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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Dave Sill via extropy-chat<br><br><b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>>…Yes to all of that. Once upon a time, when kids reached high school they gravitated toward one of two tracks: college prep or trade school (prep). That's kind of degraded since every parent seems to want their kids to get a degree, and trades are looked down upon. …Where high school really needs to improve, though, is in the teaching of life skills like: managing finances, decision making/problem solving/critical thinking, parenting, negotiating, studying, communication, finding and keeping a job, etc. Those are areas where a little education could yield significant improvement in quality of life. -Dave<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Dave, consider how we have used the term escape velocity. Orbit mechanics guys use it the literal way: the velocity needed to escape the surly bonds of earth, get up there, coast around indefinitely, etc.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>We starry-eyed dreamers and future gazers talk about forms of immortality, a time when medical technology advances so quickly that lifespans and health spans increase a year every year, so we achieved escape velocity in medicine, in a figurative sense.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Your commentary above reflects a very traditional view of life and society, the one which has served us so long and so well, the one I certainly grew up with and know. Think now about what escape velocity means to a lot of young people today. They are dreaming of ways to escape the dreary 9 to 5 their parents and grandparents knew and accepted. There are plenty of alternate paths today, and some of them are not dreadfully uncomfortable really. I wouldn’t choose those alternatives, but I ain’t young. Were I a teenager now looking at my options, I might well choose an alternative path, and it wouldn’t require very much of the kinds of things schools have to offer.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Society today is making it ever easier to be a freeloader, particularly if one is young, capable, self-sufficient and healthy. We are collectively approaching escape velocity from office life, at least for some.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>