[Michael_Layden]

Consumers is a great word for us. Future generations will be too busy just scrimping together the basics to survive to waste time coming up with insults for our "civilisation". They will be able to just continue calling us "the consumers" and it will just about sum us up.
It will be impossible for them to get their heads around the shear waste and the banality of most of it. They will know us by our middens and the "scorched" earth and waterways we leave behind. I don't doubt they will think we did it delibrately.

[SDC]

Technically speaking, energy can neither be created or destroyed, so words such as "consumer" or "producer" are a load of bunk anyway.

[holmes]

What is wrong u say?

[Wickan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', 'W')hat is wrong u say?

[holmes]

darn it worked at first. It was a rather horrifying obese cellulite image. It was a perfect consumer image. Darnit.
I must not be allowed to post images anymore. O well.

[neocone]

1) Consumers don't ask pesky things about policies tailored to maintain the rich richer and the elites worshipped.

2) Consumers don't think and perpetuate no-value adding propositions that feed off society like lawyers and the penal or militaro-industrial complexes.

3) Consumer react to marketing and enable a "democracy" to become a totalitarian state where everyone smiles and the majority enjoys getting it in the ass from the few with a big smiley on their faces.

A consumer society is proof a true democracy is onle the one Athenians invented 3000 years ago:

Citizens (10% of the population i.e males who vote and were naturally born in Athens for at least 10 generations) picked at random to prevent a political career rule in non renewable terms.

The keyword here is "picked at random to prevent a political career".

[Windmills]

I doubt it.

The most powerful value messages passed from one generation to the next are done so through parents. Scapegoating the educational system for a variety of social ills is just the result of hordes of lazy parents that would rather plug their children into an eletronic Matrix instead of being involved with them. Between video games, the internet, chat room, cell phones, radios, cable, DVDs, Gameboys, and iPods, I know of students that have barely spoken more than a word to their parents in days. Parents have abdicated their positions of immense power and influence over their children to whatever will fill the void. Schools are not supposed to be raising your children. They're supposed to be teaching them academic subjects. Many parents think they're good parents because they buy lots of stuff for their kids and let them do whatever they want.

We consume because we like it and it's fun. It's fun to have lots of cool stuff to play with, whether you are 3 years old or an adult. It's as simple as that and doesn't require any conspiracy theory to explain. If parents teach their children to be superficial, materialistic consumers, then that is what they will be, and it is unlikely that any other institution will be able to undo that teaching.

[neocone]

Parenting is dead... just like the Khmer Rouges, or the Bolcheviks or the fascists, any totalitarian state has a vested interest in cutting off the instinctive parental bond.

- Record amount of single moms and broken homes

- 1/3 of toddlers 2 years and younger have TVs in their room

- Long car commutes where the children are starring at DVDs in the back seat of the car

Add to that the online disconnect between parents and their offsprings.

Online networks such as Myspace promote more of the same etc...

I mean who under 18 post in this forum?

[Polemic]

[video width=400 height=350]http://www.youtube.com/v/yL6ULruYjNA[/video]
George Carlin answers your question.

[Windmills]

One of the big problems with the US educational system is that it's designed so that a good chunk of the learning occurs at home. Kids are supposed to do homework. They supposed to practice, study for exams, and come to school prepared. It assumes that kids read for pleasure outside of school. It assumes that parents get their kids to bed on time, up on time, feed them, check their homework, call their teachers, read their progress reports, and otherwise send messages by their actions to their children that education is important.

I think comparing the way schools are run successfully in other countries doesn't really provide the whole picture of what it takes to provide a good education. Different successful countries teach in a variety of ways. There isn't a set formula. If you look a little deeper, what you will find more consistently is the huge differences in how time is spent after school. US children consume themselves with meaningless afterschool jobs and recreation that does not include reading. The children of other countries spend FOUR TO FIVE TIMES more time reading, studying, and doing homework than US students. How can that be overstated? If anything, I think our educational system is doing pretty darn good considering how little effort the parents and students put into it. I think the comparative rankings we do get are amazing in that light. I would have guessed we'd by four or five times lower.

The US educational system isn't just teachers in classrooms. It's laws, administrators, the community, and especially parents. We have been as loathe to mention the "P" word in educational reform as many people are to mentioned the "P" word in sustainability discussions (parents for the first, population control in the second). Trying to create sustainable societies is a joke if we ignore a constantly increasing population on a finite planet; just about any kind of educational reform is a joke if we ignore how critical parents are to successful students.

[julianj]

Brilliant! Very funny and accurate.

BTW - who is George Carlin? (I'm not from the US)

[I_Like_Plants]

George Carlin is one of us very few Americans who shouldn't be just put up against the wall and shot.

Do check out George Carlin videos on Youtube, you'll like 'em - what he says is fairly obvious and can be heard in any coffee shop in europe, but he's a revelation here.

[seldom_seen]

The US educational system is designed to create obedient factory workers through emphasis on attendance, regimentation, following instructions. All in a factory like setting.

We don't have much of a manufacturing base anymore though, so our schools have turned in to hybrid babysitting service, medium security penitentiary.

[Baldwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') mean who under 18 post in this forum?

[undertaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Baldwin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') mean who under 18 post in this forum?

[Baldwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('undertaker', '
')
Wow, good for you Baldwin! Bagpipes eh? You should move to Boston when you finish high school and join a bagpipe band. You will play at police funerals and firefighter and soldier funerals, like in the movie "The Departed."

Nowadays they give military funerals and play taps on a stereo. THey don't even send a real trumpeter!

You should specialize in funeral music, actually. Get a trumpet and learn a mean taps, and then get in with the Mortuary services people at Dover AFB. Write them a letter and tell them you heard about taps on the stereo and that you VOLUNTEER to play taps at soldier funerals. (Tell 'em you volunteer, you'll still probably get paid). Or play your bagpipes if that is preferred. I bet you get lots of funeral gigs! Hey, it's a living!

One thing about this very FAKE society is that when someone comes along with a traditional ability such as playing an instrument or speaking a foreign language (especially when it's an Amerikwan), people are very impressed and happy to have you around.

As far as "sports" I can understand your dislike of team sports. However, physical activity is important. I recommend recumbent bicycling. http://www.easyracers.com/


You should learn Russian, too. You can easily learn most of it from the Pimsleur course. You do all three sets, and get a college textbook and work through it. Depending on where in the country you are, you might be able to find Russian speakers.

For the sort of temperament you have, I think Russia would be good for you. Strong characters, great souls, cold winters and beautiful women who will treat you like a god if you are fluent in their language.

Anyway, make sure you enjoy life. I remember being 17 and uptight. I'm sorry to hear that you don't chat too much on your cell phone. I had your attitude when I was your age, but now I believe it's very important to socialize with people, though the hard part is finding worthwhile company. You might find that in Russia. That's what I did.

Definitely takes risks -- I don't mean physical risks, but I mean if you get a "crazy idea" like taking the Trans-siberian railway and stopping in some Omsk where Dostoevsky spent his prison time, DO IT! Have you read Dostoevsky's prison memoir, "Notes from the House of the Dead?" I think you'll want to go to Omsk after reading this. And bring your bagpipes!

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('undertaker', 'A')lso tai chi, qigong for developing your chi, and for fighting either wing chun or jeet kune do (basically the same) and of course a grappling style like Gracie Brazilian ju-jitsu. But nowadays any Judo school worth it's salt will teach some of the Gracie stuff too.