Donald Trump

I really feel bad for those seeking a college degree, especially in liberal arts. Getting a general education in the liberal arts is supposed to be about getting a broad understanding of how to learn. Education isn't really education anymore: in the sciences it is training, and in the liberal arts it is propaganda, both of which follow the "give a man a fish" approach to knowledge as opposed to the "teach a man to fish" plan. This is really evident in "safe space" culture, where under normal educational conditions exposure to even horrible ideas would and should be seen as a necessary learning opportunity. We're raising a generation that relies on brute tools such as censorship and ostracism in lieu of the critical thinking tools of debate and logic - tools which (like an AR15) require opposing targets to aim at if one is to hone one's skills with them. University should be about intellectual sparring, and deliberately welcome all viewpoints, real and "fake," for that very purpose.

If I was a college professor, I'd have a House quote on the board on day 1: Everybody Lies. Hell, even me. Learn to discriminate between the truth and the bullshit. I might not ever bother erasing it, either.

Edit: in other news, in Trump we all now trust... whether we like it or not. Either he's a hero or the United States is finished, and probably civilisation with it. Honestly, probably the latter.

https://www.facebook.com/czech.WeAreHereAtHome/videos/1503673946600235/


First video

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Education isn't really education anymore: in the sciences it is training, and in the liberal arts it is propaganda

My sciences education certainly had a lot of "learning to learn"; it's absolutely required given the increasing pace of research/technology. If someone is just "trained", they'd make a poor full-time employee the second they meet something they're not familiar with. Or, more to the point, I've personally rejected more than one job applicant due to a lack of such qualities.

Don't know a whole lot about the non-science side of education. There wasn't a whole lot of propaganda in, say, basic polisci or rhetoric or the languages. I never took any <insert race or gender here> history classes, though, so that's probably why.

Also don't know how it's changed in the last decade. I certainly see a ton of the SJW shit online, but it's really hard to get a feel for how much, if any, that relates to reality. Similarly when one college or another has actual, literal safe spaces, at least some part of me wants to think that there's no way that can be common.

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Was the election really about any of that at all, anyway? I thought it was a pretty standard economic vote -- America's GDP and employment are suffering, therefore vote against the status quo, whatever it is. The worm that turned was the rust belt, after all.

It feels like the MSM really wants it to be about racism or sexism or something like that because then they wouldn't have to confront any hard problems. People can change how they feel about other people by thinking about it really hard -- people can't make resources fly out of the ground with their minds*.

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pneuma wrote:

It feels like the MSM really wants it to be about racism or sexism or something like that because then they wouldn't have to confront any hard problems.

Raycism & sexysm are extremely easy topics to write about, any retard can write blogs dipped in feelings. You need some virtue signalling, biased interpretation of statistics & a pinch of muh feelings and you have an "article".

Also, the marxist infested liberal academia is producing indoctrinated people, instead of free thinkers. How many investigative journalists can you see today? They are more rare than bigfoot. The whole MSM is just some big copy-paste blog-sphere.

And finally, the public is not really interested in hard problems, unless they can be digested down to a simple TLDR. The attention span of an average westerner is just a few seconds and the list of interests he has, is very short and getting shorter.

Too much factual knowledge to learn not enough time. For the educators, it is about the choice of what to teach and what not to teach. Intellectual sparring probably doesn't help in producing good grades. Whether it is beneficial to the student is uncertain. Education institutions is more focus on getting good grades than honing critical thinking skills. Why engage in time consuming debates when you can teach them how to get better grades?

If I was a student, I would have a sign that say "EXAM! DO NOT DISTURB!"

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pneuma wrote:

Don't know a whole lot about the non-science side of education. There wasn't a whole lot of propaganda in, say, basic polisci or rhetoric or the languages. I never took any <insert race or gender here> history classes, though, so that's probably why.

I went to a very good high school. Great education there.

I remember my first semester in college I took an honors history course. It seemed weird how discussion wasn't encouraged, despite the class size of seven; it felt weird expressing my opinions. It struck me as obnoxious that the prof had such an open bias for Socrates and Plato, and against Aristotle, that I decided to make my final paper about how Socrates was wrong and deserved the hemlock. I researched the hell out of it, and y'all know I'm a decent writer when I put my mind to it.

I got a 0, and failed the course.

While I don't believe that there's a lot of "hard" propaganda, I've told my "Socrates paper" story enough to know that it resonates. You'll be in a class where the professor expresses an opinion and asks for papers, and only the weirdos deviate from the expectation of regurgitating back whatever nonsense the professor is saying. In this way, the main skill university seems to teach is ideological pandering - that is, making assumptions about the target's ideological preferences and catering to them, while avoiding "triggering" them with offensive views.

It was just a matter of time before students asked that they not be triggered themselves.

While I do think you might have escaped university without experiencing loudmouth propagandism, I would have trouble believing you haven't experienced this quieter, writing-driven kind. I have, both from the Left and the Right.

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As should be obvious by now, any presidential candidate who wanted world war would have said the things Clinton said about Russia, and any candidate who wanted to avoid world war would have said the things Trump said about Russia (whether they meant them or not). I'm glad we voted for a chance at peace, although Obama is, predictably, doing all he can to sabotage that.

It's a delusion that Trump will seize the nuclear race, nor that he's gonna throw a bone to the russians, or that America's gonna give up on the ambitions of prosperity through dominance. The american foreign policy is consistent and doesn't depend on his personality and visions (if he truly has any).

What was so scary about Clinton, was that her comment on this topic sounded like coming from a full retarded psycho. Who's gonna actually act, not just threatening. Not that she would, but it sounded that way, and speaks of how ill she is. It pushed sane people away. Then pushed her downstairs.

It makes me sick that we are now completely controlled by Republican thugs and have Drumpf as President. I was at my parents for the holidays and literally broke down crying there, thinking of the world my wife's son will grow up in. [Removed by Support] My aunt had to give me my liquid hormones to calm down. I still wake up crying every night knowing that America, the country that once embraced progress and voted for the First Black President and had a chance to break the glass ceiling and have the First Woman President, [Removed by Support]

FUCK. I need to go calm down. [Removed by Support]

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torturo wrote:

What was so scary about Clinton, was that her comment on this topic sounded like coming from a full retarded psycho. Who's gonna actually act, not just threatening. Not that she would, but it sounded that way, and speaks of how ill she is. It pushed sane people away. Then pushed her downstairs.

"Not that she would." I hope you​ realize that US military actions in Syria over the past month are already sufficient for war with Russia, and the only reason Russia hasn't retaliated is "bitch please, you'll be gone in two months." It Clinton was the nominee Russia would have ALREADY declared war on us, with Obama still in office. And it's silly to believe that Clinton would be "mere talk" and less inclined towards the bullshit, warmongering actions which Obama has actually taken, not merely talked about.

On Election Day, voting against Clinton wasn't about avoiding war with Russia in 2017, it was about avoiding it within the following month. Hell, I think Putin wouldn't have waited more than a week, really.

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Xavderion wrote:

I still wake up crying every night knowing that America, the country that once embraced progress and voted for the First Black President and had a chance to break the glass ceiling and have the First Woman President

Is the first woman president really that of an progressive upgrade from the first black president?

The first Mexican black woman president would sound much more progressive, imo. Or even better: the first post-op transgender non-binary fluid indian lesbian feminist president.

:P

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

It Clinton was the nominee Russia would have ALREADY declared war on us, with Obama still in office.

I highly doubt this. Let's be real: US is a few steps above anyone, as far as military power projection goes. There's a big (at least nominally) coalition under US command in the region, made up by most of NATO (which includes Turkey), Australia, etc... Russian couldn't just declare war and hope to fight off everyone. Tho they might try to declare a "no-fly zone" and see how the US would react.

In case that Hillary won, Russia would definitely step up their military presence in Syria, to raise the stakes, but would not engage. What I'm 100% sure Hillary would do is to inflame the Ukraine conflict again. That would be extremely easy to do, as the current Ukr regime is struggling to be afloat (economy is completely in the shitter, people are fleeing the country to work abroad, desertion in the army, nationalist radicals are threatening the gov., etc..)

But I 100% agree on the notion that we (=EU, RU & US) dodged a major crisis, with Hillary loosing the presidency. Hillary would be a warmongering disaster.