asking why. "Because unfortunately piracy is against the law."

It's fantastic but seriously, some of these kids never learn. I dread to think how they'll manage in the real world, where breaking rules can lead to instant dismissal or indeed actual court cases and prosecution.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:41 am

In all fairness whatever you may personally believe about the whole "Information wants to be free" business... it is a very common if not majority opinion that people want information to be free to the point that your attempts to limit it will regularly meet with hostility and out right confusion.

You have NOT come across a new bullshit reason to pretend the kids are stupider than you in defiance of all studies and figures suggesting the direct opposite.

You've just taken a bit of a while to notice the way the majority of people feel about information censorship and control.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:45 am

People in general get smarter with every generation, I'm aware of that. This is more a cynical title to go with "kids say some really stupid shit".

And I'm very much aware of what most people feel about the sharing of information - I agree with them, too. But most people are still aware that it currently is a crime, even though if it were put to a simple majority vote it wouldn't be, and know that there are smarter places than "At school, where you're being monitored and technically everyone up the chain is responsible for your crimes".

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:52 am

Technically, it's a tort, not a crime. The Justice Department does not prosecute people for downloading MP3s.

The RIAA sometimes sues people for downloading MP3s, but they've pretty much figured out that its just a giant waste of money for them. The statistical probability of anyone getting into hot water because some kid downloaded an MP3 is so low that you might we well but a lottery ticket and stand out in the rain, because you're more likely to hit the jackpot and be struck by lightning on the same day first.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:06 am

Some kids don't have a smarter place than at school. Or maybe they do but they don't have a more convenient place. That's largely the whole point of school based internet access in the first place.

And really they want to do things with their only/most convenient internet access that we all do. And if we really want them to have an education and benefit from the internet access as intended that probably means we basically should let them use it to pirate IP and download hard core porn.

I mean of course, good luck with getting morons to agree to letting kids do that, but really its pretty obviously the right thing to do.

As for awareness that it's a crime/responsibility blah blah blah, OK good luck convincing anyone of anything that beats "...well yeah but everyone does it/no one enforces it/but I mean everyone knows it's stupid right?"

For all we can talk of statistics, interest group legislation, etc... the ultimate problem the great would be IP monopolists face is that people just plain don't believe in IP. And yes this DOES extend to the point that they will actively expect people in control of their access to IP to also not believe in IP, not enforce IP or censorship, and will do so to the point that yes, they actually will assume it is a mistake when you do so.

To whatever limited extent this extends more to kids than older folks it is only in that they are more likely to encounter the machinations of IP monopolists and censorship prudes in their increased use of more modern information mediums.

But anyway. If I ran the schools all students of all ages would have full access to piracy sites, political sites and hard core porn.

If those sites cause the kids to ask awkward questions then their education isn't keeping up adequately with the real world. And it's not the real world that needs "fixing".

I know you largely agree with my preferred internet education policy, but since I'm talking about it in relation to your apparent puzzlement at people agreeing with you and expecting you to act as if you agree with them I might as well state my full opinion.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 6:24 am

If you put it to a majority vote, food would be free. Also, rent. Alcohol for sure.

I mean, look at California. Putting laws and taxation/spending proposals up for a majority vote is a real thing they do, and it turns out that what people want is more government services for free. That's not exactly sustainable, nor is it especially wise, but it's what people voted for.

You're going to need a better argument than "people want information for free," because people want everything for free. Information is just the easiest thing to steal.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 2:38 pm

I don't think that shows stupidity, I think it shows less discipline.

When I was a kid, questioning even the most arbitrary decisions my father made would end with me getting punched in the head until I was silenced. By the time I entered school, I associated "questioning authority" with "blinding concussions" and I didn't do it anymore.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 3:47 pm

Whatever wrote:If you put it to a majority vote, food would be free. Also, rent. Alcohol for sure.

No, no, and no. If there's no money in providing food then there's no food in cities and you get riots, and people will not vote for that. Real people would also not vote to allow strangers to live in their house rent free. Alcohol as food, including riots.

Music and shit, OTOH, totally existed before anyone paid for it, even making people a good living via patrons of the arts, and is still being produced to ever-greater profit despite rampant copying (heard of home taping killing music? It didn't). Many young artists note they make much more money by giving their art away than by trying to jump through copyright hoops, and kickstarter (micro-patronage) is kicking the ass of actual publishing houses.

If you put it to a vote, people would also support copyright, because the majority of people are conservative morons, but we'd still have art and commerce without it.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 5:36 pm

tussock wrote:
Whatever wrote:If you put it to a majority vote, food would be free. Also, rent. Alcohol for sure.
No, no, and no. If there's no money in providing food then there's no food in cities and you get riots, and people will not vote for that. Real people would also not vote to allow strangers to live in their house rent free. Alcohol as food, including riots.

This is true. People don't actually vote to make things free as in beer, instead they vote in a gigantic housing subsidy while voting out the tax increase that would pay for it.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 12:03 am

That's not my experience in Switzerland. We have voted for a higher VAT to pay for the retirement pensions, for example - we picked the higher raise out of two offered (6.5 and 7.5 %).

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 12:09 am

Ah, but the Swiss are not Americans. Americans expect to get everything in the world for free, and will run themselves into the ground to make it happen.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:49 am

Ted the Flayer wrote:Ah, but the Swiss are not Americans. Americans expect to get everything in the world for free, and will run themselves into the ground to make it happen.

That isn't at all a fair depiction of what is happening.

The "spending without paying for it" issue is a direct part of Republican "drown government in a bath tub" strategy.

California and their ant-tax raising bullshit being a prime example.

Conservatives who don't actually really want spending on certain things undermine revenues for, well, everything as a means of "proving" that government is dysfunctional and leveraging it all into spending cuts of the things they want to kill.

Or more simply, revenue cuts are a conservative plot to undermine public spending, and tax cuts for the rich are just a bonus that helps with that as far as they are concerned.

This strategy is present in many democracies around the world where the conservative shits are trying to undermine civilization but really, it's pretty much the just the USA (maybe Britain?) where this is serious. So far.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 8:31 am

PhoneLobster wrote:it's pretty much the just the USA (maybe Britain?) where this is serious. So far.

The politicians in Britain love the idea, and want to do it, but the people actually put their foot down on it - basically burning Thatcher in effigy, and having actual riots recently (fuck Occupy protests, they actually made enough noise). Granted, the government tried to double down on their measures, saying "this is why you don't deserve nice things. Also, if we catch you doing it, we'll kick you out of your house, because homeless people wouldn't commit any crimes, right?"

Anyway, regarding "If you ask people, they'd want everything to be free", I don't actually have a problem with "Provide housing, medical care and food to everyone. It isn't necessarily free, just get people to pay what they can (via this thing called taxes), which could very well be $0 for some". People aren't just super-greedy fuckheads who want everything without giving anything in return.

But it does turn out that almost everyone wants information to be free - or they just want to cut the middleman out and pay directly to the actual creators, telling the corporations to go fuck themselves. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to just go by what we think is right. Likewise the porn - I flat-out assume any teenager looks at porn if they're allowed to/effectively allowed to by dint of being completely unsupervised. I'm also sure this isn't going to cause the collapse of society, that it does them no harm. So yeah, you're right PL - that I basically agree with you on all points and if either of us were in charge of making the decisions, it'd more or less work out the same way. But I have various responsibilities as-is.

Good point on some kids not having Internet access at home, I just assumed everyone has the easy life.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 9:05 am

Whatever wrote:If you put it to a majority vote, food would be free. Also, rent. Alcohol for sure.
I mean, look at California. Putting laws and taxation/spending proposals up for a majority vote is a real thing they do, and it turns out that what people want is more government services for free. That's not exactly sustainable, nor is it especially wise, but it's what people voted for.
You're going to need a better argument than "people want information for free," because people want everything for free. Information is just the easiest thing to steal.

This.

The average voter wants more of the bread and circuses, and less of the taxes. The two are, beyond a certain point, mutually incompatible, but there's a good lot of grey area in which you can enact elaborate schemes to rob from the future (deficit spending) and the past (looting social security / pension funds) to provide more nice things today without extra taxes. The further you push into this grey area, the worse things will be in the future... but since it's the most immediately popular option, it's what politicians will most want to do, since by the time the consequences arise, they'll probably be out of office. People aren't quite stupid enough to push it too far, because things obviously get ruined at that point... but there'll always be plenty of folks howling 'spend more' and 'tax less'. Now, there are obviously stable equilibriums at 'spend and tax more' and 'spend and tax less', and good arguments for and against both. But since doing either will piss off some people, and going for a nice mix of 'spend more and tax less' is always most popular, short-term planning continues apace.

This is a fundamental weakness of democracy.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 10:35 am

Makes me glad I live in a country where downloading mp3s / movies etc is perfectly legal, though sadly uploading them or downloading software isn't.