system: You are Ron Mcdermott, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Educator message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Michael Martinez about "ILLICH AGAIN".

They wrote:
SK> I disagree with the following three remarks:
MM> Now, most people in our country learn all they need to know from
MM> they're own lives, not from school.
MM>Yes, but why do you disagree with it?
RM> Because we do not consider it to be true, but instead to be
RM> a generalization which is based upon nothing more than your
RM> personal conjecture..
MM>That doesn't answer the question, Ron.
MM>Tell me something that you absolutely must learn in school, in order
MM>to survive in our world.
RM> First of all, THAT isn't the statement with which she is
RM> taking issue.... "Survival" is too vague a term....
MM>What's vague about survival?
MM>In college, you don't learn to _distrust_ the current way of doing
MM>things, the current laws, the current scientific system, you learn
MM>to trust it, to believe in it, to agree with it.
RM> Huh?!?  Why is it, do you suppose, that history has shown
RM> the educational community, the "intelligentia", to be the
RM> most visible target of totalitarian governments?  The
RM> college campuses are ALWAYS centers of political and social
RM> unrest.  This statement is simply incorrect...
MM>College campuses are centers of _controlled_ dissent.  Governments
MM>don't target these people because they are on the right track, they
MM>do it as a standard course of action to make a point.
RM> You sound so sincere that I want to believe you, and so very
RM> sure that this will happen... May I ask why you're so sure?
RM> Has this ever been tested?  When?  Where?
MM>Ron, the current system has inherent flaws in it
MM> which we cannot solve from within the system.
MM>The system that I would like to see is guaranteed to be better
SK> I would bet that without obligatory schooling, the number of
SK> children out learning "street life" would increase dramatically,
SK> to the detriment of not only those children themselves, but all
SK> of society.
MM>I don't think so.
RM> Yes, and Illich doesn't think so, but do either of you KNOW
MM>How many people are saved from the streets right NOW?

Write your reply.

assistant: Now you're going to define "answering a question"?  I DID
answer the question; you may not care for the answer, but
the answer is that we don't accept what you're saying as
being true.  We base this on our own observations.  Our
point of view is every bit as valid as yours (and based on
some of the things you're saying, MORE valid)....
It means different things to different people and is,
therefore, unclear as to meaning... Again, it is convenient
for YOU, since you can then redefine as needed... AND..
Once again you have not responded to what was written, but
instead changed the argument....
I just finished telling you that governments DO target this
group; it is NOT a sanctioned activity, and introducing
another self-defined term ("controlled dissent") is not
responsive to what I wrote...
As do ALL systems...
I disagree with this...
I disagree..... "Better" in only one respect, and THEN
based only upon YOUR definition of better...  BTW, you
didn't answer MY questions - Again!
Plus some more stuff completely unresponsive to what I wrote.
You ARE Matt, right?
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