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I can give a very simple example - in my high school history class, the cold war was presented as a conflict between communism and democracy - despite the fact
by eucyclos 11mo ago
I can give a very simple example - in my high school history class, the cold war was presented as a conflict between communism and democracy - despite the fact that on an economic field the conflict was clearly between communism and capitalism, while on a political field proponents of both systems were happy to subvert the democratic process whenever someone had the audacity to vote for the wrong economic system.
Ooh, as I was typing I thought of a better example - remember the four food groups? eight to twelve servings of grains per day? Less obviously propaganda, though I'd argue the farm lobbies pushing it count. But harms in terms of its link to obesity and heart disease are pretty damn stark.
Given that school children are a huge captive audience of future consumers/voters/employees it would be incredibly strange if the curriculum wasn't the target of all kinds of special interest groups that aren't perfectly aligned with public interest.
- lapcat 11mo ago> remember the four food groups? LOL this cannot be a serious reason for homeschooling. You're trolling me, right? Please tell me you're trolling me.
- eucyclos 11mo agoYou're tempting me to start doing just that. Maybe focus on keeping the conversation productive in keeping with HN's community guidelines.
- lapcat 11mo ago> Maybe focus on keeping the conversation productive I didn't and don't want to have this conversation. Technically, I didn't even ask alphazard what they meant, and in any case, I didn't ask anyone else what alphazard meant, as if someone else could magically interpret alphazard's cryptic remark any better than I could, which they can't, as proved by the multiple different unsolicited answers I received. I was perhaps morbidly curious what the atheist was objecting to in public schools when they nonetheless seemed perfectly fine with conservative religious homeschooling.
- WalterBright 11mo agoStalin wasn't elected. Neither was Gorbachev.
- eucyclos 11mo agoNorth Vietnam's leaders were. So was Iran's.
- joemazerino 11mo agoThe notion of being "elected" when you have a gun pointed at you at the ballot casting is silly.
- WalterBright 11mo agoYou always know the elections are shams when the communist candidate gets 95% of the vote.
- victorbjorklund 11mo agotechnically North Korea has had elected leaders since the founding. They have elections in North Korea. Doesn’t make me convinced North Korea isn’t a communist dictatorship.
- WalterBright 11mo ago> remember the four food groups? 1. Calories 2. Carcinogens 3. Caffeine 4. Cholesterol