msg3
I also have to disagree that "twitter speak and memes" is not intelligent communication -- just because something is new, doesn't mean it's less intelligent.
You can't expect a school to teach every child every skill they need for their adult life. It sounds like you were able to teach yourself the skills you needed to succeed -- in my eyes, producing children able to self-teach is the sign of a very successful school system.
Learning to write and perform basic maths doesn't seem that hard to us, but for most of human history was the reserve of a select few. Perhaps the fact that it seems so easy is actually because school can be quite effective at times?
One thing that is often missing from these conversations is that arguably the goal of education isn't really to teach you any specific skill, but rather to give you the capability to learn things by yourself.
Part of this process will necessarily mean teaching you things like reading and writing, but whenever I hear "My school didn't teach me X, so I had to teach myself, wasn't my school terrible", I think "no, probably not."
Room for improvement? Yes, hugely. Total failure? I think that's hyperbole.
From his perspective though, he doesn't lose anything by sending the follow up, and if it is the second case, may gain a sale.
I'm suggesting that we re-direct some of the funding for training PhD students into funding for postdoctoral positions (via either fellowships or research grants). Professors would still get their research team, but rather than consisting mostly of untrained PhD students, they'd have a smaller, but more effective team of trained researchers.
A tenure lottery seems like an extreme option - there has to be a middle ground between what we have now and something entirely random.
A better solution would be to stop overproducing PhDs. We could reduce funding for PhD students and re-direct that towards more postdoctoral positions - perhaps even make research scientist a viable career choice?
If I was an employee of a climate action advocacy group, wouldn't publicly stating that the climate is not in danger cause harm to my employer? Should they be forced to continue employing me despite that harm?
Again, I'm not advocating that this person should be fired, but it feels like overreach to say that it shouldn't be possible for someone to be fired for what they say.
No - legally and morally, this is not OK.
> If a church (not a legal entity) asked its members to spit on your face and abuse you on the internet?
Morally, I'd say this was wrong, but legally, I think they would be within their rights. But equally, if I were to respond by encouraging my friends to protest outside the church, I wouldn't be violating their right to freedom of speech.
> If you were immediately fired?
This would depend on the country and my contract, but I'd hope that immediate dismissal would be a violation of my labour rights - not my right to free speech.
I think this is a very good way of putting things. However, when it comes to answering the question, there's two ways of thinking about it -- how do I map other's speech to consequences with my actions (i.e morally) and how does the government map speech to consequences (i.e legally). I think only this second way of thinking is where the "right to free speech" comes in.
The view that I'm advocating is that I want the government to support a relatively strong version of free speech (i.e you should be able to say what you want without fear of being persecuted by the government, bar a few exceptions), but my personal map of speech to consequences is for me to decide. This means, for example, that I may choose to stop supporting a particular business because of something one of their employees have said, and may even shout about it on Twitter, but doing so wouldn't be an infringement of their right to free speech (it may be morally questionable).
This might seem a bit pedantic, but I do think it's important. If something is a violation of someone's rights then there doesn't need to be any further discussion - it shouldn't be allowed. I think claiming that this is a free speech issue is not only wrong, but also shuts down much needed discussion about where we set the limits of our tolerance.
Personally, I'd prefer to live in a society where people are encouraged to have frank and respectful exchanges of views, and I'd prefer to work for a business where I'm not afraid to share my views, but equally where political discussion is not a large part of workplace culture.
But that's just my preference _- we're not discussing what should happen, but what rights people have, and no, I don't think you have the right to say whatever you like and keep your job.
That doesn't mean your boss should fire you because he disagrees with something you said, but it does mean it should be possible, provided you are accorded due process.
The context of this thread (expressing political opinions at work) makes me think the other types of consequence are more relevant for this discussion though.
If I was to say something offensive, I should be accorded due process, but the result of that process may be that I'm let go.
Are you really saying that it should be impossible for someone to lose their job over what they say? If someone, for example, threatened to kill a co-worker, you don't think they should be fired? I appreciate that this is an extreme example, but when we talk about rights, don't we have to cover all examples of speech?
I'd agree that social media mobs trying to get people fired is a bad thing, that it's become too easy to whip up such mobs, and that as a society we should try to be more tolerant of other views. But I don't see somebody losing a job over something they've said as a rights issue - you don't have a right to a job.
You want your speech to be free from consequences -- i.e if you were to call someone a liar / cheat, they can't change their opinion of you based on what you've said? How is that compatible with their freedom of thought?
To me, freedom of speech means I shouldn't worry about legal repercussions for expressing wrongthink.
There is perhaps a separate discussion to be had about the sort of society we want to live in - do we want to promote open discussion, even if it can be divisive? But I don't think it's really a rights issue unless the consequences progress from social / economic to legal.
It's been a while since I read the book (Bad Samaritans I think it's called), but I believe he offered them large government backed loans to move out of palm oil production and into more profitable areas like semiconductors.
I don't think the ESL was really about addressing the problem of low quality matches, but I really hope this doesn't stop all innovation in football. I think compared to other sports (Rugby, Cricket and NFL come to mind), football is too conservative about making changes that actually improve fans enjoyment of the game. I've certainly found myself watching switching over to other sports over the last 10 or so years.
I'm glad the ESL idea has fallen through as it seemed to be poorly thought out, but I hope this doesn't stop all attempts at innovation in European football. I think there are far too many uncompetitive games (both in the CL and EPL), and I'm quite fed up of the top teams buying up all the best talent, even just to sit on the bench.
If the government supports the development of a chocolate production industry, including support for cocoa exporters, then it has every chance of success.