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A problem resolves itself in proportion to the quality of its description.
The Person I Saw From Afar
I have seen a person from afar. Or rather didn’t ‘see’, as it often is these days.
All these great leaders of nations you see on TV – you will never see her be.
She is in the realm of magic, but since magic went out of fashion, she exists in no realm.
I have seen a person from afar. Or was she near? It’s hard to tell these days.
All the songs that sing of beautiful things, they didn’t sing of her.
Once there were ten millionaires – inexpensively, she gave something to expensive for money to buy.
I have seen a person from afar – when people spoke of technology, science and new things – their minds were to small to gasp her into view.
A person who can’t be seen.
A person who can’t be heard.
Would you believe me when I told you I once saw a person from afar?
I Hate School
1. One reason why I hate the current education system is because it often punishes with no reason.
People without external support (or people whose supposed support – teachers, parents, classmates are even abusive) may get punished by bad grades or being expelled for something that they actually wanted and tried to do right with their whole heart.
I think teachers should be mindful that one instruction that may look to be the same for all pupils is actually perceived quite differently by each of them, and is of different difficulty for each of them depending on their capacity, background and interests and environment.
This is why it was deemed impolite to keep asking people around you for small favors that don’t mean much to you, from the beginning of time in our culture already. It is assumed that the school system is not subject to this, but i want to argue it is.
Something that seems small to one person may actually cause a big hassle to another. This is why many cultures evolve into praising behavior that is helping, and frowning upon behavior that is needy.
2. Let me close this by a story i heard recently, maybe some readers may link to the correct story; i will tell it as i remember it.
A monkey one day decides to organize a race. All animals are invited, and there is a big price to be gotten by the winner, for a small fee to enter the race. The rules will be known in time, and will be the same for everyone.
Animals from far and near gather for the race – hippos, horses, dogs, snakes..
Then the rules are announced: “The one who shall climb the tree the fastest will be the winner”.
War and Peace and Health and Disease
Us people, we like to have enemies. Don’t believe me? Check any news. Look at any movie. Play nearly any game. While many of them are not of the “slash around with a sword type”, surely you can find an enemy to your liking.
Well, it may be that you are at peace with the world – but still, shouldn’t we at least get rid of that corrupted politician? He is just destructive to society.
As society, we function way more cohesive when we have common enemies, and politicians love to offer people of other nations, colors, hairstyles, whatever, as enemies.
Enemies help define us, and make us stop flowing in that kind of uncertainty that we would find ourselves in in circumstances of perfect peace.
Most nations have a defense and a healthcare budget. They are usually paying for different things though.
A sensible defense minister would probably arrange the funds to target the enemy that is the biggest threat to the life of its citizens. For us living in developed world, this enemy has a name, and it is called vascular disease.
Wait, what?
War and disease are considered totally unrelated in our culture. Both take lives and in both we need to understand the enemy. We should take untreatable disease with the same serious consideration as a threat of a strong nation. We research and make weapons. Then charge and kill.
If the rationale that enemies that require applications of guns require their own budget, we could as well have huge, separate budgets for enemies requiring statins, the enemy requiring chemotherapy etc.
For the one who kills the most – disease, not war, we need to step together, not just leave it to the individual. If another nations army killed your neighbor but not you, wouldn’t you still be outraged? When disease kills someone, why do we prefer so much to ignore it?
It would be outrageous to just let someone kill another person. Whole communities have risen up through history for such unfair cases. In the case of a rare disease, the world is silent. The people and their families silently weep, while nothing some rare random people are making slow strides to some resolution.
The gap between science and medicine; the other persons responsibility
Medicine is presumably based on science. When you go to a doctor, you expect to get the best care possible. In the process there are factors that may add into the process a kind of error that is mostly ignored, or sometimes mentioned as medical mistakes, where the speaker and the audience don’t really want to hear about it – or for that matter, think about it. Why does it happen and what does it do? This article will be my thoughts on this, some arguments on some things; i am not offering an answer here, but rather a question. I think people need to be involved in the process of caring for their own health, not because doctors or medicine are inherently bad, but because i think there are some assumptions that are made in treatment without the patients consent. So let me present some of them.
1. “The doctor knows what is best for me.”
Science today is presented (we could also say, marketed) in the way of scientific articles. From articles on basic science (chemistry, physics etc) medical researchers design treatments (most often in the form of drugs). The treatment is evaluated in a trial (which is strictly regulated by a designated agency from the government). Based on this, the treatment is then marketed (presented) to doctors and patients.
Some considerations on which treatment a doctor will offer to their patients are:
a) cost
b) efficacy
c) safety
When was the last time you spoke with your doctor and compared treatments on all the factors? I believe, most people havent. When a treatment is slightly more efficient, but way more expensive – especially if various forms of insurance are involved – you will be prescribed the treatment that costs less, often, without even being informed of the other treatments existence – unless the cheap treatment fails! It is not that the doctor will tell you there is a expensive treatment (and let you decide or work for it), but you will be prescribed the cheaper version automatically. This is not only relevant to generics vs brand-names, but may be about whole different treatments. Since this is not a medical mistake as agencies will allow the doctor to choose between treatments, you may not even sue the doctor if you suffer side effects from it. In the same way, conflicts in other factors may arise – you may be prescribed a drug that is more effective, but less safe (safety is not a yes-no question, but rather a spectrum), or vice-versa. But if only you know how important it is to you to get cured of a particular ailment, how can this be left to the doctor to decide?
Another point is, is this doesn’t apply only to treatment, but works on diagnostic tools as well. In some places sending people to cheap inaccurate tests many times is very popular. After all, who cares if you have your non-fast-progressing skin disease for a couple more years before getting diagnosed, if it makes the insurance guys less naggy?
So let me recap this point: doctors don’t know what is best for you, as they don’t know what the disease means to you.
2. The doctor’s decision making process is not reviewed
If we had a program that would make a diagnosis based on the imput of symptoms, we could review the structure why a disease has been attributed to the certain symptoms. The weight of a certain symptom would also be known. The structure would be open to improvement. The doctor on the other hand? Well, he kinda remembers it might be this or that – sometimes forgets something completely and gets sued; or mostly just wastes the patients time in the progression in the disease – while getting his hefty paycheck. If you die because you were added to a treatment waiting line to late – well, tough luck. This is not even a medical error.
This is allowed because people (often without being mindful of it) believe that doctors base their work on some kind of magic and intuition, since doctors are actively trained to look caring and knowledgeble (if they don’t, they increase their chance of getting sued after all). Science is not based on intuition. Therefore, since medicine is scientific, it is based on rational thought.
Now, i shall let you in on a secret – if it is based on rationality, it is programmable. Yeah, so what about it you say? If it is programmable, the process can be repeated for trivial cost. And nowadays, people are paying with their lives for a late diagnosis and inferior treatment, of which the first could be obtained for a trivial cost, and the second applied by themselves (so only the cost of making a drug would be there for example).
Sheer Lazyness
Science
The most noble work is that that you will never do again.
Art
The most noble work is that that is never finished. Even after it is finished, people who see it should add to it by their own contemplation and interpretation.
–
I think there is too much art in science today.
Questions, Answers, Improvement
I.
Some books contain questions, some contain answers. Reading one with answers to a person without a question will leave him disappointed. Reading one with questions to a person full of them will make no change.
They will be asking themselves “When does the author shut up already”?
The one is not better then the other. We make use of different kinds at different times in our lives.
Kinda like kids – suddenly a child is all questions; or sometimes they just keep telling and showing you stuff you don’t really care about. They intuitively know how growth, learning and improvement is done. Adults should learn from them.
To often, people push the question kind of book on others, telling them it is art or faith.
To often, people push the answer kind of book on others, telling them it is science.
But they are really not apart from each other: human experience is both art and science – first, it is great to come across a great question; then it is great to come across a great answer. Both are equally needed for us to improve.
II.
If you look at the design of most textbooks, you will see how they try to force this process (which is not bad in itself, since it makes people learn fast). They include both the question, and the answer. If the problem is not specifically posted, the titles are usually actually questions. For example, they will say: Principles of Biochemistry; meaning “What is it, that Biochemistry is based on? What concepts will i find most often in any problem in the field?”.
The many people having problems focusing on their schoolwork (or people who tend to worship “experts” too much) should try this if they don’t do this already – make the title into the question. It may often make the answer more intuitive and easier to learn.
Studying is Good, Studying Sucks
I.
“Boredom is excess attention with insufficient intention.”
(McLeod, 2001)
Most of today’s education is indoctrination: we need to promote languange, we need to promote literacy, we need to promote…
They’re good, mkay.
What remains unsaid is that the world’s knowledge is a reply to someone else’s problem. Mostly, we don’t even know what it was that the person was asking. If we do, we usually don’t really have that problem.
With this said, we learn about those people (since they made “important” contributions): their life, hobbies, year born and died; a rich plethora of irrelavant facts to help us join into the worship of someone else’s idol.
“My child just can’t concentrate on his studies.”
random ADHD mum
His concentration is alive and well. The problem lies in yours. Nevermind, that pill has less abuse potential than cocaine and amphetamine. As long as he gets into that School, he will be fine (i.e. in debt; enslaved). His affliction is real (i.e. like diabetes) after all.
So he can learn about important things.
“Important
1. Strongly affecting the course of events or the nature of things; significant: an important message that must get through; close friends who are important to me.”
TheFreeDictionary
How is what doesn’t affect me important to me?
This is ridiculous. When do we stop montillating the Traxoline?
“Better something then nothing”
our culture
Really, a room full of clutter is just as bad as an empty room, lets be honest.
II.
I’m sitting here, staring into space – why wont anybody hire me? But then again, if i won’t hire myself why would anybody else? 14 years of education, and i’m as unemployable as ever. I’m unemployable because i lack knowledge about how to do things. In other words, i’m uneducated.
III.
There are people out on the street fighting the police again. They want jobs and money. But the people they think can give them jobs are getting fired tomorrow themselves. They are all angry. I wonder why?
zacione 