Jul 12 2012: I think you're a dreamer.
Freedom also means free of coercion. That's a bit of a harsh word to use, suggesting that most americans are coerced in their voting decisions, life's choices and world view; however, you are raised in an education system designed to out-put 'designer graduates' to meet the needs of business and technological development in favour of broadly educated freee thinkers. Your news media and the dearth of advertising in all media platforms corral your ability to perceive the true nature of your life-styles, and cash heavy political markeying of candidate and advertising blinds you to the real capabilities and intent of your political candidates.
The 'American Dream' died on the vine in the seventies.
Jul 12 2012: To continue,, I first must ask that you forgive my poor typing skills.
If we want an education system that helps us to evolve as human beings as well as the disciplines of the corporate and scientific worlds, we need to place more emphasis on the humanities in the crriculum of our secondary schools. To be able to do that, I think we need to lenfthen the school day ( at least back to a full eight hours of learning), re-emphasie student participation in the learning process through a return to 'homework' requirements, and perhaps reconsider the tradition of two month summer holidays.
I would see a return to a mandate for Universities and Colleges to provide a broad education to our young people. Educators need to re-focus their talents from churning out 'designer graduates' to satisfy the demands of the corporate world and to begin once again to nurture thinking that includes a broader focus on subjects that will help us to grow and improve as a species and as occupants of this planet. In short, I believe that our education systen needs to focus itself on producing more thinkers and dreamers.
How that will be done, given the opposing pressures of our modern world demanding narrow-band thinkers, I don't have the answer for.
Jul 12 2012: An intersting and well posed question. I agree that the current education system in North America produces the kind of 'educated peopele' that corporations want it to. Corporations lobby governments and grant money to institutions in such a way as to control the 'output' of the system to meet their needs to increase their wealth and power' and for the most part, 'we the people' follow along happily so we can successfully join the consumer society they have created around us. The vast majority of us behave like sheep, relly, and that is something for another discussion.
I'm not certain we are past the point where change to the educational focus of our Universities (Degree Factories) can be made in the way that I think you (and I), amonst many others, would like to see.
But, your question asks specifically that. What changes should be made,
First, I'm not sure that I agree with the 'nurturing' approach being taken in our pre-schools and elementary schools. Not that I disagree with finding ways to help and to guide less gifted learners, but,(and even though I am one of the less gifted), I truly believe that to a great extent, learning is an acquired discipline, and it needs to be taught at the entry level. I would support a revitalised focus on the 'three r's" in elementary and secondary schools. Kids today, though they may be exceedingly bright, no longer know how to read and write. How we'll overcome the influence of Facebook and 'texting' in that regard, I don't know.
There's no question that our kids need to be prepared to enter our increasing technoliogical world, But I think there also needs to be a greater emphasis on the humanities. I've noticed in my own kid's education that school days have become significantly shorter than when I was in school, that 'homework' receives less emphasis, and ther are more 'hlidays' in the form of PD Days. I think this should change.
Jul 12 2012: I like to compare our times to the time of the French Revolution when royalty and the favoured nobility held the lions share of the country's wealth, becoming so unconcerned about the needs of 'the people', that they had no choice but to exercise the only power they really had, in numbers, and through violent uprising, to overturn the system.
Has the North American peasantry reached that ignition point of duress and oppression experienced in miseival France? No, I think not, and I doubt that it will. The wealthy and priveleged will always riise to the top in human society, and in our mofern world they are smart enough and aware enough to make sure that public unrest never reaches a breaking point. Corporations keep us in thrall to our consumer desires through the power of marketing and advertising. They give us all the entertainment we could hope for to keep us happily distracted through big-time sporting events (the modern gladiator arena), television, movies and access to ever increasing choices in the arena of 'Toy' technologies. Their news media guides what we will think about, how we think, and they answer for us how we should understand what they report.
So, in the end, that's why 'government has all the power', and 'we the people' have none.
I'll share another thought though. I'm not so sure that communism would not have offered a better way for us to organize our societies if more sophisticated a population had created it, and if communism had retained faith and the Bible as it's guiding principle.
Jul 12 2012: Well, I think that there are a number of ways to approach your question.In fact 'we the people' do have the power to change our governments if we wish to. A couple of things about that. The electoral process is our accepted way of making change. For people who want a change in face of leadership, or cosmetic change by way of new or altered laws, that system, in a geberal way, satisfies there need to have a voice. For others who yearn for more significant, or radical change, voting for change isn't an immediate or powerful enough tool.
That democratis government is riddled with corruption, and that it requires a lot of 'back room dealing' in order to 'get things done', is difficult to dispute. However, since the human invention of government, that has always been the case, and it isn't likely to change. Neither is the reality that societies will always need some form of representative government.
In our modern world, particularly in 'civilized' North America, revolution by the populace hasn't been a cause for fear in a couple of centuries. The power of the 'people' to control governments has waned as our prosperity and populations have grown, to the point where elections have become a sham as an indicator of our freedom. Society has evolved to the point where we are such that wealth, not public opinion is the avenue to real power, and that isn't likely to change any time soon.
The only real power that 'the people' have .to engender real change is to break laws; in effect, to take up arms if necessary against the government that rules them.Libya, Egypt and Syria are countries where 'the people' have done and are doing just that. In North America, 'the people', vastly over-fed and living reasonably comfortable lives in a culture of corporate led consumerism, are unlikely to take the revolutionary path in any significant numbers. In effect, we capitulate our freedom and deeper desires for human expression to the power of government, corporations, and the wealthy
Jul 12 2012: I think that to do that would simply result in replacing one problem with another.My view is that 'bio-engineering' and 'genetic-engineering' endeavours do not, and cannot fullty take into account the impact to the bio-sphere that introducing the product(s) of these efforts into it may have in the long run. Our planet is a vastly complex system of life forms, atmospheric patterns, oceanic currents and geological activity that we can barely understand. Introducing man-made life forms into this complexity can and likely will have some form of negative impact that will offset the natural cycles, and I think that every time we do so, we take a huge gamble with the Earth's systems that sustain us.
So, no, I believe that introducing synthetic organisms to clean-up our garbage in the oceans is a wrong approach. In the end, human muscle power and machinery is always the better solutioin.
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A reply on Conversation: why does the government have all the power and the people have none
Freedom also means free of coercion. That's a bit of a harsh word to use, suggesting that most americans are coerced in their voting decisions, life's choices and world view; however, you are raised in an education system designed to out-put 'designer graduates' to meet the needs of business and technological development in favour of broadly educated freee thinkers. Your news media and the dearth of advertising in all media platforms corral your ability to perceive the true nature of your life-styles, and cash heavy political markeying of candidate and advertising blinds you to the real capabilities and intent of your political candidates.
The 'American Dream' died on the vine in the seventies.
A comment on Conversation: What should the revolutionized Education System be like?
If we want an education system that helps us to evolve as human beings as well as the disciplines of the corporate and scientific worlds, we need to place more emphasis on the humanities in the crriculum of our secondary schools. To be able to do that, I think we need to lenfthen the school day ( at least back to a full eight hours of learning), re-emphasie student participation in the learning process through a return to 'homework' requirements, and perhaps reconsider the tradition of two month summer holidays.
I would see a return to a mandate for Universities and Colleges to provide a broad education to our young people. Educators need to re-focus their talents from churning out 'designer graduates' to satisfy the demands of the corporate world and to begin once again to nurture thinking that includes a broader focus on subjects that will help us to grow and improve as a species and as occupants of this planet. In short, I believe that our education systen needs to focus itself on producing more thinkers and dreamers.
How that will be done, given the opposing pressures of our modern world demanding narrow-band thinkers, I don't have the answer for.
A comment on Conversation: What should the revolutionized Education System be like?
I'm not certain we are past the point where change to the educational focus of our Universities (Degree Factories) can be made in the way that I think you (and I), amonst many others, would like to see.
But, your question asks specifically that. What changes should be made,
First, I'm not sure that I agree with the 'nurturing' approach being taken in our pre-schools and elementary schools. Not that I disagree with finding ways to help and to guide less gifted learners, but,(and even though I am one of the less gifted), I truly believe that to a great extent, learning is an acquired discipline, and it needs to be taught at the entry level. I would support a revitalised focus on the 'three r's" in elementary and secondary schools. Kids today, though they may be exceedingly bright, no longer know how to read and write. How we'll overcome the influence of Facebook and 'texting' in that regard, I don't know.
There's no question that our kids need to be prepared to enter our increasing technoliogical world, But I think there also needs to be a greater emphasis on the humanities. I've noticed in my own kid's education that school days have become significantly shorter than when I was in school, that 'homework' receives less emphasis, and ther are more 'hlidays' in the form of PD Days. I think this should change.
A comment on Conversation: why does the government have all the power and the people have none
Has the North American peasantry reached that ignition point of duress and oppression experienced in miseival France? No, I think not, and I doubt that it will. The wealthy and priveleged will always riise to the top in human society, and in our mofern world they are smart enough and aware enough to make sure that public unrest never reaches a breaking point. Corporations keep us in thrall to our consumer desires through the power of marketing and advertising. They give us all the entertainment we could hope for to keep us happily distracted through big-time sporting events (the modern gladiator arena), television, movies and access to ever increasing choices in the arena of 'Toy' technologies. Their news media guides what we will think about, how we think, and they answer for us how we should understand what they report.
So, in the end, that's why 'government has all the power', and 'we the people' have none.
I'll share another thought though. I'm not so sure that communism would not have offered a better way for us to organize our societies if more sophisticated a population had created it, and if communism had retained faith and the Bible as it's guiding principle.
A comment on Conversation: why does the government have all the power and the people have none
That democratis government is riddled with corruption, and that it requires a lot of 'back room dealing' in order to 'get things done', is difficult to dispute. However, since the human invention of government, that has always been the case, and it isn't likely to change. Neither is the reality that societies will always need some form of representative government.
In our modern world, particularly in 'civilized' North America, revolution by the populace hasn't been a cause for fear in a couple of centuries. The power of the 'people' to control governments has waned as our prosperity and populations have grown, to the point where elections have become a sham as an indicator of our freedom. Society has evolved to the point where we are such that wealth, not public opinion is the avenue to real power, and that isn't likely to change any time soon.
The only real power that 'the people' have .to engender real change is to break laws; in effect, to take up arms if necessary against the government that rules them.Libya, Egypt and Syria are countries where 'the people' have done and are doing just that. In North America, 'the people', vastly over-fed and living reasonably comfortable lives in a culture of corporate led consumerism, are unlikely to take the revolutionary path in any significant numbers. In effect, we capitulate our freedom and deeper desires for human expression to the power of government, corporations, and the wealthy
A comment on Conversation: Should Synthetic Organisms be released to clean plastic pollution from the ocean?
So, no, I believe that introducing synthetic organisms to clean-up our garbage in the oceans is a wrong approach. In the end, human muscle power and machinery is always the better solutioin.