[evilgenius]

This scandal only points out the prevalence of fraud in society. It actually underlies much of what people either complain about or suffer from in today's world. Take the economic crisis of the last decade, it was brought about by fraud. Only, with it, the most active perpetrators have never been truly called out. Instead, everybody blames the banks, especially the conspiracy theorists. What you need to see is that the problem was largely brought about by individual greed. When a person takes out a loan that they ought to know they can't pay back unless the most rosey economic scenario pervades for decades, then it only shows that they haven't done due diligence. They are lying to the institution that is willing to loan them the money when they take it, and they are lying to themselves when they wrap their minds in the positive emotions that come with the assumption that they are special in some way. Reality isn't going to catch up to them. As individuals they will get together and complain, hence the prevalence and power of conspiracy theorists in society today, but they won't seek to change themselves. It would be an admission. They only seek communal complaint as justification for their own behavior. But it's an admission that is long over due.

The same can be said for education. We have a populace today that is living a farce. Some huge percentage of people coming out of high school will state that they will never use any of this (math, verbal skills, reading comprehension), so why do they have to suffer through the attempt by their educators to teach it to them. It's only when they are interested in something, and need one of those things that their educators tried to teach them that they can see the bigger picture. Otherwise, there exists within society a disrespect for mental discipline and a rampant anti-intellectualism. Those things just get in the way of people being themselves. There is no call within society for people to change in accordance with challenges. And the challenges are only mounting.

Currently, the US has a president who is a stout anti-intellectual. He thinks he's pretty clever, himself. All of his rhetoric is about how the people can have whatever they want. He will give it to them, and make America great again. But there isn't any challenge for the people to change. Likewise, Britain wants to leave the EU. Too many outsiders have spoiled them on the whole unity experiment. The French have riots in the streets over high gas prices, but they are really about the people venting their right wing tensions. They aren't getting what they want when they want it. They see themselves as the people. They aren't concerned with whomever it is that they hurt as they express themselves.

I already vented in an earlier post on this thread about the state of management in the US. The paucity of skill and knowledge there has set America back. Its businesses cannot compete with the Chinese. Think about it, when you see a picture of a Chinese factory these days you don't see a sweatshop. You hear about them, that's true, but the relevant example is of a modern factory that runs circles around anything imagined in the US. The things that people think aren't being made in America anymore aren't being made for a reason. And that reason isn't necessarily cheaper labor. You see, the Chinese don't have a problem with thinking in other ways than what people in the US, and Europe, have been enculturated into. They get along with modernity. They understand that they may have to embrace math. The US seems to think that they can impose some tariffs and open back up what are sweatshops in comparison to compete with the Chinese. Is it any wonder why there is a meth crisis in America? We ask people to retrain for the new paradigm when they haven't been trained for the old one. Instead they've perpetrated a fraud both upon society and themselves, by discounting the very things they now say they will embrace. Because to embrace retraining and continuing education as a concept they have to embrace those things that they always thought they wouldn't need. I am saying that society lives by the influx of the change it can produce in its people, but I don't see the vast ocean of American workers embracing intellectualism. I see them insisting that they can have what they want, even if it means going to war or some other. In the absence of that, they chase meth. What they really need is purpose, and success. The saddest thing is that is was always within their power to give that to themselves, but they couldn't let go of the ranting nature against what would most help them that they developed in high school.

As far as higher education goes, and the cheating scandal, the same criticism goes. Why would anyone out in the real world point at some actress's daughter and launch vitriol at her when she was discovered cheating? Isn't it because they believe that the name of the institution is all that is really important? What about what you are supposed to learn at that institution? Isn't that more important? If you think that higher education is more about who you know than what you know, you are only perpetuating the real problem within yourself. It's true that all the world is composed of marketing, and that management is mostly about dealing with people, but there has to be some substance that even a crystal begins growing from. Higher education must be teaching those people something. Maybe now is a good time to become curious about that?

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'T')his scandal only points out the prevalence of fraud in society. It actually underlies much of what people either complain about or suffer from in today's world. Take the economic crisis of the last decade, it was brought about by fraud. Only, with it, the most active perpetrators have never been truly called out. Instead, everybody blames the banks, especially the conspiracy theorists. What you need to see is that the problem was largely brought about by individual greed. When a person takes out a loan that they ought to know they can't pay back unless the most rosey economic scenario pervades for decades, then it only shows that they haven't done due diligence. They are lying to the institution that is willing to loan them the money when they take it, and they are lying to themselves when they wrap their minds in the positive emotions that come with the assumption that they are special in some way. Reality isn't going to catch up to them. As individuals they will get together and complain, hence the prevalence and power of conspiracy theorists in society today, but they won't seek to change themselves. It would be an admission. They only seek communal complaint as justification for their own behavior. But it's an admission that is long over due.

The same can be said for education. We have a populace today that is living a farce. Some huge percentage of people coming out of high school will state that they will never use any of this (math, verbal skills, reading comprehension), so why do they have to suffer through the attempt by their educators to teach it to them. It's only when they are interested in something, and need one of those things that their educators tried to teach them that they can see the bigger picture. Otherwise, there exists within society a disrespect for mental discipline and a rampant anti-intellectualism. Those things just get in the way of people being themselves. There is no call within society for people to change in accordance with challenges. And the challenges are only mounting.