This is the ugliest "I told you so" but...I did. For years I said MOOCs and online and all that were not going to work. I had serious head-butts with a former president of my school about it. Distance Ed can work if done right, but "let's virtualize" was always a stupid idea. /1
Right now, Zoom works, and it will get us through the coming year. Because it has to. But the virtual online education advocates were always wrong, b/c they were wrong about human beings learn things. This began 20 years ago and it was stupid then and it's stupid now. /2
I will say: @HarvardExt always had this right, and approached it carefully. There's a mixture of classes and they had faculty fully on board for experimentation. Very different from the "let's turn everything into the U of Phoenix" people like my old boss all those yrs ago. /3
If anything good comes out of this for education, it's that a forced transition to online-only was just as bad an idea as it was always going to be, and now we *know* it and we can move on. Humans learn from humans. Distance can work but classrooms are still the best option. /4x
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Before I head downstairs for some late-night TV, I am going to do something I’ve never done:
To see if I can get through to some of you, I AM GOING TO USE A SPORTSBALL ANALOGY!
/1
Bottom of the 9th, Team Democracy tied with Team Autocrat. Biden’s been pitching a great game, but he’s getting tired. Facing their top hitter, he goes for his fastball.
He unloads a wild pitch into the stands, hitting a fan in the head. Crowd hushes. Opposing team grins.
/2
The Coach – concerned Dems – comes out to the mound.
"You okay?"
"Fine. Insulted you’d ask. Watch this next pitch."
Biden puts one in the dirt.
The Coach watches the catcher scrambling and then at the guy in the stands rubbing his sore noggin.
I agree that there is a double-standard in covering Trump. I have complained about it a lot. (The way I complain about everything: At length.) But maybe many of you should consider what you were saying about Trump coverage back at the start.
"Stop covering him!"
/1
I was one of the people arguing for saturating the airwaves with him so people could see his emotional instability. "Shut up," many of you yelled. "You're giving him oxygen!" When he was POTUS, I opposed kicking him off Twitter, which made some of you go nuts.
/2
And this isn't because it was good coverage; you wanted him cast into silence, which I opposed. This got so intense that I wrote this piece in USA Today to pushback on the calls to stop tweeting his press conferences:
This is an outdated way of thinking about nuclear bombers.
Yes, they are recallable - a great thing to have in 1960. Today, not as big a deal. Here's why. Short 🧵
/1
During the Cold War, you assumed that a crisis could erupt into hemisphere-wide, all-out nuclear war. So you wanted a way to get at least some of your nukes out of the way early - and show the enemy your readiness. Bombers are A+ for that./2
Once ICBMs enter the picture after 1959-ish, however, we have a new problem: What if the enemy's massive first strike destroys the ICBMs and the sub pens, leaving the last few subs able only to destroy cities and trigger Armageddon?
Bombers wait for the order, is what. /3
I don't usually respond to critics, but this guy hauls me up short on what I get wrong about my insistence on absolute deference to experts.
A thread!
/1
Good point here about scientists who can't speak to the normals:
/2
And yeah, we should have maybe paid more attention to the problem of progressives who wouldn't let go:
/3
Franck is making the case for a solipsistic, self-regarding approach to voting, that is all about you and not about collective action. Sometimes in politics just as in foreign policy, you understand that you end up in alliances you don’t like for the sake of a greater purpose. /1
Franck reminds me of the political scientists years ago who scratched their heads about why people bothered to vote when no single vote can affect very much. But voting even when you don’t like any of the choices is part of civic maturity. /2
It is remarkably self-absorbed to think that your vote is a character-afflicting endorsement rather than a strategic choice. Voting when you like the choices is easy. Making a strategic decision when you don’t like the choices requires thought. /3
My (friendly) disagreement with @NoahCRothman reminds me of something that happened to me when I was doing a speaking engagement at a college. One of the faculty was - no, really - very Trumpy. And he made a comment to me that really encapsulates our political asymmetry. /1
He said: "Your contempt for the voters is palpable," because I was talking about The Death of Expertise and how voters vote based on not knowing stuff.
He felt that was very elitist.
"Your contempt is obvious as well," I said.
He was, uh, taken aback.
/2
He felt that *his* loathing of millions of Americans was rooted in a morally defensible hatred of anyone who votes for progressive positions on abortion, gay rights, etc. But *my* criticisms of people who think the ACA and Obamacare are different was unacceptably hostile. /3