At 2:09 PM 5/15/96, Doug Hughes wrote:

environment, lack of education, lack of money, lots of factors. Nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head saying "Don't Read". But improving literacy is a goal that needs to be undertaken. Do you not agree that low literacy is a bad thing and needs to be taken care of? If not, why not? Naturally, you can't force someone to read who doesn't want to.

No, I don't think "low literacy" in some subcultures is something that "needs to be taken care of." If members of that subculture think it a bad thing that their kids (not to mention themselves) are not readers and are not sufficiently literate to thrive in a high-tech world, then they need to take steps to change the basic values of their subculture. As I mentioned, many subcultures--too numerous to name, actually--have a strong belief in literacy, learning, and success, and are doing extremely well in modern American society. Other subcultures do not, and are seeing the fruits of their bad values realized. (One notable subculture currently has 40% of its adult male population either in prison, on parole, under indictment, or otherwise involved with the legal system in a debilitating way. This same subculture now has close to an 85% illegitimacy rate.) There is nothing "I" can do about such subcultures. Loads of tax dollars have not helped. As Charles Murray points out in "Losing Ground," the loads of tax dollars and special giveaways to some subcultures have very likely made the situation much worse than it was 30-40 years ago when the programs started.

Some people on this list argue that the current representative govt system is bad, and that true democracy is better. You can't have true democracy without education. (You can, but it would be very bad). True democracy relies on people being educated, the more the better. (Actually, education benefits the entire society.)

"True democracy" is actually much worse than what we have now. The advantage of what we are doing with strong cryptography is that it undermines democracy. --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."