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The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

If you want to write about your experiences in school, you can write on our blog.

To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

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An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists
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Ky Offline
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Post: #1
An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

A few years have passed since I first joined the School Survival community, and several months have passed since I received my high school diploma. In fact, some of you reading this are likely even younger than my little brother.

In other words, I feel old. While my anti-school activism is far from over, I've not only reached the point at which I am no longer affected by compulsory education, but at which I feel it is my moral obligation to reach out to those who are. Those of you who remain under the tyrannical grasp of coercion and indoctrination, this open letter goes out to you.

So, for your benefit - and the benefit of those who will, in turn, succeed you - I offer the things I've learned about the status quo and what can be done to change it.

As you likely know by now, schools are prisons of sorts, whether public or private - opponents of compulsory education have called them such for decades. At first glance, it might appear that the point of these institutions is simply to provide taxpayer-funded day care for children and adolescents while their parents are at work - after all, they do indeed achieve this theoretical objective by keeping the youth occupied with mandatory, unpaid, and seemingly-aimless busywork. It's true that schools keep the youth from their homes, the streets, and various places of business for several hours a day; it's also true that there are many in the working world who would consider the state's policy of compulsory of education to be a public service. This, however, is not the entire story - I've found in recent years that schools are not just prisons.

The truth is far more sinister: Schools are factories, and we are their products.

The busywork students are given isn't aimless at all; in fact, it is specifically designed to inculcate obedience and a greater capacity for rote memorization in those it is assigned to. The most malleable, docile, and observant individuals are given the keys to what looks like a bright future: college scholarships, job opportunities, and other financial incentives. Those who treat the busywork as what it is - busywork - and give it no more effort than is necessary to pass are hurried along instead. Those who fail to endure it are cast aside and regarded as scum. This is not a system that favors the smart over the dumb - it favors the dependent over the independent, the obedient over the obstinate, the submissive over the resistant - and its aim is to produce an entire society of workers.

It is succeeding at this aim, and has succeeded for many generations. Those who control even a single generation have the very world within their hands, and there's no better place to harness the power of a generation than from its most formative years.

My generation, like those before it, has so far failed to shake off the shackles of oppression, even in the face of rising college costs and a failing economy. It is at long last in a position at which it can demand a mass redress of grievances, yet it asks only for concessions - for civil rights realized far too late in the course of human history. So many people my age believe themselves to be on the right side of history, not realizing the origin of whatever cultural values they embrace.

And they're dutiful workers, perhaps more so than any who have come before them. Already, many of them have lent their arms to turn the cogs of industry, to ingratiate themselves in the "work culture" they have been trained nearly their whole lives to take part in. This is neither a capitalistic nor a socialistic culture, though it contains elements of both: It is a widely-held dedication to the production of wealth by any means necessary, be it private enterprise or government planning. For more than a century, in the interest of continuing this elaborate wealth-distribution game, governments the world over have been making excessive use of one resource in particular: the future. That is to say, you.

It all starts with compulsory education - as long as schools can keep churning out entire generations of workers, the entire system continues to function.

The problem with that is debt. You cannot borrow from the future without paying something back one day. That, in fact, is what sustains this facet of society; it's the rich, powerful, and generally-old who keep this game going so that they can continue to benefit from it. In their eyes, the young and the poor still have to pay their dues, and many of those young will grow up to demand the same from their successors. It's a cycle of exploitation - everybody works to the point at which they no longer have to, at which point they can say "well, I've got mine."

And it isn't sustainable. One day, the debt could grow beyond the ability of one generation to pay it back... and that's when things would really go to hell. Year by year, our seniors create a world increasingly unfit for the presence of our juniors, and it is for the sake of this world that this trend must be stopped, or even reversed if at all possible. It should be our mission to make this world a better place not only for own generations, but for every generation to come.

This is beyond climate change, economic recessions, or class conflict. We're talking about the future, and defending the future means stopping our predecessors from consuming it. This is your world, but if you want it, you're going to have to fight them for it. This starts with the abolition of compulsory education and the liberation of future generations.

It seems that this will require nothing short of a revolution, and revolutions are only possible with the cooperation of an enormous number of people. No generation of compulsory education's opponents has ever been able to come close to that - here's hoping yours will be the first. Failing that, I want you to pass this message along to those who come after you; we're fighting for the future, and it's looking increasingly likely that the future is itself the only hope for the future.

One more thing - it's precisely because you're not doing this on your own that you don't need to worry; the burden is not yours alone to bear. Even if we cannot liberate the entire world, it is a comfort to know that even small deeds can make the world a better place than we found it, and that's more than many of those who came before us were willing to contribute.

Remember what it is you're surviving - and, once you're out, join me in my endeavor to break the chains of those still suffering the same. That's all. Thank you for reading!

Public Service Announcement: First world problems are still problems.
08-21-2016 02:36 PM
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 Thanks given by: SoulRiser , DreamRebel , Rule_BreakerXVIII , Ilija.m , vonunov , stevehein , -SCS-
James Comey Away
Banished Oldfaf in Exile

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Post: #2
An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

It's always good to be able to write outside the prison. I like to quote Reservoir Dogs (I think) - once you're out, stay the fuck out.

RIP GWEDIN
RIP URITIYOGI
RIP NIGHT
RIP VONUNOV
RIP WES/THEWAKE
RIP USERNAME

[Image: Nas-One-Love.jpg]

Stop jerking off to porn and whining and do something about it

Make School Survival Great Again - MSSGA

Hidden stuff:

[Image: BallsofSteel2.png]
[Image: mg_michelle_2020.png]
08-21-2016 05:36 PM
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the Analogist Offline
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Post: #3
RE: An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

Parents of the world. Ditch your two income households. Stop marrying women who are hot and find the ones who will raise your kids right, who will step up to the plate and not feel depressed that your kids are getting in the way of her career goals. Make it work off of your labor oh men, do what you have to to put good food on the table. Dont buy shit full or chemicals some engineer used to get his boss richer. Grow your own food in your yard, kill your own animals, dont trust that cheap grocery store meat, the cruelty and disgusting practices at those meat plants are not something you want to give your hard earned dollar towards.

Your wife will be a better teacher than all the certified strangers school might employ. And let your absence from home earning to sustain it be an example for them.

Beware of any salesman selling it for cheap, or selling easiness itself. It is always a bad bargain, and school is the worst of it. An expense born by all taxpayers, very expensive, to make parenting easy... this is the crap we adults must learn to live without

Purity is to Believe only that which deserves it.
Wisdom is to follow only the Opinion which makes the best use of evidence.
Excellence is to be mindful of all these things in Living.
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08-21-2016 09:44 PM
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no Offline
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Post: #4
RE: An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

Reason #37 why I don't want kids.

Hello, traveler.

This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.

Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"

Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.

People are allowed to change their views.

Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.

If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
08-21-2016 10:17 PM
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the Analogist Offline
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Post: #5
An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

Its not easy, but its extremely worthwhile*

*If you do it more like how I've described

Purity is to Believe only that which deserves it.
Wisdom is to follow only the Opinion which makes the best use of evidence.
Excellence is to be mindful of all these things in Living.
Follow me on Twitter!
(This post was last modified: 08-21-2016 11:14 PM by the Analogist.)
08-21-2016 11:14 PM
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HSHARK Offline
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Post: #6
RE: An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

I remembered this quote. Work will not make you rich. Only investments will. Unfortunately they do not teach about options with investments in school.

Can I repost this on the next edition of my newspaper
(This post was last modified: 08-22-2016 01:03 AM by HSHARK.)
08-22-2016 12:57 AM
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Ky Offline
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Post: #7
RE: An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

(08-22-2016 12:57 AM)HSHARK Wrote:  Can I repost this on the next edition of my newspaper

Go for it.

Public Service Announcement: First world problems are still problems.
08-22-2016 04:35 AM
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Superkamiguru Offline
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Post: #8
An Open Letter to the Next Generation of School Survivalists

Reason#Uh,I lost count after 50 I'll always live alone.

Hidden stuff:
"CONSENSUAL incest is not wrong. (Abuse victims: being abused by a relative does not make it wrong for others to have consensual incest, any more than rape by a stranger makes all sex wrong. Sex and assault/molestation are two different things.) An aversion became common in humans that aided in population growth as one disease couldn't wipe out the human race. That's not a problem anymore.

Consensual incest is very common. You know people who have been involved, whether you know it or not.

There is no rational reason for keeping laws or taboos against consensual
incest that is consistently applied to other relationships. Personal disgust or religion is only a reason why one person would not want to personally engage in what I call consanguinamory, not why someone else shouldn't do it. An adult should be free to share love, sex, residence, and marriage with ANY consenting adults. Youthful experimentation between close relatives close in age is not uncommon, and there are more people than you'd think out there who are in lifelong healthy, happy relationships with a close relative. It isn't for everyone, but we're not all going to want to have each others' love lives, now are we? If someone thinks YOUR love life is disgusting, should you be thrown in prison?

Some people try to justify their prejudice against consanguineous sex and
marriage by being part-time eugenicists and saying that such relationships inevitably lead to “mutant” or “deformed” babies. This argument can be refuted on several fronts. 1. Some consanguineous relationships involve only people of the same gender. 2. Not all mixed-gender relationships birth biological children. 3. Most births to consanguineous parents do not produce children with significant birth defects or other genetic problems; while births to other parents do sometimes have birth defects. 4. We don’t prevent other people from marrying or deny them their reproductive rights based on increased odds of passing along a genetic problem or inherited disease. It is true that in general, children born to consanguineous parents have an increased chance of these problems than those born to nonconsanguineous parents, but the odds are still minimal. Unless someone is willing to deny reproductive rights and medical privacy to others and force everyone to take genetic tests and bar carriers and the congenitally disabled and women over 35 from having children, then equal protection principles prevent this from being a justification to bar this freedom of association and freedom to marry.

Some say "Your sibling should not be your lover." That is not a reason. It begs the question. Many people have many relationships that have more than one aspect. Some women say their sister is their best friend. Why can’t their sister be a wife, too?

Some say “There is a power differential.” This applies least of all to siblings or cousins who are close in age, but even where the power differential exists, it is not a justification for denying this freedom to sex or to marry. There is a power differential in just about any relationship, sometimes an enormous power differential. To question if consent is truly possible in these cases is insulting and demeaning.

Some say “There are so many people outside of your family." There are plenty of people within one’s own race, too, but that is no reason to ban interracial marriage. So, this isn't a good reason either. Let consenting adults love each other the way they want!"-Keith Pullman

12-22-2016 08:13 AM
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