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On 21-9-2011 10:20, Invisible wrote:
>> Just a quick note: competitiveness is partly cultural.
>
> I hear China and Japan have more cooperative cultures, whereas America
> is the stereotypically competitive one. I have no idea whether this has
> any basis in fact.
>
>> In some countries
>> students compete with every other student and the percentage of students
>> that pass is fixed. In other countries you pass if you meet a certain
>> level.
>
> This is The Real WTF.
>
> A student's grades should *always* be based on fixed criteria. Otherwise
> the grades only compare you to your classmates. Well guess what?
> Employers aren't interested in whether you're better than your
> classmates or not. (You're probably never going to see them ever again
> anyway.) They're interested in whether you're capable of doing a given
> job. A relative grade doesn't tell them that; an absolute one could.
Correct me if I am wrong but I think relative grading is common in e.g.
the US, Japan and Iran.
--
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per
citizen per day.
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On 21-9-2011 15:14, Invisible wrote:
> On 21/09/2011 12:09 PM, clipka wrote:
>
>> I didn't contradict that fixed criteria for a grade are superior to
>> variable grades; all I said was that non-fixed grades are also able to
>> do the job grades were invented for.
>
> Fair enough.
>
>> That aside, I don't think that there is such thing as "ideal" when it
>> comes to grades. They're just a kludge to rate a person's capabilities
>> anyway. Your math grade doesn't tell much about whether you'd make a
>> good accountant; your native language grade doesn't tell much about
>> whether you'd make a good news reporter; your informatics grade doesn't
>> tell much about whether you'd make a good system administrator, database
>> engineer or software developer.
>>
>> Actually, an employer's primary concern may often be stuff that's not in
>> the grades at all: Soft skills. Are you good at communicating with
>> others? Are you good at motivating yourself/others? How do you perform
>> under pressure? Are you good at cooperation (teamwork)? Are you good at
>> competition (marketing strategies)?
>
> Grades in hard subjects are supposedly proxies for soft skills. That's
> supposedly why having a degree in philosophy is useful; it proves that
> you're capable of working hard enough and staying focused long enough to
> earn a degree. And supposedly that you have critical thinking skills and
> so forth.
>
> I still think philosophy degrees are pointless. :-P
But then again, I think you would not score high in any of the soft
skills clipka mentioned ;) Still, we all know there are jobs where you
would excel.
--
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per
citizen per day.
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>>> I think competitiveness is part of human nature. Competition to find
>>> the 'best' mate, for example - something that drives the race to
>>> continue.
>>>
>> I would argue that it goes far beyond human nature....
>
> I wouldn't debate that.
More debatable is how much cooperative instincts extend beyond humans.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 21/09/2011 09:42 PM, andrel wrote:
> I do not remember to have competed with any other person for a mate.
> I mean, sure it is a competition, but an abstract one.
> Finding a mate is entering a multidimensional competition where you
> don't know on what quality you will be scored and the rules change
> unpredictably during the competition.
Hell, if you think *finding* a mate is where the contest ends, you may
be in for a bit of a shock... ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 21-9-2011 10:23, Invisible wrote:
> On 20/09/2011 09:30 PM, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Somehow, I read that literally the first time, and thought of all the
>> charities that collect $X for every mile you walk.
>
> LOL.
>
> Actually, I was thinking... Our dance school really, really needs air
> conditioning. Do you know what happens if you put 80 people in a room
> with no windows and make them do strenuous exercise for 60 minutes? Let
> me tell you: it gets *warm*, and most of all it gets *humid*. Not fun.
>
> I was thinking, we could have a dance marathon to raise money to install
> a cooling system. Something like "you pay me X for every Y seconds of
> dancing I manage to pull off without dropping dead". We have several
> dances that severely tax all but the fittest dancers...
>
> ...yeah, I'm sure it'll never happen. Nice idea though. ;-)
That works the wrong way. The worse your room is the less you can
collect. A more logical scheme would be 'you pay me X for every dancer
that drops dead within some fixed time'.
--
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per
citizen per day.
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On 21/09/2011 02:01 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
> On 9/21/2011 3:16 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
>> No, that's "cooperation". "Competition" is where you disregard everybody
>> else and beat them out of the way by any means possible so that you get
>> what you want.
>
> But dealing with competition and exposing children to competition is a
> way to apply being fair and just. What you describe as competition is
> actually self-centeredness, and probably just plain antisocial. Being
> competitive means doing your best, not to bring the other competitors down.
Doing *your* best is about *yourself*. It has nothing to do with anybody
else. It's something that everybody can strive towards, all on their own.
(Like I said, there are people who can beat everybody else in their
class without even trying, and there are others who will probably never
be able to beat anybody. Everyone is different.)
Competition is fundamentally about "I want me to win, not you". It runs
/against/ the idea of being fair and just.
Then again, real life is unfortunately competitive from time to time,
and children need to learn how to deal with that. (At least until we can
find a way to eliminate it.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> Actually, I was thinking... Our dance school really, really needs air
>> conditioning. Do you know what happens if you put 80 people in a room
>> with no windows and make them do strenuous exercise for 60 minutes? Let
>> me tell you: it gets *warm*, and most of all it gets *humid*. Not fun.
>>
>> I was thinking, we could have a dance marathon to raise money to install
>> a cooling system. Something like "you pay me X for every Y seconds of
>> dancing I manage to pull off without dropping dead". We have several
>> dances that severely tax all but the fittest dancers...
>>
>> ...yeah, I'm sure it'll never happen. Nice idea though. ;-)
>
> That works the wrong way. The worse your room is the less you can
> collect. A more logical scheme would be 'you pay me X for every dancer
> that drops dead within some fixed time'.
True. I was thinking it would have to be an outdoor event or something.
(The school has a very large garden out back. You would need to make
something to dance on though...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On 21/09/2011 09:49 PM, andrel wrote:
> Correct me if I am wrong but I think relative grading is common in e.g.
> the US, Japan and Iran.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the US legendary for being populated
by idiots?
(I don't have any factual evidence that this reputation is actually
deserved, nor that it's related to the US applying relative grading...)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>>> Actually, an employer's primary concern may often be stuff that's not in
>>> the grades at all: Soft skills. Are you good at communicating with
>>> others? Are you good at motivating yourself/others? How do you perform
>>> under pressure? Are you good at cooperation (teamwork)? Are you good at
>>> competition (marketing strategies)?
>> I still think philosophy degrees are pointless. :-P
>
> But then again, I think you would not score high in any of the soft
> skills clipka mentioned ;)
Written communication? Well, I'm good enough that a random guy on the
Internet paid me to write stuff for him.
Verbal communiation? Yeah, I'm OK, not great though.
Motivation? I have lots of that. Patience? Not so much...
Motivating others? Forget it.
Working under pressure? Pitiful.
Teamwork? I've never had the opportunity to be part of a team that
wasn't dysfunctional.
Competition? Pitiful.
> Still, we all know there are jobs where you would excel.
Hmm, yes. Anything which doesn't involve talking to people, staying
focused for more than five minutes, or dealing with deadlines.
Butterfly catcher? Daydream writer? Minion of the antichrist?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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On Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:09:48 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 21/09/2011 02:01 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
>> On 9/21/2011 3:16 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> No, that's "cooperation". "Competition" is where you disregard
>>> everybody else and beat them out of the way by any means possible so
>>> that you get what you want.
>>
>> But dealing with competition and exposing children to competition is a
>> way to apply being fair and just. What you describe as competition is
>> actually self-centeredness, and probably just plain antisocial. Being
>> competitive means doing your best, not to bring the other competitors
>> down.
>
> Doing *your* best is about *yourself*. It has nothing to do with anybody
> else. It's something that everybody can strive towards, all on their
> own.
[...]
> Competition is fundamentally about "I want me to win, not you". It runs
> /against/ the idea of being fair and just.
One can compete against oneself as well. Running around a track, trying
to beat your own best time, for example.
> Then again, real life is unfortunately competitive from time to time,
> and children need to learn how to deal with that. (At least until we can
> find a way to eliminate it.)
Competition is itself not inherently bad. Competition drives people to
put out better and better products and services, for one thing.
There is such a thing as *healthy* competition.
Jim
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