Work. >_

Dude. Some *asshole* asked me if I knew what a server was.

Fuck on a shiny weather balloon, does he think he got an Amish tech or something? YOU CALLED TECH SUPPORT. If I repeat 'You've been trying to get a server all day?' confusedly, it means that something in what you said makes no sense, and you need to rephrase if you want the information you're looking for, not insult the person you're trying to get info from.

IC tomfoolery

Board: Academy X
Message: 15/65
Date: Sun Feb 19
Author: Pete Wisdom
Subject: World History/CWA...

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...has been rescheduled to a time when *sane* human beings are awake, rather than stupid o'clock: 3 PM, not noon. Same day.

The first and most important thing you've got to understand is that /no one/, likely save some mutant Shaolin monk from high in the Steppes, can know everything. Even if some poor bastard in, say, East Timor - just to be more hypothetically sadistic, yes - DID happen to be perfectly and clearly aware of every singly thing happening in the world through every moment of his life, that's still just one lifetime's worth of comprehensive world history. One miserably short lifetime.

NONE OF YOU SILLY ASSES HAD BETTER BRING UP ANY BLOODY IMMORTALS OR YOU SHALL ALL FAIL.

And one lifetime out of however many billions of years of sentient life on Earth, that's nothing. That's a goldfish fart in a tsunami. And consider that there're only so many years of /evidence/ of written history, and /of/ those years, the unwritten events-- the sheer volume of raw knowledge that mankind has *lost*. If it helps, think of it - world history - as a ninety-year-old granny who hits her head on the medicine cabinet door and gets total amnesia *then* has a *stroke*, has to spend the next year and a half learning to move, speak, read, and write, and then dies the week after she masters the diagramming of sentences.

Pretty crap, right?

Now remember that hypothetical all-seeing bloke in East Timor. There's no way he can write all of it down. Not even if he's Quicksilver. Too much data. So even if everything _could_ be known, not all of it could be recorded, and /of/ what /could/ be, only part of it survives or ever even comes to light.

Got that? All right.

We, as a race - and I'm talking, to clarify for you separatist bastards, about *we* the /people of Earth/ - know precious little about our own past and fuck-all about our own surroundings. I'm telling you, even bloody /time-travellers/ an only read so many books (or whatever, telepathic brain-dumps, *I* don't know). Just as a practical aside, I'll note, this means if some crafty fuck comes up to you and says 'Oi, look here, mate, I'm from the future so you'd best do as I say or it'll be the worse for you, I *know*, I've /seen/' then you're to take it with roughly an ocean of salt.

So. This class is meant to be about world history and current events, and I've just gone and told you it's impossible to actually learn enough of it to matter at all. Now that I've completely discouraged as many of you as possible from attempting to be educated, I'll tell you what I'll actually be *teaching* you:

How to determine what you actually need to know in order to make this world we've got into a better place, using examples from, yes, history, and applying them to, yes, current affairs; how to tell when you're being lied to, and how to compare sources to get a broader view of a situation or news account; how to determine *what is relevant*, and why, and how.

Anyone who likes is free to see me after class and arrange for an independent study -- which WILL be graded -- that protects your sheltered little worldview and fulfills the state's requirements of mass indoctrination.

--W