22,000 Indiana Students Using GNU/Linux Desktops

[bedouin]

I don't think I learned anything beneficial from school after the 6th grade.  Once you can read, write, add, subtract, and multiply you're pretty much set on a road of autodidacticism -- well you should be anyway.

Everything else (and what I'd guess makes the substance of my character) came from self-reading, exploration (talking to interesting people), BBS discussions, late-night phone talks, Internet research, and raw experience only a cold world can provide.

Hard to get that while you're cramming for a test about some asshole named Christopher Columbus and memorizing bullshit.  What you do learn from school:

A) Classism -- hey, your family is poor and can't afford the latest Jordans -- go sit at the loser table.

B) Preferential Treatment -- I know you're having trouble in Calculus, but I have to give you this D; Johnny on the other hand needs at least a C or coach will kick him off the football team, and he's our star player.

C) Structure -- Don't think outside of the box.  All we need is this 5 year old textbook and the lesson plan I borrowed from the teacher I replaced 15 years ago.  Also, be sure not to express any intelligent opinions in front of other peers, because that kind of shit isn't cool.  Sticking to the program always works!

The truth is the best teacher is one who will teach you to not need a teacher at all.  The 12 years is prison.  It's supposed to be.  It's indoctrination and brain washing, making sure you have no doubt in the system and that it -- in the long run -- works.  

Now college used to be the place you go to unlearn all the bullshit you learned in public school.  It was the place where elite ended up, and so they were privileged enough to have this 'outer' knowledge of the nation's workings within the boundaries of their own blind-following; you couldn't get to higher education unless you pretended to swallow the 12 years before it, after all.  So you gain this 'outer' knowledge and feel liberated in some sense, but you're still indebted to the 'father' of it all for giving it to you.  That's when you work for 15 years to pay off thousands in student loans, never having a minute of free time to pursue much.  Oh, that project you were working on?  You can't complete it after working from 9-9 every other day of the week.

And so you're stuck.  And so those who see through all of this usually drift away and get depressed -- maybe they become alcoholics, drug addicts, or just mental.  

Welcome to your future.  Sometimes you should envy the stupid people, because they can go through it all just like your household cat or dog -- licking their balls and eager to wake up to another day of systematic nothingness, where some bigger person determines when and how you're let out of your cage.

[worker201]

Capitalist society requires that you give up a certain amount of your time building capital for someone else, usually somebody higher on the class totem pole than you.  For some unknown reason, it has been decided that the time you have to give up is 9am to 5pm, Monday thru Friday.  School gets you used to a regular schedule, taking orders from above, not differing from your peers too much, and working toward no benefit whatsoever.  Fortunately, you still live at home, so you have a place to go when you fuck up.  When you start building capital for the man, if you fuck up, you're out, and when you're out, you starve.  That's why they start the training so early, because everybody screws up at least once.

But to be honest, I enjoyed college a lot.  Not everyone there had a brain.  But college is the easiest place to find those late night discussions and drunken philosphy sessions that really matter to your human development.  You can literally walk up to someone and say "Have you ever noticed that all the interaction between young people in Shakespeare's plays takes place during the night, while the older people have total control over the daytime?" and talk so long you miss a whole weekend.  I enjoyed that.  I didn't have much time for computers because I was busy being in a band, starting my own record company, and drinking whole summers away.  I wouldn't give up the 8 years (!) I spent as an undergraduate for anything.  

So there you go.  It's wrong, but it's right.

[Orethrius]

Linux
Because 22,000 students in Indiana can't be wrong.

Sig-quoted.  

[GenuineAdvantage]

Now college used to be the place you go to unlearn all the bullshit you learned in public school.  It was the place where elite ended up, and so they were privileged enough to have this 'outer' knowledge of the nation's workings within the boundaries of their own blind-following; you couldn't get to higher education unless you pretended to swallow the 12 years before it, after all.  So you gain this 'outer' knowledge and feel liberated in some sense, but you're still indebted to the 'father' of it all for giving it to you.  That's when you work for 15 years to pay off thousands in student loans, never having a minute of free time to pursue much.  Oh, that project you were working on?  You can't complete it after working from 9-9 every other day of the week.

Well maybe, but it's also the place where little douchebags go to pass the time to have a few more years of spending daddy's money. Then they think they're hot shit because they somehow end up making something of themselves after a million discarded opportunities, when most people only have about one. It's so easy to "succeed" when there's no real pressure to do so.

[pofnlice]

I just read Bedouins post...anyone got some razor blades, a gun, a long piece of rope and a whole shit load of narcotics...I fell like ending it all now...

I see someone in need of that PMA course that fills the empty elective spot.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

I just read Bedouins post...anyone got some razor blades, a gun, a long piece of rope and a whole shit load of narcotics...I fell like ending it all now...

I see someone in need of that PMA course that fills the empty elective spot.

I really liked it ... in fact I will sig that last part.

Come on, suicide is not an appropriate answer. The answer is fight the system ... "rage against the machine"

Of course, sometimes this seems pointless ... like you vs. everyone else ... but I like those odds. Overwhelming odds always get to me ... I love going up against a force so powerful you don't even stand a chance against it. Why ? Because it's damn fun and exciting, and it's worth it while killing yourself isn't. If they get you so down you kill yourself then they win. Thechnically they can't lose, but I still bet against them. I bet on myself, I can defeat any enemy, overcome impossible odds, take a million tank shells in the head without even flinching. Fuck yeah !!!

P.S. Some time ago I dreamed that I beat the shit out of Superman ... yeah it took a while to do, but I did it and I didn't need any fucking kryptonite either. :eek:

[WMD]

[offtopic]Why do people put sig quotes in the "quote" tag?  It takes up more room than than simply putting it in quotation marks and then putting "-username" at the end.  I mean, the last thing we need is signatures that take up more room....[/offtopic]

[H_TeXMeX_H]

[offtopic] Well as long as it's less than 500 characters it's legal ... ok, fine I've removed all the extra spaces, now it's more compact [/offtopic]