[RC] Re: BLISS Muniversity Re: [ RC ] Re: Values Academies COMMENTS

[Centroids]

One more point...

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 12, 2018, at 21:19, Billy Rojas <1billyro...@buglephilosophy.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> This goes farther than matters of sex.  What about greed, gluttony, such 
> practices as sadism, rejection of modern medicine, and so on?
> 
> What happens if one community refuses to vaccinate their kids? What if 
> another wants to make itself all lily white or all ebony black?
> 
I think you are just describing how actual cities really do function. If we 
really want to train leaders who can cope with these issues, then we have to 
embrace that dysfunction in a context that allows us to demonstrate how to 
overcome.

That much I agree with Mill: Truth needs to regularly confront and overcome 
error or it becomes worthless. 

E

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[RC] Re: BLISS Muniversity Re: [ RC ] Re: Values Academies COMMENTS

[Centroids]

Hi Billy,

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 12, 2018, at 21:19, Billy Rojas <1billyro...@buglephilosophy.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> I'm skeptical about:
> "households up to ~100 residents that publish and enforce their own 
> particular values, especially around Money, Sex, and Power."
> 
> To me this says that values are relative and right and wrong can be voted on 
> because there is no objective right and wrong.  That view is something  that 
> I can't accept.
> 
Obviously neither do I. The question is, how do we get people to see that?

You are the one always telling me we can’t talk about morality in Biblical 
terms and expect people to pay attention. We need to use science. 

So in my fictional universe, each community publishers exactly what moral 
standards they use, but they must submit to science in tracking the outcomes.

I for one will be greatly amused to see even the short-term results of a 
fraternity organized around a libertarian lines...

That was the fun part of doing this as a fictional story. My heroes are only 
vaguely religious, So they have no particular moral ax to grind. Instead, they 
can run a “fair experiment“ which I believe will give biblical values a chance 
to shine.

E

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[RC] Re: BLISS Muniversity Re: [ RC ] Re: Values Academies COMMENTS

[Billy Rojas]

Chris:

Seems to me that I heard of the Cornell hotel management school years ago

but no specific memories to draw upon.


Have you seen the two e-mails about Schweitzer University?  The concept of SU

meshes nicely with what Cornell is doing.  I'd go further and say that there is

some similarity to your idea of rethinking the university as a city, but more 
in spirit

than in any kind of comprehensive way.


There are major issues with that approach, especially skill levels and 
factoring in the market.

For some jobs you can almost be any age, but for others you really need a lot 
of education

and as much relevant experience as possible. Young people of 19 or 20 simply

don't have the preparation. Doctors obviously, lawyers at least in some 
specialties,

engineers for any kind of projects that involve higher math, and so forth. In 
other fields

it is good to have high profile names on one's "team."


There is one kind of project where a university might be a de facto city, 
however,

at least for a while, say 20 years or somewhat longer.


Long ago, can't remember exactly when, my idea was to re-develop a town on

the shores of the Salton Sea.  The process had started but the Depression killed

the effort and as much as was built became a social backwater

and the sea itself gradually became a polluted nightmare.

Regardless, the Salton Sea has considerable potential, at a minimum

as a retirement community, but maybe far more as a resort community

for folks from LA or California more generally.


How do you basically create a city from scratch? You would need just about

everything, from quality architecture to construction of street and sewers,

to environmental cleanup and maintenance, to schools and fire departments.

All right, start with the nucleus of a campus, only the new "college" would be 
based

entirely on building the new city of, uhhh, Venus.  that has a nice ring to it.


Anyway, although there necessarily would need to basic courses, new versions

of classes in standard Liberal Arts & Sciences curricula, everything else would

be focused on building the city. Some teachers would be recruited from academia

but most would have to have serious real world experience  -as construction

superintendents, as fire marshals, as hospital administrators, as 
restauranteurs,

and you name it.


To be sure, some sort of agreement would need to be worked out with trade 
unions,

and there would need to be some effort made to get all legal stuff in good order

so that there would not be those kinds of troubles down the road, but basically

students would also be employees and learn what they need to know through

direct experience, not only from hitting the books.


I'd also like to see what could be done if Venus was constructed with high tech

in mind from the outset.  Bring in the biggies from Silicon Valley, Microsoft,

Texas, Boston, etc and let them pitch their concepts and offer to show the

world what a 21st century city could look like if computers were integral

to everything  -from day #1 onwards.


I'm skeptical about:

"households up to ~100 residents that publish and enforce their own particular 
values,

especially around Money, Sex, and Power."


To me this says that values are relative and right and wrong can be voted on

because there is no objective right and wrong.  That view is something

that I can't accept. As I see it, while there is some latitude about issues

like monogamy vs serial monogamy vs polygamy, for example,

after all, the Bible justifies each of there systems in one book or another,

other kinds of behaviors are "outside the pale" and are totally unacceptable.

And there is all kinds of psych research that bears directly on moral issues,

even researchers at Johns  Hopkins, once pro-homosexual, are now saying

that homosexuality can be and often is dysfunctional. My view is that

it always is dysfunctional  -which is what the Bible also says.


This goes farther than matters of sex.  What about greed, gluttony,

such practices as sadism, rejection of modern medicine, and so on?

What happens if one community refuses to vaccinate their kids?

What if another wants to make itself all lily white or all ebony black?


You can see the problem.  There needs to be (as much as possible)

objective standards of right vs wrong.


As you can tell, I am strongly anti-libertarian about these kinds of things.



"Everyone must become expert at something that has intrinsic value to society. "
I agree completely. But I'd add Professor Kirshner as contributing value
to society, and  -speaking hypothetically-  a certain well proportioned blonde
lady-of-easy-virtue at Mustang Ranch once upon a time


I'd guess that Venus would be fully built in about 20 years. There could be 
expansion

after that, and the university might remain, but it would then need a more

conventional mission.


Yet maybe the idea would be to build another new city in 20 or 25 years

and the core faculty,