IANAI, but I do work with 3 of them who have had arranged marriages. Two were from families who said they didn't do it anymore. The third told me he got some farmland, cash, and jewelry. He's also complained that his wife is making his shell out big bucks to buy top of the line everything.
kipping to recently--I don't have a resume available anymore because I was getting too many screwy/shady/questionable "companies" calling and nearly harassing me
Reminds me of my own experience a couple of years ago. I had been laid off in late 2000 and right away posted my resume on a shitload of job boards - big mistake! My phone started ringing off the hook with MLM and pseudo-pyramid schemers. The worst was from some crappy financial advice pyramid (can't remember the name, but they operate out of Citibank's umbrella.) Basically they want you to pay $500 for a "license" and then your job was to a) find suckers to give financial advice to and b) recruit other suckers like yourself.
I got a lot of calls from those Citibank franchises and it got to the point where as soon as they started to speak, I warned them not to call back and hung up. One day this guy called and when I started to hang up on him he said something really sarcastic - "enjoy unemployment dilbert". Luckily I had call display. I called him back, heard him say his name, then just ripped into him until he hung up. Being unemployed and not really pounding the pavement at that point, I didn't have much to do (and we Scots make bitter enemies) so I called him a couple of times a day for the next week and a half. I didn't scream obscenities but I'd ask him if he was proud of what he did for a living and if he made more money than working at McDonald's. I stopped when 2 days in a row the person answering the phone said he didn't work there anymore... probably a lie, but I was starting to feel pretty pathetic at that point and I was having more fun bashing my old employer at fuckedcompany.com. Sad story, I know, but I was in a sad state.
Imagine an army made up of the hardest 5% of candidates.
I dunno.... if India is really that poor, then they probably have to reject a lot of potentials who are suffe from defects relating to growing up malnourished (vision, joints) or don't meet their standards of literacy. I've seen pictures and footage of Indian soldiers, and sure they look tough (tougher than me at least), they still look kinda skinny compared to US and UK counterparts.
I'd recommend Pakistan backs off gracefully.
India could mop the floor with Pakistan - population and technology advantages would see to that. Since they're both nuclear powers now, I hope I never find out if that's true.
This sort of behavior that we Americans are starting to display now with the lack of action/reaction within our government can prove as an ideal source for a dictatorship.
Fascism consumes itself and eventually falls. Call me a romantic but I think humanity wins in the end. Yes, there is the possibility of nano/nuclear/ice-age/meteor/whatever ending life on our little rock. But to paraphrase the Greek philosopher Epicurus: when life is over, it's over; you'll feel no fear, regret or pain. Enjoy life while you have it and the greatest pleasures come from the simple things.
I also know plenty of stoner dopes with master's degrees, $250k+ college debt who work at Starbucks or Wal-Mart
Shit, 250k college debt?? That's enough to educate 3 or 4 doctors or lawyers. How do the bankruptcy laws in the US work? Can it wipe out student loans of that size? Sure it hurts your credit rating for several years but better that then working a couple of decades to pay it off.
It really pisses me off when these engineers aren't getting paid any better than those locksmiths, and then corporate CEOs are complaining that no one wants to go into engineering.
Too true. Truth be told, locksmithery ain't exactly rocket science and it's a lot less physical labour than being a carpenter or plumber.... the most you'd ever need to do is lift up a heavy door, and that was pretty rare.
(Actually, now that I think about it the hardest job was cutting those Kryptonite bike locks. Maybe locksmiths have developed an easier way by now but 10yrs ago we weren't going to bother picking one of those things and just used 6 foot long bolt-cutters.)
Many locksmiths will also become licensed electricians over the years so they can also install certified alarm systems. Even 10yrs ago they were talking about eventually installing biometric scanners. That's one profession that's not going to be outsourced in the near future.
Being educated at a Jesuit school (which he may or may not have--I don't know) doesn't necessarily make one a Jesuit, a Catholic, or even a Christian. Especially in India and Africa
I agree, I work with a guy who's hard-core Hindu but went to Catholic schools back in India's Gujarat state. He went there simply for the English language instruction which is apparently a very common motivation.
I had a roommate once who got a Master's in Philosophy. What is he doing with it? I have no idea; probably working at Wal-Mart.
I have some experience with graduate degrees in the humanities, and I have to agree that getting a MA in philosophy doesn't automagically equal a job unless you want to teach. But it's not a bad idea if you want to go to law or business school - more competitive than just an undergraduate degree, and it gives you some extra personality at company events.
Overall, if you want to get a degree in the humanities or social sciences, whatever really turns your crank, go for it. I wouldn't recommend someone skip going to college because they can't think of an immediate use for a BA in Celtic Folklore or whathaveyou. Yes, it sucks to work at the same level as high-school graduates plus a huge student loan burden. But college degrees really do pay off later in life... around the time that middle age hits you can often see a clear professional distinction between those who have a degree and those who don't.
As for the blue collar jobs, I wonder where your numbers came from
I think he was probably assuming that blue-collar workers can book a hell of a lotta overtime. To an extent that's mostly true - overtime comes with the territory for many trades. When I worked in a locksmith shop as a teen in the early '90s, the locksmiths made about $20/hr but talked about clearing over $80k/yr. But they regularily worked 60+hr weeks.
Sometimes I compare that to my own job, where my salary also works out to about $20/hr but the only overtime I ever do is unpaid. Makes me wonder if I should have taken an apprenticeship there instead of going to university.
And you draw that from, what, working for 1 or 2 Canadian companies for 1 or 2 years? IMHO experience, Canadian and American companies act pretty much the damn same (possibly because so many Canadian companies are subsidiaries of American companies).
However, if you worked for the Canadian public service (ie any level of government), then I would say that you are probably justified in your observations. I worked for a couple of Ministries over a couple of summers and the office politics were really close to that TV show "Newsroom", a show which pretty much plays out what you described.
BTW - I'm not Indian so take the following statement for what it's worth - very little. But in my current department of 12, there are 10 South Asians (8 Indians, 2 Pakistanis), all in their 20s-30s, all relatively recent immigrants. The Indians especially never tire of criticizing former employers and office hierarchies from back home. But you sound like you had a pretty shitty time in Canada and didn't get along with your co-workers, so your personal experiences understandably varied.
Well the simple answer is because the people who will be hiring you usually care. If they think it's good, then it is, at least insofar as getting a job.
Exactly. If you're applying for a job with any mid- to large-sized company, odds are you're going through HR and odds are even higher that they're degree holders themselves. I've done mucho job hunting (before, during, and after university) and after taking the plunge into university it got a HELL of a lot easier.
An earlier post said something about an increasing number of degree holders in the workforce and degrees have therefore lost their cachet. While that may be true, I think that the job market will be even tougher for those 20yrs from now without a degree (much like high-school dropouts today).
I did indeed misread his initial post and didn't recognize the context. I am actually a big enough person to apologize and would have done so if he was not such an ass, both in his reply and just about every other post he's done.
But on your last point, I still believe Islam represses women intolerably. Yes, there are extremists in all other religions, both in the past (your examples) and present (fringe Mormons, amongst others). It just amazes me how many guys are willing to act as apologists for Islamic and Arabic gender relations. Will it really be the end of the world to admit women are equal human beings, deserving of the same rights as everyone else? I'm not aiming that at you in particular, but all the devil's advocates on here who wonder why we should care what's going on in another country. Altruism is mankind's most powerful tool (or at least a close second to thumbs). It doesn't hurt to verbally or philosophically flex it once in a while, just to keep it in shape and avoid another decade like the '80s when nobody gave a crap.
Wow, no point arguing with someone so full of themself - erm, "informed". Thanks for the name-calling too, you clearly got the better of this "idiot." And that free sociology lesson was great, you must have learned a lot from spying on your sister. Tell me little man, how do you fit that big head of yours through the door?
I don't think the comparison quite meshes in those two cases.
But if you must insist, let's pretend that the manner in which the police in Columbine handled the mass murder there was as morally bankrupt as the Saudi religious police watching young girls burn and asphyxiate to death.
Let's also pretend that the desire of the Columbine police to keep the murder suspects from escaping and the Saudi's desire to keep girls in their night gowns out of public are equally laudable (or despicable, wherever the hell your warped values lie).
The difference is that America, for all its failings, saw a grand fuckup, wrung its hands and decided to try and do something about it. Successful or not, American politicians lost sleep over it and were, I believe, genuinely remorseful. I doubt that was the case for the Saudi royal family.
But to you, d i r t y, it's all the same isn't it? A tragedy in the west by socially retarded malcontents is just as evil as an unrestrained state authority that brutally represses at least half the population. Go ahead, pick apart my argument with as many high-schooler analogies you can think of - deep down you and every other reader on here know that the actions of the Saudi religious enforcers are undefendable.
If they're a US company, then you can regulate what they do directly. If not, then you can tax their imports.
Hmmm, fair enough. The backlash of a company like Dell moving offshore would be pretty bad and they would then be subject to importation taxes when they tried selling products Stateside. I sincerely hope something is done about this... maybe outsourcing to various degrees is inevitable, but where will it end? When there's just executives and corporate lawyers left? Perhaps it will all balance out like some other posters postulate, but it'll be a shitty situation for the current generation of workers.
"You're saying the big companies would sever all ties with the US? I doubt it. What big company do you think would do this?"
Don't know if you're joking (I've had a long day, thankfully employed) about the big company part. But a big company could move the bulk of it's corporate head quarters to another nation, or liquidate its assets and transfer them to another company setup somewhere.
All right, let me be the first/.er ever to admit to knowing very little about business laws and regulations. But if there's a way to do so, I'm sure it would happen.
"And the only mess it would make is that it would move the vast majority of the jobs back to the United States. Low level call centre techs wouldn't be outsourced any more.."
I agree with what you say in theory - it would be really cool to be able to force something like that. But I think the result would be a lot of the big companies moving their operations to Canada, Europe, Bahamas, anywhere without similar restrictions.
And which India is this? The one of the Mogul Empire? You know, the Muslim minority ruling over most of India between the 14-18th centuries? Or are you talking about their subjugation to the British immediately thereafter, who only pulled out after being bankrupted by WWII?
I'd be damn interested in what history books you want us to read - so would my South Asian history prof. Because honestly, India has a far worse military track record than France, even if you only look at French history since Napoleon.
As for modern India, yes they could mop the floor with Pakistan and (probably) give China a run for their money. But neither scenario would be good for business.
The name of the ship, Logos, is Greek for "word", but means more than its literal translation. It has a connotation of a deeper sense of reality, like "reckoning" or "meaning".
The early biblical Greek gospel of John begins with "en arche ein ho logos kai ho logos ein pros ton theon kai theon ein ho logos" which translates as "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God".
Logos makes lotsa appearances in Roman Catholicism and Orthodox theology (and probably many other Christian denominations). I remember laughing when I heard Egypt had banned Reloaded because of its alleged religious bias by using names like Trinity and Zion. It was hearing the ship's name in the theatre that made me really notice the bibilical theme.
I agree with you on the historical statistics; I spent a few years of my life researching crime in pre-, post-industrial, and modern London (before getting a real job) and the past was a much more violent place.
But let me ask you one question: why does the U.S. have much higher murder and aggravated assault offences than any other Western (ie North American, Western European) nation? If not the huge number of firearms and their availability then there must be some other social factor at play, right?
I've asked that before and most responses I get are something along the lines of "cultural cohesiveness", or lack thereof. I can't really comment on that since I'm not American, and maybe I'm a little idealistic but I don't think it can be tacked up to racial issues.
A similar situation exists on Inuit reserves in northern Canada.
Some are poor, some not so poor, but the one thing they have in common is super isolation and TV. Kids growing up there watch a lot of television and are envious of the materialism and wealth they see. Gradually their life doesn't seem so grand and they get bored. Alcohol is banned on many reserves and expensive on the rest, and drugs are pretty expensive too (even marijuana - hundreds of dollars for a few grams). But sniffing solvents is free and very widespread in a lot of communities. So is child abuse, unemployment and suicide.
Like the parent poster, many people wonder why the hell the parents involved don't do something, or how neighbors could ignore children behind their shed inhaling from plastic bags. But the Inuit culture has traditionally placed a great importance on a child discovering themself and their place in the world. They are guided when asked but never ordered, and the adult they grow into is supposed to be the wiser and stronger individual for it. The elders who actually remember life before the strategic importance of the North Pole brought them the world are dismayed to see fewer and fewer kids go to them to learn the past and the land. But they feel they can do nothing about it.
I'm not Inuit or even know any, but that's the story was taught. I know less about Bhutan or its people to draw any kind of cultural parallel, but they really have my sympathy.
When I was in university there were some courses I took notes in and some I did not, usually not taking notes for the easier or more interesting ones.
What I found though was come final exams, I had to spend all my time studying for the "easier" and "intersting" ones but usually breezed through the exams for courses in which I took notes. There really is something to be said for how the act of writing something helps memory retention. To get the same benfit out of someone else's notes I imagine you would need to at least read them over that night, and that seems like a waste of a college evening.
But then again I was an Arts major and I suppose someone studying math or compsci with a memory for equations would be in a different situation. If that worked for you, cool, but if you haven't hit college yet I'd recommend paper/penning it.
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IANAI, but I do work with 3 of them who have had arranged marriages. Two were from families who said they didn't do it anymore. The third told me he got some farmland, cash, and jewelry. He's also complained that his wife is making his shell out big bucks to buy top of the line everything.
The First Ammendment to the US Constitution doesn't apply internationally..
...or locally!
Oh sorry, got my ammendments confused..
kipping to recently--I don't have a resume available anymore because I was getting too many screwy/shady/questionable "companies" calling and nearly harassing me
Reminds me of my own experience a couple of years ago. I had been laid off in late 2000 and right away posted my resume on a shitload of job boards - big mistake! My phone started ringing off the hook with MLM and pseudo-pyramid schemers. The worst was from some crappy financial advice pyramid (can't remember the name, but they operate out of Citibank's umbrella.) Basically they want you to pay $500 for a "license" and then your job was to a) find suckers to give financial advice to and b) recruit other suckers like yourself.
I got a lot of calls from those Citibank franchises and it got to the point where as soon as they started to speak, I warned them not to call back and hung up. One day this guy called and when I started to hang up on him he said something really sarcastic - "enjoy unemployment dilbert". Luckily I had call display. I called him back, heard him say his name, then just ripped into him until he hung up. Being unemployed and not really pounding the pavement at that point, I didn't have much to do (and we Scots make bitter enemies) so I called him a couple of times a day for the next week and a half. I didn't scream obscenities but I'd ask him if he was proud of what he did for a living and if he made more money than working at McDonald's. I stopped when 2 days in a row the person answering the phone said he didn't work there anymore... probably a lie, but I was starting to feel pretty pathetic at that point and I was having more fun bashing my old employer at fuckedcompany.com. Sad story, I know, but I was in a sad state.
Imagine an army made up of the hardest 5% of candidates.
I dunno.... if India is really that poor, then they probably have to reject a lot of potentials who are suffe from defects relating to growing up malnourished (vision, joints) or don't meet their standards of literacy. I've seen pictures and footage of Indian soldiers, and sure they look tough (tougher than me at least), they still look kinda skinny compared to US and UK counterparts.
I'd recommend Pakistan backs off gracefully.
India could mop the floor with Pakistan - population and technology advantages would see to that. Since they're both nuclear powers now, I hope I never find out if that's true.
This sort of behavior that we Americans are starting to display now with the lack of action/reaction within our government can prove as an ideal source for a dictatorship.
Fascism consumes itself and eventually falls. Call me a romantic but I think humanity wins in the end. Yes, there is the possibility of nano/nuclear/ice-age/meteor/whatever ending life on our little rock. But to paraphrase the Greek philosopher Epicurus: when life is over, it's over; you'll feel no fear, regret or pain. Enjoy life while you have it and the greatest pleasures come from the simple things.
I also know plenty of stoner dopes with master's degrees, $250k+ college debt who work at Starbucks or Wal-Mart
Shit, 250k college debt?? That's enough to educate 3 or 4 doctors or lawyers. How do the bankruptcy laws in the US work? Can it wipe out student loans of that size? Sure it hurts your credit rating for several years but better that then working a couple of decades to pay it off.
It really pisses me off when these engineers aren't getting paid any better than those locksmiths, and then corporate CEOs are complaining that no one wants to go into engineering.
Too true. Truth be told, locksmithery ain't exactly rocket science and it's a lot less physical labour than being a carpenter or plumber.... the most you'd ever need to do is lift up a heavy door, and that was pretty rare.
(Actually, now that I think about it the hardest job was cutting those Kryptonite bike locks. Maybe locksmiths have developed an easier way by now but 10yrs ago we weren't going to bother picking one of those things and just used 6 foot long bolt-cutters.)
Many locksmiths will also become licensed electricians over the years so they can also install certified alarm systems. Even 10yrs ago they were talking about eventually installing biometric scanners. That's one profession that's not going to be outsourced in the near future.
Being educated at a Jesuit school (which he may or may not have--I don't know) doesn't necessarily make one a Jesuit, a Catholic, or even a Christian. Especially in India and Africa
I agree, I work with a guy who's hard-core Hindu but went to Catholic schools back in India's Gujarat state. He went there simply for the English language instruction which is apparently a very common motivation.
I had a roommate once who got a Master's in Philosophy. What is he doing with it? I have no idea; probably working at Wal-Mart.
I have some experience with graduate degrees in the humanities, and I have to agree that getting a MA in philosophy doesn't automagically equal a job unless you want to teach. But it's not a bad idea if you want to go to law or business school - more competitive than just an undergraduate degree, and it gives you some extra personality at company events.
Overall, if you want to get a degree in the humanities or social sciences, whatever really turns your crank, go for it. I wouldn't recommend someone skip going to college because they can't think of an immediate use for a BA in Celtic Folklore or whathaveyou. Yes, it sucks to work at the same level as high-school graduates plus a huge student loan burden. But college degrees really do pay off later in life... around the time that middle age hits you can often see a clear professional distinction between those who have a degree and those who don't.
As for the blue collar jobs, I wonder where your numbers came from
I think he was probably assuming that blue-collar workers can book a hell of a lotta overtime. To an extent that's mostly true - overtime comes with the territory for many trades. When I worked in a locksmith shop as a teen in the early '90s, the locksmiths made about $20/hr but talked about clearing over $80k/yr. But they regularily worked 60+hr weeks.
Sometimes I compare that to my own job, where my salary also works out to about $20/hr but the only overtime I ever do is unpaid. Makes me wonder if I should have taken an apprenticeship there instead of going to university.
And you draw that from, what, working for 1 or 2 Canadian companies for 1 or 2 years? IMHO experience, Canadian and American companies act pretty much the damn same (possibly because so many Canadian companies are subsidiaries of American companies).
However, if you worked for the Canadian public service (ie any level of government), then I would say that you are probably justified in your observations. I worked for a couple of Ministries over a couple of summers and the office politics were really close to that TV show "Newsroom", a show which pretty much plays out what you described.
BTW - I'm not Indian so take the following statement for what it's worth - very little. But in my current department of 12, there are 10 South Asians (8 Indians, 2 Pakistanis), all in their 20s-30s, all relatively recent immigrants. The Indians especially never tire of criticizing former employers and office hierarchies from back home. But you sound like you had a pretty shitty time in Canada and didn't get along with your co-workers, so your personal experiences understandably varied.
Well the simple answer is because the people who will be hiring you usually care. If they think it's good, then it is, at least insofar as getting a job.
Exactly. If you're applying for a job with any mid- to large-sized company, odds are you're going through HR and odds are even higher that they're degree holders themselves. I've done mucho job hunting (before, during, and after university) and after taking the plunge into university it got a HELL of a lot easier.
An earlier post said something about an increasing number of degree holders in the workforce and degrees have therefore lost their cachet. While that may be true, I think that the job market will be even tougher for those 20yrs from now without a degree (much like high-school dropouts today).
Agreed on both points.
I did indeed misread his initial post and didn't recognize the context. I am actually a big enough person to apologize and would have done so if he was not such an ass, both in his reply and just about every other post he's done.
But on your last point, I still believe Islam represses women intolerably. Yes, there are extremists in all other religions, both in the past (your examples) and present (fringe Mormons, amongst others). It just amazes me how many guys are willing to act as apologists for Islamic and Arabic gender relations. Will it really be the end of the world to admit women are equal human beings, deserving of the same rights as everyone else? I'm not aiming that at you in particular, but all the devil's advocates on here who wonder why we should care what's going on in another country. Altruism is mankind's most powerful tool (or at least a close second to thumbs). It doesn't hurt to verbally or philosophically flex it once in a while, just to keep it in shape and avoid another decade like the '80s when nobody gave a crap.
Wow, no point arguing with someone so full of themself - erm, "informed". Thanks for the name-calling too, you clearly got the better of this "idiot." And that free sociology lesson was great, you must have learned a lot from spying on your sister. Tell me little man, how do you fit that big head of yours through the door?
I don't envy the position of women in Saudi Arabia, but I'm informed enough to know that it's primarily a cultural, not religious situation.
Funny isn't it? Enslave a man and it's a crime against humanity. Enslave a woman and it's cultural.
You won't find very many women in the world so blase over such a "cultural" difference.
I don't think the comparison quite meshes in those two cases.
But if you must insist, let's pretend that the manner in which the police in Columbine handled the mass murder there was as morally bankrupt as the Saudi religious police watching young girls burn and asphyxiate to death.
Let's also pretend that the desire of the Columbine police to keep the murder suspects from escaping and the Saudi's desire to keep girls in their night gowns out of public are equally laudable (or despicable, wherever the hell your warped values lie).
The difference is that America, for all its failings, saw a grand fuckup, wrung its hands and decided to try and do something about it. Successful or not, American politicians lost sleep over it and were, I believe, genuinely remorseful. I doubt that was the case for the Saudi royal family.
But to you, d i r t y, it's all the same isn't it? A tragedy in the west by socially retarded malcontents is just as evil as an unrestrained state authority that brutally represses at least half the population. Go ahead, pick apart my argument with as many high-schooler analogies you can think of - deep down you and every other reader on here know that the actions of the Saudi religious enforcers are undefendable.
Hmmm, fair enough. The backlash of a company like Dell moving offshore would be pretty bad and they would then be subject to importation taxes when they tried selling products Stateside. I sincerely hope something is done about this... maybe outsourcing to various degrees is inevitable, but where will it end? When there's just executives and corporate lawyers left? Perhaps it will all balance out like some other posters postulate, but it'll be a shitty situation for the current generation of workers.
Don't know if you're joking (I've had a long day, thankfully employed) about the big company part. But a big company could move the bulk of it's corporate head quarters to another nation, or liquidate its assets and transfer them to another company setup somewhere.
All right, let me be the first /.er ever to admit to knowing very little about business laws and regulations. But if there's a way to do so, I'm sure it would happen.
"And the only mess it would make is that it would move the vast majority of the jobs back to the United States. Low level call centre techs wouldn't be outsourced any more.."
I agree with what you say in theory - it would be really cool to be able to force something like that. But I think the result would be a lot of the big companies moving their operations to Canada, Europe, Bahamas, anywhere without similar restrictions.
And drug dealer. No matter how shiny or fucked up the world gets, there'll always be a market.
And which India is this? The one of the Mogul Empire? You know, the Muslim minority ruling over most of India between the 14-18th centuries? Or are you talking about their subjugation to the British immediately thereafter, who only pulled out after being bankrupted by WWII?
I'd be damn interested in what history books you want us to read - so would my South Asian history prof. Because honestly, India has a far worse military track record than France, even if you only look at French history since Napoleon.
As for modern India, yes they could mop the floor with Pakistan and (probably) give China a run for their money. But neither scenario would be good for business.
The name of the ship, Logos, is Greek for "word", but means more than its literal translation. It has a connotation of a deeper sense of reality, like "reckoning" or "meaning".
The early biblical Greek gospel of John begins with "en arche ein ho logos kai ho logos ein pros ton theon kai theon ein ho logos" which translates as "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God".
Logos makes lotsa appearances in Roman Catholicism and Orthodox theology (and probably many other Christian denominations). I remember laughing when I heard Egypt had banned Reloaded because of its alleged religious bias by using names like Trinity and Zion. It was hearing the ship's name in the theatre that made me really notice the bibilical theme.
I agree with you on the historical statistics; I spent a few years of my life researching crime in pre-, post-industrial, and modern London (before getting a real job) and the past was a much more violent place.
But let me ask you one question: why does the U.S. have much higher murder and aggravated assault offences than any other Western (ie North American, Western European) nation? If not the huge number of firearms and their availability then there must be some other social factor at play, right?
I've asked that before and most responses I get are something along the lines of "cultural cohesiveness", or lack thereof. I can't really comment on that since I'm not American, and maybe I'm a little idealistic but I don't think it can be tacked up to racial issues.
A similar situation exists on Inuit reserves in northern Canada.
Some are poor, some not so poor, but the one thing they have in common is super isolation and TV. Kids growing up there watch a lot of television and are envious of the materialism and wealth they see. Gradually their life doesn't seem so grand and they get bored. Alcohol is banned on many reserves and expensive on the rest, and drugs are pretty expensive too (even marijuana - hundreds of dollars for a few grams). But sniffing solvents is free and very widespread in a lot of communities. So is child abuse, unemployment and suicide.
Like the parent poster, many people wonder why the hell the parents involved don't do something, or how neighbors could ignore children behind their shed inhaling from plastic bags. But the Inuit culture has traditionally placed a great importance on a child discovering themself and their place in the world. They are guided when asked but never ordered, and the adult they grow into is supposed to be the wiser and stronger individual for it. The elders who actually remember life before the strategic importance of the North Pole brought them the world are dismayed to see fewer and fewer kids go to them to learn the past and the land. But they feel they can do nothing about it.
I'm not Inuit or even know any, but that's the story was taught. I know less about Bhutan or its people to draw any kind of cultural parallel, but they really have my sympathy.
When I was in university there were some courses I took notes in and some I did not, usually not taking notes for the easier or more interesting ones.
What I found though was come final exams, I had to spend all my time studying for the "easier" and "intersting" ones but usually breezed through the exams for courses in which I took notes. There really is something to be said for how the act of writing something helps memory retention. To get the same benfit out of someone else's notes I imagine you would need to at least read them over that night, and that seems like a waste of a college evening.
But then again I was an Arts major and I suppose someone studying math or compsci with a memory for equations would be in a different situation. If that worked for you, cool, but if you haven't hit college yet I'd recommend paper/penning it.