Subject:
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Re: Idle Ramblings
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 20 Apr 2000 15:56:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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1482 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Philip Ogston writes:
> I think one problem with American schools is that they think that there's a
> strict curriculum which everybody needs to learn in order to succeed in
> life. What they don't realize is that you can succeed just as well as a
> baker or a carpenter or a ditch digger as >you can as a CEO or a professor
> or venture capitalist. You might not make as much money, but it's really
> stupid to think that that's what makes people successful.
This is playing dangerously close to equivocation: using one mindset’s
definition of success to refute the success of another mindset that uses a
different definition. If you define success as happiness or job satisfaction
(and that’s a valid definition), than certainly a ditch digger can in theory
be as successful as a wealthy CEO. If, however, you define success as
financial achievement (and that’s also a valid, though differing, definition),
then a $24000/year ditchdigger’s going to have a harder time achieving success
than an executive who makes 10 or 100 times that amount.
> And, ironically, it's probably exactly that belief that prevents people from
> having good lives.
I agree that a good measure of success, outside of capitalistic
definitions, is the amount of happiness one experiences in everyday life.
However, at the risk of pimping for capitalism, I can assert that every
significant "problem" currently facing me—that is, a problem detracting from
my happiness—stems directly from financial causes. Money cannot directly
"buy" happiness, but it can "buy-off" those matters causing me unhappiness,
and a reduction of unhappiness would seem to lead to a net increase in
happiness.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Idle Ramblings
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| (...) Of course you did, and I bet you and everyone else at that school learned things they were really interested in. I think one problem with American schools is that they think that there's a strict curriculum which everybody needs to learn in (...) (25 years ago, 20-Apr-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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