Tag: education

Unreliable Conclusions

The Global Times explores why Western predictions about China are reliably wrong:

Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute of Fudan University, told the Global Times that Western political scientists or scholars have made a lot of efforts to predict events in the world, but most of time, they failed. “They failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in the past, and they also failed to predict the rise of China, they couldn’t even predict the rise of Trumpism, and most Western economists failed to predict the financial crisis in 2008.”

There are two main problems with the failure of the West to make correct predictions about China, Zhang said. “First is that they have ideological bias, as they believe China or any other non-Western country will eventually be Westernized as long as it wants to be modernized. Another problem is that Western political science is based on the experience of Western history, so when Western scholars used such ‘science’ to analyze China, a country with an entirely different civilization, they will come to unreliable conclusions most of the time.”

I’d add two more reasons. Third, they rely upon explanatory models rather than predictive models, so their ability to predict anything correctly is minimal. Fourth, they know absolutely nothing about Chinese history, Chinese culture, and Chinese philosophy. Literally nothing. Most of them haven’t read so much as one single Chinese classic or seen a single Chinese movie that doesn’t star Bruce Lee.

This is why I never pay any attention to what any self-appointed China critic says about China. The idea that “China will fail because the Chi-Coms are brutal and mean” is considerably amusing to anyone who has ever read The Outlaws of the Marsh, just to give one example.

China has been around for a long, long time. It will continue to be around for a long, long time to come, which is considerably more than one can reasonably say for most of the invaded and adulterated nations of the West.

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Everything is Racist

I tried Owen Benjamin’s test to see if everything is officially racist. He suggested choosing a word at random, then seeing if Google can connect it to racism. I chose SPACE. It’s a vaccuum, a material near-nothingness. It can’t possibly be connected to racism, right?

Wrong.

Do Black Lives Matter in Outer Space? – Sapiens.orghttps://www.sapiens.org › space-colonization-racism
30 Sept 2020 — Space colonization racism – Elon Musk is ramping up efforts to inhabit Mars, raising questions about who gets left out of fantasies of …

NASA to stop using racist nicknames for cosmic objects | Spacehttps://www.space.com › nasa-stops-racist-nicknames-c…
12 Aug 2020 — NASA will discontinue the use of certain nicknames for astronomical objects that are considered to be racist, the space agency said Aug. 5.

“Racism, Sexism, and Space Ventures”: Civil Rights at Nasa in …https://www.history.nasa.gov › sp4801-chapter22PDF
exclusions of women and racial minorities from key portions of america’s civilian space effort have had major effects on the political credibility of …

NASA Says It Will Stop Using Racist Names for Space Objects https://futurism.com › the-byte › nasa-stop-racist-names…
NASA is finally taking stock and getting rid of the various racist nicknames the space agency has granted objects in space over the years.

Space Is Not Black | The Nationhttps://www.thenation.com › Article
Days before the Apollo 11 launch in 1969, The Nation lamented a government that spent freely on white astronauts, engineers, and contractors, but could not …

The racist language of space exploration | The Outlinehttps://theoutline.com › post › the-racist-language-of-sp…
14 Aug 2018 — The language of colonialism is infecting outer space, thanks to dominance by rich white businessmen and politicians.

Racism has really come a long way since a US general coined the term to justify the destruction of the American Indian, his languages, and his cultures.

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We Made It Happen

So why can’t you, Zoomer? Why can’t you?

I am not responsible for your student debt. I grew up in poverty in the mountians of NC. Ate from a garden, name was on community Angel tree for Christmas, bought clothes from yard sales & if I was lucky, on a rare occasion Sky City.

I joined the Air Force then went to college. I made it happen.

What a great response to the student debt crisis that is engulfing three generations of Americans! I agreed so much that I added my two cents.

I am not responsible for your student debt. I grew up in wealth, with large family homes in Minnesota and Florida. Ate Sunday brunches at the country club, name was on the donor list at the private academy, bought designer clothes, drove a Porsche in the summer and an Audi in the winter.

I was offered full scholarships from dozens of universities that I didn’t need because my parents were rich enough to pay full tuition to an elite liberal arts college with a beautiful campus and pretty sorority girls.

I made it happen without lifting a finger.

See, I didn’t need any student loans, so obviously neither does anyone else. And who cares if the younger generation can’t afford to buy homes or start families, we’ll just import more Colombians or Kenyans with the gumption and grit to do what those lazy, indebted, good-for-nothing Americans won’t.

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But OUR Public School is Great

No, it isn’t. It really, really isn’t. The public schools have further degenerated from providing intellectual lobotomies to outright pushing open satanry:

An Austin, Texas school teacher said that of the 32 fourth-grade students in her class, 20 have “come out” to her as “LGBTQIA+,” according to a leaked internal school message.

The claim reportedly came from a teacher at the Austin Independent School District (ISD)’s Blackshear Elementary School, according to the Daily Caller, which originally obtained the internal messages from the “Libs of Tik Tok” Twitter account.

The teacher’s revelation came as part of a complaint that Blackshear Elementary School principal Rick Garner referred to the morning’s Pride Parade — an ISD-wide celebration of LGBTQ sexuality and gender — as a “wellness walk.”

“I feel that it is inappropriate to call our parade this morning a ‘Wellness Walk’ at all. While I understand that Wellness Walk is something that was previously in motion to promote health and fitness and is something we want to continue, it really takes away from the experience of celebrating Pride to couple the two,” wrote the teacher, who has not been publicly identified.

“The first Pride was a riot,” wrote the teacher, apparently referencing the Stonewall Riots that inspired the first gay pride parades. “It is not enough to just ‘welcome,’ ‘love,’ and ‘celebrate’ Queer folx. Your allyship should always lead you to activism — speaking up and fighting for what is right, even when it feels uncomfortable,” the teacher continued.

She went on to write, “Out of the 32 students that I teach, 20 of them are LGBTQIA+ and have come out to me. I feel that we need to do better — for them. To affirm our students, I think it would be only appropriate and right to publicly announce what we had this morning was a PRIDE Parade. Our students are aware and are paying attention.”

If your children are in a public school, you deserve no more sympathy for what happens to them than you do if you go and get them vaxxed. Frankly, the latter is probably preferable, as it will only destroy their bodies instead of their minds and souls.

There is no such thing as “a bad teacher” or “a bad school”. All of the public school teachers and all of the public schools are evil, because they are part of a centralized system that exists for no other purpose than to destroy children. Don’t feed your children into the filth factory.

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Malinformed

This comparison of relative media coverage of four military conflicts around the world illustrates the importance of not paying any attention to the globalist media narrative.

We are living in dangerous times. All around the world, intense military actions are taking place. Last week alone, Russia launched a huge military invasion of Ukraine; Saudi Arabia carried out dozens of strikes on Yemen; Israel launched a wave of deadly missile attacks against Syria; and the United States restarted its bombing campaign in Somalia.

These four deadly incidents happened concurrently. Yet judging by media coverage, it is highly unlikely that many will even be aware of the final three. A MintPress News study of five leading Western media outlets found that overwhelming attention was paid to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while the others were barely mentioned, if at all.

In total, in the week between Monday, February 21 and Sunday, February 27, Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

Just as most people who believe they are educated are, in fact, maleducated, most people who believe they are well-informed because they read a newspaper or watch the television news are, in fact, malinformed.

UPDATE: The BBC all but admits to disseminating fake news in its response to a new Russian law criminalizing the publication of demonstrable falsehoods.

“This legislation appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism. It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.

“Our BBC News service in Russian will continue to operate from outside Russia.

“The safety of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs.”

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A Portrait of the Ticket Takers

An analysis of those who are chosen by the elite reveals that it is not talent, ability, or cognitive capability that determines “success” by the elite’s worldly standards, but rather ruthless ambition and desire for external approval.

While I often assume that prestige is a big driver of human behavior, my poll respondents hardly admitted to putting much weight on prestige when picking experts. And many complain that I put too much emphasis on the concept. However, these elite employers strongly confirm my view, as they focus overwhelmingly on prestige when picking junior employees.

They only recruit at the most elite colleges, and they want recruits to be attractive, energetic, articulate, socially smooth, and have had elite personal connections, jobs, and extracurriculars. They don’t that much care about your grades, what you’ve learned, or what you did in your jobs or extracurriculars, as long as they were prestigious.

I noticed several interesting patterns worth pondering. For example, employers have little patience with candidates who didn’t pick the most prestigious possible college or job, but were swayed by other considerations. Such as topics of interest, limited money, or the needs of a spouse or family. A “serious” person always picks max prestige. Always.

Yet for extracurriculars, you are not supposed to connect those to your career plans, as “nerds” do. You must instead do something with no practical value, but that is prestigious. Like varsity athletes in lacrosse or crew, sports that are too expensive for ordinary folks to pursue. Excess interest in ideas marks you as a “boring” “tool”.

An interesting criteria is that you must tell a mesmerizing story about your life, a story told almost entirely in terms of choices that you made to pursue your internal goals, without external constraints having much influence. And even though you have been chosen for your very consistent lifetime pursuit of prestige, that is very much not allowed to be one of your main goals. You were instead pursuing other goals, and prestige just happened as a side effect. Lucky you.

The author convincingly argues that this is not that much of a “meritocracy”, in that the features sought are much easier for elite parents to promote in their kids, and many of them are not actually that useful to society.

The key phrase: “A “serious” person always picks max prestige. Always.”

I ruled myself out of the elite game the moment I chose Bucknell over Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. That was a unconsciously fortuitous choice, given the way in which events proceeded over the next 5-6 years. Because what the elite are selecting for is not intelligence or potential, but rather, one’s anticipated willingness to sell one’s soul to them.

Don’t ever envy those high midwits who are accepted to elite universities and offered every form of easy success at every step along the way. They are literally on the conveyor belt to Hell without having any idea what the path they have chosen is leading toward.

Politics is full of people who want to prove they’re the smartest person in the room but they almost never realise that the room they’re in rarely has any really smart people in it! 

Dominic Cummings

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Warning: Canadian Parents

This may or may not be legitimate, but it’s problematic enough to justify caution on the part of every Canadian parent with school-age children.

A WARNING CANADIAN PARENTS MONDAY NOV 22

Report from anonymous Canadian nurse

Provinces have told all school superintendents to catch parents off guard on Monday Nov 22.

Starting Monday, vaccine clinics will be open in Canadian elementary schools for children 5-11 years olds. NO AGE OF CONSENT REQUIRED.

A very close family member called me upset, crying, telling me this is against her morals. Her job as of yesterday is to mobilize nurses and have the school clinics ready for this Monday Nov 22. This one is a French Catholic board. She has been advised to have two nurses at every school in case there is “a problem”. She has to find willing nurses and anyone to help this go smoothly tomorrow.

Pull your kids out of school this week.

Could be fake, but if I was a Canadian parent, I’d take the time to check it out.

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Gatekeeper U

Because the universities don’t already have enough thought police, the world-healers are setting up a new fake alternative, featuring a fake conservative New York Times journalist as the nominal figurehead:

The University of Austin has been hailed as a milestone for open discourse, but it’s hard to be too enthusiastic about it when you consider high-profile backer Bari Weiss’ track record of not welcoming dissenting views.

Writer Bari Weiss has become a figurehead among the left-leaning intelligentsia who eschew modern “wokeness” in favor of classical liberalism. She solidified her status as a bold defender of diversity of thought when she publicly resigned from The New York Times, citing a hostile work environment rife with pressure for ideological conformity. Following that, she was called a “self-styled free speech martyr” by the Financial Times, and is reported to have even compared herself to Galileo Galilei, who was forced by the Catholic Church to renounce his scientific views, lest he be burned at the stake.

Now, Weiss has announced she will be part of a team of similarly disaffected intellectuals in founding a new institution, the University of Austin (UATX). Other figures involved include enlightened liberals™ such as Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt. Currently, the project is in its early stages and hopes to offer a summer program for students in 2021, but graduate programs are planned for launch in 2022 and 2023, with an undergraduate college to follow in 2024.

However, while many supporters welcomed news of the university and its claim to stand for free expression and open conversation, one can’t help but notice the ironic ideological homogeneity of those involved. And similarly, despite her rebranding as a stalwart defender of free speech, those familiar with Weiss’ career will note that she has not always been so welcoming of dissenting views.

And interestingly, it’s not just those to the left of Weiss who so far have been excluded from UATX, but those to the right as well. Many conservatives may view Weiss’ condemnation of the woke left as a tacit embrace of right-wing thought, but as recently as 2018, that is far from the case.

In a piece on the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) for the New York Times, Weiss spoke disparagingly of Stefan Molyneux, Milo Yiannopoulos, Mike Cernovich, and Alex Jones, and even repudiated Dave Rubin, a popular interviewer who frequently engages with figures who have views different than his own, simply for platforming those she views as “controversial.”

Weiss’ tenure at The New York Times may have been a lifetime ago as far as the internet is concerned, but a quick glance through her cohorts at the university raises doubts as to whether her disdain for the dissident right has changed with her new-found appreciation for diversity of thought.

As conservative commentator Michael Knowles pointed out, despite the attempt by leftist publications to paint UATX as some right-wing thought experiment, in actuality, there are only two conservatives currently attached to the project, neither of whom has been known to stray from the right-wing talking points deemed acceptable.

This omission by the university’s team is especially strange considering the statement of principle put out by Kanelos specifically decries the treatment of conservatives in academic institutions: “Over a third of conservative academics and PhD students say they had been threatened with disciplinary action for their views. Four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars.”

For a group that seems to lament the exclusion of right-wing thought from academia, the team at the University of Austin have so far done little to remedy it.

This so-called “University of Austin” is simply the latest, and grandest, gatekeeper grift intended to intrigue clueless conservatives and direct them and their resources away from Christian nationalism. The pseudointellectuals who serve as the poster children are complete mediocrities – you can read my 13-part response to Peter Boghossian’s hapless and unconvincing effort to redefine the concept of faith, entitled The Fifth Horseman, if you want a detailed look at the quality of thinkers on offer – and this is little more than another attempt to invade the territory they used to deride as flyover country.

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The College Mating Crisis

Of course, if you read Alpha Game back in the day, you know I warned everyone about this 12 years ago.

Fewer men than women are attending college, which is leading to a “mating crisis,” the New York University professor Scott Galloway told CNN on Saturday.

Women made up 59.5% of college students at the end of the 2020-21 school year, an all-time high, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, citing US Department of Education data. That’s in comparison to 40.5% of men enrolled in college.

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that in 1970, men made up close to 59% of those enrolled in college, compared to about 41% of women who were enrolled.

Additionally, The Journal reported that in the next few years the education gap will widen so that for every one man who earns a college degree, two women will earn one.

Because women are hypergamous, elevating their status in any way tends to reduce the pool of potential husbands they are willing to marry. While a man who is a wealthy CEO with a PhD from an elite university won’t hesitate to marry an uneducated yoga teacher or aerobics instructor if she is pretty enough, even a jobless woman from an inferior public university will tend to turn up her nose at dating a man who dropped out of high school, even if he owns his own software company or chain of repair shops.

That’s one of the reasons why female education is relentlessly pushed by the media and the Hellmouth, as it is a population control measure. It’s also incredibly dysgenic, as it assures that as many as half the population’s most intelligent women never have children.

In fact, mass higher education for women may be the most societally destructive policy besides open immigration. I suspect it is even worse than female suffrage. And what is the point of higher education when it takes academics 12 years to notice what is not only obvious, but mathematically inevitable.

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The silver lining

There may be a considerable amount of good coming out of the pandemonium in the long run:

The rate of households homeschooling their children doubled from the start of the pandemic last spring to the start of the new school year last September, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report released this week.

Last spring, about 5.4{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6} of all U.S. households with school-aged children were homeschooling them, but that figure rose to 11{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6} by last fall, according to the bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

The survey purposefully asked the question in a way to clarify that it was inquiring about genuine homeschooling and not virtual learning through a public or private school, the Census Bureau said.

Before the pandemic, household homeschooling rates had remained steady at around 3.3{cc08d85cfa54367952ab9c6bd910a003a6c2c0c101231e44cdffb103f39b73a6} through the past several years.

Based on the previous statistics, that implies that around 8.5 million American schoolchildren are being homeschooled. That is absolutely massive and bodes well for the future.