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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • It is easy, if you can get a mortgage.

    I currently pay less than $2k a month on my mortgage. A 1 bedroom apartment near me is about $1.8-2.5k and a 2 bedroom is $2.5-3.5k a month. People aren’t lazy and not buying houses because it’s so fun to live in an apartment, they are doing it because they can’t get a loan.

    The only difficult thing about buying a house is the hours of paperwork and surprise costs that make no sense.



  • I disagree.

    Great! But you have no evidence to support your argument. Your apples to oranges comparison of laptops isn’t compelling. Nor am I compelled by your methodology argument, which seems to take issue with testing a hypothesis that phones are a distraction.

    thought hitting was better than nothing even when they knew it was net harmful

    Once again, we know cellphones are detrimental to learning. This is not a matter of schools failing to adapt to new technology. Tablets, computers, interactive software and more are used. It is about unrestricted cell phone use, which studies have shown hinders learning.

    a phone ban in NY caused an increase in overall student obedience and educational productivity, … Of course, this study does directly contradict your educatoronline article.

    No it doesn’t. It says that no phones mean better learning. You are missing the forest for the trees.

    Crowd dynamics

    Lots of research has been done on this, and a small number of people can influence a large group. Look at “wave” studies for more info.

    Calling minimum acceptable classroom behavior “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” is absurd. It’s like saying that you can’t expect people to not talk at the theater because that’s just asking too much of people.


  • It’s like every time a person says “see, this is what happens when you don’t hit children” at every behavior issue. Even though we know that hitting children objectively worsens behavior over doing nothing, but they insist that doing the only thing they know, even if harmful, is better.

    But we know children learn better without phones https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/the-evidence-is-clear-students-learn-better-without-mobile-phones-in-class/276071 You are the person insisting on hitting the child here.

    Putting phones in school makes learning harder.

    When you have a room of 30 students and 29 of them are complaining about something … point out how unlikely it is that those 29 students are the causal variable.

    You are saying 29 out of 30 people can’t be right, which is very wrong. But what you miss is that it’s really 3-4 kids disrupting and the rest going along because it’s easier.

    It’s the path of least resistance, and people will jump onto the easy path.

    “Personal Responsibility” attitudes just doesn’t work for crowd dynamics,

    Except they do. Look at all the examples of Japanese fans cleaning stadiums.

    In a crowd most people will follow the norm. If the norm is playing on your phone and not listening, the you have a bad time. It’s not punishing kids because teachers are bad at their jobs, it’s setting a behavioral norm.

    Next time you dislike your teacher think about when you got stuck in a group with people who wouldn’t do anything. Now imagine a class full of them. If just one or two more people put in a little effort good things would happen.


  • What exactly should be done to motivate?

    I ask because schools do a lot to motivate but kids often dismiss it as lame or complain about the efforts. It’s very easy to say “motivate kids” but actual ideas aren’t common.

    Let me give you an example, everyone has heard “when will we use this in real life?” in math class. The same people asking those questions are the same that groan at word problems. So you have kids complaining that won’t be able to use something in real life, and upset when they have to solve a real life problem. What’s the real complaint the student has? They have to try.

    I agree that so much more can be done to make school fun, but it’s not all on the teachers. Students have to be present, participate and willing to leave their comfort zone in order to have better results.


  • I think the biggest issue isn’t letting kids use a tool, it’s getting kids to do the work.

    I recently worked with a bunch of kids in college, all stem majors, who couldn’t Google effectively or do basic math in their heads. It’s not a matter of “don’t let them use a resource” it’s that many people won’t try.

    Limiting technology isn’t cruelty, it’s vital for learning many skills. Number sense can’t be taught by a taking a picture and writing an answer.



  • I was making over $60k a year managing a small retail store.

    It isn’t too hard to break into management of boutique retail shops, but you are basically a rep who doesn’t get overtime and has a few additional responsibilities. A part time job at a big corporation won’t be a living wage, but it’s possible to make a living in retail.

    The job really sucks though.




  • You ever think about how weird most housing is?

    Suburbia is lines of houses with the same items in them not being used. Full of people who become petty tyrants comparing about a car being parked to close or a yard not neat enough.

    If you start to question how we should live together it’s easier to see a way for landlords to cease to exist.




  • Real bad faith framing of your opponents argument there; be better than that.

    Like trying to reframe my argument as “rich country good, poor country bad”?

    I’ve mentioned statistics, I’ve mentioned a human angle and I’ve been upfront about what ways Cuba is better than the US. You’ve tried to dismiss my argument by misrepresenting it. This level of insecurity shows how shallow your beliefs are.


  • No, it’s that saying one place is worse doesn’t make it so.

    Human development index and quality of life studies put the US ahead of Cuba. Cuba isn’t a hellhole that many people make it out to be, but that doesn’t automatically make it better than the US.

    Cuba has better healthcare and lower cost of living, but Americans aren’t on rafts to Cuba.

    One of the problems with enacting good and lasting change in the western world is that life is pretty darn good on the whole. It could be a lot better, but just shouting that the US is bad is mindless propagada. Be better than that.


  • Notice how when confronted with facts the hexbear has no real argument but assumes being obnoxious is the same as making a coherent argument.

    Cuban refugees carry a higher level of risk than other countries, and yet they still come. Ignoring facts doesn’t make a country better. You wouldn’t let a fact like that slide from the US. Hexbears lack intellectual honesty.