A Tomorrow that Never Comes: Quality Education

This is a brief post on the education in an ideal Just Society. Please, see previous posts on the topic to know about the dogmas and systems this kind of "futuristic" society entails.

Disclaimer: No, I am not an educator. I am just a normal person, a computer programmer, who happens to think about all kinds of stuff. Moreover, as an attempt to improve my communication skills, I practice writing on this blog. Hence, the content you are about to read is not the words of an expert or the result of dozens of educational studies. It is solely my perspective on the topic.

Is There Really a Problem?

I would say so. In my view, education must be more than simply acquiring knowledge. Education is about giving people enough light so they can see all the paths that light illuminates, any of which they can take at any moment in their lives. It is also about letting them taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that is, allowing them to distinguish between good and evil, but not necessarily in the sense exposed by religion.

I believe today's society is educating us to be technical experts, but not rightful and prudent citizens. There is little effort in educating people to live morally in society. We learn science, language, history, but there is not much emphasis on ethics and moral principles. Moreover, even the current good technical education is not free, regardless of its level.  Therefore, I believe a good educational system should:

1. Help people make educated decisions;
2. Help them distinguish between right and wrong;
3. Be accessible to everyone;
4. Allow people to acquire knowledge to perform a useful task in society.

This is the list of educational goals society should attempt to tackle, and do so in a top-down order. This would be an educational approach which I like to call decision-focused, because it prioritizes helping people making correct and educated decisions over providing them knowledge to perform a certain task in society.

Nowadays, I feel we are approaching these goals upside-down, an education approach I like to call knowledge-focused. We are currently attempting to provide education according to market and industry demands. As it is, however, we haven't even successfully and fully tackled the issue of education accessibility yet. Therefore, as it is, society is far from being able to seriously tackle goals 2 and 1.

And You Have a Solution to All of It, Right?

Well, I have ideas. Whether they are solutions or not it is up to the reader. First of all, to make education free for all, we need to make all educational institutions non-profit or public. This would require them to live off of government funds or donations.

However, you may ask, wouldn't this lead to a melt-down of the educational system? I mean, do you really think public money and donations can fully support high-quality education? I don't know. What I do know is that profiting from education does not sound right. Many people either can't have access to quality education or have a lifetime of debt due to having it. Neither situation is acceptable and the only way to solve it is to make it free. Making education free levels the play field for students of all social classes and potentially mitigates the issue of social class stratification in the long term.

In order to make rightful citizens out of ordinary people, in addition to simply turning them into technical experts, more radical changes in the educational curriculum needs to be made. Students should be required to take classes on ethics, moral principles, politics, philosophy and problem solving from early ages up to college. This will help them form critical thinking and question results based on their perspectives on a variety of topics. It may also help them build social skills as they work together to resolve problems. Last, citizens will better know their rights as citizens and how to protect those rights or protest when these are in jeopardy.

Being able to know and do all these things are all very important in the formation of a citizen, regardless of the professional role one assumes in society. It helps keep citizens in control of society instead of having it be controlled by corrupt politicians and other governmental evil doers.

Does Education Have a Future?

The future of education is in the hands of every citizen in every society. The right for education should be universal and all of us should demand from our governments that they play their role in protecting this right. Life is a struggle, a battle, but changes only come if one takes action. Look into you naked soul, what is it really telling you? Educate yourself, envision all the paths you can take, and make a decision.

I hope this post has been educational to the reader. :) At the very least, it was much shorter than previous ones, which is also be a good thing. Happy holidays to you, the invisible reader, and may 2016 be filled with enlightened decisions and life-changing actions.

The Path of the Vegan

For this post, I have decided to take a break from the Just Society related posts and speak a little bit about another topic. I will get back to the Just Society discussions in later posts.

For long I have been thinking about writing on the topic of veganism. I have been hesitant about doing it mostly because of the ideas associated with the following quote that got stuck in my mind after I heard it on a documentary. It goes more or less like this:

"The unwise man tries to change others.
The not-so-wise man tries to change the world.
The wise man tries to change oneself."

I could not write about veganism without at least being a vegan. Admittedly, I cannot want to change others and the world without first changing myself. Now that I am almost a complete vegan (at least in terms of the food I eat), I have found the strength and inspiration to write (or preach?) a little bit about it. I was further motivated by a thought that could not leave my mind and that is in line with the following quote:
 
"Without marketing, your business is doomed to fail"

Maybe I am not the wisest of men, but if I think it is not enough to do the right thing. If you want people to do the same, you need to let them know about what is the right thing to do. I think that leading by example is not simply doing the right thing, but also advertising about it.

In the spirit of the blog subtitle, I have finally put my ideas together in a way that actually allows me to (de)code them into words. At the end, this post may sound slightly  arrogant or egocentric, but I really hope that does not happen. I just want to expose my perspective as a pro-animal-life person. Arrogance is not in my genes. If anything, my genes have given me poor communication skills. But enough of a preface, let us talk about veganism.

Non-vegan Behavior and the Invisible Wall

Assuming a vegan diet is not the easiest of tasks, especially when you were grown accustomed to serving barbecue during your birthday parties. However, once you are convinced that it is good for you and the others, and by others I mean other species of animals, there is really no turning back.

The hardest part in becoming a vegan isn't really the fact that you can't eat delicious meat, dairy-based products or even an omelet. At least, that is not what makes it difficult for me. What really makes it difficult is finding the answers to the questions that appear in your head on a daily basis once you assume the role of being vegan. In my case, the core questions currently are:

1. Is my vegan effort really making a dent on the current animal-based-product industry?
2. Will I be able to accept and live with meat-eaters without judgement on their own actions?
3. Why are there some many people aware of the unfair situation for animals in the animal-based industry, but yet they do nothing about it? 

The first question is really the easiest to cope with and answer. I mean, I know the power of us as individuals to affect the grand scheme of things is out there. The consumer power is out there. Whether it is in the hands of the consumer themselves or being "puppeteered" by the marketing teams and the interest of large companies, that is a different story. However, I am certain that if enough people would become vegan, we could change this world into a less cruel one. Nowadays, however, being a vegan is not the most fashionable of roles to assume, in the same way that it is not trendy to take public transportation to reduce global warming. Again, the lazyman rule casts its shadow on these aspects of modern life.

The second question is a little bit harder to answer. I must admit that I sometimes feel like just arguing with all non-vegan people I know (everyone I know really) about how wrong it is what they are doing. I like to call this argumentation urge the vegan attitude (a cute
funny name, thank you). Most of the time, I can control it, but it gets really hard when others start criticizing about my diet. The line of thought that leads to this sometimes aggresive attitude is the following.

Eating meat, dairy, eggs, seafood, etc. is imposing a live of slavery and misery to a multitude of species. It is treating them as resources not as sentient beings with feelings and emotions. It is removing life from another sentient being. How can anyone not see this as they look at their plates every day? Well, I know why. I was one of them at some point. You just don't think about it. You dissociate the word meat from the concept of the body part of an enslaved and tortured animal that is used to sustain an unnecessary culinary luxury for our taste buds. Let me just tell you this, it is hard to be a quiet vegan. The vegan attitude always tends to show up at some point and transform a conversation into a row.

The third question however, is the one that brings me the most indignation. How can people who actually know what goes on behind the scenes of the meat and dairy industry still not change their eating habits? How can they not feel guilty for participating in the atrocious animal genocide that is involved in consuming these animal products? How can they live with that? It is hard for me to believe that all humans have good in their hearts when I see this happen. It is not a matter of being narrow-minded or disinformed. It is cynicism, indifference, apathy, or as C. Wright Mills would accurately say, organized irresponsibility. I mean, wake up, people! Look into you naked souls and let it tell if this feeding behavior is really in tune with your own principles! I mean, do you follow any principles? Hm...I am kind of losing control of myself right now. My vegan attitude taking control again. Let me give a few long, paused breaths for a little bit...

Ok... I feel much better now. :) The thinking about these question creates what I call an invisible wall that separates us vegan from everyone else. Being a vegan is seeing normal social behavior as abnormal. It is putting yourself in a position that feels in line with your inner principles and, at the same time, noticing that the rest of human race has not even dared to consider that position. Even though you feel good about yourself, you feel sorry about anyone else who is not following that path. Yes, this may sound a little pretentious, I know, and I am sorry for that. It is not my intention. It is just a fact. You feel sorry for others, how much they could do to make this world a better place with less suffering. And it is this constant comparison between a vegan and others that creates this wall that permeates all of a vegan's social interactions. And even though it may not be perceived by most people who a vegan interacts with, its presence is felt by the vegan and it affects the way (s)he perceives the surrounding world and other fellow human beings.

I would say that learning to deal with this invisible wall is one of the most important lessons for an apprentice of veganism. It is a lesson of respect and tolerance for differences, no matter of what kind.

The Whys

Well, the purpose of this post is not only to express my opinion on the path of veganism, but also to condense in a single piece of text explanations for why one should follow such path. Attempting to do this is obviously not new. Many vegans have done the same thing in the past. And this is why I am going to leverage from their knowledge in this post. In order to make my life a little easier and the post a little shorter, I am going to be adding links to the text with many explanations to justify veganism. Hopefully the interested reader will follow them along and read their content. Believe, the text is of much higher quality than the one you are reading right now. :)

My hope is that, by putting this information together, whenever someone attempts to lead me astray from the vegan path by asking me why this, why that, I can refer them to my blog, instead of using the g word,  telling them to go g***** (search it) themselves. And who knows, maybe I will persuade a few of the readers to join me in the wild vegan ride (comment to self: a few out of 0 readers is still 0. You know that, right?).

The list below is divided based upon the type of animal-based products, and it may get extended over time, time will tell. A warning: the links below present content that is potentially inappropriate for children and the faint of heart. Nothing unbearable, but definitely thought provoking. I would probably finish eating before clicking on any of them if I were you.

1. Why not eating meat?
   I mean, seriously? Do you think meat grows on trees? Well...not really. We kill other sentient and emotion-capable beings to acquire it, not to mention the torture these beings endure during the hideous production process it entails. No further external content required to understand that, but please feel free to search on-line for more information on the topic.
   
2. Why not eat eggs?
   Eggs contains a lot of good stuff (vitamins, fat, etc.) in it, correct? Additionally, they are just chicken abortions (female period left over?), so if you are OK with the idea of eating an unsuccessful fetus-to-be, theoretically, you should not be harming animals at all in the process, right? Well... not really. In the next link is a nicely summarized EXPLANATION of the reasons why animal-loving folks like me should not eat eggs. Hence, next time you go buy, order or eat an egg, think about what you just read on that link.
3. Why not have dairies (milk, cheese, butter, etc.)?
   I mean, it is not even about abortions any more, it is just milk. Cows don't suffer when they give away milk. It is just something they produce painlessly. Besides, they get free food, shelter from the farmers and in general, live a good life, right? Well...not really. In the next link is yet another good EXPLANATION for why the life of a domesticated cow is far from the better life it would have in the wild. And because vegans care about the means necessary to reach an end, we avoid as much as we can any kind of product whose production involves animals.
4. Why not use products tested in animals?
   I mean, look how much good vivisection (animal testing) has brought us. Wouldn't it be justifiable to kill just a few animals to the benefit of millions of humans and even other species as well? Well...not really. I mean, would you want to volunteer for a lab testing where you could potentially die? I know I wouldn't. And not wanting to be part of these tests is not the only reason, though it should be enough of a justification to forbid vivisection. Please read both EXPLANATION1 and EXPLANATION2 to understand why vegans avoid products associated with animal testing.

The Path Less Travelled

The path of the vegan is not only the path of animal compassion, but also the path of tolerance and respect for other fellow humans and beings. It is the path of fighting against organized irresponsibility. A path that leads human kind to the creation of a more civilized global society. It is not an easy path, but I believe it is a path that takes us in the right direction.

I am going to wrap this post up with a few quotes to further inspire the undecided vegans to-be (if any).

It is only the wisest and the stupidest that cannot change - See more at: http://www.lookupquotes.com/quotes/it-is-only-the-wisest-and-the-stupidest-that-cannot-change/21495/#sthash.KynaM2zS.dpuf

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Peter Drucker.

“Life is a sum of all your choices.”
Albert Camus.

Look into yourself and admire your naked soul.
What is it asking from you?

The Politics of Transparency and Communication: Overcoming the Lazyman Rule

I have mentioned in a previous post how the lazyman rule affects our lives in more ways than we can imagine. In  particular, it affects our behavior and development as a society. In the previous two posts I have described a few ideas on how to cope with the consequences of that rule in the areas of economics and other sub-areas of societal management. In this post, my plan is to provide the reader with a few more ideas on the area of  politics.

Public Monitoring

Monitoring the performance of government is of the utmost importance if we ought to have a corruption-free government. The System for Accountability Management (SAM) is one way to achieve that, whereby every single public work is monitored in digital form and available for review by the public.

SAM also keeps track of the political career of public servants. Therefore, it can be used as a tool for investigating and deciding on which candidate to vote or avoid voting in upcoming elections.

Last, every political decision, be it the creation and update of laws or the spending of public money is also going to be managed electronically. This will allow citizens to monitor every single aspect of political decisions, and also take part in it, as further discussed next.

More Power to the People

Another important change that needs to be made in the political process is  having the people intervene in any sphere of power whenever they deem necessary. Let me give a few examples to clarify that idea.

Let us say a community is represented by certain politician for designing and  implementing laws. In the political system of a Just Society, if the people feels the politician is poorly representing their will, they can change the political process very efficiently so it reflects their desires. There are a few measures they can take to mend the situation.

Firstly, they can participate in any vote the political representative participates. If a certain percentage of the citizens the politician represents (25%, 33%, or 51% of the population?) casts a vote and agrees on a certain decision (51% or more of every vote?), then they can override the politicians vote. Remember, all these results go on-line and if a politicians vote keeps mismatching the citizens decision, this is recorded in their political profile as well. Therefore, it is in the interest of the politician to be in-line with the citizens desires and demands.

Another option is to allow citizens to request the replacement of the politician in case they are deeply dissatisfied with him or her. This is already possible in some political models nowadays, but the process is generally slow. With the digitization of the political process, it is expected that changes in representatives are made more efficiently. Note that such change must be taken very seriously and would have to be triggered by a majority vote by the entire population. And because it requires the involvement of all the population associated with the politician, the process may endure more than desired.

Community Politics

In large population agglomerations, it is often difficult to understand who is in charge of representing the people of a certain community in specific issues. Communities themselves must have a better way to represent themselves in the spheres of power so they are capable of demanding their rights and desires from the public decision makers.

In the political system of a Just society, the decisions should be made bottom-up, that is, from the people to the politicians. The community leaders would gather the citizens desires about a  certain topic, and pass that on to the mayor or legislative representative for that community. The representative would bring to fruition laws that better reflect the citizen's will, and as long as they don't go against the core societal tenets. Similarly, a mayor (or governor or president) would allocate resources in a way that best satisfies all the communities associated with its town or state.

I know that I am over-simplifying the political process.  The political ladder has many more steps than the ones just mentioned. The point I would like to make is that the community leaders should have more influence on the decision-making process. Again, how much every politician and community leader can satisfy the community demands is reflected on his political profile and therefore highlights his or her skills as a competent or incompetent politician.

Minute Changes, Long-Term Progress

Honestly, I believe all these changes are doable nowadays, even without a complete overwrite of the current political system. They really try to cope with two main deficiencies in our political system: transparency and communication between citizens and their representatives.

If we use the existing technology, we can improve upon the solutions to these problems. We just need to overcome the lobbying and greed from the military-industrial complex and our current and already corrupted politicians in power. But that shouldn't be too hard though, should it? :) Well, when working together people can accomplish grand feats and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. All we need is the will to do so.