i have a math degree, and completed most of a master's as electives while i was working on a second degree in computer science (although i never applied to graduate). i decided a credit short of the second degree that i didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing mathematics. i went back a little later for financial reasons to study law for a few years, while i was waiting for a disability ruling. today, i live on disability and am waiting to be declared "severely permanently disabled" in order to get my loan wiped out. over the many years i was in school, my gpa averaged out to about 10.5/12.

i feel i'm better off on disability. happier, certainly.

i'll grade a few parts of this and add a few parts.

1) marked without really reading it. that is actually absolutely accurate, but i've blamed it on the process of assigning work to ta's. what's even a bigger problem - especially in math, although i saw this in law, too - is grading a paper without understanding it. when you're doing math, you can express answers correctly in multiple different ways. and, when you're doing advanced math you can often be asked to prove statements, in which case there may be multiple correct answers. more often than not, teaching assistants will apply absolutely no effort into the process and merely mark relative to the provided solution sheet. so, if you express something differently - even if it's equivalent - or if you provide a proof that is different than expected, you will more often than not be marked wrong. thankfully, this is usually easily dealt with - you bring the paper to the prof. but, it's very inefficient and really just shouldn't happen.

2) curving grades is a thing that happens, in both directions. it would bother me less in law, as there's a process of subjectivity. in math, it makes no sense to me. i remember one course where i got a test back with 115% - because i aced it (95%) and then got a 20% bump on the curve. now, that indicates i drastically outperformed the class on that particular test. but, here's the thing: if i could get 95% on it, i don't think the kid that got 45% should have been curved up to 65%. it clearly wasn't impossible. that kid failed, dammit. i've also officially received 100% on exams (several times...) that i know i got at least one question wrong on. it's not exactly the same as averaging out, of course, but it's a pretty ridiculous thing to do in any kind of stem course. yet, it absolutely does happen.

3) i know of at least one example where a female's test scores were orchestrated to be higher than they actually were (that is, the department organized cheating on the test) in order to justify putting her in a teaching assistant position because the school had a deficit of female teaching assistants. i know this because i happen to have overheard the conversation about it. my understanding is that she was seen as a strong student, but they wanted the case to be stronger.

broadly speaking, the video is of course ridiculous. and, little of what i'm saying is connected to the sjw strawman - the first issue is due to the difficulty of finding qualified tas willing to work at or below minimum wage, while the second is a consequence of professors being evaluated on their test scores. but, this video does touch on some points worth considering, albeit largely accidentally.

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas Sounds like you don't really want to work and surfed from student loan welfare to the golden goose of "disability"

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown yeah, that's about right - although it's hardly a "golden goose".

i decided i'd rather focus on my art, and i was willing to live in poverty to do it. call it a cost-benefit analysis, if you'd like. but, it was just an honest assessment of what drives me. i'd rather be poor and spend my time doing fulfilling things than wealthy and miserable because i feel like i'm wasting my time doing something i don't care about.

i mean, if you want numbers, it works out to about 50% of what i'd make if i were working a full time minimum wage job in this province. and, i'm confident i could do a lot better than minimum wage. so, it's a huge trade-off. i've got nothing but time, but i've got very little cash to spend. but, i'd rather have a lot of time and very little money than a lot of money and very little time.

i would support a guaranteed minimum income and put it at about that - half of minimum wage. that's enough to give people like me that just don't see the point of it a way out, while still maintaining strong incentives to engage in the labour force.

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas ya, thank your neighbors or your "cash" and "time" because it is coming from them, scumbag flea.

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown that's a very unscientific concept of the accounting. i could just as easily deduct it from taxes paid by investors, who legitimately actually really do just skim wealth off the top.

i really don't see any benefit to the society around me in forcing me to make somebody sandwiches. sorry.

you may find my offering of music and writing insufficient, but it's what i have to offer - and i don't feel it's less substantial. to the contrary.

george_505
+deathtokoalas Don't complete meaningful work then don't get paid :D

deathtokoalas
+george_505 well, i'll let you know when i agree to let you decide what meaningful work is.

in the mean time, i'll suggest an essay by oscar wilde called the soul of man under socialism.

Stefan Crapper
+deathtokoalas I sense trolling. Are you really admitting that you're leeching of welfare when you're more than capable intellectually of holding a job? lol

deathtokoalas
+Stefan Crapper yup. and, i'm even suggesting this should be normalized and everybody should do it.

one thing i just want to add, though, is that i'm not rejecting labour despite of ability and intelligence. rather, i'm rejecting labour because of ability and intelligence. if i was your average dipshit, i'd be happy pushing rocks up the hill. right?

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not duty, obligation and the obedience to norms. i'm sorry. fuck your worker hive.

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas you are just mad because you know deep in side that you are a completely worthless person. 

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown that's actually not entirely inaccurate, except i would extend a caveat - we are all useless, life is useless and everything they've got us doing to waste our time is useless. it's kind of a way to try to break the cycle of uselessness.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas "Everybody should do it"

Then where is the money coming from? Holy crap you're entitled.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM i'd actually like to get rid of money altogether, if you want to walk down the line a few steps. in the mean time, i'm ok with printing it.

but the entitled thing is like...

sure. whatever. fuck your protestant work ethic, too.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas So we get rid of money, instead relying on each other. Yet you have chosen art as your calling over something that would actually sustain a money-less system.

Yep, still entitled.

george_505
+deathtokoalas Socialism, really? When you state such an ideology and yet you sit at home and don't work or do anything meaningful, instead are here drawing attention to yourself. A socialist society would have place for a person such as yourself. 

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas Justify it to yourself however you want. You feel like shit because you are shit.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM you're not allowing yourself to think in a post-propertarian sense. the abolition of currency is desirable precisely because it allows for people to spend their time more freely.

take a look at the labour that exists around you. do we need store managers? restaurants? shop keepers? cashiers? all of these people are wasting their lives, because they are enslaved by a system of currency.

and, what is emancipation from currency? it is the freedom to live as one truly desires. to create art. to play in the snow. whatever. 

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas so some people should just be slaves without money so that you can do whatever the fuck you want all day while being supported by them? Nice "care," you dipshit libtard 

deathtokoalas
+george_505 i'm what you call an anarchist, which does not take the position that the state should assign people to accomplish certain tasks. i seek the abolition of property, of currency, of hierarchical relationships and of markets in exchange, but it is all to attain higher freedom of individual choice - because these things restrict individuality.

the wilde essay is really a very enjoyable read. he's not a dry writer. it's available online from several sources. please do give it a read, as he lays it all out there very well. 

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas So you'll gather your own food will you? Make your own clothes? Somehow provide yourself with basic hygiene?

Or are you expecting others do it for you while you run around painting your feelings?

Realistically, you want rid of money because you are in a crap load of debt with no job

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown i've explained this as well as i can to you, but you're clearly too much of an idiot to understand and i do not wish to communicate with you further.

*plonk*.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM the solution is to automate most mindless labour, and allow the rest of it to occur by volunteers. again: please read the literature i provided you with before you comment further.

george_505
+deathtokoalas you're describing everything that makes a society run, you just sit at home and do shit all everyday, day in and day out, get a job and have a purpose. Don't quote other people and state how much more intelligent you are than them because at the end of the day you're the one here sitting on your arse not working due to a 'disability'

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas Ok. What you are describing is a utopia. Yes, that would be wonderful but we aren't exactly there are we? We can't automate all mindless labour right now. It just simply isn't possible.

I just realised something. You have a maths degree. 2 years of CS. You want the technology for a utopia and your answer is to do art.

10/10 best troll world.

deathtokoalas
+george_505 i work very hard at what i do, actually. and, as stated, i feel it's more valuable work than i could accomplish through any kind of employment.

but, even if i didn't, i don't really see what your argument is. if you'd like to be a slave, that's your choice. i think it's regrettable. but, your choice to be a slave is not binding on me.

if you enjoy what you do, then we're even. if you don't, follow my lead and go on strike. but don't tell me that your decisions are binding on me. that's bullshit. 

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM 19.5/20 credits on the computer science, actually - on top of the four year math degree, and seven math credits at the graduate level (five is a master's).

there really aren't any barriers to automation at this point besides a political will to put it forth, so long as you're willing to throw away the vast majority of the economy that is entirely useless to survival.

in order to implement my ideas, i'd need to build awareness first. i suppose i could write a book, but there's quite a few out there. and, if you won't read a short essay, i'm left to conclude you won't read a book. i got prodded on this - i didn't intend this discussion to go in this direction - but there's plenty of posts all over the internet where i am initiating this kind of discussion.

but, it's a cost-benefit analysis, ultimately. i don't think this can be accomplished in my life time. we're going to have to go through an economic crisis first. this is something to talk about in the 2030s. maybe. in the mean time, i have a life to live, and i'd like to spend it doing what i want, right now - not fighting for the future, so the next generation can live how i wish i did, and didn't.

i mean, i'd have a different attitude if i was getting a different attitude back. but, when i offer a strategy for emancipation and all i get is "you're trying to get out of being a slave, that's not fair!", it's easy to snicker and tell you to fuck off.

i'm a rational agent. i'm trained to be. and, if the option is to be enslaved or enslave others, however contrived of a false dichotomy that is? i'll be the slave master. fuck you. sorry.

it's your responsibility to change your attitude if that pisses you off. 

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas You're deluded

Adam russek
+Chameleon EDM I agree or she's just trolling. She's not truly an anarchist if she's living off of everyone else's wealth. I'm an anarchist as well but that just means a voluntary society with no rulers/masters. But unfortunately humanity in its current condition doesn't have the will or personal responsibility (like deathtokoalas) to create that increase in freedom. Any society that wants to remain ignorant and immoral will inevitably end up in chains 

deathtokoalas
+Adam russek anarchism rejects the concept of other people's wealth. it puts property in common. i dispute the idea that i'm living off anybody else's wealth, because i reject the idea that the wealth belongs to them in the first place.

as mentioned, i don't have a large subsidy. 65% of it goes to the landlord, and about 25% of it goes to basic necessities like food. the remaining 10% invariably gets spent on the work of other artists.

i'm only truly given enough to survive. but i've decided that's all that i need or i want.

the crux of the debate, in an anarchist framework, isn't even the value of art. virtually everybody agrees it has some value. even wingnuts like rand. the question is how that value should be determined, or if it should be determined at all.

so-called ancaps (who are really just classical liberals; anarchism necessarily rejects property rights, at the very least) will argue that art is a product to be determined by the market.

the anarchist argument against this is articulated very well in the essay i posted by wilde. but, the conclusion is that it should not be determined and that so long as artists are producing something or other then they are working and should be entitled to basic income, at least.

there's a twist in this: a lot of classical liberals (like milton friedman, for example) have argued in favour of basic incomes because they recognize the coercive nature of so-called free markets. whatever the value of markets are for however many people, they come with the defect that they produce a class of people who can only ever be enslaved by them, because their products can not be sold on them due to lack of demand. that is, markets are unable to put a meaningful price on some things - and art is the primary example. they came up with a generalized income to compensate for this. even the most ardent advocates of markets do understand the flaw that i represent, and do have ideas to make the situation more fair.

but if this meandering mess of producerist nonsense has a point, it's in that wilde essay. please do read it. wilde was an important author from the nineteenth century and lays out the argument for anarchism from the perspective of somebody in the artisan class (rather than somebody in the working class, which is where it often comes from) with refreshing clarity and insight. it's very, very much worth reading - even if you end up disagreeing dramatically with the points in it.

Lee Schneider
+deathtokoalas I understand where you are coming from, why spend your life pursuing something that is meaningless to you, but you need to consider the collective. If every capable person decided to drop their responsibilities then society wouldn't function; In assuming a role below your capacity you disenable someone less capable the right to that role.

deathtokoalas
+Lee Schneider i really strongly disagree; i feel that i do not need to consider the collective. individualism isn't necessarily selfish. i'm an advocate of reciprocal altruism (mutual aid), which is an example of how self-interest can benefit everybody if it's approached in the right way. true self-interest means respecting the people around you. but, i don't feel the responsibility you're implying i should. it strikes me as irrational.

but, i don't think the idea that i've dropped responsibilities to mathematics is accurate, either. i am a better musician than i am a mathematician. i'm not alexander grothendieck. i would feel i was dropping my responsibility to music by continuing to half-heartedly pursue math.

that said, i will come back to it. there is an age limit for composition, determined both by physical deterioration and intellectual evolution. i give myself another five years, maximum, of music as a dominant pursuit.

but, i'll let you in on something: mathematicians think a lot like artists do. the basic pressures are not altered. the truth is that it won't change my outlook much.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas You think you have a creative window? I am so glad I do not have your brain, it seems flawed.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM we start losing our hearing in our 20s. by the time we're 40, we've lost a substantial amount of our hearing range, especially on the high end. what i do is very conscious of spectrum - it's very impressionist, very much into the idea of creating the surreal out of frequencies. there will be a time when i will be unable to hear well enough to create what i imagine.

self-awareness is thought by cognitive scientists to be an advance, but it is probably a flaw - and a tragic one. i'm aware that i do not have a lot longer left to create within. denial is pointless.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas On listening to your music I'm sure you'll be fine with loosing some frequencies in the high end. Regardless, after listening to you music I'm just going to let you get on with life. You seem troubled enough.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM there's a great deal of detail in the high end; it's the kind of thing you need quality headphones and time to listen actively (and some marijuana helps, too) to be able to understand well. the granulated guitar overdubs at the start of my second symphony are a good example. in ten years, i likely won't be able to hear the harmonics anymore.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas I'm always stoned, I have AKG's. A lot of what you are hearing is in your head only, thats why your mixes appear to change when you do not change them at all. At least from looking at what you comment.

Oh, and I make neuro. So im plenty trained in listening to and for high harmonics. 

Get Rich TV
+deathtokoalas I have to chime in and agree with much of your argument here, I really find that most of what we have here is a peoples fear of taking a risk in change, which is understandable but not necessarily right. People put so little value in arts but then I have to argue with them about when the last time it was that they didn't ingest some form of artistic media. The answer is pretty close to never. Visual arts, music, sculpture, writing, videogames, memes, etc. are all an ongoing feed of artistic export made by creatives... without it we'd be absolutely crushed under the weight of pure utilitarian duty, survival, responsibility and work.

I am currently working a low hour job that actually serves to sustain me financially but have been opting quite hard to push towards my true passion which is the pursuit of creative expression. I'm working on a webcomic (which I can definitely assure you is not an easy undertaking) while also trying to develop a recognizable universe in which to construct other media through, such as animation, games, writing and even going so far as to making interesting products that will extend that world into the real tangible world we live in. All to create an environment of wonder and whimsy. Without creatives living in poverty just to express themselves I doubt that many would be able to continue in the crushing grind of the workforce.

I'm glad that there are still some who believe that this current socio-economic world is a construct and has no more validity than anything else. We can disassemble, alter and upgrade it however we want and can design. Unfortunately, many will fight tooth and nail to preserve their inertia with the illusion that there is only one way, the current way.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM i resolved my driver issue last night. it turns out that there was a bug in the install package.

i'm not going to post graphs. 

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas It doesn't change the fact that a lot of what you're hearing up there your mind is creating fictitiously.

Chameleon EDM
+Get Rich TV Hey, don't get me wrong. I love the arts, I create music myself. I just don't reject the entire idea of money and having a job in order to create art while living off of other people. What you do? fantastic! Keep going!

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM i'm not sure if you're aware of how complicated a point this is, or if you're just trying to suggest i'm a little crazy.

not every song is the same. some start as experiments. others come out of jams. but, pretty much everything i make has an aspect of projection. i don't want to suggest i'm spontaneously hearing sound; that's not something that any composer really experiences. but, mental composition through triggers is a really big part of writing. so, yes: sometimes, it comes entirely out of my head, even if it's driven by an existing idea. more often, i'm starting with something and create arrangements in my mind by listening to it over and over. string or horn parts. guitar solos. effects collages.

the challenge of being a sound artist is trying to create what you hear in your head - to convert the sounds you hear into your mind into something real that others can also hear. it's what the process is, what the point is. so, you're entirely right in saying that what i'm hearing is in my head, on some level. but, the struggle i was having was that what i was hearing was not the same as what was in my head,

the fact that i just spent 4.5 months freaking out over a broken driver (i simply couldn't determine what the problem was; the answer turned out to be both devastatingly simple and almost impossible to guess...i figured it out by accident) suggests that the separation between what i want to hear and what i do hear is actually pretty strong. if i was merely tripping out, i would have walked down a different path than that.

my larger works can have upwards of three hundred parts in them. it's a lot of work, and requires a lot of careful attention. that interplay between imagination and reality is vital. but, the bounds are clear - and have to be. i have to ensure they are, at all times. otherwise, i'm just living in my head.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas Everything you say sounds absolutely mad

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM sigh. perhaps my diagnosis is not so arbitrary after all, then. i don't think that's true, but it's probably good for my image to come off just a little unhinged.

Alba Whiteman
+deathtokoalas ...A friend of mine was a computer programming lecturer at university and HAD to lower the pass mark level to pass more foreign students, by order of the faculty head. This is simply business for getting more asian students.

StephCurry WithTheShot
+deathtokoalas The crazy thing is, I'm starting to feel the same way you do. I bust my ass for my family. I work 70 hours a week while going to college for computer science. It's something I'm interested in, but not a passion of mine. I see it as a high salary job where I could use my brain and not my feet. Problem is, this grading process is a joke, not to mention that the material taught is being dumbed down so even the dumbest person who clearly isn't ready can pass and move on. Simple material is being repeated over and over again because the same idiots keep falling behind and I can't say anything because it will hurt their feelings and i'm supposed to be a "team player". I finish all the homework on time and I score 85-100s on tests and I get a B letter grade because I lose 10-15% on "class participation". Like, I'm sorry I don't want to be an asshole by answering everything for the rest of the class. What happens to the 10 students who never finished half the homework assignments with finals being 2 weeks away? Professor gives them all a free pass and lets them make up 3 months worth of assignments with no grade deduction. Not to mention they drop the 2 lowest test grades. I'm sitting on an A or B+ so I'm not worried about anything except my mother's mortgage. Finals come back and I got a B+ while half the class got an A. Gotta love college.

At the end of the day, knowledge is more valuable than a GPA but looking average will not get me into MIT or Berkeley. I feel like dropping out and purposely getting myself fired for unemployment so I can have the free time to self teach myself everything I would never learn with those classrooms. At the same time, with the books I read at work about coding jobs, I discovered that your team might not be that bright either. Apparently they can work 100 hour weeks with no salary increase if they are constantly behind. Maybe it's time I find a disability of my own...

deathtokoalas
+StephCurry WithTheShot ah, participation marks. that's something i forgot.

i've seen it set as high as 30% in third year, although that was a law class. gotta make sure they get their money's worth, right? see, but what it does is reward obedience. it's corporate training for the work environment. even at the university level, this is what the main purpose of schooling is.

depending on your goals, i would agree that you'll learn far better on your own than through a school. the thing is that you'd better be focused on self-employment, at least for the start.

the best way to get something out of school nowadays is through co-op. i'd even go so far as to suggest you're wasting your time, otherwise.