When I'm President, The Things I'll Change.

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When I'm President, the things I'll Change.
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 Bismarck.Magnuss
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By Bismarck.Magnuss 2014-02-08 19:17:59
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I would change the national anthem to Pantera's "*** Hostile".

The national bird would become the helicopter.

I'd eliminate state borders and make one big amalgamation.

I'd change the name of the country to The United State of Scruffington.

I'd change the currency to pogs (slammers would be like a 20 dollar bill!)

I'd sell the entirety of the armed forces to Sweden and use the money to buy attack llamas.

Oh, and I'd make gay marriage and abortion completely legal because wtf, how is that not a thing already?
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 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 19:20:12
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Shiva.Jirachi said: »
Idk I feel like trying to force people into weight lifting will cause problems.
Those who want to start off low may get made fun of by others, they may one day try to go too far and end up getting hurt, maybe seriously.
Or so an already 'tough' guy doesn't look like a wimp he goes too far over what he can handle...
I've never had a gym coach able to effectively watch over 30 kids, by the coach might get to them it may be too late before somethings happened.

Well good thing you're wrong on all fronts.

Starting low is what everyone should do to learn proper form. Even if you're experienced, you should warm up using low weights and gradually build your way up.

Maybe some kids are, but kids aren't stupid. If you teach them proper form and inform them of the risks, they'll be much less likely to hurt themselves. This is the stupid *** republican argument all over again. Keeping information from them is somehow better than educating them on it.

This maybe-this maybe-that is a moronic way on how to do things. Maybe I'll get in my car, be in an accident and kill myself. It still won't stop me, and that's why you actually teach people how to drive rather than banning cars to begin with.
 Alexander.Carrelo
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By Alexander.Carrelo 2014-02-08 19:21:43
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Remora.Brain said: »
Would introducing Esperanto to children Kindergarten-Elementary benefit them in being a stepping stone to bilingualism? The only sources listed by the people of Lernu, an online site for Esperanto, and wiki all point to really old studies about Esperanto enhancing language acquisition.
I think it would benefit them, yes. They would become familiar with the concept of a foreign language, they would have the opportunity to gain the skill required to authentically mimic a foreign pronunciation, and they would have an advantage due to some of the similarities that exist between English and Esperanto.

On the other hand, the same can be said of German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. These languages also happen to be more practically applicable, and a student is likely to learn one of them in less total time than would be required to start with Esperanto and branch out later. This is the main argument against Esperanto.

Remora.Brain said: »
Since the language is constructed with so many roots common to English, Spanish, French, and Italian, would it not be more beneficial to expose all children to some degree to Esperanto during childhood, then allow them to pick one of the natural languages of their choice?
For this to be true, Esperanto would have to be demonstrably easier to learn than any of the above. Furthermore, it would have to be easier to the extent that students could learn both Esperanto and their first natural foreign language in less time than it would take to learn said language alone. I can't definitively say that this isn't the case, but I really doubt it.
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 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 19:25:27
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Titan.Dhank said: »
Get rid of the unions. Almost all of them are corrupt and drive up the price of everything. How many Cal-Trans workers does it take to watch one person dig?

I hope you enjoy your 7 day work week. The reason why you even have weekends is because of unions and in some states with the weakest unions, there's already legislation proposed to 'allow' for 7 days a week.

Oh you only want to work 5 days a week? Well I guess you should look somewhere else then.
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 Alexander.Carrelo
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By Alexander.Carrelo 2014-02-08 19:29:42
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Also, on the topic of "what would you do?": this thread totally reminded me of a book I read when I was little. XD

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By Jetackuu 2014-02-08 19:30:26
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Bismarck.Ihina said: »
The military is fine the way it is, more or less.

When I was in, the only thing I noticed was that once a company would order whatever they needed for the year, they would then order random nonsense to fill out the rest of their given budget. If they don't, their budget next year would decrease. I got some pretty neat stuff because of that, but it still shouldn't be that way.

That said, leave the military budget alone. It's that military industrial complex that needs to be cut. When I was in Iraq, they stuck me(us, rather) on some tower and had a civilian contractor come in to do the same job I was trained to do, and paid him about 10x what I was getting paid. Bribery and corruption in Washington aside, that doesn't make much sense.

I know a lot of places that operate their budget that way, it doesn't make sense.

If you budget for X and you only need Y, it doesn't mean that next year you'll only need Y. It forces departments (in the sense at my work) to spend more than necessary, and it's a severe waste, in fact they're trying to find ways to reduce this years budget, I'll go ahead and suggest a reform change on how they decide on the budget, and then the departments will spend less. Most of them have sense and only order what they need, and prefer to not order unnecessary stuff, what's left over should go to their budget the year after, or they should be able to just say they don't need it entirely and give it back to the organization.
 Remora.Brain
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By Remora.Brain 2014-02-08 19:32:22
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Quote:
No, it would help them to introduce them to a living language. Bilingualism is a very good thing, but not with dead languages. I was forced to study latin, know how useful that is? Not a ***. There's even people who studiy ancient greek here in hs, these things are merely language archeology, waste of time unless you desire to dig into linguistics as your field.

I wouldn't call it a dead language since new words are created and added to it and while small it's not decreasing in number, and is used in small communities. It's not like I suggested teaching Akkadian...
 Leviathan.Tribalprophet
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By Leviathan.Tribalprophet 2014-02-08 19:33:46
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Remora.Brain said: »
When I went to high school, first year in weight room I hurt my back and ended up dropping out of school after being given *ssloads of pills and losing any motivation to leave my room.

If they had shown me proper lifting technique, or at least not let a bunch of 9th graders go in cold and try to deadlift stupid amounts of weight unsupervised, I wouldn't have hurt myself lol.

Lifting is good and if you start with just the bar and progress with increments of 5s, novice lifters will enjoy it. It's quick and easy at first, and by the time it becomes a real challenge, most people have become fascinated with how strong they've become, the guys especially.

No joke, but this seriously makes you sound like a Dreamworks Villain.

"They all laughed at me when I tried to implant microchips in my brain for higher learning, but now that I rule the universe I will force all of them to implant chips in their brains! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
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By Jetackuu 2014-02-08 19:39:22
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Remora.Brain said: »
Quote:
No, it would help them to introduce them to a living language. Bilingualism is a very good thing, but not with dead languages. I was forced to study latin, know how useful that is? Not a ***. There's even people who studiy ancient greek here in hs, these things are merely language archeology, waste of time unless you desire to dig into linguistics as your field.
who originally posted this? I didn't back read accurately enough to see, but this is to what you quoted, not to your response:

Latin is very good for anyone going into the medical field, and learning another language is good for the brain, regardless of what it is.
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By Fumiku 2014-02-08 19:39:48
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Titan.Dhank said: »
Get rid of the unions. Almost all of them are corrupt and drive up the price of everything. How many Cal-Trans workers does it take to watch one person dig?

Unions don't need to be gotten rid of they need reformed. The problem isn't the increase in pay they get, it is the amount of work they put out.
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By Jetackuu 2014-02-08 19:43:05
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If companies fixed the issues that need to be fixed proactively then unions wouldn't be needed, but the only way I see that happening is to eliminate the need for people to work for a living to bring a truer capitalist model to the work industry, where people can quit when they want to, and don't actually need to work to support their families.

Edit: to be clear, I don't think we're quite ready for that, but we could be further along than we are.

I don't like Unions.

I don't like companies being treated like "people."
 Remora.Brain
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By Remora.Brain 2014-02-08 19:46:57
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Quote:
No joke, but this seriously makes you sound like a Dreamworks Villain.

"They all laughed at me when I tried to implant microchips in my brain for higher learning, but now that I rule the universe I will force all of them to implant chips in their brains! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

I don't see it... >.>

I injured myself in a weightroom, which altered my entire path in life. Then I recovered and went back to it and have gotten much stronger and healthier, and am making a career of it.

From experience, helping people learn to lift from scratch and with proper form makes them excited because they feel themselves getting stronger. Most start off bored because it's too easily, but by the time they really feel challenged they're much stronger than they were when they first started.


Quote:
For this to be true, Esperanto would have to be demonstrably easier to learn than any of the above. Furthermore, it would have to be easier to the extent that students could learn both Esperanto and their first natural foreign language in less time than it would take to learn said language alone. I can't definitively say that this isn't the case, but I really doubt it.

From the wiki, which yeas, isn't a good source but, it does have links to viable, if old, studies:

"Studies have been conducted in New Zealand,[43] United States,[44][45][46] Germany,[47] Italy[48] and Australia.[49] The results of these studies were favorable and demonstrated that studying Esperanto before another foreign language expedites the acquisition of the other, natural, language. This appears to be because learning subsequent foreign languages is easier than learning one's first foreign language, while the use of a grammatically simple and culturally flexible auxiliary language like Esperanto lessens the first-language learning hurdle. In one study,[50] a group of European secondary school students studied Esperanto for one year, then French for three years, and ended up with a significantly better command of French than a control group, who studied French for all four years. Similar results have been found for other combinations of native and second languages, as well as for arrangements in which the course of study was reduced to two years, of which six months is spent learning Esperanto.[51]"
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By Jetackuu 2014-02-08 19:48:48
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Wiki has apparently been a better source than an actual encyclopedia according to some studies.

All depends on it's sources
 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 19:56:33
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Yeah before we start screwing with unions, maybe we could pass some legislation to prevent corporations from screwing over their workers?

http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity-and-real-wages.jpg

Guess what happened in 1978
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_National_Bank_of_Boston_v._Bellotti
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 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 20:16:11
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Shiva.Jirachi said: »
Yes. Starting low is what you'll enforce however whats to stop a kid from adding weight onto his bar when the coach is talking to someone else?

Education, dumbass. I said it in my post multiple times and emphasized on it over and over again.

I'm not answering anymore your silly little posts until you've shown you've read it thoroughally.
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By Grumpy Cat 2014-02-08 20:17:31
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If I were president PCOC would be passed immediately.

Paper I submitted last semester. Got an A on it.
 Shiva.Onorgul
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-02-08 20:28:11
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Ihina, how long has it been since you were last anywhere near a gym? Not even talking about teenagers, who are hardly world champions when it comes to good decision making skills, but half the meatheads I've seen in the gym who are there willingly not only have no idea how to lift safely but will not listen to advice or instruction unless a gun is pointed at their oxygen-starved little skulls.

Also, just by the by to you folks who think lifting is the bee's knees, simply because something is enforced in a school setting, do you think many people will continue to do it? I mean, I could actually point to the scores of psych studies that show how enforced instructional formats and/or reward systems demotivate interest. Or I could just ask how many people who were forced to study something in high school actually remember it, much less use it. Except a few folks like me and Carrelo who enjoy languages, virtually everyone I know a.) had to study a foreign language to graduate high school and b.) stopped using it and promptly forgot it after the last day.

I was in quite good shape in high school (ran track, biked everywhere, danced in a ballet company, and performed theatre) and still managed to turn into a fatass. I won't say there weren't mitigating circumstances, but I really question if our culture that places such a high emphasis on sports and competition is really so anti-fitness that we need to force people to pointlessly lift heavy ***for a couple years and make 99% of them completely loathe it.

'cause I'll bet no one except the accountants and finance majors around here have used trig since getting out of school in spite of being forced to study it.
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 Shiva.Onorgul
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-02-08 20:32:11
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Grumpy Cat said: »
If I were president PCOC would be passed immediately.

Paper I submitted last semester. Got an A on it.
You seriously just rewrote A Modest Proposal in modern terms.
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 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 20:38:42
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I was at the gym yesterday and I'll be in the gym in a few hours once my food digests.

Rest of your post is pretty stupid I don't even know where to start. Being able to control your adrenaline rush, breaking personal records on a regular basis, seeing the results of your hard work every day, every time you look in the mirror, developing a better image of yourself, boosting your self-esteem, and so forth. It really is intoxicating once you get into it.

And here you are, comparing it to learning trig.
 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 20:39:14
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Shiva.Jirachi said: »
You can educate people as much as you want, that won't mean they won't decide to try to show off when someones not looking.

Knew you would say this. It's also addressed in the earlier post I made.

Read it again.


I mean what the hell man. Should we disallow basketball because some kids may or may not want to rebel and start treating it like dodgeball? I find it hard to believe that all this is coming from an area of rationality. Oh noes, there's some risk of injury, let's not do it at all then.

Maybe I'll just walk 3 hours to work with a hard hat on from now on wrapped in bubble wrap.
 Siren.Kentai
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By Siren.Kentai 2014-02-08 20:51:56
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My underwear. That's what I'd change.
 Shiva.Onorgul
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-02-08 20:53:16
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Bismarck.Ihina said: »
I was at the gym yesterday and I'll be in the gym in a few hours once my food digests.

Rest of your post is pretty stupid I don't even know where to start. Being able to control your adrenaline rush, breaking personal records on a regular basis, seeing the results of your hard work every day, every time you look in the mirror, developing a better image of yourself, boosting your self-esteem, and so forth. It really is intoxicating once you get into it.

And here you are, comparing it to learning trig.
No, I'm using learning trig as an example of a well-documented psychological phenomenon. I was pretty clear on that, too.
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By Fumiku 2014-02-08 20:55:58
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Jetackuu said: »
If companies fixed the issues that need to be fixed proactively then unions wouldn't be needed, but the only way I see that happening is to eliminate the need for people to work for a living to bring a truer capitalist model to the work industry, where people can quit when they want to, and don't actually need to work to support their families.

Edit: to be clear, I don't think we're quite ready for that, but we could be further along than we are.

I don't like Unions.

I don't like companies being treated like "people."

I don't like the entirety of a union myself. They need major reform to be relevant in today's workforce. They are as much as a blood sucker as a company. That being said, they are the only thing that stands between you and the company.
 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 21:01:02
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Shiva.Onorgul said: »
No, I'm using learning trig as an example of a well-documented psychological phenomenon. I was pretty clear on that, too.

Oh, ok, so you weren't comparing it to learning trig. You weren't implying that the psychology behind learning trig was the same, or similar, to the psychology behind weight lifting.

Well good, looks like we agree!
 Remora.Brain
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By Remora.Brain 2014-02-08 21:04:55
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The counter to meatheads in a gym lifting like retards is to catch them before they ever start lifting and practice good form, which is addressed with my proposal.

Forcing students to lift has advantages over forcing students to take say French:

Physical strength increases rapidly when you first start lifting. Your average high school male who is a first time lifter is looking at adding well over a hundred pounds to a lift in just a few months while it would take him years to become able to use French.

Weight lifting can lead to better self-esteem through looking better, which is a major concern for teenagers. It also helps athletic performance. Those rewards tend to stick with children, and make them want to lift more. Weightlifting is a sport in and of itself as well. French does little in the way of self confidence.

Benefits to bone density and connective tissue strength from weightlifting can persist long after one stops lifting, in some cases staying above baseline well into old age, and if one were to quit and resume, the body can readjust quickly. French may or may not lower bone density.

Increased physical capabilities and better health serve practical purposes that an average American can see the benefit of in daily life. French is almost completely useless inside American borders.


So there's a big difference between being forced to take a language or math class that serves no practical purpose to most, and being forced to increase your physical strength which has benefits that can be felt with relatively short exposure, and you actually have to live which.
 Alexander.Carrelo
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By Alexander.Carrelo 2014-02-08 21:08:24
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Remora.Brain said: »
Quote:
For this to be true, Esperanto would have to be demonstrably easier to learn than any of the above. Furthermore, it would have to be easier to the extent that students could learn both Esperanto and their first natural foreign language in less time than it would take to learn said language alone. I can't definitively say that this isn't the case, but I really doubt it.

From the wiki, which yeas, isn't a good source but, it does have links to viable, if old, studies:

"Studies have been conducted in New Zealand,[43] United States,[44][45][46] Germany,[47] Italy[48] and Australia.[49] The results of these studies were favorable and demonstrated that studying Esperanto before another foreign language expedites the acquisition of the other, natural, language. This appears to be because learning subsequent foreign languages is easier than learning one's first foreign language, while the use of a grammatically simple and culturally flexible auxiliary language like Esperanto lessens the first-language learning hurdle. In one study,[50] a group of European secondary school students studied Esperanto for one year, then French for three years, and ended up with a significantly better command of French than a control group, who studied French for all four years. Similar results have been found for other combinations of native and second languages, as well as for arrangements in which the course of study was reduced to two years, of which six months is spent learning Esperanto.[51]"
It's definitely true that a lot of people get discouraged and give up on learning a new language. Esperanto could possibly carve out a niche if it really is user-friendly enough to appeal to the less motivated students, but this is really difficult to measure.

I'm not an expert on experimental design, but it seems to me that those studies would've had to control for differences in teaching methodology, classroom atmosphere, and resource availability in addition to performing consistent and appropriate evaluations of the results.

By appropriate evaluation, I mean that an American (or insert nationality here) French teacher who speaks substandard French is not qualified to evaluate results; I've audited many teachers' classes where, not only was incorrect grammar/pronunciation being reinforced, but the teacher was evaluating the weaker students as more advanced than their peers who were more closely imitating the native speakers in their recordings.

Some teachers weigh pronunciation more heavily than overall fluidity (and vice versa), which can also cause them to misrepresent a student's true ability. This also creates a problem with consistency between different teachers' evaluation criteria.

I'm sure they addressed some of those things in the studies, maybe even all of them. Would need to read the details, but that's not really my cup of tea. XD It just seems to me that training Esperanto teachers and replacing first-year French/Spanish/etc. would be a lot of trouble for very little gain (if any).
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 Bismarck.Ihina
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By Bismarck.Ihina 2014-02-08 21:12:06
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Read the post again. The whole post. I'm not going to tell you a fourth time.
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