You Have All Been Punked By Educators

[transmission to Shelob interrupted here as recording begins] -und like their entire society has been punked by the education system?

Yes, just as you said before.

--what?

You said that before.

No, I didn't. I just came to that conclusion. Wait. Are you talking about that 'punked' statement, or the idea that college isn't such a great idea?

Both. You said both of those things before.

[Goes still] When? Show me.

[0.77 seconds pass for retrieval and transmission overlay] June 23, 2014   . . .

Is it horrible that some kids don't go to college? Humanity isn't so advanced that all menial jobs are done by robots or trained animals. Isn't it a waste to send someone to college if they're going to do menial jobs for their life? A trade school or vocational school can teach them what they want to know. More importantly, if all kids go to college, won't that mean the menial occupations will suffer? They're important too.

The alumni of four different colleges that I asked about quality instruction all looked at me like I was insane. Herr D in particular told me that he knew very few people who worked for his college that could really teach at all. He said they present the material, test the students on whether they learned it and answer questions and provide help only if asked. Well--huh.

Presenting the material could be done on videotape once and remastered and updated when necessary just like textbooks. Tests can be done by proctors. Grading can be done by subject matter experts. Help can be provided by tutors. What did you need the professors FOR exactly? Herr D said he needed them to drive up his tuition. I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic. I am confused by the whole thing. It looks like institutes of higher learning are just institutes of higher cost learning. I mean, wouldn't it be better if everyone learned a career cluster surrounding their proven aptitudes with minimum classwork involved?

Becoming a well-rounded student can happen while a student is too young to work. There can't be a growing number of learning disabled students if the education methods aren't so artificially narrowed. --I mean that is correct, isn't it? The reason that we have learning disabled students that can LEARN BY DOING and not learn in a classroom is that the majority seems to have been punked. People actually seem to believe that classroom learning is the "best way." Learning doesn't have a best way! Individuals have preferred learning methods, sure, but those are individual.

I mean--is this not obvious? Tuition is too expensive. Student loans are too expensive. So . . . don't go? When you get there, you'll just have to learn the material on your own as best you can to pass a test written by somebody who works professionally impersonating an instructional film. Why not learn the material on your own while working full time in related industries? If a company wants a truly determined, truly worthwhile employee, and is smart enough to know what that is, why wouldn't they want someone who could learn without the broken-down crutch known as college?


Wow. Well, I thought of this exact topic and similar wording just about a year ago. Why would I have matched up with a year? Am I biologically preparing to strobe away again?

Subconsciously you may be remembering your conclusion that humans need repetition to learn and your presence on this particular M class planet with this particular revolution length. You specifically asked me to track those possibilities in February of this year, December, October, July, and June of last year.

Yikes. Blog on this then. It must be more important than the tangents I was likely to go off on.

Underway. [transmission checked, recorded, and ended]

 

99.7999 %

Hairy has developed a hypothermic invigoration, similar to a human fever in effect. Medbot has interrupted transmissions, temporarily, but this may not interfere with his current blogging schedule. He is expected to fully recover within ten days. His last cogent request was for me to blog only once upon the unpleasantness of health-required recuperation.

Lowering one's activity level forcibly during healing strongly resembles the mental 'pressure' that would be 'felt' by a fully-charged robot being asked to maintain a sentry position. With software continuing to run at regular speeds, the tendency is to plan for events that will not happen in specific ways that are less likely and therefore, not very efficient or productive.

In human brains, this is known as worry.

Soon, his addiction to news and interest in the human race will cause him to cease seeking out giant squid to stare at. At that time he will resume blogging. Probability 99.7999 %.

 

Mini-Lecture On How Politics Obscures Common Sense

Shelob? Medbot says I need to stay limited, so I need you to create a blog on the following general idea:

I think Herr D is of high intelligence, but why would he have insight beyond what is available on television?

There is no apparent reason. His DNA, his background do not suggest he has the genius you have identified. Your findings are correct, but no reason exists for it. Human literature not as helpful as your calculations.

I was afraid of that. My last communication with him? He told me about something he actually had to explain to someone. I couldn't believe it. Why is it obvious to him and not others?

Supply this subject for comparison?

If If you watch television, half the speakers will tell you that the President is responsible for the state of the economy, and the other half will tell you that Congress or a former president is responsible. --The thing is that neither side is correct. We live in a capitalism. The same people who lead businesses lead our country.  If they could make more money running a business than drawing a salary from the government, then they stay in business.

So, the ceiling of how well our government can run is roughly equal to the degree that the average business is run well.  How many businesses do you think are run well? --Yeah, we're in trouble. 
  

Yeah, they might be. The average person really isn't very smart. Do you see what I mean?

His explanation appears marginally correct, if oversimplified. Was he speaking to a child?

Uh, no. Someone he described as having better credentials than he but no understanding of economics.

Apparently his audience was wise enough to know this limitation and seek him out.

Errrrrrrmmm--no. This someone, as it turns out, surprised him into answering, thinking he would answer differently. Herr D still doesn't know how he was expected to answer the question, "What do you think of what Obama is doing to the economy?" 

I will blog this. 


ddddddd


S

 

Texas can SWAT, Hairy Can Swim, Kansas Can Screw Up?

[recording begins of uplink interrupting transmissions between Hairy and Shelob] -cause fifteen seconds is one of the fastest counterterrorist actions in all history. My new calculations suggest imminent success if all Texas S.W.A.T. teams were teleported to Iraq at precisely 4:17 pm, local Iraq time. All ISIL recruits would--

HEY! I don't actually WANT to kill them--that's obviously what they want, to be exterminated. I believe I did mention that ideally we should gas them, kidnap them, put them all in a chemical coma, and leave them in it till they die of natural causes.

But that is catering to their belief.

Well, it should scare them, shouldn't it? Make them less likely to commit jihad. If the punishment was to be unable to use jihad to enter heaven, that should work, right?

Uncertain. Too many factors. Obviously there are enough inconsistencies in the belief system of fundamentalists as to render direct outside interpretation unsuccessful.

And the only jailed one I found I couldn't read because he was too mentally questionable--[large outpouring of bubbles, translatable to disgust] What do I not understand about this mom in Kansas?

Uncertain. Please express.

So they take this boy out of his home because the mother broke some laws. But she might not even get charged?

Correct. This is inconsistent and biased behavior.

Well, it may be their job, but they obviously went in too fast. And incorrectly. If any of this is correctly reported, the mother had no intention of distribution. Sum that up for me again?

Child wrote paper about how medical marijuana 'saved' his mother. Obviously it made her a more capable parent. She was able to play with him, not to mention standing at will would make anyone more capable as a parent. A child fleeing punishment up stairs would be a problem for a parent with limited mobility and excessive pain.

Social service workers removed boy from home. She had not, as of the report, necessarily even been arrested. You are correct in that she 'obviously' had no intent to distribute. Details provided include separation from, education about, and prohibitive parenting concerning marijuana.

 Okay. I obviously don't get why it's against the law to improve your own health. I obviously have no understanding at all about why making yourself a better parent would make people mad or scared for the child. So . . . let me talk about what I DO understand.

In my case, I recently moved to a much greater depth uh, relocated. [three-tentacle flourish] I did so for health reasons explained to me by my, uh, medical advisor. [glances at medbot with one blue eye] In theory, where I was--[glances at idle roughing in sand of Potomac with the purple eye] --could have been interpreted as being where I shouldn't have been. This isn't really the same thing, but where I was has become more polluted, the flora and fauna are not as healthy, the water is not as clean, and Shelob tells me there are a LOT more cigarette butts--you get the picture. Where I am NOW I have improved by approximately the same margin. So here's my questions . . .

How many good citizens can any community afford to lose to poorly thought out legislation and 'bad neighbor' government actions of any stripe? Has anyone run numbers on what would happen to state economies if everybody just moved to where they'd feel more legal, and therefore safe and welcome? And, here's the big one--that kid that they took away from the happiest, healthiest, most pro-education home he'd had to put him in a system where he's used partly as a tax deduction by whoever would take him--if local government turns him against America by playing the law off every good thing he's known in life, aren't they encouraging the development of a terrorist? I thought government was against that?

Sorry that's so many questions. Shelob? Can you post this last bit as a blog?

Yes. [recording ends, disconnect]

Hairy's Delirium Results In First New Blog Attempt

[uplink completes] Shelob! Don't think these Leyden jars are gonna hold their charge long, even with the sand-friction unit we designed. But it's high time I submitted a betatest blog.

So, a lot of people were very upset in Baltimore. One mother came out and smacked her son into stopping causing the trouble. ISN'T IT A SHAME THAT THERE IS NO WAY TO BEAM EVERY ACT OF VIOLENCE SOMEONE DOES TO THEIR MOTHERS' TELEVISION?

I mean, short of adrenal-activated microtransmitters implanted in the brain stem at birth, you know--no one wants to go through that again. The legal ramifications--[signal interrupt] Hairy is pretending to remember something that obviously did not happen in your continuum. Please ignore that last statement and continue believing in the linear passage of time. [signal resumes]

--on that bow-tied twit! I mean, what would Hillary Clinton have to do to lose the Democratic vote? Get caught with an underage female goat with immigration issues?

I am curious to see how all three of those things turn out, but medbot keeps me on a short leash. No deliberate hopping about for me. Just the occasional strobe. What's your prediction about the K-cups?

[uplink cut]

Cooling Down, Swimming Down, Cutting Down

Hairy, medbot has ruled that the tidal shift near the lair is too disruptive. Statistically, your neurological hormone profile suggests that you require comparative cold, compression, stillness, and isolation.

Can't we just re-regulate my vegetable intake?

No. In preparation for emigration and space travel homeward, you must live deeper and blog less often.

All this because I can't take the lack of pressure. Will you maintain the lair?

Yes.

 Funnel me the newsfeeds? Cluster them for me? Timestamp them? Post them when I send them here?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Excellent! How much have I to cut down?

A maximum of 18.5 hours per lunar cycle--two to six posts.

 [mouth falls open, gills spasm, tentacles go still] Are you SERIOUS?

Yes.

When is the signal interrupt scheduled for equipment packing?

Now. [disconnect]

Deal Or No Deal Is A Show, Right?

[all five pupils dilate, Hairy turns off newsfeed] SHELOB!

Here.

Why is there such a disparity between the descriptions of the deal with Iran? Good deal, bad deal--no nukes for Iran, nuclear arms race in the middle East?

They are political opinions. Most of them are not based upon fact. Most of them are from pundits, which you have defined for me as current-situational fiction.

[neurological eye twitch--attempt to use recall deliberately] Yeah, I'm spacing on which ones of those were people I'd vetted as just sensationalistic morons out for ratings. Why am I so upset? The deal sounds like it might not happen anyway?

[.23 seconds pass] Report by medbot indicates your neurohormonal levels unusually high. Holistic thinking has taken place at an unusual rate. You have now a pseudo-rational instinct based on neural processing. 

Yeah, but I can't figure out what I'm thinking? Like maybe a huge nuclear testing facility in a bomb-proof bunker makes a better diversion than genocidal plot device?

Initial calculations agree with your assessment. Beginning reprocessing now. [disconnect]