Tag: education

Wait, the rules apply to US?

Even people who claim to seek equality don’t believe in it:

Last week, Harvard announced that they were cracking down on “privilege” within their student community by banning members of single-gender organizations from holding school leadership positions.

But when Harvard announced its new policy, it stressed that the sanctions applied to both male and female single-gender organizations equally, since both male and female single-gender organizations thrived on their “privilege.”

Harvard’s resident feminists claim that all-female organizations, while just as gender-biased, are beneficial to the school’s community, whereas all-male organizations are merely breeding grounds for the present and future perpetrators of sexual crime.

On Monday, they demonstrated, accusing Harvard of, among other things, perpetuating the marginalization of female voices. “My women’s organization has been more than a social organization,” one student told the Boston Globe. “It has been a mental health respite, a place to discuss sexual assaults . . . where I became a feminist, and where I refound my voice.”

The students claimed that female-only clubs were more important than male-only clubs because women experience systematic oppression, and they repeated claims that such clubs were necessary because women “earn less” than male counterparts and because women are “targeted and shamed” for their sexuality.

Stop falling for appeals to equality. You might as reasonably be persuaded by appeals to unicorns, lumberjacks, or the Labor Theory of Value. Even those who make appeals to equality observably don’t believe in it.

Homeschool or Die: 2016 edition

Now even the girls are killing each other in the public schools:

A 16-year-old girl died Thursday after fighting with other girls in a bathroom at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, authorities said.

“There was an altercation that initially started between two people, and my understanding is that additional individuals joined in against the one person,” said Gary Fullman, chief of staff to the Wilmington mayor.

The student was badly injured and transported by helicopter to A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children, where she died, Fullman said.

Any bets on the races involved?

Brainstorm: the courses

In light of the numerous requests that have been made concerning an expansion of the Brainstorm concept into subjects beyond game development, we are expanding it to include actual online courses, complete with tests, grades, and achievement badges, for those who are interested in continuing their educations. These courses are not accredited in any way, shape, or form, as they are solely concerned with the acquisition of knowledge and the deepening of understanding rather than academic credentials.

Although it may not be the first course we actually schedule, the lead course will be ASTRONOMY with Dr. Sarah Salviander. Dr. Salviander is no stranger to many on this blog, although not everyone may know that she is a noted astrophysicist whose specialty is black holes. While most of her publications, such as Fe II Emission in Active Galactic Nuclei: The Role of Total and Gas-Phase Iron Abundance and Accretion Disk Temperatures of QSOs: Constraints from the Emission Lines are completely beyond, well, pretty much everyone here, including me, she is the author of Castalia House’s Astronomy & Astrophysics homeschool curriculum and is eminently qualified to teach the Astronomy course as a subject matter expert. The course will consist of 10 weekly lectures and will cost $200. Brainstorm members will receive a 50 percent discount. A date has not yet been established, but it will take place in the fall.

The other course is one that has long been in the making, but finally came together when I put together a homeschool curriculum for my own kids. ECONOMICS with Vox Day will consist of 10 biweekly lectures, will cost $100, and will be free for all Brainstorm members. I’m still sorting out the details of when it will begin, as I have to schedule it around the next GameDev course that will begin on May 21st, but it will definitely be this year. We also expect to announce other courses with other subject matter experts in the near future.

If you are seriously interested in taking either course, please indicate as much in the comments. And if this incentivizes you to sign up for Brainstorm, you can do so here. Speaking of Brainstorm, there will be a closed session on Saturday, the 23rd, at 7 PM Eastern, and an open Hugo Awards Nomination Party at 12:30 PM Eastern on Tuesday, the 26th, whenever the announcements take place.
 Invitations for the former will be sent out tonight and a registration link for the latter will be provide a day or two before the event.

The cost of convergence

Some people doubted the veracity of my claim that the purpose of the SJW list is to help SJWs find employment at SJW-converged companies. What they fail to understand is that there is no better way to legally ensure the segregation of those individuals from the sane elements of society as well as ensuring that the converged companies more quickly experience the full consequences of their embrace of social justice:

The University of Missouri will be shaggier and dirtier and faculty will be responsible for taking their own trash to dumpsters under the plan for cutting 50 jobs in campus operations detailed in an email memo sent Friday by Vice Chancellor Gary Ward.

Landscaping operations will be cut back so sidewalk edges are trimmed no more than twice a year and only in the most visible locations, Ward wrote. After Saturday football games, the debris left by tailgaters will not be picked up until Monday, he wrote.

Custodial staff no longer will clean or remove trash or recyclables from offices, Ward wrote. “This frees up custodians to assist with recycling, which, previously, has been a volunteer effort,” Ward wrote.

The plan to save $5.47 million in the MU Operations division that employs 842 people exempts the MU Police Department and MU Environmental Health and Safety. Ward warned it likely means slower response time for maintenance issues, less overtime and slower snow removal.

In the email, Ward warned that “we will be unable to sustain the level of service for which you have become accustomed. I do not anticipate that changes beginning July 1, 2016, will inhibit the academic mission at Mizzou, nor is it my intention for that to ever happen.”

Ward’s email is his response to a March 9 directive for a 5 percent cut to general fund budgets from interim Chancellor Hank Foley. The directive imposed a hiring freeze and warned there would be no salary increases.

The Columbia campus is trying to cover $22 million of an expected $32.5 million shortfall because of declining enrollment and new commitments such as the new Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, spokesman Christian Basi said. The cuts do not take into account possible state budget reductions or increases.

Notice that this $32.5 million shortfall is not only the result of their target market’s negative reaction to SJW activity at the university, but also due to the fact that the SJWs running the institution would rather pay for the Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity than pay custodians to prevent them from living in filth.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that common sense aversion to negative consequences will suffice to prevent SJWs from pursuing total societal convergence. The decisions of the SJWs at the University of Missouri should suffice to disabuse them of that notion. It won’t, but it should.

Diversity is educational

A freshman at the University of Texas receives a Very Important Lesson in diversity:

University of Texas freshman Haruka Weiser wrapped up a class at the drama building about 9:30 p.m. She called a friend to say she was on her way, according to an Austin police affidavit.

She never made it.

The remains of Weiser, a first-year theater and dance major, were found about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in a creek near the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center, on the university campus in Austin, not far from the school’s football stadium, officials said. An autopsy noted trauma to the body and the death was termed a homicide.

Investigators “don’t have a clue what the motive” was for the homicide, Acevedo said….

Not a clue. No idea at all. Who could possibly figure out what might have led to the first murder on the UT campus since 1966? I guess we’ll never know.

Say what you will about diversity on campus, but you cannot deny that it is educational.

DEVGAME developments

It’s time to start thinking about the next DEVGAME course, but even though the recent course is over, the learning doesn’t stop. I’ve put up a post about putting my own production principles into action, which worked out rather well in the case of Art of Sword, and the game’s lead programmer has put up sample code to duplicate and order 2D animation sprites in Unity.

There are also other posts by programmers, artists, and even musicians. It’s rapidly turning into a great resource for neophyte game developers. If you’re interested in attending, or you know someone who might be interested, let them know about the DEVGAME blog before the next session begins in May.

In other news, we’re looking at offering additional advanced education courses, including Astronomy and Economics, about which more soon.

Fighting rhetoric with rhetoric

An author who appears to be in transition one way or the other (it’s hard to tell) provides a salutory lesson in how NOT to do it:

As Movement Conservatives consolidated their power in the Republican Party their appeal became more and more emotional and less and less rational. By the time of the George W. Bush administration, it no longer reflected, as one of Bush’s advisers put it, the “reality based community.” But, like any other myth, its lack of reality made it more emotionally powerful than ever. The good guys are pure and virtuous, and they are under attack: Christianity is under siege in a country that is 70 percent Christian, for example, and those who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are fighting to kill the big government that gives “subsidies” to lazy black people despite the fact that they themselves have received subsides — and one of the occupiers an outright loan. And the bad guys are really bad. Donald Trump has famously asserted that Mexican immigrants are rapists, and his attacks on black Americans are so inflammatory that the Ku Klux Klan uses them as a recruiting tool. Indeed, all Democrats are demons: Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina has asserted—all evidence to the contrary—that Democrats support Planned Parenthood because they want to kill babies and sell their body parts. The emotional punch of these allegations stays with supporters despite the fact they are false.

The national triumph of this Movement Conservative narrative explains the present political moment. Republican leaders who were previously focused on consolidating voting blocs now face two very real voter insurgencies. On one hand, those like Ted Cruz argue that rank-and-file voters feel betrayed because Republicans have not actually shrunk the government. Cruz promises to see that destruction through. On the other, Trump voters have absorbed the racism and sexism in his candidacy and are following it in pure rage. Cruz and Trump have a clear narrative. Republican Party leaders do not.

But, like Republican insiders, establishment Democrats have also suffered for lack of a narrative. The Movement Conservative story has made America a hostile place for minorities, women and those falling behind economically. Democratic voters are angry at leaders who have stayed largely quiet as the government has befriended Wall Street, gutted the middle class, slashed social programs, and endangered their health. While Clinton still works to line up narrow voting blocs, Sanders offers an alternative: a narrative of America that gives Democrats a national vision to counter that of Movement Conservatives.

Voters on both sides are angry, and neither cares much what the political establishment says, especially an establishment that on both sides is notably white, elitist and male—aside from Clinton’s refreshing candidacy– and clearly has no idea what life looks like for those outside its bubble. If establishment figures want to regain leadership, they should try articulating a narrative for their vision of America, a narrative that lets voters choose a direction for their country.

Until then, they are preaching to a choir that has lost its audience.

 The Rhetorical Test:

  1. Is this rhetoric, dialectic, or pseudo-dialectic?
  2. What is the most effective way to refute it? 
  3. Why is this likely to be ineffective?

Mailvox: stampeding the sheep

It’s amazing to see how the media was able to whip up a fearstorm on the basis of absolutely nothing, not even a dubious accusation.

I’m a long time lurker at your site. Today i got a panicked call from my daughter who goes to Boston University. The rumor on campus is that a dangerous group of men were planning to form a mob and rape women this evening. She wanted to know what to do to be safe. She sent me this link from facebook

I assured her that it was a hoax and that she had nothing to worry about from Roosh and company.

I thought that you might be interested to see this going around social media and that students are genuinely concerned.

This may be the most cogent argument against female suffrage ever presented. Especially considering that many, if not most, of the same young women will blithely insist that importing one million Muslim migrants can’t possibly cause any problems.

One would think these easily stampeded young women would be far more concerned about a man who has written about his own stalkerish tendencies. And remember, we have been reliably informed that “writing something that shows you’re a horrible person and then
proclaiming “it’s satire!” neither makes it satire or excuses you.”

Convergence kills

Oxford University learns the hard way that allowing SJWs free rein is an effective and efficient way for an institution to destroy itself:

Oxford University’s statue of Cecil Rhodes is to stay in place after furious donors threatened to withdraw gifts and bequests worth more than £100 million if it was taken down, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

The governing body of Oriel College, which owns the statue, has ruled out its removal after being warned that £1.5m worth of donations have already been cancelled, and that it faces dire financial consequences if it bows to the Rhodes Must Fall student campaign.

A leaked copy of a report prepared for the governors and seen by this newspaper discloses that wealthy alumni angered by the “shame and embarrassment” brought on the 690-year-old college by its own actions have now written it out of their wills.

The college now fears a proposed £100m gift – to be left in the will of one donor – is now in jeopardy following the row.

The donors were astonished by a proposal to remove a plaque marking where Rhodes lived, and to launch a six-month consultation over whether the statue of the college’s biggest benefactor should be taken down.

But Oriel College confirmed in a statement to the Telegraph: “Following careful consideration, the College’s governing body has decided that the statue should remain in place.”

 At a meeting on Wednesday the governing body was told that because of its ambiguous position on the removal of the statue, “at least one major donation of £500,000” that was expected this year has been cancelled. In addition, a “potential £750,000 donor” has stopped responding to messages from the college, and several alumni have written to Oriel to say “they are disinheriting the college from their wills”.

One of those who has already cancelled their legacy was going to leave a “seven figure sum” and the college is aware that “another major donor is furious with the College… whose legacy could be in excess of £100m”.

The report warns that there will now “almost certainly” be “one or two redundancies” in its Development Office team because of the collapse in donations. And it has cancelled an annual fundraising drive that should have taken place in April. The report also warns that Oriel’s development office could now make an operating loss of around £200,000 this year.

As a general rule, it is a massively stupid idea for an institution to allow it’s decision-making to be influenced, let alone dictated, by the antics of the low-IQ, affirmative-action pseudo-scholars who were foolishly admitted in the name of diversity. It shouldn’t be surprising when the pseudo-scholars engage in all sorts of destructive drama; they’re not capable of succeeding at Oxford and they know it, so they find “more important” activities to serve as a mask for their academic inadequacies.

Social Justice convergence kills.

But the pseudo-scholars are right about one thing. Cecil Rhodes would have been absolutely horrified to see Africans permitted to engage in these antics at Oxford. Everyone knows that Rhodes was a racist and Anglo-Saxon supremacist, but what those who condemn him are failing to consider is this: he was a racist whose opinion of those he called “the most despicable specimens of human beings” was derived from considerably more direct experience of Africans and African culture than those who condemn him today.

Indeed, the destructive and disrespectful behavior of those African students at Oxford is intended to undermine Rhodes’s reputation, but instead it is serving to support his now-controversial opinions.

Unlike most anti-racists, I’ve worked with African students struggling to stay academically eligible at university. And based on my experience, I can say two things: a) they worked harder and put in more time studying than any of the other students on campus, and b) they absolutely should not have been there. Most of them simply weren’t smart enough to grasp the necessary concepts involved. It’s not that they were stupid, but they were at a 2-SD disadvantage to the average student there.

It is more than unfair, it is downright reprehensible to continually push these young men and women into academic situations where they simply cannot succeed. It doesn’t help them, it destroys their confidence and it undermines the success of the few who are actually capable of succeeding.

It’s exactly like giving the nerds from the high school chess club a college football scholarship, then putting them on the field to play Penn State. Sure, they can legitimately call themselves “football players”, but that’s not much consolation when they’re getting crushed by 250-pound linebackers.