February 2014 - luv-talk

Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Tim Josling 11 Feb '14

11 Feb '14

> From: Petros > Melissa Parkes is from the Labor Party, MP for Fremantle, not for the Greens. I stand corrected. I was misled by all that greenness on her web site. This (not being a Green) would explain why there was some specificity to her policy proposals. Tim

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Tim Josling 11 Feb '14

11 Feb '14

>From: Petros >> In the absence of a clearly articulated and worked out alternate policy, >First, there must be a problem that requires drastic measurements as >infinite detention and violation of International obligations? >Can you explain this problem to me first? You may recall that Labour came to power in a blaze of moral righteousness, saying they would have a humane refugee policy. Numbers increased dramatically with no end in sight to exponential growth. [By the way, the Greens ridiculed the notion that the policy change would increase the numbers of boat people markedly. They were proven utterly wrong.] So they tightened policy. It seemed to me that they eventually muddled into an incompetently executed version of the Howard/Abbott policies. Now why would they do this? Some people argue that they listened to the polls and, being cynical uncaring fiends, decided to sacrifice the refugees in order to buy votes. Personally, while I was no fan of Rudd or Gullard, I do not think they are that heartless. I just think they were mugged by reality. What reality? That there are about *20,000,000* refugees around the world, many of whom would come to Australia if they could. There are *billions* of people who live in very poor countries, and polls suggest that a *third( or more of them would move to a rich country if they could. As one indication, in 2008 there were over 13,000,000 applicants for the green card lottery to get into the USA - even though the odds are very low. So the problem is that unrestricted immigration implies huge numbers of people coming to Australia. The implications can be enormous: housing shortages, unemployment, breakdown of our ability to fund the welfare state, etc. OK you may not accept this scenario. Fine, but where is a solid analysis that shows it is wrong. As far as I can see, all the evidence suggests it is basically correct. Or you may say that this is acceptable, because the need of these people is so great. The need of these people outweighs the harm to the locals. I think that is a very defensible view. Why should we in Australia have such a high standard of living while millions of people die of starvation and hunger each year? Should we not be prepared to accept a big cut in our standard of living to help those people? What I have been asking for is this: What is your specific policy proposal for immigration, including refugees? Where is your analysis of the implications of your policy? And a statement that the implications are X and I accept those implications for these reasons. I accept the cogency of the arguments that we should do far more for poor people (whether increasing immigration is the right way to do this I am unsure). But I find I am not prepared to drastically reduce my own standard of living to implement this insight. I find few people are. Anyone on the mailing list who donates more than say 40% of their income to such causes is welcome to speak up at this point, but there are very few such people. This is embarrassing. We know what we should do if we value other people's welfare as much as our own. But we don't do it. The obvious conclusion is that we don't value other people's welfare as much as our own. I would also suggest that anyone who wants to demand that the Australian people accept a large cut in their living standard, should demonstrate their bona fides by, for example, showing that they currently donate a large slab of their income to such causes. Otherwise people can rightly say that talk is cheap. When you look at other contentious issue, such as global warming, there are plenty of resources that analyze the issue and possible solutions in detail. This issue is different, which is very interesting. Google searches uncover much moral posturing, but little else.

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Petros 11 Feb '14

11 Feb '14

Quoting "Tim Josling" <tim.josling(a)gmail.com> > As Melissa Parke from the Greens pointed out in her speech, we make > it difficult for refugees to come here by airplane. According to the > same Ms Parke, the Greens' policy is to increase the quota and to > accept every refugee who arrives here by boat. Impediments to > arriving by air would apparently be retained (not stated, but > implied). As we saw when the ALP liberalized policy, this would > result in a massive increase in arrivals by boat. Melissa Parkes is from the Labor Party, MP for Fremantle, not for the Greens. Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Tim Josling 11 Feb '14

11 Feb '14

On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Nathan Bailey wrote: > If I gave 100% of my salary, I could not stop world poverty. This is not a valid excuse. To me it sounds in fact like a mere rationalization. The marginal benefit of a dollar is no less in this case for the first dollar than the last dollar. So if you actually believe what you are saying, you would give a substantial portion, eg 40-50%, of your salary to such causes. The fact that precisely no-one has stepped up with evidence that they do so is telling. As I said before, it is easy to be generous with other people's money. Verbal pronouncements of one's moral virtue are cheap which is why they are so common. Tim

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IEEE CS: Free Course: SWEBOK Version 3.0 Best Practices for Software Development
by rdbrown＠pacific.net.au 11 Feb '14

11 Feb '14

http://news.computer.org/ef1/preview_campaign.php?lf1=618725459d92931457103… ... The three-week online course, "Stop Writing Embarrassing Software Code: SWEBOK Version 3.0 Best Practices for Software Development," will be taught by Don Shafer, IEEE Computer Society Vice President of Professional Activities and a distinguished global expert in the practice of software engineering. The course will begin on 17 February 2014, and meet from 10-11 a.m. PST each Tuesday and Thursday for 3 weeks. Presentations will be followed by an open discussion forum, a quiz, and a review of comments raise during the discussion. ...

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Re: [luv-talk] Primary and Secondary Education
by Tim Josling 09 Feb '14

09 Feb '14

> From: "Trent W. Buck" > > Russell Coker wrote: > > There are real benefits to private schools. School sucks generally, > > but if you are going to send kids to a school and can afford it then > > a good private school should be better than most government schools. > > That's a very Melburnian mindset. > In WA, the only people that go to private schools are religious wonks. > In VIC, the entire middle class goes to private schools. > I went to private and public schools and my daughter also attended both forms. In both cases the public schools were superior, with one exception I will mention later. The reason in both cases that the public schools were better was not better teachers or smaller class sizes, but the peer group at the public school. In my case there was only one high school in the town and no private school. so the only private alternative was boarding school. This meant everyone from doctors' children, children of academics (local CSIRO research station), and children of successful businessmen all went to the same school. So it was a very vibrant and diverse peer group and the level of academic competition was high. My parents then sent me to a private school which was largely full of the sons of farmers. The largest clique proudly called themselves "the animals" and behaved accordingly. Doing your homework or doing well in exams was regarded as an act of treason to be punished by bashings. My daughter went from year 9 to Mac.Robertson Girls which is a selective high school, having previously attended various private schools. I did not find the peer group at the private schools very inspiring. There was a very strong culture of entitlement. Once in year 8, two girls were having a chair fight at the back of the class, when the teacher asked them how they would earn a good living if they did not do well at school. The reply was that they would marry a rich guy like their mothers and spend their time playing tennis and shopping, duhhh. In contrast, at Mac.Rob, my daughter was pleasantly surprised to find that you were not regarded as a loser geek if you actually paid attention in class. When parents talk about "good schools" this is often code for a good peer group. The book "The Nurture Assumption" by judith Harris is a fascinating exploration of the importance of the peer group and of the surprising lack of importance of parents in terms of the development of personality and intelligence. As far as I can tell the research on schools suggests that class sizes don't make much difference within wide bounds. Fancy facilities don't either. Having capable teachers really does seem to make a difference (eg high IQ). Financial incentives for teachers have failed everywhere they have been tried - if people were primarily motivated my money they would not be going into teaching. As discussed above the peer group is very important. Efforts to redress social disadvantage by pouring more resources into education of disadvantaged children have produced very disappointing results. Unfortunately there are elements of the zero sum game with the peer group. Arguably the talented students at Mac.Rob benefited from being with their peers, but the children they left behind probably suffered from the loss of the Mac.Rob girls. Streaming had similar issues. The exception: My impression is that my daughter's time early on at a Montessori school did make a big difference to her ability to concentrate and to stick to a hard task. This seems to be a result of the way the Montessori method works, by way of progressive small increases in difficulty, which always rewards effort. As an aside, after 12 months of apparently useless swimming lessons, I employed the Montessori method to teach her to swim in a couple of weeks. I started her with an inflated vest and flippers and got her comfortable moving around. I gradually deflated the vest until she was just using the flippers. Then some smaller flippers and then no flippers. In two weeks, with no tears, she could swim. Amazing. Tim Josling

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Primary and Secondary Education
by Rohan McLeod 08 Feb '14

08 Feb '14

Assembled Illuminati; Digressing from the earlier thread on tertiary education; to primary and secondary education. Natasha Mitchell conducted an interesting interview with: David Gillespie, his book is called /Free Schools, how to get a good education without spending a fortune; /Life Matters /,/ AM Wed//29/1/2014/ /see http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2014/01/lms_20140129_0922.mp3 I found his an interesting view of primary and secondary education. It is unfortunate in the context of PM Tony Abbot's current 'industrial reform', that it has a rather unflattering view of teachers unions; so perhaps I should add that on the whole I see a useful role for unions in a regulated free-market economy; I just wish they could ! regards Rohan McLeod

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