Now they are being sued by California

General Discussion
577

Oh, I see. I think there’s a misunderstanding.

I’m saying that conservative attacks on higher education are the continuation of what Saidosha was discussing, that attacks on educational rigor and standards are happening at all levels, and that the attacks happening in higher ed are, at this moment, more severe than in the recent past.

None of that is mutually exclusive.

Edit: Neglected to say that attacks on theory in higher ed also make their way into K-12 curriculums. As pedagogy is constricted by conservative ideology, so, too, is the education on offer. In other words–and I don’t think this is any surprise to you–attacks on substantive theory are attacks on education as a whole.

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578

40 years of declining educational system is what have produced the current generation with an infatuation with socialism (critical theory) and it’s racist modern version, critical race theory. All CRT does is exchange the classic bourgeoisie, Russian Royalist, or German Jew as the “oppressor” and insert straight white male. Just divide up people by race (a construct which you will simultaneously claim doesn’t exist and has no meaning), then declare one race the oppressor and all others victims. This seizes a rhetorical moral high ground and creates a critical mass of anger among those deemed to be victims that you can weaponize to perpetrate any necessary violence while seizing power for yourself. Maybe it’s murdering the tsar, or maybe you need a kristalnacht and some boxcars, or maybe we just let BLM and Antifa burn down America’s cities all summer killing over 50 and causing $2 billion in damages - all so that The Party can seize power for itself. What a wonderful ideology to be celebrating in our universities.

40 years ago, students would have been taught why Marxism is a doomed ideology and would have been familiar with dozens of examples beyond just Soviet Russia and National Socialist Germany that show this idea inevitably fails. See Africa and Latin America, or just look at the satellite pictures of North and South Korea to see the difference. But modern students have been denied even the most basic of logic and reasoning skills and have been fed a steady diet of revised history topped generously with a glaze of race-based guilt. So, we end up with the current situation where people with prestigious sounding degrees end up believing arrogantly that they’re the smartest ones in the room while simultaneous demonstrating no reasoning skills at all and living under the illusion that socialism will actually work this time, if you just let us have the power.

Maybe Santa Claus lives with some elves in the North Pole making presents for all the good little boys and girls too, but we just haven’t spotted the workshop on satellite yet.

Have you seen standardized test scores? Kids don’t read at grade level. Kids can’t do basic math. The averages are abysmal and have been declining for a long time, even in spite of efforts to revise the tests themselves to make them more “equitable.”

While not a perfectly precise example, consider the famous 1895 8th grade test from Salina, Kansas:
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/p_test/1895_Eightgr_test.htm
Could you pass it? Or this one from 1912:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/1912-eighth-grade-exam_n_3744163

You can Google plenty of tests from years back and see for yourself.

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579

This isn’t true, and worse, it’s a terrific misreading/misunderstanding of what CRT does.

There are too many errors in your post to sift through, but suffice to say it is a simplistic and myopic view of CRT that does no justice to the topic at hand. Let me point out that this is a prime example that you don’t know what you’re talking about:

Marxism had nothing, nothing to do with the NSP in Germany.

Buddy, as someone who has taught in higher ed for a long time, let me say, simply, that you are wrong. Please refer to the following for more information (including several points that directly disprove some of what you claim):

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/critical_race_theory.html

https://www.vox.com/22443822/critical-race-theory-controversy

https://guides.law.ufl.edu/reap/criticalracetheory

I want to point out that this isn’t a fair question. Standardized tests are designed with a centralized curriculum in mind, particular prior to the 1960s-70s. Students were educated in order to pass these exams, not necessarily to evaluate them critically. There’s a reason, after all, that the GRE, and it’s specific subject tests, are falling by the wayside in higher ed, and it’s because much American education from 5th grade to graduate school has been decentralized, particularly with social sciences, liberal arts, and mathematics.

580

You also need to look at it from the level of teachers being overworked, underpaid, and forced into classroom sizes to large for one person alone. Compound this with a frequent lack of materials supplied by the school, including up-to-date textbooks and/or computers for in-school and home learning, as well as many schools being undersized or falling apart, and it’s not difficult to see complications arise before you actually start looking into failed programs like No Child Left Behind, the biases of standardized testing, pushing whacky things like common core, or things like Free noted with CRT and wanting to whitewash the group of white hoods (thanks forum word ban?) out of the history books. I’d make an observation that it also seems like we aren’t holding kids back for failing classes anymore, but that could just be more of a local shortcoming on my end. I’d also argue we have an unhealthy prioritization of sports where things like football programs gobble up tons of resources for districts, but things like the arts get the short end of the stick, if not cut entirely.

Nonetheless, I suspect most of us here in this thread taking the topic seriously are over 30 or at least close to. For us, the decline was “not as bad” while phenomenal teachers could also help pick up the slack. This is also before taking into account the individual quirks of a student who may more readily take to math, writing, art, and so on. I could go on a tangent about how video games actually helped educate me while growing up without the shortcomings of today’s social media biases, but that’s also an indirect way of me saying kids can also learn independently through other things they have access to. The problem is it just might not always be the right things when removed from the lens of fantasy escapism, and there is a very real fascist subculture to gaming that tries to recruit the impressionable through memes and the like.

The circumstances of current environment serving as evidence aside, probably the simplest way to see how our schools are failing is to compare US scoring to other countries or to hit up ye olde google and look for year-by-year diagnostics of average scores per grade level and so on. I’m also a bit biased having helped raise kids now in their 20s, with others all the way down to recently born. Conversation with and assisting with homework at times throughout the years have often left me feeling like something is lacking, and as I say this emphatically knowing some of my relatives aren’t the brightest bulbs and dislike being around them because they refuse to accept knowledge outside their world view.

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581

If this is what you believe, I cannot help you understand.

Hmm… professional educator highly familiar with CRT, but unfamiliar with Common Core.

Edit:

All precepts of the theory derive from its core principles. At the core, critical theory is Marxist theory. You know this. CRT is the racial form of this. Of course, if you want to get technical, you then put women in as victims and lump in the feminists, add in the homosexuals so you can grab intersectionality with the gay community. We could go on. The idea is the same. You divide people based on their demographic characteristics, assign them a role in society as either the good guy or the bad guy, then pit them against each other in the name of “social justice.” The promise really doesn’t matter because it total equity can never be achieved, which is convenient because as long as there’s a problem the socialist party can promise to fix it and retain power.

If you’re not making the connection between the economic model and the political, that’s because you’re not understanding that a command economy (socialism) necessarily requires an authoritarian state. You should know this, but then again you denied that the [banned word in the word filter] (literally the National Socialist German Worker’s Party) were socialists.

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582

It’s my shiny palantír that I use to peer into the darkest depths of the human heart. Sorry that it distressed you. Maybe I shouldn’t dwell on the most despicable among us? If what I described is greatly exaggerated, I’d be happy to stand corrected.

583

And you are an idiot. Here big companies can’t work, whit out a union present at work. And because representatives of the union are employees of the company, they will figth for fair treatment, because it benefints all employees. Being a part of the union comes whit extra benefits, but the representation of interest part is universal for all workers of their field, regardless if they are a part of it or not, because that is their job. And not because they have to, its because they want to. They love get is a beef whit the duchebag employer.

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584

US/modern artificial “behavioral science”, nothing really of importance, whilest it may hold truth at one/current moment, when “tables turn”, so will this theory as well

It’s also worth noting for one to remember this

“If Gods judged humans their thoughts, humanity would evaporate in a second” [Seneca]

100% true, there’s not a single human being that’s immune to bad thoughts and ideas, which is very important to notice the importance of presumption of innocence: if an individual did not commit a crime it’s not guilty, (which is the exact opposite of those “thought police” organisations want to present)

Again, explain this sudden swing of events:

BLM in July
ALM in November

How does your “CRT” explain that ? :thinking:

Stop putting race/religion/sex/whatever into everything, and put attempt/s into finding the CORE problem that “connects”

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585

But it’s American society that has put race/religion/sex/whatever into everything. To remedy issues, one must first understand them. That is what CRT does: it looks at the legal and social structures embedded in our society and identifies core problems. It’s not about “white man bad”.

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586

Yet The top 0.1 percent of taxpayers in 2018 paid a greater share of the income tax burden than the bottom 75 percent of taxpayers combined. Also it doesn’t matter what people pay in taxes when the deficit exceeds revenue by fifty percent and it’s growing. That’s not a left right thing it’s a robbing the future to go on a spending spree thing. Factor in that the stock market is being propped up by devaluing the currency much to the benefit of a relatively small percentage of people and it’s a recipe for disaster. That’s what’s driving what’s laughingly called income inequality. It’s a nice way of saying they’re robbing us all blind and our government provides little actual useful service for the money it spends. Forever wars are costly in lives and treasure. It doesn’t matter if it’s Green energy or the war on terror it’s all a scam. The money burns and nothing gets better.

So go ahead and vote these clowns endless power over your lives. Increase taxation until there’s no one left to tax. Our income will all be the same, zero. Democrats/Republicans it’s just two wings of the same vulture.

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587

Ok since this took a bit too of a serious route think would have to “explain” myself a bit

There are (or at least WERE) 2 types of taxations:

  1. Flat rate
  2. Progressive rate

Flat rate = each tax % is the same for everyone regardless of income, say flat rate is 20% and it “works” for everyone: i.e. a McDonald’s worker and a CEO of a company would BOTH give 20% of their total income to the state

Progressive rate = each income magnitude has a tax % and the higher the order of magnitude, the higher the %… This is harder to calculate, but what essentially means is that generally = the greater the income = the MORE tax % you pay… It’s not uncommon in so-called “citizen first” countries for the richer individuals to pay over 50% of total income in tax (sometimes even up to 80%)

And that’s how things were initially intended/supposed-to work, BUT then things like:

“I won’t pay the tax but I’ll invest” things happened, and then what you get is a nice/initial highly-impactful “kickoff” by the rich (into getting themselves more richer) but not too long until it becomes a thing of “I’ve already invested enough, you owe me” kind of thing

THAT is an issue, the “moderns” want to call it phylantrophy but what it essentially ends up being is really a robbery, kind of like “bank credit” for the overall society where the “owner” has to pay the “renter” back cause the renter is the one that initially overpaid… Makes sense ?? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :crazy_face: :upside_down_face:

Now say perhaps that Taxes were paid as intended, the ways how Taxes are spent (in a civil/democratic/educated society at least) is on “public goods” that are (supposed to be ?) shared:

  • Roads and infrastructure
  • Education
  • Public health and order services (Police, Doctors, Judicial workers,)
  • Insurance subsidies (not always but sometimes helpful at moments of disaster)
    e.t.c.

And whilest it MAY BE (and often is) a slow/tedious process (and a one that requires endless discipline and awareness), it’s a one that the people can have a greater control against…

Perhaps you may not like your mayor/first-constable/state-union-leader/whatever, but at least you “kinda ?” VOTE for them… Now tell me how often did you vote who gets to be the CEO of a Google/Amazon/Microsoft/e.t.c… ? :thinking:

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588

The electoral college argument is just another conservative talking point. If it kept up with actual population sizes and the Wyoming rule was in effect, Trump still would have won, by like 3 EC votes. Even throughout history not many presidential elections would have came out different other than the W. Bush ones.

However it should be popular vote. The president is the president of the country. The Congress is for the states, which have equal representation in the Senate, kind of.

589

That means they’re also 0.1% of richest but still the percentage cut of those would be lower than bottom 75%. Top 0.1% can hire all the workforce of bottom 75% of taxpayers and they’d still have plenty. I have no idea but people have more than one way to avoid paying taxes or compensate for such expenses, so don’t worry about them and you should be happy that they pay their taxes.

Money circulation is good for the economy actually, better than putting it on interest. I’m aware the inflation and economy growth at this rate maybe scary. But when you don’t tax the rich people so they can hire, economy growth will be pretty imbalanced, as by preference they’re not guaranteed to do so.
As a side effect to that you’re limiting the resources of government by pitying the rich who can hire all the workforce they wish and still do charity work for researches. What you talk about would only apply when there’s not a huge gap between 0.1% and rest of the taxpayers; no such balance exists.

Subject is only one company; which is Blizzard. Please don’t go off the rails.

590

It seems structured around trying to prove that race is a cause of social and economic misery.
Simplistic and myopic people in power are mostly the cause. Regardless of their origin.

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591

While the power difference has lowered, it is still massive, and unions are still needed.
Just like capitalism is very different than it was 100+ years ago, unions also have to be different of course.

Same argument could be used for another very abhorrent exploitation of people.
If you can only can create wealth by abusing people, maybe the wealth isn’t worth it. Not that I buy into an argument that Google or Amazon couldn’t create either wealth or innovation without having employees pee in bottles.

And innovative companies elsewhere in the world manage to create wealth and innovation just fine while having to employ union members.

Yeah, this remains extremely true.

:exploding_head:

Not so much that race is, but that racism is. Which is an undeniable fact. I cant say I care much about CRT, that is just words to me. But studying the reasons for inequality, and how to combat it, is always important of course.

592

Solyndra looked like Yoydyne Propulsion Systems in Buckaroo Banzai when the FBI finally raided it. In Afghanistan they were literally throwing money out of airplanes at our enemies trying to buy a victory when they couldn’t even decide what winning meant. They thought they could turn it into a western democracy.

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593

Just like you seem to argue that capitalism is not a failure, just because it has failures in it, green energy doesn’t become a scam just because there are scammers.

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594

Yeah, I’m not sure the whole “We never would’ve had XYZ if rich people didn’t do…” is the best argument. As fast? Hard to say. Better or worse? Also an unknown. Just feels like your bog standard corporate bootlicking in the end. Historical terms like manifest destiny have also just been pretty ways of glorifying imperialistic tendencies, which include actively crushing perceived threats or competition, and not just in the military sense. Failures of various left-aligned countries in the past can also be attributed to malicious outside influence and certain ideas being ahead of their time without appropriate technological backing. The destabilization of South America and the immigrant boogeyman the right loves to make of it can be tied back to the NRA and US gun production/running practices, as an example. Pointing fingers at places like Venezuela or Brazil and basically being, “See! See!” loses legitimacy when we’ve been playing kingmaker behind the scenes, because it’s always been within capitalism’s best interest that more socialist nations don’t rise up because profit isn’t priority.

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596

This is why I like to allocate points into immunity vs. threat of termination/incarceration/etc. That way I can speak with impunity, “job security” be damned. If they lose this great asset it’s their loss. Though admittedly, it’s probably not so simple when you have dependents.

I also like to meditate on the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Does practicing this philosophy play right into the hands of some power-mongers, go-getters, one-uppers, “The Joneses”? Sure. Should I care? Hmm… Should Spongebob care that Mr. Crabs is making hand-over-fist off of him? Would he be half as charming if he did?

597

So i started wondering, that how much will this law suit have effect on ongoing projects, and work overall at blizz. I heard that work on WoW has been shut down, no patches are comeing for a while. But what about the other teams, specialy Diablo?