Skeptic Project

I wrote this for you guys. Discuss so I can give you my research paper when it is done.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=217776

You and I have never spoken, so I hope that criticism and disagreement doesn't come off as an attack here, but there are some things I feel should be said:

You wrote:

Around the time that we go on to middle school and we start to go through puberty, we experience a shift in consciousness. Our hunger for knowledge begins to shut down when it is overloaded with general information from every aspect of life that public schools today feel is necessary to teach. There is no sense of responsibility. If you do not complete your assigned homework, the worst you will endure is a stern talking to. Slowly how much we care about furthering our knowledge in public school diminishes. During this time we are asked, “You can be anything you want, but, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Your entire argument (though I cannot say I am totally convinced of what your argument is) turns on moments like this; an unsubstantiated assertion. In reading this critically, moments like this give the reader reason to pause. Either they agree with you because of their own personal experience and observation or they disagree with you, like me, for the same. I do not disagree with the underlying assumption that there are problems with our education system, but you appear to want to find some unquantified transformation within the student as a critical, compounding factor in a series of failures. Of course, to disprove this generalization, all one requires is a counter point in order to force you to qualify your statements. What evidence do you have for a "shift in consciousness" and what evidence do you have that the majority of people are victims of this rather than poor, foundational education?

Furthermore, you appear to make a loop from education, especially from the middle-school to the college levels relies far too much on "general education" which is not suited for preparing students back to a need to include internet-literacy in education. However, there is a very convincing counter point, and one I firmly believe in. Without such education I would argue that we decrease critical thinking because students become heavily hobbled in their ability to grapple with concepts beyond their expertise. As for questions of internet literacy, I would agree but also mention that at the college level, in my own experience, there is an emphasis on finding credible sources. Now when you ask "why do we have so many college drop outs" you offer an explanation but no citation. I understand that this is just a short piece, but still such an assertion demands evidence.

In essence, I believe we have very different ideas about education. I would say education in the country is not rigorous enough, and that those reforms you seek are achievable through an incorporation of a more rigorous general education and teaching children to learn from an early age. We agree there are problems with our education system. But I find your paper to rest on a set of axioms that are either questionable or unsubstantiated.

I grade student essays as part of my work. I'd give this one about a C.

The writing style is good--your sentences are coherent and well-structured.

However, this essay is not persuasive as a piece of argumentation. As Kaiser pointed out the argument doesn't hang together very well, and it's so broadly general as to be almost meaningless. There are also no cites to anything, no specific examples, nothing to back up what it is you're saying.

You do seem like a Zeitgeister, which is pretty consistent with the whole tone of the essay.

You know, I didn't notice this was posted on an other forum. Whether switch adheres to Zeitgeist doctrines or not is irrelevant to me, because there are clearly some issues with the argument all on its own.

I do not need any sources, because I am the only source of what I wrote. My entire life experience up to this day is my source. I make such sweeping generalizations because I look around and this is what I saw happening all around me. The only tool I need to accomplish the task of fleshing my arguments out is the internet.

This justification immediately raises some very serious problems. I could give an exact opposite account of education from the middle school to the college level and we'd have two accounts that have at least some relationship to experienced reality. It appears, switch, that you have created an emic account without being able (or taking the time) to realize such. What I am trying to say is that you claim you don't need citation because you are your own citation, but this claim completely hobbles your argument from the outset. Again, my own account would be just as valid as yours, but neither would accurately reflect structural issues or make a convincing case about the phenomenon at hand.

At the heart of it, you assert that all you need to produce "truth" is an account and a platform (the "internet") without regards to whether or not your account is a valid point to generalize upon. Your piece that I looked at in my first post (and which I have reread three times) still poses the glaring fault in that almost everything can be contested with a personal story or counter example. Muertos is right, there is this glaring lack of persuasiveness in your article. And while you are perfectly free to express your view, you should not confuse your experience as being the average, the norm, or the standard.

anyone else notice that my word of the day appears to be "hobbled"?

Dude, he flat out talks about RBE in his final post in the thread over on the Starcraft forum.

I wouldn't really call that a "comment section," I call it a "thread on a message board."

Which is why I don't believe for a second he wrote this for us like he claims. The boy is simply dishonest.

19 replies vs 2490 views. I think its reasonable to assume that this is not the only forum he claimed to have written this for.

Only a Zeitard would think spamming a link to a post on a stupid Starcraft forum is a good idea.

Now I'm upset I actually wrote a reply to this guy. I do not suffer fools well, nor do i appreciate wasted time.

well, i knew that. I just thought he would hang around to see the criticism he got.

I don't mind that much I'm glad I wrote it in that TZM/TVP is the reason I feel is a indication that the educational systems are failing though. If they had the proper education they would know enough not to buy into that stuff.

Also he admits to being a college drop out which shows he has something against education. A college education isn't THAT BAD that one would need to drop out of college. I say it's ok for now but it could be way better as it would benefit people like Switch not to adopt ridiculous ideologies.

If you recall in english classes they usually tell you to have your peers edit your literary works. Since I am a recent college dropout, I have no place else to share my musings with people.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=217776#20

Internet education leads to people thinking posting shit on Starcraft message boards is a research paper and watching YouTube videos is research.

So yeah, Internet education is a bunch of shit.

Y'all got snookered by a college dropout who just wants to spread RBE awareness. He was dishonest right off the bat, dunno why you'd be surprised.

Bill, RBOSE is full of Internet educated kids.

How did that work out for them? I'll tell you how it worked out for them: They're a bunch of retarded conspiracy theorists with no direction.

@Agent Matt When I was working at such jobs as foundry's, construction, and the military you had to work with all sorts of people including criminals. When I say criminals either they have been to prison or they have tear drop tats on their face indicating that they killed people or maybe they put it their for show. I've worked with some interesting people on open source projects as well. I think I can work with just about anybody to an extent.