A long time ago, when I was still going to school, I often thought about some class or other: "What's the point of this? I'm just wasting time on stuff I won't ever need. And my grades are going down because of it." So I supported all these bright ideas like having schools work the curriculum out with the industry.
Nowadays, I know better. The purpose of school is not to produce ready-made employees. It's to give people a wider perspective. Perhaps they won't use most of what they learn there, perhaps they'll have bad memories of some classes, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that you learn how to learn, how to reason, how to think.
I hate what's been happening to schools lately. They are becoming conveyor belts: we throw children on them, throw specific knowledge at them and see what sticks, we do exams and classify them. We expect to get a thoughtless laborer at the end, someone ready to take a specific job immediately.
A human whose only purpose in life is mindless labor and mindless consumption. Metaphorically, someone who's just going to spend their time off by drinking beer in the front of the TV and breeding more babies. Babies who will eventually become more cogs in the machine, fueling the infinite growth, trying to prevent this mindless system from falling apart.
#AntiCapitalism
Starting the day with going through the #bergwelten magazine once more. Sometimes I wish I'd knew the focal length of the photos.
Later we did two nice walks near #dietramszell and enjoyed spring and the sun. Wrist is also feeling better.
We saw really a lot of cyclists. But …
How are you? How are you doing in this time of war? With Etel Adnan, I’m feeling the iridescent inner chaos. Can I turn and face it?
Here is my most recent dharma talk from this past Sunday morning.
https://salrandolph.substack.com/p/to-be-in-a-time-of-war
The price of silver smashed through the $90 mark Wednesday morning
for the first time in weeks
as the metal recoups gains it lost after a late January crash,
though the precious metal remains far from the record highs it previously hit above $120.
KEY FACTS
The price of silver is $90.68 as of 9:25 a.m. EST, up nearly 4% but down slightly from a high of $91.18 reached earlier in the morning.
Guys, there is a ton of important infosec news in today's Metacurity -- some of it stupid or crazy -- that you won't want to miss, including
--Leaked DarkSword iPhone spyware lowers bar for mass exploitation,
--FCC bans import of all new foreign-made routers,
--Foster City officially declares state of emergency following attack,
--German federal police visited Windchill and FlexPLM users in the wee hours to warn them of a severe flaw,
--Scioto County emp…
Undrafted free-agent signings tracker: Every team's UDFAs after the 2026 NFL Draft https://www.nfl.com/news/undrafted-free-agent-signings-tracker-every-team-s-udfas-after-the-2026-nfl-draft
Survey of 1,050 Australian teens: ~60% said they retained access to social media accounts after ban; two-thirds say platforms took no action to remove accounts (Sasha Rogelberg/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/04/25/australia-social-me…
"And so the state of Trump is that he is stuck. He is failing at fascism. He can break things, but he cannot make things. He can bluster, but he cannot triumph. He is tired, and every day is harder than the day before, and there are rivals in the wings, and elections coming."
https://snyder.substack.com/p/fascist…
The Trump administration appeared to acknowledge on Monday that its investigation into
the killing of a Veterans Affairs nurse, Alex Pretti, by federal agents this weekend
was limited to a “use of force” review meant to establish whether government employees had violated training standards.
Such a move, disclosed in court filings, would represent a much narrower inquiry
-- focused on tactics and conduct
-- than one that would examine whether federal agents shoul…
Conservatives want schools to teach this strict life path they say avoids poverty
The steps are simple: Graduate from high school. Find a full-time job. Get married before having kids.
The three-pronged framework is currently taught in just a handful of classrooms.
But soon, students across the country may be told that following those steps could keep them out of poverty as adults.
The approach is getting a boost from conservatives seeking to bring it to America’s middl…