Boys hate school, Girls love it … Broken system

So my 8 yr old kid was telling me about how his friend asked him to make a computer game of “this friend” kicking and hitting teacher, director and destroying the school …

When i said, but that’s not nice, why he wants to do that…
My kid answered ” because he does not like school”

I asked my son, “do you”

He answered “No”,

So then asked who else does not like school, so he named all the boys in his class,so i asked, what about the girls? his answer was “most of them like school”

Then i realized 2 facts:

– It is widely known that boys do not like school, while girls do.

– It is also known that there are much more female educators than male educators especially for the primary classes.

What if, this is the problem? what if the female educators are trying to educate the way they expect that they would like to learn …

Don’t get me wrong, my kid loves to learn, he is probably the most educated in his class, but that’s thanks to my work as a parent. For him school is boring.
Thus the question is not with the content but with the system of delivery.

Maybe the way the male and the female acquire knowledge are different, and if it is the case, studies should be done, to better take advantage of the potential of our kids.

Of course psychology and experts have found a million reason why our boys are dysfunctional, but have they ever put in question the method of delivery?

http://www.pbs.org/parents/experts/archive/2011/01/why-so-many-boys-dont-care-abo.html

School is outdated, many of the aspects of our society are archaic and broken, with the current progress, the school system should be overhauled, the education system should be redesigned to take advantage of the potential, but also to make our kids, all our kids, love to learn ..

the difference between current and potential is huge, making our boys love their subjects is basically helping create a better future.

But hey what could this contrarian guy do other than complain …

What career should your kids choose?

I came across the below data, made available by the US census bureau,
In general it shows that Asian households income is way superior to the average,
there’s of course the factor that people of Asian origin are recent immigrant compared to the people of European or African origin,  and thus they are either themselves, or descendants of people, that worked hard or were well off to be able to come to this far country, so by definition they belong to a higher social class than the average American …

“Indian Americans continuously outpace every ethnic group socioeconomically to reach the summit of the U.S. Census charts. Indian Americans, along with other Asian Americans, have attained the highest educational levels of all ethnic groups in the U.S. 71% of all Indians have a bachelor’s or higher degree (compared to 28% nationally and 44% average for all Asian American groups). Almost 40% of all Indians in the United States have a master’s, doctorate, or other professional degree, which is five times the national average. Thomas Friedman, in his recent book, The World is Flat, explains this trend in terms of brain drain, whereby the best and brightest elements in India emigrate to the U.S. in order to seek better financial opportunities.[40] Indians form second largest groups of physicians (3.9%) after non-Hispanic whites as of 1990 survey, and very likely much more like 10% in 2015.”

But then, i realized an important factor, which is education, but not simply education but specific type of education, that is known to be in demand and to bring a descent living. Like for example physicians. A study by NCBI shows that some races are more likely to work in less favorable regions – aka making less money, hence some people do it as vocation by some do it for the money.

The idea is simple, some jobs make more money, and in some cultures they push kids to go after these jobs, especially when you are in a foreign country, where there’s a shortage.

For example, when i was a small kid, like many others the choice of future careers were: fireman, policeman, teacher, doctor, lawyer, engineer … but as i grew my society and parents had some kind of invisible pressure that pushes kids towards mainly 3 fields: lawyers, doctors and engineers …. then of course people end up doing different things when they grow up, but still many become lawyers, doctors and engineers, so in my small country we had too much of all 3 of those…

In Europe i sensed a different approach, i noticed that parents just want their kids to be happy, do whatever they want in life and be happy -be an artist, musician, teacher, …-.
The difference is mainly due to the fact that in developing countries you will need to find a good job that can feed you for now and for when you grow old and retire, as often retirements plans are not a good insurance for old age …. In developed countries it’s not the case, in developed countries it’s better to have minimum responsibilities and be able to enjoy life when you are still young and able to.

So eventually it comes down to that, whether you want financial stability or happiness for your kids, sometimes both are possible, but with employment there is always the financial risk of losing the job, or company going bankrupt…

 

Why Populations will never know the truth !

Are we alone in the universe, have aliens visited us?
Is there a God? are religions made up brainwashing tools?
Is humanity in danger? will a comet or another spacial phenomena exterminate humanity in the near or far future?

The answers for the above and many critical questions, will never be known by the public and for a simple reason …

When critical information are shared with the public, the current human management system based on made up currency will fall apart!

Money is the way to enslave most humans, it’s the way to make them execute specific jobs and tasks …
I can safely assume that 80% of people do not like their jobs.

In the case of impending doom, do you think these people will waste the last days or years doing the same jobs they hate? or would they prefer to join their loved ones and enjoy the last few days or years they have ?
In this case what would be the side effects of such a liberation from jobs? Currency will have a huge inflation and eventually become worthless…
In other words, if the population know about a planetary catastrophic event, it might lead to the inevitability of such event … because there would no longer be the necessary workforce needed to come up with a solution. Special task force and engineers will be committed, but the material and requested resources might suffer due to a complete implosion of production and transportation system.

for example:
Let’s say in 2 years a series of comets will hit earth, and the information was made public, governments will agree on a specific defense system which will require a huge number of custom made rockets, these rockets to be made will rely on traditional industries like metallurgy &chemical productions … 2 industries in normal cases employ millions of people, but when like all industries they would be crippled in the event of mass resignations, and the production of the defense system would be endangered.
Transportation will be crippled, as people go on mass riots, and governments will be obliged to impose curfew to impose order, and thus any sort of productivity is lost.

Humanity can take on anything, but only when it’s calm.

 

 

 

To do list & year/decade resolution for humanity

It’s the part of the year, when we start preparing our resolutions and our plans to engage the new year …

But what we failed to do is to look at this very productive activity from a wider scope or a global point of view … We the human race have failed in creating a unified 1year, 5 year or 10 year plan to improve the human existence on this planet.

Yes, specific organizations have this sort of multi year plan, but it addresses specific subject and often specific populations. A global plan to the scope of the planet have never been formulated or announced.

So here you go, here’s my modest attempt at it, and hopefully the internet will be helpful in improving it….

Humanity To Do List

Humanity 10 years Resolution

1- Switch to electric cars
2- Switch to renewable energy
3- Minimize the use of paper and reduce wood consumption
4- Start a Global effort to clean the oceans and revitalize the fish populations / impose some bans.
5- Reduce meat consumption by teaching more vegetarian and vegan recipes.
6- Reduce garbage, by reducing packaging, imposing laws to minimal packaging.
7- Ban plastic bags.
8- Centralize all space efforts, and put a tax per on countries according to their GDP
9- Land on Mars & create a Moon base.
10- Unify all armies under the UN commandment. 
11- Ban religious teaching for kids under 16. -this will be controversial-
12- Provide old age retirement centers for old people in poor countries - condition they have 2 kids or less.
13- Impose 1 or 2 child policy on highly reproductive populations : we don't want the future of humanity like in Idiocracy
14- Advance recycling and processing laws and applications.
15- Make all stats available, with no hiding or political correctness.
16- Change prisons into labor camps > Paying back to society literally.
17- Democratize governments, and decision making... this system is outdated.
18- Global connectivity: Something better than Facebook : not time waster.
19- Fast epidemic detection & response.
20- Unified monetary system based on value, not i owe yous.
21- Right for independence > whoever want to be independent let them be!
22- Education system redesigned around future roles in society.

I'm open for your suggestions, i'll add any suggestion below ...

Videos to know if you are Racist.

People like to generalize, and often generalizations lead to stereotypes,

In general, there are a lot of people that have open, hidden or even dormant racism.

the best way to approach this is to watch a couple videos of Michael Jackson

here’s the first one , in which MJ looks like an ordinary young black person:

and here’s another, in which MJ looks like a white man :

Question:

Regardless of the song, do you feel the same way towards the 2 characters ?

Conclusion:
MJ might have unintentionally created the biggest statement against racism,
It does not matter the color of your skin, you are who you are!

MJ went from black to white, and many of us go through some kind of color change during vacation time, which raises the question why does color matter to you?

A contrarian blog.

I am and always was a freethinker, that's why I have decided to focus mainly in this blog on contrarian ideas and opinions. 
I think this society is pushing everybody to take sides in debates, instead of letting people think freely.

Contrarian ideas and opinions, are not popular and are often subject to criticism.
But these opinions and ideas are necessary to dispel the horde thinking of society.
Yes, we live in a society were popular opinions dominate and even bully the opposite opinions.
Celebrities and so called "persons of authority" make and promote opinions on behalf of the entire society. 
And funnily enough, most of these opinions are not valid, they might be popular or even ideal, but they are simply opinions not based on any scientific or fairness criteria.
I will try to focus hard to find contratian opinions and try to share them, and defend them, and i'm sure i'll stumble on many.

How to achieve World Peace and unify humanity – my theory

Many ideologies tried unifying humanity, most are religious … needless to say all the ideologies failed, religions succeeded in unifying some chunks, but they suffered later divisions as well …

Political wise, many tried to unify humanity in some sort, some on socio-political basis: like Communism; others by force like roman empire , Nazis(not really) etc… and they all failed as well …

Partially unifying humanity in the past, succeeded in reducing bloodshed (even though blood was spilled for expansions), and establishing some rule of law allowing the weak to live relatively without fear.

Under the roman empire inter-fighting between tribes came to an end, and groups started contributing to the global empire,  accessing goods and knowledge from other parts of the empire as well as providing it led to prosperity!
Under the Islamic empire, endless fighting between tribes came to an end, and prosperity followed as well!

So we can agree that Unity = Prosperity!
But unity means, there need to be something in common, and it also means that there’s some people that would be excluded from this group.

And most importantly, will unity stays intact and perfect as the numbers grow and the time passes …  the answer is No, and religions are a great example on how a united group sooner or later breaks into smaller groups that in turn will suffer divisions as well.

These days, every group or ethnicity are dreaming of self governance, from Quebec – Canada, to Texas – USA, to Catalonia Spain … If you give the populations the choice to get divided, sooner or later they will do it, and groups will become smaller and smaller.
Divisions follow a variety of factors like language, religion, tribe, ethnicity, culture, football club ….

Strengthening the nationalistic spirit does not resolve this issue because separatist spirit is much stronger!  Strong nationalism end up pitting populations one against another!

My theory:
The only path to a true and lasting unity is through intense diversity .

Let me explain, when people are tough that every single individual is unique, and the groups the person belong to, only make part of  his/her uniqueness and identity, people will no longer want to be identified as only members in a smaller groups, because that would suppress their identities, and as a result we have a stronger feeling towards a unified humanity, where everyone is accepted for what he/she is.

For example let’s take a fictional character John,
John belongs to the groups:
– French
– Speaks French and English
– Support Barcalona in soccer.
– Is Breton
– Is White
– Has black hair
– Has green eyes
– is an Artist
– is Gay
– is Catholic
– Human

From the above descriptions, John can identify himself as a member X group, when asked to answer “who are you?” (how you identify yourself)  but If people are taught that they are the sum of the different groups they belong to, and that no group they belong to can have dominance over the others in determining the identity unless it can contain the other groups, then in this case, John only answer should be “human” or the biggest group he belongs to that would group all his identities.
But in reality, John would answer is most likely “Artist”,”Gay”, “Breton”, “French”

Let’s take another  fictional character Ahmet,
Ahmet belongs to the groups:
– French
– Speaks French and English
– Support Barcalona in soccer.
– Is of Moroccan Origin
– Is light Brown
– Has black hair
– Has green eyes
– is an Artist
– is Straight
– is Muslim
– Human

Ahmet is more likely to answer “Muslim”, “Artist”

Let’s take another  fictional character Anas,
Anas belongs to the groups:
– French
– Speaks French and English
– Support Barcalona in soccer.
– Is of a mix relation Moroccan & French
– Is white but with a tan
– Has black hair
– Has green eyes
– is an Artist
– is Straight
– is Muslim
– Human

Anas is more likely to answer “Artist”

Subject 1 have strong feelings towards it’s roots, but when the parents have moved (subject 2) or are from mixed origins (subject 3) , the roots factor is less stronger.
Even strong dividers like religion disappear when there’s mixing or strong interactions (friends, family members, GF/BF)

How to achieve intense diversity? that’s a difficult question that i don’t know the answer to!

Oscar Pistorius Guilty or unlucky

Reading about the case of Oscar Pistorius who shot and killed his girlfriend thinking she was an intruder.

Here’s what bothers me in his story:
– If you have an intruder in your house, wouldn’t you go check and tell your gf who happend to be in the house with you, before shooting on whomever is hiding in the bathroom?
– If you are shot at while you are in the bathroom wouldn’t you scream, and if it’s the case, why Oscar would continue shooting?

If this was a case involving an able man, there’s no doubts he’s guilty!
But, because he’s diabled, many factors come into play:
– did not check on gf because he wanted to make less sound ( or was unable to move quickly in case he didn’t have the legs)
– did not stop after hearing shouting, due to ears ringing as a result of firing while lying on the ground (thus not hearing well).

Bottom line he is either guilty or really a very unlucky guy!

Explain luck

I have been trying the last few days to understand luck …
Luck, is something that do exist and could not be scientifically explained, some people are born lucky and others with bad luck, sometimes luck change but you can never explain luck.

Why some people are lucky?
Some people have luck behind them all the way, finding a good job, a good house, great deal on a car, finding money on the ground, winning the lottery … Luck follows them like a pet dog follow the master, while others have no luck or sometimes bad luck instead ….
My question is why?
I mean it’s not a matter of effort, because the unlucky guy looks for 10x more job offers before landing the crappy job, while the lucky guy gets an amazing job quickly …
It’s not a matter of goodness & personality, because many lucky people are arsholes while many unlucky ones are super nice.

I initially thought that each human have a package of attributes different from others but that have the same sum, like in video games, when you get experience bonuses to spend on your character, you can add strength, health, intelligence, dexterity … I though maybe at birth each human have a package of attributes that are different but have same sum, for example:
Intelligence + luck + health + creativity + communication skills + ….
And that when 1 of these factors is high, the others should be lowered …. But then i asked myself, what about people & kids that die in disasters … My theory don’t hold much.
Then i wondered if there’s a trigger that kicks on/off the luck, for example if this guy is lucky we could end up having a war in 10 years, so better give him bad luck … But again this theory don’t hold much, the same argument as before, how would poor tsunami victims have changed the future …

For me, i would like to believe that luck works loosely on the above theories, with other factors involved as well!

Human population growth

Human population is growing with a terrifying speed, and what is more terrifying is that poor and less intelligent populations are expanding fast, while rich and developed populations are not growing!

from 1990 to 2010, the world added 1/3rd of it’s existing population.

The growth is championed by countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan , Nigeria ….

These poor countries are not able to sustain their existing populations, and thus the majority of population is poor and undereducated!

Why there’s no process to limit the population growth worldwide and in poor countries in particular..

if we continue on this route , the movie Idiocracy (2006) will become a reality!

Can’t poor countries understand that population fast growth is bad for their future?

Growth rates of the world’s most populous countries

Rank	Country	Population 2010	Population 1990	Growth (%) 1990–2010
7	Nigeria	158,423,000	97,552,000	62.4%
6	Pakistan	173,593,000	111,845,000	55.3%
8	Bangladesh	148,692,000	105,256,000	41.3%
2	India	1,224,614,000	873,785,000	40.2%
5	Brazil	194,946,000	149,650,000	30.3%
4	Indonesia	239,871,000	184,346,000	30.1%
	World	6,895,889,000	5,306,425,000	30.0%
3	United States	310,384,000	253,339,000	22.5%
1	China	1,341,335,000	1,145,195,000	17.1%
10	Japan	128,057,000	122,251,000	4.7%
9	Russia	142,958,000	148,244,000	-3.6%