At 7:47 PM 7/31/96, Duncan Frissell wrote:
This is provably false. People can learn whatever they have to. (Within very broad intellectual limits.) If they *choose* not to learn (and you are not their parent or employer), it is a violation of their autonomy to browbeat them. You should leave them alone in their ignorance and, of course, not waste any money helping them since they have demonstrated that they aren't interested. An economist might say that those who reject education are making a choice. They are deciding that, for them, the value of today's leisure (L) plus today's income (I) is greater than the recreational value of education (R) plus the present value (PV) of future financial and psychic gains from education.
L + I > R + PV
Indeed. People make tradeoffs all the time. They choose "easier subjects" to major in, to take classes in, etc. They join fraternities, they "party hard," they snort coke, they do whatever they do. (James Bugden will no doubt claim that I am making moral judgments....no, just stating the situation.)
In other words, all those people who were drinking beer or working construction while TM was going to college, graduate school, studying physics, and working for Intel were making the decision that *for them* the value of all that time off, plus current income, plus lack of skull sweat was greater than the chance of becoming a millionaire and retiring at 30-something. And they may well be right. In any case, we should honor their choices as we expect them to honor ours. To intervene in a big way in their lives (or in TMs) to challenge their choices is deeply wrong. We can't tell from the outside what the value of the education/work/leisure tradeoff is for an individual. All we can do is observe their actions.
And even "education" is not enough. I recall folks around me spending their Intel salaries and stock options about as quickly as they earned them--on speed boats, BMWs, trips to exotic locales, and, yes, on drugs. I opted for the lesson of "The Grasshopper and the Ant," and prepared for the future, purchasing my stock options out of salary savings and "holding" on to the stock. Some of those around me probably wondered why I was still driving my beat up Mazda RX-2 and buying stock in funny companies like Apple, Sun, and Coherent. I hear that "The Grasshopper and the Ant" is no longer considered proper reading material for children, that they need to have their self-esteem raised, that "I Have Two Mommies" is a more important book for them to read. "Feh." --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."