[cm2012]

You really think the school system is bad because the entire cadre of school administrators are taking secret orders from shadowy politicians to keep kids dumb? I recommend you rethink the logical process that brought you to this conclusion.

[fatcat500]

Macroscopic politics is a phenomenon in its own right. Something that should be studied like one would study chemistry or physics. No one person or party controls the course of events.

I don't believe there is a grand conspiracy with shadowy bond-villainesque bad guys. It's simply that there is positive pressure in one direction (to have an easier-to-manage populace) and negative pressure in the other (to have a virtuous populace (harder to manage)).

[ackfoobar]

It is quite bond-villainesque if one tries to make the population easier to manage.

I think it's simpler than that. It's memetics. Bad/wrong ideas infect brains, and propagate themselves by making believing those ideas fashionable. People then act according to the incentives. Some borrow the occult concept "egregore" describe the emergent behaviour.

[sfink]

I fail to see the difference between your arguments.

Making the population easier to manage doesn't need to be an explicit goal, it's an emergent outcome of many many different policies that target other things and are incentivized.

Making money from mass populations works better with more homogeneity of demand, and social media in particular provides a lot of effective levers to promote that homogeneity.

It is many people's jobs to influence memetics, and they're succeeding.

[ackfoobar]

Right. I meant I don't believe that is an explicit goal/conscious thought, for most of them. Sorry for not making myself clear.

[hervature]

Although I don't agree with the conspiracy, it's more that the politicians can achieve the outcome by misdirecting funds (free iPads!) to achieve the "supposed" end goal (producing sheeple) while looking like they are achieving a nobler goal (educating the lesser off). This can be achieved with very few people interested in the former with the majority of the politicians believing they are accomplishing the latter.

[theGnuMe]

It's not the administrators. It is the politicians and some rich donors funding things like banning books, banning sex ed, changing curriculum standards i.e. not teaching about slavery because of political pressure or the threat of prosecution or defunding.

You know, all the stuff that's been in the news for all time as pushed by the conservative agenda?

[jaywalk]

Where was any of that mentioned? Complete strawman argument.

[becquerel]

You don't need conspiracy when you have hegemony.