As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…
I used to be really big on trust the experts, seek authorities for advice, etc etc. Especially for areas involving mental / general health. Specifics like fixing a broken arm I’m still on the experts side :) Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as re…
Let Teenagers Sleep
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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be really big on trust the experts, seek authorities for advice, etc etc. Especially for areas involving mental / general health. Specifics like fixing a broken arm I’m still on the experts side :) Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as re…
I think most Americans have their head in the sand when it comes to healthcare. I agree with you completely btw, as an American expat living abroad. It's so bloody obvious how the profit motive distorts all of US medicine when you are not living in that system anymore. Honestly, it's like something out of a corpo-capitalist dystopian film. I wouldn't trust a US doctor or dentist (oh god, US dentists are probably the…
(And most hospitals in the US are nonprofits, which certainly doesn't stop them from being way too expensive.)
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
I lived in a not-too-rural city in the Midwest of about 40,000 at the time, and we still didn’t have school busing for anyone in the city. It was only for rural folks. I was forced to get my drivers’ license at 16 to drive 10 min to school because the alternative was walking 1.2 hours every morning one way ti get to school… meaning leaving the house at around 6:00am. The city had no city bus, so there was zero public…
Bike not an option?
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird. My guidance councillor did the same. Well, I wasn’t accepted to a school at the point in which they encouraged me to settle for less, but it was a very heartfelt “don’t even try”. I left the room very confused and upset. Went in with ambition and excitement about my future and left feeling like I must be a complete idiot. I remember her saying “Let’s focus on being realistic. You aren’t actually going to do th…
A bit of an aside but it’s so strange to me seeing ‘trades’ referred to as a lowly thing. Here in Australia, tradies are admired, often earn really good money and get a lot of good attention. They can work hard and put in the hours to get ahead whereas us IT guys on salary have a much more ‘fixed’ earning potential.
And we actually pay tech workers well.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not where I grew up. Sports teams, theater and music programs were all funded equally. All extracurriculars came with fees and fundraisers. One of the gym teachers, also the basketball coach, was useless if the team was likely to make a playoff run. One of the English teachers, the theater director, was equally useless during the weeks leading up to a performance. I thought the GGP was being unfair to athletics. Scho…
And in a country where 69% of adults are overweight, and 36% are obese [1], I would like to see even more emphasis on physical education (including after-school sports) rather than less. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...
You'd be surprised at how many people lose weight just by sleeping better.
When was the last time you jumped out of bed with a spring in your step?
There is also such a thing as diet induced obesity.
In North America, due to its vastness, everyone has drive somewhere, how on earth can people get their exercise if they are driving everywhere? Europe, is compact enough so that people can walk and get stuff, but the food legislation will play its part in creating obesity.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because a guidance counselor doing a good job is really boring, they ask you where you want to go to school, get you links to those applications, and maybe walk you through the application/point you to a campus resource that'll proofread your essays before you submit them. None of these are particularly note worthy, no one's going to go home and write about that experience, so you don't hear about it. That's what my…
I'm often surprised that so many folks seemed to have "Guidance Counselors" at their schools. I went to a public science and technology magnet school in Kansas during the 90s and I don't think I ever saw a guidance counselor ever.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#447Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#448One big reason this shift isn't happening is that it creates coordination problems: for many families, everyone leaves for school at the same time, so if you move grade 9 forward an hour, you have to do the same with grade 4 to get any benefit; the 9th grader is taking the 4th grader to school. That problem stopped this shift dead recently where I live.
If.. uhh… society wasn’t so capitalistically expensive as to require the entire household’s adults to work, a lot of these logistical concerns would work out. Resulting in smarter and healthier children. But: smart and healthy children demand wages as adults that cut into shareholder profits…
When one parent doesn't work, it's because the marginal wage added wouldn't pay for childcare.
In recessions one-parent households actually increase, because it's not caused by things being too expensive.
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
If.. uhh… society wasn’t so capitalistically expensive as to require the entire household’s adults to work, a lot of these logistical concerns would work out. Resulting in smarter and healthier children. But: smart and healthy children demand wages as adults that cut into shareholder profits…
> If.. uhh… society wasn’t so capitalistically expensive as to require the entire household’s adults to work It is a tragedy of the commons problem. As soon as the other spouse starts working, the family has more money, but once every family thinks to have both partners working, sellers will catch on and increase their prices, bringing you back to the initial problem but now with one fewer spouse at home. It's not a…
Re: Let Teenagers Sleep
#450Its a common misconception that the goal of Education System is to educate. It's not, and the system will never accept 'improvements' that run contrary to it's purpose. In actuality education system serves four purposes: One: make both parents avaliable for the job market. For that it must supervise children during work hours, to make sure they aren't getting in trouble, drugs, or worst of all, into politics and prot…
It's all in the numbers. 1. In 1945, corporations paid 50% of federal taxes; now they pay about 5%. 2. In 1900, 90% of Americans were self employed; now it's about 2%... It's called consolidation; strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time.
Corporate income tax doesn't matter much when the same money's going to go to an individual and can be taxed there.
…by "90% of Americans were self employed in 1900" do you mean they were farm workers?