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Samizdata quote of the year

Student mocks insane adults:

“Thank you for teaching students that our own mental health is much less important than making triple vaccinated adults feel safe. […] Thank you for teaching us that we should never question authority or think critically.”

Found on Twitter.

27 comments to Samizdata quote of the year

  • Schrodinger's Dog

    The young lady was very, very good.

  • Paul Marks

    Education is no longer about thinking critically. “critical thinking” and “Critical Theory” sound similar – but they are opposites. Modern education (of which “Critical Theory” is a large part) is about indoctrination – getting the “correct” opinions on all matters, and punishing dissent.

    In Canada being critical of government policy (not just on the vaccines – on a whole range of matters) in front of your children, is now unlawful.

    The “free world”, “its a free country” – all gone or going, and not just in Canada.

    Western governments are now “emeshed in international agreements” (Lord Frost on GB News – one reason he resigned from the government) which is why they can not do what they are elected to do.

    And some of those international agreements (to do with United Nations Agenda 2030) is about correct opinions and attitudes.

    What Jordan Peterson calls the “DIE” agenda – diversity, inclusion and equity (which means – uniformity, exclusion and inequity).

    If you do not support the “correct” opinions and attitudes then you are to have no place in the new world – which is why Jordan Peterson has RESIGNED, as it was made clear to him that any student of his would have no j9b in future (because they had chosen to be students of his).

    This is how freedom has died – destroyed by FAKE “liberalism” in most of the Western world.

  • Paul Marks

    The Frankfurt School Marxist use of the term of “Critical Theory” was brilliant from a marketing point of view – because it sounds so much like “critical thinking”.

    It is the opposite of critical thinking – but it sounds similar. I suspect that the use of the term “Critical Theory” by American Marxists was deliberate – trying to trade off the traditional use of the term “critical thinking” in old style American education.

    They teach the opposite of critical thinking – but they use a term (“Critical Theory” – slavish acceptance of Collectivist assumptions) that sounds similar.

  • James Strong

    Paul Marks writes:

    ‘In Canada being critical of government policy (not just on the vaccines – on a whole range of matters) in front of your children, is now unlawful.’

    This is completely new to me.

    Further and better particulars, please.

    Thank you.

  • bobby b

    Just to play devil’s advocate, let me throw out a quick blurb:

    1. Students don’t generally get sick from Covid. But they can carry and pass on the virus just like anyone else.

    2. Teachers as a group are an overweight, ill-healthed cohort. Many are old.

    3. The big argument I’ve seen people advance is that it’s dumb to shut down schools to protect kids who don’t tend to get the illness.

    4. But this isn’t about the risk to the kids. What people fail to discuss is that it’s the older fat teachers, spending their days surrounded by 25-35 carriers per class, who are the ones truly at risk.

    5. Our societies have chosen to staff teaching ranks almost exclusively with women – the most risk-averse half of humanity.

    Why are we surprised that they don’t want to go mingle with hordes of kids?

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Why are we surprised that they don’t want to go mingle with hordes of kids?

    We are surprised that teachers “don’t want to go mingle with hordes of kids”? Really? I’m not surprised that teachers are finding new reasons to not do their jobs.

    People who don’t want to go mingle with hordes of kids should not be teachers. They should do their fucking jobs or find new jobs in a different industry.

    Fun fact: people should do their jobs or find new jobs – this rule of thumb even applies to school teachers!

  • 1. Students don’t generally get sick from Covid. But they can carry and pass on the virus just like anyone else.

    Masks do nothing to stop that. Moreover, it is now statistically clear (rather hilarious in my unkind mind) that neither do the ‘vaccinations’. Using cloth masks to stop an aerosol vectored virus (as opposed to a droplets vectored disease) is like trying to stop mosquitos with a chainlink fence.

    The entire thing is farcical. It is like medieval peasants and barons alike clutching a piece of the ‘true cross’ given to them by a cleric to ward off the plague. Except its a disease with a 99.8% IFR.

  • APL

    bobby b: “1. Students don’t generally get sick from Covid. But they can carry and pass on the virus just like anyone else.”

    And by the way, this is the argument applied which results in you being unable to see your GP (UK) in the midst of a ‘pandemic’.

    In agreement with Shlomo Maistre, if you’ve taken a job that is likely to expose you to sick people, then do your f***in’ job. What ever happened to ‘ I want to help people ‘, helping people that don’t need help is called interfering.

    bobby b: “5. Our societies have chosen to staff teaching ranks almost exclusively with women – the most risk-averse half of humanity.”

    There is somewhere in the archives of Samizdata, a youtube video of a rather portly female teacher, remonstrating with a FULLY VACCINATED, pupil because he wouldn’t wear a mask. Apparently she, ‘ didn’t want to get sick and die’. The unkind thought that she could probably improve her own prospects of that not happening, if she laid off the buns, did cross my mind.

    Half the problem with today’s society, is it’s all about the ‘feelz’.

  • llamas

    @ PdH – ‘ . . . A disease with a 99.8% IFR’ – MAXIMUM, and more and more data suggesting that, for most age groups, absent multiple pre-existing conditions, Much, Much Lower.

    I just ran myself through the Johns Hopkins Covid Risk Calculator, as I do every two weeks now. I am entirely unvaccinated, with no significant pre-existing conditions apart from having once been a smoker. My risk of dying from Covid in the next 2 weeks is 0.4 in 100,000, or 0.00004%. I don’t cross the street to avoid risks so trivial.

    llater,

    llamas

  • Deep Lurker

    Is there a full transcript anywhere?

    I’m one of those strange people who would very much rather read text than listen to audio, and who finds himself less and less enthused with video as time passes – especially when it’s video that’s just talking heads.

    Drawings, images, and video are indispensable in their place. But video gets used so much because ‘normal’ people seem to prefer to listen to words rather than to read them. And I’m one of those strange people who’s the opposite. So, is there a full transcript anywhere?

  • NickM

    Paul,
    One of the interesting things about Jordan Petersen is he is a sociologist I quite respect. Why? He looks for reasons and not just correlations.

    Example – drivel like this…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10423049/Girls-likely-weight-grandfathers-smoked-puberty-study-suggests.html

    That is the result of huge data-mining and algorithms. The problem with AI is it can produce results for some things but it can never answer the question, “Why?”.

    Now, I have a finely-tuned fakestatometer. That study has the excess weight to 3sf. Oh, behave! That’s down to one part in a thousand.

    I have much more to say on this and related things but I also have a life. More later. Somewhere.

  • Stonyground

    I prefer reading stuff to watching videos too so you are not alone.

  • Exasperated

    In the US, the school system’s response to covid varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, some far more draconian and punitive than others. Is this true of the UK, or is there a national protocol?

    The professions did not acquit themselves well in the US. I include teachers, academics in early childhood education, pediatricians, speech pathologists, reading specialists, literacy and dyslexia organizations. No heroes there. In the USA, Up to 60 % of children struggle to read fluently and with comprehension, and 30 % have significant reading disabilities. That’s under the best of circumstances. The masking of Pre-K children is a potential handicap for the neuro cognitive development of these children, in particular. Why didn’t the experts point out the risks of masking young children and exposing them to masked teachers and day care personnel? They just stood by without even issuing warnings or PSAs to parents, so they could attempt to remediate at home.
    I am not going to cover the damage to social/emotional damage, but that too.

  • Attending the public schools is, of itself, an adverse effect on ones mental health.

  • Stonyground

    I know that it was a long time ago now, nineteen sixties and seventies, but I don’t recall my schooldays being a particularly unhappy time. The only thing that I really hated was football and rugby. A lifelong loathing of field sports was instilled into me by school but it was otherwise OK.

  • Michael Gillespie

    NickM, you put me in mind of one of my favourite websites:
    https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

  • bobby b

    “People who don’t want to go mingle with hordes of kids should not be teachers”

    That was kind of my point. We have populated the schoolteacher ranks with people I would not want associating with my kids at all. Why are we surprised that the schools have turned out so wonderful?

    We have this habit of letting weird woke people overwhelm systems that we later remember are rather critical to society’s wellbeing. We only pay attention once it’s too late.

    School board meetings have always been very quiet, sparsely-attended things. I know – I went to many when my kids were of school age. Then I stopped. I shouldn’t have stopped. Too much rides on their decisions.

  • Paul Marks

    James Strong – I refer you to Jordan Peterson’s warnings about such things as criminalising the use of the “wrong” pronouns, warnings that were ignored. On a whole range of matters the Canadian regime (including the far left judges) are persecuting dissent. If you want the details of many sad cases – then go to either “True North” or to “Rebel Media”. Such things a man not being allowed to call his daughter a girl, or a man not being allowed to warn his son against the Covid injections, are just the tip of the iceberg now.

    Or just listen to Jordan Peterson’s own resignation statement – it is on Youtube (for the moment – till it is removed).

    Yes NickM – Jordan Peterson has given up on academia. As he himself says – his students are persecuted just because they are his students, so how can (in good conscience) teach anyone in the university. He had tenure – but what is the point of it, if anyone who opts to be his student is persecuted.

    The “DIE” (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) agenda has won – both in the education system, the government (including the courts) and the corporations.

    If anyone thinks this is confined to Canada – you are mistaken, horribly mistaken.

    Such things as “Diversity and Inclusion” (i.e. uniformity and exclusion) are already the law in the United Kingdom. And the evil of the “Social and Environment Governance” (ESG) system are already starting to dominate the business world.

    We are becoming like the People’s Republic of China – just an absurd “Woke” version of their tyranny, and they laugh at the death of the West.

  • bobby b

    “The “DIE” (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) agenda has won – both in the education system, the government (including the courts) and the corporations.”

    I think it’s more accurate to say that that agenda has the upper hand right now, because people who don’t want to control other people have allowed people who DO want to control other people to get themselves in places of power. Some of it was a lack of desire to impose their views on others – libertarians, basically – some of it was lack of attention to how important these concepts are to our daily lives – but either way, we all let them worm their way into power.

    But I’m seeing a rise in the number (and volume) of people who now realize that they must become involved if they don’t want the purple-haired cat lovers to run the world. City council meetings, school board meetings, shareholder meetings – more and more, people are showing up and talking.

    I don’t think we’ve lost. I think we stopped paying attention, and allowed things to get bad. I think we’re once again paying attention. In the US, watch the trend of small city elections, school board elections, and the like over the next year. I think these will give you hope.

  • sonny wayz

    James Strong:

    https://www.rebelnews.com/ontario_court_rules_father_cannot_criticize_covid_vaccines_around_10_year_old_son

    Yeah, rebel news, but there’s enough info to dig deeper.

    Interestingly, this didn’t show up on a couple of goggle searches, but was on the first page of DDG.

  • 2. Teachers as a group are an overweight, ill-healthed cohort. (bobby b, January 22, 2022 at 8:30 am)

    If they were genuinely concerned for their health, they would remedy this – indeed, they would have remedied it long ago.

    Many are old.

    Average age of death with the virus exceeds average age of death without. I have the impression that those, like state-school teachers, who are paid out of our taxes and have strong unions tend to have pensions to keep them alive after retirement and a retirement age that is earlier than the average age of death.

    You played devil’s advocate. Doubtless some teachers would think me devilish for suggesting that the dangers of life cannot entirely be eliminated – nor the dodging of them entirely outsourced onto their pupils.

    Like you (bobby b, January 22, 2022 at 8:28 pm), I don’t think we’ve lost.

  • Is there a full transcript anywhere? (Deep Lurker, January 22, 2022 at 2:23 pm)

    There’s a full transcript with the video – just play it with the sound off.

  • Deep Lurker

    There’s a full transcript with the video

    That’s not a transcript; that’s just subtitling.

  • pete

    Looks like that student has already been taught to squeal about mental health at the slightest opportunity.

  • NickM

    Paul,
    Just for you.

    You were right about the academy falling. I’m not even sure about citadel of mathematics.

  • Bell Curve

    Pete’s tongue must be the colour of boot polish, he is such a sub.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    NickM,

    Thanks for that link. Irony is lost on these supremely dumb morons.