The Pedo Bear strike

There are accounts of a missionary teaching aboriginals who had no previous experience with reading, writing, and arithmetic the essentials of all three in one hundred hours.

Professional pedagogues like to pretend that much more time is required.

I have observed four year old children reading fluently. It only took them a few tens of hours of instruction, not hundreds.

To be fair child labour laws were put in place to make it possible for children to get an education rather than spending their childhoods working in the factories.

Nonsense. It is politically economically impossible for laws criminalizing the productive employment of children to have any beneficial effect whatsoever, or even any practical puissance providing that the value of a child's work product is in any way significant.

For subsistance farmers all over the world, the ability of children in the first decade of life to perform agricultural chores provides a value that so commonly exceeds the cost of that child's upkeep that (except in times of profound famine) it has been customary for farmers to actively foster and adopt such children, male and female.  Recall the "orphan trains" of late 19th Century America. 

Moreover, a child can be extremely productive as a worker without any real impairment of his/her education.  Children employed as actors in the theater, in the film industy, and in television are gainfully engaged in intensively laborious remunerative activities while sustaining no objectively demonstrable adverse consequences with regard to their educations.  Horror stories about "child stars" focus on the gaudy exceptions, not the experiences of most youngsters so engaged. 

The professional educationalists - particularly those employed in government school systems - have increasingly stressed the value of total immersion in the pedagogical process, and in recent years have demanded that children given into their control live lives utterly committed to didactic instruction of one kind or another.  When children are not directly under the command of teachers, they're hammered with homework set to reinforce the ideological conditioning ordained by their captors.   

But the experience of child actors offers proof that very little formal classroom time is really needed to provide youngsters in the first two decades of life with the structured educational experience required to perform intellectually at levels of function equal or superior to those attained by age-peers compelled to suffer through six or eight hours of daily schooling for five days a week, nine months a year. 

The truth about child labor in manufacturing is the same as holds for adult unskilled manual labor in the same venues.  Repetitious "donkey work" functions in factories are far more cost-efficiently fulfilled by way of systems engineering solutions, which also have the advantages of quality enhancement and consistency. 

One of the truths most inconvenient for the professional educationalists (and the vast pork-barrel machinery of government schooling) is that children and adolescents would almost certainly be better off - not only more content but also better educated - were their school days cut in half, their classroom time confined to the inculcation of those skills which best facilitated the individual's acquisition of such knowledge as he or she would tend to find of greatest utility and enjoyment. 

The rest of their time the children can and should put to such purposes as they find most beneficial.  In a free society, ceteris paribus, that would tend to see many of them seeking and engaging in profitable enterprise of one kind or another.

Well, ah, not to put too fine a point on it ... given how you feel about the people here ....
What exactly are you doing here at all?

Sams is obviously here for one of two things. #1 Poke anthill with a stick and watch them scurry around frantically or #2 There is some sort of label he wants to apply to himself and needs to be validated in order to do it. Since that desire for validation seems to come from us, a decent bet would be that he's looking to apply a label he applies to us, to himself and we're calling him insane for it. *shrug* In either case he's violating Sartre's "acting in good faith" and should simply be ignored.

I guess Rhonda found out that the girl had been found and rescued. Never put a psychopath in charge of a mission. I wonder if Ed is wearing armor.

I guess Rhonda found out that the girl had been found and rescued. Never put a psychopath in charge of a mission. I wonder if Ed is wearing armor.

Rhonda might just shoot Ed in hope to start a shoot out ... then the UW press will hammer their version of the events ad nauseum.

J. Thomas, What I build, create or otherwise do to improve my life and my family's is mine and mine to do with as I will.....  I have real problems with grave robbers.  "Legal" or not.

Our current "Legal" grave robbers are slowly being put out of business.  It can't happen soon enough.

I guess Rhonda found out that the girl had been found and rescued. Never put a psychopath in charge of a mission. I wonder if Ed is wearing armor.

I'm pleasantly surprised she seems to have only shot him in the shoulder. Apparently, her augmentation only extends to speed, not aim.

I guess Rhonda found out that the girl had been found and rescued. Never put a psychopath in charge of a mission. I wonder if Ed is wearing armor.

I'm pleasantly surprised she seems to have only shot him in the shoulder. Apparently, her augmentation only extends to speed, not aim.

How you coordinate the uber quick extension of the arm with pin point eye aiming 

Sams, In IPSC and IDPA shooting sports, If I remember correctly, Par time to draw and shoot, hitting a target in an area that would generally be lethal on a human being is 1.5 seconds.  Professional shooters will draw, engage five separate targets at distances of 10 to 35 meters generally within 2.2 and 3.0 seconds.  This is done with pistols, not too different from Rhonda's "Mamba".

The answer is to practice, practice and practice some more.  Dry-fire 10 times for every round fired.  Repeat 3,000 times and continue to sustain the skill.

I'll dry-fire in front of a mirror once or twice a month.  Helps me keep my technique correct.  Organized live fire at least once a month.  More if the budge allows.

I don't any label confirmation nonsense or nor I feel the need to respond to a clown behind his computer calling me ''a Authoritarian Conservative normative'' monster or whatever ... I come to comment about the comic, all else is BS especially if it is on sanctimonious tone.

Well, ah, not to put too fine a point on it ... given how you feel about the people here ....
What exactly are you doing here at all?

Sams is obviously here for one of two things. #1 Poke anthill with a stick and watch them scurry around frantically or #2 There is some sort of label he wants to apply to himself and needs to be validated in order to do it. Since that desire for validation seems to come from us, a decent bet would be that he's looking to apply a label he applies to us, to himself and we're calling him insane for it. *shrug* In either case he's violating Sartre's "acting in good faith" and should simply be ignored.

@dough560:

I see  

Although I think soldiers are trained to kill, so the probability to have a dissabiliting hit would be to shoot the chest. ... the chance of dissabling it higher.

@J Thomas:

What I'm supposed to respond this ?

Well, he is insane, after all....

I've found sams interesting in the context of this "Pedo Bear" (whatever in hell that means) discussion because he seems reliably to personify the senseless presumptions at the base of all efforts to criminalize consensual human action in the name of maintaining some sort of fabulous traditionalist aggressively violent ordinative scheme.  

sams' is the voice of Prohibition, of Comstockery, of the War on (Some) Drugs, of Orwell's Ministry of Truth, and of "every kind of tyranny over the mind of man."  

Do I really have to respond to this massive straw-man and paternalist condescension ?

Absolutely not. You have the right to not respond to anything you prefer to ignore. You have no obligation to respond to anybody.

So for example, somebody here recently said that the Lancet study of Iraqi casualties was done with bad methods and should be ignored. There was a lot of propaganda claiming that, because it gave results that were politically inconvenient. The methods they claimed to use were in fact exactly the approved methods for that sort of problem. If they used the wrong methods they must have lied about what they did. Some time after they got their inconvenient results, there was funding for another study on similar topics which got very different results with the same methods. So maybe the first study was faked for political reasons, or maybe the second study (which was commissioned and funded to disprove the first one) was faked for political reasons, or maybe both, or maybe they were both honest but got different results from one of those statistical flukes which happen every now and then. Did I argue with the guy who heard the propaganda? No! I'm tired of that argument. In general, people who believe propaganda instead of statistics are never going to learn the statistics well enough to argue about them. OK, I can let somebody be wrong on the Internet. I don't have to argue every time somebody disagrees with me.

People who think they should respond or must respond are troll-bait.

If a troll comes along and enrages you, and you respond to him and he enrages you more, and you keep coming back trying to prove to his satisfaction that you are better than him, in a way it is his fault for picking on you. But it is also your responsibility for being somebody who is easily trolled.

If somebody doesn't like you on the Internet, you have no obligation to make friends with him or defeat him.
http://xkcd.com/386/

In general, when somebody on the internet says you are insane, he is only being rude. "Insane" on the internet basicly means "says things that don't make sense to me". In person, insane also includes "does things that don't make sense to me". The assumption is that if I don't understand it, it must be crazy.

His other claims about you do make a kind of sense. You have consistently taken the stand that the ways  our (sort of anglo-saxon US) customs have developed are workable and good, and that alternatives are probably not workable and bad. Most of the people here assume that coercion is bad in principle, and that all of our customs that involve coercing people are bad because of that, and that they can successfully be replaced by new customs that do not involve coercion except in response to prior coercion. (With a few exceptions or gray areas when you perceive threats of coercion.)

Can we create a noncoercive society? I'm reasonably sure it's possible, and I'm not certain people will get it right the first try. There are surely lots of things that don't work, some of them for reasons we will not understand ahead of time. Some for reasons we may never understand. Some things just don't work. So it may take time to develop whole societies that don't do coercion at all. We have a start with Quakers and Amish etc who already try to live noncoercively inside a deeply coercive society which possibly might be doing their dirty work for them, or might be just causing them problems.

Our old customs give us the results we have now. They have survived to this point, and it's an open question whether they can survive our new conditions. They do have a track record. Not great in my opinion, but there are survivors, which is better than some alternatives. Would it be worth it to look for something better? I say yes, and also it's important to keep the old ways going for a good long time in case there's something wrong with the particular choices we make when we create alternatives.

When you say the old ways are as good as it gets, of course people here will tend to get upset. I hope they will argue with you while it's fun for them, and quit before it stops being fun.

If it turns into a long argument where you don't have fun, and the other guy doesn't have fun, which one is the troll?

quadibloc: I'm pleasantly surprised she seems to have only shot him in the shoulder. Apparently, her augmentation only extends to speed, not aim.

It does look like it could be a shoulder hit, but from the angle, it's hard to tell. The text says "square in the chest," so it could be high on the chest, or maybe the artist decided differently. I guess we'll find out Monday.

If Rhonda can't hit Ed wherever she wants from what I'm guessing is around ten feet away, then she is having some severe personal issues. As far as moving "inhumanly fast," as the text says, I have to wonder how fast a person can accelerate horizontally over the ground in Ceres' gravity. Maybe she pushed off from something. I was thinking that Rhonda's extra speed wouldn't be that much of an advantage in Ceres' gravity. I figured that if someone could just hold her in the air, then she'd be fairly helpless.

What will the Cerereans do? She's in the middle of the square with a lot of people around. Unless someone has a clear shot, I don't think they'd take the chance on hitting someone else, on the other hand, Rhonda's bullets are high velocity and can endanger others, not to mention poor Ed. I'd predict a swift death for Rhonda if she wasn't such a juicy character to keep around for awhile longer. If both Ed and Rhonda survive, then I can think of a suitable punishment for her, except that she'd make a lousy prostitute.

Will a Cererean put her down, or will it be someone else like Chang? If Chang has the best angle then that would be logical. If the coup de gras came from him, it could prevent a bloodbath.

And what of the troops who kidnapped the kid? Are they dead, or will there be a trial of sorts? I'd guess that the kid would decide their fates if they aren't ready for the worms already. Sending them back to Earth would be too easy on them, but execution might be too much. The girl is owed compensation; is there a middle ground that the Cerereans have for UW subjects who would surely reject arbitration? Can they force them to work with collars on until they pay their debt?

His other claims about you do make a kind of sense. You have consistently taken the stand that the ways  our (sort of anglo-saxon US) customs have developed are workable and good,

My last post on this entire forum was 2 (TWO) DAYS AGO, what kind of consistently anglo-saxon non-sense Have I been promoting  

I'm not even a freaking American, I'm African and I find it kind of mad that from one post I get this whole psychoanalyst nonsense ... are you sure you aren't confusing me with some one else  

His other claims about you do make a kind of sense. You have consistently taken the stand that the ways  our (sort of anglo-saxon US) customs have developed are workable and good,

My last post on this entire forum was 2 (TWO) DAYS AGO, what kind of consistently anglo-saxon non-sense Have I been promoting  

I'm not even a freaking American, I'm African and I find it kind of mad that from one post I get this whole psychoanalyst nonsense ... are you sure you aren't confusing me with some one else  

He does tend to get confused on people a great deal, like confusing the top UW government official with George W. Bush, who BTW hasn't been in office for over 2 years.  As for "insane," by dictionary definition is NOT a measurement of mental health (or lack thereof).  It's a LEGAL term reserved for those adults unable to comprehend the consequences of their actions or decisions and CAN NOT be trusted with any authority over anything, including their own affairs.  It is possible to be mentally ill, yet still sane.  It is also possible to be insane while NOT being mentally ill.  Rhonda here is showing a prime example of the latter.

I'd guess that the kid would decide their fates if they aren't ready for the worms already. Sending them back to Earth would be too easy on them, but execution might be too much.

I am quite puzzled. Even if she is rescued unharmed, why would execution be too much?

J Thomas: So for example, somebody here recently said that the Lancet study of Iraqi casualties was done with bad methods and should be ignored. There was a lot of propaganda claiming that, because it gave results that were politically inconvenient. The methods they claimed to use were in fact exactly the approved methods for that sort of problem.

With all due respect, I'm not at all certain that you know that much about the Lancet studies. The cluster method is not in doubt. The objectivity of the data collectors is. The Lancet is an anti-US, anti-war publication that admitted that their "studies" were timed to come out just before the US elections. George Soros, the famous anti-American and world class criminal funded half of the 2006 study.

The Lancet results indicated about 500 people died every day from violent causes, a very difficult figure to believe, as the morgue data showed an order of magnitude less, and the rabid press, who clung eagerly to every reported civilian death in Iraq, could not come close to corroborating the Lancet body count with their own. The Lancet also claimed to observe death certificates in about 90% of the death claims made in the households. This is also a bizarre figure, as the total number of deaths estimated in the 2006 study is 500,000 greater than the number of death certificates issued in Iraq during the time period they examined. No other survey -- some of which used the same methodology -- came within a quarter of their estimate. Their results on the forms they turned in are unverifiable. It comes down to trusting the data they provide, an extremely dubious proposition because of their known bias. Furthermore, the peer reviews could only examine the methodology the Lancet claimed to have used and crunch the numbers the Lancet gave them to crunch without having a chance to examine the critical source data, the houses the data collectors claimed to have visited, and the claim that their sample was taken randomly in each neighborhood.

A similar thing occurred with Michael Mann's now totally discredited "Hockey Stick" graph. There were many peer reviews that "confirmed" his data. The only problem: they took his word for his source data and ran the data according to his mathematics, both of which were grievously flawed. That's not much of a peer review.