Millencolin --- Jellygoose
- Impressions - Do you have any quirky tics? - Who is your favorite actor/actress? - Are you afraid of what the future holds? - Do you remember your very first post on KHV? If so, tell us more about it (what it was, the thread it was in, etc.).
I was doing well until #25, which eliminated my chances for consideration completely.
Appearance - Preferably my height or slightly shorter, but anything other than overly tall or overly short is fine. - Preferably around my age, but she can be a bit younger or a bit older. - I like a wild look: unkempt, messy hair and scars other than burn marks are a plus. (I'm weird like that.) - Some boobage at least. I don't want to look like I'm dating an 11-year-old. - Decent figure in general. Whales or broomsticks needn't apply. - Sexy clothes can be a plus if not exaggerated. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind it if a girl looks like she's heading over to the skate ramp, but there's nothing wrong with wearing a tank top in the summer. - I don't get the whole "glasses are hawt" thing. Glasses can be stylish and they won't make an attractive girl ugly, but I don't see how they can make someone more attractive than they already are. Nerdy glasses especially are a huge turn-off. - Make-up is fine if it's used to emphasize your beauty rather than cover up your ugliness. When a girl overdoes it, I automatically assume that they are doing it for the latter reason. - I love it when a girl flashes a smile the moment she sees me. It drives me crazy in a good way. Heck, I like it when a girl smiles often in general. - Being flirty with me is a plus. I'd flirt right back at her. Personality - DO NOT SMOTHER ME. Seriously. - Intelligence, but I have to be careful what I'm saying here. I find it embarassing when I get outsmarted by my crush in just about every area. I want to stand next to her, not below her or in her shadow. But yeah, I like intelligent women. Also, I like discussing things in a civilized manner, and I'd prefer it if my partner likes it too. - A degree of selfishness is actually commendable, more so than being a goody-two-shoes at least. Similarly to the intelligence thing, it makes me feel inferior when my partner is holier than thou, which is something I'd rather not be confronted with. Respect is necessary and kindness is a definite plus, but she doesn't have to have a heart of gold. I don't have one, why should she? - She must be at least tolerant of my drinking habits if not accepting. I drink but I'm not a drunkard, and I will not be treated as one. -Iniative. She won't have to take it every single time to be sure, but she should take it at least every once in a while. And by that I mean in all fields. - A good sense of humor is also a plus, by which I don't necessarily mean that she has to be good at cracking jokes herself (but if she is, all the better). I just mean that she should put up with me trying to be funny. After all, I'm usually doing it to make her smile. Interests - Shouldn't be exactly the same, but can't be miles apart either. I like learning about my partner's interests and broadening my horizons, and I'd prefer it if she did so too. That being said, I like extensive conversations about mutual interests. Let me put it this way... If you like RPGs, but prefer shooters over RPGs, that's fine. If you like punk rock, but prefer metal over punk rock, that's fine. Ideally, she'd have the same interests as me but in different priorities, or allocated differently. - That being said, I will respect her interests I don't share, so they may not matter all that much. As long as conversations don't run dry because of a lack of mutual interests. - Whatever her interests are, she shouldn't talk obsessively about them or try to force them on me. - Smoking is a turn-off but not a critical one if you only smoke in my absence or at least not blow the smoke in my face. - I'd be a hypocrite if I was against her drinking alcohol, so I'm not. In fact, I think I'd feel more comfortable if my girlfriend isn't afraid to drink. If we're gonna make fools out of ourselves, might as well do it together.
Do you really need more reasons to vote for this guy? I mean, on everything else they're all pretty much the same really.
I think that, if explained correctly just why the distinction is made, not only gay people would yrram. If one was associated with religion and the other wasn't but were otherwise identical, I as an atheist would choose egairram over marriage any day. If enough people would do it, I don't think the homosexual community would feel to singled out. It should be presented as a non-religious equivalent of marriage, not as a gay equivalent. Hadn't thought of that. Good point. Like I said: it saddens me that this is even an issue for some.
@ staff: I tried to be nice. I really did. I must have rewritten each sentence about three times to remove most of the viciousness I was originally going to let loose... ...But come on, cut me some slack here. And I'm sure your school was full of objective observers. Emotional unity is also a form of unity. I have good news for you then: you don't have to have sex to procreate, so you do not have to indulge in lustful acts anymore. Have fun with your test tube babies and your perpetual virginity. We weren't built to fly either. Are you against tools that help us fly? I suppose you must be then. It wouldn't hurt to ask yourself why it is a sin exactly. === Anyway, if "Bible huggers" (I don't see why people who base their opinions on the Bible should feel offended) want to monopolize the term marriage, let them. As long as the law provides an equivalent statute for homosexuals and atheists with equal rights and whatnot, I don't care. We can call it egairram for the lulz. It is still disappointing that this is even an issue though.
I'm surprised that this question comes from a girl instead of the other way around. I don't mind it but I often wonder whether girls do, which is why I always let girls decide on the...hugtensity. I'm socially awkward like that.
I guess I wanted to quote your post but decided not to, but somehow screwed the quote tags up. Sorry about that. I agree that people's minds have changed over the years, but I rarely think that debating has been the cause, more so that it was a natural consequence of them being teenagers. XD
Never in my long years of reading Discussion threads have I encountered a KHV member who admitted to losing a debate.
Personally, I find fondling breasts very arousing and I think most women love to have their breasts fondled as well...by the right person. The reason why it's so arousing is due to evolution. Men are attracted to breasts because they signal fertility. Women that have grown breasts are reproductively "good to go", so to speak. Men who like small breasts are kinda like paedophiles if you think about it. April fool's trolling aside, multiple studies on women have shown that there is indeed a correlation between the division of body fat and fertility and health.
I lost interest but I don't want to give the impression that your arguments would have somehow cornered me. So this isn't written on a very inspired or motivated whim, but here goes... I don't care about all that. I was simply going against your implication that experts wouldn't be valuable, which they are even if they are dependent on others' skills (which wouldn't be any different in a network, as you conveniently seem to forget). A child won't shape its own development regardless of which system you're in, as I've pointed out already. But in schools, that child will be influenced by more different people, which is obviously preferable (which is an unbacked claim but you've been spewing so many of those that you have no choice but to take it at face value if you don't want your own debating strategy to fall apart completely). Also, you'd send specialized kids to specialized schools and somehow don't expect it to lead to competition? That's ridiculous. Whenever I got picked last in P.E.'s volleyball matches, I comforted myself that I was among the best pupils in language subjects. But if I'd been studying languages at home, and then went to a specialized translator school, I'd be surrounded by like-minded students. If I were outclassed, I'd have few traits to counterbalance it because I had been spending all my time learning languages. And yes, I would still think competitively. The notion that I wouldn't is delusional. See below. It may have been just the government who gave that as a reason, but I still tend to trust them more than some teenager that just goes around and says "it's unrelated". You'll just have to excuse me for that. Well I'm fairly sure they aren't so we're stuck here then, aren't we? Except I presented a perfectly plausible model where early specialization proves to be dreadfully inefficient (the dinosaurs example), while you presented nothing of the sort. If you cannot even provide an example to back some kind of vague theory up, then why still hold on to it? And you are still free to do so, in your spare time. If you are actually serious about making it big in physics, you can hit the books as soon as your classes have ended and know all about how a cyclotron works by the age of 9. You will most likely outshine your peers by the time you get to college, be invited in some project that only the elite of the elite are able to contribute to, and probably have your co-students eat your dust. Compulsory education does not prevent you from doing this. You are not given the option to skip certain classes you deem useless, to be sure, but I've pointed out the reason behind this. The freedom to generalise or specialize is an illusion regardless, because your parents will direct your early life with you having absolutely no say in the matter anyway. But I've already mentioned that...several times. You are making this debate more confusing than it needs to be. Please don't contradict yourself aga- Neeeeeever mind. Of course I do, because a lot of people I know don't work for a boss, and never intended to. And if they really are complacent, then why force a change on them? You are contradicting yourself yet again: you vigorously want to change something that you think people are cool with...because they are cool with it. Nice try though. Except your goal should be trying to convince people why your system has fewer faults. You're failing by the way. In fact, I entered this debate after an argument with my girlfriend and wanted to blow off some steam. I didn't even have a very strong opinion about it. This only supports my suspicion that you really should get out more, and get to know people. The majority of the people I know do not see school as some kind of panacea against everything that's wrong with the world, and they certainly aren't content with children simply attending and not doing well. Every parent I know supports extra-educational activities, and would rather have their offspring doing well in school too. I really do wonder where you get all this bullshit, because not knowing this makes debating and trying to see things your way that much harder. Also, you are contradicting your previous statement. If children are being taught that being in school is the most important thing, then why do they themselves see school as useless? Is this once again an example of your "conspiracy" failing? So instead of manipulating them into thinking one thing, you are manipulating them into thinking something else. Clever plan, I really love it. Secondly, money being used as an incentive isn't exactly ground-breaking. It is probably something that can fight apathy, but it is by no means exclusive to your system. If I wouldn't make money, I probably wouldn't work. Funny how that goes. Furthermore, you have yet to say exactly how curiosity will be "driven up" if it isn't stimulated by any means. Compulsory education, like I've said countless times already, provides a basis in many possible fields of interest that may all pique a pupil's curiosity. This is not the primary factor for choice in all students, to be sure, but it has helped several of my former classmates. Even people like me, who just "chose something", are now interested in what they do, and pretty good at it to boot. Yeah yeah yeah, you don't like being told what to do. We get it now. Personally, I would find it extremely tiresome if I had to make every single decision myself. I'm the kind of person who would ruin his life (and possibly others) if I didn't have someone who would put me back in my place every now and then. And no, I'm fairly sure that I haven't been led to think like that. Why would society try to create a personality that has to be closely monitored in order to function instead of one that functions well on its own? Also see below. The areas with the highest birth rate in the UK also have the most storks, so kids must come from storks! Ahahaha...No. Also, you do realize that there is a sports industry in countries where education isn't and never has been compulsory, right? Right. And if sports wouldn't be popular without compulsory education, you are erasing one more popular social gathering opportunity for kids, and are unwittingly giving my wallflower theory more credit. Why thank you. Just to cure my ignorance; how do most homeschoolers make friends? I made most of my friends in school or sports clubs (which wouldn't be as popular without compulsory education according to your rhetorical question). Oh so we've established that a childhood with compulsory education supports bullying? Funny. I remember no such resolved argument. Or you could apply common sense here and think "Those tests are useful for seeing whether a certain pupil is ready to be taught harder stuff and ensure that (s)he doesn't just sit there with a dumb look on their face". And yes, they will compare their results with others. Still sounds better than you overspecialized homeschooled kids with little to no common ground having a conversation like this: Kid A: "My tutor taught me about agriculture in Yemen today." Kid B: "Hey, that would sound cool if it didn't sound so boring. My tutor taught me about octane numbers today." Kid A: "What numbers? Never mind, I don't care enough about that." I'm sure that conversation will last a long time. And the evils of comparing results are overrated too. Inspiring kids to do better, how dare they? I meant teachers indoctrinating individually. It's a larger scale than tutors indoctrinating individual children, but not everyone in the country or even the school is being taught by that same teacher. Your argument is invalid. But it's harder to identify, and therefore less likely to be "eliminated easily". Think of kids, and by extension parents, as a checkpoint. If even one child from the same class tells his mom that Mr. Wilson taught them that Pakistan is the capital of Mexico, that parent will complain and the falsehood will most likely be corrected. If a private tutor teaches a kid the same thing and that kid doesn't see a need to tell his mom, he will probably have wrong information for a pretty long time. A charismatic tutor can make your kid racist and sexist without you as a parent even knowing. See above. Because I liked my dependent but carefree time as a kid, which should be reason enough. Parents taking care of stuff you didn't have to worry about was the shit. Earlier independence will make your kid slightly smarter, but to what end? To make up for a lack of intelligence that kids nowadays show? There is nothing of the sort. I'm not a big fan of fixing what isn't broken, and when the extremely precious currency of fun is on the line, there will be hell to pay. Again, let kids be kids. How terrible of a society to inform children of the laws they should abide to! I meant that the reasons behind those laws are another debate entirely. You'll probably think that is't another of society's ways to screw us over for its own gain, while I will have my doubts about that. I'm sure the economy in general can somehow be linked to education but I have no intention of digressing that far. That's not what I said. If anything, I said it's almost impossible to stop corporations from forming. Okay. Wait. Stop. Hold it. You are about to argue that human desires are largely nurtured instead of being a part of human nature, against someone who has been taught the exact opposite in their Biologial Antropology, Human Behavior and Macro-Evolution classes by people more intelligent than you are. I have a book by one of my professors right here next to me. It explains in detail the relevance of dominance hierarchies in prehistoric hominids in our daily lives. Before you let your dignity tread on thin ice, ask yourself whether it is really so unlikely that competitiveness, group dependence and hierarchical thinking are in the nature of a social species such as man? Whatever the case, you want to change what people want. This brings us to a fairly important question: why? Why change what people want instead of letting them be? Sounds like a chore not worth doing. No, I just don't call mentalities nurtured when they aren't. Yet it is also a network, as I hope you won't try to deny. Like I said, a network has a center and a periphery. You'll have a hard time trying to find an existing network that isn't hierarchical in some way. Every center is connected to more units than a peripherous unit, and thus requires a different level of responsibility. Not everyone has it in them to show that kind of responsibility, making those who can more valuable. Sound like a hierarchy? You'd be right. I have thought this response quite often during your retort, but here I will say it out loud because I really do feel that other words fall short and the more appropriate reply is in fact: Are you fucking kidding me? So "something", by lack of a better word, is intentionally snuffing out entrepreneurship. Who could it be? The government? Which one then? I'm sure patents, licensing fees and regulations weren't all passed in the same legislature? Are governments conspiring across mandates or even generations? That'll be the day... Who else then? Education? Fortunately not. Our universities have several minors that you can pick virtually regardless of your degree. One of them is actually called Spoiler Entrepreneurship . No joke. All scientific degrees can choose it, and a good amount of the non-scientific ones. I can buy its courses even if I have chosen another minor. Do you realize what this means? Not only is it anything but being snuffed out, it is being promoted outside of the obvious career choices. Does this sound like a society that's snuffing out entrepreneurship to you? The game is equally pointless if those different outcomes aren't "objectively" better or worse than another. Hierarchies simply thrive on these distinctions. Then you are still competing for personal well-being, or at least welfare. A high social standing has been beneficial to an individual since the animal kingdom, and it has hardly changed, only the way in which the benefits are expressed. Well-connected people fare better than secluded hermits. I shouldn't even have to say that to someone who likes networks. And yes, the hierarchy is still there. People aren't "less complacent" to be in a hierarchy, they simply may not be content with their current position. This urges them to do better and not set low standards. Which turns into an economical arms race that is the premise of rising corporations. Carpet weaver beats other carpet weaver out of the water. Losing carpet weaver would like to join whom he can't beat. Winning carpet weaver thinks this is a good idea because they'd be big enough to weave carpets for the neighbouring town as well and outcompete the resident carpet weaver. Cash ensues. What makes you think they would even try to make durable products if they can sell new ones to the same customer every few years? If your small businesses create products built to last, their services will be unnecessary before long. Only by growth and innovation, by making your product preferable over the competition's will you ever make anything beyond the absolute minimum. If anything, it's this stasis mentality that would kill entrepreneurship because it leaves no room for innovation and creative ideas. It would, in other words, be incredibly boring. Just a friendly piece of advice: living like cavemen is more ecologically justifiable than any of the current systems. If resource parsimony is your cup of tea, then be my guest in trying to have the ecological footprint of a sewing needle, but don't count on me to follow your example. Point still stands. Friends of mine compete in the regional leagues of spectator sports. Do you think they'd be able to make a living out of it? I can assure you they won't. Then why throw it in here as a fact? Because lazy parents make good cash cows. If you are going to blame anyone, blame them, because I'm sure they'd be just as eager to drug up a homeschooled kid if he was a handful to them or their tutor. This has nothing to do with schooling and even if it did, I doubt it could be reversed even if mandatory schooling was no longer around. Also, I've said this before but parents have the final say in what their kid will learn. If a child is prevented from being the next Michael Jackson, it's because its parents think the odds of him becoming the next King Of Pop are staggeringly low. And like I've pointed out above, they have a point there. Not falling for that. If you haven't seen them scattered around in my previous post, then your comprehensive reading skills have failed you miserably and I'd start to wonder why I still waste my time debating. Not really seeing your point here to be honest, or how it would in some way contradict mine. Sorry. EDIT: Don't bother replying when you're unbanned if it's for my sake you'd reply. I don't want to pick up a debate after several weeks.
On the contrary, I love her. I got to know her through the Fatal Frame theme songs of course but I checked her other songs as well, and I was blown away. That woman has some musical presence...she can make more intense songs on her own than most bands ever could. My favourite songs are "Bodaiju" and "Uraraka" (the former for the intensity, the latter because it shows her flexibility), but I like both Fatal Frame songs as well.
Elbow --- Forget Myself
I never meant to say that they had to be experts on coffee machine making. I just meant that they had to be good at what they do, which is what the word expert means to me. So you send your kid to a school anyway. Whether they learn a trade or academic knowledge doesn't make much of a difference aside from the breadth of subjects they'll get, which I'll address below. Point is, they will end up in a school environment. I thought you were against those? They do this for a reason. In Belgium, reformations towards generalization of the high school package have been announced due to the sheer amount of drop-outs in the later years by pupils who still haven't figured out what the hell they want to do with their lives. I've never understood the difficulty of choosing a field, but there you are. Your system basically wants children and teenagers to specialize even sooner. It seems to me that you are overestimating their ability to make that choice, perhaps because you, like me, have never had any problems with it. Out of the examples you could give, you probably picked the worst one. The exact sciences overlap so often that it's nothing short of essential to have a basic understanding of all three. Sure, you could learn the process of photosynthesis in-depth by cramming the different steps, subequations and byproducts. Or you could have taken a Chemistry course beforehand and understand exactly why that sly little dioxygen molecule is being released. I won't reply to your points of information being incorrect and languages being only rudimentarily taught: they are not applicable to me. (By comparison, I was taught German for 3 years, English for 5 years and French for 8 years. And those weren't my prime subjects.) Except that the description doesn't fit the general populace. Indeed, most people I know are a fair bit more passionate about their field of expertise than I am. And yet even I, the apathetic airhead, am on the verge on becoming an expert. If your conspiracy theory is correct, which it isn't but let's assume it is for now, then it has failed horribly. View the paragraph above. Besides, you have yet to tell us how your system will cure that apathy exactly, or even how it will not make things worse by giving them more freedom to do nothing. There is no shortage of experts, get that silly idea out of your head already. More than 30 college students from Belgium and neighbouring countries alone are taking a brand-new master's degree that studies nothing but nematodes. There isn't an angle that isn't being covered by a multitude of experts and even if there is, it won't be uncovered for long. There are tons of young scientific disciplines in Biology alone (by "young" I mean no more than a couple of decades old). If anything, exchange projects, collaborations between universities and scholarships (the "globalisation of education") have made several degrees more accessible, with more motivated students as a result. I fail to see how homeschooling can provide an equivalent. You like networks, yet you want to degenerate the universities that form them and promote isolation instead. Yes, I do. Discrimination of any form isn't a school-induced problem. Sports clubs will always have that better/worse than mentality, probably more than school does. Martial arts have obis indicating skill level, ball games have coaches who decide who makes the team, etc. Wherever you go, people will size you up and compare you with others. This is as true in school as it is in almost every area of life. I find that difference to be pretty important actually. Wasn't the spearhead of your argument that homeschooling is the best way to spend money on education more efficiently? Small-scale indoctrination may be less significant but in return it largely goes unnocited. Indoctrination on a larger scale is easier to identify and eliminate, which does make it better. I'd rather dodge a wrecking ball than get hit by a brick. Actually, I didn't quite misunderstand and used that proverb very deliberately. It's okay for children to rely on adults for whatever, and just because they can be independent sooner, doesn't necessarily mean they should. I found the sarcasm pretty blatant. And I disagree that schooling "snuffs out" entrepreneurship. Rather, they are being taught that an entrepreneurship entails more than selling jelly beans on the playground. If those difficulties are unnecessary bumps in the road to you, fine, but that's another debate entirely. Also, if homeschoolers would be springing up corporations thanks to your system, wish them luck in finding employees for me. Wouldn't that get you right back where you started though? Or do you dream, perhaps, of booming businesses without employees? That would be the day, I'm sure. People care for themselves and little else. It wouldn't be any different when your homeschooling system would be up and running. The only difference is the means by which they achieve what they want. Networks have a center and a periphery. It can be argued that the former is more valuable than the latter and requires more responsibility. Compare it with a body. A human in its entirety is a wonderfully functional thing. When an arm gets cut off, well damn that's inconvenient then. You will lose a lot of your usefulness: no more lifting heavy boxes for you. That sucks, but if your head got cut off instead...well let's just say you wouldn't be lifting any more lightweight boxes either. And still, no one in his right mind will say that the human body is hierarchical. See what I mean? I admit that more transparency wouldn't hurt the majority of companies, but I can't help but wonder who's to blame, if anyone at all. Do the employees even care about their company's marketing strategy? Would this really be any different if they were part of a "network" instead? I'm inclined to think they wouldn't. And finally, the king of the hill won't give up his favorable spot in the pecking order, but he's also a human being and thus any other human being can in theory become him, or become quite like him. This is a tempting thought, and a good enough reason to think that entrepreneurship will never be in danger of extinction. If it isn't about winning or losing, then why still call it competition, and why still point out who is winning and losing or when it is a draw? I know a bunch of people who (want to) own a business and/or be a boss, and I know quite a few people who want to become teachers. I don't see how this competitiveness is misguided. Whether you make your measure of success dependent or independent of another's achievements, it doesn't matter much. Both will urge you to give it your all. In fact, comparing yourself with your peers is a good way to avert low standards, since your peers mostly likely won't be waiting for you to catch up. And this is the society you glorified in your previous post? One of eternal stasis with no possibility for growth. Oh joy, where do I sign up? Also, you completely forgot about something. I'll give you a hint: it's a game you hate very much. Without competition, what kind of safety net do you provide for entrepreneurs who charge however much they want? An embargo? Please... Yeah yeah, society shatters dreams exactly the way Disney movies don't. What you fail to realize though, is that arts and entertainment are exactly the branches where being average isn't enough to make a living. That deaf dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball (or whatever), but if another deaf, dumb and blind kid plays a slightly meaner pinball (or whatever), his chances of making it big shrink like Alice after drinking a potion. Secondly, this is just a minor facet and more nit-picking than anything else, but I'd like you to show the correlation between ADD and "entertainment ability" (by lack of a better word) as a cold hard fact. For someone who likes citing his sources and showing hour-long links of veteran teachers, this shouldn't be a problem. The library thing? I admit it wasn't a half bad idea. It takes away many of the problems of regular schools, but in my opinion, many of the benefits as well. Still, a clever idea. This too, is something you cannot avoid. Decisions will always be made in your stead. When you're a homeschooled child, you have no say in what you want to learn either, at least not right off the bat, and rightly so. If my tutor would ask me what I wanted to learn and complied to that request, I'd answer "Dinosaurs" every time for at least three years in a row. Only in my teens (at earliest) will I have realized that measuring and carbon dating iguanodon claws is incredibly boring work, and that I've effectively wasted what could have been fruitful years. EDIT: I guess this must also be country-dependent. Some of the larger Belgian book store chains dedicate entire shops to selling college textbooks, but they're still open to the public. Besides, not all "textbooks" we use are designed specifically for college students (in fact most of the ones I need to use aren't). They're just plain old...books, although hunting for them if you're not a student can take some time. So yeah, our study material is at least somewhat accessible. You'd have to purchase them though; borrowing is not an option to my knowledge.
Not familiar with the American education system. If part of my argument is not applicable to the American schooling system, ignore it or school me otherwise (see what I did there?). Yeah, and I'm thankful for that. If it weren't for experts, my coffee machine would most likely make something entirely unlike coffee. I'm sure all those plumber universities out there agree with you. Weren't you the one who said in a VM that he'd rather be a jack-of-all-trades? Also, I don't think that knowledge was necessarily useless. I still understand and speak a fair bit of French and German, something I mostly likely wouldn't have taught myself of would have allowed anyone to teach me if they weren't compulsory subjects in high school. I have needed both on occasions. Except that I am an apathetic airhead who doesn't really want to become an expert in anything. Thankfully, society has pushed me into at least disliking something less than all the other things and has even ended up piquing my interest a bit. I'm one would-be hopeless case that society salvaged, one mule who actually did start walking after a jolt to the butt. I agree that the fee is indeed ridiculous in America though. It's not so bad here, fortunately. Except such books and articles can be quite pricy themselves. For a library to stock enough to cater to everyone's educational needs (in multiple copies, in fact a great many copies), they'd need to spend a small fortune on that material alone. You can't rely on the goodwill of people willing to donate outdated textbooks like you can with any other library. You'll still need school nurses, therapists and counselors. Whether I get bullied at school or at basketball training, I'll still need that shrink to talk those suidical thoughts out of my head. The difference is that he's included in the education fee in the case of compulsory schooling, and you'd have to pay for a laughably expensive private therapist in case of homeschooling. I'd sign up for being a tutor. I'd teach all those dumb kids about unicorns existing and why Sarah Palin should have been president while mommy and daddy are at work, and if I play my cards right, would probably get away with it for a pretty long time. Schools are more of a self-controlling organ and no single teacher would/should (I agree that the system is flawed here, but that can be changed relatively easily) be able to blurt out his horseshit opinions in a classroom for long without sanctions. I neither did nor intend to. Good. Let kids be kids. Because compulsory schooling obviously rules out the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur, which is why there haven't been any new corporations for years. Oh, I'm sorry. Your first sentence made it seem as if you were going to address a problem here. My mistake. Also, I have never ever handed in an assignment or taken a test with the motivation of "pleasing the teacher" in mind nor can I think of someone in my year who did. That assumption is in fact, rather preposterous and I suggest you punch the person who gave you that idea in the face at least seven times. Ambition is a fair lady, I'm afraid. If you can be employed, you are part of a hierarchy. I you're part of a hierarchy, you can be on top. And if you'll pardon me the innuendo: everyone wants to be on top. The same goes for you. I've seen you treat debates like competitions, using terms and phrases such as "I guess this was a draw.". Are you seriously going to blame mandatory education for this? If anything, it's part of the human condition. And yet, according to you, "organized society" such as schools are to blame for everyone seeing competitiveness as the driving force of life. Curious. I don't think anything or anyone could have stopped corporations from forming because people were indeed competing with their neighbors. If anything, going to school has helped people to remain a step ahead of the problem. If you're on the losing end of the carpet-weaving business, go to school, find out what you're good at, and try your luck with that. Instead of specialties being passed on throughout generations to save on equipment, people are now able to develop their actual skills instead of being stuck with a profession they didn't have a gift for. I am of course wild mass guessing because I know nothing of American history nor do I care to look it up, but my theory makes enough sense for it to be possible to be correct so I'll stick with it for now. Before you ask, of coure I saw them. They're neatly lined with little dots to indicate them. I didn't feel like answering them though. The way I see it, your system provides a deceptive kind of freedom which will more often than not lead to crippling overspecializations, as opposed to the compulsory schooling system which forces flexibility on you at least until graduation from high school. Neither strike me as ideal, and thus I don't see why we should replace something flawed with something flawed. Also, I'm pretty sure that going to school has prevented me from becoming the wallflower I'm not. Again, school has been a welcome cure for those often overdosing on "I-can't-be-arsed" apathy such as myself.
Freaky Age --- Every Morning Breaks Out
- Impressions - What would you do if you found a stranger's wallet with his ID and money? Suppose you'd have no trouble figuring out where (s)he lives and how to get there. - What are your favourite sports, and your favourite teams in those sports? - Have you ever given up on a video game because you couldn't beat it?
Nevada Fellow --- Creature Of Eden
Congratulations. So when is it due?
