Goodbye America?

A friend alerted me to some alarming information that came as no surprise.

NYT opinion piece with embedded video:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/gathering-storm-approaching-cate...

associated pdf file with factoids:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12999

2006 PISA results:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/13/39725224.pdf

The analysis of the 2009 test will be published in December. It's unlikely that the results will have shifted dramatically. As predicted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/education/07education.html?_r=1&ref=gen...

More on OECD/PISA:
http://www.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_32252351_32236191_39718850_1_1_1_1,0...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• education
• research
• science
• US
• China
• India
• test
• PISA
• OECD
• creationism
• religion
• politics
• standards

[musekiteer]

@colourmegone

You are getting gradually more offensive, and continue to flog the same unsubstantiated message.

Go and spend your retirement somewhere else.

[colourmegone]

@musekiteer "read Colin Renfrew" not even your own mistake then. And so would cathedrals and temples for awhile, does that mean the idea that built them, i.e. the god concept, is objectively real? The Medieval priesthood exchanged the god concept for massive wealth in the form of lands, goods and services. This is still going on all over the world, we also exchange the money concept in much the same way. And no, I'm not Jewish, do grow up!

[musekiteer]

@colourmegone

For "tectonic," read Colin Renfrew.

If humans vanished, money (coinage, notes) would continue to exist. Money would simply lose its exchange value without government support for assigned value. You failed to make the point that money is equivalent to deities. You could exchange $1 mil for tangibles, but God-concepts for nothing.

You made the category error of conflating a pure invention with assigned value.

"QED"? Who do you think you are---Baruch Spinoza?

[colourmegone]

@musekiteer I already thought about it, it's nonsense. "It was Greek to me!" I have made my point without resorting to metaphore, simile or hyperbole although the latter is tempting.

When there are no more humans

Then there will be no more money.

Therefore money is a human concept and has no objective reality.

I can't put it any more simply. And don't bother me with some sophistry about the universe retaining patterns in a sort of homoepathic concept of "memory".

[colourmegone]

@musekiteer I already thought about it, it's nonsense. Or, to quote Shakespeare, "It was Greek to me!" I have made my point without resorting to metaphore, simile or hyperbole although the latter is tempting.

When there are no more humans

Then there will be no more money.

Therefore money is a human concept and has no objective reality.

I can't put it any more simply. And don't bother to mither on about the universe retaining patterns in a sort of homoepathic concept of "memory".

[musekiteer]

@colourmegone

The adjective derives from the Greek.

I suggest that you go away and think about it.

[colourmegone]

@musekiteer "Human *culture* comprises concepts and tektonic manifestations of concepts." This is nonsense, if you mean "tectonic" it doesn't make much sense either. "Tectonic pertaining to building or construction; constructive; architectural", as you can see from its dictionary definition unless you're talking about the history of architecture your statement is meaningless.

Money is a belief, it isn't any more factual than any other belief, when humans cease to exist so will money.

QED.

[musekiteer]

@colourmegone

You are distorting facts to fit your biases. Human *culture* comprises concepts and tektonic manifestations of concepts.

The Middle Ages in Europe were dominated by a much higher 90/10 ratio than is the modern age. You brought up the topic of feudalism. That was an oligarchic system created by warlords to preserve wealth and power---the reality actually runs counter to your clearly leftist biases. Just to be clear, I'm somewhat left of middle.

[colourmegone]

@musekiteer "humans have used symbolic tokens" Exactly, money is a human idea, just like god/s. It wasn't so very long ago that god/s filled exactly the same position in human conciousness that money does now. The entire Middle Ages was as obsessedwith the idea of worship of god as the modern era is with materialism. Materialism is a great improvement but that doesn't mean that money isn't a belief, and belief systems produce dogma which produces fundamentalism.

[musekiteer]

@colourmegone

Money exists. Even without money, humans have used symbolic tokens of exchange (seashells, for example). There is no evidence for extra-conceptual existence of any deity.

We work for money because it is an efficient medium of exchange in complex societies. This is not equivalent to worship, though some are greedy.

We might be "created equal" before modern laws in enlightened democracies, but we are not equal in meritocracies, and certainly not in *any* oligarchy.