I mean, this wasn’t the friendliest opening statement and I don’t blame anyone for being in a bad mood to begin with this morning

Do you think the department of education writes the textbooks, standardized tests (SAT, ACT, etc.), grading and student management software, learning management systems (Google Classroom, Canvas), or manufactures its own classroom tech (Chromebooks, tablets)?

Each one of those has a bunch of particular nuances, but in general - yeah, I think they could and should in a lot of those cases

The education system is full of for-profit businesses that can jack up the prices, and they do.

Yeah, it’s a big problem with a lot of little parts to be tackled

The DOE simply doesn’t have the resources to create these things themselves

Then government should give them the resources (actually, I think a whole separate agency that develops open source software for any government agency or anyone else who wants to use them should be established, but that’s kind of besides the point).

and would cost them far more if they tried

I don’t think that’s true, and even if it were I think we should be willing to pay premium to make sure essential systems that support the public good are being administered in democratic ways (e.g. by public agencies that are required to give public reports to elected lawmakers and be subject to citizens’ FOIA requests).

the business model has existed forever

A lot of stupid ideas hang on for a really long time. Like, we still have monarchies in the 21st century world.

Personally, I’m more concerned with the use of Google products in schools. A company that’s sole business is harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers should have no place in schools or children’s products. But they’ve embedded themselves into everything so people just accept it at the cost of privacy

I 100% agree this is a significant problem too, I just haven’t come across any good articles about it recently

They tried to do a themed Among Us game, but when they removed the ability of crewmates to criticize each others’ votes it just made the imposters win every round

e; That was a joke (probably should be obvious, but I’m not trying to spread disinformation out here)

Exactly, they’re a captive audience, and moreover they are legally incompetent to consent to a contracted business relationship like this

If this was a department of education AI or even some kind of transparently administered non-profit organization I’d be fine with this, but the fact that this is being developed for some for profit company that can just jack their rates and cut off public schools whenever they want to is bullshit. Like, I’m not opposed to the technology of LLMs at all, I think they’re actually pretty neat, but our social and economic systems have a lot of exploitative trash in them that cool technologies can inadvertently exacerbate.

TBH I don’t want have to change at all, I’m just saying in the magic genie scenario I’d wish that people agreed with me

I wish I was persuasive

I didn’t realize the anti-immigrant sentiment had gotten to this level in so much of the population

I think the causation is backwards here, a lot of low engagement voters just assume that the best policies are somewhere to the left of whatever the GOP wants and to right of whatever the Dems are pushing for, but they keep thinking that even as the Dems move to the right.

Dems were thinking if independents saw that they’d respect the Dems willingness to compromise or whatever, but Indies saw that and just decided “Oh, I guess immigration really is a problem like the Republicans were saying all along, even the Democratic party thinks we need a border wall now.”

e; an attempt at better phrasing

Survey methodology is described in detail here - https://www.prri.org/research/challenges-to-democracy-the-2024-election-in-focus-findings-from-the-2024-american-values-survey/#page-section-12 (archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/FtPGJ)

MARTIN: It’s interesting, 'cause I covered the White House in the administration of George H. W. Bush, and I knew about it. But then when I’ve talked to colleagues about it, they didn’t know about it, and people are continually surprised.

Maybe because news publishers like NPR and CNN never put that detail in the headlines of their stories that brush up against this open secret

“Imposing any kind of environmental regulations in businesses would destroy the entire economy, concludes team of economists paid by those businesses. Coming up next - are you doing enough to protect your family from dangerous toxins in our environment? We’ll tell you what a dumb and lazy piece of shit you are, after these ads!”

There are more than three things

Not everything that is worth discussing has a source. Abstract ideas and hypothetical scenarios (among other things) have their places in rhetoric and communication.

A lot of people who think they’re saying “[actual fact]” are really just stating “[subjective opinion]” and call any criticism of their opinions “[incoherent rage]”

If the Wikipedia page on expungement is accurate there is some sort of process where it will get sealed from public view after a certain amount of time has passed.

I do agree if this is a one off thing it shouldn’t haunt the rest of her life, especially given the fact that we’re talking about a thirteen year old who was a victim of (at best) extremely negligent caregiving.

Conservatives when a criminal justice system is punishing someone they don’t like: “Blood for the blood god!”

Conservatives when someone’s held accountable for a hate crime: “What has happened to our humanity?!”

Disagree, people spend money with the intention of influencing the outcome of elections all the time, that’s all campaign ads and canvasses and phone banks and etc. are

And they’re not paying people to vote - they’re paying people to make a plan to vote (and make an apology and send a tweet, but I think those are irrelevant), which is something that campaign volunteers talk about with potential voters all the time

“They asked me how well I understood class consciousness. I said I was a member of the conscious class. They said welcome aboard.”

Ah, you’re totally right,thank you, I’d been using those interchangeably without thinking about it much

Synthesis: everyone should have a well constructed residence with ample sound dampening where late night fireworks and early morning traffic noise wouldn’t be a problem. Capitalist real estate developers minimizing their costs and maximizing their profits have us fighting each other when they’re the real problem.

e; I was actually thinking microphones would pick up and retransmit sounds after running it through some reverb and flanging to get a cozy underwater effect, but damping external sounds makes a lot more sense

The President Called all the Artists by Micah Sommersmith