cab21:so does mises want separation of state and school or not? i figure even minarchists aren't advocating state school. i know ron paul said he wants the federal government out of the school business and think's it would be great if the states followed this examble. that's advocating for 15 year olds to get kicked out of school, let alone dropping out on their own.
i figure even minarchists aren't advocating state school.
i know ron paul said he wants the federal government out of the school business and think's it would be great if the states followed this examble.
that's advocating for 15 year olds to get kicked out of school, let alone dropping out on their own.
Nobody is advocating state school. I don't advocate taxation, either, but if someone wrote a post asking if they should mail the IRS a turd instead of a check I'd recommend they don't. State-run schooling is atrocious, however on the whole the more education you attain the lower your chances of unemployment and the higher your salary. It is not impossible to overcome - there are other ways to get an education that will fly past an HR department, and some small sliver of people succeed without by doing their own thing - but it is something you will have to overcome nonetheless and you should understand that before you act.
watch lectures by professors from Stanford, MIT, etc. because they know how to teach a subject.
Indeed. I think it can't be overstated how unfair the effect of State regimentation is with respect to socioeconomic classes - there's always a free market, the question is how far down the socioeconomic strata the free market is permitted to operate. However un-free the masses are, the upper class has always been wheeling and dealing with each other... Rembrandts and yachts will never be price-fixed.
Clayton -
the top ten business collages is a mix of public and private, so i don't see anything neccicarly worse about public education that private. the only real difference is in funding and missions statements and all but i don't think a class on game theory or such would be radically different.
the education rank stats of how well collage graduates do were on education, not public education, people can get all their education privately.
I can't say I experienced this myself in these subjects. What country are you from, out of interest?
I was primarily schooled in the U.S.
What was it they taught you in these areas that you disagreed with?
Some things I was taught that are flatly incorrect:
I really could go on. The key point, though, is that every single bullet-point (with the possible exception of the last one) has been entirely refuted (both empirically and theoretically,) and yet, these points are continuously regurgitated by high school teachers and found in high school texts.
Just a few years ago there was a major controversy in the U.S. because some high school teachers wanted to include Hayek, one of the most important thinkers of all times, in the curriculum.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
I would say that the 'facts' you get in school are rather incidental with respect to the true intention of schooling anyway. It isn't what you are learning, it is how you are learning and the behaviors you develop that persist long after you graduate.
The schooling system is designed to encourage the seeking of external rewards (mostly approval of authority) through repetitive operant conditioning. This however dampens internal will. Internal will is what fuels curiousity and self-actualization. You might also argue that being herded as you are in school develops a tendency toward conformity. Think Stanford prison experiement style mesmerism. 'Schule' originated in Prussia before being adapted by the U.S. and most of the "free" world. (See John Holt, Peter Gray, John Taylor Gatto)
Therefore, I wouldn't worry too much about being taught the wrong facts. It won't really injure your prospects to be taught outdated scientific knowledge or to get lessons in the state's account of history. I'd be more worried about being subjected to psychological conditioning.
The perception of drop outs as bums is probably due to a selection bias. The types that could pass but choose not to are simply rare- most of the time it's those who couldn't make the cut (though I'd question even this; I know of at least two drop outs [mostly due to drugs/being overall hooligans] who are doing well, one is a self-employed contracter and the other is in sales and probably has a promising career ahead of him). You're basing your knowledge of the importance of a diploma on a poor sample. Really, if you've got a good head you'll be completely fine.
+1 Walden, you absolutely nailed it
Walden:[...] The perception of drop outs as bums is probably due to a selection bias. [...]
The perception of drop outs as bums is probably due to a selection bias.
[...]
That's a really good point. Most dropouts (that I have knowledge about) have been because of drugs, street gangs, criminality, or a combination of the three. But how many have dropped out for the reasons that the OP has? How many have realized what the OP has?
I'd like to see "success rate" of people who have gone from public/private schooling to home schooling because they should be considered dropouts as well.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I totally agree, and this is definitely the more important issue. Thank you for highlighting it.
It won't really injure your prospects to be taught outdated scientific knowledge
Can we add Walden's post to the "Collecting the good forum posts" thread? Definitely deserves to be there.
This particular point cannot be underscored enough. Absorning incorrect facts is not that big fo a deal unless the vast majority of what you're absorbing is incorrect. The human brain is a "noisy" learning device anyway - even when you're taught the correct facts, a significant percentage of that is not correctly internalized and only gets straightened out with time and practice (trial-and-error). So, not getting the perfectly correct scientific facts is not that big of a deal.
I don't know you well enough to say what you should do. Since your only 15 I want to say stay in school and work a part-time job. The only way you're going to make it as a drop out is if you have a plan, like a detailed plan not just a "I'm going to be a manager" kind of plan, but one where your steps are all plotted out and thought through. The other thing you need is a good work ethic, but you don't even turn in your homework sooooo....I mean, your not even willing to do the bitch work to get by, in other words, your not even doing what you have to do in school to achieve a goal. It seems to me you need to stay in school, join some clubs and get some experience there and maybe in 3 years when you gain some more experience from part time employment, and you have some money saved up and you are legally emancipated, then get your GED and do what you want.
A question that this brings up is, what techniques do schoolteachers use to shape desirable behaviors, and what are the desirable behaviors. Sometimes it helps to know the conditioning that is being faced in order to work towards banishing it.
Schools are labour camps.
@eliotn: Well, you can start by looking at the architecture of most schools which can only be described as a cross between a morgue and a prison. From the distance, it looks like a prison complex: blockhouse architecture surrounded by high fences. Low, flat buildings with "minimalist" details. The interior decor is absymal with all the beauty of a main entrance to an ER. Double-doors, bad checkboard linoleum floors, bleak hardware, just no taste or beauty whatsoever.
Desks are non-functional, non-ergonomic, ill-fitting. There is no privacy. There is no space that is really yours. There is no comfort area (soft-seating) to seek repose. Interaction between the teachers and students is impersonal - this is different from respectful... a respectful relationship is still personal. Most teacher-student relations in government schools are either impersonal or improper and overly-personal.
The biggest message of all is sent to kids of upper-middle class versus middle and lower class - the popular kids (i.e the kids with rich parents) can get away with anything, get all the girls (or non-loser guys) and there is no recourse to this state of affairs. Attempting to rectify it only makes things worse for you. Sit down, shut up and stay out of the way of the the cool kids, the jocks and their bitchy girlfriends.
The bell rings at regular intervals, using classical conditioning to inculcate herd-like movement from station to station, from breaks to lunch to when it's time to punch out at the end of the day. Kids are inculcated from an early age that teachers are the most trustworthy confidantes and that the motives and behavior of parents should be held suspect at all times. Even the school year itself is a rehearsal for the cookie-cutter life you are being prepared for. Consider this old hit from 1981:
And not only are we being trained to "work for the weekend" (ignore intolerable conditions 5 out of 7 days in anticipation of the Pavlovian reward of drunken excess at the end), we are also being trained to work for the summer, that is, for retirement. Retirement is a completely modern invention. Nobody ever retired before the 20th century. You got too old to do manual labor and either your family put you up, or you lived off your savings, or you found other ways to earn an income/room/board. You will be put through this cycle 12 times to really drive the message home: life consists of a long run of misery, followed by a brief respite and then the end.
If i control everyones education, and without penalty of what i teach, i will teach them that i am their master, and that i am the solution to everything.
Im sure that it is the same when government controls education.
If i control a person's education, but if what i teach comes with a penalty if it is false, i will teach them the truth.
No penalty is placed upon the state. It is always blamed on students, or teachers.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
Clayton +1.
I dropped out of highschool after being pretty immersed in online libertarian culture and I can't recommend it more. I don't know what your situation is, but in California I was able to take an exam with a math and an english portion to satisfy my highschool requirement (I did not get a diploma or any sort of certificate like a GED). Then I went to community college and transfered to university. I'm ahead of most other transfer kids because I started college at 17 and I didn't have to deal with the bullshit classes they were making me take in highschool (there are still bullshit requirements for any Bachelor's degree, but it's much more tame).
It really depends on what you see yourself doing in life. I decided I wanted to study computers during my freshman year of highschool and my interest hasn't changed since. If you're more uncertain about what you want to do then community college might not be the best option and it might be better to study a technical profession and do secondary school later when you have a better understanding of what you want in life.
Bide your time and don't jump into a permanent romantic relationship (aka knocking someone up regardless of legal/residency status) until you're on a sure footing.
At first I was like "lol" then I was like "shit, this is actually substantial advice for modern Americans right now."
It doesn't matter if you "know her", they're all the same - they've all been programmed by the television, schools and magazines since they were knee high that they are owed the world and that the government is there to make sure they get it from whoever is foolish enough to have a child with them. Think of it as involuntary privatization of welfare.
Well, my girlfriend's not, nor are a lot of my female friends, but then again I'm not tapped into nor friends with your average conditioned American.
There's a difference between education, and knowledge/experience. I don't know your grade or age (unless you posted it and I missed it), but if you're a senior just finish it out, if you're just entering as a junior or lower, then you could go ahead and get your GED, find a job soon as possible (since it's fall all the college students are leaving their min wage jobs til spring), and save up as much as you can. Community college is underrated, and you usually don't get the smug intellectual attitude from CC's either. With the money you have you can actually read the books you want to read on your time, and CC's have an (obvious) variety of classes to dive into and try out. If you decided on a trade, compare the same courses of the CC with the trade school. For example, I took some welding at my CC, but if I actually pursued it I would go into a trade school where the amount of hours per week spent on actual welding is nearly x10. One thing I noticed in CC is if you get the right teacher they will erase your mind of the b/s you learned in high school and you'll actually learn something. 4 years of high school history and AP classes were eradicated by one semester in CC (I could tell my teacher had a very free-market stance and did not buy into the mainstream story of the Great Depression).
If you have you're head on straight, in a way, you could have a 1-2 year start on those who finish high school, have money saved up, and already working on a career. If you're living with your parents you could make the suggestion (most parents are not accepting of ideas against the grain), but have it planned out before so, so they know you're not just full of shit. Already have any possible question answered. Obviously, read books. I think I've stumped even a few adults (and family members) to know that my hobbies have been reading books on econ theory, pscyhology, mythology, and philosophy. Sort of makes them have a different idea on "this generation." Especially if you tell them you need to remove your television to make room for a bookshelf.
It depends on what you want to do. If you are going to be a doctor, lawyer, or a teacher then yes school is extremely important. Otherwise most people can do with out a formal education. I am anti-school because of the systems they have in place. I am not anti-education.
My cousin got a GED. He's about 38, and he works as a janitor at a school.
Get your diploma. Get at least some form of post high school education. If not college, trade school. If college, go to community college first and then the big school if you can.
Is your cousin an absolute example of people who have their GED's? I know people with degree's waiting tables while friend's with only their GED are getting their career's in order with 2 cars and a kid, so yeah...
A question that this brings up is, what techniques do schoolteachers use to shape desirable behaviors
Teachers themselves aren't using some Jedi mind tricks. I think it is correct to stress the system rather than the teacher relationship. This is why "good" teachers can never succeed.
Clayton:
There is no privacy. There is no space that is really yours. There is no comfort area (soft-seating) to seek repose.
Humilitation is a built in property of schooling. The discomfort and complete powerlessness of where you go and do is to break down the student's spirit.
Post graduation, it will impart a condition of submissiveness to the state. Rather than filling out scan trons you're filling out tax forms. Having completed 12 years of humiliation, the student believes self debasement and servility is a state of normality. Moreover, an isolated child (constantly changing classes prevent children from developing lasting relationships with peers and teachers with added time restraints with their parents) with the state as the only constant presence to be a central part of their being and survival.
Monkey see, monkey do- like school, interference with the lives of others is for their 'own good' becomes acceptable or even necessary. E.g., the moralizing left against the businessman and the moralizing right against drug users, etc. These things are for your own good or the good of the whole, not conincidentally the same argument you are taught in social studies WRT school.
Why would you single out holding a high school diploma as the only quality that would impact his career path?
My cousin got a GED. He's about 38, and he works as a janitor at a school. Why would you single out holding a high school diploma as the only quality that would impact his career path?
Not only that, but the tone seems to imply that being a janitor is undesirable. I would asky, why?
No, school is not necessary. I watched a video somewhere where the presenter said you should work to gather experiences, not things. So don't worry about the money you make (or don't make). Worry about what makes you happy, and gives you the feeling of fulfillment in life. But don't think not going to school is the easy way out. Being a writer, speaker, tradesman or entrepreneur is tough work. You must be habitually and painfully persistent. Also remember to take pride in your hard work, for that is your goal in life: your work. Not what it brings you (materially). Though school is the easy road, doing what is right for you has the potential to be much more rewarding. Also, you don't know what you want to do at 16. Not even at 20 in most cases. So explore the vast opportunities afforded you and if school is necessary, then go back with a focus in mind. Whatever you choose, good luck to you and always learn and grow from your endeavors. Never hold onto regrets or get stuck in the past. Godspeed.
Why does it matter whether the OP knows what he wants to do in life or what career he wants to choose? What if he wants to be what it is he wants to be by simply removing the felt uneasiness of others?
Maybe he'll be an app developer for the next 5 years, then a farmer for the following 10 years, then a peddler of second-hand furniture for another 7 years, then a coffee shop owner for the following 12 years.
+1 Daniel. The OP doesn't need to "settle down" or "plant roots". He should do what makes him happy (removes the felt uneasiness). If he gets bored with something or finds no value in continuing, he should feel no shame in pursuing his latest interest. There's no need to suffer because it "pays the bills". I think that's where a lot of people fail. They're discouraged to explore the real world while in high school, then they're thrown right into another system where they're supposed to know what it is they need to "learn" in order to get the job they think they want. Then they get out and find out they hate what they've chosen but they're stuck because it pays the bills of the things they're told will make them happy (mortgage, multiple car payments, student loans, and stuff).
+1 Daniel. The OP doesn't need to "settle down" or "plant roots".
I agree with Daniel's point with an asterisk - most men do eventually get the strong urge to "settle down and have a family." Given that this is a highly predictable future state-of-affairs in life development (from the point-of-view of any young man), it only makes sense to prepare for it. As someone who insufficiently prepared and is being raked over the coals in the courts by a vicious ex-wife, I think the old-fashioned idea that a long period of serious preparation (building significant cash savings) is well-advised. To take it a step further, I think that in the modern world, no man in his right mind will let his wife know the entirety of his net worth. Forget the "trust" and "love" rubbish, if she starts to hate you at some point in the future for whatever reason (life is unpredictable, sorry), you need a sizeable cash reserve on hand from which to pay for your legal defense. The law is unbelievably lopsided.
My cousin got a GED. He's about 38, and he works as a janitor at a school. Get your diploma. Get at least some form of post high school education. If not college, trade school. If college, go to community college first and then the big school if you can.
Common now thats the epitome of high school logic. This is a perfect example of people who get degrees that either think they are better than people that do not have one or feel entitled to a 6 figure job and benefits just because they have a diploma. I spent 3 years studying mechanical engineering before I descided it was not right for me. Does this make me janator material? I dropped out started my own business and make more money than my college graduated friends. Do I believe in education? Yes. Do I believe in the college systems out there? No.
Education != schooling
Anyone that read for a new liberty or any other kind of work has come across this fact.
"Common now thats the epitome of high school logic. This is a perfect example of people who get degrees that either think they are better than people that do not have one or feel entitled to a 6 figure job and benefits just because they have a diploma. I spent 3 years studying mechanical engineering before I descided it was not right for me. Does this make me janator material? I dropped out started my own business and make more money than my college graduated friends. Do I believe in education? Yes. Do I believe in the college systems out there? No. "
Statistically, the more you are educated the more likely you are to have a higher paying job. There are exceptions but people should not plan on being exceptions. If they turn out to be such then an added bonus. This is my opinion at least.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
My point is that he doesn't have to stick to the same line of work for the remainder of his life. He might be able to make lots of money making Android apps for the next fews years; however, that doesn't mean that he must develop Android apps forever because the amount of money that he makes could drop due to supply and demand and because he could make more money doing something else. Go for where the money is or will be.
Also, the point of making money is to be able to buy whatever he wants to make himself happy. That was he does in the pursuit of making money makes him happy is simply a bonus.
"My point is that he doesn't have to stick to the same line of work for the remainder of his life. He might be able to make lots of money making Android apps for the next fews years; however, that doesn't mean that he must develop Android apps forever because the amount of money that he makes could drop due to supply and demand and because he could make more money doing something else. Go for where the money is or will be.
Also, the point of making money is to be able to buy whatever he wants to make himself happy. That was he does in the pursuit of making money makes him happy is simply a bonus."
Oh I totally agree with that. I think the age of having one job the rest of your life is actually over. I do not think anyone can actually do that anymore unless they really try hard.
I don't know what everybody is talking about now. I've decided to try for an online college degree... so calm down a bit.
"I don't know what everybody is talking about now. I've decided to try for an online college degree... so calm down a bit."
I don't think that anyone is flying off the handle. You asked for advice and I think people presented their ideas. Anyways, it is good you are continuing your education. Good luck!
Education =/= degree.
But yes, I'm getting both. An online course I can tolerate at least.
The point of High school is not really to learn anything. Its just to stick it out till the end to show you can put up with bullshit enough to where you don't just up and quit, because if you can't finish the bullshit in school what is to say you wont just walk off the job site after spending most of the day surrounded by bullshit. Most people who get a GED are just as smart as people who finish high school, in fact some are smarter, but they still have a harder time getting a job especially when they are young and just starting out...High school is about learning to put up with bullshit. When you graduate you will have a degree in doing shit you don't want to do, and that will be an important quality to your future employers. If its worth anything,I know where your coming from, I wanted to drop out too.
The true point of schooling is to get children used to working in factories. Doing monotonous things all the time at a schedule, with people same age, etc, etc.
Ive posted this quite a bit of times but i want more to look at it..
The true point of schooling is to get children used to working in factories.
I want to note that the schools are not just the neglected, archaic dinosaurs of 18th-century Industrial Revolution models... it is true they are that but they are changing because the leaders of modern industry are forward-thinking - unfortunately for us. We are moving into a future where every form of economic activity is to be reduced to a "job", a set of rote tasks requiring little more than hand-eye coordination and the capacity to follow a decision-making flowchart.
Our rulers still believe in communism, that is, in complete State ownership and central-planning of every aspect of society and the economy. When you and I look at the Information Revolution (computers, PCs, Internet, "gadget" technology, etc.) we see the possibilities for de-centralization, distributed decision-making and autonomous entrepreneurialism. But our overlords see quite the opposite... they see more opportunities for expanding the control-grid, regimenting daily life, central-planning, and so on.
They are, in fact, moving to "capture" and "tame" the Internet. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft - among others that I won't mention - are part of this gang of technology-tamers. On the extreme end, you have the RIAA and MPAA playing the "heel"... they are the mean, old "property-rights" conservatives by comparison to the young, fresh, vibrant and "relevant" tech giants. But make no mistake, there is an iron fist behind the velvet glove. Whether this gambit will work in the long run has yet to be seen.
This taming over the tech universe is part of the larger war to centralize all economic and social power into a single, central point. The cell-phone and the Internet are having a regularizing effect on the entire globe and this regularization bodes ill for liberty through secession and slowing down or reverse the long process of political aggregation which has been underway.
We are being regularized into point-and-click robots. Every vocation is to consist of a limited set of manual tasks and a corresponding set of point-and-click routines on a computer or mobile device in order to facilitate central tracking and control. The computer can be seen as the ultimate engine of centralized command and control every bit as much as it can be seen as an engine of decentralization.
It is the height of folly to underestimate the people who have been dominating the pinnacles of world power as far back as memory goes. They have not stayed on top of the pile by refusing to change. They've always stayed ahead of the curve and they're continuing to do so* today.
I'll give the back-story for this link if someone asks
What's the back story?
Dropbox - like several other "cloud storage" solutions, including the much-vaunted Google Drive - is a "plaintext" cloud storage solution. This is insanity if you plant to store any data more sensitive than your favorite Beatles MP3s. How can anyone just stick their credit card numbers, compromising photos, private political views, and so on, out there in the wild, with nothing but "username and password" protection?? The link above illustrates the obvious problem with username/password protection. And that's assuming you trust Dropbox and Google to keep your data safe from their own employees or to refuse to hand it over to the prying eyes of the USG (cf post-911 telecom cooperation with NSA Internet-backbone wiretapping...)
To my knowledge, there isn't a single open-source, client-side encrypted cloud storage solution in existence. Even Spideroak - which boasts of being the only truly secure cloud storage - is closed-source! Closed source is simply not appropriate for this kind of software where there is so much to gain from a hidden back-door. In 2012, the best you can do is to use TrueCrypt (yay!) in combination with one of these half-ass cloud storage solutions to protect your data before their client can get their grubby hands on it and ship it off - in the clear - to their "secure" servers which might as well be the loving arms of the NSA, for all anybody knows.
Forgot the punchline: And we're supposed to believe that this bizarre state of affairs where you have to hitch together at least two pieces of software (TrueCrypt + cloud client software) in order to provide the most obvious form of cloud storage (open-source, client-side encrypted) has arisen through "market failure"??? Just search "dropbox encryption" and see how many tutorials there are on how to actually secure your files before sending them off to the prying eyes of Dropbox's servers. All those tutorials and yet no one has managed to cobble together a solution? I don't know how, exactly, they do it but I see this as evidence of tampering in the market. Either they suppress startups that challenge their envisioned model, or they subsidize startups that are in line with their vision, or some combination of both. In any case, I don't think it's an accident.
My friends always ask me; what is the safest place to talk on the internet?
THey ask me cuz they know i know a bit about technology and what i tell them:
No such thing- Have you openedyour eyes and realize what the internet is, anyone can view, anyone can post, anyone can view a page source, anyone can transmit data, interconnected between millions of computer networks?
Pen and paper ( no mail ).
Or your mouth.