I didn't say he was praising the herd, only pointing out that the herd prevails over the so-called "great". My whole point was the herd are better equipped to survive than the "strong".

"More drones=less of a PERSONAL sense of satisfaction, as well as less of an impact and a feeling of importance"

i disagree with this assessment. A million people contributing to a community effort can achieve something much bigger than any individual could achieve on their own, and they will all feel a large sense of satisfaction for being part of a group which did such a large eat, irrelevant of the size of the group, the satisfaction is derived from identifying with the group and the size of the task...


i believe this leads to a greater sense of the value of the individual's work when the achievement is larger. However the individual must feel their contribution to the work was vital - which is a separate concern to the amount of satisfaction which they derive...

@Putin:

But, again, that statement doesn't bear itn out that the herd is better equipped to survive than the strong; Nietzsche's argument is that the herd sruvive DESPITE their being weaker than the strong invidduals, and do so ONLY though sheer numbers alone (he uses Christianity as his chief example of this; Galileo was the "stronger mind" in the room when he was with those who fought against his new ideas, but because the Christian "herd" was so massive, he couldn't win.)

But as he alludes to in "Beyond Good and Evil" and REALLY makes clear in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," this advantage of the herd, sheer numbers, is FINITE...

It cannot last forever, adn thus the herd is, ultimately, weak and doomed to failure.

The Egyptians were teh big, bad herd for a while...
And then Alexander's Empire...
And then the Greeks...
And then the Romans...
Napoleonic France...
Victorian England...
And I think it's safe to now claim Modern America...

ALL herds that were tops for a while--UNTIL the numbers and strength shifted agaisnt them, as it inevitably does.

Whereas Galileo's ideals and psoition in history as one of the forefathers of science and intellectual discovery is eternally strong...and the same may be said of Newton or Einstein or Hawking or whomever in science, or Shakespeare or Homer or Dante in literature, and so on and so forth--

Even as new books, new ideas, and new scientific discoveries are made, THEIR achievements don't fade, because it's not based on quantity, like the herd, ie, "We're the most powerful nation on Earth, ergo, WE are right!" but rather the quality of the work is celebrated...

And ALL attributed soley to tHEM.

Shakespeare's 37 plays--38 if you count TNK--written by 5,000 drones isn't so special, it's not very impressive anymore.

When it's written by one man, it almost seems extra-human in a way, it becomes magnificent.

@orathic:

I don't know if this is the best defense of my idea, but it's one I just thought of and it sounds interesting, so what the hell, I'll give it a fling...and if it doesn't work, first, of course, tell me how and why, and then I'll give the response I was going to give instead of this one.

Consider Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

AND the simple logistics of a society.

In a society, obviously we can't all have everything, as if one poerson in the group owns everything, then the rest starve or die of thrist and so on and so forth, we as societies tend to pool and share our resources, and it could be argued that the greatest difficulty in doing this for any society is trying to strike a balance between Elitism and my awkardly-worded Pluralism, ie, trying to allow enough personal possession of goods while still providing a communal pool of wealth and resources to feed and clothe and aid the rest of the group.

And here is where I think Maslow's pyramid comes in.

Suppose you, I, Putin, Draugnar, Tettleton's Chew, smiley, and abgemacht (just scrolled up and took six names form those who've posted on this thread) have before us a single pizza.

Assuming we divide it equally, we each get 1/6 of the pizza, 1 slice out of 6.

And, for a pizza, this might be fine.

Food, water, shelter--the basic necessities of life, these things form the base, the bottom level, the largest level of Maslow's pyramid.

As such, we might divide it more easily and still have "enough," so to speak, that is, to give another example, if there are six frozen dinners in a freezer, and six of us, no problem, we're all fine--1/6 of the share is enough for food because there is such a ready abundance of food in this case, and there's, generally speaking, a general abundance of food world-wide--excepting some areas, and speaking generally, that is, food is more abundant than, PlayStation 3s, that's a rarer commodity, even if there are millions of such consoles, there's an innumerable amount of food on Earth, enough to sustain most of the 6 billion or so on the planet, to say nothing of the many animals and plants and other organisms--and so "1/6," what would seem to be a small share, is still quite enough, because "1/6 of the supply of food" in this case is enough to sustain us easily. (It's WAY more than enough for me, I hardly eat, usually one meal a day, if that, so I guess even if we had only 5 TV dinners, you guys could eat, I'd just drink something, and all would still be fine.) ;)

Now start moving up the pyramid.

Next, after "Physological Needs," is "Safety."

This includes a place to sleep and store the food from the Physiological Needs section, ie, a shelter, a means of keeping up that shelter, ie, a job, a means of protecting said shelter and goods, and so on.

THIS is already more scarce...

While we generally have enough food in most parts of the world to sustain most of the people, we have RADICALLY-VARYING degrees of security, different qualities of how good those shelters are, ranging from fortresses and palaces with plenty of protection and goods and oppulance and the like, to shacks and huts that can easily be done in by a storm, afford only extremely basic shelter, and can lack even basic sanitation and structural integrity.

As a result, this case is different than the case of the food...

The resources that allow for better structures and shelters are more scarce; while wood and stone might be plentiful, electricity--or I should probably say the means of efectively using electricity, ie, bulbs and wiring and sockets and plating and all the work that goes into creating andmaintaining a functional electrical system that can serve an entire house, or block, or city, and so on--is FAR less prevalent in the world, as there are places where there is food readily available but people cannot afford electricity, its resources are scarcer, are more expensive, or both. What's more, we see how scarce jobs can be, and how varying they are in how well they pay...

We can effectively share 1/6 of the pizza or TV dinners.
We'd have a harder time trying to get by with 1/6 the share of a "house," by which I mean that all the wood, stone, cement, electricity, tap, and so on and so forth, materials-wise, if each of us only had 1/6 of that, only 1/6 of the materials we have for our own homes or apartments...

We could probably still live in some capacity with some shelter--but not as well, not as comfortably, and it'd be far more of a pinch than merely having only 1/6 of a pizza.

Still, we could, conceivably, survive, at the very least, in some capacity.

NOW we move up the pyramid once more...

The three levels that complete the pyramid are Love/Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization.

Love/Belonging, as can be noticed by its middle position and by the nature of it, is a sort of intermediary sot between the Concrete needs of the first two levels and the Abstract needs of the next two levels.

"Belonging" is something we can conceptualize physically, ie, belonging to a collective, being proud of one's country...but even this "pride" is, again, half-abstract, as it's not just love for the physical land and flag and all that, but love of the ideals of the nation and so on.

"Love," again, half-astract, in all those theories as to what love is, and then concrete, as exemplified by Bond movies and teens at prom night (I kid, I kid...point made, I think, but I kid.) :p

Those of you with a wife--

How would you like to share that wife with 5 other people? (No polygomy arguments, here, please.)

More to the point, take the love you feel for that wife and divide it by 6, you have 1/6 of the love you had for that wife...that's quite a good deal less...you probably won't be as happy and, erm, potentially "prosperous" as you were before that division.

On now to the top two levels, which I'll treat as one, for the sake of both time and the fact I think they go together nicely for the sake of our discussion...

Esteem and Self-Actualization.

The former measures self-worth, pride--sort of like that patriotism mentioned earlier--achievement, and so on and so forth, while the latter focuses on an attempt at refining one's ultimate understanding of things, ie, a refined creative talent as a polished pianist and composer with years of training and practice, or a great moralist campaigner with an abstract sense of morality that has been fashioned through years of introspective thought...in essence, quite a bit of the things Aristotle extolls the virtues of in "The Nichomachean Ethics," which is a founding text for Elitist ethical idealism.

Take your sense of self-worth--and divide that by 6.
Take your feeling of pride, in yourself and your nation--divide it by 6.
Take your best talents, whatever they are--you're now 1/6 as good as you were initially.

And so on.

THAT is quite a big pinch, and FAR more so than merely getting 1/6 of a pizza...

The pizza's an abundant resource--your self-worth and sense of achievement and pride and skill set, your ultimate UNIQUENESS is such that it is just that, in many places, unique...

ONE of a kind.

1/6 of a pizza is no problem; if you're hungry, you can jsut order another slice.

1/6 of your self-worth IS a huge problem...you can't just "order" more...



NOW.

That's just dividing your self-worth and sense of achievement and skills and recognition by 6.

Try 5,000.

1/5000 of your feeling of pride, self-worth, and achievement.

The "whole" makes up 5,000 for self-worth and achievement in all...but you only get to enjoy a sliver of that PERSONALY...

And it's the more personal needs, ie, self-worth and actualization and identity and all that, that are rarer and more unique and more precious, ultimately, in Maslow's pyramid than food and shelter, which are vital and must be obtained first...but seeing as we all of us here have roofs over our heads and plenty of pizza, so to speak...

Your analogies don't make any sense. Are you saying the influence of the Romans, Greeks, British, French, etc hasn't been eternal?

I'm saying that their dominance didn't survive eternally, because such dominance as herd dominance depends entirely on having superior numbers...

And history shows time and again that one power cannot keep up superior numbers forever, eventually, one herd will defeat another.

By contrast, no one "defeats" an individual such as Galileo or Newton or Shakespeare or Milton--there may be new books and there may be new scientific findings, but individual greatness of the kind of these men stands eternal.

Herd/poltical dominance is, by comparison, very temporary.

All of those empires FELL for lack of a quantity of numbers, after all...and Galileo and Shakespeare never "fell," as their greatness is dependent on quality of work rather than quantity, is my point.

Seems like you're creating different standards for determining "defeat". Of course you set up the herd to fail because political dominance is very difficult to sustain, especially 'eternally'. But for individuals the only threshold they have to meet is continued influence.
Of course I'd argue most of the greatest works of literature weren't done by any "individual" but were collective oral traditions. Beowulf comes to mind. The Ossian is another. The Icelandic sagas are yet another. Germanic folk tales. The Bible even. Most of the so-called great "individuals" were only great in so far as they expressed the depths of some kind of national or collective feeling.

Nietzsche in any case was quite clearly and explicitly saying that the strong rarely prevail, which is why Darwin's theory was incorrect. He wasn't just saying that they had numerical superiority, but that they had greater spirit.

If you have quotes to contradict that, I'd like to see them.

The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their security, are the best and only foundations of his real greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct.
-Edward Gibbon

Except it doesn't work that way.

was that related to me?

@Putin - I love the fact that Nietzsche, as you attribute it, was basically reinforcing the Bible. "The meek shall inheret the earth." Sound an awful lot like the strong not prevailing to me.

Well yes that was Nietzsche's whole basis for railing against Judaism and Christianity. It is/was the triumph of herd morality.

The herd is very powerful but typically not directed. Hari Seldon developed psychohistory to predict the actions of very large groups of humans (the herd). While one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to very large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events. Much like an observer has great difficulty in predicting the motion of a single molecule in a gas, but can predict the mass action of the gas to a high level of accuracy. Physicists know this as the Kinetic theory. Since we don't have psycohistory (yet), the Elitists want to provide the guiding direction to the masses. However, most people are corruptible which tends to lead them to make decisions in their favor not in favor of the masses. Most countries suffer these consequences as a leader emerges with the power and will of the people only to be corrupted by the power given to them. It is the ability to relinquish power and let someone else take over that gives countries there best chance of succeeding. However there are some groups (such as the very far right in the USA) that have developed a long term plan. Set up fake schools, colleges and universities that churn out only selected individuals who can be manipulated. These "students" are force fed courses of study either business or politics that match the desired view points. Not math or science as these are irrelevant. They set up companies to publish "studies" with their forgone conclusions so that these studies can be cited as reference. Over time, these "robots" will take over positions of industry and politics and can then lead everyone to the promised land.

@Puma - If you are going to make accusations of this sort, please provide reputable sources as evidence. And no, some radical left-wing publication is not a reputable source. IF CNN reports on it or CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox, then I will read your evidence. But not "Lefties 'R Us".

And yes, I also accept PBS/NPR as well as BBC and any of the major papers (NY Times, SF Chronicle, etc.) and magazines like Time and Newsweek.

Before I read the rest of what everyone's written, since it seems as if there;s an interesting discussion going on here, let me rsespond to Putin's first response after my last very quickly...

@Putin:

3 things (not trying to cut you short or anything, but we've talked about this enough that I think I can short-cut it a bit and get to the point...or try to...which would be a first for me.) ;)

1. Nietzsche does NOT imply that the strong rarely prevail ULTIMATELY, and to sustain that point...well, I'd give the whole of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" as evidence. That entire WORK is devoted to the idea of the strong overtaking the weak, and from this and his denounciation of herd mentality in this work, "The Antichrist," and others, as well as his denouncing the State in "Zarathustra," I think we can safely say he was pro-individual and anti-collectivist and wanted to see the strong individual--or waht he defined as the strong individual--triumph over the herd, and thought that this should happen, which brings me to...

2. For Nietzsche--and for myself, as this one's a bit of a double-whammy, explaining both Nietzsche's position and my previous example of empires falling--the Herd Man is actually WEAKER than the Individual Man...the Herd ITSELF is "stronger" in the sense that, for the moment, it can keep the Individual down, but this only works by virtue of sheer numerical dominance, and once those numbers dwindle and the herd inevitably seperates, as history tells us herds seem to do, then we are left with the Herd Man being weaker...to put it another way, imagine 1 Individual man vs. a herd of 10 bullies, each with the physical and intellectual strenght of only 1/2 the Individual but, 10 * 1/2= 5, and 5 being greater than 1, the Individual still loses. That being said, should the Individual find one ofn those Herd men ON THEIR OWN, it's then 1 vs. 1/2, the Individual triumphs, and hence we get the time-worn axiom in regards to herds--divide and conquer. The Herd as a collective is stronger, but it's a strenghth that is unsustainable, and the Individual man, who is a forerunner to Nietzsche's "free spirit" as he describes in "Human, All Too Human," who is himself a forerunner of the Ubermensch, ultimately prevails in Nietzsche's system. Indeed, it could be argued that the primary focus of Nietzsche's "ethics"--to use that term INCREDIBLY losely, and for lack of a better one--is to illustrate the Individual MAN to be stronger than the Herd MAN and encourage the dissolution and fall of Herds, which "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" says WILL happen, that the Individual WILL be stronger in the end.

3. Finally, on the subject of "Beowulf" and literature--and this can work for literature or science or mathematical theory or whatever, but since I'm good with literature (or I'll say I think I'm relatively good at it and better at that than anything else, I'll let you decide for yourself how "good" I am to avoid sounding arrogant) we'll stick to that--I agree that most great works, or at least most great works written before the Printing Press, were likely communal works by and large. HOWEVER, I would argue that, if anything, this only enhances the power and prestige of the Individual Artist...the rarer the gem, the more precious it is, that sort of thing...it's RARE that we have someone who, by themselves, can come up with an epic poem like "Paradise Lost," and it's INCREDIBLY RARE that someone should write 37 plays, most of which are, at the very least, pretty good and most of which still resonate today, more than 400 years later, AS WELL AS these plays being among the greatest works, if not the greatest--I stand by my assertion that "Hamlet" is the single greatest work of fiction in the West...just my opinion, but I think it has a fair case, and it's certainly Top 10 at any rate--AS WELL AS writing 150+ sonnets, many of which are still considered to be beautiful and brilliant. Milton and Shakespeare, thus, are unique, they are one-of-a-kind, we can't imagine anyone else scaling such heights, because so few do so solo (and now, because I KNOW someone is going to drag up the issue of Shakespearean Authorship in response to that, I'll say that WHOEVER wrote Shakespeare's palys, be it Shakespeare or Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere or Chiristopher Marlowe or whomever, it's STILL one person scaling those incredible heights, and even conceding that Shakespeare/The author who wrote Shakespeare's works essentially "borrowed" AT LEAST 3/4 of his plots, if not more so, it may be argued that nearly all plots are "borrowed" from something or another anyway, and it's still a great achievement just to refine them as he did and inject so much brilliant wording and language and ideas and comedic moments...and, if Shakespeare STILL doesn't satisfy you as an example, fine--Milton. He did it all by himself, he spent decades writing "Paradise Lost," and what's more--he did it BLIND. If that's not an incredible individual artistic effort, I don't know what is.)



I REALLY love literature...especially Milton and Shakespeare... ;)

@Fasces' quote:

That might possibly rank as one of the dumbest assertions I've ever read...and quite frankly I'm a bit stunned and somewhat saddened someone of Mr. Gibbons' stature would blunder so badly.

The list of tyrants abusing their power and extorting their subjects is not the exception...if anything, it might be the rule (and while we extoll the virtues of "benevolent monarchs," I'd argue that's in poart due to the very converse of this statement; just as I asserted that we value the greatness of Invididual Arists like Shakespeare, Milton, and Michaelangelo so highly because of their rarity, so too do we revere the Queen Elizabeths and the like because such fairness--or at least relative fairness, for as great as she was, Elizabeth was human, all too human, not without her own foibles and poor moments--in absolute rulers is so rare. Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon all come to mind here, in varying degrees...each were uncommonly-good military men, for sure, and each ahd their black marks on their record, but each also did some benevolent, good things for their people--Alexander brought some prosperity, albeit as short-lived as he was, Caesar gave land to the poor, and Napoleon ended the Reign of Terror and emancipated the Jews from the ghettoes...granted he also curtailed free speech, but like I said, no one's perfect.

FAR more common among rulers are the Neros and Caligulas and George III's and Stalins and Kim-Jong Ils and Hitlers and the like...

The list of villains comes quicker than the list of good absolute monarchs, and for a REASON.)

@Draugnar:

See my comments towards Putin...he's doing ANYTHING but reinforcing that (really, you gys know he says the Ubermensch is #1 in the end, yes? Unless you're just selectively casting that aside, I don't see where you're getting that he thinks the weak will prevail, he calls them WEAK for a reason, and, again, makes the case that the herd only works because of numbers, which fall, and religions fall out of favor, as he pointed out with the Greeks, and so Christianity and empires and all of that...well, like I said, see my comments towards Putin.)

@Puma:

I am NOT Right-Wing.

AT ALL.

And I'm an Elitist.

So quite frankly, I don't know what you're driving at, but I agree with Draugnar--a citation from a reputatable source would be nice...

And am I to take your "schools" bit as being analogous to Plato's Republic's schools?

Because those churn out anything BUT robots, since...well, since technically it's the Guardians and Rulers who go to school in his Republic, while the Workers get apprentice-ships and, at the most, train in gymnastics with the others sometimes at some ages, but neveretheless are not educated in schools.

The Guardians are taught, and not to be drones, since Plato believes you need intelligence for courage to work, since just blind boldness can get yourself killed, and that's no good for training an elite force...

And the Rulers are PHILOSOHPER KINGS..so yeah, they get QUITE A BIT of well-rounded and intensive education, FAR from being robots.

My god Obi, I'm aware of what Nietzsche wants to happen and his denunciations of herd morality. But where does he say that the ubermensch *will* prevail? A quote please.

Obi, you have come along way politically from when we first had a political debate on this forum.

The first time you were pro-democracy and I was the advocate of philo kings. Now it seems we can both agree.

However, if not right wing, what would you describe your self. Your pro-meritocracy, as am I, which is a good think but what are your economic values. Surely your not a traditionalist and support caste or some bs like that...

Elitism doesn't exactly look like a left wing views...

Putin...do I really have to dig up a quote here?

Again, I'm citing basically the whole of Zarathustra, almost ALL of that is "Ubermensch Ubmermensch Ubermensch and did I mentiont this thing, it's a-coming, it's called THE UBERMENSCH!"

I mean it translates to SUPERMAN after all!

Or OVERMAN!

Isn't that enough to porve he thinks his master idea here is going to prevail?

You don't call something "the SUPERman" or "the OVERman" and expect it to lose out to the average Joe, do you?

SUPERman, he expects it to be better than man, Man 2.0, or, for the more contemporary and probably better translation here, "OVERman"...he expects this thing to be EXCEEDING the limits of man today!

Ie...he thinks it's going to prevail if it's Man 2.0, exceeding man, or both!



I just don't get why you're pushing for some quote ehre like it's an obscure point I have to defend...I mean, the name ALONE says it all!

Operalization please.

Oh dear...

Fasces, I am NOt in line with your political ideas.

At all.

I still stand by what I said:

Democracy's an incredibly-flawed system and often a shitty one, but nevertheless it has the most checks and balances and safeguards and for that reason is to be taken any day over a facist or monarchal or despotic rule.

Philosopher kings ARE impractical, and what's more, even if they existed, they should NOT ahve absiolute power, no one should.

As for what I "am" politically, I'd describe myself as being just left-of-center on average politically, but I generally don't care for parties--and when I do pay them care it's only because they're acting as one "party of No" or the "we're progressive and everyone else is stuck int he PAST!" party, and I hate BOTH attitudes, as they're non-productive and just create governmental gridlock.

I'm left-wing on immigration and education reform, and THAT is where I apply my Elitism, primarily:

IT's the left that often pushes for after-school programs and the arts and the like, and have experimented in the US and other nations with education reform wherein kids are taught according to their abilities and not merely their age level.

I would like to see that furthered to Plato's point, where kids get a bsic education, figure out what they like and what they're good at, and high school and college they work on THAT, working to become the best they can at that...

The programs of Japan and Germany are EXCELLENT examples of this, I think; you can choose in Germany, at a certain point, to either stay in school and work towards a general or specific education and higher learning, OR you can elect to leave and got to a car factory or the like, where they take you in, pay you for years as an apprentice, and then you have a job that pays reasonably well for life AND you're not sitting in the back of class maoning that you're there, wasting both your time and the time of the teachers adn kids that WANT to be there.



THAT is a system I want in America.

There's no need to view less high school education with disdain or look down on it.

Some are good with English, others with math, and some are just really great handymen/women who just want a job and to be free.

So let them be free...and, in the process, free up time, teachers, money, and resources to refocus and intensify the teaching of those who elect to remain ins school (and to again point to Elitism, here there's more of a sense of pride, I think, of being in school, if it's not something every kid gets or elects to do...in THIS system, those that elect to stay would have the feeling that they ARE special, that they ARE capable of achieving more...)

Increasingly, as complexity and productivity increases, even handyman jobs require more and more education.

Is that a decent example of applyin Elitism practically, manganese?

Applying it to schools in a mizture of the Platonic/Germanic-Japanse style of schooling?

And then, again, since you have a clear alternative, ie, an apprenticeship and pay, those whose scores MERIT--for the sake of argument, let's be very generous and say a 2.5 average is required at least at the end of sophmore year, that's a "C+" average, I think that's pretty exceedingly fair, if you can't meet a C+ average overall by sophmore year, 16 years of age, you should NOT be in school time to look somewhere else for a career and stop taking up time and resources from those WITH that merit--staying in school can stay, and, again, if you're below a 2.5 average, below a C+ average after 4 semesters, by the end of your sophmore year, then you do NOT merit further use of taxpayer money to educate you PUBLICLY?

You cna learn privately all you want, but PUBLICLY, if you're not pulling a C+ by the time you reach the end of Semester 4, you no longer merit state-payed support for your schooling, and you go and get an apprenticeship as described?



Does that sound fair to everyone?

And is that a fair enough application of Elitism and Meirt, sir?

And they TRAIN you in those jobs in Japan and Germany, manganese...

They educate you on THEIR dollar--ie, the PRIVATE dollar--and NOT the public, school-run dollar.

It's not throwing you out there with no alternative, it's:

1. if you merit it, complete hs and go onto college, or
2. go work for mercedes for 3 years under a payed apprenticeship where they teach you how to run everything, and then you have a job and role.

How's that?

I don't care who pays, my taxes or the money i give to companies, it all comes out of my pocket anyway.

But I think you are missing my point. In my neck of the woods, having an high-school education is required to get you on to the factory floor as an NC operator, for example.

You still need training of course, but a lot of basic skills are necessary, so employers prefer more educated employees.

As for education system, I find that a system that allows you to come back from failure works a lot better than one where you kick people out for good.

1. I agree, it's good to give kids their fair share of chances and let them come back from bad semesters...heck, my first semseter in college wasn't a great one. But, again, 4 semsesters in, and at 16...you shuld've shaped up by now, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think a little bit of pressure on these kids who sit in the back, flunk their way through, and expect to be saved at the last minute would produce some better results from some kids who either "naturally" or through their own hard work and improvement really DO deserve to continue.

2. Hence the reason I want these kids out at 16 if school's not working--in Japan and Germany, again, they train for a couple years and learn hands-on...a HS-diploma is nice, but as I've--VERY painfully--learned in my own experience, in today's economy, for entry level positions, previous training and the ability to jump right in beats a general education diploma...at 18, these kids who go to factories will be ready for a job, and trained, whereas I would have a hS diploma and yet require training, and, going to college as well, I'd be able to work less hours as well. It CAN work...

3. Again, I want to stress, AT THE END OF SOPHMORE YEAR. The "basic skills" you imply should/would be learned by then...you don't need to study Shakespeare or understand Political Science to work factory equipment, you need math and the knowledge of the material; the latter is taught by the company over those two years in Japan and Germany, and their students seem to have enough after two years or so of math to start factory training--again, TRAINING, not working those machines just yet, they just need enough math skills to be able to start their trainng--so I maintain, it can work.