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At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

Excellent timing on the article, since today is the start of TV-TURNOFF WEEK 2005

What a great story to start off National TV-Turnoff Week.

Its TV turnoff week people!

If you like being able to turn off any TV you'd like, you'll like TV Turn-off Week. It's going to be held from April 25-May 1, 2005. Personally, the Internet's replaced TV for me; even though there is a TV here I don't really watch it now.

Then, read James Lowen's _Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Texbook Got Wrong_ to see how your mind has unknowingly been filled with nationalist and consumer crap (despite your technical proclivities). Also check out Howard Zinn. Learn to live simply and frugally so you have more options:

If you have started doing all that, by now you are primed to begin to question what education really means.

And further, to even question why people need to work and what it should mean to do useful things.

You'll have time to read great minds like Bertrand Russel and Freeman Dyson.

Then you can accept you are still stuck in a stupid system.

But you'll be positioned to make the best of it and yet still see how the world can be a made better place to for the bulk of humanity and other creatures.

Always remember in your darker hours to at least ask yourself the question, "Can life be made worth living?" And in your brighter hours, remember to ask yourself if you are playing a finite (to win) game or an infinite (to play) game?

And, finally, for continual inspiration, read _Voyage From Yesteryear_ by James P. Hogan.

Now go out and take some educated risks to try to make life worth living -- despite your future happiness possibilities already almost being ruined by being convinced you that you are "bright" just because you know some technical things (same thing almost happened to me).

Kids are exposed to television, radio, video games, high-pressure sports, junk food, back seat DVD players, and plain old bullies at school. If you want kids to learn, there needs to be some time each day spent in a calm, relaxed environment where they can read a book at their own pace, sit and think, daydream, play act, just the normal stuff kids do.

Adults are under so much pressure and stress that they seem to be preparing their kids early for a life of pressure and stress as well. Everyone I know who has kids makes sure the kids are occupied and entertained every waking moment. When I was a kid, the most refreshing and insightful moments often occurred when I was just sitting in a chair, staring into space, sometimes thinking, sometimes not. That's when you make a mental connection, that's when you "get it". Taking away the free time and relaxation is what makes science and math difficult for kids. It probably makes other subjects difficult too, but you can get by in a lot of subjects by just memorizing. We can do better.

Coincidentally, next week is TV Turnoff Week.

"The present findings indicate that duration of daily television viewing is strongly associated with obesity and super-obesity in adult males, as in children."

"...Non-obese men... prefer other pastimes, since most leisure activities require more physical exertion than television watching."

"One of the major risk factors for interpersonal youth violence appears to be a history of heavy television viewing, particularly the viewing of televised violence..."

However, no studies to date have examined the possibility that reduction in time spent viewing television will alter the frequency of violent or aggressive behavior.

• Amount of television that the average American watches per day: over 4 hours
• Time per day that TV is on in an average US home: 7 hours, 40 minutes
• Number of videos rented daily in the US: 6 million
• Number of videos rented daily in the US: 6 million
• Average time per week that the American child ages 2-17 spends watching television: 19 hours, 40 minutes
• Time per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5 minutes
• Number of murders witnessed by children on television by the age 18: 16,000
• Number of murders witnessed by children on television by the age 18: 16,000
• Percent reduction in the American homicide rate between 1993 and 1996: 20
• Percent increase in number of violent scenes per hour on 10 major channels from 1992 to 1994: 41

What you all don't know is that secretly this whole Digital Television encryption and watermarking biz has been sponsored by Tv Turnoff.org. By ensuring that all future television becomes a pain in the ass watch, they are finally able to get everybody turn off ther tv sets.

"because most of us couldn't go without movies/music forever"

Well from time to time, I become an idealist. I think that the "couldn't" above really should be "choose not to". There are several notable (but false) exceptions:

1. "I have kids that I can't keep from watching teletubbies/power rangers/etc as well as buy them associated toys" I can imagine that childrens' influence (whining) can be quite prolific, if they whined "Come ON pops... I WANT to take crack", I can't imagine you would succumb very easily.
2. "I have to as part of my job because I am in the entertainment industry" I guess this is somewhat legitimate, though it seems to me that your choice of careers is indeed a "choice" and if you are characterizing this career with "Cartel" maybe you have chosen the wrong career.
3. "Every time I drive to work, I see billboards pitching the latest and greatest stuff to me. I can't avoid seeing these" But you can avoid buying them.
4. "Every time I turn on the TV, I see ads pitching the latest and greatest stuff to me. I can't avoid seeing these" But you can avoid buying them. And I guess it should be somewhat obvious, but you can avoid watching TV
5. "But what about the MS-tax?" While somewhat difficult to avoid, it is possible through Dell and Walmart to name some major ones.

Turn on life!