The School Sucks Project - Part 2

A new philosophy magazine called Kontext is looking for readers and contributors. The magazine is published bimonthly out of the United Kingdom and its first issue as a pdf is available for free download. The hard copy may be purchased for about $12US.
Stefan Molyneux is a contributing author (my link), and the first issue is entirely about education which is what tweaked my interest, see Part 1.

The website of Kontext has links to Freedomain Radio and Mises.org which also makes it interesting to me. But what really got me involved was the link to The School Sucks Project.
As a former teacher, I am painfully aware of some of the problems in the government-run educational bureaucracies that exist in the English speaking Western democracies, particularly Ontario. The School Sucks Project (TSSP) uses a surgeons precision to splay open the entire body of the educational system (especially in the United States) and examine the entrails, and it's not pretty. TSSP looks at everything, the origins, the purpose, the immediate and long lasting effects of the school system that has shaped each us in some way for good or ill.
This first issue of Kontext and its link TSSP, asks the right questions about our school system.  How can a system that is regulated and funded by a government bureaucracy, administered by bureaucrats whose primary job is to manage public funds, and executed by unionized teachers whose allegiance is to the system and each other rather than the clientele, deliver good service, a good education? How? It boggles the mind. Mass-produced indoctrination and socialization must by its very nature create oddities, freaks, widgets that don't work. Whose child is so worthless that s/he can be tossed aside as unfit to proceed (like a malformed widget) as so many children are now? The system truly sucks. Is it any wonder that today the political structure of these same Western democracies employs the same sorts of coercion that were ingrained into each of us by the school system? If you are instilled with collectivist ideas for 12 years you begin to think that is normal, to think like a collectivist. It's not normal, we are each of us different in some way, and those differences cannot not be accommodated by the school system as it is.
Kontext offers its readers an alternative to the established model, its worth reading and promoting. I look forward to the next issue in April that will look at "People and Movements." Good luck!

Watson wins Jeopardy!

If you missed the historic win of Watson the computer on TV, here is the brief YouTube version, enjoy:

"Mr Watson—Come here—I want to see you"

Did anyone seriously believe that the humans could beat IBM's Watson computer in Jeopardy! last week? Did you seriously think that IBM would screwup the advertising coup of the year to Ken Jennings? I didn't even bother watching, but that does not mean I'm not impressed with the result. This was a major step since IBM's Chess contests with Gary Kasparov in 1996 and 97. Deep Blue beat Kasparov in May 1997, after first losing to him the previous year. That computers can play chess is no big deal these days, but understanding Jeopardy! clues, is another issue.
Next year (2012) is The Alan Turing Year and maybe IBM is planning to crack the Turing Test and win the Loebner Prize for the first computer to fool humans into thinking they are talking to a human, maybe. Passing The Turing Test would be a major step in Artificial Intelligence research and since it took 25 researchers and four years to teach Watson to play Jeopardy!, I have my doubts.
Both chess and Jeopardy! have much in common, they are both games, somewhat predictable with rules, although Jeopardy! is much broader in scope, and more difficult because of the language aspect, neither really compares well to real life situations. However if the "real-life" situation is somewhat confined to a particular occupation, Watson may become an interesting help mate. This link will open a TED webpage that features a discussion with one of Watson's creators and some of the implications of this type of technology.
It seems Canadian medical schools are being accused of bad-mouthing family practitioners at a time when a shortage of this type of physician is possible because of aging boomers like me. Medical schools seem to have a bias to specialties for their students instead of family practice, and as a result less than one-third of medical students show interest in that field.
Here is a possible role for Watson, that is, program it so that it might be able to interact with human patients in a medical practice. Could Watson in real time assist in diagnosing ailments while freeing up physicians to do physical exams or other things? One of the major complaints that I can see in Canadian medicine is face time with physicians so that they can hear the patient's whole story. Of course this is the value of the family practitioner, s/he can discover all aspects of patient health IF they had the time. Furthermore, computers never have bad days, spats with their spouse or partner, headaches or get sidetracked by chatty patients. Computers will execute their program, ask ALL the pertinent questions, and a nuanced computer like a Watson, could get a useful chunk of data that a human doctor could miss. It's a thought anyway, but not that far-fetched as you can see here. 

Welcome to New Hampshire.....

No income tax, no general sales tax, less taxes in general and relatively limited government, if you think like a libertarian, you might like New Hampshire.
ReasonTV has a very interesting interview with one of the producers of a documentary that:  "follows one man who is walking across the country to raise awareness about the Free State Project, another who already moved to New Hampshire and works as an advocate for medical marijuana patients, and a Ron Paul-inspired teenager who decides to leave his friends and family in California to live in New Hampshire."