The way we live, part two

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Following on from my earlier whinge about the way we live, I'm going to have a rant now about technology. First of all, don't think I'm simply a Luddite, against all technology. That is not the case. I love learning about the past and pondering the future. But there's a difference between accepting and approving of new technologies and accepting stupidly dangerous things. After all, when you bought your first automobile, did you run out and play Scrabble on the middle of the highway? I'm betting you didn't. Why? Because we Homo Sapiens, allegedly thinking beings, can accept an advance without subsequently doing incredibly stupid things related to that advance.

Consider mobile telephones, or cell phones as some call them. These are little hand-held gadgets which communicate by modulating electromagnetic radiation. Yes, they are radiation sources. In fact, they are sources of the very same wavelength of radiation which some people use to cook with, in microwave ovens. I've never owned either a mobile telephone or a microwave oven, for the simple reason that it's very stupid to be close to radiation sources. Even more stupid to hold one against your head. Am I being paranoid? Or am I simply aware of the science involved, having studied these things? Let's see what the news says:

Mobile telephones kill you. It's that simple. These things are so popular that nearly every kid you see has one almost permanently attached to their head. In ten or twenty years our allegedly advanced nations will be inundated with brain cancer cases, all because idiots leapt into using a technology which was obviously stupid but which made an absolute fortune for so many corporations. Heck, we even have those mobile telephone transceiver towers in schools here.

Are those devices the only technological problem facing our oh-so-advanced society? No. Go to your kitchen. Pick up any packet of food. Look at the ingredients. I'm betting whatever you pick up is full of odd chemicals and strange synthetic substances. Look at your pots and pans. Do any of them have a Teflon coating? (By the way, Teflon is owned and made by DuPont.) Yep, Teflon is yet another modern convenience which kills you.

That's not the only thing. I'm betting many of the almost-foods in your kitchen contain soy. But soy products are good for you, right? That's what all the advertisements say. And television never lies, right?

What about allergies to natural substances, such as wheat, peanuts, things like that? According to The Lancet medical journal, these allergies are becoming more common.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is: there's something wrong with the way we live. It's just not right. Basic physical facts show this to be true. Our long-term development is being sacrificed for short-term profit and control. We are consuming ourselves right out of the survival game. For the sake of a little convenience, we're literally crippling ourselves, individually and as a species. We're committing crimes against humanity every time we perform these stupid actions, and every day that we contribute to a social system which is ultimately self-destructive.

yes i would certainly agree with your general point. however, what is to be done? many "civilised" western people, are so brainwashed by the society they live in, that if you question it to them, they act as though you are the deluded one.

not only that, but a majority of people, are immoral and selfish, thinking of nothing but their own well being and material gain, and living in a state of mass neurosis. they spend their spare time brainwashing themselves and reinforcing their neurotic mindstate watching television, and are largely incapable of any kind of critical, independent thought.

Bah! Modern society is the best society that has ever existed. Besides those cell phone studies mean almost nothing. Considering that the average person does not get a brain tumor being 2.4 times more likely is not very significant at all. I mean, it is like buying buying another lotto ticket, your chances may double but it still isn't very likely that you will get brain cancer and the benefits brought about by cell phone use outweighs that of not using one even with increased cancer risk factored in, the only issue is overuse.

The teflon thing is probably another one of those things that is being blown out of proportion, there is no study referenced or amount of danger represented like the cell phone and there is not some massive amount of reported cases of child deformation referenced in that article.

Soy? don't buy soy then, I don't. Alergies are probably due to the antiseptic nature of our society. If we were exposed to more dirt and stuff like that we would probably be healthier. These problems that you mentioned are really not that major. News tries to overhype and exaggerate problems and by buying into all of that you become the pawn of their interests.

Our society is the best that has existed. The Romans had constant warfare and slavery, the middle ages was a serfdom, the USSR was a dictatorship, the Renaissance was marred as well. Modern society provides more freedom than has existed before and the common person is doing better than he has ever done. What other society in the past had such a well educated people? What other society in the past has had such a large middle class? Our system is not self-destructive, it needs monitoring and modification if wrong doing occurs but our system is what brought us the luxury to debate the flaws of our system on the internet, in fact, without our "flawed, self-destructive" system, you would not even have the knowledge to even complain about its flaws. Every society has its pessimists, but the sky truly is not falling, things are changing but the sky is not falling. Besides, the massive changes you would desire in order to create a better social system would probably make it worse anyway.

Considering the competition, that's hardly a fair comparison. Smashing your hand with a hammer is better then smashing your genitals with one. That doesn't mean that smashing your hand is a good thing.


I almost agree with this. But then I got to thinking. The fact that cancer rates are so high regardless of cell phones suggests that something is going on here.

quote="Awesomelyglorious"]The teflon thing is probably another one of those things that is being blown out of proportion, there is no study referenced or amount of danger represented like the cell phone and there is not some massive amount of reported cases of child deformation referenced in that article.[/quote]
The Teflon thing is a new one to me, so I'm going to not make any commitment about if it's true or not. You know, instead of just jumping to the conclusion that it's a bunch of garbage.


Okay. You say that our society is fine, and now you're saying we should be exposed to more dirt?


Okay. So we're more free then oppressive regimes (yes, the Renaissance included. The Catholic Church wasn't very happy about a lot of the stuff going on then). I already mentioned that so I don't need to again.


China through most of it's history was pretty well educated, the same with the middle east for a not significant amount of time either 1000 AD.


Our system is about as self destructive as it can possibly get?! The rich and powerful have subverted the system. When solutions come up to envriomental problems, the short sighted come along and destroy them. Acquisition of wealth has become the most important thing, and yet we allow big business to come along and crush smaller ones. When people are left unfulfilled because they spend so much of their time trying to make money, we throw drugs at them as a quick fix.
The environmental damage that causes so much poor health is directly linked to big business. How is that anything but self destructive?


Oh yeah, because people didn't debate about their systems before the Internet. It's not like their where books, or people just talking amongst themselves. The Internet is just another system of exchanging information. It gives nothing new, just the same old stuff on different scales.


That "The Sky is not falling" cliche is used so much. I think that if their was a meteor shower that had rocks smashing into buildings and leaving burning wreckage there would be someone saying the "You alarmists are always saying the sky isn't falling! Everything is fine, so shut up."

The part where you say we need monitoring and modification is the only thing you say here that I agree with. And yet the actual monitoring that has been going on has resulted in people suggesting the modifications that you think the original poster suggested. But hey what do you know, he doesn't actually suggest anything. If you hadn't missed that, you might have actually been able to make something approaching a half decent criticism.

its not really feasible to judge a societies worth on how much disposable income people have to spend on fridges and televisions, what type of car they drive or the number of rooms in their house. by and large the middle classes are as much pawns of the current system as the lower classes, with very little or no control over how they live their lives, other than the arbitrary market choices they are presented with in an attempt to perpetuate the illusion that they are free. they may have more comfortable surroundings to sit in while watching their televisions and more "choice" with regards to constructed leisure, but thats about it.



i'm not sure how you would define freedom, but being locked into a system of wage slavery for most of ones life, which is the only option available to the majority in our society, does not strike me as a provision of freedom. if you refer to the freedom to buy luxury consumer goods, and accumulate debt in exchange for plastic baubles then you are correct, but this is really not true freedom, is it? real freedom is evaded us by a power structure that has been constructed to be deliberately beyond and outwith our control, and by the subsequent perpetuation of a shallow, materialistic, and self-limiting mindset among the populace.

it seems to me that the system in fact works very well, because as far as i can see, it has obscured the ability of most people to see beyond it or think in any way outside of the limited and blinkered parameters it has imposed on us. real freedom will continue to evade us until a critical mass of the populace develop the ability to see beyond the parameters set by the current power structure.

Well, there is no perfect system so therefore I have to compare it to something. I can only make a relative statement and between smashing a hand with a hammer and smashing genitals I would pick the former. I do not say that society is perfect but I don't think that blind reactions is the best way to improve it, especially when I believe that it will improve itself through some form or fashion as long as we focus on economic success.

Well, the thing is that I see it as garbage until I have proof otherwise. It is just simpler that way because there is all sorts of crap going around anyway. When I have proof I can analyze it and I can see how valid the issue is. I will ignore it until more evidence comes along.

I almost agree with this. But then I got to thinking. The fact that cancer rates are so high regardless of cell phones suggests that something is going on here. [/quote]
It is probably that less and less people are dying from bad infections from cuts and dirty water. Something has got to kill people, so therefore if less people die young from sickness and injury and the like then these people will die from something else like cancer or something. Really though considering all the forms of cancer and the fact that brain cancer is not too common of a cancer anyway I don't think it is a major worry. Brain cancer at the highest accounts for something like 1.25% of all deaths anyway and probably less, even if that rate tripled it would still be less than that of lung or prostate cancer, and still be less than 1/8 of the deaths caused by heart disease, probably even much less, brain cancer is not one of the bigger cancers it is just one of the big cancers that people die from it is just that hearing about someone dying of prostate cancer is not very moving besides, all we need to do is just slap a label on phones saying "may cause brain cancer" and all will be well. Anyway, "In many Third World countries cancer incidence (insofar as this can be measured) appears much lower, most likely because of the higher death rates due to infectious disease or injury. With the increased control over malaria and tuberculosis in some Third World countries, incidence of cancer is expected to rise; this is termed the epidemiologic transition in epidemiological terminology."
I never said perfect but considering that we have a lot of research going on to improve things we can improve them and we probably will. As research goes on to create practical solutions society will improve.


Well, we lack a lot of oppression compared to past societies and comparatively speaking we have very little oppression. We have a system that is capable of motivating people towards societally beneficial goals with minimal oppression, that is a good thing and we should be happy about that. Our society will improve even more as our economy does.
China and the middle east both had advanced societies to be certain. However, China did not have mass education like modern societies do, and education was reserved for the wealthy and powerful and such. Modern society is one of the first to have mass education and the one of the reasons for this is because even the rich and powerful realized that it would be good for us to have education for all.

The rich and powerful are at the top of every system, that is the nature of power. Our look at environmental issues is rather blind on both sides really, many economists believe that the Kyoto protocol would have been more damaging than beneficial. Acquisition of wealth is one of the most important things, the big problem with the scenario you give us about big corporations dominating small ones is simply the monopolization of such things. People are only unfulfilled because they have the time to be unfulfilled. The word "bore" came from the 18th century and the word boredom came from the 19th and they only arose due to the fact that modern society had all of this leisure time for people to use as they wanted. Our unfulfillment is only due to our freedom to do what we want and be what we want. Modern people don't have a God shoved down their throat like in the past and they don't labor from dawn until dusk either so therefore there is the difficult task left up to them to find meaning in a world that seems to have none, some rise to it and some fall, but it is better to be free to have this struggle than be so enslaved to traditions and labors that we are incapable of even thinking for such improvement. Environmental damage causing major health problems? The only case of that I can think of is maybe in Russia or Mexico city or something and that is due to poor development and stuff like that. I mean, the conditions in Russia caused by lack of environmental attention by the government and it has led to increased rates of retardation but was not caused by big business and Mexico city's problems were probably caused by mismanagement by the PRI which was a one party system that existed in Mexico and which was incredibly corrupt(the problems with corruption in our system are rather small compared to this one)... but anyway, if an area is polluted to the point where it causes health problems then it is in the best interest of the individual in question to raise a big stink(which can work) or move away(this is faster). It is not self-destructive because the fact is that there is net growth, progress is not falling backwards and is really going faster than it ever has in history due to the modern emphasis on technology and possibly due to sheer population size(more people means more opportunity to grow)


Well, considering that much of the population was illiterate and uneducated there really wasn't much debate over systems and such although philosophers still did as such only a minority could even attempt to appreciate such an effort (compared to today where most people could appreciate it but choose not to). I mentioned the internet to give light and respect to an accomplishment by modern society. The internet is new and it is a marvel, never have people ever been able to communicate with each other on such a grand scale, without it you and I would never even know of our respective existences much less been able to communicate so easily.


It may be overused but it expresses my idea that this is a bunch of alarmism.

He claimed that our society was a failure of one and that is what I disagreed with. If the original poster did not claim our society was a failure and only gave the articles then that would not be anything but he claimed it was and gave the articles as a form of evidence. He may not outright say that the system is flawed but he does everything to imply such a thing so that he wouldn't have to outright say it. It is one thing to claim there are flaws it is another to cite them as a part of an argument of the flaws of a society.

People have more control over their lives than you claim, they just don't use such power. The number of people that vote for the "American Idol" is probably higher than the number that votes for any politician. If they wanted power they would take it, they don't take it and they are satisfied with what they are given. Besides, it is completely feasable to judge a society's worth or at least part of that worth on some aspect of the welfare of its people. People are capable of totally changing their lives if they so desired but they don't due to the all to human desire for comfort and stability which in our society they can be free to satisfy.

By wage slavery do you mean work? Every society has to have some form of system to get its people to work, ours is by far one of the better ones. Instead of being enslaved to farm a field until you die, you are given a job in some form of industry based on your capabilities and are rewarded in part due to your ability and eventually you can retire and live out your golden years. Real freedom has evaded the majority because the majority of people in any society does not care much beyond the next meal and our society is the same, not everyone is going to be a leader or a thinker and those that don't want to be either of those are free to accumulate debt by buying luxury goods that they want but don't need if that is what they desire.

The fact of the matter is that people create their own fate, no government really cares too much about the culture of its people and corporations only want money. The reaction of people is a natural one to such freedom. It is possible to grow up poor from a broken family and eventually end up as a Harvard economist, it is possible to be rich and end up bankrupt as Trump did that one time. Do you honestly think that any society will ever be able to get everyone to think and act on their world if the common person has never wanted that desire? We impose the parameters, society doesn't really care, individuals just fall into the patterns of whatever popular and so on and so forth because the average person is too stupid to really think for themselves. I mean, you seem like a communistic person with your mention of wage slavery, how many kids have you seen wearing Che Guevera t-shirts? How many of them do you think know who that is or even realize that by buying that t-shirt they are really mocking him and what he stood for? They do it because it is popular and because they want to fit in. No society has really produced more thinkers than modern society and I don't think that we need radical changes to improve things either, we need people to understand their world rather than only care about their next meal and that requires a change in culture not a change in government or anything like that.

I think we have passed the point of what is good for us.
Never before have the speed of development been so great. Humankind as a whole can't really keep up.
We don't know what the long term effects of everything we invent are, and we have certainly made some stupid stuff before.
This society is not the best for humans. Not only is it extremely unbalanced, with the rich and poor, even the rich don't live a life that is good for people.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but all play and no work isn't good for him either.
We're way to comfy today. And all the pollution and s**t?
We have actually passed the threshold where there's no turning back.
Even if all of mankind would just disappear in an instant together with civilisation, nature would not be able to recoup.
And of course someone will say "You think being a caveman is better?"
I think the answer, as always, lies somewhere in between.
Somewhere where you could lead a good life, with meaningful work and meaningful rest, without pollution.
The downside is that most of that part of history is taken up by crazy people.
But as we're all f****d anyway, it either means that the christians are right and that God will come and fix everything, which would be cool with me.
Or, we will enter the post-apocalyptic wasteland where we wander the wilderness of a society and infrastructure in ruins, with our swords and radiation protection gear, trading in gasoline and illegal information, feeding of the flesh of our fallen foes and trying to survive one day at a time under the scorcing sun with no protective ozone layer, and it'll be just awesome!
I'm really looking forward to it.
At least we don't have to worry about getting a job, pay the rent, or looking people in the eyes.

Progress is a one-way street. Always we must go forward, if we don't then the guy who does will kick our behind with his advanced technology. This has held true for a long time and is the reason for imperialism, Europe advanced and because of that the Europeans took what they could from the rest of the world and royally screwed them over. If we don't go forward on our own then we will live in a dystopia that another person created.

Honestly though, I tend to think that your view on history is sort of skewed to a romantic view of some things. Modern society has its flaw like every society but I honestly don't think that any past society has really had it better. Racial issues are not issues so much as the past, women have more freedom than in the past, people are truly freer in the past even if they don't take fullest advantage of this freedom and only exploit it so much as to watch American Idol or Who Wants to be a Millionaire, people have comfort if they so desire or work if they so choose, pollution is not so hyped as everyone claims it is unless you live in Mexico City or something or some places in Russia and if you do then you just need to move away, and really it may suck for people who live in those areas but the lesser societies in any era were not usually very well off anyway. Society is actually doing pretty well, the only question is how are you coping with your freedom?

yes, and why do more people vote for reality tv shows than politicians, i wonder? remeber that people are products of the environment they exist in. in any case, the ability to vote is not a means of taking power over ones own life. mainstream political parties are nothing more than the tools of commerce, and corporations are the real power brokers in the world today. our lives are ruled by beauraucracies which largely make decisions to suit corporate interests. the ability to vote for a particular flavour of beaurocracy doesn't equate to the power to govern ones own life. parliamentary democracy doesn't afford freedom to theindividual, it breeds corruption, and puts politicians in a position of power and authority over those whom they supposedly represent.


again, the individuals capacity to change his or her life is governed by the sytem in which he/she exists. people can change their lives to a certain extent, by getting a better job, more disposable income, a bigger television or a nicer car, but this is not really exercising the freedom to govern their own life.


i am not denying that people should work, but our current system of waged employment works is balanced in favour of the ruling classes. the commoner is debased by a system which alienates him from the products of his labour. "golden years"? haha don't make me laugh.

they think it is what they desire because the society they live in dictates it.


while i agree this is possible, its certainly not probable. capitalist society requires a large underclass of undereducated and servile masses.

the average person is this way because their surroundings, the nature of their education and what they are fed through their televisions is geared towards making them servile to the current system.

i'm not a communist per se, i don't really follow any ideology. i completely agree with your point about che guevara t-shirts. this in itself elucidates my point in a way. anything which challenges the system is quickly absorbed by it, turned into a commodity, and subsequently neutered and rendered impotent. recouperation.

More people vote for reality TV shows because reality tv shows are more entertaining for them. These people choose pleasure over their right to influence their environment, it is a natural decision because they want to do this, I don't think that there is any society that will make politics more exciting than reality tv(at the very least I almost hope not as I would shudder at what they would do) and because of this, people, unless trained otherwise will pick pleasure over politics because it is only logical to do so. We do try to get them to participate in their political system, that is why a course on government is required in order to graduate high school, but that does not mean that they will take anything out of it. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot force him to drink and short term pleasure is more desirable to the human psyche than power. We do reward individuals who succeed though in order to get people to take power over their lives, just think of scholarships, good jobs for college graduates, rewards for top students etc etc that try to promote success but I doubt that a perfect system will arise. Political parties deal with these groups which include more than corporations but deal with things like the NRA and AARP because those organizations care about the system and want a result, they in turn help each other, there is actually a political theory that claims that this is how the system is supposed to work. The reason why is that each group represents a major national interest and if any group is ignored then the US will offend that group and it could have consequences, if the NRA is right about the link between crime and concealed carry laws then the crime will go up, if the corporation is offended by our economic policies then they will move their operations to another country or our economic strength will go down or something etc etc. The party system is a creation of different groups clumping together in the winner take all system, all systems will have bureacracy and corruption but if a voting population takes offense to bureacracy or corruption then the opposing party will jump on that and become "the party of good governance" or something like that. Interparty competition keeps the parties honest. Politicians are supposed to have some power anyway, that is what allows them to make decisions, if one pisses you off then write letters or vote for the opponent or something, even the modern political system is better than previous ones where political candidates were decided mostly in smoke filled rooms and senators were decided by state governments which could be corrupt.
Well, what is? People have freedom to change their lives and to improve things for their families and decendents. How is that not freedom? They can become political leaders, corporate tycoons, academic experts and so on and so forth. Such freedom did not exist in past societies due to caste systems and more solidly defined class systems as opposed to the more fluid system we have today where it is possible for people to rise and fall.


Alienates him from the products of his labor? He gets paid for what he does and if he does well then he might be paid more due to a desire to keep such a good worker. The ruling classes always benefit because if they didn't then they would not have any desire to make good decisions, certainly there are exceptions but stock holders and CEOs try to maximize profitability thus helping long term economic success. Besides, what system had a better method? The common man is not a slave, if he hates working at Home Depot he can go work at McDonalds, Radioshack or Walmart or possibly get additional schooling or even go into business for himself. Previous systems did not allow such freedom and they did not give common men education, or even choices, life now is better. The whole golden years thing is based upon the choices of the worker in question, good decisions can lead to good retirement under this system, it is based on the individual.

Pleasure is what every person has ever desired whether it is pleasure gained from gluttony, sexuality, or even that of a nice warm fire, no individual wants something that they find undesirable, even masochists might spend on themselves for their pleasure even if that might be found in whips and knives. The ability to hold back on pleasure for long term gain is not something that every person developes despite the fact that most people within the system would probably say that this is a good thing. However, lessons like this can often only be taught by parental forces, we cannot force knowledge or prosperity on anyone.
Capitalist society does not try to manufacture this mass. The focus of our education system is often to try to help individuals get into college, in fact, we do a lot to promote higher education among our populace, I tend to doubt that any other society has ever had such a high number of people with higher education or even a society that prized education for all so highly. If such a mass arises due to the desires of this group then so be it, every society needs cleaners and other forms of serving positions and there is no way around that until robotics gets cheaper and more effective.
The nature of their education and television is designed to do this? What?? Have you never seen Sesame Street? I mean, that is a non-cable show, geared towards getting children to learn, if we wanted a subservient mass then such shows would not even exist. The education system is often geared towards getting students into college, schools compete with each other to get more AP classes, more honors classes, higher standardized test scores, more scholars, etc etc, I mean, my school even gave newsletters out about scholarship opportunities and stuff, these people wanted me to go to college, now this may not be due to any altruistic desire but still. Heck, we even had a corporation sponsored event acknowledging all of the high achieving students and rewarding them with a motivational speaker(it used to be food and I mad that it isn't any more but at least they tried) and heck, I lived in a state not even known for its high educational standards, I wonder what kind of stuff the schools in states with good education systems had. And for surroundings, well we have public libraries and community centers and all sorts of things out there that is really not designed to create a subservient population.

The Che Guevera thing was only marketed because kids wanted to piss off their parents, it serves the system but it also expresses the freedom of people to change their system, it may mock Che Guevera to some extent but it really would anger any anti-commies and stuff like that and only do so to express the ideas of these children, it serves the children in pissing off their parents and the person selling this stuff makes their life better through meeting these people's desires. I mean, if I don't fault this system for adapting, that is what any good system should do. The idea of selling the face of a communist leader for money is great adaptation to the desires of the people. I would see this as sort of a strength, our system is wonderful at adapting to whatever threatens it. The modern system meets the needs and desires of the people better than any other system really has, certainly free will is a problem but that would exist in any system that most people would want to support anyway. I only thought it was possible that you were a commie because wage slave and terms like that are almost exclusively used by communists.

its not an either or choice, you can vote for reality tv and vote in an election as well. i proppose that many people don't vote because politics alienates them and they know, consciously or otherwise, that it will make no real difference to their lives in the long run (at least for the majority), in other words, its a token exercise to make people think they have a say in the running of the society in which they live.

well no, most people can't do these things for the simple reason that the system only requires a very small percentage of politicians, corporate tycoons, etc., while requiring a large percentage of undereducated subservient masses. granted, some people rise from poor backgrounds and do these things, but that is a very, very tiny minority.


yes, he is alienated from the products of his labour. true, he gets paid money, but he doen't recieve the full value of it, as the owner syphons off a cut for himself, a priviledge he feels he deserves because of his good fortune in owning the means of production.

this sentence pretty much answers itself.


it all depends on how you define pleasure. many theorists and thinkers have postulated that constructed leisure restricts the common man's freedom as much as work does. try reading roland barthes, jaques lacan, or even theo adorno on this subject.


i can't be bothered going into too much detail about this, or i'll end up writing pages about it, but this quote from marshall mcluhan sums it up quite well for me:

"The school system, custodian of print culture, has no place for the rugged individual. It is, indeed, the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing. "


obviously you and i think rather differently on this subject, so i think we have to agree to disagree, oh and i wasn't offended at all by your assertion that i was a communist. i have nothing at all against communists, i just wouldn't categorise myself as being one.

Well, no society will have the ability to allow each individual a great amount of choice over the majority. If a one person out of 5 wants to watch ballet and the other 4 want the superbowl then we are going to watch the superbowl. The sum of the votes is what leads to selection of individuals and if people are angry at their politicians then they can vote for a 3rd party, there may be no chance of winning for that third party but it sends a clear message to the political parties that there is unrest and the causes of these individuals will be picked up by vote seeking parties. What the problem is, is that people don't really care enough to do this. Educated members of society vote more as well as older people so if the most educated and most experienced members of society believe that voting is important then it is more likely that the problem does not lie so much with the political system as it does with the people in society. Politicians listen, they may only do so because they want your votes but they still listen, there are reasons that politicians tend to quickly lose office if they have bad economic policies and that is that the system reacts.
You are right, the majority of people within any society cannot lead, however, individuals do have choices over their own lives. Any system devised would have similar requirements for the distribution of labor, this is not so much an attack against the system but an attack against the nature of current economic realities. There is no requirement for undereducation though, only that we have enough labor to fill our necessary positions, in fact if every american got a doctorate all we would need to do is allow more immigration to meet our need for unskilled labor or we could allow brain drain and have our educated people leave or something of that nature. Many of these people if they tried could succeed, the reasons that they don't are often due to their families(who would have great control over their lives in any economic system) or themselves.

Well, no man can get a job beyond which he is capable and no man can slack off and expect the rest of society to care his burden for him so therefore we need a system that puts workers into positions into which they are capable and that forces them to work through some means and also that creates incentives for self-improvement. The wage system works in that regard and modern workers are less slaves than any people in past societies in that they can improve themselves and they can reach good positions in society through their work, something that was rare in past societies for their average people.

1. The state or feeling of being pleased or gratified. 2. A source of enjoyment or delight: 3. Amusement, diversion, or worldly enjoyment: 4. Sensual gratification or indulgence. 5. One's preference or wish: What is your pleasure?

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Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Well, the dictionary defines pleasure as pretty much being anything that pleases and my definition of pleasure matches the actual so I am safe in this regard.

Also, I would say that this matches my conceptions of freedom as well as these individuals engage in pleasure out of their own free will and are not coerced. If such pleasure is slavery then we have unwittingly devised the best form of slavery and still even for that modern society should be lauded, however, I do not believe that modern forms of pleasure truly constitute slavery, and even if they did I do not know how there could be a better system because displeasure is considered to be bad and most people would prefer pleasure to displeasure.

Right, there are some problems with our education system but I really have not had too many and compared to the original forms of mass education this system is still better. The reason that I believe that the education system works is that even though I live in a state known for underfunding education and stuff like that we still have had people that have gone off to big name schools and make fortunes, I even have a teacher that wants us to meet a guy he taught who went to stanford and who ended up working for google and making millions, I know a kid who was offered scholarship at Harvard but ended up picking Rice due to the fact that they offered him even more money and had a program he liked, I met this one kid who had a goal of taking every single AP test that is not a foreign language and the thing is that he is likely to pass all of them too. I have known students who have started their own afterschool organizations, who are talented enough to get full scholarships, who do all sorts of amazing things and yet I go to a public school in Texas no less. I myself have taught myself for certain AP tests and passed. I don't know of a previous society that has had all of this opportunity, rugged individuals can still succeed if they push themselves even in this standardized schooling, all it takes is self-motivation and determination and yes, it is not like there are no bad teachers that don't care about their subject or that teach it so badly that some students claim jokingly that "they have gotten worse" but still there is good. Also, our higher education systems are very good with great opportunity and don't have too many problems.

My question is this: are you comparing the modern system to some fantasized ideal or what this world has shown itself to be capable of? I do not believe that this world will be a utopia but improvement is something that seems to be relatively constant, there may be dips but in the long run I think that improvement will always exist. I mean, the modern education is probably better than previous ones as the number of different AP tests have increased and schools have tried harder to get AP courses in their curriculum. I know that beatings have been banned in our education system. I know that teachers are for the most part literate. The most important thing I see though is that there are many opportunities to succeed. I even have friends who are joining the armed forces to pay for their education so that they can get a good degree. I don't think that this society is a rainbow world as there are always crappy aspects and more talent is forgotten than there should be but that does not mean that our society has truly failed in any great extent, only that there is room for more improvement which is true about everything in existence. I just don't think that overhyped interpretations of failure are beneficial, they aren't beneficial for people so why would they be beneficial for societies? But yeah, some aspects of school are stupid though.

I do agree that we should agree to disagree. I could probably write about my opinions about the system for some time too but we have totally different perspectives on things.

Now that I think of it our schools could probably use more vocational classes to keep those who don't want to learn trig happy and graduating and help them in the future. Schools could also use better teachers as some of the ones here are pretty stupid.