Sunday, January 09, 2011

The Political Utility Of Dumb Kids And Bad Adults


Y'all will have to excuse me if you've already seen or heard about this interesting story - how (our?) hackers allegedly devastated Iran's uranium-enriching computers. Living under a comfy rock, I just caught wind of it. Thanks LeagueIslander.

Of course this is the type of stuff we should be doing INSTEAD of spending $500+ billion a year on standing armies and sci-fi weaponry.

I recently came to an important realization about Big Education that also applies here.

Government schools miserably fail the *top* students, YET all of the news/propaganda about them focuses on how it fails the worst students - complete tautological BS!

Why is that? Well I submit it's not out of genuine compassion or anything but rather because highlighting drop-outs and illiteracy in say East New York, Brooklyn or Camden, NJ is a far more effective ploy for unquestioned, and INCREASING overall edu-funding.

Likewise, focusing the entire news cycle on *nuclear* Iran, a handful of Iraqi decapitators, and Mid-East rock tossers also keeps the public sufficiently *alarmed* and too distracted to question the enormous scope and spending of Big Military.

See why I don't follow the *news*?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Iran cyberweapon, hacker story is an excellent illustration of IT used "for good."

See also this fascinating NYT piece on Albert Gonzalez "The Great Cyberheist" that illustrates the worldwide scope of cybercrimes and how they can touch us all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/magazine/14Hacker-t.html?pagewanted=all

CaptiousNut said...

Anon,

That was an absolutely terrific article. Thanks.