so, what's with this korean war reunion going on in vancouver?

i hear luxembourg is slated to attend.

canada just got snuffed very badly by china; state-run media went so far as to label us a puppet of the united states. there's a certain thought process in the theory of canadian foreign policy that canada needs to maintain a counterbalance to american dominance, to avoid being absorbed. this counterbalance was historically occupied by the british, but this started to wane after world war two. there was some effort to approach both asia and latin america in the 70s before this idea lost popularity and we signed on to nafta in the 80s and 90s. but, with nafta unclear, and china rising, the old theory came back again, although it was actually stephen harper that put it back in motion by playing a dangerous game with the united states on oil exports. but, this snuff was deep enough that any thought of relying on china as a counterbalance to the united states was snuffed out with it - the chinese have really stated, in no uncertain terms, that they accept america's sphere of influence and that canada is in it. such overtures will not be reciprocated, but they send a clear enough message.

maybe we can send chrystia freeland to moscow to talk to the russians?

no. the counterbalance theory has no feasible balance save europe, which is no balance at the moment at all. so, the only option is to cuddle up with the elephant.

i don't expect canada to attempt to play peacemaker at this conference. our foreign policy people are aware that the threat of war is unlikely. rather, i expect that the purpose of the meeting is to remind america that canada fought along side it in korea. because we are the bestest of allies.

we're such good allies that we should have a good trade deal.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard

to be clear - the idea with the extended high school is that non-specialized employees, like governments, would stop asking for university degrees, because the skills that they require would be encapsulated in the enhanced high school diploma, whatever it's called. so, less people would actually want to go to university. the smaller pool of people would then actually mostly be able to get jobs in the fields they actually study in, which would be directed somewhat by research demand.

a field that this would probably have a large impact on would be computer science. but, programming ought to be thought of like writing - it's something employers ought to be able to assume that just about anybody can do. of course, there are specialized writers, and there will be specialized programmers. but, it's becoming a day-to-day thing that random people doing mundane tasks are going to need to know how to do, and so those skills should be adapted into a basic curriculum and many tasks should be delegated to people that graduate from it.

another thing that i think should be brought down to a basic level is an understanding of statistics. this is currently taught in ridiculous ways at the first through third year levels at universities, where you have statistics classes designed for every kind of student, although it's really just to break the classes up. the number of people taking statistics at a university is enormous, really, enough that it should be considered a common knowledge, too. i think a lot of students may also benefit from learning the statistics before they pick a specialization, both to better understand what they're learning and to be less distracted by stats. i mean, that's an extra psych or economics or physics or biology course you can take a semester, if you're not taking stats. a deeper immersion into what you're actually studying....

and, sure, some management courses would be helpful, too, maybe for people that in the end find themselves working in a fast food or retail type environment. it would level the playing field for promotions. and, it might give people that wouldn't have ordinarily seen themselves in a business role learn skills that they can use in the future. hey, if we're to have neo-liberalism, we ought to have some education in how it works. see, the neo-liberals start by getting human nature completely wrong - they assume infinite greed - and then design systems where infinite greed is available to all. they had interest rates at 0% for years. you were supposed to borrow money. yet, nobody did, because nobody understood they were supposed to. go around and ask people "did you take advantage of the 0% interest rates?", and they'll look at you like you're on drugs (and maybe you are and that's ok.). if you want us to act like homo economicus, you need to teach us how; it's not innate, it's not our nature. and, that doesn't mean a brainwashing course in neo-liberal "philosophy", either. even if you don't agree with this system, it's still useful to understand a little bit about how this works.

some breathing fossil is going to suggest we bring back civics class. i can hear it, right now:

"brrring back civics classss!"

well, maybe not civics class, exactly. but, a course in how parliament operates might be useful in a country where the government is a large employer. and, it might ensure that we understand how our system actually works, so long as it exists.

that's just a few ideas for a two-four year extension of high school. it would probably make sense for it to be a separate school system; to maintain high school graduation as a thing, then go on to this next school, then probably get a job.

i just feel it's necessary to draw attention to the fact that there are two problems with access to the school system - not only is it prohibitively expensive but the situation of degree necessity has led to lower standards across the board. it makes more sense to split these kids out of the university system, and let it focus on people that are going to actually end up doing research.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

wait, so how do we do this higher education thing right, anyways?

free tuition is the way to go, but we won't have to worry about how to pay for it if we just only let the best students in. all of the bloat comes in when you try and convert a university into a holding ground for underachieving adults. but, the market is really a terrible way to determine criteria to enter a classroom, anyways. first, we need to get the standards up a little, then we need to make access dependent solely on ability to succeed, not on ability to pay.

i guess you can't stop private universities from charging tuition, but, ideally, the public system would be where all of the research funding would be handed out through and all the best students would go - enough that paying to go to school would basically be proof that you're a loser, because you can't get into the free schools. this really ought to be turned on it's head...

when you let the elite institutions be privately run, and the less than elite institutions be publicly run, what the private institutions end up doing is twofold: (1) they take legacy money in terms of grants, in order to tolerate the children of alumni and (2) they use that legacy money to fund scholarships. this is just wasteful, on all kinds of different levels. free from the need to take bribes, the government would be far more efficient at ensuring that the classrooms at the elite institutions are only staffed with the best students. an integrated system could and really should try and combine campuses, as well - it would make sense to have regional physics institutes, for example, rather than a physics department in every city.

but, i'm missing the point about how university is necessary to find employment and so should be covered by public education. except that i'm not. what i'd actually like to see is another 2-4 years of high school, as that is a better way to address that problem than opening up universities to free tuition. there's a lot of things that high school does not address, from basic sciences to statistics to computer programming to business management, that ought to be a part of a basic education, rather than specialized knowledge. that is, after all, what people like senator sanders are really saying, isn't it? that you don't get out of the general pool with (most) two or even a four year degrees nowadays, because you're not learning anything that most people don't learn at some point, anyways.

the universities would need to shift their four year programs, if everybody walks in knowing a year or two of calculus, a year or two of stats, introductory quantum physics, how to program in C and java....but they could just pull graduate level courses down into the four year program and introduce even more abstract courses at the graduate level.

but, it should be free once you get there. if you can get there.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.