But I do recognize that high and lofty ideas are pretty worthless if you can't figure out the intermediate steps to getting to 'em. Take opportunities where you can find 'em, and someday you'll find yourself a lot closer to where you want to be than you were when you started.
And you're welcome to call me an enemy if you like, but all you're making me feel is pity, rather than anger--as the Tao says, it's a very unfortunate man who counts another as an enemy. I'm sorry you feel that way.
Mods can do as they like. My karma's resilient enough for me to make the occasional 'controversial' statement.
So let me get this straight. Your philosophy depends on other people taking pity on you and reading your mind to figure out what you want?
You want everyone else to vote for someone whom you don't even really support, just so that you can have your opinions--which you'll never actually -tell- to anyone in charge--respected?
And somehow you don't see how broken that is?
This is why nobody will ever take your alleged 'political philosophy' seriously: you're unwilling to participate in a government, but want the government to magically do what you want it to do.
If you want to fix a system you see as broken, you'll have to get into the system to fix it. Ain't nobody yet who ever fixed a broken ethernet card by sulking in a corner--ain't nobody ever fixed a broken government by whining on slashdot.
Last I checked, Libertarianism still required voting.
Or perhaps that's why the Libertarians can't ever get a candidate in office--because none of their alleged supporters bother voting?
Sorry. If you don't vote, you don't matter. What people see are the numbers--and if there's no opposition because of broken people like you who don't bother voting, then any opposition to the status quo that might exist will never show up.
So by all means, have your lofty pie-in-the-sky Libertarian ideals. Don't expect anyone else to give a flying bacon sandwich for 'em, though, if you don't put action to it and actually do something with it.
You don't vote? You don't matter.
You don't work with the system? Then you'll have to shut up and accept what the system--and all those people who support it--will do to you.
I can't deny your assertion that your vote makes no difference. You're entirely correct, because you said you don't vote.
No vote, no difference.
You may as well stop talking altogether, really, though--because if you choose not to vote, then you're letting all those people who do vote choose what to do with you. As such, you're going to have to live with what we say.
What do I say?
Put up or shut up. Unless you're prepared to get off your lazy duff and -do- something about it, don't bother complaining about it.
Vote. Write your congresscritter. Write letters to the editor. Participate in the system--yes, even if you disagree, because, frankly, unless you know how to work the current one, you've got no chance of making it better or changing it for something else.
If you don't vote, then really, what cause do you have to complain? Go bugger off and stop talking about it if you're not even going to make a token effort to fix it.
Going beyond voting, every message that the congresscritter receives from his or her constituents supporting this bill will indicate to them that it is an important issue, and that if they want to be re-elected they may want to pay attention.
Yes, my opinion individually may not matter much, but it still contributes.
I do not need to stick out in a crowd. I have no desire to stick out of the crowd--it's more trouble than it's worth, frankly. But forming a part of the 'mountain'? That's worthwhile.
It doesn't take much time to send an email to your congresscritter (make sure to include your snail addy, o'course, and your name and phone number). If net neutrality isn't important enough for you to take a couple of minutes to support it, then don't complain when all you can get is throttled-to-hell packet-shaped crapwidth instead of decent broadband.
I vote. I write my congresscritter when I hear about something that I find important. My opinion has been heard on more than one occasion, and as a result, I am content to participate in this democracy.
Does it always go my way? Of course not. But that's the way these things work, and sometimes what is best for me is not best for everybody else.
Pretty par for the course for Best Buy, from what I understand.
It occurs to me that a business that was licensed and bonded, and insured, that performed the same kind of base maintenance activities that the so-called "geek squad" charges an arm and a leg for, would be capable of stealing a significant portion of the market niche from the 'geek squad' simply by nature of having a tangible guarantee that you'd get your system back intact.
There are ways to determine the structure of something without actively 'tampering' with it. Consider the means that art historians use to determine what was painted on the canvas before the work on top was painted, for example.
Widely available? No, not really. But no security is impossible to crack; I'd like to know exactly how difficult it is to do so before I'd consider forking over for one.
I can appreciate the notion of a hardware dongle of some kind to prove you are you, but right away I can see an easy way around it.
Once the key has been reverse-engineered, a software emulation thereof can be constructed, and a bit of clever hacking could substitute the software for the hardware.
Consider MAC address spoofing for what I see as a corollary.
It's precisely this attitude that encourages bad scholarship.
I see the argument in other places many, many times (and, in fact, there's a 'documentary' by Ben Stein coming out that uses the same thing shortly): "Academia must be wrong because they're ignoring any controversial ideas in favor of their own status quo." This is discussed in the context of the evolution/ID nonsense, but leaving that particular 'controversy' aside, there are other considerations.
Both sides--I'll label them "Ivory Tower" and "Suspicious Rabble" for convenience--do have their points. Ivory Tower wants to ensure that only quality scholarship is available--that anything that gets published is as absolutely accurate (within the ability of humanity to make it so) as possible. Suspicious Rabble, on the other hand, having been denied access not only to the knowledge that the Ivory Tower is hoarding but also to the process by which such knowledge is adjudicated, becomes convinced that Ivory Tower is deliberately closing its eyes to anything that doesn't fit into the Tower's view of the cosmos.
What the Rabble does not understand, of course, is that the conservatism of the Tower is there for a reason--that without extensive substantiation; without proper evidence; without extensive preparations to ensure that the research, experiments, analysis, and conclusions are accurate; there exists a risk that a good, working model may be discarded in favor of an inferior model--that there would be a step backward.
What the Tower does not understand is that it is their very exclusivity that causes the Rabble to adopt these inaccurate and wrong conclusions. If the Rabble understood why, for your example, Safire is not taken seriously by the Tower, would they want to buy his books? If the Rabble understood why ID is nothing but a house of cards built to obscure a logical fallacy, would there be anyone who bothered to defend it?
Not to say that the conservative attitude of the Tower be relaxed entirely--one must always ensure that the research, experimentation, analysis, and the logic behind the conclusions is checked and checked again for validity. But too much secrecy, as you seem to advocate, will only hurt the Tower in the future. As you withdraw from the Rabble--as you continue to assume that the majority of the Rabble is incapable of understanding what you do--you make yourself irrelevant to the Rabble, and they will have no desire to be educated or to understand you.
How do you counter the mistaken assumptions of the Rabble, then? How do you avoid their veneering of shit with sycamore?
One way would be to make it easier to find these citations. As it is, the obstructions placed in the path of the common person to finding the substance of most articles actually lends -credence- to these very people who you wish to avoid endorsing: all they have to do is cite a paper that vaguely references something related in the abstract, and that very veneering has been accomplished, and for the most part cannot be effectively countered. You've made the situation worse.
Another way would be to do your own "science reporting"--that is, append to the abstracts of an article a plain-language abstract for folks like science reporters and casual readers who are not in-touch with the jargon of the particular discipline of the paper in question. In this way, you can pre-emptively avoid bad citations (and bad newspaper reporting, as well).
Continuing to keep knowledge exclusive and the purview of only a chosen few will lead only to the fall of the Tower. Allowing members of the Rabble some modicum of understanding--perhaps even allowing some members of the Rabble to become, as it were, Amateur Agents of the Tower, to continue the metaphor--will serve to help both the Tower and the Rabble come to a mutual understanding and to increase the quality of scholarship across the board.
tl;dr: Don't be a snotty bastard; it'll only hurt you worse.
What you asked for is in the bit following that, where I talk about lung tissue scarring and fluid production, amongst other things.
Unless you wish to dispute that also?
It's easy to say "you're wrong"--but one thing I've learned over time is that in order to be taken seriously, one must do two things:
1. Provide substantiation for your opinion. Proof, in other words, why you're more correct than the other gent.
2. Stand behind your words. Take responsibility for what you say, and acknowledge any mistakes you make.
You seem to be having trouble with both. You've offered no substantiation--merely saying "you're wrong and unqualified." I've freely admitted I have no -official- qualifications, so the latter is redundant--and you've offered no contrary evidence, so the former is suspect. You furthermore post only as an Anonymous Coward, showing an unwillingness to stand behind your opinions. While anonymity itself does not invalidate an argument, it does not give any sort of confidence, either.
If you are demanding professional certification, why aren't you providing your own qualifications?
It's also begging for trouble, really. The only way that a populace can engage in a true democracy is if they are sufficiently educated as to understand the consequences of their actions and those of their elected representatives.
Yes, you should know at least the basics about everything, and be willing to learn more if you need to.
Interestingly, those who espouse this misguided need for 'professionals' in all things can never seem to come up with a good or coherent reason for denying education to the masses. One would think, with all their supposed education, that they'd be able to do so without hesitation.
The specific physiological effects from breathing chlorine gas?
Off the top of my head, it'll be something along the lines of death by asphyxiation, due to the damaging of throat and lung tissue from the action of the chlorine gas upon them. This damage is accomplished via the absorption of water from the tissue in the reaction 2(Cl2) + 2(H2O) -> 4(HCl)+ O2.
Needless to say, having hydrochloric acid in the lungs is not exactly a good thing, leading to extensive scarring (and scar tissue doesn't tend to work for gas exchange between the blood and air) as well as various physiological reactions such as swelling of irritated tissue (thus cutting off the airway) and, as you mentioned, fluid production.
A basic understanding of chemistry and biology is all you need in order to figure that one out.
As a side note, the changes are not anatomical; they are physiological--but that's a comparatively minor quibble.
And no, it is not an insult to hire a professional if you need a professional job done. However, if all you need is a bit of touching up on the back shed, are you really going to need a professional house painter? There is such a thing as overkill, you know.
When I seek to educate individuals, I do not pretend to be an expert--I generally note that I have no explicit qualifications in the field of which I am speaking.
People do still tend to listen, however, because I have proven--through having given correct information in the past, through citing reliable sources (hence my original post mourning the inaccessibility of professional journals to the general public)--that, for the most part, I know what I'm talking about.
It is my opinion that requiring a professional for every single job, no matter how small, is perhaps inadvisable. It wastes the professional's time (when they could be doing something more useful--perhaps advancing the techniques and methods of their field, rather than informing someone for the thousandth time of the basics of their field?) and is likely to be a waste of the resources of the person seeking the information.
I would note that it is common practice in educational institutions to have many introductory-level classes taught by graduate students rather than tenured professors--because the professors have rather more important things to do than teach BIO-103, Introduction to Evolutionary Theory or whatnot. Simply put, there are only so many professors available, and there are only 24 hours in a day--so requiring the full expertise possible for every facet of a job, when a 'sufficiency' would do just as well, is a bloody waste of resources, time, money, and effort.
Never actually seen Good Will Hunting, so I've not the faintest idea what you're talking about with the bar scene. Sorry to have missed the reference.
Yes, I do not have a teaching certification, and as such I am not officially qualified to teach the reaction 2(NaOCl) + 2NH3 -> 2NaONH3 + Cl2*.
This doesn't mean that I don't know what it is, and what effects it will have if you breathe it.
While I would not hire a plumber as a professional house painter and expect a professional house painting job from him, I would not insult the plumber by insinuating he was incapable of painting a house.
*Yes, I'm aware that there are other potential reactions, one of which leads to rocket fuel**. However, the reason usually cited is the release of chlorine gas, and as such I gave that reaction for the example.
**Though interestingly enough, hydrazine finds application in some military aircraft in the afterburners. This would be why you'll often see folks in hazmat suits around certain aircraft when they land--it's some very nasty stuff.
I posit that education is everyone's concern. Is it not my responsibility, for instance, if I see a janitor about to pour bleach into an ammonia bottle, to let him know that that may not be the best of ideas? If not out of a desire to ensure his safety and the safety of others, then out of a desire not to get chlorine poisoning myself?
We provide, in the western world, a basic education free of charge to everybody. This is in order to impart basic life skills that everybody needs in order to contribute successfully to our society.
Does it need to stop there? Are you only allowed to learn inside a classroom? How absurd! Rather than restricting education to a cloistered few, is it not in the best interests of humanity to allow everybody to learn what they will, should they have the desire to learn?
Or are you hinting that you'd like to pay for my college tuition? I'd be mightily obliged; my email's in my profile if you'd like to make the arrangements that way.
One of my major frustrations is how it's very difficult to find serious scholarship outside of a certain number of journals, all of which require expensive subscriptions. It severely limits my ability to make a point on, say, evolutionary biology if I cannot cite and link to a peer-reviewed paper on said subject.
Hopefully, we'll be able to see some more of this sort of thing in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed--aren't copyrights and patents supposed to -encourage- innovation?
Besides, if you're so poor at managing money that you can't leverage 50 years of income into a retirement account, you're an idiot.
Why is it none of the music or movie folks seem to have heard of a 401k or IRA or equivalent, anyway?
Not at all.
But I do recognize that high and lofty ideas are pretty worthless if you can't figure out the intermediate steps to getting to 'em. Take opportunities where you can find 'em, and someday you'll find yourself a lot closer to where you want to be than you were when you started.
And you're welcome to call me an enemy if you like, but all you're making me feel is pity, rather than anger--as the Tao says, it's a very unfortunate man who counts another as an enemy. I'm sorry you feel that way.
Mods can do as they like. My karma's resilient enough for me to make the occasional 'controversial' statement.
So let me get this straight. Your philosophy depends on other people taking pity on you and reading your mind to figure out what you want?
You want everyone else to vote for someone whom you don't even really support, just so that you can have your opinions--which you'll never actually -tell- to anyone in charge--respected?
And somehow you don't see how broken that is?
This is why nobody will ever take your alleged 'political philosophy' seriously: you're unwilling to participate in a government, but want the government to magically do what you want it to do.
If you want to fix a system you see as broken, you'll have to get into the system to fix it. Ain't nobody yet who ever fixed a broken ethernet card by sulking in a corner--ain't nobody ever fixed a broken government by whining on slashdot.
Hey, 'congresscritter' was good enough for Mr. Twain--and it's not like they're -real- people, anyway, eh? ;-p
So pretty much, you're saying that for all practical purposes you're a nonentity and can be safely completely ignored?
How sad.
Last I checked, Libertarianism still required voting.
Or perhaps that's why the Libertarians can't ever get a candidate in office--because none of their alleged supporters bother voting?
Sorry. If you don't vote, you don't matter. What people see are the numbers--and if there's no opposition because of broken people like you who don't bother voting, then any opposition to the status quo that might exist will never show up.
So by all means, have your lofty pie-in-the-sky Libertarian ideals. Don't expect anyone else to give a flying bacon sandwich for 'em, though, if you don't put action to it and actually do something with it.
You don't vote? You don't matter.
You don't work with the system? Then you'll have to shut up and accept what the system--and all those people who support it--will do to you.
I can't deny your assertion that your vote makes no difference. You're entirely correct, because you said you don't vote.
No vote, no difference.
You may as well stop talking altogether, really, though--because if you choose not to vote, then you're letting all those people who do vote choose what to do with you. As such, you're going to have to live with what we say.
What do I say?
Put up or shut up. Unless you're prepared to get off your lazy duff and -do- something about it, don't bother complaining about it.
Vote. Write your congresscritter. Write letters to the editor. Participate in the system--yes, even if you disagree, because, frankly, unless you know how to work the current one, you've got no chance of making it better or changing it for something else.
Make you a deal. If you write your congresscritter to talk about that and post your letter here, then I'll write something similar to mine.
Or are you all talk and no action?
If you don't vote, then really, what cause do you have to complain? Go bugger off and stop talking about it if you're not even going to make a token effort to fix it.
Going beyond voting, every message that the congresscritter receives from his or her constituents supporting this bill will indicate to them that it is an important issue, and that if they want to be re-elected they may want to pay attention.
Yes, my opinion individually may not matter much, but it still contributes.
I do not need to stick out in a crowd. I have no desire to stick out of the crowd--it's more trouble than it's worth, frankly. But forming a part of the 'mountain'? That's worthwhile.
It doesn't take much time to send an email to your congresscritter (make sure to include your snail addy, o'course, and your name and phone number). If net neutrality isn't important enough for you to take a couple of minutes to support it, then don't complain when all you can get is throttled-to-hell packet-shaped crapwidth instead of decent broadband.
I vote. I write my congresscritter when I hear about something that I find important. My opinion has been heard on more than one occasion, and as a result, I am content to participate in this democracy.
Does it always go my way? Of course not. But that's the way these things work, and sometimes what is best for me is not best for everybody else.
Which is precisely why I wrote my congresscritter asking him to support it.
Why don't you do the same?
Pretty par for the course for Best Buy, from what I understand.
It occurs to me that a business that was licensed and bonded, and insured, that performed the same kind of base maintenance activities that the so-called "geek squad" charges an arm and a leg for, would be capable of stealing a significant portion of the market niche from the 'geek squad' simply by nature of having a tangible guarantee that you'd get your system back intact.
More evil would be a system that forwards the documents printed to another location....
What part of the smart card system precludes emulation?
There are ways to determine the structure of something without actively 'tampering' with it. Consider the means that art historians use to determine what was painted on the canvas before the work on top was painted, for example.
Widely available? No, not really. But no security is impossible to crack; I'd like to know exactly how difficult it is to do so before I'd consider forking over for one.
I can appreciate the notion of a hardware dongle of some kind to prove you are you, but right away I can see an easy way around it.
Once the key has been reverse-engineered, a software emulation thereof can be constructed, and a bit of clever hacking could substitute the software for the hardware.
Consider MAC address spoofing for what I see as a corollary.
It's precisely this attitude that encourages bad scholarship.
I see the argument in other places many, many times (and, in fact, there's a 'documentary' by Ben Stein coming out that uses the same thing shortly): "Academia must be wrong because they're ignoring any controversial ideas in favor of their own status quo." This is discussed in the context of the evolution/ID nonsense, but leaving that particular 'controversy' aside, there are other considerations.
Both sides--I'll label them "Ivory Tower" and "Suspicious Rabble" for convenience--do have their points. Ivory Tower wants to ensure that only quality scholarship is available--that anything that gets published is as absolutely accurate (within the ability of humanity to make it so) as possible. Suspicious Rabble, on the other hand, having been denied access not only to the knowledge that the Ivory Tower is hoarding but also to the process by which such knowledge is adjudicated, becomes convinced that Ivory Tower is deliberately closing its eyes to anything that doesn't fit into the Tower's view of the cosmos.
What the Rabble does not understand, of course, is that the conservatism of the Tower is there for a reason--that without extensive substantiation; without proper evidence; without extensive preparations to ensure that the research, experiments, analysis, and conclusions are accurate; there exists a risk that a good, working model may be discarded in favor of an inferior model--that there would be a step backward.
What the Tower does not understand is that it is their very exclusivity that causes the Rabble to adopt these inaccurate and wrong conclusions. If the Rabble understood why, for your example, Safire is not taken seriously by the Tower, would they want to buy his books? If the Rabble understood why ID is nothing but a house of cards built to obscure a logical fallacy, would there be anyone who bothered to defend it?
Not to say that the conservative attitude of the Tower be relaxed entirely--one must always ensure that the research, experimentation, analysis, and the logic behind the conclusions is checked and checked again for validity. But too much secrecy, as you seem to advocate, will only hurt the Tower in the future. As you withdraw from the Rabble--as you continue to assume that the majority of the Rabble is incapable of understanding what you do--you make yourself irrelevant to the Rabble, and they will have no desire to be educated or to understand you.
How do you counter the mistaken assumptions of the Rabble, then? How do you avoid their veneering of shit with sycamore?
One way would be to make it easier to find these citations. As it is, the obstructions placed in the path of the common person to finding the substance of most articles actually lends -credence- to these very people who you wish to avoid endorsing: all they have to do is cite a paper that vaguely references something related in the abstract, and that very veneering has been accomplished, and for the most part cannot be effectively countered. You've made the situation worse.
Another way would be to do your own "science reporting"--that is, append to the abstracts of an article a plain-language abstract for folks like science reporters and casual readers who are not in-touch with the jargon of the particular discipline of the paper in question. In this way, you can pre-emptively avoid bad citations (and bad newspaper reporting, as well).
Continuing to keep knowledge exclusive and the purview of only a chosen few will lead only to the fall of the Tower. Allowing members of the Rabble some modicum of understanding--perhaps even allowing some members of the Rabble to become, as it were, Amateur Agents of the Tower, to continue the metaphor--will serve to help both the Tower and the Rabble come to a mutual understanding and to increase the quality of scholarship across the board.
tl;dr: Don't be a snotty bastard; it'll only hurt you worse.
What you asked for is in the bit following that, where I talk about lung tissue scarring and fluid production, amongst other things.
Unless you wish to dispute that also?
It's easy to say "you're wrong"--but one thing I've learned over time is that in order to be taken seriously, one must do two things:
1. Provide substantiation for your opinion. Proof, in other words, why you're more correct than the other gent.
2. Stand behind your words. Take responsibility for what you say, and acknowledge any mistakes you make.
You seem to be having trouble with both. You've offered no substantiation--merely saying "you're wrong and unqualified." I've freely admitted I have no -official- qualifications, so the latter is redundant--and you've offered no contrary evidence, so the former is suspect. You furthermore post only as an Anonymous Coward, showing an unwillingness to stand behind your opinions. While anonymity itself does not invalidate an argument, it does not give any sort of confidence, either.
If you are demanding professional certification, why aren't you providing your own qualifications?
It's also begging for trouble, really. The only way that a populace can engage in a true democracy is if they are sufficiently educated as to understand the consequences of their actions and those of their elected representatives.
Yes, you should know at least the basics about everything, and be willing to learn more if you need to.
Interestingly, those who espouse this misguided need for 'professionals' in all things can never seem to come up with a good or coherent reason for denying education to the masses. One would think, with all their supposed education, that they'd be able to do so without hesitation.
The specific physiological effects from breathing chlorine gas?
Off the top of my head, it'll be something along the lines of death by asphyxiation, due to the damaging of throat and lung tissue from the action of the chlorine gas upon them. This damage is accomplished via the absorption of water from the tissue in the reaction 2(Cl2) + 2(H2O) -> 4(HCl)+ O2.
Needless to say, having hydrochloric acid in the lungs is not exactly a good thing, leading to extensive scarring (and scar tissue doesn't tend to work for gas exchange between the blood and air) as well as various physiological reactions such as swelling of irritated tissue (thus cutting off the airway) and, as you mentioned, fluid production.
A basic understanding of chemistry and biology is all you need in order to figure that one out.
As a side note, the changes are not anatomical; they are physiological--but that's a comparatively minor quibble.
And no, it is not an insult to hire a professional if you need a professional job done. However, if all you need is a bit of touching up on the back shed, are you really going to need a professional house painter? There is such a thing as overkill, you know.
When I seek to educate individuals, I do not pretend to be an expert--I generally note that I have no explicit qualifications in the field of which I am speaking.
People do still tend to listen, however, because I have proven--through having given correct information in the past, through citing reliable sources (hence my original post mourning the inaccessibility of professional journals to the general public)--that, for the most part, I know what I'm talking about.
It is my opinion that requiring a professional for every single job, no matter how small, is perhaps inadvisable. It wastes the professional's time (when they could be doing something more useful--perhaps advancing the techniques and methods of their field, rather than informing someone for the thousandth time of the basics of their field?) and is likely to be a waste of the resources of the person seeking the information.
I would note that it is common practice in educational institutions to have many introductory-level classes taught by graduate students rather than tenured professors--because the professors have rather more important things to do than teach BIO-103, Introduction to Evolutionary Theory or whatnot. Simply put, there are only so many professors available, and there are only 24 hours in a day--so requiring the full expertise possible for every facet of a job, when a 'sufficiency' would do just as well, is a bloody waste of resources, time, money, and effort.
Never actually seen Good Will Hunting, so I've not the faintest idea what you're talking about with the bar scene. Sorry to have missed the reference.
Yes, I do not have a teaching certification, and as such I am not officially qualified to teach the reaction 2(NaOCl) + 2NH3 -> 2NaONH3 + Cl2*.
This doesn't mean that I don't know what it is, and what effects it will have if you breathe it.
While I would not hire a plumber as a professional house painter and expect a professional house painting job from him, I would not insult the plumber by insinuating he was incapable of painting a house.
*Yes, I'm aware that there are other potential reactions, one of which leads to rocket fuel**. However, the reason usually cited is the release of chlorine gas, and as such I gave that reaction for the example.
**Though interestingly enough, hydrazine finds application in some military aircraft in the afterburners. This would be why you'll often see folks in hazmat suits around certain aircraft when they land--it's some very nasty stuff.
Some, I suppose, but if you're not officially an alumnus for whatever reason, what use is that going to be for you?
Kinda makes you wonder where it all goes...
You speak of 'should' and 'should not' but you do not provide any insight to substantiate your alleged points.
Why are you suggesting that the use of scholarly materials be restricted only to those currently enrolled as a student in a university?
I posit that education is everyone's concern. Is it not my responsibility, for instance, if I see a janitor about to pour bleach into an ammonia bottle, to let him know that that may not be the best of ideas? If not out of a desire to ensure his safety and the safety of others, then out of a desire not to get chlorine poisoning myself?
We provide, in the western world, a basic education free of charge to everybody. This is in order to impart basic life skills that everybody needs in order to contribute successfully to our society.
Does it need to stop there? Are you only allowed to learn inside a classroom? How absurd! Rather than restricting education to a cloistered few, is it not in the best interests of humanity to allow everybody to learn what they will, should they have the desire to learn?
Or are you hinting that you'd like to pay for my college tuition? I'd be mightily obliged; my email's in my profile if you'd like to make the arrangements that way.
Only those who are currently affiliated with a university have a right to understand how the world works?
One of my major frustrations is how it's very difficult to find serious scholarship outside of a certain number of journals, all of which require expensive subscriptions. It severely limits my ability to make a point on, say, evolutionary biology if I cannot cite and link to a peer-reviewed paper on said subject.
Hopefully, we'll be able to see some more of this sort of thing in the future.