"Formal education is so flawed a blind man picking scrabble pieces in the dark could write a true argument against it." -- curi

What is sarah on?

"The way to create new knowledge is to resolve the disagreement by finding a proposal that each person prefers ' a common preference." (source)

CPs are for not hurting each other. they aren't the method by which we create knowledge. (new knowledge? wtf does that mean?) we create knowledge via conjectures and refutations. as written, it sounds like "we create new knowledge by agreeing on stuff". (finding a proposal each person prefers = finding a single proposal about what everyone does that everyone agrees-on/consents-to)

one thing about questions is: if the person has all this knowledge you don't (ie what you're trying to ask about) they're prolly good at figuring out the point of questions even if the questions are badly flawed

this applies to like generally wise people, who are smart at lozza stuff, not one-sphere-wonders.

if you screw a palestinian, you risk the screw killing a jew as shrapnel later

There is less agreement about what uncommon words mean than about common ones. This is part of why pretty, arcane-word-riddled writing tends to be more confusing. Also note this effect: words sometimes become less common because people don't agree on their use.

so i was watching Dr Phil (*puke*), and he said something like "i've been doing this 30 years, and i've never run into a kid where finding the right lever to control his behavior didn't work". and what's worse is I believe him. *shudder* (lever as in something child cares about to use to blackmail/manipulate with punishment and/or reward)

thought: Doesn't wanting to live forever violate the notion that we should be concerned with what theories and values triumph rather than who triumphs? I mean, we think our values and theories are the right ones, fine, but we also know they aren't perfect, and will have to be changed in the future. And who's to say we'll be the best ones to adapt to the values of the future? Even today all of us find entrenched theories we aren't sure how to fix. And the more time passes, the more the world will change, and the more we will find that not just the denotation of our worldview needs changing, but even the constraints and meta-knowledge in it must also be changed. As a striking example of the difficulty of doing that, just look at how much control we have over our emotions.

counter: As the world improves this much, well why the fuck can't we stick around? It's not like there isn't gonna be plenty of housing, food, stuff. Even if we were basically totally useless, we could subsist on negligible charity (in reality, creative people, even with hangups, aren't useless). And also, the above is kinda revolutionary. As if we should just get rid of imperfect worldviews and replace them with more-perfect new ones. (even replace here implies we have to make room for the new ones, ie limited space, which isn't right). but it isn't going to be like that, with an old generation of useless people and a new generation of useful people. the distinctions will be much more blurred. ok, now i concede there will be people who feel they can't keep up, and want to die. fine. but the people who do have the conviction that they want to live forever ... well in wanting to live forever they aren't giving up, rather they press on and try every day. and that itself is enough.

I read an article on Sarah's TCS Site, and have comments:

Though many parents may be convinced of TCS in theory, they often want practical advice on how to resolve real problems; yet, as TCS parents come to learn, there is no one solution to any given problem just as there is no one kind of child or parent.

This is ambiguous. The passage could mean that because finding a common preference does not depend on solving one particular problem, but rather any of many, there are many ways to find common preferences. But the passage could also mean that single problems have multiple best answers -- that truth is pluralistic (I won't go into my objections to relativism here, but I will suggest that TCS follows Popper in opposing it, and so should TCS writing).

Additionally, in my interpretations lies a mistake! They use the hidden premise that the passage means something logically coherent. there's no particular reason to assume this. a better theory is that it's supposed to mean some combination of my two suggestions, and some other stuff as well, and that these meanings aren't all that consistent

Unlike most approaches to parenting, TCS does not and cannot offer formulas or methods for dealing with specific problems. This is because finding common preferences involves discovering what is most preferred by the very unique individuals involved.

The first sentence is misleading. Although there is a school of TCS thought concerned with constraints on how to parent, it is certainly not true that TCSers cannot or should not make tentative conjectures about specific things to do with either their children or most children. In other words, although TCS does not have a list of The Golden Methods that all parents must use, it is also not true that whenever TCS parents find methods of dealing with things they go "oh my god! a method! i better not use it!"

to get a sense of methods... washing the counters first and mopping the floor second is a method of cleaning. and rather a good one, cause of drips. now, TCS doesn't say all people must clean this way. maybe someone will figure out a better way later, or whatever. but a parent who uses this method is not barred from being TCS.

The second sentence is, to the extent the first is true, not the reason for that as it claims (note word 'because'). Additionally, finding common preferences does not require finding 'most preferred' things. Nor even is finding what people want a main part of CP finding. Generally, we have some idea of what we want, and CPs are found by a combination of figuring out how to get what we want and figuring out how to change what we want. Although sometimes we'll have what we want wrong, and find analysis in that direction helpful, it isn't part of the general method of CP finding.

Calling the individuals involved 'very unique' and the rest of the sentence gives the impression that the world works something like: there are different people, each unique, each special, each important. To live in harmony, we must find the natural, most perfect things for each to want and do. And by getting in touch with our inner selves like this can we solve most/all problems. This vision is wrong.

That's a hard truth for new TCS parents.

meta/specious.

and followed by more meta and then three scenarios. the scenarios are riddled with errors. but i can't be bothered to point them all out without a stronger conviction that anyone cares. if any readers really want to find some of the errors, and try themselves, and don't see them, feel free to ask questions in comments. preferably fairly specific ones.