The purpose of school is a mix between providing childcare, and making sure most of society have a largely overlapping common upbringing experience. We hear that we encourage diversity - but only of superficial stuff like sexual orientation or skin color. We don't want people that think too differently.
This is why I, despite my deep appreciation for the pursuit of knowledge and having spent a significant chunk of my life in the academia after graduating, want my kids to spend as little time as strictly necessary in primary or secondary schools. And the need comes from the fact that I need some of that childcare, not that I need someone else to teach my children anything.
I’m curious - do you think you’re an independent thinker? Do you think it’s a competitive advantage? What does thinking differently mean? It seems like a thing people say because it sounds good without really interrogating it.
I objectively find myself to be an independent thinker, and I mostly find it distracting. I could be much more functional to society/work/relationships if I spent more time thinking about the kinds of things other people think about, in the way they think about them.
I observe most of the most successful people in society, are successful _because_ they have mainstream thought patterns, people look up to them because they understand them, and they develop solutions that are in line with what most people need/want/desire.
I think I'm an independent thinker. One symptom is that I repeatedly find myself observing that other people do things because they're copying other people. This is one symptom, but there's more.
> Do you think it’s a competitive advantage
> I could be much more functional to society/work/relationships
> most successful people in society, are successful _because_ they have mainstream thought patterns
Don't care, I'm not optimizing for being competitive, being successful, or any of the other things you mentioned.
See, another symptom of being an independent thinker: I've thought about it on my own and I've concluded I'm not interested in your targets.
This sounds like a very common sort of misanthropic attitude I see littered around the web.
You know how they say - like in making music - in order to break the rules you have understand them?
I don’t like the take directly, but as a person who makes music, what I realize, and I think this is what they meant, it if you don’t study music, most people are likely to naturally slide into the most simplistic forms of it, because that’s what naturally sounds good, so you’re like naturally more inclined to recreate a 1 4 5 progression, rather than Mozart.
Do you think that you may have accidentally slid into this position, or sort of thinking exactly like a like blase’ counter cultural sameness, copying all the self-defined independent thinkers?, or do you think you have some insight into what makes your perspective unique and clearly in some way spiritually valuable to you?
I would be concerned that purely “thinking about it on your own” would lead to a really narrow set of beliefs. Like no offense, but your answer is a carbon copy of “disaffected youth” I’ve both exhibited and seen exhibited my whole life, with maybe a little less bite, so I’m guessing your not that young. But I’m often wrong.
But I am genuinely curious, what do you think makes you an independent thinker? And what purpose does that serve you?
> copying all the self-defined independent thinkers
At this point I can no longer put effort into responding to you. You think that my conception of "thinking for myself" is "listening to people who claim they think for themselves, and repeat what they say"? You know the HN principle of "assume the most generous interpretation"? This is the opposite.
Anyway, FYI, you sound like you're trying to deradicalize an andrew tate fanboy. You're A) really bad at feigning your concern, and B) extremely off target.
You didn’t give me a lot to go on. I think it was the most generous interpretation from what was available. Give me more! What drives you? How am I so off base?
This is genuinely a philosophical question I am deeply interested in, what is individual thought?
Why do you care so much about me? Re-reading our conversation, you were the one that asked "do you think you're an independent thinker", as if hoping for a yes so that you can then attack it. All I said is schools are mostly childcare.
If you care, go check my comment history and ask about something specific.
Do you think independent thought and deep thought are correlated or uncorrelated? When you say most people copy their perspectives do you think that’s bad?
A lot of the thinkers I’ve been interested in lately seem to deeply embed their thoughts in a tradition, so I’ve been thinking that in order to have better thinking I should copy more.
> why do you care so much about me?
Sad question, but what is life but a series of attempts to connect to other people. Having a discourse makes it real. Tell me I’m wrong! Maybe having independent thoughts has real value. Usually “think different” is about as deep as an apple ad.
Yes yes, I started this as a bit of a gotcha, I have a bias against people who proclaim to be independent thinkers, and decry others as sheep (“copiers”), but I would love to be wrong!
> Yes yes, I started this as a bit of a gotcha, I have a bias against people who proclaim to be independent thinkers, and decry others as sheep (“copiers”), but I would love to be wrong!
Yes, I got this sense. I'm not what you're looking for.
This is why I, despite my deep appreciation for the pursuit of knowledge and having spent a significant chunk of my life in the academia after graduating, want my kids to spend as little time as strictly necessary in primary or secondary schools. And the need comes from the fact that I need some of that childcare, not that I need someone else to teach my children anything.