this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024

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Unpopular Opinion

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"Stuff school should have taught me" material is actually stuff your parents should have taught you. (self.unpopularopinion)

submitted 3 months ago by the_toast_is_gone to c/unpopularopinion

93 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Schools shouldn't be treated as these magical places where you're put in at some age and over a decade later you emerge a complete human being. You have parents and you spend more time at home than at school for a reason: you're supposed to learn from your parents.

A school can potentially give you a degree of financial literacy instruction. Your parents should be the ones paying your allowance money and driving you to the bank to get your first checking account. A school can teach you how to cook something. Your parents should be the ones eating your food and helping you cook it better. A school can show you some level of DIY. Your parents should directly benefit from teaching you how to fix the sink when it gets clogged. A school can tell you what kinds of careers exist. Your parents should love you enough to tell you that either your career ambitions or your financial expectations need to change. A school can tell you how to build a resume. Your parents should be the ones driving you to your job interview and to your job until you buy your first car. A school can give you a failing grade when you do poorly on a test. Your parents should be able to make you face the real, in-the-moment consequences of doing something wrong.

Expecting a school, public or private, to teach you everything you need to know is a grave mistake. You need people in your corner who are taking an active part in raising you all the way to adulthood and beyond. If you have kids yourself, that goes for them as well. If you aren't there for your children, to teach them the things that schools don't teach because they can't mass produce the lessons to nearly the same quality that you can give them, they'll blame you and the school for having failed them. And they'd be right to lay the blame at your feet.

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[–] undergroundoverground 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Here's one, from what does money derive its value?

I mean, its the most important thing in our society. You'd think that they would make sure it was really hammered home.

Now, you'll be told that it has value simply because we believe it does which isn't untrue. Theyll say, you know, it's like gold that doesn't actually hold any value. We just believe it really hard.

The problem is, we value that gold is shiny, imperishable and we can make pretty things out of it. We didn't have a big meeting and just randomly decide that gold would be valuable.

Another problem is that money is an iou. Except its, apparently, an iou that isn't own to anyone and doesn't have to be repaid, making it fall short of the criteria for it being an iou.

Tbf our economists dont really need to think about that, as, due to how money is created and destroyed, the position nets off due to the debt being repaid, despite the above. Theres no need to consider the non hypothetical part.

What if the underlying asset was human labour? You know, like how cotton, sugar and steel used to be used as currency in Virginia, the west indies and Sheffield respectfully. Its just that we live in human labour farm and you're living capital. To me, considering modern monetary policy, its the only thing that makes sense.

[–] the_toast_is_gone 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would argue that more important than money in a society is trust. If you can't trust your interlocutor to not screw you over/kill you, then you can't have a meaningful economic transaction. If you can't leave your house because the trust in your society is so low you'll be robbed the moment you go out the front door, you'll be unable to contribute to the local economy. If everything you buy online is so defective and distrustworthy that not even the most minuscule amount of money would be worth it, then online commerce would grind to a halt.

I think what we consider currency is a different topic, but to tie it back into the conversation about parenting, if you aren't taught to trust the right people and distrust the wrong people, you're going to be duped, swindled, and abused much worse in adulthood. This isn't something we should expect a school to do for us. We need to show it to our kids ourselves.

[–] undergroundoverground 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How much money would it take to change your mind? I'm sure we could find a number.

[–] the_toast_is_gone 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Money by itself can't change opinions, it can only change behaviors. You could pay me some absurd amount of money and I'd delete my Lemmy account, but that wouldn't actually convince me it was a good idea for any reason other than because you gave me a stack of benjamins. I'd still remember the place fondly.

Before we had money, we had human relationships, and those are based on trust. You can't replace trust with money; people try to do that all the time and it ends poorly.

[–] undergroundoverground 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

In terms of its effect in the real world, what would the difference be between you doing that and you genuinely convincing you it was true? To me, the importance of money and the real world effect it had on your choice to do the above dwarfs anything else. I mean, I'd do it too obviously. We all know people don't really love their jobs and they're just lying but who cares? They all turn up to work and bust their arse just the same. Money was important enough for you to publicly deny your own mind.

I'm not saying you have to replace trust.

[–] the_toast_is_gone 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In the real world, trying to buy people's trust without convincing them logically/morally to do so doesn't always end well. If your boss yells at you at work every day, would you put up with the stress of dealing with that for the sake of money, even if it led you down the road to substance abuse and strained relationships with your friends/family? If you realized that you'd kill yourself within a month if you didn't quit? I sure wouldn't, unless I was dead certain that I wouldn't get a better job anywhere else. The place that tries to compensate for a terrible work environment with tons of money will eventually find that they have no workers whatsoever. Last I heard, that's actually happening to Amazon - they have such absurd turnover in their shipping plants that they're running out of people to hire.

I threw out the Lemmy thing as an example of something I might do for the sake of money. It isn't an ideological thing for me, this is just a place for me to pass time and have an occasional interesting conversation (like this one). Having internet discussions isn't more important to me than having a stable income, it's a thing of priorities. My religion, on the other hand, isn't something I would give up for money.

[–] undergroundoverground 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm not asking to buy your trust though. Even then, I don't have to trust you. I only have to trust the effect money will have on you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Jessie what the fuck are you talking about

[–] undergroundoverground 2 points 3 months ago

Oh, sorry, I WAS TALKING ABOUT MONEY.