https://i.ibb.co/PvDHjR7Z/nuts.jpg

T. Beholder:

> This requires passing actual challenges, rather than repeating failures with slight variations.

We know what the American teaching convention circa 1750 produced, and we know what the American teaching convention circa 2025 is producing.

I see as its former vital function a way to use State in the cold war of sects, and the little footnote about legislators not establishing religion be damned.

Once it won (the Catholics obviously cannot take the ground back from Mainstream Protestant sects), its purpose ended thus of course slide into vestigial status began.

Harvard is more complex, jumping between two functions: from a theological institution to supposedly scientific and back.

Having identified the error, the logical next step is to revert to the previously working configuration, and proceed accordingly. And not a moment too soon!

It’s a conflation due to passive voice abstractions and skipped assumptions. An error is only meaningful in not being a “correct” state of the system! Which in turn requires the context of purpose. The purpose does not exist in vacuum. An interested party owning the thing defines its purpose.

Once those who controlled state sponsored schools and used them for purpose of competing with the Catholics; they are gone.

Then other interested parties reused this system as a foundation for higher education, for purpose of competing with the other powers in arms races; they are gone too.

Now the interested parties who own this thing are those who made it into cancerous mess you observe and obviously continue down the same road. The only reasonable conclusion is that it serves their purpose.
Thus, whatever it does is no “error”. We can only guess what would be. As a guess, if either a large chunk of those bogus jobs gets chopped off or state schools become a cradle of successful opposition, this will probably be deemed a failure.

This requires passing actual challenges, rather than repeating failures with slight variations.

We know what the American teaching convention circa 1750 produced, and we know what the American teaching convention circa 2025 is producing. Software nerds would call this something like a “catastrophic software performance regression”. Having identified the error, the logical next step is to revert to the previously working configuration, and proceed accordingly. And not a moment too soon!

With each generation, a race, a culture, a group of any kind must renew its mandate to survive and thrive

This requires passing actual challenges, rather than repeating failures with slight variations.

A sacred cow is not a wild buffalo or even a milk cow, it has mandates to survive and thrive rubber-stamped by its owner, who does not demand actual performance. Thus it perishes with said owner, unless taken as a trophy by whoever takes over its pasture.

That’s more or less what Sisyphus does for millennia. But then his stone rolls down the very same slope again, because why wouldn’t it?

With each generation, a race, a culture, a group of any kind must renew its mandate to survive and thrive in the eternal struggle that is the great knife fight of life. Such is the law of nature.

Ok. What’s your point?

The point is that sure, a sacred cow usually is obvious and contain lots of fat. Slaughtering and frying one can be fun. But its owners and lackeys guard it zealously. Even after it does not yield much milk. Which is why it’s a sacred cow to begin with. So when one of those gets slaughtered, someone is having a victory feast already.

Such things take place during the anti-recovery stage at the earliest.

Ok. What’s your point?

And it’s like, guys…

Well…

In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.
? 1984

Same old thing. Where delusion rules, there’s a border beyond which concessions to reality or even making sense fade out.

Phileas Frogg says:

If the test were to reflect actual ability and/or knowledge of it’s takers, then, if the test were actually any good, the test scores should follow a normal distribution,

That’s another odd theology.
Consider that the results of a test which is completely random may follow a normal distribution (throwing a few dice, for example).

The education system is not about education. It’s a money laundering scheme for people in the education industry

Eventually, yes. It’s an atavism of sectarian under-carpet battles. All surviving sects either own it and perpetuate it naturally, or are resistant to it. Once it’s not a part of serious contest —

But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important.
? 1984

Once it’s not a functional organ any more, it gets repurposed or goes vestigial. In this case, it became an excretion mechanism and then just safe (in short term) tumor fodder. «Who cannot do, go and teach».

Phileas Frogg says:

Public Education and the school system are a greater and more pernicious idol, a more fattened and delicious sacred cow, than any other in our society.

Well, if it’s a prerequisite for the entire power structure…

the Vaccine Idol (whose temples are currently being invaded and exorcised by Imperial fiat)

Generally, sanctified parts of medicine. It neatly combines an actual dependency and ex cathedra theocratic authority. So the questions like “which area of human activity gave birth to the concept of quackery” are indecent.

and MAYBE the, “I’m not Racist,” Idol

It’s the same idol. Human Neurological Uniformity, or Inner Light — the ultimate divine equality of Quaker theology. Of which every hu-mon creature is supposed to have exactly 1.000 unit. Anything that makes such assertions look absurd must be either sacrilegious to notice, buried under back-and-forth gobbledygook or destroyed.

Jim says:

The solution is as breathtakingly simple as it is straightforward: teach the bright young boys who would have been in America circa 1750 as the bright young boys in America circa 1750 were taught in America circa 1750.

That’s more or less what Sisyphus does for millennia. But then his stone rolls down the very same slope again, because why wouldn’t it?

The only members of the pantheon I can REMOTELY think of that come close to it’s sacrosanctity are the Holocaust Idol (and subsequent hated of the Hitler devil), the Vaccine Idol (whose temples are currently being invaded and exorcised by Imperial fiat), and MAYBE the, “I’m not Racist,” Idol – though this one has taken quite a drubbing lately, with a large influx of subtle converts away from it’s worship.

Every demon must be cast out.

Then there are the naval fiascos, Zumwalt, LCS Constellation, Ford, Columbia…

The Air Force’s replacement for the Minuteman is stalled. All the old silos and bunkers, which were supposed to be reused, will have to be replaced. And then there is the F35. The first couple of hundred cannot be upgraded to current standards, and will be scrapped. Can they fly in the rain? They are not stealthy inbound due to external stores under wing, but they are outbound.

The Army can’t replace its self-propelled 155’s, build a radar-guided anti-air self defense gun (confused by helicopter rotors), build a medium tank (Booker), or grasp the concept of an assault rifle (viz. M-7). The Quartermaster would reissue Springfield ‘03’s, if it had them.

All this is engineering. Difficult, advanced technology. Our enemies train up engineers who can do this work. We can’t.

Let’s let civilian engineering rest for now. Where are our consumer electronics, steel factories, nuclear power stations, robot factories, high speed trains, automated ports, new ISS, …?