I am not a number. I am a free man!

[torpid]

Every day something like this happens that makes me feel good about being nearly 62 years old. I pity you young folks. By the time you're my age, you'll have your # stamped onto your forehead and they'll pick the day they terminate you because you're worthless.

Ha, ha! The joke's on you, grampster, you're actually immortal.

 

[Khaotic]

By the time you're my age, you'll have your # stamped onto your forehead and they'll pick the day they terminate you because you're worthless.

Well hell, my palm's blinkin red already - better start a-runnin, eh ?

-K

 

[Kurush]

Just for the sake of argument, answer me this: What's the difference between a name and address (we'll assume uniqueness), and a number? Think carefully before answering.

 

[ravinraven]

"It's not that big of a deal to me. You can't use names because two people may have identical names, and it's easier to just do things chronologically."

What is a big deal is the stories I've heard about two people with the same names and different SSNs being mistaken for each other to the point of lawsuits being filed against the wrong one and the wrong one being grabbed and stuck in jail. Why don't the athorities just look at the numbers?

rr

 

[UberPhLuBB]

That will allow officials to save money and collect more accurate data by precoding test booklets with student information. It will provide a way to track students and their scores year to year, even if they move to other schools and districts. It also could help answer questions about how many students should be counted as dropouts.

I guess "names" don't work anymore? Funny, all my schools had drawers with kids' "names" arranged in an "alphabetical" type order so as to find the person's information with ease.

I'm not angry because it's an infringment of privacy or because teaching kids that they are numbers is OK and thus another step towards controlling the population. I'm angry because it's rediculously redundant and will ADD, not subtract cost and efficiency from the equation. Kids have names at birth for a reason, to distinguish themselves from one another. There is no other reason people have different names.

 

[ravinraven]

The number mentality...

...no matter if it's judged good or bad, I think helps people NOT think of others as people. The massive education mills of today where the upper officials hardly know the teachers to say nothing about knowing the students, I think is a detriment in that it promotes the "don't care" syndrome regarding others and it starts promoting that affliction early in the child's life. It becomes "the norm."

The small schools where everyone knows everyone else--where I went to highschool the principal knew every student and their families and knew about most of their problems and dreams--was ideal. Your total learning there seemed to be more than the sum of its parts. But it would be cost prohibitive to organize education that way today. I guess the private/church schools can still do it.

I guess if everything were perfect, we'd have nothing to squawk about and therefore no internet.

rr

 

[scubie02]

in the Bible, it says everyone will have to take the Mark of the Beast...I'm pretty doubtful that they are going to call it that--"you must report to take the mark of the Beast"--they'll make it something much more innocuous seeming...

 

[RevDisk]

Just for the sake of argument, answer me this: What's the difference between a name and address (we'll assume uniqueness), and a number? Think carefully before answering.

Way back in school, I was assigned a number. I didn't like the cattle feeling. So, I did what any good student did. Cheerfully and enthuastically complied. I refused to answer to anything but my number. I properly goose-stepped, and denounced various folks for lacking "revolutionary zeal" by using their "Bourgeois names". I passed around petitions to replace the US flag with the "more appropriate" USSR flag. We had very public mock 'trials' for 'class traitors'.

I convinced a number of my classmates to do the same. It was a real headache for all the teachers. At the 'request' of the teachers, my number was deleted, replaced with "n/a".