Facebark stole 2/3rds of our crowd maybe even more.

The Pied Piper of the Internet and some of our brightest denizens skipped along happily behind the Grand Zucker.

Taibbi: Censorship Does Not End Well

Yeah, that was a choice line.  I too was concerned about Jones getting the ax on Facebook.  We're back to, who watches the watchers? 

I think we've moved beyond "they're not teaching critical thinking in schools" to resolve this problem.  They never did and some of us managed to stumble across it anyway.  We might be approaching the inevitable swirl down the drain that is The Marching Morons.  I hope our robot masters take control soon.

Smudge wrote:

Baywolfe wrote:

I think we've moved beyond "they're not teaching critical thinking in schools" to resolve this problem.  They never did and some of us managed to stumble across it anyway.

Exactly.

Only parents can teach critical thinking, schools just don't have the capability or capacity.  Teach your children well peoples - it's the only actual value you can pass on to them.

I don't think it has to be that way; critical thinking is simply a set of skills and perspectives which can be both taught and learned.

Given the poor state of our educational system, however, I suspect that you're right.

I think you learn the skills by being around really smart people who know how to think, and who respect you enough to treat you like you're an idiot whenever you fail to use your head and think things through. I had a couple of professors who taught me a lot.

It's handed down one on one from somebody who cares about you enough to make the effort, and shame provides the motivation.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

I just think you need to be around someone who has the tenacity to watch you fail and understand that failure is part of the process and how to deal with it instead of letting it scare you into inactivity. Critical thinking starts with applying it to yourself and your own actions.

And learning to ask why, what is the root cause of anything?  Over and over again.

Baywolfe wrote:

Marcus Aurelius.

Over-rated and had tiny hands.

Baywolfe wrote:

Geeze, what does that make you by comparison, a fucking amoeba?

By the way, "what is the root cause of anything?" was his gig almost two millennia before your sorry existence.

I am Marcus Emmeranus, I am LEGEND.  All others pale in comparison

Emmeran wrote:

choad wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

Only parents can teach critical thinking

If I acquired any critical thinking skills at all, I guarantee none of them came from family.

My father taught me by abandoning me, I figured out I had to figure shit out or beat it into oblivion.

So did mine and I almost hate to confess this but my first brush with critical thinking arrived in Sunday School when I was 11. Our instructor, a Harvard Professor, gave us a broad survey course in comparative religion: who believes what, why and where. Wasn't until he unrolled a world map, dotted lines connecting the faithful, that the lightbulb went off. Epiphany? "Those are trade routes," I said. "And those other guys are their competition!"

I'd just read Pohl‎'s and ‎Kornbluth's 'The Space Merchants'.

As time passed and I realized I could never afford a conventional education, I resorted to obsessing over university course catalogs and sent hundreds of the short form-letter below. The responses were wonderful.

Dear [...]

I'm tutoring my nephew in [name that course] and the knucklehead has either lost or forgotten to forward your course syllabus/reading list.

Please drop a copy into dept mail?

Otherwise, he flunks out, won't find a job, and I'll have to hire him.

Stamped envelope enclosed.

Last edited by choad (2018-08-16 20:52:18)

Emmeran wrote:

Mugwump wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

I am Marcus Emmeranus, I am LEGEND.  All others pale in comparison

...in his own mind ?

Does being a legend any place else really matter?

...absolutely not....keep up the good work

FB Bilked Kids & Their Parents, Calling It, "Friendly Fraud".

choad wrote:

https://cruelery.com/sidepic/gratefuldead.png

~ click ~

As far as I am concerned, it is the land of the dead now, or numb in the head.  I used to get banned there for publishing art that might have a nipple or a cock, but now I get banned for Octopus videos etc that are free floating on Imgur/Reddit/Here.

I used to use FB to curate art and to sell mine, but with the last few bans I am having to figure out a work around or a complete new strategy sans FB.  God, I hates that place.  With that said, I have reconnected with friends going back 50 years, so on that side of things, fine. 

I prefer this place except when we become an echo chamber on some subjects, but heavens, at least there is actual content here not flogged by Russian Trolls, or Flaky Leftist.  As a deep anarchist I appreciate all views, and the discussions that go with them. And I don't have to reach consensus with any of you Wombats, so that is a bonus.

After all of these years Choad has stayed true to the mission statement he buried in the backyard.  You Fuckers are stuck with me, and now just to get Georgie Girl and a few others to come home to roost, I would be in heaven.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

All of my relatives are dead to me so I don't need to bother with FB

choad wrote:

Thirteen Reasons Why.

It's become a popular topic for people to make money.  In 2018, Karen Gillan (Nebula, Martha/Ruby Roundhouse, Amy Pond) wrote, directed, and starred in The Party's Just Beginning in which "When her best friend takes his own life, Liusaidh has to deal with stresses of such a situation."