Ibram, I promise this is no lecture, I just want to share my brother's experience with you, since he could have said your last post word-for-word about about 5 years ago.

He knew what he wanted to do, photography. (I'm guessing your dream is music, but I could be wrong.) He assured us he would never, ever want to work for a place that valued a piece of paper over a genuine assessment of his skills and intelligence, so it wouldn't matter that he didn't go to college. Now, five years later, he is still trying to get his life moving in the direction he wants it to go, and he (quite surprisingly) admitted several things to me recently:

1.) He never expected life would be so damn expensive.
2.) He realizes now that even if he had gone to college just to barely scrape by like he had been doing in high school, that would have at least been another 4 years of complete financial support from our parents while he continued to hone his photography skills.
3.) "Selling out" his art by doing weddings, portrait shots, etc. turned out to be far worse on him emotionally than a day job, because at least he can rationalize away the day job without souring the experience of what he loves.
4.) He never realized how many relatively decent day-jobs there are, where one can have a desk and an internet connection and few responsibilities.
5.) He thought everyone else in the "rat race" completely bought into the philosophy. He never dreamed that the bosses of the above jobs wouldn't care about their job any more than he does, and thus wouldn't be interested in taking the time to assess his knowledge and intelligence, and would instead just take the first application candidate with a piece of paper saying they graduated so they can get back to surfing the internet all day.
6.) He never realized how much better a "rat race" position would still be compared tp food service and retail--which, as it turns out, is just another rat race after all, except it pays a lot less and you actually have to work.


He said overall (and he waxed eloquent for quite awhile, having a bit of a mid-twenties crisis over all this by now) that he really wished he had believed my father back when he told him, "You will have to work, I mean really work and not just do what you love, for many years of your life if not all of it. The only question is, how bad do you want it to suck?" He didn't understand at the time that what made high school so annoying was that the teachers cared about whether he did well, and nagged him about his grades, whereas in the real world people just blew him off and never gave him a chance to prove how smart he was in the first place.

Anyway, end of pretend-non-lecture. Don't take it from me, take it from another hyperintelligent, idealistic young man still dedicated to following his dream.

Anarchism isn't that bad of a system. I just personally think it won't work in real life. More American 'Democracy is the only good system' bias?

Ibram - you sound exactly like me a lil while ago - ok a long while ago. I went back to college after having gotten married and 3 kids - trust me - its a lot easier to just do it - you'll be much better off as well. Just kick ass at every stupid task they put in front of you and then YOU get to decide what you do and where, when, why and for whom. Otherwise, it'll be some idiot without a clue telling you what to do and that sucks way more than the alternative. Either way - GL.

Well said, Happy Monkey. Thank you for so clearly pointing out the obvious. It is important and necessary, even if it is difficult or "freaking boring".

Thanks!

:cool:

I'm almost certain you think so.

I'm almost certain you think you understood it, too.

It's not at all hard to project your own beliefs onto the words of others...no matter how sematically bankrupt the words themselves may be. In fact, that makes it easier...a tabula rasa makes the best projection screen...

For example, thinking that if you didn't understand something, nobody else could have either?

Like cannon? They've been around quite a while.

"Legitimate application" is a neat little bit of question begging...once it's established you must demonstrate a "legitimate application" for something, it's pretty easy for some clerk to take it away from you.

Hey, do you have a "legtimate application" for that computer there? Fill out this form and wait for your licence... How about that hacked TiVo? You can't possibly have a "legitimate application" for that, it's obviously "burgalar's tools".

The phrase in question didn't involve much in the way of belief...it pretty much turned on standard English usage and the law of the excluded middle. Quote marks have meaning, and punctuation matters.

On the other hand, appeals to logic won't sway those whose beliefs include "all points of view are legitimate and thus deserve equal weight".

Ouch.

What are you playing, leapfrog? Try to keep it connected, from paragraph to paragraph, will you.

Chew on this. Sooner or later, DARPA is going to come up with a laser that's small enough for one person to carry and will have the power to be a serious weapon. You know, Star Wars, Star Trek, stuff.
Now, I'll bet a million bucks the government will say you can't have one. Strictly military and law enforcement personnel, because you don't have a legitimate application, just as they have done with hand grenades and such.

You know what? They're right. :p

They actually already have something like that avaliable to the public. I don't know its exact strength, but it's powerful. I wish I could find that link.

Very pretty Maggie, but unfortunately, a load of bullshit. It was very clear what was intended.

You probably mean http://www.wickedlasers.com/