Professor is a Genius

Professor is a Genius (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion

Message

LotusSong -> Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 7:16:49 AM)
I hate to admit it.. but he has a point. ______________________________________________________________________ If somebody is unable to understand THIS explanation, I have serious doubts about their ability to even function in society, much less run our country! As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. -------------------------------------------- That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.

willbeurdaddy -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 7:47:15 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LotusSong I hate to admit it.. but he has a point. ______________________________________________________________________ If somebody is unable to understand THIS explanation, I have serious doubts about their ability to even function in society, much less run our country! As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. -------------------------------------------- That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that. Let the claims of "Its a bad analogy" begin!

ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 7:56:03 AM)
Never happened.

Louve00 -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 7:59:45 AM)
If this is a hypothetical opinion I am not going to say it is a total bad analogy. Not exactly accurate, but not completely bad. And if it was an actual study, the results are interesting.

slvemike4u -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 8:45:05 AM)
If it actually happened an awful lot of students have an awful good cause for legal redress.The Good Professor not only wasted their time...he screwed them out of wahtever tuition was paid for that course.

servantforuse -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 9:20:38 AM)
Our economy is the same. When we are all taxed into oblivian, the incentive to keep working will decrease. Why work hard when the Govt. takes it all.

Arpig -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 9:26:18 AM)
Besides the fact that it isn't true, it isn't an entirely bad analogy. The problem with the story lies with the fact that Obama has never stated that he wants to institute a system in which "no one would be poor and no one would be rich". This is a tired right wing talking point. Obama is not a socialist, I say this with confidence based on the fact that we have an actual real socialist party here, with actual real socialists sitting in parliament. Yes Obama is an advocate of Big Government, yes Obama is an advocate of government intervention, and yes Obama favours more taxes on corporations and the wealthy and favours tax breaks for the poor. None of that, however makes him a socialist. (Hell in Canada that would just qualify him as a member of the Conservative party [:D]). Obama would have to move a damn sight further to the left to even begin to be a socialist.

awmslave -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 9:37:12 AM)
The experiment is interesting but what it actually tests? If one wants to transfer it to society level similar experiment has been done in large scale by Soviets. Also, there have been many "control experiments" that show unregulated capitalism does not work either. The most recent in USA financial industry. So, we can not over-simplify for propaganda reasons.

awmslave -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 9:46:15 AM)
Control experiment as follows would be actually interesting: students who earn A get the grade, the rest get zero. How much increase in A-s would there be?

ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 9:48:14 AM)
So, we've got a completely fictitious story, intended to illustrate a completely false analogy. Yet I wonder how many pages of responses this thread will generate...

philosophy -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 9:58:23 AM)
...it's a semantic problem Arpig. To some in the US, all you have to do to be a socialist is disagree with Thatchers statement that 'there's no such thing as society'. Operating under the assumption that there is such a thing as society and that everyone has a stake in it, regardless of income, is defined as socialism by some people in the US.

LadyEllen -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 10:03:04 AM)
Assuming an economics professor believed Obama's policies to be socialism at all, which is pretty unlikely since they are not, he should rather count as a dunce than a genius for his error. I think that for the benefit of the political life of the US, we should send you fifty or so "old" Labour MPs for the few years following our next election (at which point Labour should be wiped out given the mess "new" Labour has produced with its right wing market ideology) as political intern commentators with US media. This would serve to demonstrate to all and sundry, in no uncertain terms what is and what is not socialism. Although health warnings would have to be posted as the shock of hearing real socialism on the air might prove fatal to some. E

Louve00 -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 10:34:00 AM)
I agree with Arpig on this. The differences I see with this hypothetical situation is you have to equate each student to a certain percentage of American people. The percentage of students IQ would have to be in proportion to the financial status of the Americans they represent (again, this is as hypothetical as the story). And, you would have to assume failing at a bad grade holds the same importance and outcome as a failed economic structure of the American they represent (I'm starting to confuse myself now lol). Bottom line is (to me), is its an interesting experiment to conduct IF it was conducted, but I don't see where it would prove anything in relation to our economy, since his theory was proving you can't multiply wealth by dividing it.

Loki45 -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 10:49:00 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: servantforuse Our economy is the same. When we are all taxed into oblivian, the incentive to keep working will decrease. Why work hard when the Govt. takes it all. Because the notion that "the government takes it all" is a misnomer. The governments of other countries tax their citizens far more than ours does and at far less amounts of annual salaries. However, those countries still have rich people and poor people. So while it makes a nice 'sound bite' to say that people won't want to work to make their money because the government takes it all, it's not really true.

Loki45 -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 10:50:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: awmslave Also, there have been many "control experiments" that show unregulated capitalism does not work either. Exactly. In unregulated capitalism, the 'few' get WAY rich, while the many get 'way' poor because the only ways the rich see to get 'more' rich is to pay the 'many' less and less.

Loki45 -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 10:51:58 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda So, we've got a completely fictitious story, intended to illustrate a completely false analogy. Yet I wonder how many pages of responses this thread will generate... [sm=LMAO.gif]

MarsBonfire -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 4:36:19 PM)
Reduce it to it's most basic: If the game has no rules, no regulations... then how easy is it for those with the power to do so... to cheat? When they cheat, is it moral or ethical for them to cause the vast bulk of the players to suffer, and live out shorter life spans due to their greed? Why should the bulk of the population stomach this sort of treatment from the very few?

DarkSteven -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 6:11:58 PM)
I'm at a total loss. Bush created the concept that Wall Street needed to be bailed out. We thus had the unique spectacle of suits making six figures, who had committed acts that were unethical if not illegal, getting subsidized by Joe Six Pack. Obama expanded this mess. The conservatives have tried to distance themselves from the whole mess with two consistent themes - one that Bush was really a liberal, and also that Obama is a socialist and he is somehow responsible for the mess. The truth is that the SPENDING is responsible. Raising taxes to pay for things is inevitable after the spending binge. If you allowed tax cuts while spending was increasing, you have no ground to complain about increased taxes now. You should have seen it coming.

TheHeretic -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 6:51:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda Never happened. Schroedinger never actually put a cat in a box, either, yet we can learn the lesson anyway.

TheHeretic -> RE: Professor is a Genius (7/22/2009 6:53:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: slvemike4u If it actually happened an awful lot of students have an awful good cause for legal redress.The Good Professor not only wasted their time...he screwed them out of wahtever tuition was paid for that course. Cuz God knows, getting a good grade is far more important than learning something.

Page: [1] 2 3 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.046875