The War On Bullshit

Several interesting points came up in the discussion of my last post, which addressed how the RIAA deceives the public regarding its imaginary losses due to music piracy.

Paul wrote:

“Saying that it’s not a loss if the person wouldn’t buy it if it weren’t available for free is like saying it’s not stealing for me to take a Ferrari without paying for it, because I wouldn’t buy it otherwise.”

On the one hand, I am in fact claiming that the RIAA does not experience a loss when someone downloads a song without paying, if that person would not have been willing to buy the song if it were not available for free. Furthermore, I agree with Paul that taking a Ferrari is stealing whether or not I would buy it otherwise. So haven’t I just contradicted my previous post? NO!

This discussion highlights the difference between tort law and criminal law, a distinction common to most developed nations. Loss is a topic under tort law; theft is a topic under criminal law. When you download a song through a P2P service, the RIAA can sue you (tort law) for losses they incurred due to your actions, while society can prosecute you (criminal law) for theft. These are distinct actions. If the RIAA sues you and wins, the RIAA gets the money. If society prosecutes you and wins, either you go to jail or society gets the money. Take a wild guess which route the RIAA is apt to take.

If the RIAA tries to sue you in tort for losses caused by your actions, they have to show that your actions in fact caused a loss. As I explained last time, the RIAA’s losses are imaginary, so they have no basis to sue you. To continue the analogy, if I break into my neighbor’s garage and steal his Ferrari, he loses the Ferrari, and can therefore sue me for his loss. If I download a song from the internet, the music industry cannot sue me because I have not caused a loss. The music industry didn’t lose the song, or income associated with it.

Whether or not downloading music constitutes theft in your country depends on how theft is defined in your criminal code, or equivalent. I’m not going to debate this, because 1) it depends on the country, and 2) the interpretation of law is best left to judges. However, I welcome a debate regarding whether downloading should be regarded as theft.

In conclusion, unauthorized music downloading may or may not be theft, depending on your country. However, unauthorized music downloading does not cause a loss to the music industry; therefore, the music industry has no legal basis on which to sue downloaders.

On to Part 3 –>

In my previous two posts, I established first that the grades assigned to students are subjective, if not entirely arbitrary; and second, that grades are pragmatically important because admissions, scholarships and jobs hinge on them. In summary, the system of grading is horribly screwed up, and we can’t just ignore it because careers, self-esteem and wheelbarrows of money depend on grades. This drew an interesting objection.

Jo writes: “So it is all bullshit. We know this. Give them what they want and move on to something better…”

I call this the “quityerbitchin” argument: yeah, you have a point, but unless you can tell us how to fix it, shut up already. With this I must agree, so let’s have at it then, shall we?

Two Alternatives to get the Bullshit out of Grading

If grades are subjective, but society pretends they’re objective, and this causes problems, we have two logical possibilities:

1. Embrace the Subjectivity of Evaluation

The first option is to simply accept that grading is subjective - to embrace the subjectivity of evaluation. While this may satisfy the social constructivists and interpretivists, it does cause some societal problems. If grades are just someone’s far-from-impartial opinion of a student, then basing job offers, admissions to schools and millions of dollars of scholarship money wholly or partially on grades smacks of incompetence and irresponsibility. Morality thus compels us to stop using grades as a primary selection criterion. However, it is presently unclear what could then serve as criteria on which to compare students.

While this option remains a possibility, it feels unsatisfying because one of the main functions of grading is to discriminate the good students from the bad.

2. Maximize Grade Objectivity

The other logical alternative is to try to make grades as objective as possible, with the understanding that a measure will always have some degree of error. This can be achieved by applying the same rigorous standard for instrument development that social scientists employ. Since a complete elucidation of the research surrounding the theory of measurement would occupy several volumes, I’ll stick to a few of the major points:

• The instructor must know what construct (e.g. knowledge of geography, or arithmetic proficiency) he or she is trying to measure. Said construct must be clearly and specifically defined.
• The constructs instructors are supposed to measure must be standardized nationally, or better, globally.
• Essays, projects, reports, papers, presentations, etc. must always be graded by several graders. Lack of agreement among graders indicates a problem with the assignment.
• “Objective” tests (multiple choice, etc.) must be pretested and validated. You have to test the test to make sure it measures what it’s supposed to measure and has no confusing questions.
• Students should be graded against a standard (not on a bell curve) and the standard must be a bona fide national, or preferably global, standard, designed by an objective process.
• The 1 to 100 grading scale must be replaced by a coarser scale (no larger than 1 to 5) wherein differences are meaningful enough to achieve reliable scoring.
• Due to the difficulty of creating good measures, schools should share tests that work.

Please note that I am not advocating an academic dystopia of endless public exams filled with countless multiple choice and fill-ins. I suspect that those sorts of tests are incapable of measuring most of the variables that grades should reflect. To me, this list screams out for problem-based learning and a revolution toward educational post-modernism, but that is a topic for another day.

And so dies the “quityerbitchin” argument.

In my last post, I established that grades are subjectively, if not arbitrarily, assigned. This inevitably draws the ‘pure learner’ argument.

Cynthia writes: “Why don’t you try being a pure learner, whose objective is knowledge, not grades??”

This is another way of asking, what does it matter if grades are subjective? Why do grades even matter in the grand scheme of things? By itself, arbitrary grading is inconsequential, but combined with admissions, scholarship granting and hiring practices, arbitrary grading promotes bias, prejudice, macroeconomic ineptitude and a culture of ignorance.

1. Admissions criteria

Admissions to college, grad school and other post secondary institutions are based primarily on grades. If you don’t believe me, try applying to MIT for a Ph. D. in Computer Science with a C average and see how far you get. Leadership skills and volunteer work won’t mean dick.

2. Scholarships

Ever wonder how that ditz got a full scholarship and you’re working two jobs to keep your student loans under control? Scholarships are mostly distributed primarily on the basis of marks.

3. Hiring practices

When you’ve got 20 years experience or a Ph. D., your transcript might not matter to employers, but for your first job out of college, plenty of them will have a look. It may not be the only criteria, but it counts. More importantly, plenty of jobs require a minimum education level, which you won’t have if you’re arbitrarily flunked out be teachers who don’t like you or don’t know how to evaluate you.

To summarize, unless you are so wealthy that you can bribe your way into the school you want, don’t care about scholarships, and don’t need a job after, you have to worry about marks!

Therefore, the ‘pure learner’ argument is bullshit.

on to the exciting conclusion –>