Month: April 2017

School Choice, Neoliberalism Hurt Public Goods and Education – The Atlantic

Schools are a public good that extreme market proliferation would eventually destroy.

the argument over “school of choice” is only the latest chapter in a decades-long political struggle between two models of freedom—one based on market choice and the other based on democratic participation. Neoliberals like DeVos often assume that organizing public spaces like a market must lead to beneficial outcomes. But in doing so, advocates of school of choice ignore the political ramifications of the marketization of shared goods like the educational system.

markets always have winners and losers … should all goods in a society be subjected to the forces of creative destruction? What happens to a community when its public schools are defunded or closed because they could not “compete” in a marketized environment?

Market competition in the context of schools thus opens the possibility for a vicious cycle in which weak and low-performing communities are punished for their failings and wealthy communities receive greater and greater funding advantages. Americans should ask themselves a basic question of justice when it comes to the education system: Should it be organized around a model in which the more you win the more you get, and the more you lose the less you are given?

Free societies need educated members to intelligently and critically deliberate over public life, select representatives, and help guide policy decisions. Market freedom is thus in tension with the freedom of democratic participation. … There is a basic tension between neoliberal market choice and democratic freedom to shape one’s community in ways that do not conform to market logic.

there is also undeniable merit in efforts to experiment with education on a more local level … America’s public schools—like all institutions—are in constant need of reform, rejuvenation, and innovation.

But debates about “freedom” and educational reform might be more constructive if participants center their questions around democratic freedoms—the freedom of every citizen to access education and the freedom of various communities to shape what that education looks like.

Educational policy in democratic societies should be subject to spirited and even intense debate and disagreement. Yet attempts to reduce freedom to markets and consumer choice remains in serious tension with democratic liberties and ideals of self-government. Future debates might be no less vigorous while also seeking alternatives to a simplistic equivalency between markets and “choice.”

Source: School Choice, Neoliberalism Hurt Public Goods and Education – The Atlantic by Jason Blakely, assistant professor of political philosophy at Pepperdine University

Steve Ballmer Serves Up a Fascinating Data Trove – The New York Times

A stealthy pet project by the former Microsoft chief lets you search and learn about how the government spends tax dollars.

Using his website, USAFacts.org, a person could look up just about anything

Mr. Ballmer calls it “the equivalent of a 10-K for government,” referring to the kind of annual filing that companies make.

“You know, when I really wanted to understand in depth what a company was doing, Amazon or Apple, I’d get their 10-K and read it,” he told me in a recent interview in New York. “It’s wonky, it’s this, it’s that, but it’s the greatest depth you’re going to get, and it’s accurate.”

“I would like citizens to be able to use this to form intelligent opinions,” Mr. Ballmer said. “People can disagree about what to do — I’m not going to tell people what to do.” But, he said, people ought to base their opinions “on common data sets that are believable.”

Source: Steve Ballmer Serves Up a Fascinating Data Trove – The New York Times

 

Learn more about our story, principles, sources, and methodology.

Source: USAFacts.org

The fundamental problem with online ads today is a misalignment of incentives

The fundamental problem with online ads today is a misalignment of incentives—not just between users and advertisers, but between publishers and advertisers. We’ve consistently found that publishers are upset about rampant online tracking and the security problems with ads, but they don’t have much control over ad tech. Changing this power imbalance is important if we want a long-term solution.

Will Editing Your Baby’s Genes Be Mandatory? – The Atlantic

I predict that within my lifetime, the United States will arrest, try, and convict some parents for refusing to edit the genes of their child before he or she is born.

legislative majorities do believe that parents should be put on trial for withholding mainstream medical treatment when a child suffers greatly or dies as a result. And the medical treatments that are considered mainstream will change over time.

If the attendant medical procedures were as cheap and safe as a course of antibiotics, would it be unethical to deny a potential human gene editing to avert a serious disease? What if instead of a certainty of a serious disease, gene editing would reduce the chance of a typically fatal cancer by 90 percent? How about by 50 percent? 5 percent? Does it matter how much the gene editing technique would cost? What other confounding factors, if any, should enter into the picture?

Source: Will Editing Your Baby’s Genes Be Mandatory? – The Atlantic

Sacred Principles As Exhaustible Resources | Slate Star Codex

every time we invoke free speech to justify some unpopular idea, the unpopular idea becomes a little more tolerated, and free speech becomes a little less popular.

think of respect for free speech as a commons. Every time some group invokes free speech to say something controversial, they’re drawing from the commons – which is fine, that’s what the commons is there for. Presumably the commons self-replenishes at some slow rate as people learn philosophy or get into situations where free speech protects them and their allies.

But if you draw from the commons too quickly, then the commons disappears. When trolls say the most outrageous things possible, then retreat to “oh, but free speech”, they’re burning the commons for no reason, to the detriment of everybody else who needs it.

this is a more general principle: associating X with Y won’t just make supporters of X like Y more, it will also make opponents of Y hate X.

If principles are stronger than partisanship, then invoking principles is a great idea to rally people to your cause. If partisanship has grown stronger than principles, then even an incontrovertible proof that a certain principle supports your own tribe is going to turn out to be a gigantic booby prize. It won’t make the other side reconsider what errors have led them to contradict such hallowed ideals. It’s just going make half the population start hating the sacred principles necessary for society to function.

Source: Sacred Principles As Exhaustible Resources | Slate Star Codex

 

if you are looking for a test case specifically to promote the value of free speech, and you do it by deliberately searching for the ugliest and most hate-able person you can find, you’re doing it wrong.

If your pitch to potential supporters is “our science club was trying to learn about science, and we invited a well-known scientist, and now oh no we’re embroiled in a controversy, please help”, that’s a good test case. If your pitch is “our controversy club was trying to cause controversy, and we invited a well-known controversial person, and now oh no we’re embroiled in a controversy, please help”, that’s a bad test case. Even if you invited the same person both times.

Source: Clarification To “Sacred Principles As Exhaustible Resources” | Slate Star Codex