So give it a reprieve, say six months to a year, before the actual license revocation, offering another chance to pass.
And for cases that last longer, much longer than that?
Right, there are zillin possible schemes if there are one. I recall reading a book once on Game Theory and the Law that dealt with precisely this issue. I recommend it. Actually, "Game Theory and the Law is the title, now that I glance at my bookshelf.
Can you give an example or two please?
What are you talking about, it is the actual course material from one of our greatest universities?
Of course it is not polished the way you describe, it is the raw material. The UI can be added. Might now work so well the other way around
Not familiar with that one. But I am sure a private sw or textbook company would be thrilled to license their material.
That is what MIT and many other partner universities are doing - giving away their education for free. You think China, India, et. al. are not eating that up as is today? The big question in my mind, is why aren’t we? It need not look like a video game, it need only be integrated into moodle or some such, kept up to date, and provided to people with an unquenchable love of learning.
Of course, creating those people, that would be at the top of MY list!
far too complex for any simple answer but it brings to mind a thread I was considering. Does morality and values grow from the bottom up, or the top down in a society?
It seems to me that a huge problem is the corruption and disconnect of our political and financial leaders as well as their cooperation in that corruption.
The other problem seems to the unwillingness of the masses to educate themselves and really do something about it.
With that in mind, insist on significant changes in the way campaigns are financed to hinder the peddling of influence. Throw out all incumbents of both parties who are heavily invested in the money motivated status quo. To do that we have to convince the members of both parties that the change may require losing an election. Independents and responsible honest members of both parties who don’t treat politics as rooting for their favorite sports team need to work hard at communicating and educating.
From there we need regulation and education to limit the power of giant conglomerates.
Repeal the use of Admiralty Law anywhere on land, ever. Abolish all statutory law, regulatory law, and civil law (codes). Convert exclusively to Natural/Common Law courts, of which there are currently basically none. If you don’t have any idea of what I’m talking about, for instance that we are all owned chattel under Admiralty law at present, then you probably don’t agree that the rest would follow rather rapidly and automatically.
Then I guess I was right when I said that the USA is not a country, but a religious cult, & I am an apostate.
Seriously, though: We’ve had the Fairness Doctrine in the past (my point 7). The Founders did not pass Posse Comitatus, the anti-Reconstruction white supremacists passed it in 1878 (my point 10). I think you are mistaken.
I don’t know how one “outlaws economic externalities.” You are using the word in a strange way. I merely hope that manufacturers bear some responsibility for the costs to society that spring directly from their activity.
As for point 1 being, “contrary to the very reasons for existence of our country,” I suggest you read some Thomas Paine.
But in any case, I’m concerned with the good governance of the country, as a physical place, rather than constitutional consistency. My loyalty is to the real & physical rather than to the imaginary.
Oddly enough, I don’t actually expect any US states to try to secede in the next 30 years. Maybe Hawaii or Alaska, I guess. It’s not hard to imagine Canada dissolving, but what I propose would be pretty much the same process that has failed to break off Quebec so far. The truth is that both countries have long ages of practice holding it together. I just want to avoid bloodshed when that stops working, say 120 years from now.
Reconstitute the federal banking and securities reforms of 1933-34.
Dramatically increase federal small business help and loans.
Allow those with outstanding student loan debt to relieve their obligation through volunteer projects.
Put through legislation whereby corporations who swindle, scam or engage in malfeasance forfeit their legal rights as “persons.”
Create a national website that is an interactive clearinghouse for the unemployed and underemployed in all industries. Fund it through tax-deductible corporate contributions.
A year is plenty long enough to get the qualifications properly taken care of in a fair and honest fashion, one that does not place any more undue burdens on new entrants than it does to those already established–or alternatively, for the clients of people in any profession, even difficult disciplines such as law or medicine, to find new representation.
I’m not here making a Milton Friedmanesque argument that these licensing procedures should be done away with completely (although it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove Friedman wrong without a real world experiment). I simply want these procedures to actually fulfill their ostensible purpose of serving the public instead of serving the professionals themselves. Is it possible that there could actually be a professional who passed the initial qualifications by a hair’s breadth, became fully competent in the first several years of practice, and then failed, repeatedly, upon the first review examination hurdle, even after having five years’ practical experience in the field a full year’s window to make up for the initial failure? Yes, I suppose that could happen. And yes, that would be a cost of this system, rare though this situation would be. But it is a tiny cost compared to the restricted competition that we experience now. The push to reject unqualified applicants is subsumed in the scramble to reject as many people as possible. A much, much better system would be to treat all people, whether new or old to the field, with similar professional burdens–and then let market forces do their work.
The guild system exists to benefit itself, not others, and that’s as true today as it was hundreds of years ago.
If they make me dictator for 10 laws, I promise that I’ll look into the book before making even the slightest change.
First example that springs to mind is from Lawrence Lessig: Check Free Culture, beginning of Chapter 3. The book is available on a CC license, and can be downloaded for free on just about any format you want.
The kid did not copy music. The kid did not pirate music. He did not even set up the freakin search engine for his university, he merely modified it, made it work better, practicing his IT skilz because that’s what he was in university to do, and the RIAA slapped him with a 15 million dollar suit. They demanded that he settle, admit fault, and fork over his entire savings of 12,000 dollars. They did this to a college kid. 250K to fight the lawsuit, or 12K wired to the RIAA’s account to settle. And he chose to settle.
There is something fundamentally indecent with such a system.
I realize that, regardless of what choices are made, there will be trade-offs. Economics is, in fact, all about these trade-offs. Nothing will ever be perfect. But let’s be clear about something here: To the extent that lawyers act as the grease that keeps the gears spinning, they add value to the system. And to the extent that lawyers transfer funds from one party to another for no deeper purpose or meaning than to skim from the top to line their pockets with fees, they are parasites on the system. I wouldn’t even begin to pretend right now that I know where that line is–but I’m also not about to accept that what we have at present is anywhere near as efficient as it could and should be.
I thought I saw one of MIT’s online courses. Anyway, it didn’t seem as polished as the Calculus&Mathematica program, which you probably wouldn’t be interested in unless you’re, you know, into math. And have Mathematica.
It’s not at all rigorous with the presentation of limits, but it makes up for that, in my opinion, by being visually-based, concept-based, and extremely interactive. Easily the slickest educational tool I’ve ever seen. I don’t remember all that well my real life calculus classes back in the day, but I’m confident that this program is better than they were. Impressive feat for a bit of programming.
I’m all about creating those people, too. Absolutely, I am. Still, you can’t legislate that, not even in this semi-dictatorial hypothetical.
But incentives matter. And the incentive here is not just education (which, again, I’m all about), but rather the sheepskin. A lot of libertarianish economists seem to be of the belief that this quest for getting a degree is mostly inefficient, that it’s nothing more than a superficial marker of diligence, and thus of status, that the courses taught and info learned are not contributing to the future job skills that students will need. All of these resources are being wasted to provide a status marker, a demonstration of hard work to little purpose, instead of being invested in real future value. I think that’s a bunch of crap myself–I happen to think that a broad-based education has much broader benefits (positive externalities) that are hard to account for in the libertarian scheme of things–but I’m not deaf to the concern of high costs. MIT is offering this coursework… but are they offering credit hours? Are they offering the sheepskin?
Nah. It would diminish the prestige. It would diminish the status of MIT if any Joe Blow could pass all of their undergrad courses online for cheap. Well, I’m the guy who beats the drum of efficiency. Not ideology. Not high philosophy. I want the machine to work. Little wheels must spin so that the machine can turn. The machine would work better if this status marker were more widely available to more people more conveniently in a better format (like C&M) at a lower price. But maybe the government needn’t get involved. It might happen on its own. But if there’s a way to fix the problem more quickly, then I’m without question going to look into it, if I’m magically given legislative fiat power. I couldn’t instill in others a love of learning with these 10 changes, but just maybe I could set up a situation in which learning happens more easily with better programs for more people. Worth thinking about, anyway.
I recommend high altitude bombing followed by widespread infrastructure rebuilding overseen by a cadre of Indian and South Korean elites. The land is rich in natural resources – it’ll pay for itself.
Treat capitalism as a tool to generate wealth not a religious creed.
Create the circs in which, in the electronic age, a country of 300 million has more than 2 national 'papers for grown ups.
Separate politicians from lobbyists and their corporate employers, and mandate for limited State funding of all election campaigns - and effectively police that.
Meh. That would happen anyway if your lawyer gets caught stealing another client’s funds or your doctor sews somebody else’s right arm to their left shoulder – or do you think a judgment of professional incompetence should be deferred in those cases, too?
I see one mentioned in the fourth bullet point on that list, which is the ACLU’s attempts to censor teachers in Tangipahoah Parish, Louisiana. However, if you instead got a description the ACLU’s activities from a reliable source rather than Wikipedia, you’d quickly find other instances where they’re trying to heavily censor people. Just ask Mary Allen, the young women who was banned from speaking because she was a Christian, or Frank Lay and Robert Freeman, the men who may soon be sent to jail because they said something that the ACLU disapproves of, or the veterans in California who may soon see their war memorial destroyed by order of the ACLU, or the people of Redlands, or Russell County high School students, or any of the numerous other people who have had their freedom of speech taken away by the ACLU.
In any case, the fact that of everything posted in this thread, freedom of religion and speech is the only proposal that you’ve posted an objection to, says plenty about your priorities.
Bullshit much? Those links refer to the ACLU suing to prevent endorsement of religion by government employees, not to it “censoring” private individuals, except the case of Mary Allen - and there’s no evidence presented of any sort that the ACLU had anything to do with her being barred from speaking.
The fact that you have to misrepresent what’s in your links in order to make your argument says plenty about your priorities.
Maybe a year is plenty for paperwork, but it has nothing to do with actually being represented. What, a patent lawyer retained or hired by a corporation to guide its IP strategy in new and emerging technologies over decades, you have to worry he will not be licensed and all the unique knowledge he has of your IP will be unavailable to you the minute you might need it most?
That is but one example. The lifecycle of lawsuits, both criminal and civil do not always exist in tidy one year increments.
What actual evidence do you have that the public is not now being presently served by the need to license , and served sufficiently?
Given the failure rate of the existing exams, the intensity of the study put in now, the distribution past passing, and the arbitrary nature of the passing cut-off, what makes you sure this would be a rare occurence?
Then why not simply eliminate the need to go to law school and let anyone who thinks they can pass the test take it?
CA does not require law school, e.g. they have alternate requirements before you can take it, but I think it is the only state where law school is not needed.
If you equate qualifications with “pass a test” recently, then why not start there “and let the market forces do their work”?
Yeah, all those attorneys around to help us navigate the court system, and no one is benefiting!
So your problem is not really lawyer’s licensing, but that our laws encourage protection of intellectual property?
You do realize that is actually written in the Constitution itself, don’t you?
It is one thing to say that the purpose as described is not being served, as I believe Lessig does (a while since I have read his works). It is another thing to suggest the problem lies in how we license lawyers. They didn’t make the laws, and they are obligated in our adversarial system to do the best they can for their client.
How would your proposal change the facts of that case one single iota?
I suppose with feeling like that you never really looked at the from where our intellectual property laws are derived and found them in the Constitution itself.
Wouldn’t the better solution be legislative if there is a systemic problem? What you are suggesting is akin to solving repeated health issues in fresh vegetables on the backs of grocers who are last to handle it when in fact the problem lies in the fields or the packing houses.
IOW, it ameliorates your outrage, but doesn’t solve the solvable problem.
No.
No, they make the info available to the world, who don’t have access to the prestige at all and say - do with it what you will. Which is exactly what many Indian and Chinese engineers are doing. When we hire them, we don’t ask to see their degree now, why would we later?
You must not be aware how many very solid engineers are walking around with MIT educations but without the degree. It is not a hindrance really, even in people who were enrolled.
Well, you muight be unlcear ionthe concept of “status marker” - if everyone has it, then it is not marking anything.
What you mean is you want to raise the minimum bar on what is an acceptable level of education to have in the workforce, I think, right?
So you want to misdirect energies where there is arguably misguided legislation and make new legislation where the market could do the job.
I agree with Hellestal. If your lawyer is so incompetent that he can’t pass a portion of the test that he already passed, then tough luck. You hired a scrub.
It may derail some cases, but that would simply make it easier for the good lawyers to rise up and get noticed. I know people who took 4 tries to pass the BAR and people who took 1. They get the same degree, the same license. Now if I knew a lawyer who failed a retest 4 times and one who never failed one, guess which one I’m going to hire?
Hire whichever you want, whoever you judge meets your risk/reward profile.
But the proposal is BS - on one hand he says he wants the market to be able to decide who they want to hire, on the other hand he puts implements not only on me hiring who I want to hire, but also places solid roadblocks in front of the core value of my company, which can’t be good for the company, the market I am in, or shareholders.
So is he really Friedman-eqsue, or just pseudo- ?
While I appreciate the original sentiment, I think he has widely missed the mark (if there ever was one) with this proposal and destroyed the market economy he professes to want to help, all in one fell swoop.
I meant to say, “Mixed-Member Proportional,” of course. But I’m not that committed to that particular system, so just go ahead & read it as some form of Proportional Representation.
