And if it's unfair to ask you to offer some way of changing things, then it's equally unfair (or meaningless) to complain about our school systems going about things the wrong way. You want it changed, but you don't want to be bothered about how to change it. So what do you want? To be recognized as dissatisfied? As valuing the right things in a world that doesn't? — csalisbury

So what are you saying? That we all agree we're getting it wrong, but don't talk about it unless you have a way to improve it? That makes no sense anyway, but I have already given a negative recipe for improvement, which is to stop doing what is being done to the extent of leaving some room for relationships. Leave time for teachers to listen and respond to students, and recognise the importance of this.

It's not something that doesn't happen, most of us have had a great teacher at some time, who established a real relationship with us. But the system does not value this, does not look to enhance it and does not leave room for it. So yes, I want to be recognised as dissatisfied, along with all those who agree that there is a problem. I want to get as clear as possible about what the problem is and why we have fallen into it.

What I cannot and will not do is try to prescibe relationships. It cannot be done and must not be done because that demand for prescription is the problem and stopping that is the solution. It is exactly your demand of me, that I shall provide a solution or admit that nothing can be done that is the problem. It is a way of looking at people - students and teachers that is instrumental and so dehumanising.

I am trying to teach you, to reach you, to get you to look at your own way of looking, and offering you an alternative, more human way of doing things; What do I want? I want to move you.

I have found out where the truth is. It is in the two-goldfish-breaking-out-of-the-bowl god.

Philosophy is also a language, so would that make it the highest music? — TimeLine

I don't find that languages come in a heap with one at the top. They're more like a rack of spanners - choose the right one for the job.

Music is another language. One needs a certain mastery of the mechanics of a language; having which one forgets it while using it in the urgency of communication. Or then again one can master the language but find one has nothing to say to anyone.

Join a band, dude, having a communication on one's own is really hard.

20th century capitalism defied Marx's predictions by thriving because (a) the nation-state spent a great deal more on non-transfer payments for welfare than in previous centuries, on transfers like pensions, and on the military; and (b) mass markets opened up, in a virtuous circle where better-paid workers bought everything from Henry Ford's cars to Amazon's books. These were the two fundamental sources of vastly-increased aggregate demand that made a lot of people richer than their forebears.

I don't see why there won't continue to be mass markets. — mcdoodle

I haven't explained that very clearly. The virtuous circle came about because of labour power, not the efforts of capital. Organised labour was able to demand better pay and redistribution by governments. Now if I am right that the source of wealth is production, which means agriculture, mining, manufacturing and so on, then the automation ofthose processes, and never mind that lawyers and janitors are not going to be robotised, means that 1. wealth is not being distributed through wages, and 2. labour demands for redistribution lose their power.

So one sees the roll-back of worker protection, of progressive taxation, and so on. My local economy is almost entirely service industry. The product is holiday services - bed and breakfast, shopping, entertainment. This works fine as long as the holiday makers have money, which they get ultimately from production somewhere else. Robot production cuts off the source. Now that source could easily be replaced by a basic income, say, financed by a capital/wealth tax. But I don't see much sign of it, or of any power that has the interest to demand it.

What's to be done? — mcdoodle

The question is more so, 'who is going to do it?' The what is easy; good environmental policies and strong redistributive policies. The problem is that governments are national, and capital is global and we are going to become the tragedy of the commons because of it. And the rise of nationalism is exactly the wrong way to be going.

Edit: This is too cryptic even for my taste: "The problem is that governments are national, and capital is global and we are going to become the tragedy of the commons because of it." The worker/consumer is the 'commons' that producers all make use of but none has an incentive to invest in. It's a twist, but I think it still bites.

Absolutely. There's a few of those being rightly celebrated, though I suspect some are really adult jokes. I can do without the 'blonde' cliche though, It's an insult to Trump and everyone who shares his hair colour.

- personally I haven't really ever failed when I tried something. If I thought I was going to fail I wouldn't try. I only tried when I was quite certain I'll succeed. — Agustino

You're missing out then. But I suspect this is just a matter of terminology. To get from can't drive to can drive, one has to start with can't drive, and start driving, preferably somewhere quiet and with someone to intervene before one hits a tree. One overcomes the failure there; the test is not where one learns anything

Well I'm venting my spleen there of course. There was a piece on the radio the other day about the value of failure. A head teacher who consciously embraced failure as valuable, as part of learning and improving, and wanted teachers and pupils alike not to fear it for themselves or despise it in others.

There are other things happening in education, and I suppose it is up to us philosophers to try and hold the space open for such ideas and relationships to develop.

Imagine we put failure on the curriculum, and set tests. For a pass, you have to turn up but not answer any of the questions, but for a distinction, stay away altogether. :D

It's easy to register a complaint. What do you want to do about it? — csalisbury

Well, I want to discuss. I want folks to acknowledge that teaching and learning is more than can be specified by a curriculum and measured by test scores, and then I want space, time and freedom to be left for it to happen. It's a rather unfair question really to ask me to specify a method for achieving something that I have just characterised as impossible to specify, and set goals for.

But there is always a meta-learning happening, regardless. One teaches to the test, but in so doing one teaches that only test performance matters, that wrong answers have no value, that speculation and exploration are a waste of time.

"Dear parents

We would like to remind you that magic words such as hello, please, you’re welcome, I’m sorry, and thank you, all begin to be learned at home
It’s also at home that children learn to be honest, to be on time, diligent, show friends their sympathy, as well as show utmost respect for their elders and all teachers.
Home is where they learn to be clean, not talk with their mouths full, and how/where to properly dispose of garbage.
Home is also where they learn to be organized, to take good care of their belongings, and that it’s not ok to touch others.
Here at school, on the other hand, we teach language, math, history, geography, physics, sciences, and physical education. We only reinforce the education that children receive at home from their parents.

Thus a Facebook meme of a school notice.

Actually, language too, and a great deal else is taught at home. I have to say that I never want to teach anyone that it is not ok to touch others. Otherwise,I have some sympathy with this view, that schools cannot do more than the mechanics of education, that they can only build on what has already been learned.

Yet here they are, laying out the very values that they claim are unteachable, and demanding that they be taught by parents. Because these values are just those things that cannot be taught by recitation, and tested by exam, but they are also inevitably taught through relationship and environment. I wonder if teachers would care to hear from parents in the same vein?

Dear teachers,

I teach my child respect by showing her respect, just as I taught her to speak by talking to her, and not at her. She comes to you aged 4 with an insatiable curiosity and hunger to learn about everything, with confidence and enthusiasm to relate to adults and children, with her own developing personality, and with a need to participate in the community and feel valued and appreciated.

And in a few short years, you do your best to turn here into a bored, sullen uncooperative unhappy box ticking non-entity. You do this by treating her as an object, by showing no interest in her as a person, and then you have the temerity to blame the parents.

This would be a reification of truth, rather than of conformity? — Banno

Well on one interpretation, this is the reification: "Reality cannot be post-truth, of course."

Knowing you, I think you mean that truth does not apply to reality, but to statements, but it it is a common usage to say that 'the truth is what is the case.' and that is the slide of meaning that allows 'post truth' a purchase; reality being the noumenon and so inaccessible and so on.

Poetry.

It's a restless hungry feeling
That don't mean no one no good
When ev'rything I'm a-sayin'
You can say it just as good
You're right from your side
I'm right from mine
We're both just one too many mornings
An' a thousand miles behind. — His Bobness

Reality cannot be post-truth, of course. — Banno

There's an interesting slippage of meaning, from ...

"Reality cannot be post-truth, of course." is true.

to...

Reality is the truth.

Statements are true in virtue of conforming to reality, v truth is the reality to which true statements conform.

(Mutters something about the reification of conformity.)

Individuals are embedded in a social context, so one of those potentials is, ipso facto, the capacity to function in the given social context. Hence some grasp of language, mathematics, art, science and social science is implicit in education; together with the capacity to deal with others. — Banno

Yes, exactly. There seems to be broad agreement here so far, that education involves indoctrination and liberation together. The point I am trying to get to by making the distinction is not that one should be pursued and the other neglected, but that one is measurable, testable, and predictable, and the other is not.

One cannot have a qualification, a competition, a hierarchy, of liberation; it isn't that sort of thing. And this means that this aspect of education is not amenable to science and scientific psychology. It is quite close to the problem of defining the value of philosophy, which philosophy professors' inability to articulate led to the closure of several departments in my country. No product, no funding.

And so there is a strong tendency, amongst politicians particularly, to neglect what cannot be measured, or fitted into a neat slogan. There is much talk here of 'failing schools'. And failure is failure in the measurable, in the grasp of language, mathematics, etc. Failure to bring forth the potential in other ways does not register.

Godzilla rises from the Pacific and decides he fucking hates Tokyo.

Why won't it happen?

And btw... if you can't explain why it won't happen, that means it's inevitable. — Mongrel

It won't happen because the Guardian says that Godzilla is not real, and ebythink the Grauniad sais is ture.

Well that was all very interesting. I confess my statistics are not entirely up to the job, but allowing a little charity that Mr Autor is not trying to baffle us with his statistics, the point is well taken and I have been somewhat simplistic in joining up disparate dots.

A final point, typically neglected in recent dismal prophesies of machine-human substitution, is that if human labor is indeed rendered superfluous by automation, then our chief economic problem will be one of distribution, not of scarcity. The primary system of income distribution in market economies is rooted in labor scar- city; citizens possess (or acquire) a bundle of valuable “human capital” that, due to its scarcity, generates a flow of income over the career path. If machines were in fact to make human labor superfluous, we would have vast aggregate wealth but a serious challenge in determining who owns it and how to share it. One might presume that with so much wealth at hand, distribution would be relatively straightforward to resolve. But history suggests that this prediction never holds true. There is always perceived scarcity and ongoing conflict over distribution, and I do not expect that this problem will become any less severe as automation advances. — Autor

But distribution and not scarcity is already the problem, and the engine of fair distribution is collective power which is in decline, and inequality is correspondingly rising. The decline in manufacturing jobs is compensated by a rise in service jobs (simplifying as usual). I notice a sudden increase in nail-bar establishments round here. But service jobs leverage little power in terms of the effect of a strike.

I'm probably being old-fashionedly ignorant again, but it seems to me that the service industry must piggyback on manufacturing, in the sense that we can all do each others nails and clean each others premises and sell each other goods as busily as we like, but if we do not produce anything, our economy is fucked. This is the problem of declining industrial regions. So the automation of manufacturing becomes a problem of distribution, because the industry, even though it may continue, does not export wealth to its surroundings, but only to its owners. I'm not seeing a lot of will to solve the problem of distribution.

When exactly will London be flooded? How long will it take? How long will it last? — Mongrel

Around 2060 -70 if sea level rise does not accelerate, which it might well.

The barrier was originally designed to protect London against a very high flood level (with an estimated return period of one hundred years) up to the year 2030, after which the protection would decrease, whilst remaining within acceptable limits.[18] At the time of its construction, the barrier was expected to be used 2–3 times per year. It is now being used 6–7 times per year.[19]
This defence level included long-term changes in sea and land levels as understood at that time (c. 1970). Despite global warming and a consequently greater predicted rate of sea level rise, recent analysis extended the working life of the barrier until around 2060–2070. From 1982 until 19 March 2007, the barrier was raised one hundred times to prevent flooding. It is also raised monthly for testing,[20] with a full test closure over high tide once a year.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier

And London is one of the best protected coastal cities in the world.

There are many unknowns, but not knowing everything does not equate to not knowing shit. It might not happen, It might be worse than I suggest. We might build a new barrier, or someone might bomb this one. But again, what I don't know, plus what science does not know does not add up to an argument. We do know that sea levels are rising and that the rate has been increasing.

Thanks, looks interesting.

you didn't just leap to conclusions, you back somersaulted into a handstand onto the annihilation of 99% of the human population. — Mongrel

Sea levels are rising. Ice is melting. These are not back somersaults but facts. Climate change measures, feeble as they are, are under attack. This is not a handstand. Most of the major centres of population and most of the arable land are very close to sea level. All in all, the conclusion is supported unless someone can either remove some of the supports or find some factor that I have neglected. I don't think I am being over-emotional; rather, I think it's the responses are favouring emotion over argument. As if my personality or qualification is a crucial part of the argument.

Somehow, I find empty insults unconvincing. It must be my well known arrogance, along with a certain distrust of those in power, fed by a smattering of history.

I was kind of hoping someone would talk me out of it by showing where I've gone wrong. Pessimism is not my usual mode, nor politics my usual concern. I think it was the combination of Trumpery, Putinism, and at home, Corbynism and anti-Corbynism together with Brexitry that got me wondering what is going on.

I'd like to believe it is just a psychological condition I've got stuck in, but you'll have to work a bit harder to convince me.

Trade unions are losing power because of free trade (free slave) treaties that allow corporations to build factories wherever slave labor is available and the central banks are giving corporations all of the free money they need to build these slave factories. — Rich

You are not making a point against me, unfortunately. You are identifying someone to blame, which might make you feel better, but comes under the rubric of 'misdirection' as far as I'm concerned. The 'because' doesn't really matter; it is happening and it isn't going to stop because we all agree to hate bankers and corporations. That only continues the process, and confirms the power of the economy.

Mass destruction is accomplished by war and natural disaster, that's the 'how'.

If you want to go into the psychology of it, then yes the need for security in the group is an important motivation. But the group is not the mass. To get beyond the tribal stage takes an effort of political education. One sees the security benefits of a wider identification, with the trade union, or the nation, or the federation of states, and one makes the effort. But when the benefits are lost, because the collective power is lost, then the identification reverts back to the tribe. See for example the failure of the Arab Spring, or the collapse of Yugoslavia.

So sea levels rise, and London is flooded. The financial district will have already moved uphill - to Switzerland, perhaps. Millions of refugees head for the hills where they will be regarded as immigrants threatening 'our' survival. Civil war ensues, and because the arable land is also flooded, mass starvation mops up most of those who haven't been killed in the conflict. Rinse and repeat simultaneously all round the world.

I thought I'd just drop this in, in case anyone is sceptical about the centrality of psychology in the framing of advertising and business.

What can a Psychology Graduate do?
Though Psychology is an academic degree, the training and skills received put graduates in a good position to stand out when applying for jobs. In particular, their background in meticulous scientific research, coupled with their in-depth understanding of human thinking and behaviour, make them some of the most versatile graduates in the market.

Psychology graduates can offer research skills, and data and numerical skills, which are vital in sectors like Finance, Banking, Accountancy or Insurance. An ability to work with numbers, apply them in real world situations, and subject them to analysis is something employers in these fields look for—and something which Psychology graduates can offer.

On top of their research skills, Psychology graduates are able to understand peoples thought processes and behaviour. This knowledge and experience is important in fields like Advertising and PR, Retail, Management, Media and Human Resources. Psychology degrees are applicable to nearly any customer or client-focused industry.

https://www.graduate-jobs.com/degree/psychology

There's a little graphic that wouldn't upload below this quote showing 'retail' as the top destination for psych graduates.

In many ways, to get back a bit to the themes of the previous thread, it seems to me that the students and those who work within the schools are all treated like objects which produce commodities (good citizens, strong nations, or correct beliefs) for the state, or for various interests utilizing the state. The people with the least amount of say -- at least officially -- are the people doing the educating, whether that be the students, the teachers, or their communities. Hence they are objectified in the sense that they are denied autonomy, 1, and treated like machines which produce goods, 2. — Moliere

Yes, I didn't want to rehearse the argument in detail again, but that is the problem exactly. The vision of schools as factories and students as products to be quality-controlled, makes teachers into assembly line workers, to be dictated to by efficiency experts.

Of course they are trying to make $trillions in bucks - only they are doing it by stealing it with their money printing presses which makes them somewhat of thieves.; It's natural for bankers to act like this which is why they should be locked up just like they did in Iceland. That would also be quite natural. — Rich

Sure. But locking a few people up doesn't change anything much.

The robotics part is just plain misdirection by sone hired academia a la Krugman. No different than previous eras of technology change. — Rich

I don't think so. Trade unions are losing power because heavy industry is being automated. It's a long way from complete, and will probably never be quite complete, but robots get cheaper and cleverer, and the miners, he dockers the car workers will never get back the power they once had. So workers' rights are eroded and wages are going down, and social care is being eroded. It doesn't matter which party is in power because the economy dictates.

The misdirection is the politics that suggest that 'we' can get our country back and revive those declining industries by separating ourselves from those other desperate powerless people, the foreigners. That what we need is strong government - which means rich men and dictators. Which sets us up for civil wars border disputes and so on. Misdirection blames the greens and liberals for all those pesky environmental regulations and the terrible cost of looking after the old the young and the infirm, and all that employment protection that stifles growth.

I don't understand how the model works without 'mass consumption'. There have to be people buying the stuff the robots make, supply-side economics only works in a command economy (if at all). — mcdoodle

It doesn't work. The model changes. Robots don't make stuff for workers to consume because there are no workers. Non workers become non-consumers and have no value to capital. Robots are capital and produce products for capitalists. Everyone else fucks off and dies.

The flexible labour market is just the beginning of the end of labour power. Its not a betrayal, but the operation of historical necessity. This is a neo-Marxist analysis - do you not recognise it?

It seems to me that you're just pointing at inequality. — Kazuma

No. I'm pointing out that the argument is no argument. Slavery persists in society as long as slaves are helpless to change it, and slaveowners find it tolerable. You can call that legitimate if you like, but I call it complacent bullshit.

So, changes are needed? Which changes then? — Kazuma

Needed by whom? The helpless are unable to change things, by definition. Therefore they tolerate even their annihilation. Those who are able to change things are those who must find things 'tolerable', and that is all that factual legitimacy amounts to.

Nothing is intolerable to the helpless.

And as much as I like the idea of things like self-driving cars, given how easily and majorly other sorts of gadgets, including computers, screw up and crash, it would take some sort of impressive mechanical failsafe system for me to trust a self-driving car. — Terrapin Station

No worries dude. Once 99.9% of the population is gone, the roads will be much safer.

There is nothing natural for private central banks to print $trillions at 0% for a handful of wealthiest people in the world unless one considers thieving bankers a natural phenomenon - which certainly can be argued. — Rich

Looking upwards from the gutter, it appears that bankers are in charge of the economy, but this is an illusion of perspective. They're just trying to make a buck the same as the rest of us.

Why would the fact that there's no need for human brute force production methods impact the number of people living... — Hanover

The problem is concentration of wealth... — Rich

The concentration of wealth is a 'natural' phenomenon - a surplus accumulates as capital and is 'put to work' creating more wealth. The concentration of wealth is not a 'problem' (to the economy) as long as capital needs labour. If there is a cheaper alternative to a human, it will be adopted, and humanity is not in control of that.

The thesis is that the economy rules, and the economy no longer has a use for the masses. Therefore, 1. the masses have lost the power they had as producers and consumers, and 2. they have no function; therefore 3. they will be scrapped.

Since we have degenerated into politics now, I'd better remind or inform folks that at the inception of this site, I argued that it should support itself with advertising. My view has not changed.

And on that bombshell...

The reason I say this is because psychology, as a whole, is equally responsible for even worse treatment of the mentally ill in many cases, at least if we use the presence of psychological language as our measure, and just to gauge by the 20th century. — Moliere

Abnormal psychology, the study of mental illness, is a nice area of muddy water in my polemic, because it slides into medicine and medical research. Medical research also rests the objectification of people, and that gives rise to a complex ethical situation that demands at least, and amongst other things, informed consent. Which is problematic in the case of the mentally ill.

So not wanting to forbid medical research, obviously, we face a dilemma here which can only be resolved with a fudge of guardians or advocates or some such. But this is not the place to explore the complexities medical ethics really.

(Education thread to follow in a bit.)

Or, do you have some other starting point in mind? — Bitter Crank

As per my earlier aside, it's all Descartes' fault, with his 'thinking things'.

It is noteworthy that the other minds problem came to prominence as a philosophical problem only as recently as the nineteenth century, when John Stuart Mill gave us what is generally regarded as a version of the analogical inference to other minds. Mill's version has as its centerpiece the causal link between our mental states and our behavior. The problem was clearly enough waiting to be noted as far back as Descartes and his separation of mind from body and his view that only human animals had minds. However, it does not seem that Descartes noticed it as a separate problem. A similar situation would seem to apply with John Locke, given his belief that the mind of another is invisible (Locke, 111.ii.1, 404–405).

Before Mill, it would seem that Thomas Reid should be credited with seeing that there was a serious philosophical issue concerning other minds (Avramides 2001, ch., VI). Indeed, it seems that the first frequent use of the words ‘other minds’ is to be credited to him (Somerville 1989, 249). However, those minds are not observable. Nor is our belief that they exist to be reached or supported by reasoning. For Reid it is self-evident, an innate belief, that there are minds other than one's own.

The analogical inference to other minds held sway until about the middle of the twentieth century. Increasingly argued to be problematic, the analogical inference lost ground within philosophy. It was widely thought to be inadequate because of two of its features. The first was that the conclusion was not only uncheckable but was such that it was logically impossible to check up on it. The second was that the argument seemed to be an inductive generalization based on only one case. This second feature was thought to be problematic in itself but was thought by many to have as a consequence that each of us learns only from our own case what it is to be in pain or some other mental state. This consequence was thought to be completely unacceptable.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#2 (Thanks to Terrapin for the link).

Thus the philosophical problem and its roots. So once the problem has been articulated, it is quite natural to do with humanity what has been so successfully done with nature - to depersonalise it. So yes, late 19th century, and the science of psychology begins, and the philosophy of mind is bypassed in the same way that the ancient gods of fire and sea and thunder were bypassed.

Well, it's not as if science can change this situation — Terrapin Station

Indeed not. I am not asking it to; I am asking science to very kindly fuck off from where it cannot help but only harm. I am saying that the science of mind is psychopathic.

I should apologise for starting this with advertising; it has rather misled people. One can resist advertising, avoid it perhaps, but advertising is merely an example of a way of thinking about people that pervades the eduction system, politics, entertainment, the workplace, every facet of society.

Shall we start again with a different example? Psychology and education?

In order for it to be a science, given the conventions that make something a science in the first place (such as observation, theoretically replicable experimentation, etc.), it can't deal with subjective phenomena directly, because subjective phenomena are inherently first-person/not third-person observable. — Terrapin Station

Exactly. And a person without subjective phenomena is a zombie. Treating people like zombies is the best way to turn them into zombies.

why did you say you had no psychology at all? — Mongrel

Where did I say that?

In case anyone hasn't noticed, my target in this thread is scientific, experimental psychology. The concern with modern advertising arises from this because it is a manifestation of this psychology. Note that the target is not psychology entire, but the particular modern conceptualisation of it. I am looking at the ways of relating that arise from the ways of seeing oneself and others. Everyone has and everyone has always had a way of seeing themselves and others. I am not the exception.

So in looking at this, I am manifesting my own psychological way of seeing. I am not selling it, but giving it away - confessing it. Here is my slogan:

If you regard people objectively, you will only ever learn how to manipulate them.

An aside.

When did the problem of other minds first occur to philosophy, Was it Descartes? Someone educate me.

To the ancients, other minds were the explanation for everything. All nature was the manifestation of other minds; thunder gods, sea gods, wood sprites, and so on. What was a struggle, a problem, was the depersonalisation of nature. Plato, I seem to remember was still struggling with the gods to subdue them.

One might say that the problem of other minds is the problem of knowing when to stop. It is no use to talk to a volcano, to reason with it or placate it, or apologise for upsetting it. No use trying to understand its point of view, as one might try to understand the point of view of an elephant. Or a fly? Or a madman?

But aside from that, the idea that in order to desire anything that you could buy, you need to be unhappy or mentally ill is ridiculous. — Terrapin Station

That might explain why no one has made that claim.

I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that advertising and the media has created dissatisfaction and unhappiness. — csalisbury

No one is claiming they invented it; but they promote it, and elicit it.

And that is undeniable; a contented man needs nothing. It is when the going gets tough that the tough go shopping.