Comments

Episode-1515- Listener Feedback for 2-9-15 — 28 Comments

  1. Within the past year, I’ve realized that there is not one single law on the books that isn’t done by force, violence, or men with guns. Like you said, there comes a time when any law, if enforced, will mean that you will be either put into a cage or killed for resisting the kidnapping.
    Laws that you (and I both) say justify such visits from men with guns, don’t need to be laws anyway. Nobody needs a piece of paper telling them not to rape a women, or kill a neighbor. Good people don’t need laws to tell them how to behave. And so far laws haven’t been very successful at telling criminals how to behave, either. If they were, there’d be no criminals.

  2. Thanks Jack, who knows whether they’ll take your answer at face value, but it was a great piece.

    Just a clarification, my family actually wants chickens, we live on a rural 5 acres and have raised chickens before, my family just slurped up the soupa de merdia de toro they’ve been served.

  3. Great show Jack! I am only about halfway through it but the American Exceptionalism portion got me amped up. I love the rants! And yes, we need more of them! 🙂
    Thanks for all you do, Jack!

  4. Jack, you’re absolutely correct about the paradigm shift in education. I’ve taken a few courses through coursera.com and the number of courses they’ve added since I first went to their site a few years ago is amazing. The video lectures are done by the professor but the online interactions are with teaching assistants and other students. Sometimes the professor would interact too.

    I wondered at the time why these prestigious colleges were offering free education. Now I know!

  5. BTW, I earned my Bachelors degree in Computer Information Systems online through one of the few accredited universities back in 2003. While I paid a butt load of money for it, the flexibility of being able to earn a degree while working full time was worth it to me. The cost? $1,200/mo for 2.5 years plus books.

  6. Eggs, sorry for the multiple posts but just had another thought after reading some of the nopaymba blog posts.

    The Director of my department recently said that he wants to know if any of us are interested in MOOC learning. If so, he wants to know what classes we’re taking. He sees a future in it for his employees to continue their education because he’s doing it too.

  7. Regarding the listener’s comments on ‘American exceptionalism’ that Jack responded to in this episode:

    Based on the excerpt Jack read, the listener sounds like he’s under the impression that the entire world outside of the USA is a mutant hybrid of North Korea & Saudi Arabia. He must think that people are being routinely killed or persecuted for arbitrary reasons in such scary totalitarian Mordors as New Zealand, Switzerland, and Australia. (All of which, BTW, while certainly far from perfect, rank above Team America in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom as well as several other indices of freedom.)

    Or maybe he was just parroting warmn’fuzzy rhetoric he heard on [fillinnameoftypicalrightwingradioand/ortvhosthere.]

  8. Jack, connecting the free education online from universities and the question about permaculture. You mentioned one time about NC State having an online class called “Intro Into Permaculture” on iTunes U. The link for anyone interested is below. I’ve watched the first two so far.

    http://mediasite.online.ncsu.edu/online/Catalog/Full/f5a893e74b7c4b7980fd52dcd1ced71521

    Also to the emailer Josh, I’m from Maiden, right up the road from you. Hop on the forum under Region 3 and maybe we can get together sometime.

  9. Putting food on the plate: A penny saved is a tax free penny earned. By growing your own food you are saving the tax you would have paid on the food, the income tax on your earnings which include social security….etc.

  10. no “Monday’s Prepper Scenario” ??

    while I really enjoyed the thinking experiment on my drive to work, maybe there isn’t enough group interest in the shows segment. Or maybe the Duck Chronicles have temporarily eating into your free time. I hope they get put back in.

  11. My favorite part of when people talk about needing laws for others is pointing out that they refuse to live in numerous places in the country because of some laws, or perceived laws, they have on the books.

    Talk is one thing, observing people’s actions are another. People do not want to live or be around people who want to oppress others, particularly those they feel as though they can observe as being oppressed. Pick your issue it doesn’t really matter.

  12. Thought it was intresting you mentioned Coursera today as I am taking one of there classes right now . Here is were it gets good. The class is Disaster Preparness and in I think week twos optional resources the have a link to The Survival Podcast.
    Just thought you would like to know.

  13. Jack — Thanks so much for sharing Bill Mollison’s PDC Lectures in PDF. I was listening to that part of this episode while walking my dog, and I could not get home fast enough to download and save it on a flash drive before I forgot about it!

  14. Hey Jack,

    There was an effort by Washington State to take the most well subscribed courses for their community college students and develop open source books and course materials, as books are terribly over priced. I believe this is their list here : http://opencourselibrary.org/course/

    I only know about this as my daughter is taking a math course here in California at our local community college and her teacher has chosen to use the book and course material from this. I am impressed in many ways, the book is clearly written and straight forward, it is available for free to read online, not just at that link, but her teachers gave them this link to it (but same math book developed for Washington state) https://www.myopenmath.com/ which is easier to use. It can be hard on the eyes for many to read off computer screens all the time, but his has been solved too, there is a choice, read it for free online, download it to a reader or get it printed out. There are now on demand printing outfits, we just used Lulu.com where this textbook cost $15, brand new, printed to order. This is a well bound, although paperback, thick college level higher math textbook. The alternate used by a different instructor covering the same material is $300.

    As a homeschool mom I have seen many ways to present material, and online is not the same or the best for all learning, and especially not for the youngest learners. I myself took distance learning masters level classes from Stanford a great many years ago, (real time video and audio to us and audio from us back for questions to the teacher) and I have seen the latest online recorded stuff too, it is not the same as being in person in a class, it is not as engaging, but is certainly convenient for those that can learn this way. but I would expect alot more hybrid ways to learn where the student can pick and choose given their best learning modes. Alot more prerecorded tutoring of particular math or physics concepts, videos of certain demonstrations, self quizzes to see if the material has been learned, open source books to read, good lecture from engaging instructors to supplement in person courses or homeschooling.

    My daughter is absolutely loving the live instructors she has, it seems she learns realy well from being at lectures, finds it engaging. She has homeschooled her whole life until now, and at this time for her, at her age, she is realy liking this over the online, self study etc…. modes

  15. Probably going to sound like I am bragging, but my local library has both Permaculture one and two available for interregional loan(shared across a few branches). But then, this part of Northern New South Wales is home to both Lawtons’ PRI Institute and a few other permaculture training mobs as well.
    Completely agree with Jack’s thoughts on the Manual- Pretty tough going as an intro book on the subject. I bought it back in the 90’s sometime, and tried to read it. And yeah, I made a herb spiral…… about as far as I went at the time. lol.

  16. Thanks for a great, thought provoking, invigorating episode. One of the best I’ve heard! I’m recommending this to a few of my friends to get them on-board as I think they’ll agree with many of the sentiments that were so eloquently and passionately expressed here.
    Thanks for all you do, Jack!

  17. Free pdc that I would pay about $100 for: openpermaculture.com try the inter library loan system to get books on PC I have checked out books at my library That had to come all the way from Alaska and they are still free.

  18. If we ever got to a point where (standard operating procedure) SOP was that Leo’s paid for infant formula that couldn’t afford it, the immediate response by many would be to take advantage of the generosity unfairly. My mom is a boomer and she used to get rides home when she was a kid from cops just cuz they were being nice. I don’t know what happened to change it

    • Wow that is missing the entire point. Seriously? I never said it would be SOP for LEOs to pay for formula, but SOP for them to use common sense and good judgement in each instance.

    • If it became SOP, then yes, you would see that, but I don’t think Jack said that. I think I know what you mean and but I don’t know what changed exactly. My feeling is that things became too regimented because, you know, lawyers rule the world….

      If the SOP for a fire drill said always run to the North door toward the exit sign and the fire is actually in the room directly before the North door, would you obey the SOP or take a different exit?

      If the recipe called for bay leaf and you had no bay leaf, would you abandon the meal altogether?

      If the text book says there’s only one way to understand algebra, do you keep pounding out the text book or do you step back and find another way?

      Here’s another example: where I work, we have SOP’s for hurricane emergencies. It’s a big ass notebook of procedures. I seriously doubt that one person cracked it during Katrina and they’re idiots if they did. The smart people were hot-wiring cars and doing what they could with what they could at that moment.

      SOP’s are okay for preparing people and getting them to think through things, but they are essentially useless for real, unexpected events. They’re a database, and a database can get you killed if you’re afraid to deviate from them.

      We don’t need more rules. We need more minds. We need more flexibility. We need more compassion. We need less fear and more gumption.

  19. Regarding bird flu. It may have been coincidence that my less than 1 year old son got bird flu shortly after we had a cold snap last winter.
    They stayed in their coop, so it got messier, and I had to go in more often to tidy up.
    I believe he got it from crawling on our floor after I tracked in the microscopic mess. I would wipe my shoes off on the doormat, but I still wore them around the house.
    Bought some mucking boots which don’t get worn inside the house. He got treated and is fine.
    My observation is that even if he did get sick from the bird mess, he was fine. HE WAS UNDER 1 YEAR Old!

    • I am calling BS, your son might have got a flu, he didn’t get H5N1 (bird flu) or the CDC would have been to your home and you’d of been on every major news network.

        • Seriously? Then you need a new Doctor! I am dead the heck serious dude. If your doctor said your kid had H1N1 then you need a new doctor. He is either right and an idiot or wrong and an idiot. Take your pick.

  20. I got it. Thanks. She’s always been relaxed about everything since she knows we don’t come in seeking to pump ourselves full of drugs. Just figured this was the same.

  21. Education has been evolving, small steps which will become an avalanche over time. Still in the early adapter stage.
    Public schools which offer online grade school education-you don’t even have to live in their school district.
    Public schools which if you move to home school, you can still have you kids attend some classes if you wish, blending the two together.
    Graduate from high school with an associate degree or certification/training in anything from cosmetology to air craft mechanics.
    More home school groups, parents taking turns teaching real life skills based on their own unique skills and talents.
    One son at a university where most of his books are e-books. Often less than $100 for books for a semester.
    However not enough soon enough, and things will change. Programming will be one of the areas which tips the balance. Schools are getting the yes there are jobs in this field, we need to teach more of this. Yet they aren’t qualified to teach or even pick out what should be taught. (I know several who would make great teachers but giving up a quarter of a million salary to teach public school doesn’t happen, especially if you need to go back and get a “teaching degree” nor would they enjoy teaching kids forced to be in school but don’t want to be there. Of course they can start local programming meet ups, record their own lessons and collect royalties, etc. Much less red tape then working through public school system)

    So the schools pick old stuff which amazingly costs more (not open source), and most of their students still don’t get it. Even a 4 year computer science degree doesn’t provide the skills needed for the market.

    Of course the market is finding ways to train their employees. They have to, they need qualified employees. Several places are offering 6-9 month courses. Loans available. Many free online courses to get you started. I saw one place which listed many of these as prerequisites before going to their site and paying for rest of your training.