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[Duke 2.0]

 I think standardized education has caused some of this. Now, listen to my logic:

 Before standardized education, people as young as ten were expected to enter the workforce. There were two age groups: Children and adults. When you started to work, you were an adult. From very young ages people were expected to work hard and show responsibility.

 Then as the ability to educate the masses came, it became the standard to educate people 'till the age of 17-25. This brought in a new age group, the adults that were treated as children; Teenagers. And while before one was expected to work at age ten when they grow up into adults, exiting the educational system had no responsibility as they were no longer under the care of their parents. They could do what they want. And after a bunch of years being adults acting like children, many people continued that. Then the culture adopted an attitude of teenagers not being able to do anything, being children.

 Now note I'm just saying this is part of the whole problem. The teenagers that don't grow up don't get the general morals that working as a youth get. They get ignorant, they stop caring. They become selfish. They pretty much embody the 'redneck' population group that the internet blames for all of Americas problems.

 I really don't have a solution. Although the idea of privatizing the educational system sounds tempting to me.

 Also, screw you green technology. I appreciate how you are driving people to make things more efficient, but you are also bring in a ton of crap with you.

[ToonyMan]

I think standardized education has caused some of this. Now, listen to my logic:

 Before standardized education, people as young as ten were expected to enter the workforce. There were two age groups: Children and adults. When you started to work, you were an adult. From very young ages people were expected to work hard and show responsibility.

 Then as the ability to educate the masses came, it became the standard to educate people 'till the age of 17-25. This brought in a new age group, the adults that were treated as children; Teenagers. And while before one was expected to work at age ten when they grow up into adults, exiting the educational system had no responsibility as they were no longer under the care of their parents. They could do what they want. And after a bunch of years being adults acting like children, many people continued that. Then the culture adopted an attitude of teenagers not being able to do anything, being children.

 Now note I'm just saying this is part of the whole problem. The teenagers that don't grow up don't get the general morals that working as a youth get. They get ignorant, they stop caring. They become selfish. They pretty much embody the 'redneck' population group that the internet blames for all of Americas problems.

 I really don't have a solution. Although the idea of privatizing the educational system sounds tempting to me.

 Also, screw you green technology. I appreciate how you are driving people to make things more efficient, but you are also bring in a ton of crap with you.

This is what I 'ment to say, but couldn't put it into coherent words.

[Rysith]

I think standardized education has caused some of this. Now, listen to my logic:

[snip]

 Then as the ability to educate the masses came, it became the standard to educate people 'till the age of 17-25. This brought in a new age group, the adults that were treated as children;

But they would keep being educated until they were 20 or so (earlier, since we can work longer now), it was just in an apprenticeship rather than formal education. Then we decided that having a generally-educated populace (particularly in areas like literacy, logical thought, and problem-solving, all things that need education beyond age 10 to really pick up)[1]. They can't work while being educated, since it's hard to be going to school X hours a day and holding down a full-time job... And many of the jobs have moved to assuming that level of general education. For that matter, there are now some jobs that /require/ being educated until your late twenties, that I wouldn't want people doing without that much training. Medicine in particular comes to mind.

Now, are teenagers incapable of doing anything? Certainly not. Has the thing that we require them to do shifted from "produce goods and services" to "learn so that in the future you can better produce goods and services"? Yes. Should they (and their educators/parents/peers) take that just as seriously as a standard job? Also yes, in my opinion. But that leads back to the culture of anti-intellectualism that has developed in America, not a refutation of general education.

[1] And then we switched to trying to measure it with standardized assessments, and from there steadily optimized for the assessments rather than the actual knowledge. And from there we lowered the assessments or otherwise made excuses so that even people failing the assessments were able to continue on, which (rightly) gave students the impression that the assessments were unimportant and (wrongly) gave them the impression that the things that they were trying to assess were unimportant too. I blame the politicians, and people acting like them.

[Chutney]

Hey, I'm posting in a thread where someone said education causes ignorance!

I'm going to have to disagree with that. I think you must be getting that  'redneck' population mixed up with some other one, because rednecks are the ones who oppose schools, work on farms/their trucks, hunt, and 4wheel. Actually, they work harder than most. They just ignore their education.

The upper middle class would be ignorant ones you're referring to. They ignore education AND don't work. They dress is trendy clothes and listen to Lady GaGa and Fall Out Boy (or whatever is the current 'popular' artist) on their Iphones. This is what the American youth is nowadays. Blatant consumers and nothing else

[ToonyMan]

Like I said earlier:

Without America there would be no countries to sell products to and the other countries would explode from poverty.  Everything fits together reallllly nicely.

[Chutney]

Like I said earlier:

Without America there would be no countries to sell products to and the other countries would explode from poverty.  Everything fits together reallllly nicely.

Except that America makes its products in other countries, meaning that all those countries now have bits of America's capabilities in them. They just sell the products to the countries America WOULD sell them too, and the world keeps turning.

But I still love America. America is the best!

[Duke 2.0]

 Note my rant does not dislike the fact that there is education, but the fact that the way we introduced it had an unfortunate side-effect which is causing ignorance and general stupidity. Then in the modern day(As in the last two decades from what I can tell) the whole work towards the lowest denominator thing came into the educational system and things really went south.

 My reference to Rednecks was in response to the growing number of statements I stumble upon in political discussions on the internet on how they and their stupidity/ignorance is ruining this country. I failed to point out that it is the middle class and up(Pretty much the demographic of the internet that engages in casual political discussion) that is the source of our general downfall and stupidity.

 And I agree that youth don't have much of a market, as they are neither educated much or have a fully developed body. And while I can understand that teenagers still have an education and a life to keep them busy, I have seen a definite attitude of teenagers expected to not really do anything. These are apparently the only chance in our lives to have power and not much in the way of responsibility. I suppose such a privilege comes from our wealth, but this attitude is difficult to shake once in the thick of it.

 Note the rant I said our advancement in education for the masses as the source of the problem, but not the cause. I'm not even sure what the cause is anymore, the cause could be many different things from parents not educating their youth to politics.
 I also might have said standardized education instead of mandatory earlier.

 Also, as with many problems with the modern day, it is but one of many different problems that combined to break down many aspects of America. I claim not that this is the sole cause of ignorance and idiocy in America, but a contributor.

[ToonyMan]

I'm sure most teens will "flesh out" common say and crawl into there new bod--I mean their new responsibilty.  Darn tootin' digital technology!


EDIT:  Well, that didn't make any sense...  If you can understand it, good for you!  Because I can't!

[Croquantes]

I don't think that it's Americans lacking faith in their country. It's the pursuit of profit that's dragging you guys down into the shitter. Unbridled greed is what's destroying America (and the western world for that matter).

Think about it. What news sells the best? Good news? Hell no! The best selling headlines are the ones that announce job losses, plagues, murders, sex abuse and different ways to lose weight.

Social responsibility is what's been declining and institutions now make their biggest profits by totally ignoring their responsibility to the public.

[Muz]

USA is waaaay too focused on money and liberty. In a fanatically religious way. If it just took a step back and acted a little more socialist it'd be better off.

Well.. if the USA does collapse, I'm betting that California, Texas, and Massachusetts-New York are going to be their own country. And California will be the most powerful country in the world

[Rilder]

And California will be the most powerful country in the world

The most powerful country till it has a massive earthquake and falls into the ocean. 

[Leafsnail]

Like I said earlier:

Without America there would be no countries to sell products to and the other countries would explode from poverty.  Everything fits together reallllly nicely.

And yet America certainly cannot survive in a vacuum.  Think Wall Street Crash.

It just seems that many politicians in America are simply obsessed with GDP and growth.  I mean, it's all very well having rich businessmen, but if the poorest people can't even afford healthcare, what's the point?

[Idiom]

I think when people forget that they will still be able to put meat on the table they're worrying too much. That is all.

[Taniec]

USA is waaaay too focused on money and liberty. In a fanatically religious way. If it just took a step back and acted a little more socialist it'd be better off.

Well.. if the USA does collapse, I'm betting that California, Texas, and Massachusetts-New York are going to be their own country. And California will be the most powerful country in the world

Funny you say that. Many people here in the states fear that Obama will turn the USA in a more socialist country and don't like that one bit. I'm inclined to agree that turning the US more socialist would be a bad idea. Many areas of welfare and social security must be adressed to help people that really need it but for the most part the country should not provide everything. Healthcare is a big issue as well. From what I understand the US is one of the few western countries that does not gurantee health coverage to all its people. Some fear that a more nationalized health plan would increase the budget deficit even more.

Really though it seems as if America is only nationalistic when it seems convenient. For example after 9/11 you had a great influx of people join the military and you would see every house and car with an American flag. Those flags came down and never came back up after the shock of the attack was gone. News stations have been covering the death of Michael Jackson 24/7. Only this morning the stations have began to discuss day to day issues. What I find sad is that John and Kate Plus 8 has more coverage than the war on terror. That really irks me.

[RAM]

if the poorest people can't even afford healthcare, what's the point?

The problem isn't so much the poorest people being unable to afford healthcare, the real problem is when the poorest people are unable to afford the GDP, then suddenly your unstoppable industrial complex is unable to actually sell the stuff that it makes and your get a depression... It isn't about how desperate people are, it is about their means.

 One unfortunate thing about capitalism is that it is easy to manipulate. It would probably work fairly well if people just spent their resources making more resources and trading them around, but when people start spending money to increase their market share then you have a situation where people are receiving more than they should based upon their contributions. This isn't coming from nowhere, they are are still trading their efforts for others, but their efforts or worth more compared to absolute value, which means that they can keep getting more and more money regardless of their environment. Which is great if you assume that there are unlimited resources, but there aren't, and the more that the money is concentrated the less that the system can continue supporting people with lost of money, at which point the system fails.

Or to put it simply, capitalism is not fool-proof...