How Achievement and Education Connect

© 2006 by Eric S. Meyer. All Rights Reserved.

 This essay is about our culture and how it functions to provide so-called education. Like other things, when one activity or resource is removed, another takes its place. Likewise, when one activity or resource is added, it detracts from others similar to it. This applies to education just the same, in that even if it is corrupt and self-serving, it will still attract volunteers to perpetrate its hidden violence. The purpose of education is to provide jobs for those who were customers of education in the previous generation and now cabal to protect its special interests. Education in its current carnation is not about life preparation for a career, but about doing a job. Humanity needs to learn to end poverty with opportunity for every person on this earth to have a chance at a decent quality of life and survival for themselves and their families. Education, as it is today, tends to increase, as opposed to decrease, the chances of humanity not living in a classless world free of prejudice and crushed creativity. A quality education may include high speed learning using ancient technology in computer form, with Autogenics, even where the Internet connects with peers, the community, the paid learning facilitators, and the committee to determine, record and represent successful learning has occurred.

 Activities replace other activities. When someone eats a different food, then they will eat less of other foods. When someone spends less time working, they will spend more time doing something else. There are a finite number of hours in a day, as there are a finite number of activities that can be done by one person. Actions replace other actions from occurring.

 In a capitalist economy, its participants tend to be in a race to do as many actions as possible towards earning money, being entertained and quality time with family. For many, money takes precedence over entertainment, yet entertainment tends to take precedence over quality time with family. Such a race leaves its participants at risk for feeling that there is not enough time in the day, that their life lacks meaning and that they are disconnected with others, including family, friends and community, as well as the world.

 All things have a cost, reeling in victims of a sort of time allocation trap. Hence, we have drivers who are rushing to get from point to point, friends who are anxious to become sexually active with one another, workers who earn plenty of money but are immensely dissatisfied with their job, and students who are in a rush to get a grade to get credits, credits for degrees, then degrees to a paper issued by a college or University, with the expectation of that paper leading to a well paying job, which is presumed to lead to the capacity to buy lots of stuff, with the common belief that by being able to buy unnecessary stuff comes the strong possibility to marry and with marriage comes children, then that the children will be cared for from birth through college graduation.

 But what is the real cost of such beliefs? Perhaps we are giving up peace to just be here in the moment, perhaps we are giving up the satisfaction that our live has some intense meaning, perhaps we are giving up learning about ourselves, about those we interact with and live with and near, and about how we can mature and advance as individuals and as members of communities, families and circles of friends.

 Education is plainly self-serving and centered on making money, lots of it, for the administrators, and a good amount for its teachers and instructors. Education, as it is, clearly benefits those who control it more than those who purchase it. In fact, the buyers of education include students, parents and tax-payers. Tax-payers, loosely defined, includes everyone who is employed, is an employer or invests money, as these three groups pay taxes which are used for education. Plus, a hefty amount is collected by state-sponsored gambling, as a so-called funds raiser for a rich and corrupt industry: Educational service providers, aka accredited high schools, colleges and Universities.

 Even the text book industry is very lucrative, including many names like Pearson, McGraw Hill, and others. Education is big business, and business is good. Good for investors. Good for government. Good for big business, like Walmart and McDonalds Restaurant chains. But is it really so good for its target?

 The target of education, undoubtedly, is “students.” Money is spend to direct instruction to them to convince them to obey the customs of the culture, to not openly question authority, to effectively suppress their creativity, to always be anti-intellectual, and to make them into predicable consumers to which corporations can better get to buy a multitude of products and services, including luxury and status products and services. Is this really undesirable, after all, to allow education to do this?

 When customs of a culture are not questioned, the citizenry is at risk to follow as Germany did under Hitler's Nazi regime. Or the torture of Vietnamese non-combatants, such as where at home the average welfare recipient received about $50 per month, yet $236,000 or so was spent for each successful kill of Vietnamese, including men, women and children. Or President George Bush, Jr. lies that resulted in the slaying of thousands of U.S. Service men and women, as well as the so-called enemy, in the name of finding weapons for which no proof existed to confirm their existence.

 Is a life not a life? If ten people die, does it matter their relationship to you? Humans tend to have a greater connection with family than of people in a far off country, but that does not change the fact that a life is equally valid and real no matter where they are, no matter their linage, no matter their age, no matter their race, no matter their religion. It is every humans obligation to protect other human life, for a myriad of reasons.

 Every person on this earth will have, undoubtedly, people their life will affect and influence. It is beyond human ability to predict, therefore have any reason to try to control, who lives and who dies. Who is to know that if some homeless person will not at some time in their life affect the life of someone who will do great good for a community, who would not without the interaction of the homeless person? What about the mentally retarded person who becomes a parent of a future trade Union leader? In essence, every person alive affects every person in this moment and all in the future for infinity.

 Additionally, jobs exist that are considered undesirable or are not safe enough for those with wealthy families to agree to do. An example is janitors, who earn little more than minimum wage doing difficult and often hazardous work. Yet, without them, our cities could not continue to function. Communities have other work, like litter removal, dry cleaning, painting, even construction and nursing that has risks, yet picking produce from a field in the hot sun while crop dusters fly overhead is obviously not a prized job to have unless the person is desperate.

 Many illegal Mexican immigrants are desperate for work. They often have families, and wish to keep food and shelter forthcoming. Unsafe jobs that are the most dangerous tend to be the least paying, while the work of a corporate chief executive officer may be a paradise many can only dream to experience in their family or within several generations of diligent, industrious work.

 If all the so-called unskilled workers were to flee the United States, then the less skilled workers, perhaps including, over time, office and desk workers, even entertainers would need to do 'unskilled' work. Of course, it many require the abandonment of millions of illegal immigrants and minimum wage workers from their posts, but over time, the least wealthy will tend to want to accept the so-called undesirable jobs out of desperation. Eventually, of course, if the nation only had physicians, bankers, government leaders and law enforcement, that group would either need to bring in workers to exploit or they would turn on each other to demand each other to be janitors, sanitation engineers, dry cleaners, street sweepers, and so on.

 The point of this is that every person is important, and that when Customs of a Culture are not questioned, we may, in leadership positions, ask, “How can I get everyone employed with real work?” instead of “What work is really important, and how do we treat those workers as fellow humans?” In particular, it should be noted that education suggests one best way, a way that is time tested and proven, to be followed. But what are the alternatives, if any?

 There are alternatives. Education can be such to allow natural inspiration and enthusiasm to redefine the work and how its done, instead of forcing focus on understanding how work has been done. It should be noted that history does tell a lot about human nature, so learning about the past is important. But the source of study of the past is critical. Indeed, those who study at a traditional educational facility most likely will learn of a series of heroes and victors, while those who study on their own or at a non-compliant school may read of Howard Zinn. In contrast, Howard Zinn and McGraw Hill are sure to present very, very strikingly dissimilar views, yet neither is completely perfect in truth, but it should be noted that propaganda is, by definition, simply literature that is mass circulated and indoctrinated. Under this definition, traditional education is, therefore, propaganda, in the true sense of the word.

 Education is, therefore, at risk of being misleading and false to what was experienced by the majority of the participants in history. What would be said of today, by inhabitants of the earth a millennial from now? Let's assume there will not be a nuclear or biological holocaust, nor that some natural event will destroy all humanity by the planet colliding with some massive object.

 Consider this fiction: “Around 2006 A.D., the earth was controlled by money, and those with money used it to focus the actions of billions of other humans. Back then, money mattered more than anything, even a sustainable legacy. A structure, called 'corporations', generated products and services, by depleting the earth and exploiting humanity, to earn more green paper called 'money'. The 'money' was shared with those who legally kill, called the 'government', who enjoyed great luxury and power at the expense of their souls. Misery was well shared, yet food, medicine and shelter was made to appear in short supply, to encourage everyone to work. There was so much misery that no matter how much money a person had, they were unhappy. If they had no money at all, they were still not happy. But the United States was thought in its time to be rich, due to the quantity of material possessions and quantity and quality of entertainment. Its educational system helped perpetuate the cycle of poverty, by rewarding those with work and money who followed what they were told, and those avoided being too creative nor too intellectual. The citizens purchased from corporations like Victoria's Secret, who used labor from prisoners as slaves, and bought diamonds from nations like China, where human rights activists would mine the diamonds until death, as punishment for uttering phrases like “human rights” and “equality is important” in public. In short, the world was put together so no one was happy except those taking prescription or illegal drugs, such as psychiatrist prescribed anti-depressants and street drugs and narcotics. For all this misery and suffering, they received a polluted world, contaminated water, food, air, soil with toxins like lead, DDT, mercury, radioactivity, oil products, MTBE and injected poison into their bodies with vaccinations and immunizations. In short, nearly everyone cared about money, and, of those, few cared about sharing a vision of a classless, loving, clean, peaceful world. Of those who did care for a better world, many lived in poverty and could do little, or got depressed and either got heavily medicated by a psychiatric doctor or simply removed themselves, either by moving out of the United States, or sometimes by alcoholism, illegal drugs and sometimes even suicide. The most unfortunate aspect of all this, most people were educated into denying this was a reality until two centuries had passed. By then, the earth was so polluted from war, farming, cattle grazing, mining, waste disposal, and demolition materials that the earth was quite unattractive.  Billions of people died around 2085 due to HIV/AIDS, the manufactured virus designed by the United States Government with $550 million as a so-called humane way of controlling population numbers, and the wars that escalated as a result of materialism and tenacity to retaining industrial and military dominance over the entire world.”

 With all that said, it may be noted that there IS another way. A different future is possible, one where money is no longer the motivation and manifestation of all needs, wants and desires, but where technology can provide output of food, medicine and shelter so every human on this earth is able to not just live, but have real hope that they will see in their lifetime a day when humanity embraces the joy of being one with the world in terms of sharing ideas and dreams towards a sustainable future, not where money decides the fate and figurative execution of billions due to corrupt governments and corporate leaders. It will be a day to truly celebrate when humanity no longer chooses to maintain a military but instead uses mass discussions online to protect from tyrants getting into power, when humanity chooses education that is based on providing a territory to explore ideas, feelings, and beliefs, and to challenge traditions, authority and materialism vigorously and unashamedly strive towards world wide unification of financial systems and a spirit of joy while serving the community one individual at a time.

 Such an envisionment is not a goal, but a directive towards survival for humanity. It is therefore imperative for humanity to seek to build up emotional connection and care about how their actions will affect each other, and much less on how it will benefit their pocket book. Fifty months of misery while doing the deeds of employer or employee is not worth two weeks of a vacation and every Saturday and Sunday to pretend the fabric of community is not highly eroded. 

 It is not the ends that justify the means that is healthy, when the means are mutual exploitation and consensual surrendering of the human spirit. Nor is the ends of making money beneficial for anyone when the money has a very real cost in terms of sacrifice of connecting with others and developing oneself as a compassionate and secure human being. Therefore, we should instead look to identify who we are, what we really want, and how that matches up with the wants, needs and desires of others, for if we do not do this precisely and do this soon, we may not have another chance to have a blissful world where technology will be our servant and dreams of the community the guide, instead of our technology as our termination from a world where we control our future and fate. It is such a nightmare where our technology can power a world war more efficient than ever before in recent history, but no less devastating than the nuclear war in present-day India some six millennia ago, as written in ancient texts and confirmed by radioactivity in human skeletons lying the streets of certain archaeological dig sites in India. The world and time will go on, and we may or may not be alive in the future, meaning our death may be after years of sharing blissful affection and emotional connection to see our children and grandchildren grow, or we may simply see a gigantic display of colors as millions or billions parish from nuclear technology. Indeed, the United States has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire world... ten times over.

 The action we need is to redefine what education means, and the product we want to create with our education. Do we want to create more soldiers, office workers, factory workers who focus on making money and little else, or do we want to create more visionaries and inventors, who are responsible in making technology to allow more humans to be fed, receive medicine, shelter, and the freedom to follow peaceful and collaborative goals like the launch of new human and earth friendly businesses? We can vote how we want, and we must vote soon, or else there may be nothing worth voting for.

 It is my goal to target the elimination of global poverty by providing computer solutions powered by software described at  We may do nothing, but that is essentially embracing the way things are today. Things clearly must change, and through education, we have real hope to reduce the chances of humanity being no more than fossils.  Humanity requires loving affection, emotional connection, support of dreams, and real hope to leave a legacy that includes children and the reasonable expectation that one's children, and grandchildren, will be able to enjoy the same: to allow a continuous flow and transition of resources. As one wise person said, “You do not inherit the earth from your parents, but you borrow it from your children.”