*TL;DR at the end of this article for those wanting something quicker than an essay
The education system in the US has a problem. No, this is not about critical theory, teachers unions, or wasteful spending and administration's. This is a conversation about how the American approach to education has progressively led to a decline in the maturity of the society.
To begin, let us discuss what the purpose of education is for. As the saying goes "you go to college, you do well, you get a job". This leads many persons to consider that school is essential to train people to work to be effective at whatever job that may get, directly or tertiarily related to the education that they had undergone. It is intuitive and straightforward.
This is not what education actually does. For many, they use school and college in particular for this purpose, but it is not particularly effective. After all, once enough people go to college you're not any more relevant for a career than any other graduate, barring some exceptions that require specialized education.
You see, what our education system has done is devalue itself through it's own prolification. College being used as a tool to get a job is only relevant when you pursue a career within a specialized field. Rather, things are now backwards and the market has gone from consumer to supplier sided. Instead of students standing out in a shining light for employers, employers now see college as a minimum expectation of what new employees should have accomplished. It is no better than a high school diploma was just one or two generations ago.
But do employers need college educated employees? In reality, no. Most employees require an amount of training regardless of their education background and following the 80/20 rule, the majority of the value of the education is prestige, and most of the work can easily be done by someone without the additional education and, at most, those without may simply need a bit more time to adapt or learn the work.
This is because education was not designed for the layperson, the average citizen. Education was designed for the leaders of tomorrow, and the representatives who could best understand the value of a diverse spectrum of knowledge and put that knowledge to work for their communities. Be it in a leadership role within a firm, civic duty, or creating the ideas of tomorrow and developing practices to implement those ideas into the society, these are the traditional pre-emptive benefits of a classical liberal arts education.
Considering that line of thinking, why is it that entry level positions throughout this country require a college education? I restate, college has been undervalued through its proliferation. Entry level work has become overvalued by the number of college educated job seekers. And what is the result of this established system? Citizens are staying in school longer, debt is growing faster than wages, maturity through life experience is delayed longer and longer.
As citizens are expected to continue their education, education that does not require the backbone and heavy structure of earned wages, the youth grow longer into their youth, maturing later, and the virtues of the people are lost through the prolification of ideals and the average citizen spending more time in a sub-society that does not respect or demand virtues. Even the honor codes of our education system are designed around things like hard work and not cheating, in many ways schools become a haven of practiced cheating and tactical action to avoid as many difficulties and stressors as possible, or the reliance on drugs for those who do not cheat in order to complete their work in as rushed of a manner as possible (or possibly a reliance on drugs to recover from actually working hard, for the rare individuals who put in regular effort). This is the common state of modern education.
For a society, this is a horrible state of affairs. In a land of liberty, this semi-controlled and semi-anarchic sub-society is a cancer to the longevity of the principles of the greater society. It forms collective ideals and operation based on social pressures and non-committal engagement: ie the controlled structure of the education system where students "work", where the students themselves have little real influence or control, leads students to believe that their system will always be there for them, and their contrary absolute control over their social sub-society leads them to act in groups for the purpose of benefitting their group and making their group look better and hold greater social capital, the currency of modern college students, creates a situation where collective thinking is promoted by nature, and control is ceded to those in power, not as representatives, but as monarchs.
Recognizing this analysis, I have considered an alternative view of education. Education in the US has been expanded, and many negative effects have directly come from it. Other effects include the delay of marriages, citizens having more relationships both meaningful and casual, less operational experience with self-reliance, etc. This can be seen as a deterioration in the maturity of the citizenry. Even assuming college could achieve its grand ideals of truly preparing all students to become great thinkers and disciplined leaders, the damage done through the postponement of stable relationships and self-reliance would cause great harm. It is for this purpose that education should not be "extended". Rather, education would best be served through acceleration.
The extension of education should be reserved for those who have already become self-sufficient. In order to achieve greater levels of morality, virtue, and social success, it should be deemed essential to assure citizens the capability to be prepared for life at the earliest age possible. For the longevity of our society, this is a must.
I implore my readers to discuss this idea with friends, colleagues, and representatives of your community, if possible. This is a deep topic and deserving of much discussion. In my eyes, it is essential to raise our kids to be better than us, ready younger, raised stronger (physically, mentally, emotionally), and with better character than we could ever hope to achieve. I am not sure what you would do to accelerate your child's education. I will be reading to my kids advanced lessons and stories of greatness that they cannot understand from a young age, so that they may always be pursuing an understanding that may otherwise be beyond their grasp. Pushing my kids beyond their limits, like an athlete lifting a weight they have never been able to lift before so that they can become stronger. I would like to see our public education system embrace accelerated learning for students capable of graduating high school as early as 16 or even 14. This would allow teachers to better tailor their material to their students, based on their pace of learning and the path they choose to take. Financially, it may not be viable with teachers unions crushing our education system and red tape costing our schools more on administrators than educators. However, perhaps some private schools could develop such programs. Let me know what you think below. I'm interested in your opinions on this topic. Am I crazy, or do you think accelerating education and realigning how our society uses colleges and basic education is essential?
TL;DR: Schools need acceleration programs for students to graduate early and colleges need to have their purpose realigned for the betterment of our society and not so focused on being their own sub-societies.
-James
Just thought I'd share this comment I was trying to comment on a Lotus Eaters video. Btw, ya'll should follow the Podcast of the Lotus Eaters if you aren't already. Great analysis and discussion
It's been a while since I've made a video, and this time with a locals exclusive. A cherry on top that I managed to fit within the size requirements. I like making shorter form content like this, considering my tendencies to ramble. Having content exclusive for my followers here is something I'll be working on doing more and more. I'll be creating more value here for my subscribers as well, with some subscriber exclusive content in the future. No timeline promises, cause I think we know how I get when I make a ton of promises (go hardcore for a week and then fall flat on my face unable to keep up with the sprint, lol).
Anyhow, let me know your thoughts and questions below. Have a great day everyone!
A direct upload! It turns out I recorded a video just short enough to meet the minimum upload offerings that locals offers to small communities like mine. That means you guys get this exclusively on locals!
I didn't sleep much last night, so I decided this was the perfect time to mull over my confused thoughts on how businesses are viewed from a legal perspective. Businesses are somewhat legal enigmas to me. Corporations are kinda treated as persons so that they can be double taxed, but have other protections, other types of businesses aren't treated the same way. They're able to consolidate power like governments, yet aren't subject to any form of limitations in regards to violating natural rights the same way the government is, despite being treated somewhat like persons they can still buy each other. It's just very odd to me from a principled, legal, and philosophical position.
Anyhow, my ramblings here are just that, ramblings. Still, I am curious what you all think of this topic. ...
The 2020 election is over, and the battle has just begun. What do I expect to come from the end of the election? Will the legal suits turn over anything for this election, or will they mean something for later down the line? I reflect on these questions and more in this discussion, and I also reflect on some final thoughts relevant to the Rise and Fall of Empire Series, that, thus far, being episodes 8 through 10 of the Construct Cast. Let me know your thoughts, and if you have any reflections of your own from this year's political cycle or other developments that you can't seem to get off your mind in the comments below.
In this episode of the Construct Cast, I discuss my analysis of Sir John Glubb's The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, with an emphasis on my own consideration for what it would take to help an empire survive, or reboot. If immortality for an Empire is impossible, is rebirth impossible in the same way? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Editor's Note: Returning to the podcast versions of the Construct Cast, I want to catch our content up to the videos we have had released over the past month. I apologize for this getting away from me for a bit. With the rise in content production, I had allowed this to get away from me. We will be returning to audio podcast uploads of the Construct Cast as per our original regular schedule, at 12PM EST on the day of the original upload, going forward.
In this second Crossover podcast, we are once again recording with Kevin @Eng_Politics. His channel is a bastion of political thought and analysis from the perspective of a conservative engineer. Interested in diving deeper into my concept of Progressive Traditionalism and combating the concept with his own beliefs of what it means to be Conservative, we decided to put our definitions and beliefs to task in this crossover episode!
Be sure to check out Kevin's locals community here:
https://engineeringpolitics.locals.com/
And if you're more interested in the video version, here is a direct link:
https://engineeringpolitics.locals.com/post/235260/the-engineering-politics-podcast-30-conservatism-vs-progressive-traditionalism
So I just confirmed that, after a year off of the Keto diet, my Ulcerative Colitis (a type of IBS) is still not only in remission, but seemingly cured as if it never was there, including no more polyp growth.
This self-experiment has shown me that a prolonged period on Keto, about 2 years for me, was enough to create the long lasting effects to repair and cure my gastrointestinal system to complete recovery from what was supposed to be a lifelong, incurable illness. I still have a minor level proctitus at the exit, to put it in the least gross way I can think, but with the rest actually fully cured to where my new GI doctor asked if I was misdiagnosed originally is a major accomplishment.
For those seeking a source on how to get here like I did, I recommend following Thomas Delaur's YouTube channel for general inflammation control/healthy keto/ workout advice, only eat meat that is 100% Grass fed and pasture raised (including eggs), and drink a glass of Kefir at least once a week. Good ...
Controversial capitalist take, but I personally don't think stock ownership should give any power to the stockholders over business decisions. Buyouts and ownership should be separate from stock investment. How? There are various options to discuss. Why? Theoretically an investment firm could invest ownership stakes into every major investment firm over time and concentrate all of their investments to own controlling stakes across entire industries or even all publicly traded companies.
Actually, this isn't so theoretical if you look at BlackRock's partnerships with Vanguard and State Street. The three companies operate in virtual lockstep and theoretically wouldn't even need 51% collective ownership in the companies they invest in because any company with an array of other investors should have some theoretical minimum that they can guarantee will follow the leadership of these big 3 in most cases. I've seen estimates that they only need a collective 35% share to all but guarantee any ...